Friday, December 30, 2016
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
THANKS FOR "LISTENING"
HOW ABOUT A "PEACE-PIPE"..OR, OR, WHATEVER...
ANYWHO, YOU HAVE A "GOOD ONE"
I MEAN KINDER GENTLER. YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYING...
Saturday, November 12, 2016
"GOOD" is not "dead"...
Well, I know how you feel.
But let's just give "PEACE" a chance.
However, a "funny" thing happen to me at the "center"
the DAY AFTER.
Everyone was talking and "emotional" and I just
"interjected" that I am still "PRAYING"...
and, dis "MACHO MAN" at the center, jumped in my face and
LOUDLY, said, "NOBODY IS LISTENING to you pray."
Dat's like, STOP FORGET IT...
It was a slap in the face, and, and,
THEN, HE FURTHERED...
"GOOD IS DEAD THAT'S WHY" (THE OTHER GUY IS IN)
if you know what or translate(the names)
BUT, LADY SAYS
"LET'S KEEP HOPE ALIVE"...
Friday, November 4, 2016
Are "U" waiting, and waiting ???
Okay, I know how "U" feel. But, but...
The Look of November, the autumn "LEAVES" so very beautiful
gives you to "BELIEVE"....
OR AT-LEAST "HOPE" FOR THE BEST RESULTS...
SO GO AHEAD AND "VOTE" YOUR HEART OUT...
AND "SEE" WHAT THE "NEW YEAR" WILL BRING...
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Pray, and pray...
It's "Sun" day the 23rd and,and,...
What can you do???
I say it is time to Pray.
You can eat, pray, and VOTE...
then pray,pray,pray...
Thursday, October 6, 2016
WHOES DAY IS THIS "ANYWHO"???
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THINGS,
"STAY THE SAME" in some cases, Anywho...
(note: Dat word is SAME, not SANE)
but however, whats TRUE IS TRUE....
and, and, and whats not is not...
Council rejects Indigenous Peoples' Day
Sharon Coolidge ,
scoolidge@enquirer.com 10:55 p.m. EDT October 5, 2016
(Photo: Sam Greene) Cincinnati City Council Wednesday rejected a proclamation that would have recognized Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day – a loss that shocked supporters of the idea. Five of council's nine members abstained from a vote on the proclamation, which was brought forward by Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, who is running against Mayor John Cranley in next year's mayoral race. As the votes were cast, Simpson sat stunned. The room was silent. Items fail all the time. But not like this, with five abstentions. At City Hall, council members vote "no" when they are against something. And they are generally happy to talk about why. "The work is not done," said Simpson after the vote. She added she was left with no choice but to think mayoral politics played a role in the defeat. "What else could it be?" she said. Cranley doesn't have a vote and he advanced the item to the council agenda. Earlier this week, he said he had no position on whether the proclamation should go forward. The rejection comes just ahead of Columbus Day, which is Monday. Voting for the proclamation: Simpson, P.G. Sittenfeld, Wendell Young and Chris Seelbach, all Democrats. Abstaining: Charlie Winburn and Amy Murray, both Republicans; David Mann, a Democrat; Independent Christopher Smitherman; and Kevin Flynn, who ran as a Charterite. They didn’t comment on why they declined to cast a vote, except Winburn, who said he didn’t know enough about it. Mann's vote was the biggest surprise, since he often votes with the Democratic majority. He declined to comment about why he abstained. Seelbach didn't comment on the council floor, but said afterward he was disappointed. "The Shawnee tribe once protected and lived off the land we now all call home," Seelbach said. "It's disappointing that a majority of City Council has no interest in recognizing and honoring their history. We've come so far on being an inclusive city. Refusing to recognize Native Americans sets us back." Indigenous Peoples' Day is not a new idea. The idea was first broached in 1977 at the United Nations' International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas. Since then there has been education about how Native American people suffered during American colonization – countering what many people learned about Christopher Columbus in grade school. In 1992 Berkeley, California City Council symbolically renamed Columbus Day for indigenous people. Other cities have followed suit. The most recent adopters include Denver, Colorado and Spokane, Washington. The city's Human Relation Commission has been working on the idea for more than a year. Native Americans make up less than 1 percent of the city's population, but Christina Brown, the CHRC's engagement coordinator, told Simpson's Human Services, Youth and Arts Committee Monday the "city should begin to be advocates for people who are forebearers of our land." Guy Jones, president of the Miami Valley Council for Native Americans, called the defeat "the prime example of why we need such a day." "There is a tremendous amount of ignorance and arrogance about our history," Jones said. "We have been in a struggle for over 500 years. Even today we're left out."
scoolidge@enquirer.com 10:55 p.m. EDT October 5, 2016
(Photo: Sam Greene) Cincinnati City Council Wednesday rejected a proclamation that would have recognized Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day – a loss that shocked supporters of the idea. Five of council's nine members abstained from a vote on the proclamation, which was brought forward by Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, who is running against Mayor John Cranley in next year's mayoral race. As the votes were cast, Simpson sat stunned. The room was silent. Items fail all the time. But not like this, with five abstentions. At City Hall, council members vote "no" when they are against something. And they are generally happy to talk about why. "The work is not done," said Simpson after the vote. She added she was left with no choice but to think mayoral politics played a role in the defeat. "What else could it be?" she said. Cranley doesn't have a vote and he advanced the item to the council agenda. Earlier this week, he said he had no position on whether the proclamation should go forward. The rejection comes just ahead of Columbus Day, which is Monday. Voting for the proclamation: Simpson, P.G. Sittenfeld, Wendell Young and Chris Seelbach, all Democrats. Abstaining: Charlie Winburn and Amy Murray, both Republicans; David Mann, a Democrat; Independent Christopher Smitherman; and Kevin Flynn, who ran as a Charterite. They didn’t comment on why they declined to cast a vote, except Winburn, who said he didn’t know enough about it. Mann's vote was the biggest surprise, since he often votes with the Democratic majority. He declined to comment about why he abstained. Seelbach didn't comment on the council floor, but said afterward he was disappointed. "The Shawnee tribe once protected and lived off the land we now all call home," Seelbach said. "It's disappointing that a majority of City Council has no interest in recognizing and honoring their history. We've come so far on being an inclusive city. Refusing to recognize Native Americans sets us back." Indigenous Peoples' Day is not a new idea. The idea was first broached in 1977 at the United Nations' International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas. Since then there has been education about how Native American people suffered during American colonization – countering what many people learned about Christopher Columbus in grade school. In 1992 Berkeley, California City Council symbolically renamed Columbus Day for indigenous people. Other cities have followed suit. The most recent adopters include Denver, Colorado and Spokane, Washington. The city's Human Relation Commission has been working on the idea for more than a year. Native Americans make up less than 1 percent of the city's population, but Christina Brown, the CHRC's engagement coordinator, told Simpson's Human Services, Youth and Arts Committee Monday the "city should begin to be advocates for people who are forebearers of our land." Guy Jones, president of the Miami Valley Council for Native Americans, called the defeat "the prime example of why we need such a day." "There is a tremendous amount of ignorance and arrogance about our history," Jones said. "We have been in a struggle for over 500 years. Even today we're left out."
Friday, September 30, 2016
Obama in Isreal...
Remember "Peace"...
Shimon Peres funeral: Leaders hail legacy of former Israeli leader
World leaders have hailed the vision
of the late Israeli leader, Shimon Peres, as he was laid to rest days
after his death at the age of 93.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as "a great man of the world", as he led the eulogies.US President Barack Obama said the presence of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the funeral was a reminder of the "unfinished business of peace".
Mr Abbas was among dozens of foreign dignitaries attending in Jerusalem.
Security was intensified ahead of the ceremony, with several people arrested.
Delivering an emotional address, Mr Netanyahu said that while Israel and the world grieved for Mr Peres there was hope in his legacy.
"Shimon lived a life of purpose," he told thousands gathered at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl cemetery.
"He soared to incredible heights. He swept so many with his vision and his hope. He was a great man of Israel.
"He was a great man of the world."
'One of the giants' Former US President Bill Clinton, who helped negotiate the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, said he was Israel's "biggest dreamer".
"He imagined all the things the rest of us could do. He started life as Israel's brightest student, became its best teacher and ended up its biggest dreamer.''
US President Barack Obama closed the eulogies, comparing Mr Peres to "some of the other giants of the 20th Century that I've had the honour to meet, like Nelson Mandela and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth".
Mr Peres, he said, believed in equality for Palestinians.
"Even in the face of terrorist attacks, even after repeated disappointments at the negotiation table, he insisted that as human beings Palestinians must be seen as equal in dignity to Jews and must therefore be equal in self determination."
Farewell to founding generation - by Kevin Connolly, BBC News On Mount Herzl where evergreen trees shaded the dusty walkways from the late-summer sunshine, an extraordinary congregation assembled to say goodbye to Shimon Peres.
You could have worked out that it was his funeral from the guest list alone - Prince Charles and Barack Obama, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. It's hard to imagine any other leader being mourned in quite the same way.
Israel said goodbye to the last of its founding generation and global diplomacy mourned a lost star, but the children of Shimon Peres grieved a father and spoke of him with elegance and simplicity.
And Mr Peres remained in command to the end, choosing his own funeral music. It was a setting of an old prayer he remembered his grandfather singing to him in the pre-war Poland of the 1920s.
Elegant and mournful, it played at the end of the old president's long journey, as it had played at the start.
Before the ceremony began, Mr Abbas was seen shaking hands and speaking briefly with Mr Netanyahu. The last substantial public meeting between the two leaders was in 2010, with peace efforts completely suspended since April 2014.
Hamas, the hardline Palestinian group that runs Gaza, condemned Mr Abbas's decision to attend the ceremony.
Jordan and Egypt - the only two Arab countries to have signed peace deals with Israel - both sent official representatives to the ceremony.
Mr Abbas, along with Mr Peres, was one of those who signed the Oslo peace accords in 1993, in the presence of Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.
Mr Peres, Mr Rabin and Mr Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East". All three have now died.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Destoring the environment is "SouPid"
Pope Francis says destroying the environment is a sin
Pontiff says humans are turning planet into ‘wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth’ in call for urgent action on climate change
Pope Francis
has called for urgent action to stop climate change and proposed that
caring for the environment be added to traditional Christian works of
mercy such as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick.
In a message to mark the Catholic church’s World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation that he launched last year, Francis said the worst impact of global warming was being felt by those who were least responsible for it – refugees and the poor.
The pontiff used the occasion to revive many of the powerful issues he highlighted a year ago in his provocative encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, and his latest message seems certain to rankle conservatives.
Francis described man’s destruction of the environment as a sin and accused mankind of turning the planet into a “polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth”.
“Global warming continues,” the pope said. “2015 was the warmest year on record, and 2016 will likely be warmer still. This is leading to ever more severe droughts, floods, fires and extreme weather events.
“Climate change is also contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis. The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact. ”
The pope said the faithful should use the Holy Year of Mercy throughout 2016 to ask forgiveness for sins committed against the environment and our “selfish” system motivated by “profit at any price”.
He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
“We must not be indifferent or resigned to the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, often caused by our irresponsible and selfish behaviour,” he said. “Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence … We have no such right.”
The pope asked people to reflect on a society that lacked concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature. He called for consumers to modify their modern lifestyle by reducing waste, planting trees, separating rubbish and making more use of car pooling.
“The resolve to live differently should affect our various contributions to shaping the culture and society in which we live,” he said.
Francis urged political and business leaders to stop thinking of short-term gains and work for the common good while taking steps to resolve the “ecological debt” between the global north and south.
“Repaying it would require treating the environments of poorer nations with care and providing the financial resources and technical assistance needed to help them deal with climate change and promote sustainable development,” he said.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s council for peace and justice, said: “The first step is to humbly acknowledge the harm we are doing to the Earth through pollution, the scandalous destruction of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity, and the spectre of climate change.
“And to realise that when we hurt the Earth, we also hurt the poor.”
The Ghanaian cardinal, who helped draft the original encyclical, has just been appointed to head a new Vatican dicastery that will be responsible for the environment, migration, justice and healthcare. He told a Vatican media conference it was possible to create change and arrest environmental destruction.
“We should not think that our efforts – even our small gestures – don’t matter,” he said. “Virtue, including ecological virtue, can be infectious.”
In a message to mark the Catholic church’s World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation that he launched last year, Francis said the worst impact of global warming was being felt by those who were least responsible for it – refugees and the poor.
The pontiff used the occasion to revive many of the powerful issues he highlighted a year ago in his provocative encyclical on the environment, Laudato si’, and his latest message seems certain to rankle conservatives.
Francis described man’s destruction of the environment as a sin and accused mankind of turning the planet into a “polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth”.
“Global warming continues,” the pope said. “2015 was the warmest year on record, and 2016 will likely be warmer still. This is leading to ever more severe droughts, floods, fires and extreme weather events.
“Climate change is also contributing to the heart-rending refugee crisis. The world’s poor, though least responsible for climate change, are most vulnerable and already suffering its impact. ”
The pope said the faithful should use the Holy Year of Mercy throughout 2016 to ask forgiveness for sins committed against the environment and our “selfish” system motivated by “profit at any price”.
He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
“We must not be indifferent or resigned to the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, often caused by our irresponsible and selfish behaviour,” he said. “Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence … We have no such right.”
The pope asked people to reflect on a society that lacked concern for social exclusion or the destruction of nature. He called for consumers to modify their modern lifestyle by reducing waste, planting trees, separating rubbish and making more use of car pooling.
“The resolve to live differently should affect our various contributions to shaping the culture and society in which we live,” he said.
Francis urged political and business leaders to stop thinking of short-term gains and work for the common good while taking steps to resolve the “ecological debt” between the global north and south.
“Repaying it would require treating the environments of poorer nations with care and providing the financial resources and technical assistance needed to help them deal with climate change and promote sustainable development,” he said.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Vatican’s council for peace and justice, said: “The first step is to humbly acknowledge the harm we are doing to the Earth through pollution, the scandalous destruction of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity, and the spectre of climate change.
“And to realise that when we hurt the Earth, we also hurt the poor.”
The Ghanaian cardinal, who helped draft the original encyclical, has just been appointed to head a new Vatican dicastery that will be responsible for the environment, migration, justice and healthcare. He told a Vatican media conference it was possible to create change and arrest environmental destruction.
“We should not think that our efforts – even our small gestures – don’t matter,” he said. “Virtue, including ecological virtue, can be infectious.”
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Georgetown to offer slave descendants preferential admission status
In an effort to acknowledge its ties to slavery, Georgetown University will offer the descendants of nearly 300 slaves preferential treatment in its admissions process.
In 1838, the school sold 272 slaves who were working on plantations in southern Maryland to pay down its debts.
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Last September, DeGioia created a 16-member Working Group of Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation consisting of students, staff and alumni to make recommendations on how the school can amend its historical ties to slavery.
To help find and connect with the descendents, The Group created The Georgetown Slavery Archive, which provides genealogical information and other materials about slavery at the university. It also has documents that show the names, ages and relationships of the 272 slaves sold in 1838.
Some descendents have reached out to the school and have provided additional information, according to Adam Rothman, a history professor at Georgetown who is also a member of the working group.
He said having such a detailed list of the sale has helped the school connect with descendents.
Along with the admissions treatment, the school will create a memorial to honor the 272 enslaved people and also rename two buildings that were named after the presidents who facilitated the 1838 sale.
DeGioia will make an announcement about the school's efforts at 4:00pm ET.
Related: Slavery and the national anthem: The surprising history behind Colin Kaepernick's protest
Georgetown has a complicated and steep history with slavery, Rothman explained.
"It was part of this broader Jesuit religious economy, which was connected by plantations manned by slaves in Maryland. It was a pretty complicated network Georgetown was part of."
Slavery ties are prevalent in many higher education institutions.
"Before the American Revolution, there were nine colleges established in the British Colonies, and all of them have direct ties to slavery and slave trade," said Craig Steven Wilder, a history professor at MIT.
He added that all of the Ivy League Schools, with the exception of Cornell, also have ties to the slave trade.
Other schools have also taken steps to rectify their past ties with slave labor.
In 2003, Brown University launched a three-year study of its relationship to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In response to the study's findings, the school created an on-campus Slavery Memorial that recognizes the schools link to the slave trade.
Having Georgetown acknowledge its history is important to the school's community, Rothman said.
"It's a diverse community, there are a lot of African American students, staff and faculty, and to have African Americans contributions to the history of the university recognized ... it's really important for bringing the whole university together."
Thursday, August 18, 2016
African-American Women Make Olympic History by Winning Gold in Swimming, Gymnastics & Shot Put
August 15, 2016
Meet American Olympian Anthony Ervin: The Oldest-Ever Individual Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist
Topics
Guests
Jesse Washingtonsenior writer for The Undefeated, covering the Olympics from Rio.
This is viewer supported news
DonateTRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN:
As we head to Brazil, the Olympics are continuing in Rio de Janeiro,
where Stanford swimmer Simone Manuel has made history, becoming the
first African-American female swimmer to win an Olympic medal in an
individual event. Manuel tied Canadian swimmer Penny Oleksiak in the
100-meter freestyle. Both women won gold medals and set a new Olympic
record. After winning, Simone Manuel said, quote, "It means a lot,
especially with what is going on in the world today, some of the issues
of police brutality. This win hopefully brings hope and change to some
of the issues that are going on. My color just comes with the
territory," she said.Simone Manuel’s win was only one of a number of historic Olympic events over the last week. Usain Bolt of Jamaica won the 100-meter dash in 9.81 seconds Sunday night, making him the only person to ever win the 100-meter race three times. He was Jamaican. American swimmer Michael Phelps scored his 23rd gold medal when the U.S. won the men’s four-by-100-meter medley relay. Phelps is now the most decorated Olympian in all history. African-American gymnast Simone Biles scored her third gold medal when she became the first American woman to win the Olympic vault individual. And tennis player Monica Puig won Puerto Rico’s first gold medal in Olympic history.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
WHAT "U" SEE IS WHAT "U" get...
The
Justice Department has found that the Baltimore Police Department for
years has hounded black residents who make up most of the city’s
population, systematically stopping, searching and arresting them, often
with little provocation or rationale.
In
a blistering report, coming more than a year after Baltimore erupted
into riots over the police-involved death of a 25-year-old black man,
Freddie Gray, the Justice Department is sharply critical of policies
that encouraged police officers to charge black residents with minor
crimes. A copy of the report was obtained by The New York Times.
The
critique is the latest example of the Obama administration’s aggressive
push for police reforms in cities where young African-American men have
died at the hands of law enforcement.
The
findings, to be released Wednesday, are the first formal step toward
the Justice Department’s reaching a settlement with Baltimore — known as
a “consent decree” — in which police practices would be overhauled
under the oversight of a federal judge. The department started the
inquiry at the invitation of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
To
show how officers disproportionately stopped black pedestrians, the
report cited the example of a black man in his mid-50s who was stopped
30 times in less than four years. None of the stops led to a citation or
criminal charge. Black residents, the report said, accounted for 95
percent of the 410 individuals stopped at least 10 times in the five and
a half years of data reviewed.
The
most pronounced racial disparities were in arrests for the most
discretionary offenses: For example, 91 percent of those arrested solely
for “failure to obey” or “trespassing” were African-American, even
though the city is 63 percent black, the report found.
In
one telling anecdote from the report, a shift commander provided
officers with boilerplate language on how to write up trespassing arrest
reports of people found near housing projects. The template contained
an automatic description of the arrestee: “A BLACK MALE.”
“The
supervisor’s template thus presumes that individuals arrested for
trespassing will be African-American,” the report stated, describing the
sort of detentions the language was intended to facilitate as “facially
unconstitutional.”
Continue reading the main story
The
report indicated that the frequency of arrests without probable cause
was reflected in the fact that booking supervisors and prosecutors had
declined to file charges, after arrests by their own officers, more than
11,000 times since 2010.
Two
weeks ago, Maryland prosecutors dropped charges against the last of six
officers charged in the April 2015 death of Mr. Gray, who sustained a
fatal spinal cord injury while in custody. With that, Baltimore joined a
growing list of cities where police-involved deaths sparked outrage,
and even riots, yet no one was held accountable in court.
While
no consent decree has been reached, the report states that the city and
the Justice Department have agreed in principle to identify “categories
of reforms the parties agree must be taken to remedy the violations of
the Constitution and federal law described in this report.”
Findings of the Justice Department Report
In its report, the Justice Department concluded that the
Baltimore Police Department “engaged in a pattern or practice of
conduct” that was unconstitutional or violated federal law, including:
- Making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests.
- Using enforcement strategies of stops, searches and arrests that unfairly target African-Americans.
- Using excessive force.
- Retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally-protected expression.
“I
don’t think at this point, it’s about justice for Freddie Gray
anymore,” said Ray Kelly, a director of the No Boundaries Coalition, a
West Baltimore group that provided its own report on police abuses to
the Justice Department. “Now it’s about justice for our community, for
our people.”
City Councilman Brandon Scott, vice
chairman of the council committee that oversees the department, said
the next fight could be over how to pay for the police overhaul.
Baltimore
is among nearly two dozen cities that the Obama administration has
investigated after they were accused of widespread unconstitutional
policing. Using its broad latitude to enforce civil rights laws, the
Justice Department has demanded wholesale change in how cities conduct
policing. In several cities, including Seattle; Cleveland; and Ferguson,
Mo., those investigations began in the aftermath of a high-profile
death that sparked protests and in some cases riots.
Police
chiefs, prosecutors and experts say the investigations have forced
cities to address longstanding, entrenched issues far beyond the
targeted cities.
“Chiefs
are constantly looking at these reports, not just to learn lessons and
best practices from each other, but also what pitfalls we can avoid,”
said Scott Thomson, the police chief in Camden, N.J., who is also the
president of the Police Executive Research Forum.
But
court-ordered reform can take years, which does little to ease the
frustration of activists who say that police officers too often go
unpunished for deadly encounters with unarmed people.
Document
The Justice Department’s Report
A Justice Department investigation into the practices of
the Baltimore police department found "reasonable cause to believe that
the BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the
Constitution or federal law."
Dayvon
Love, 29, a founder of the Baltimore advocacy group Leaders of a
Beautiful Struggle, said that changes would come only when civilians
have a say in whether officers should face punishment. Mr. Love
described frustrating meetings with Justice Department officials —
including Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch.
“I
was very skeptical and not really that enthused about meeting with
them,” Mr. Love said. At one point, he said, he asked Ms. Lynch what she
could do to change state law and give civilians more power over the
police. “She said what I figured she’d say, which is that from her
position as attorney general, she can’t really do anything about it.”
The
Supreme Court has given police officers wide latitude in how they can
use deadly force, which makes prosecuting them difficult, even in the
killing of unarmed people. For the Justice Department to charge an
officer with a federal crime, the bar is even higher. Prosecutors must
show that the officer willfully violated someone’s civil rights.
State and federal investigators cleared the officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson and those who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland. Federal prosecutors are still debating whether to bring charges in the death of Eric Garner on Staten Island. Local prosecutors did not.
In
Baltimore, black residents have been complaining for years of
systematic abuse by the department. When the city’s top prosecutor,
Marilyn Mosby, failed to get any convictions in Mr. Gray’s death, many
in the city’s poorest African-American neighborhoods were not surprised.
After
the 1991 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, Congress gave the
Justice Department the power to investigate police departments for
patterns of civil rights violations. The Obama administration has used
that authority more aggressively than any other. Prosecutors are
enforcing consent decrees on police departments in 14 cities.
Race/Related
Sign up here to join a deep and provocative exploration of race with a diverse group of New York Times journalists.
“We
tend to confront systemic problems only when forced to by seemingly
extraordinary events,” Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department’s top civil
rights prosecutor, said last year.
In
Seattle, the investigation followed an officer’s shooting of a Native
American woodcarver in 2010. The shooting was ruled unjustified, but
prosecutors said they could not meet the legal standard to file charges.
The federal authorities, however, found a pattern of excessive force
and ordered the Police Department to provide better training and
oversight. In recent years, the Justice Department has held Seattle up
as an example of how cities can best respond to scathing investigations.
In other cities, the changes are just beginning. After months of arguing and delay, officials in Ferguson accepted a settlement in March that will force the city to change its policies on when officers can use stun guns, shoot at cars and stop pedestrians. Officials in Cleveland agreed in May to follow strict new standards governing how and when its officers can use force.
The
report is sure to fuel a broader debate on aggressive policing
practices, as it blames much of Baltimore’s woes on so-called
“zero-tolerance” policies adopted in the late 1990s. They were aimed at
anyone on the streets whom officers viewed as suspect, making heavy use
of stop-and-frisk and other confrontation techniques.
But
the approach, the report found, “led to repeated violations of the
constitutional and statutory rights, further eroding the community’s
trust in the police.”
While
Baltimore officials have sought to curb the most extreme zero-tolerance
policies, the legacy of the strategy continues to vex the department.
One
example the report cited was a police sergeant who recently posted on
Facebook that the “solution to the murder rate is easy: flex cuffs and a
line at” the central booking office, made up of people arrested on
charges of loitering.
Correction: August 11, 2016
An article on Wednesday about a Justice Department report on the Baltimore Police Department misstated, in some editions, part of the name of the organization led by Scott Thompson, who commented on the report. It is the Police Executive Research Forum (not Foundation). The article also misstated the surname of the president of the research forum in some editions. He is Scott Thomson, not Thompson.
An article on Wednesday about a Justice Department report on the Baltimore Police Department misstated, in some editions, part of the name of the organization led by Scott Thompson, who commented on the report. It is the Police Executive Research Forum (not Foundation). The article also misstated the surname of the president of the research forum in some editions. He is Scott Thomson, not Thompson.
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