Justice in Dallas County, Texas: Echoes of Money, Mississippi

Ex-Balch Springs PD Officer Roy Oliver guilty in
the murder of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards

The news that a Texas jury found former Balch Springs Police Officer Roy D. Oliver, II guilty on Tuesday for the unjustified fatal shooting of 15-year-old high school freshman Jordan Edwards is hardly a cause for celebration.

On a Saturday night back in April, 2017, Oliver pointed a high-powered rifle at a car full of unarmed teenagers who were driving away from a house party and pulled the tigger.


The fatal shot, one of three Oliver fired into the window of the vehicle, struck Edwards in the head as he sat in the passenger seat, killing him instantly - his brothers Vidal and Kevon (along with two friends) were inside the car when it happened.

I blogged about this incident last May if you're interested in reading about some of the details, but Edwards and his brothers were among approximately 100 teenagers milling around outside a party when a neighbor called Balch Springs PD because it was getting rowdy.

Oliver and his partner were actually in the house speaking with the home owner as teens were leaving when shots rang out outside, and as teens began scrambling for safety, Edwards, his brothers and their friends got in the car to leave the area.

Oliver, who'd ran outside when the shots were fired, saw the teens in the car and began yelling and cursing at the vehicle, aimed his rifle and fired three shots in the passenger window - just like that.

According to a Dallas Morning News article on Tuesday, those shots were actually fired from a nearby nursing home.

Since the vehicle was driving away from Oliver when the shooting happened, he tried to use the defense many police officers who've shot and killed innocent people have successfully used time and time again in America - he lied about what happened.

Oliver told police investigators that the car came toward him in an "aggressive manner", but police body-cam footage taken at the scene (along with witness testimony) revealed that the teens were simply driving away and that the vehicle was not driving towards Oliver.

14-YO Emmitt Till and Carolyn Bryant, the 21-
YO store clerk who accused him in 1955

It was moving away from him when he fired the shots - Oliver later tried to claim that he shot at the vehicle because he feared for his partner's safety.

But his partner testified on the stand that he never felt his life was in danger.

It only took the jury two days to find Oliver guilty of Edwards' death on Tuesday August 28th.

And as author Angie Thomas observed on Twitter on Tuesday, the date is also significant in the longer arc of American justice.


As she noted, Oliver was found guilty on August 28th, the very same date that 14-year-old Emmitt Till was brutally tortured and killed in Money, Mississippi back in 1955 by two white men enraged over accusations that he'd whistled suggestively at a 21-year-old white store clerk named Carolyn Bryant while he was buying bubblegum inside the small store she ran with her husband Roy Bryant.

A few nights later at around 2am, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J.W. Milam armed themselves and abducted Till from his great-uncle Moses Wright's home, savagely beat and tortured him, before shooting him in the head, tying his body to an engine block with wire and dumping it in the Tallahatchie River.

Exactly what happened between Till and Bryant inside that store has always been shrouded in mystery, but as was widely reported last year, Carolyn Bryant told writer Timothy Tyson that her original claims that Till had put his hand around her waste, verbally propositioned her and tried to physically touch her were not true.

62 years after the trial she admitted she made that part up.

J.W. Milam (left) and Roy Bryant celebrate after
their acquittal by an all-white jury  

Whether she admitted that to clear her own conscience at the age of 83 only she really knows.

But such an admission did Emmitt Till little good.

The horrifying photos of his mangled face, which sparked outrage around the nation and helped to spark the civil rights movement in America, attest to the depth of his suffering and the unfathomable cruelty and brutality of the crime.

Which both Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam freely admitted to in an interview with Look magazine after being acquitted by an all-white jury in less than an hour.

Part of what's tragic about Till's murder, something that hasn't been widely reported, is that Till's mother Till Mobley claims that her son had a slight speech impediment that caused him to stutter sometimes when he tried to say words beginning with the letter 'B'.

As Chris Jones reported in the Chicago Tribune back in 2008 she insisted that her son wasn't trying to whistle at Carolyn Bryant in a sexual way - she'd taught him to whistle quietly whenever he stuttered as a way to relax himself and stop the stutter.

Her son, who was trying to order 2-cents worth of bubblegum in the store, likely began stuttering and whistled to make it stop - Bryant likely misunderstood what was happening, and the rest is history.

Now the specific circumstances of the death of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in Texas last April are obviously very different from the death of Emmitt Till back in the summer of 1955.

Roy Oliver during sentencing on Tuesday 

But the context in which they both took place, against the backdrop of periods in American history defined in part by racial division, and the fact that they were both young black teenagers in the south who were innocent and unarmed when they were violently killed by enraged white men, links both cases in my view.

In ways that are emotional and even spiritual in some way given the complex backdrop of America's racial history.

To me, the outcome of this case occupies a larger dimension, not just because a police officer was held legally responsible for killing an innocent, unarmed American child for no reason (and then trying to lie about it).

It's also important because the circumstances touch on issues related to the two-tier justice system that still pervades the American legal system - this case bucked that trend.

At the time I'm writing this, none of the members of the jury have spoken out about the decision.

But I think there's little doubt that the atmosphere of divisiveness based on race, and the kinds of xenophobic retribution against undocumented immigrants that has been the hallmark of the Trump administration, weighed on the minds of the jury when they decided this case.

Both Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have made it perfectly clear that they have absolutely no interest in directing the resources of the the White House or Department of Justice to address, or investigate the cases of police misconduct or excessive use of force against unarmed, innocent people.

It's quite possible the members of the jury, who acquitted Roy Oliver on two counts of aggravated manslaughter, but found him guilty of Jordan Edwards' murder, felt a responsibility to send a message about the American justice system.

Not so much about race specifically, but to reaffirm that Americans believe that there is a definitive line between right and wrong in this country, no matter the color of your skin, where you hail from, who you love, or how you worship.

Such a decision taking place on the 28th of August, 62 years after the death of Emmitt Till in Money, Mississippi, offers hope that however long it may be, the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend towards justice.

Manhandled In Milwaukee

Video stills of Sterling Brown being tasered and
handcuffed after parking in a handicap space

Granted, the cell phone video footage of a Wildwood, New Jersey police officer punching 20-year-old Emily Weinman in the head after a confrontation over underage drinking on Saturday is pretty messed up.

But have you seen the Milwaukee Police Department's body cam footage of police officers getting into an unnecessarily physical confrontation with 23-year-old African-American Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown over a simple parking violation back on January 26th?

If not, click the 'body cam footage' link directly above and listen to the tone and words of the officer's initial contact with the young man.

And remember, it's because his vehicle was illegally parked in a handicap parking space in front of a Walgreen's at 2am in the morning.

Now obviously I can't speak to what everyone might think about a black guy getting thrown to the ground, tasered, handcuffed and taken to jail for a parking violation.

But I'm guessing that most people would agree that parking in a handicapped parking space when you're not legally handicapped is inconsiderate and warrants a ticket - or maybe just a verbal warning if the driver's record is otherwise clean.

After listening to how Milwaukee PD officer Joseph Grams consistently and intentionally attempted to provoke a confrontation with a young man who appears and sounds calm, respectful and remarkably patient throughout the encounter, I was really taken aback by the unprofessionalism and over-inflated ego demonstrated by the individual with the badge and gun.

The Milwaukee Walgreens where Sterling Brown
was tasered and handcuffed on January 26th 

Instead of simply writing the guy a ticket, Grams tries to engage in some kind of weird, openly-hostile mind-game with Brown, sounding less like a law enforcement professional addressing a parking violation than a cocky, sarcastic, hot-head aching for a chance to flex his authority and kick someone's ass.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Grams is a former Army Ranger with three years with the MPD, so one would assume he could handle writing a parking ticket on his own.

But no, he called for backup, prompting six (six!) other MPD vehicles to show up to confront one unarmed man in the parking lot of Walgreens in a downtown Milwaukee (pictured above).

Leaving Sterling Brown surrounded by eight MPD officers, two of whom curse at him even though he was never disrespectful to them or raised his voice.

The encounter really went south after one of the officers yelled at Brown to get his hands out of his pockets even though he'd been standing there fairly calmly on a January night.

As if someone keeping their hands inside their coat pockets on a January night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is "suspicious", "threatening" and made the officers "fear for their personal safety" - (we all know the magic words by now right?)

Part of what's troubling about the encounter is that despite the fact that Sterling Brown remains calm, still and respectful throughout the encounter, there's a disturbing sense that the MPD officers wanted the encounter to end with a physical confrontation.

When Grams' efforts to verbally provoke Brown into doing something that would warrant the use of excessive physical force fail, the officers throw Brown to the ground, shock him with a taser, handcuff him and take him to Milwaukee County Jail.

It's almost as if Grams was somehow less frustrated over the parking violation than over the fact that he wasn't able to get a rise out of Brown.

Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales

As if all that wasn't enough, after the encounter is over, Grams can then be heard in the body cam video footage flagrantly lying to what appears to be a more senior officer about Brown.

Grams complains about Brown "getting in my face", when the police body cam footage clearly shows that Brown did no such thing.

Now to be fair, there were at least some repercussions for the officers involved.

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, on Thursday new MPD Police Chief Afonso Morales did suspend Grams for two days, and two MPD sergeants who later arrived at the scene, Jeffrey S. Kreuger, Sean A. Mahnke, were also suspended 10 and 15 days for their role in escalating the situation.

But while the suspensions do demonstrate that the MPD held the officers responsible for what Milwaukee Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton called "a very public and embarrassing incident", this incident happened back on January 26th - six days after Trump's inauguration. 

Given that the MPD and other city officials have known what was on that officer's body cam footage for three months, why weren't the officers suspended back in January or February?

It's also fair to ask whether the suspensions were simply a response to the growing public outrage over the video showing how Joseph Grams and the other MPD officers handled this incident and treated Sterling Brown.

What if the video had never been made public at all?

Derek Williams died handcuffed in the back
of a Milwaukee PD cruiser on July 6, 2011

What if the truth of what actually happened that night had remained concealed behind the Blue Wall of Silence?

Would any of the three officers faced disciplinary action for their conduct?

This incident sheds light on why the Milwaukee Police Department has had such a troubled relationship with the local African-American community since the 1950's.

It puts additional pressure on the MPD as well, as it's new Police Chief Alfonso Morales was sworn in just four months ago in part, to improve the condition of relations between the department and some members of the local community.

Former Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn resigned back in February, in part, over frustrations expressed by local politicians and members of the local community over his handling of a series of controversial killings of civilians by MPD officers.

Many recall Staten Island resident Eric Garner's desperate videotaped pleas of "I cant breathe!" as still-employed NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in an illegal choke hold before Garner died, shocking the world in 2014. 

But three years before that on July 6, 2011, a 22-year-old man named Derek Williams (pictured above) also complained to police that he couldn't breathe after being arrested by Milwaukee PD officers Richard Ticcioni and Patrick Coe on suspicion of robbery.

After a brief chase and a struggle, one of the two officers drove his knee into Williams back to subdue him, and he was handcuffed and placed in the back of an MPD cruiser - where he spent 10 minutes telling officers that he was having trouble breathing.

Former Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn

Footage from a camera inside the squad car where he was handcuffed showed Williams desperately telling an officer, "Sir, I can't breathe!" 

As the officers at the scene ignored him, he insisted, "Believe me!" and "I want an ambulance!" 

The MPD officer's response to Williams?

"You're just playing games." 

According to court records, officer Ticcioni kept his weight on Williams' back even after he'd been handcuffed.

Williams, who'd been found curled up in a ball hiding under a table in a backyard, had complained to officers Ticcioni and Coe that he was having difficulty breathing from the time he was handcuffed.

He also lost consciousness and his body went limp several times as the officers tried to drag him back to the squad car; sworn witnesses testified hearing Williams complaining about not being able to breathe and officers responding to him to "Shut up."

Williams eventually died inside the back of the squad car at 1:41am, and both the Milwaukee PD and District Attorney subsequently cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.

That was after an autopsy report listed the cause of Williams' death as a "sickle cell crisis" (really). 

As Steven Yaccino reported for the New York Times in October, 2012:

"While Mr. Williams carried the sickle cell trait, he did not have the disease. Dr. Lanetta B. Jordan of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America said people who were only carriers, like Mr. Williams, could not die from sickle cell crisis."   

MPD officers Jason Bleichwel, Richard Ticcioni and
Jeffrey Cline faced no discipline for Willams' death

The same autopsy showed that Willams had a fractured hyoid bone in his neck.

Which possibly resulted from one of the two MPD officers driving their knee into Williams' back during the arrest.

Regardless, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner Dr. Brian L. Peterson insisted that sickle cell crisis was the cause of death.

Though he later changed the manner of death to homicide.

The decision to label Williams death a homicide prompted a second internal investigation of the incident by the MPD, as well as an FBI investigation to determine whether a "pattern and practice" of abuse existed within the department.

In August, 2017, a federal judge ruled that officers Ticcioni, Coe, Jason Bleichwel, Jeffrey Cline and several other MPD officers who'd been at the scene of the arrest in 2011 and all were named in a lawsuit filed against the MPD by Williams' family, would have to face trial.

Williams' death was far from the only controversial killing of a civilian by the Milwaukee PD.

On April 30, 2015, three years after the death of Derek Williams in the back of an MPD squad car, two Milwaukee PD officers responded to a call at Red Arrow Park of a man sleeping.

Dontre Hamilton (left) was fatally shot fourteen times
by former MPD officer Christopher Manney in 2014

They found 31-year-old Dontre Hamilton (pictured left) sleeping in the park, because he was doing nothing wrong or illegal, they left him there after checking on him twice.

As a Wikipedia summary of the incident details, former MPD officer Christopher Manney (pictured left) later came upon Hamilton sleeping and without knowing that two of his fellow officers had already checked on him, began patting the man down.


Hamilton, who was a diagnosed schizophrenic but had no history of violence, awoke and became startled and a physical struggle ensued that ended with Manney firing fourteen shots at Hamilton, killing him.

The investigations that followed the incident had a ring that's now all-too-familiar in America.

As Wikipedia noted, a subsequent investigation of the incident conducted by the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation - but it was lead by two former Milwaukee PD officers.

And a separate investigation conducted by the Milwaukee County DA's office determined that Christopher Manney had acted in self defense, so he was never prosecuted for firing the fourteen shots that killed Dontre Hamilton. 

An FBI investigation closed in 2014 after concluding that there was insufficient evidence for the Department of Justice to pursue federal charges against Manney.

Manney was fired from the MPD but was never held legally responsible for Hamilton's death.

Michael Bell, 21, shot and killed by police
in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2004 

Two years later, on August 23, 2016 protests and riots erupted in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee after as MPD officer shot and killed 23-year-old Sylvie Smith.

The shooting came after Smith fled on foot after a traffic stop.

The officer, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, had 16 separate "use of force" incidents on his record and was himself arrested and charged with sexual assault just two days after fatally shooting Smith.

Despite that, as CNN reported, Heaggan-Brown was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide on June 21, 2017.

That was just six days after former Minnesota PD officer Jeronimo Yanez was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter after he fatally shot elementary school cafeteria manger Philando Castile in 2016.

These kinds of blatant excessive use of force incidents against unarmed civilians aren't just limited to the Milwaukee PD either - in 2004, 21-year-old Michael Bell (pictured above) was unarmed when he was shot and killed in front of his own house in Kenosha, Wisconsin (about an hour outside Milwaukee) while his mother and sister watched in horror from inside.

As NPR reported back in 2014, Bell had been followed home by a Kenosha PD officer who confronted Bell on the lawn of his home after suspecting him of driving under the influence.

A confrontation ensued, and one of the officers mistakenly shouted out that Bell had grabbed his gun and one of the officers fired a fatal shot into Bell's head at point blank range - killing him.

It was later discovered that the officer had gotten his gun holster hooked on the mirror of his police vehicle, both Bell's mother and sister who witnessed the shooting claimed Bell had never attempted to grab the officer's weapon - and Bell's fingerprints were never found on the officer's gun or holster.

After Kenosha police cleared the officer after a 3-day internal investigation conducted without speaking with eyewitnesses, or before crime lab reports had even been completed, the state of Wisconsin changed the laws so that outside agencies must conduct investigations into fatal police shootings.

 One of the billboards Michael Bell's family has
put up in Wisconsin seeking justice for their son

Not that that has done the families of Derek Williams, Dontre Hamilton, Sylvie Smith or Michael Bell much good.

This was just a brief snapshot of a Milwaukee Police Department that has harbored a culture of racial bias, as well as a culture where the unjustified use of excessive or deadly force by MPD officers has been tolerated for years - as have racial disparities in traffic stops in Milwaukee.

So Sterling Brown's being thrown to the ground, tasered, handcuffed and taken to jail because he parked illegally in front of a Walgreens last January isn't some kind of anomaly or error in judgement. 

It's part of a pattern that has allowed MPD officers to take the dignity and lives of unarmed people without justification or reason - aided by a state and local judicial system that consistently fails to hold officers legally accountable for their actions, even when they're in the wrong.

So as disturbing as it is to watch the MPD body cam footage of officer Joseph Grams flagrant unprofessionalism, I hold him less accountable than I do the system that authorizes him to act that way with citizens in the first place.

Whatever he's doing on that tape, it's not serving or protecting.

And now that MPD officers have been caught on tape behaving that way towards an NBA player with the financial resources, name recognition and celebrity to sue the department for their actions, maybe it will serve as an impetus for new MPD Chief Alfonso Morales to fulfill his pledge to change the culture inside the department.

Changes that will come too late for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Derek Williams, Sylvie Smiths, Dontre Hamiltons, Michael Bells and Sterling Browns who've been unfairly and illegally manhandled by the Milwaukee PD over the decades.

People whose treatment was never caught on video.

American citizens without the name recognition, financial means, social status or education to have their stories come to light in a society with a two-tier justice system which only seems interested in their silence.

The Narrow Scope of Republican Justice

Trump's name is removed from a Panama hotel after
his company was accused of mismanagement  

Increasingly, it seems clear that the scope of "justice" as defined by the Republican Party that now controls both the White House and both chambers of Congress, is remarkably limited to targeting those seen by some conservatives as "others".

The traditional role of the Department of Justice, as the nation's top independent legal authority, has been usurped to function as a de facto enforcer of the right-wing ideology that defines the Trump administration.

While former top White House adviser Steve Bannon was over in Paris on Saturday extolling members of France's far right political party the National Front to embrace their racism and xenophobic views, here in the U.S., rampant violations of protocol, ethics, laws and morality by the White House go all but ignored by the racist perjurer masquerading as attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

Despite a court ruling in Panama last week in favor of a majority investor in the Trump Panama City hotel named Orestes Fintiklis, who filed suit to oust the Trump Organization because of serious lapses in management of the property, you won't find Sessions directing Department of Justice resources towards investigating any of Trump's numerous violations of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution - which expressly forbids those holding office from receiving "profit", "benefit" or "advantage of any kind" from the title of his or her elected office.

After directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to launch Operation Keep Safe, yet another round of crack-of-dawn anti-immigrant arrests in northern California two weeks ago, last Wednesday Sessions announced the DOJ was suing the state of California over three state laws intended to protect immigrant's rights.

As NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported last Tuesday, Sessions' lawsuit targets SB-54, AB-450 and AB-103, three laws recently passed by the California legislature intended to put into place protections that would limit the federal government's ability to arrest undocumented immigrants at their place of employment, or target them in court or upon release from jail.
   

Part of California's Adelanto Detention Facility
owned and run by the GEO Group 

According to Williams, Sessions is even going after state law AB-103, "which requires the state to inspect detention facilities where federal authorities are holding immigrants who face deportation." 
 
Just consider that last one for a moment.

Jeff Sessions is suing California for passing a law that would mandate state inspections of federal facilities where deportees are being held.

Facilities like the Adelanto Detention Facility (pictured above), a privately-operated facility located in a remote desert region of San Bernardino County, California 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles with a capacity of about 2,000 male and female detainees.

As journalist Paloma Esquivel reported in an LA Times article in August, 2017, the Adelanto facility,  has gained notoriety for a series of suicides, hunger strikes and deaths of detainees while in custody since it first opened in 2011.

Deaths like that of Raul Ernesto Morales-Ramos back in 2015.

As Esquivel's LA Times piece notes, in the months leading up to his death, in one of the two written  complaints Ramos submitted to Adelanto officials, he told them:

"To who receives this, I am letting you know that I am very sick and they don't want to care for me. The nurse gave me ibuprofen, and that only alleviates me for a few hours. Let me know if you can help me, I only need medial attention."

GEO Group CEO George Foley

A medical report released after Ramos' death in detention noted that he had an abdominal mass which had been present for months - as Esquivel observed, a doctor who examined him wrote that it was "the largest she has ever seen in her practice."

As journalist Mirren Gidda reported in an article for Newsweek, two days after then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates announced that Department of Justice would begin scaling back federal use of private for-profit prisons on August 17, 2016, a subsidiary of the GEO Group donated $100,000 to Rebuilding America Now - a pro-Trump Political Action Committee.

A month later GEO gave $200,000 to another Republican PAC (the Senate Leadership Fund) and on November 1st, just days before the 2016 presidential election, GEO gave another $125,000 to the pro-Trump PAC.

So it's not surprising why Attorney General Jeff Sessions is suing California for passing a law mandating state inspections of federal facilities like Adelanto - shedding light on GEO Group's controversial record of management of juvenile and adult prison facilities across the U.S. is certainly not in the interest of the Trump administration.

Especially considering that as a U.S. Senator Sessions was not only one of the leading anti-immigration advocates on Capitol Hill, he also opposed bipartisan legislation to reduce mass incarceration in American prisons.

And as Trump's attorney general he's advocated ramping up the incarceration of undocumented immigrants as well as non-violent drug offenders since day one.

Given the fallout from media coverage of the rampant ongoing chaos of the White House following the recent resignations of Communications Director Hope Hicks and Economic Adviser Gary Cohn, it hardly comes as a surprise that Sessions would initiate a lawsuit against the state of California for its efforts to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants.

Republicans spent most of former President Obama's two terms in office whining about overreach by "Big Government", so the idea of a Republican attorney general expanding federal authority to try and trample individual state efforts to protect their immigrant populations represents a pretty remarkable change of government philosophy for both Sessions and the Republican Party.

In fact it's a total 180 degree turn that reveals that Republicans like Big Government when it suits their own ideological or financial needs and wants.

Spencer Hogue and Evelyn and Albert Turner, also
known as "The Marion Three"

Historically, when it came to the Republican Party using race as a wedge issue to expand its support among white working-class voters in the 60's, 70's and 80's, "States Rights" was the clarion call-codeword  used to champion the rights of individual states to oppose federally-mandated laws on school desegregation, voting rights and the enforcement of civil rights.

The Confederacy rallied behind "States Rights" as the right of southern states to keep the institution of slavery intact.

While Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (named after Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard) was born and raised in a rabidly pro-States Rights segregated Alabama, he demonstrated a willingness to use the power of the federal government to reflect his own racist ideology early in his professional career.

When he was serving as the U.S. attorney for the Office of the Southern District of Alabama in 1985, Sessions decided to try and prosecute three well-known and respected local civil rights activists, Albert Turner, his wife Evelyn Turner and Spencer Hogue, Jr. (pictured above) for voter fraud.

The Turners and Hogue, who became known as the "The Marion Three", had worked doggedly to help poor African-Americans in rural Perry County, Alabama register to vote and participate in the voting process in a county in which blacks were the numerical majority.

As Scott Zamost, Drew Griffin and Curt Devine reported in an article for CNN.com, Albert Turner had worked as an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and marched alongside the civil rights icon in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965 in support of voting rights.

Turner formed the Perry County Civic League to help consolidate and expand black representation in local politics, and Sessions tried to prosecute him, his wife and Hogue on 29 separate charges of tampering with voting ballots during the 1984 Democratic presidential primary.

Then-U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions during 1986 Senate
hearings for his failed nomination to the federal bench

While a grand jury indicted The Marion Three, they were eventually found not guilty and acquitted of all charges in a highly-publicized case that was widely seen as "racially motivated."

Especially considering the institutional segregation and voter oppression which had left blacks in Perry County marginalized in terms of political representation and county services for years.

The Marion Three case exposed Sessions' views on race and eventually helped to sink his nomination to be a federal judge.

His highly-publicized Senate hearings in 1986 included testimony from four different lawyers who'd worked with Sessions in the Office of the Southern District of Alabama - all four testified about a variety of different comments Sessions had made in DOJ offices that were seen as racist and demonstrated his personal contempt for civil rights and organizations like the NAACP.

Coretta Scott King famously penned an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging Sessions's nomination to the federal bench be denied because of his having used the power of his office to "intimidate and frighten elderly black voters."

While he eventually withdrew his nomination to be a federal judge, he was later elected State Attorney General of Alabama in 1995 where he championed a state school funding model that disproportionally underfunded majority-African-American schools - a model which was later found to be unconstitutional.

Anyway that's who Jeff Sessions is.

ICE agents escorting an immigrant to plane

His announcement of a lawsuit against the state of California last week to try and attack legitimate efforts to protect immigrants within their borders is simply a reflection of the overt racial bias he demonstrated in his attempts to prosecute The Marion Three for voter fraud back in 1984.

As much as Trump demeans him publicly, including referring to him as "Mr. Magoo" recently, Jeff Sessions is exactly what the Trump administration ordered.

An attorney general whose archaic views on immigrants, people of color and mass incarceration are informed by his own personal bigotry.

One who is willing to use the power of the Department of Justice as a tool to enforce the "otherism" that lies at the heart of chaotic right-wing ideology of the Trump administration - and twist the DOJ's mission to enable it to function like a quasi-Gestapo where immigrants are concerned.

It's a reflection of the narrow scope of justice as interpreted by the Trump administration and the Republican politicians on Capitol Hill who remain silent - content to savor their precious tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, while chaos reigns in the White House.

And inside the immigrant communities they vilify.

All Eyes On Alabama

Roy Moore arrives to vote on his horse "Sassy"

Like millions of other people both here and around the globe, I'm anxiously awaiting the results of today's senatorial election in Alabama.

The last thing the Republican-majority in the U.S. Senate needs is a smug right-wing extremist who uses Christianity to cloak his tiresome and incessant moralizing in a self-righteous veneer to hide glaring personal flaws (multiple accusations of ephebophilia) that would land most people in jail. 

While I find Roy Moore's overheated conservative bluster, misogyny and unhinged bigotry against people of color and homosexuals repulsive, that kind of quasi-fascist nonsense isn't the biggest concern for America in my view.

Politically-speaking, if he is elected to the senate, the broader consequences for the Republican Party in the upcoming 2018 congressional elections could be severe.

And let's be honest, an-already controversial candidate who arrives to cast a vote on a horse (pictured above) is not about serving his or her constituents.

That kind of person is all about trite theatrics, stupid gimmicks and of course, themselves.

As if arriving to vote on a horse is going to make people forget that he is accused of initiating sexual encounters with multiple underaged girls, including with Leigh Corfman when she was 14-years-old.

The new Republican Normal? AG Jeff Sesssions

Personally I'm much more troubled by the prospect of another ideologically-archaic conservative southerner and former judge (we see you Jeff Sessions) coming to Washington, D.C. to bring an unhinged brand of right-wing theocracy to the floor of the U.S. Senate.     

The legal implications of Roy Moore adding his voice to senate votes for federal and Supreme Court judges is deeply troubling for a democracy founded on the principle of separation of church and state.

This is after all, a man who said the antebellum south, when the agrarian southern economy was fueled by enslaved African-Americans, was the last time that America was "great" - and yes, Moore said that in front of a live audience in September.

It should tell you something that reliably-conservative Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby is on record as saying that he will "probably write in a good candidate" rather than cast a vote for Moore to be his fellow Alabama senator.

The implications for the people of Alabama are pretty significant too.

After all, what will it say about the image of a deep southern state still trying to shake the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and the battle for civil rights if its citizens vote to elect a man who pines for the era of 19th century slavery and believes homosexuals are deviants engaged in illegal conduct?

We'll know the answer soon.

Anyway I gotta run to go check out the returns as the results come in, the polls in Alabama close in less than half an hour and according to ABC News the race is tighter than expected with voters almost evenly divided on the allegations of Moore's sexual misconduct -with underage girls.

How can voters be "divided" on that?

Anyway all eyes are on Alabama, where some folks can be remarkably forgiving for a man who rides to the polls on the back of a horse named Sassy.

The Wheels of Acquittal Turn Again

Cops & protestors in St. Louis on Friday after former
SLPD officer Jason Stockley's acquittal [Photo - Theo Welling]

Given the protests and civil unrest that have rocked the city of St. Louis in recent days, former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley is arguably one of the most despised individuals in the state right now.

The crowds of people who took to the streets in protest after St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson found Stockley not guilty of murder for the 2011 shooting death of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith represented a wide cross-section of the local community.

Young and old. Black, white, Hispanic and Asian, people of different faiths.

All understandably confused and outraged over what is widely viewed as a gross miscarriage of justice in a state still recovering from the aftermath of the protests over the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by 28-year-old former Ferguson PD officer Darren Wilson in the nearby northeastern suburb of Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

The similarities are startling.

In both cases, young white male police officers used deadly force in broad daylight after pursuing young male African-American suspects fleeing police after allegedly being involved in relatively low level felonies - Brown had reportedly robbed a local convenience store and Smith was allegedly selling heroin in a parking lot behind a fast-food chicken spot.

Both former officers used handguns against unarmed suspects based on what they both claimed was self defense, Brown and Wilson were engaged in some kind of physical struggle through the window of Wilson's police car before he fired twelve shots at Brown.

Smith sped off in his Buick in an attempt to flee, about 45 seconds before the high-speed, one-mile chase ended, then-officer Stockley was heard on the police SUV's internal video camera saying "going to kill this motherfucker, don't you know it."

Former St. Louis PD officer Jason Stockley

As the Huffington Post reported, Stockley ordered his partner Brian Bianchi to use their police SUV to ram Smith's vehicle to stop it.

Stockley got out holding his personal AK-47 assault rifle (which is not permitted by department regulations) with his department-issued pistol in his holster.

About 15 seconds after reaching the driver's side of Smith's Buick, Stockley ordered Smith to put his hands up - the driver's side air bag in Smith's car had deployed when the police SUV rammed it.

Stockley then removes his police pistol from his holster and fires five shots into the car, killing Smith - he claimed Smith was reaching for a gun.

But what's strange is that Stockley then walks back to the police SUV - remember he just shot a man.

Both a bystander's cell phone video and internal video cameras in the police SUV show Stockley open the back door and put his personal AK-47 rifle on the back seat, then he returns to Smith's car.

Then, the same cameras show Stockley walk back to the SUV a second time, and this time he's clearly seen rifling around in his personal backpack before emerging, going back to Smith's car and getting into the driver's seat after other officers remove Smith's body from the car.

It's there that prosecutors claim he planted the .38 revolver found in Smith's car - if Smith had tried to use that gun, why was Stockley's the only DNA found on it?

Take a couple minutes to look at the video of Stockley - watch it for yourself, both the bystander's cellphone video and the internal police SUV video are synchronized next to each other.

I estimate he's rifling around in his backpack for about 17 seconds, notice how he positions and hunches his body so that the internal police SUV camera can't show what he's doing.

But again, as in the case of Darren Wilson shooting Michael Brown in 2014, Stockley claimed he had no choice but to use deadly force against Anthony Lamar Smith because he was in fear for his life - but like Wilson, the only real evidence that he was in fear for his life is his own testimony.

No charges were ever filed against Darren Wilson in Ferguson, and it took five years before Jason Stockley was charged with murder - ending in an acquittal last week.

St. Louis PD officers knock an old woman who was
protesting to the ground before stepping on her

The police reaction to the subsequent protests by members of the local community and activists was similar too.

The heavily-militarized police response in Ferguson, including armored vehicles, was widely condemned around the world.

In St. Louis as people began engaging in peaceful protests on Friday, police responded by showing up in riot gear including helmets, shields and batons.

An older female protester was knocked to the ground and stepped on by cops.

It's pretty troubling given that she was exercising her 1st Amendment rights to protest against what many see as a flagrant miscarriage of justice.

That kind of authoritarian response certainly stands in contrast to the police response in Charlottesville, Virginia a few weeks ago when local and state police basically stood there and watched as Neo-Nazi, KKK members and alt-right nitwits, many of whom were openly carrying assault rifles and handguns, marched past - white supremacist protester 52 year-old Richard Wilson Preston shot a handgun directly into the crowd and nearby police did nothing.

My sense is that the acquittal of Jason Stockley and the subsequent response by police is what largely fueled a small fraction of the hundreds of peaceful protestors to throw rocks and paint at the home of Mayor Lyda Krewson's home late Friday night - which prompted police to use tear gas to disperse crowds.

The frustration of protesters, activists and human rights advocates is also compounded by the fact that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already made clear that under his oversight, the Department of Justice will not use its authority to investigate local police departments for racially-biased policing, violations of citizen's Constitutional rights or excessive use of deadly force.

It all seems to point to a White House and Justice Department that tacitly reinforces a two-tier system of justice and a polarizing view of race in this country.

Ms. Texas Margana Wood: not a Trumper

A nation in which we now have a president who vents outrage and fury depending upon the race and ethnicity of the person involved.

For example, both Trump and his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spent much of last week directing anger at black ESPN anchor Jemele Hill and the sports network after she called Trump a white supremacist on her personal Twitter account.

Frankly their self-righteous indignation was laughable considering Trump's habitual crude insults and serial misogyny.

In contrast, after Ms. Texas (who is white) Margana Wood publicly called Trump out at the Ms. America pageant last Sunday night - when asked about his response to the Charlottesville protests, she rebuked him for not making a more definitive statement deploring white supremacy.

Trump said nothing about her comments.

Much like his radio silence when white Americans commit acts of terrorism on people of color or Muslims, but when a terrorist linked with ISIS commits an act of violence, his Twitter feed blows up.

But to get back to my original point, it's pretty clear that the protests in St. Louis are about much more than another white police officer once again facing no legal repercussions for shooting an unarmed African-American motorist.

The protests are also a reaction to complacency and lack of leadership on issues of racial injustice by the federal government and people's impatience and frustration that the same racial bias still permeates the judicial system in St. Louis three years after the events in Ferguson.

Judge Timothy Wilson

As Jeremy Stahl reported for Slate on Friday, Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson's justifications for acquitting Jason Stockley outlined in his 30-page opinion are pretty shaky, he almost seems to be reaching for a reason to acquit the former St. Louis PD officer - despite a planted gun that doesn't have the victim's DNA on it and video that shows clear premeditation to kill.

Over the past few days I've spent some time reading people's reactions to the case on social media, and it's interesting to see how individual perspectives seem to break down along the same political and ideological divisions that are parroted in progressive and conservative media.

Some people's resentment is directed at the protesters, expressing the opinion that Jason Stockley's fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith was justified simply because he fled the police.

In my view if the guy was selling heroin, fine, then arrest him, charge him and let a court find him guilty and sentence him accordingly.

But for Stockley to act as judge, jury and executioner for a low-level felony, then plant a gun to justify murder violates the principles of law enforcement and the Constitution.

There's no "many sides" on that issue, there is only right and wrong.

Michael Bennett & Vegas PD - Discriminatory Policing Or Mistaken Identity?

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett

While I am admittedly declaring myself a 24-hour fan of the Kansas City Chiefs for roughing up the New England Patriots 42-27 in Foxborough in last night's NFL opener, by no means am I a fan of the Seattle Seahawks.

But as a former professional football player and an African-American who is physically larger than the average Joe, I understand first-hand what it's like to be singled out by some members of private security or law enforcement simply because of the color of my skin and the dimensions of my body.

So I stand with Michael Bennett.

Like him I know what it's like to be an undrafted free agent defensive end in the NFL after playing Division I football in college; and I know what it's like to be a young man of color in a high-profile profession in a predominantly white community.

So after reading his open letter about his disturbing encounter with members of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department after the recent Mayweather-McGregor fight, I was pissed.

Like thousands of other people, Bennett was in Vegas for the fight.

As he was walking back to his hotel around 1:30am, the sound of gunshots rang out somewhere in the vicinity of Drai's Nightclub in the Cromwell Casino.

When members of the Las Vegas MPD arrived at the scene, hundreds of people were pouring out of the casino onto the street trying to get away from the area.

Patrons exiting the Cromwell Casino after gunshots
rang out after the Mayweather-McGregor fight in Vegas

In his widely-publicized letter, Bennett claims that he was just one of hundreds of people fleeing the chaotic scene.

With no physical description of the alleged shooter a group of LVMPD officers began approaching the casino and saw him running.

They chased him and forced him to lie facedown on the street while one of the officers pointed a gun at his head and threatened to "blow his head off" if he moved.

Bennett said that as he lay there in the street, it occurred to him that he might not ever see his wife and two daughters again - and that it felt like an eternity as he lay there cuffed with an officer pointing a handgun at him for something he didn't do.

Bennett claims that he kept asking the officers why he was being detained and they said nothing to him as one officer pressed a knee into his back so hard it was difficult for him to breathe as his hands were cuffed so tight his fingers went numb.

He was eventually released after police determined he had nothing to do with the reported gunshots.

After Bennett posted his open letter about the incident on social media, the story quickly blew up in mainstream media.

In the wake of mounting criticism of the officer's treatment of Bennett, on Friday Kevin McMahill, Undersheriff of the LVMPD held a press conference to give the department's account of what happened.

He claimed that Bennett wasn't singled out because of the color of his skin, but because he, like hundreds of other people in the area, was running away from the scene.

Michael Bennett being cuffed by an LVMPD officer

"I see no evidence that race played any role in this incident." McMahill said during his press conference.

To support that conclusion (even without a full investigation of the incident being completed) he expressed doubts that Bennett's being chased and handcuffed was a case of racial profiling because the officers who were involved were both Hispanic.

But what, if anything, does that prove?


Minnesota PD officer Jeronimo Yanez was Hispanic.

He's the guy who flipped out and fatally shot Philando Castille seven times at point blank range during a traffic stop after the innocent cafeteria worker reached to get his ID - and that was after he'd pulled Castille over because he thought he looked like a wanted African-American burglary suspect.

I'm not saying the two LVMPD officers are racist, but let's be honest, they rolled up to a chaotic scene responding to a report of shots fired where hundreds of people were trying to get to safety.

They have no description of the shooter but they see a 6'4" black guy with a beard running and out of everyone in the area they go after him - only he wasn't the shooter, or a criminal.

He was a gainfully-employed, married father of two who attended college who was trying to get back to his hotel room and trying not to get shot by some nutbag with a gun popping off shots in a crowded public space.

But the LVMPD cops didn't see that, they just saw a large black guy - something which seems to trigger a sort of unconscious automated response in some police officers in this country.

I've been stopped by police before for the same reason, so I know what that kind of humiliation and anger feels like.

Colin Kaepernick kneeling with 49'ers teammates

Another reason this incident got under my skin is because you have all these NFL fans expressing their displeasure over the fact that former San Francisco 49'ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has attracted so much media attention (and been blackballed from the NFL) over his decision not to kneel during the national anthem to protest discriminatory treatment of people of color by the police.



Even though Freedom of Expression is enshrined in the Constitution, it irked some NFL fans and cops alike.

The same fans who pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year for tickets.

Some of the same fans who walk around wearing jerseys with player's names and numbers on them, and collectively bet billions of dollars a year on NFL games, basically get offended when some of those players express their personal views on race or politics.

To me there's something remarkably hypocritical about expressing adulation for NFL players, but wanting them to shut up when it comes to exercising their right to bring attention to the worsening racial discrimination in this country, and how it impacts their lives as human beings.

Under the current Republican White House and Justice Department, the respective leaders of which are both on the record as saying that they will not use the power of the federal government to address police departments where racially discriminatory policing is shown to be a problem, police oversight isn't going to happen.

So it's up to individual citizens to take action to bring attention to the issue.

And NFL players, regardless of their race or ethnicity, have a right to do that which is protected under the First Amendment Right to Free Speech - period.

Cleveland Browns p[layers kneeling August 21st 

As much as NFL owners want this issue to simply disappear, as the incident in Las Vegas with Michael Bennett clearly demonstrates, it's not going away anytime soon.

In fact it's going to be a subject of conversation and media attention throughout the season.

Members of the Cleveland Browns knelt during the national anthem before a preseason game against the Giants two weeks ago.

Not just to bring attention to discriminatory policing in America.

But also to support Kaepernick - by the way a white player named Seth DeValve knelt with the Browns too, becoming the first white NFL player to do so.

So rather than pretending it doesn't exist, the NFL had better figure out a way to take a much more comprehensive stance on the issue - or risk alienating many of the players who make up it's rosters and account for billions of dollars a year in revenue from broadcast rights, merchandise, ticket sales, stadium concessions and advertising revenue.

Oh and while we're on the subject of football, did you read about Texas A&M head football coach Kevin Sumlin's family receiving racist hate mail following the Aggies' opening season loss at UCLA?

Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin

Look I get being upset if your favorite team blows a 34-point lead in the 3rd quarter of the first game of the season, but sending a letter to a man's home in which you threaten him and call him a nigger?

Sumlin is a married father of four with a respectable 79-38 record in five seasons at Texas A&M (including an 11-2 record his first season), one of only seven African-American head coaches at major Division I football programs.

My sense is that the letter, mailed from the Houston Country Club, is yet another sad reflection of the normalization of racial and ethnic hatred cultivated by Trump's embrace of white nationalism and open contempt for undocumented immigrants working in this country - aside from his own wife Melania of course.

As Ben Mathis-Lilley reported for Slate back on February 23rd, the former Melania Knauss violated the terms of her U.S. B1 / B2 tourist visa in the 1990's by earning thousands of dollars as a model before obtaining legal permission to work in the United States.

Because she lied by not disclosing the fact that she'd worked illegally in the U.S. on her H1-B visa (green card) application, under the restrictive immigration measures put into place as a result of executive orders issued by her current husband, she would have been prioritized for deportation because she "engaged in fraud or willful misrepresentation in connection with any official matter or application before a governmental agency."

So I guess Trump's self-righteous zeal about securing our borders is situational and depends upon one's religion, skin color, country of origin and of course whether or not the undocumented immigrant in question is boinking Trump.

Anyway we'll see what happens with the Michael Bennett situation in the coming days, there were reportedly some 126 different remote video cameras in the area where he was arrested so it shouldn't be long before we get to see a better sense of what really happened that night.

Not surprisingly, the LVMPD officer who pointed the gun at Bennett and threatened to blow his head off did not have his body-cam turned on when the incident happened. (Shocker)

But regardless, maybe this incident will prompt some NFL fans who expressed displeasure at Kaepernick's kneeling to step back and think about why he started kneeling in the first place.

The reason is real and it's still happening in this country - perhaps its time that NFL owners, executives and fans stand up for the players who are taking a knee for justice and human rights.