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Selling children Kids-for-cash judge released from prison over virus concernsBy MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMOJune 23, 2020
Kids-for-cash judge released from prison over virus concerns
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and MICHAEL BALSAMOJune 23, 2020
A former Pennsylvania judge involved in a scheme to send children to a for-profit jail in exchange for kickbacks was released from federal prison with six years left on his sentence because of coronavirus concerns, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press.
Michael Conahan, 68, was sent home from the low-security Federal Correctional Institution in Miami last Friday on a 30-day furlough that could lead to permanent home confinement for the remainder of his sentence, the officials said.
Prison officials had released Conahan in part because he has medical conditions that put him at a high risk for complications if he contracted the disease, according to the law enforcement sources, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and did so on condition of anonymity.ADVERTISEMENThttps://2a1b4b9e23dedfd8b72d1988db7ff702.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
With a furlough, an inmate like Conahan is able to go home sooner while a final decision on home confinement is still being made.MORE ON THE PANDEMIC:
In a handwritten court petition for compassionate release, which was rejected last week on a technicality, Conahan said his high blood pressure, heart issues and Guillain-Barre syndrome — a rare disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves — put him at “grave danger of not only contracting the virus, but of dying from the virus.”
Conahan, whose corruption behavior was dissected in a documentary film, books and national news coverage, joins the likes of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen in getting sprung from prison early.
A message seeking comment was left with Conahan’s lawyer. The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, first reported Conahan’s release.
Conahan was sentenced in 2011 to 17½ years in prison for his role in what became known as the kids-for-cash scandal. The ex-Luzerne County judge pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge for accepting a share of $2.8 million from the builder and co-owner of the for-profit detention center.
Conahan, who headed the county’s court system in Northeastern Pennsylvania from 2002 to 2006 and earned the nickname “The Boss,” closed down a county-owned juvenile detention center and signed a secret agreement to send children to the for-profit facility, prosecutors said.
Mark Ciavarella, the ex-juvenile court judge who sent thousands of children to the for-profit detention center, was convicted at trial and is serving a 28-year federal prison sentence.
Soon after their arrests, Conahan and Ciavarella reached a plea agreement to serve a sentence of more than seven years in prison each, but a judge rejected the deal. Had it taken effect, Conahan would have been allowed to leave prison in 2016. Conahan’s petition to the Justice Department to have his sentence commuted is still pending.
With the coronavirus sweeping through federal lockups, the Bureau of Prisons has been increasingly relying on home confinement to clear cramped quarters and spare high-risk inmates from infection.
The federal prison system has struggled to combat the coronavirus pandemic behind bars, where social distancing is nearly impossible, and as of Tuesday, 6,341 inmates had tested positive for COVID-19 at facilities across the U.S.; nearly 5,000 had recovered. Officials said 87 inmates have died since late March.
The agency has given priority to inmates who’ve served at least half of their sentence and those within 18 months of release, though it has the ultimate discretion on who can be released.
The Miami facility where Conahan was incarcerated has had seven inmates and 12 staff members test positive for COVID-19, but no deaths, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
In comparison, a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, has had more than 600 inmates test positive, with 12 of them dying of the disease
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The US government destroyed the Ku Klux Klan once. It could do so againAllyson Hobbs
The president has shown that we can expect no moral leadership from him. We have yet to see if other branches of government will take strong action
1870 and 1871, Congress passed three Enforcement Acts that safeguarded the rights of African Americans to vote, hold office, serve on juries and receive equal protection under the law. These acts, also known as the “Ku Klux Klan Acts,” targeted the Klan for acting murderously to prevent African Americans from exercising their rights as citizens.
Today 146 years later, we could use the Enforcement Acts once more.
President Ulysses S Grant pushed the legislation through Congress and called on the Army to help federal officials “arrest and break up bands of disguised night marauders”. Grant’s attorney general, Amos Akerman, a 49-year-old graduate of Dartmouth College and an outspoken champion of black suffrage, relished the opportunity to fight white terrorists in southern states.
In a biography of Grant published in 2001, Jean Edward Smith quoted historian William S. McFeely who observed that “no attorney general before or since ‘has been more vigorous in the prosecution of cases designed to protect the lives and rights of black Americans’”.
Grant believed in the power of the franchise; he thought that once African Americans had the right to vote, which was guaranteed by the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, their rights would be secure. But Grant did not anticipate the barbarous violence and virulent opposition that exploded across the South.
Terror reigned as masked night riders burned black schools, intimidated voters and attacked, whipped and killed African Americans. The Klan was hellbent on dismantling the policies of Reconstruction. The Republican Party had to be crushed. In all forms of southern life and culture, black subservience and white supremacy had to be restored.
The Klan raised its ranks from bitter ex-soldiers who could not accept the Confederacy’s defeat and from the sons of wealthy slaveholders who could not abide the loss of social standing and power after the war.
The worst violence occurred in South Carolina. Grant cited “a condition of lawlessness”, declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus. The Senate heard eloquent and wrenching testimonies of hundreds of African Americans who had been terrorized by the Klan.
Maria Carter of Haralson County, South Carolina testified that Klansmen broke into her home, pointed a gun at her husband and frightened him to the point that he could not speak. They forced Carter’s husband to go with them to a neighbor’s house where they assaulted a woman so ferociously that Carter remembered that the house looked “as if somebody had been killing hogs there”. The men shot and then severely whipped the woman’s husband. Carter’s husband was beaten mercilessly; his clothes were blood soaked, and the next morning, they clung to his body.
With Akerman’s oversight, 600 Klansmen were convicted and 65 men were sent to the US penitentiary in Albany for sentences that could be as long as five years. The intervention of the federal government marked an important divergence from the norm of letting state and local authorities handle racial crimes. With the passage of the first Enforcement Act, Congress made it a federal offense to deprive a person of civil or political rights.
Akerman knew that destroying the Klan would require “extraordinary means”. To his mind, there was only one side in this fight, not “many”. There was no equivalence to be drawn between the Klan and the African Americans who had been attacked and murdered.
Grant did not view the Confederates as heroes. He did not embolden them or stoke their resentment about the Confederacy’s defeat. Instead, after the Enforcement Acts were passed, he sent federal troops to the South and stated categorically that “insurgents were in rebellion against the authority of the United States”.
By 1872, the Klan had been defeated. The weight of the federal government broke the back of the organization and reduced racial violence throughout the South. Frederick Douglass declared that without Grant’s actions, black Americans likely would have been trapped in a condition similar to slavery. The violence did not end altogether, but the Klan was no longer a formidable player in American politics. Nor would it be until 50 years later, when the second Klan rose in the 1920s.
In Ken Burns’ 1990 documentary, The Civil War, historian Barbara Fields explained, “The Civil War is not over until we today have done our part in fighting it.” The tragic events in Charlottesville have shown us just how urgent and necessary it is for us to continue the fight. There is still much to fight for.
The right to vote needs protection against hysterical accusations of voter fraud, restrictions on registration, voter identification laws, decisions to relocate polling places at the last minute, the redrawing of district boundaries and the removal of names from voter rolls.
Confederate monuments – built decades after the end of the Civil War during periods of extreme racial violence – must fall.
The Civil War, Fields observed, “is still to be fought and regrettably it can still be lost”. The president has shown that we can expect nothing from him in terms of moral leadership. We have yet to see if other branches of government will take strong action to condemn white supremacy and carry on the fight.
Allyson Hobbs is associate professor of history and director of African and African American studies at Stanford University.
Americans have had enough …
… and are marching for justice in unprecedented numbers. They are responding to generations of police brutality and systemic racism, a desperation fueled by a pandemic and an economic crisis that have hit black Americans disproportionately. A mass movement has come together to say: we’ve had enough.
It’s not just Americans. All over the world, citizens are protesting the marginalization of communities of color. Still, virtually nothing has been done to address racial and economic inequality in decades. Words, yes; action, not so much. Those who have the power to effect meaningful change have failed to do so.
At a time like this, an independent news organisation that fights for truth and holds power to account is not just optional. It is essential. Because we believe every one of us deserves equal access to fact-based news and analysis, we’ve decided to keep Guardian journalism free for all readers, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. This is made possible thanks to the support we receive from readers across America in all 50 states.
Our business model is coming under great pressure from an unprecedented collapse in advertising revenues, and we’d love your help so that we can carry on our essential work.
We’ll start strangling them racist cop fired
Cops fired over violent, racist talk about Black people: We are going to ‘start slaughtering them’
“We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them,” one of the fired officers said, according to a police summary.
Wilmington Police Chief Donny Williams, during a Wednesday afternoon news conference, identified the officers as Officer James Gilmore, Cpl. Jesse Moore II, and Officer Kevin Piner.WECT6June 25, 2020, 12:28 PM EDTBy Janelle Griffith and Dennis Romero
Three police officers in Wilmington, North Carolina, were fired after their department discovered patrol-car video of conversations containing violent, racist comments about Black people, officials announced Wednesday.
The Wilmington Police Department took the action on Tuesday against Cpl. Jessie Moore, and Officers Kevin Piner and Brian Gilmore. Each was accused of violating standards of conduct, criticism and use of inappropriate language.null
Police Chief Donny Williams said at a news conference Wednesday that “with the concurrence of our City Council and at the direction of City Manager Sterling Cheatham” he was releasing a summary of the investigation.
“When I first learned of these conversations, I was shocked, saddened and disgusted,” Williams said. “There is no place for this behavior in our agency or our city and it will not be tolerated.”
The recorded conversations of Gilmore, Piner and Moore were discovered June 4 during a routine audit of Piner’s in-car camera, according to documents released by the police department.
“The conversations included disrespectful language, hate-filled speech and referred to Black people as the N-word,” the police chief said, adding that the officers also criticized him, several Black officers within the agency and made negative comments about individuals outside of the agency. Additionally, they made negative comments about the Black Lives Matter protests and were critical of the Wilmington Police Department’s response, he said.null
A sergeant reviewing the footage from Piner’s car, which were categorized as coming from “accidental activation” of the video recorder, initially noted “extremely racist comments” in a conversation between Piner and Moore. The remarks led the supervisor to make a closer examination of the video, which captured officers using the N-word and other racist language.
An internal investigation followed.
At the 46-minute mark of the video, Piner and Gilmore begin talking from their respective cars, the police summary says.
Their conversation turns to the topic of protests across the nation after George Floyd, a Black man, died in May after a white Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.null
Piner complains in an apparent reference to his own department that its only concern was “kneeling down with the Black folks.”
About 30 minutes later, Piner receives a phone call from Moore, who in the call repeatedly refers to a Black female he arrested a day earlier as a “Negro” and an N-word, the summary says. Moore also refers to a Black magistrate as a “f—— Negro magistrate.”
Moore says, “Not all Black people are like that,” according to the summary. Piner replies, “Most of ’em.”
Piner tells Moore later in the phone conversation that a civil war is coming and that he is “ready.”https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Piner starts speaking about martial law and says: “We are just gonna go out and start slaughtering them f—— N-words. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.”
Moore responds that he would not do that. Piner says, “I am ready,” according to the summary.
Piner tells Moore that society needs a civil war to “wipe ’em off the f—— map. That’ll put ’em back about four or five generations.”
According to the investigation the officers were interviewed separately and admitted it was their voices on the video and did not deny any of the content.
Each officer denied being racist, the investigation summary said. The officers cited the stress of today’s climate on law enforcement as a reason for their “venting.”
Gilmore, 48, could not immediately be reached by phone for comment Thursday. Piner, 44, and Moore, 50, did not immediately return phone and email requests for comment Thursday.
On Wednesday afternoon, Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said the City Council unanimously agreed to release documentation of the officers’ conversations despite such an action violating the privacy of personnel files.
“I can honestly say that I was sickened by the vile and destructive language used by these officers,” Saffo said.
Williams said in a statement Wednesday: “Normally, personnel laws allow only a very small amount of information to be made public. However, in exceptional cases, when it is essential to maintain public confidence in the administration of the City and the Police Department, more information may be released.”
The police chief said this is the most exceptional and difficult case he has encountered in his career and that we must establish new reforms for policing here at home and throughout the country.
Williams said he will recommend the three officers not be rehired by notifying the North Carolina Criminal Justice Training and Standards Commission about their behavior. In addition to the officers’ being fired, prior criminal cases involving the three officers will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office to determine if they committed any crimes in the conduct of those cases or showed bias toward defendants.
I found something that I think will give great insight into the problem and how long over the years have force inequality and promoted racial Injustice and hatred
Voting fraud VP Mike Pence and wife caught using old address they haven’t lived in for 4 years to vote
being reported that Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, voted by mail in Indiana’s GOP primary. On it’s face there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with that, but Business Insider did some digging. They found that the couple “used their old address in the Indiana governor’s mansion, which they moved out of in December 2016 as they started the transition to their new home in Washington D.C.”
Basically – they haven’t lived in that taxpayer-funded address for four years. Why are they using it now to vote?
Trump claimed earlier in the day in all-caps: “RIGGED 2020 ELECTION: MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WILL BE PRINTED BY FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS. IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!”
The Trump administration is also doing everything they can to stop mail-in voting, while some states from around the nation are pushing back, even making the way ballots are sent out mandatory. While Pence may have legally been in his right to vote by mail (as odd as that is given his living situation), he doesn’t want anyone else to do the same.
Opioids, Inc. | Watch S2020 E15 | FRONTLINE | PBS | Official Site
Black Pastor Arrested After Calling 911 on Group of Racists Threatening to Kill Him; Sheriff Apologizes
A Virginia sheriff has apologized to a Black pastor after he called police for help after a group of angry white people invaded his property, surrounded him and threatened to murder him after attempting to dump a refrigerator on is property.
I felt, literally, like I had been lynched without being killed,” a shaken Leon K. McCray Sr. said. The 61-year-old pastor described the ordeal as “indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life.”
“I’m a pastor, a decorated 24-year Air Force master sergeant veteran, no criminal record,” McCray added.
However, none of this mattered when local Shenandoah County Sheriff’s deputies responding to his 911 call automatically assumed that he was a criminal suspect because he was practicing his legal right to bear arms.
McCray had been visiting an apartment he owns in the nearby town of Edinburg on June 1st when he saw a man and a woman, both white, hauling a refrigerator from another property to his apartment’s dumpster.
After the pastor requested that they leave the property, the pair reacted furiously and threatened him. The two quickly came back to the property with three friends who also were white, he told WUSA.
However, none of this mattered when local Shenandoah County Sheriff’s deputies responding to his 911 call automatically assumed that he was a criminal suspect because he was practicing his legal right to bear arms.
McCray had been visiting an apartment he owns in the nearby town of Edinburg on June 1st when he saw a man and a woman, both white, hauling a refrigerator from another property to his apartment’s dumpster.
After the pastor requested that they leave the property, the pair reacted furiously and threatened him. The two quickly came back to the property with three friends who also were white, he told WUSA.Simple Method Ends Tinnitus (Ear Ringing) – It’s Genius!UltimateHealthReview.comFIND OUT MORE >
At that stage, the five people had completely surrounded the Black senior citizen and began hurling racial slurs at him and attacking him physically, pushing him from behind and even head-butting him.
In a June 7th sermon shared to YouTube, Pastor McCray told parishioners at his Woodstock church that one of the men even “ran to me full speed snatching his shirt off, jumping in my face, and then he circled around behind me.”
“These same individuals were threatening my life telling me that my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, they don’t give a darn about that in this county and they could care less and ‘we will kill you,’” he added
Fortunately, the pastor was carrying some heat.
McCray eventually pulled out his legal concealed pistol to “save” himself and “pointed it down to the ground in hopes that they would back off.” At that point, he had just enough time to call 911.
Deputies from the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office arrived and immediately arrested the elderly McCray and confiscated his weapon while chatting with his five assailants, who continued screaming and hurling racist epithets toward the pastor
The deputies were entirely uninterested in letting McCray tell his side of the story. To add insult to injury, he was instead “handcuffed in front of the mob,” and driven away while the group mockingly waved at him as he was hauled off down the road.
McCray was charged by deputies with brandishing a firearm, a misdemeanor.
In the state of Virginia, it is entirely to legal to brandish a weapon in “justifiable self-defense.” Additionally, McCray said he had a license to carry a concealed weapon, in line with his “Second Amendment right to defend myself against five attackers that tried to take my life.”
Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter eventually issued a statement last week saying that he had spoken with McCray on June 3, only two days after the incident and apologized. The sheriff also said that the Shenandoah County Attorney’s Office has been asked to drop the brandishing charge against the pastor.
“After talking with him about the incident, it was apparent to me that the charge of brandishing was certainly not appropriate,” Sheriff Carter wrote in a Facebook post that’s since been deleted. “Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing.”
While four of the five assailants had initially faced charges of assult or trespassing, Sheriff Carter’s discussion with McCray convinced him that the charges should be stepped up to include additional hate crime charges.
Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held without bond.
Two sheriff’s office supervisors have also been placed on unpaid administrative leave while the investigation continues, Carter said
(TMU) – A Virginia sheriff has apologized to a Black pastor after he called police for help after a group of angry white people invaded his property, surrounded him and threatened to murder him after attempting to dump a refrigerator on is property.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-9733874948539896&output=html&h=343&slotname=2819297977&adk=364584660&adf=2440367659&w=412&lmt=1592903816&rafmt=1&psa=1&guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&format=412×343&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthemindunleashed.com%2F2020%2F06%2Fblack-pastor-arrested-after-calling-911-on-group-of-racists-threatening-to-kill-him-sheriff-apologizes.html&flash=0&fwr=1&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&sfro=1&wgl=1&adsid=NT&dt=1592903814879&bpp=21&bdt=1009&idt=1778&shv=r20200618&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D73ba54ed2a33d55f%3AT%3D1592903770%3AS%3DALNI_MbFGMUteXpPDJ9zuTue65MRHwimLg&prev_fmts=412×343&correlator=5909984282222&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=222845402.1592903770&ga_sid=1592903770&ga_hid=220804917&ga_fc=1&ga_wpids=UA-124320227-15&iag=0&icsg=264063349424115&dssz=81&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-240&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=823&u_w=412&u_ah=823&u_aw=412&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=0&ady=1569&biw=412&bih=695&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=21066349%2C21066432%2C42530500%2C42530502&oid=2&pvsid=504076579471806&pem=165&rx=0&eae=0&fc=900&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C412%2C0%2C412%2C695%2C412%2C695&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CEebr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=8336&bc=31&ifi=2&uci=a!2&btvi=1&fsb=1&xpc=VDMfhcP8Qd&p=https%3A//themindunleashed.com&dtd=1822
“I felt, literally, like I had been lynched without being killed,” a shaken Leon K. McCray Sr. said. The 61-year-old pastor described the ordeal as “indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life.”
However, none of this mattered when local Shenandoah County Sheriff’s deputies responding to his 911 call automatically assumed that he was a criminal suspect because he was practicing his legal right to bear arms.
McCray had been visiting an apartment he owns in the nearby town of Edinburg on June 1st when he saw a man and a woman, both white, hauling a refrigerator from another property to his apartment’s dumpster.
After the pastor requested that they leave the property, the pair reacted furiously and threatened him. The two quickly came back to the property with three friends who also were white, he told WUSA.Simple Method Ends Tinnitus (Ear Ringing) – It’s Genius!UltimateHealthReview.comFIND OUT MORE >
At that stage, the five people had completely surrounded the Black senior citizen and began hurling racial slurs at him and attacking him physically, pushing him from behind and even head-butting him.
In a June 7th sermon shared to YouTube, Pastor McCray told parishioners at his Woodstock church that one of the men even “ran to me full speed snatching his shirt off, jumping in my face, and then he circled around behind me.”
“These same individuals were threatening my life telling me that my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, they don’t give a darn about that in this county and they could care less and ‘we will kill you,’” he added.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-9733874948539896&output=html&h=343&slotname=5888952200&adk=3931356254&adf=3145596528&w=412&ebfa=1&lmt=1592903817&rafmt=1&psa=1&guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&format=412×343&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthemindunleashed.com%2F2020%2F06%2Fblack-pastor-arrested-after-calling-911-on-group-of-racists-threatening-to-kill-him-sheriff-apologizes.html&flash=0&fwr=1&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&sfro=1&wgl=1&adsid=NT&dt=1592903814913&bpp=11&bdt=1043&idt=2247&shv=r20200618&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D73ba54ed2a33d55f%3AT%3D1592903770%3AS%3DALNI_MbFGMUteXpPDJ9zuTue65MRHwimLg&prev_fmts=412×343%2C412x343%2C412x343&correlator=5909984282222&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=222845402.1592903770&ga_sid=1592903770&ga_hid=220804917&ga_fc=1&ga_wpids=UA-124320227-15&iag=0&icsg=2317815778639859&dssz=81&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-240&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=823&u_w=412&u_ah=823&u_aw=412&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=0&ady=4225&biw=412&bih=695&scr_x=0&scr_y=0&eid=21066349%2C21066432%2C42530500%2C42530502&oid=2&pvsid=504076579471806&pem=165&rx=0&eae=0&fc=900&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C412%2C0%2C412%2C695%2C412%2C695&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CEebr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=8336&bc=31&ifi=4&uci=a!4&btvi=3&fsb=1&xpc=APiWfvDDEO&p=https%3A//themindunleashed.com&dtd=2279
Fortunately, the pastor was carrying some heat.
McCray eventually pulled out his legal concealed pistol to “save” himself and “pointed it down to the ground in hopes that they would back off.” At that point, he had just enough time to call 911.
Deputies from the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office arrived and immediately arrested the elderly McCray and confiscated his weapon while chatting with his five assailants, who continued screaming and hurling racist epithets toward the pastor.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-9733874948539896&output=html&h=343&slotname=1682006088&adk=632388528&adf=3536127891&w=412&lmt=1592903826&rafmt=1&psa=1&guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&format=412×343&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthemindunleashed.com%2F2020%2F06%2Fblack-pastor-arrested-after-calling-911-on-group-of-racists-threatening-to-kill-him-sheriff-apologizes.html&flash=0&fwr=1&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&sfro=1&wgl=1&adsid=NT&dt=1592903814924&bpp=12&bdt=1054&idt=2410&shv=r20200618&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D73ba54ed2a33d55f%3AT%3D1592903770%3AS%3DALNI_MbFGMUteXpPDJ9zuTue65MRHwimLg&prev_fmts=412×343%2C412x343%2C412x343%2C412x343%2C0x0%2C412x695&nras=2&correlator=5909984282222&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=222845402.1592903770&ga_sid=1592903770&ga_hid=220804917&ga_fc=1&ga_wpids=UA-124320227-15&iag=0&icsg=2317815778639859&dssz=81&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-240&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=823&u_w=412&u_ah=823&u_aw=412&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=0&ady=5643&biw=412&bih=695&scr_x=0&scr_y=426&eid=21066349%2C21066432%2C42530500%2C42530502&oid=2&psts=AGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq&pvsid=504076579471806&pem=165&rx=0&eae=0&fc=900&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C412%2C0%2C412%2C751%2C412%2C751&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CEebr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=8336&bc=31&ifi=5&uci=a!5&btvi=4&fsb=1&xpc=9qeNRZZFVl&p=https%3A//themindunleashed.com&dtd=11542
The deputies were entirely uninterested in letting McCray tell his side of the story. To add insult to injury, he was instead “handcuffed in front of the mob,” and driven away while the group mockingly waved at him as he was hauled off down the road.
McCray was charged by deputies with brandishing a firearm, a misdemeanor.
In the state of Virginia, it is entirely to legal to brandish a weapon in “justifiable self-defense.” Additionally, McCray said he had a license to carry a concealed weapon, in line with his “Second Amendment right to defend myself against five attackers that tried to take my life.”Asthma Sufferers: Discover Treatment Options TodayAsthma | Sponsored LinksFIND OUT MORE >
Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter eventually issued a statement last week saying that he had spoken with McCray on June 3, only two days after the incident and apologized. The sheriff also said that the Shenandoah County Attorney’s Office has been asked to drop the brandishing charge against the pastor.
“After talking with him about the incident, it was apparent to me that the charge of brandishing was certainly not appropriate,” Sheriff Carter wrote in a Facebook post that’s since been deleted. “Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing.”
While four of the five assailants had initially faced charges of assult or trespassing, Sheriff Carter’s discussion with McCray convinced him that the charges should be stepped up to include additional hate crime charges.
Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held without bond.
Two sheriff’s office supervisors have also been placed on unpaid administrative leave while the investigation continues, Carter said.https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-9733874948539896&output=html&h=343&slotname=5264154992&adk=2177872637&adf=1262197528&w=412&lmt=1592903962&rafmt=1&psa=1&guci=2.2.0.0.2.2.0.0&format=412×343&url=https%3A%2F%2Fthemindunleashed.com%2F2020%2F06%2Fblack-pastor-arrested-after-calling-911-on-group-of-racists-threatening-to-kill-him-sheriff-apologizes.html&flash=0&fwr=1&fwrattr=true&rpe=1&resp_fmts=3&sfro=1&wgl=1&adsid=NT&dt=1592903814936&bpp=11&bdt=1066&idt=2774&shv=r20200618&cbv=r20190131&ptt=9&saldr=aa&abxe=1&cookie=ID%3D73ba54ed2a33d55f%3AT%3D1592903770%3AS%3DALNI_MbFGMUteXpPDJ9zuTue65MRHwimLg&prev_fmts=412×343%2C412x343%2C412x343%2C412x343%2C0x0%2C412x695%2C412x343&nras=2&correlator=5909984282222&frm=20&pv=1&ga_vid=222845402.1592903770&ga_sid=1592903770&ga_hid=220804917&ga_fc=1&ga_wpids=UA-124320227-15&iag=0&icsg=263928057954291&dssz=85&mdo=0&mso=0&u_tz=-240&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=823&u_w=412&u_ah=823&u_aw=412&u_cd=24&u_nplug=0&u_nmime=0&adx=0&ady=8176&biw=412&bih=695&scr_x=0&scr_y=2936&eid=21066349%2C21066432%2C42530500%2C42530502&oid=2&psts=AGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H8oTFLmIP8oeYwyDWqeJ4Tj0b0jiU2AFhI9d2h2oIg5dU8oHwTcnVtkNuXq%2CAGkb-H9tUXIkPqJZaAsoC_2Lnym1fr66jtzKRY_OoVGDHs0B9h6mBLdvWzR42uH_t2QJ%2CAGkb-H9tUXIkPqJZaAsoC_2Lnym1fr66jtzKRY_OoVGDHs0B9h6mBLdvWzR42uH_t2QJ&pvsid=504076579471806&pem=165&rx=0&eae=0&fc=900&brdim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C412%2C0%2C412%2C751%2C412%2C751&vis=1&rsz=%7C%7CEebr%7C&abl=CS&pfx=0&fu=8336&bc=31&ifi=6&uci=a!6&btvi=5&fsb=1&xpc=O1sD1htdXl&p=https%3A//themindunleashed.com&dtd=M
“I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that I and the sheriff’s office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our black community,” the sheriff told The Washington Post.
But for Pastor McCray, the events that transpired offered irrefutable proof that the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police had actually “changed something” in the relations between the police and the community, as well as the broader fight against police brutality on a national and international level.
“It shifted something in myself and probably many people alike,” he said in his June 7 sermon. “This tragedy of unbelievable death has catapulted this country and the world with a clarion call for change that will not be denied.”
Massachusetts Court Won’t Block Access To Reports On Who Boston Police May Have Targeted on Social Media – The Appeal
Elizabeth Weill-GreenbergJun 16, 2020
Massachusetts’s highest court will not block the disclosure of police reports that could show the Boston police department has targeted Black and Latinx men for surveillance on social media.
Boston attorney Josh Raisler Cohn, who represents a man charged with several gun violations, began seeking the police reports in November 2018 to determine if the police have surreptitiously used the social media service, Snapchat, to target people of color. In January 2019, Superior Court Judge Robert Ullmann ruled that the police department must provide Raisler Cohn with reports from Aug. 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018, for any case in which a charge was filed as a result of law enforcement surveillance of Snapchat accounts. Ullmann excluded sexual assault, murder, and human trafficking cases.
Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins appealed Ullmann’s order, but her office’s petition was denied. After an unsuccessful appeal to a single justice of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, the commonwealth appealed again to the full Supreme Judicial Court. “If allowed to stand, the discovery order will have a truly crippling effect on the investigation of serious criminality,” according to the petition filed in February by Rollins’s office.
Today, the full court denied Rollins’s petition. The DA’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The court’s decision could affect at least 20 cases in which defendants have sought similar records. Those requests were put on hold while lower courts waited for the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling, said Matt Spurlock, an appeals attorney for the state’s public defender system, the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
“It’s going to be the Boston Police Department’s responsibility to heed the order, to comply with the discovery order. That will be what happens next,” Spurlock said. “We will have to analyze the data and look at it and try to see if there was—who are they surveilling in this way? What is the racial composition of social media surveillance?”
Spurlock represented Raisler Cohn’s client, who is Black, before the Supreme Judicial Court. Their client was charged with several gun violations, including possessing firearms without a license. Before his arrest, a Boston police officer sent the man a friend request on Snapchat, which he accepted, according to court documents. The officer did not identify himself as law enforcement. Officers claimed to have seen eight Snapchat videos of Raisler Cohn’s client with what appeared to be firearms. He was arrested on Jan. 11, 2018. He was released, then allegedly posted another Snapchat video with a gun in May 2018 and was arrested again. His case is still pending. With the court’s decision today, the discovery process—including the police reports—can proceed, according to Spurlock.
Raisler Cohn conducted an informal survey of Suffolk County defense attorneys and identified at least 20 cases in which law enforcement surreptitiously used Snapchat to target people for surveillance. Eighty-five percent of those targeted were Black and 15 percent were Latinx. None were white. More data is needed, he argued, to determine if there is a pattern and practice of using Snapchat to target people of color.
Rollins took office last year, after running as a reformer who would work to increase transparency, address racial disparities, and reduce incarceration rates. The position her office is taking, advocates say, contradicts the spirit of her campaign, and the policy memo that she released in March 2019.
“We must also look back and consider relief for all persons who may have been charged and convicted at higher rates due to poverty, race, religion, sex, gender, or identity,” Rollins wrote in the memo. Data, she wrote, should be used to identify “investigatory and prosecutorial disparities, vigorously and honestly interrogate the reasons for them, and swiftly eliminate them
