Inadequate PCR Testing for Bird Flu ‘Will Only [intentionally] Raise False Case Counts’ - like it did for COVID
/Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, told CNN’s Kasie Hunt the U.S. is making the “same mistakes” with bird flu that it made with COVID-19, which she said spread because there wasn’t enough testing for asymptomatic infection.
Birx is now calling for every cow to be tested for bird flu weekly and for regular pooled tests for dairy workers. She also said it’s likely that undetected cases are circulating in humans.
“We have the technology,” Birx said. “The great thing about America is we’re incredibly innovative and we have the ability to have these breakthroughs.”
The technology Birx referenced is polymerase chain reaction or PCR testing — the same diagnostic tool that came under fire during the COVID-19 pandemic for producing inaccurate results, including false positives.
peaking out on X (formerly Twitter), critics like Simon Goddek, Ph.D., pushed back, accusing Birx of “deliberately using the same strategy to fabricate another fake health emergency.”
On Wednesday, the day after Birx’s interview, JAMA published its own article advocating for more widespread bird flu testing.
“No animal or public health expert thinks that we are doing enough surveillance,” Keith Poulsen, DVM, Ph.D., director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told JAMA.
Andrew Pekosz, Ph.D., from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told JAMA that more testing should be conducted to find asymptomatic and mild infections. Workers at infected farms should be tested twice weekly, he said, and cows should be tested once a week.
Inventor: PCR test never intended for use as diagnostic tool
PCR testing works by starting with tiny fragments of DNA or RNA called nucleotides and replicating them until they become large enough to identify. The nucleotides are replicated in cycles, and each cycle doubles the amount of genetic material in the sample. The number of cycles required to create an identifiable sample is the “cycle threshold” (Ct).
PCR tests became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic because they were treated as the “gold standard” for identifying positive cases, especially among asymptomatic people.
However, as early as December 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that using a high-cycle threshold would lead to false-positive results. The agency encouraged healthcare providers to consider the test in concert with other factors — namely the presence of symptoms — when diagnosing patients.
The WHO also cautioned those using the tests to read the instructions carefully to determine whether the cycle threshold ought to be changed to account for any background noise that could lead to a high-cycle threshold being mistaken for a false positive.
“When specimens return a high Ct value,” the press release said, “it means that many cycles were required to detect virus. In some circumstances, the distinction between background noise and actual presence of the target virus is difficult to ascertain.”
Kary Mullis, who won the Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR test, said it was inappropriate to use the test as a diagnostic tool to detect a viral infection.
Even Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted during the pandemic that a high cycle — which was used often — detected only “dead nucleotides,” not a viral infection.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not immediately respond to The Defender’s inquiry about which cycle thresholds are used to test animals for bird flu.
Mass testing ‘will only serve to raise a false case count’
As of Tuesday, the latest circulating bird flu virus has reportedly infected 81 herds of dairy cattle in nine states and poultry farms in 48 states. The virus can be fatal for poultry but does not generally cause serious illness in cattle.
Bird flu is rare among humans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains it poses only a low risk to public health.
In the latest wave of bird flu, only three people in the U.S. have tested positive for the virus after close exposure to an infected cow. All three experienced mild symptoms — two experienced eye irritation and one also had a cough and sore throat. All recovered without incident.
The WHO reported Wednesday that a resident of Mexico died from a bird flu infection, but WHO officials also maintain the virus’ threat to the general population is low.
Bird flu cannot be transmitted among humans, but that hasn’t stopped health officials such as the WHO’s Chief Scientist Jeremy Farrar and U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf from publicly stoking fears that the virus could suddenly mutate, become more infectious and transmissible among humans, and cause a pandemic.
Mainstream media outlets like Scientific American warned that the bird flu isn’t a pandemic “yet,” but it could evolve to become one if people do things like continue to drink raw milk. And The New York Times warned yesterday that the virus “may not be done” adapting.
The CDC reported on Tuesday that it monitors genetic changes in the virus and “few genetic changes of public health concern have been identified.”
Nevertheless, the U.S. government is building up its national stockpile of existing vaccines produced by CSL Seqirus and is nearing contracts with Moderna and possibly Pfizer to fund the development of an mRNA vaccine for the virus.
On Tuesday, Finland announced it will begin offering the vaccine to selected groups of people. [MORE]
Puppetician Tedros: "It's Time to Be More Assertive in Countering Anti-Vaxxers"
/From [HERE] It appears that WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is feeling his oats, after key amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) *WERE PASSED* last week, despite his cherished Pandemic Treaty being tabled for the meantime.
As James Roguski reports, "The 77th World Health Assembly HAS adopted a substantial package of amendments to the International Health Regulations. We the People have suffered a stunning defeat...The recently adopted amendments will facilitate an enormous global build up of the Pharmaceutical Hospital Emergency Industrial Complex which seeks to trigger ongoing "pandemic emergencies" that will be made even worse by "relevant health products."
These amendments passed despite massive protests in Japan and two nations opting out of the IHR, altogether, Costa Rica and Slovakia.
Slovakia’s President Robert Fico has survived several gunshot wounds from an assassination attempt against him two weeks ago, due to his rejection of destructive Cabal policies, including the forced injections and war with Russia.
Denmark has adopted the amendments and 192 member states now have 18 months to decide to opt out. If they do nothing, the amendments will automatically take effect.
Tedros is seen in this video saying, "I believe it's time to be more assertive in countering anti-vaxxers. They have used COVID as an opportunity, and we see the chaos they're causing..."
One wonders what Tedros has in mind, in terms of being "More assertive in countering anti-vaxxers", being that he is a former official of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, a left-wing ethnic nationalist paramilitary group, which was classified as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government in May 2021.
'Comply, Go to Jail or Die Theater' [Your Consent is a Placebo]: Clown Cincinnati Cops Use Escalating Levels of Violence to Force a Black Man Into Obedience and Attack a Black Man Filming the Assault
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The Cincinnati Police Department is conducting an internal investigation after video of an officer attacking a Black man sitting at a bus stop, and another officer pointing a gun at the Black man recording, sparked backlash online, disrupting manufactured relations between masters and slaves in The Spectacle. [MORE] Check out the Black jackOfficer creeping around like a ‘Space Invaders’ monster.
Between 2014 - 2023 the St Louis Police Solved Fewer than Half the Homicides of Black People but Two-thirds of Cases Involving White victims. Detectives investigating Murders are Overwhelmingly White
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From [HERE] The unsolved killings on Shulte Avenue reflect reality in St. Louis. In a city where nearly 90% of homicide victims are Black, police have struggled to solve the killings of Black people.
Between 2014 and 2023, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department solved fewer than half the homicides of Black people but two-thirds of cases involving white victims, according to an analysis of police data by APM Reports, St. Louis Public Radio and The Marshall Project. The news organizations found that the department at times struggled to solve homicides in the past decade partly due to shoddy detective work, staffing shortages and eroding community trust.
St. Louis police officials declined repeated interview requests to discuss the findings.
Some Black community leaders have contended that police aren’t making the same effort to solve crimes involving Black victims as crimes involving white victims.
“These are communities that don’t trust the police,” said community activist Jamala Rogers, co-founder of the Organization for Black Struggle. “These are communities that have had bad relationships and experiences with the police.”
While nearly half of the city’s population is Black, the detectives tasked with investigating homicides overwhelmingly are white.
Families of homicide victims on Shulte Avenue echoed Rogers’ concerns. They said contact with police investigators was short-lived, and they have little hope of ever seeing justice for their loved ones.
“I knew in the beginning they wouldn't be doing anything,” Sherya Hawthorne said. Her son, Travis Hill, was shot and killed in an alley behind a Shulte Avenue home in 2017. Hawthorne said police never talked with her about her son’s death, and she felt there was no point in following up. “I never wanted to keep reliving and reliving and reliving it,” she said.
Hill’s killing is one of about 1,000 unsolved homicides involving Black victims between 2014 and 2023. That’s close to double the enrollment of the high school serving students living in the neighborhoods around Shulte Avenue. [MORE]
Fauci Maintains His Lies that Tricked People Into Getting Experimental "Vaccines:" Tells Congress Shots are Safe Despite Millions Dead/Injured and "Effective," though they Don’t Prevent or Stop COVID
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From [HERE] During a contentious hearing today before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccines, which he credited with saving millions of lives.
Fauci also largely defended the government’s pandemic policies and said vaccine mandates saved “many, many, many lives.”
He said the unvaccinated are “probably responsible for an additional 200,000-300,000 deaths” in the U.S. but conceded “that the first iteration of the vaccines did have an effect — not 100%, not a high effect.”
However, he admitted that clinical studies did not conclusively support mask mandates and that no such studies were performed on children, despite the imposition of school mask mandates.
When asked about how long lockdowns and mask mandates were enforced, he said it is “debatable” whether the duration of those measures was appropriate or excessive.
Fauci’s oral testimony today largely mirrored the written testimony he provided in advance of the hearing — and the transcript of his two-day closed-door interview in January with members of the House.
The subcommittee released the transcripts of the two-day interview on Friday.
In one heated moment today, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested the subcommittee should issue a criminal referral against Fauci.
“We should be recommending you to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity,” she said, accusing Fauci of “muzzling” school-aged children as a result of mask mandates and also accusing him and his “cronies” of being funded by Big Pharma.
Fauci “does not deserve to have a license,” Greene said.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and other Democrat lawmakers frequently apologized to Fauci for the attacks levied against him and thanked him for his service during his 38-year tenure as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers addressed revelations by Open The Books, published Sunday in The New York Post, that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the parent agency of NIAID, received more than $710 million in royalties between 2022 and 2023, with NIAID receiving over $690 million of these payments.
Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com, told The Defender “every royalty payment, tens of thousands of them, represent a potential conflict of interest,” noting that NIH will not disclose specifics about the payments.
Andrzejewski said:
“It makes some intuitive sense that NIAID and the National Cancer Institute are top royalty receivers historically. Those subagencies are responsible for vaccines and treatments for infectious diseases and sought-after cancer-fighting inventions, respectively.
“What is remarkable is the abrupt growth year over year, timed to the pandemic outbreak.”
During the hearing, Fauci denied benefiting financially from the royalties but could not explain which scientists received the money or for which purposes.
Fauci also denied that NIAID funded controversial gain-of-function research through EcoHealth Alliance at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and that U.S. taxpayer money was used to genetically engineer SARS-CoV-2 — claims he also made during January’s interview.
Leaked messages released last year suggested Fauci was aware of the gain-of-function research and pressured key virologists to suppress research indicating that COVID-19 originated as a result of a lab leak while supporting research favoring a “zoonotic” — or natural origin — of the virus.
In his testimony today, Fauci denied those allegations.
During his opening remarks, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chair of the subcommittee, thanked Fauci for his years of service to science and public health but was critical of Fauci’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We should have been more precise,” Wenstrup said. “We should have used words and phrases that are accurate and not misleading. We should have been honest, especially about things we did not know.”
“Policy decisions should be made based on data, but some were not,” he added. As a result, Americans who questioned “oppressive mandates” were “bullied” while “any dissent … was immediately labeled ‘anti-science.’”
“Dr. Fauci, you oversaw one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the U.S. has ever seen,” Wenstrup said.
“Whether intentional or not, you became so powerful that any disagreements the public had with you were forbidden and censored on social and most legacy media time and time again. That is why so many Americans became so angry — because this was fundamentally un-American,” Wenstrup added.
During his closing remarks, Wenstrup suggested, “It’s important that we don’t do things like mandates.”
‘Fauci perjured himself’
Experts who spoke with The Defender questioned Fauci’s claims.
Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., a frequent critic of gain-of-function research, told The Defender:
“Fauci perjured himself in three U.S. Senate hearings in 2021-2022, in which he denied — knowingly, willfully, and brazenly untruthfully — that NIH funded gain-of-function research and enhanced potential pandemic pathogens research in Wuhan.
“Fauci perjured himself again in his transcribed interview with the U.S. House Select Subcommittee, in which he lied about the coverage of the policies, lied about his violations of the policies, and lied about his perjury before the Senate.”
Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “Fauci has already lied and perjured himself before Congress. He should have been prosecuted already. You cannot believe one word he is saying.”
Boyle, a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, said Fauci “knew about the Chinese lab leak all along and covered it up right from the very get-go around September of 2019.”
Fauci “has lied about it ever since then and about everything related to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines in order to cover up his own criminality,” Boyle said.
Fauci: Social distancing rules ‘sort of just appeared’
The transcripts of Fauci’s House interview in January revealed admissions that many COVID-19 restrictions were not based on science.
Responding to a question about the 6-foot social distancing rule instituted in many public spaces, including schools, Fauci said “It sort of just appeared,” adding that he “was not aware of studies — that, in fact, that would be a very difficult study to do.”
Similarly, Fauci admitted “there are a lot of conflicting studies” regarding mask efficacy. When asked if he recalled reviewing any studies supporting masking for children in particular, Fauci said he “might have” but didn’t “recall specifically.”
Mark Crispin Miller, Ph.D., an author and professor of media studies at New York University whose research and teaching focus on propaganda and who came under fire in 2020 for asking his students to review both sides of the mask debate, told The Defender:
“Once upon a time — before early 2020 — Dr. Fauci told the truth about the uselessness of masking as a barrier to respiratory viruses and told it publicly on “60 Minutes,” only to reverse himself days later and for the first few years of the ‘pandemic.’
“And now, after several years of flogging that ‘Big Lie,’ he’s contradicting it again, or half-contradicting it, with near-admissions that ‘the science’ does not back the use of masks against ‘the virus.’”
Fauci adamantly defended vaccine mandates during today’s hearing. However, he admitted in his January testimony that the mandates may have increased vaccine hesitancy. He said:
“I think one of the things that we really need to do after the fact, now, to — you know, after-the-game, after-the-event evaluation of things that need to be done, we really need to take a look at the psyche of the country, have maybe some social-type studies to figure out, does the mandating of vaccines in the way the country’s mental framework is right now, does that actually cause more people to not want to get vaccinated, or not? I don’t know. But I think that’s something we need to know.”
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Fauci also acknowledged that the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origins is not a conspiracy theory, a statement he repeated during today’s interview.
“I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities,” Fauci said today.
The New York Times featured a guest essay today by Alina Chan, Ph.D., a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19,” stating that “a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.”
Both during the January interview and today’s testimony, Fauci adamantly denied that NIAID funded gain-of-function research or studies that manipulated viruses to make them more infectious in humans, perhaps leading to the COVID-19 outbreak.
In today’s testimony, Fauci also distanced himself from former aide David Morens, who allegedly boasted in emails about his ability to evade public records requests and his intention to delete any potential “smoking guns” for potential Freedom of Information Act requests.
“That was wrong and inappropriate and violated policy … he should not have done that,” Fauci said, denying knowledge of Morens’ alleged actions.
Miller said “the only thing we know for sure” about Fauci’s claims “is that we can’t believe a word of them, and that we heeded them at our enormous peril.”
FULL OF SHIT: White Liberal Prosecutor Drops Murder Charges against White MN Trooper who Shot Ricky Cobb. Takes the Word of the Cop Despite Video Showing Him Shoot Fleeing Black Man as He Drove Away
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From [HERE] A white Minnesota trooper who fatally shot a Black man during a routine traffic stop last July has had the charges against him dismissed.
Ryan Londregan, the white state trooper accused of killing Ricky Cobb II, 33, had faced charges of second-degree unintentional murder, first-degree assault and second-degree manslaughter.
In a statement Sunday night, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced that the charges against Londregan would be thrown out. The dismissal comes after the defense said Londregan would testify that he saw Cobb "reach for the trooper's firearm," and that a Minnesota State Patrol trainer said "he never instructed officers to refrain from shooting into a moving vehicle."
As a result of this new “evidence,” prosecutors claimed they could no longer prove beyond a reasonable doubt "that Mr. Londregan's actions were not an authorized use of force by a peace officer," and decided to drop the case.
Moriarty expressed regret that she would not be able to bring the case to trial at a press conference Monday morning.
"Ricky Cobb should be alive today," she said. "And that makes our inability to move forward even more difficult for Mr. Cobb's family and for our community. And for that, I'm deeply sorry."
Civil rights attorneys Bakari Sellers, Harry Daniels and F. Clayton Tyler, who are representing the Cobb family, criticized the county attorney's office, saying they had "bowed to political pressure to drop the charges."
"Apparently, all you have to do to get away with murder is to bully the prosecutors enough and the charges will just go away," the attorneys said in a statement. "The people don't believe the excuses and neither do we."
Cobb was pulled over on July 31, 2023, around 1:50 a.m. -- initially because his taillights were out, but upon being stopped, troopers learned he was wanted for violating a protective order in a nearby county and were asked to take him into custody, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
Bodycam footage shows two troopers talking to Cobb while they stood outside the car. The troopers attempted to detain Cobb, but he allegedly refused to exit the car and tried to drive away. One of the troopers appeared to try to grab the steering wheel to stop him, but he drove away, the body camera video shows. A trooper, since identified as Londregan, shot multiple times at Cobb, who drove a short distance before striking a median and dying at the scene, authorities said.
The video clearly shows that the Black was driving away from police, not toward them and in no way did they face imminent fear of harm from the Black man’s actions. Video evidence would potentially impeach the white cop’s claim that Cobb reached for his gun - as he drove away. But a jury won’t have an opportunity to decide as a result of the prosecutor’s failure to prosecute.
Hennepin County is a liberal jurisdiction controlled by elite white liberals.
Cobb's family filed a federal lawsuit in April against Londregan -- as well as Minnesota State Trooper Brett Seide, who was also involved in the traffic stop but was not charged in this case -- accusing them of "unreasonable seizure" and "excessive use of force."
According to the complaint:
Defendant Seide told Trooper Doe and Defendant Londregan that Ramsey County wanted Decedent Cobb arrested and brought to jail.
After a short discussion between the troopers, Defendant Seide approached the driver’s side of Decedent Cobb’s vehicle while Defendant Londregan approached the passenger side, and Trooper Doe positioned himself behind Defendant Seide near the rear of the vehicle.
At this point, Decedent Cobb’s vehicle was in park with its doors locked and both front windows rolled down.
Defendant Seide told Decedent Cobb that he needed to step out of the vehicle because they had “some stuff to talk about [having to do with] Ramsey County” and Decedent Cobb responded by asking why he was being required to leave his vehicle.
Defendant Seide repeated that they had “stuff to talk about” and that Decedent Cobb needed to step out of the vehicle, but did not divulge a reason for ordering Decedent Cobb out of the vehicle.
Decedent Cobb asked Defendant Seide if there was a warrant for his arrest and Defendant Seide acknowledged that Decedent Cobb was not subject to a warrant for his arrest, but indicated that he would “explain it all when you get out of the car.”
Defendant Seide thereafter asked Decedent Cobb to hand over his keys while Decedent Cobb repeated, “Why? Why?” and asked, “Can y’all keep it a buck with me, bro? Y’all pulled me over for my headlights.”
Defendant Seide then responded, “Yep. We’re way past that[,]” before telling Decedent Cobb to step out of the vehicle three more times.
Decedent Cobb asked “Where are we at though?”, and said “When you say, step out of the vehicle [and] you gonna – explain it to me,’ and then y’all say . . . ,” before Defendant Seide interjected and stated for the first time, “This is now a lawful arrest.”
Throughout the one-minute exchange, Decedent Cobb’s hands were in the air in full view of the troopers, including Defendant Seide and Defendant Londregan, as he gestured while talking and his vehicle remained in park.
Decedent Cobb’s hands were not touching the steering wheel or gear shifter, and he had not stepped on the brake.
Just as Defendant Seide told Decedent Cobb that he was under arrest, Defendant Londregan moved his hand into the inside of the passenger door, unlocked the vehicle’s doors, and began opening the passenger-side door.
While Defendant Londregan was opening the door, Decedent Cobb placed his foot on the brake and moved his hand to the transmission shift and, when Defendant Londregan pulled the passenger door fully open, Decedent Cobb shifted the vehicle into drive and took his foot off the brake.
At this point, Defendant Seide grabbed the driver’s side door handle and began opening the door while Decedent Cobb’s vehicle began to slowly move several feet forward.
Both Defendant Seide and Defendant Londregan, who were fully outside of the vehicle, took steps forward to remain at the vehicle’s side as Defendant Seide opened the driver’s side door wider.
Defendant Seide then leaned his torso inside the vehicle and began to reach over Decedent Cobb toward his seatbelt, while Defendant Londregan remained on the passenger side and reached for his firearm.
At that moment, Decedent Cobb stepped on the brake, stopping the vehicle’s forward movement and Defendant Londregan drew his firearm and pointed it directly at Decedent Cobb.
At the same time, Defendant Seide continued to lean his torso inside the vehicle over Decedent Cobb while Decedent Cobb kept his foot on the brake.
Defendant Londregan then opened the door to the car, leaned his torso inside the car, pointed his gun at Decedent Cobb’s body, and loudly and aggressively yelled, “Get out of the car now!”
As Defendant Londregan said the word “car”, Defendant Seide physically grabbed at Decedent Cobb and Decedent Cobb took his foot off the brake causing the vehicle to begin slowly moving forward.
Within several tenths of a second after Defendant Londregan yelled the word “now,” Defendant Londregan fired his handgun twice at Decedent Cobb’s torso, striking Decedent Cobb both times.
After Decedent Cobb was shot, his vehicle increased its acceleration forward as Defendant Seide’s torso remained inside the vehicle.
Defendant Seide, who acknowledged that by shooting Decedent Cobb, Defendant Londregan did not prevent Decedent Cobb’s vehicle from moving forward and did not prevent Decedent Cobb’s vehicle from dragging him briefly until he fell out of the vehicle onto the road.
BCA agents also attended an interview with the State Patrol’s lead use-of-force trainer, who provided use-of-force training to Defendant Seide and Defendant Londregan.
The trainer was asked whether a reasonable officer would believe that pointing a gun at a fleeing driver and yelling at the driver to stop would cause the driver to stop, to which the trainer responded “No.”
The trainer was further asked, “Would it be foreseeable to expect the exact opposite, meaning [the driver] would continue to leave?”, to which the trainer responded, “That was probably his intention was to flee the area, so he’s go[ing to] keep going in that direction away from me.”
In a press conference Monday, Londregan's attorney, Christopher Madel, called Moriarty’s claim that her team did not have prior knowledge of the trooper's allegation that he had shot Cobb while trying to protect himself and his partner “absurd." Madel also called for Moriarty's resignation over remarks she made comparing Londregan's supporters with "Jan. 6" rioters.
"I do take great offense to that," Madel said. "These are people that supported a hero that was charged with murder. When did that become wrong?"
Liberal Prosecutors Drop Murder Charge Against White Columbus Cop Who Shot Casey Goodson 6X in the Back as He Walked into His Home Holding Keys and a Bag of Subway Sandwiches. Still Faces 2 Charges
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From [HERE] Prosecutors are dropping one of three charges against a white deputy before he goes to trial for a second time over a Black man’s death in 2020.
Jason Meade, who took disability retirement from the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office in 2021, was facing two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide. A previous trial against him tasked a jury with determining whether or not he was justified in shooting 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. because he genuinely feared for his life.
However, a court filing on Friday showed that special prosecutors H. Tim Merkle, Gary Shroyer and Joshua Shaw are not going to pursue the same charges they did in a first trial against the ex-deputy, which ended with a deadlocked jury. The trio entered nolle prosequi for the first charge of murder, meaning they will no longer pursue it in court. Meade will instead face a single count of murder alongside the reckless homicide charge.
The government did not state why they made the request and Merkle said Monday that prosecutors would have no further comment on the motion.
Casey had just left an appointment at the dentist’s office and was bringing lunch back to his grandmother’s house when Jason Meade shot him six times from behind, killing him. Meade’s lawyer says the deputy fired when Goodson pointed a gun at him. Goodson’s family has said he was holding a sandwich, not a gun.
The complaint states in relevant part,
“a group of officers tasked to the U.S. Marshals were in the neighborhood to arrest someone that was not Casey and was in no way affiliated with Casey. Jason Meade was working with the task force as a member of their Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team (SOFAST) and as a member of their District Fugitive Task Force (DTF). The U.S. Marshals were heavily armed, and Jason Meade was not in uniform and was carrying a rifle.
The SOFAST and DTF did not find their target, however the target’s sister did encounter Meade when he and his colleagues raided her home. As she stated in a Facebook post, “#JasonMeade was already on bullshit before he left my house. Knowing I wasn’t dressed busted in my room knowing I was naked and we had a brief argument as he felt I had ‘plenty of time’ to get dressed. They were aware my brother was AT WORK. Truth be told, they shouldn’t have been on this street PERIOD. It was as simple as communicating with the parties involved.” The sister also later described Meade as a ticking time bomb who was extremely angry and aggressive when inside of her home.
The mission of SOFAST and DTF ended without apprehending their target, and the members of the team began to disperse.
Around this time, Casey had finished his appointment at the dentist. After leaving, Casey went to Subway to buy sandwiches for his family.
As Casey was returning home from Subway, upon information and belief, Jason Meade saw Casey and followed Casey back to his home.
Upon information and belief, Casey arrived home, parked, and exited his vehicle. He grabbed the bag of subway sandwiches, and began walking toward the side of the house to enter through the side door.
Casey was not committing any crime, was not suspected of committing any crime and did not present any threat to Meade or anyone else. He was simply attempting to enter his own home.
Jason Meade—armed with a rifle— targeted and hunted Casey, following him as Casey proceeded towards his house.
Casey proceeded to enter the side door of the house. The side door of the house is comprised of an exterior door with a metal-screen, and a wooden interior door with a lock. Casey opened the exterior door and used his keys to unlock the wooden door. As Casey unlocked the wooden door, Jason Meade opened fire. Casey was entering through the door when Jason Meade shot him to death.
Meade fired six bullets into Casey’s body with his rifle. Two bullets pierced Casey’s back, ripping through his body, bullet’s trajectory exiting through his chest, next to his heart.
Another bullet pierced Casey’s back, about six inches from where the first and second bullet pierced his body, exiting directly left to his chest.
Meade fired another bullet into Casey’s left-lower-back. Unlike Jason Meade’s first, second, and third bullet, the fourth bullet did not rip through Casey’s body. Instead, it blew a chunk of flesh off of Casey’s body.
Meade fired another bullet into Casey’s lower-right-back, ripped through Casey’s body up to Casey’s chest.
A sixth bullet entered Casey’s right buttock and remained lodged directly above his hip bone. At least three of the bullets flew through the metal screen, shattering the glass contained within the door.
Wound mapping provided Bauer Forensics demonstrates that Meade shot Casey all six times while Casey was facing away from him, entering his home.
Nine members of Casey’s family were in the house at that time but did not know that Meade was nearby. They did not hear any alleged orders or commands from Meade.
When Casey’s family heard gunshots and the glass in the metal screen door shattering, they ran toward the door to see what was happening. There, Casey’s family members observed Casey lying on the kitchen floor, bleeding to death.
While still in the house, an officer pointed his rifle at Tamala’s brother, who was holding his three-year old daughter and commanded them to “get out of the house before [he] shoots them too.”
Casey’s grandmother suffered a stroke that night, which caused her to fall and injure her head in her own home—the same place where Jason Meade shot her grandson in the back six times.
This shooting was unjustified, objectively unreasonable, and constituted excessive force, in violation of Casey’s constitutional rights.
Meade’s first trial ended in a mistrial in February when a jury couldn’t agree on a verdict, ending tumultuous proceedings that saw four jurors dismissed. His retrial is scheduled to start Oct. 31.
It wasn’t known Monday when a decision would be made on the dismissal request.
Meade testified that Goodson waved a gun at him as the two drove past each other so he pursued Goodson because he said he feared for his life and the lives of others. He said he eventually shot Goodson because the young man turned toward him with a gun.
Goodson’s family and prosecutors have said he was holding a sandwich bag in one hand and his keys in the other when he was fatally shot. They do not dispute that Goodson may have been carrying a gun and note that he had a license to carry a firearm. Although the Supreme Court has made it plain and ruled that individuals have the right to carry firearms on their person in public- in reality said rights only exist for white citizens are inapplicable to Black people. Here, note that the white journalist is impressed with just the fact that the Black man had a gun in his possession - not that he did anything with it dangerous - such as point it someone or shoot someone
Meade was not wearing a body camera so there is no footage of the shooting, and prosecutors repeatedly asserted during the first trial that Meade is the only person who testified Goodson was holding a gun.
Can there be a Domestic Dispute if You're Home Alone? FLA Cop who Murdered Black Air Force Airman Still Not Charged. Roger Fortson's Palm was Up and His Gun was Down @ His Side when White Cop Shot Him
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KNOCK KNOCK NGHR: JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE SAYS “POLICE” AT YOUR DOOR, DOESN’T MEAN POLICE ARE AT YOUR DOOR. RACISTS AND AUTHORITarians and their media PRETEND not to understand this.
From [HERE] The mother of a Black Air Force airman who was shot and killed by a Florida sheriff's deputy last month said at a press conference Monday morning that she wants the deputy criminally charged.
Eddie Duran, the Okaloosa Sheriff’s Office deputy who shot Senior Airman Roger Fortson on May 3, was terminated from the department on Friday, according to a sheriff’s office statement obtained by ABC News.
“I want justice for my child. You're not going to throw me a bone [by firing him]. Take his credentials. Take his pension,” Chantemekki Fortson, Roger Fortson’s mother, said Monday in Atlanta, Georgia. “Bring up charges against him.”
Fortson, 23, was in his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, when he was shot by Duran, who was responding to a call reporting a domestic disturbance, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.
In body camera footage released by the sheriff's office, Fortson is seen holding a gun in his right hand with a gun down at his side as he opens the door, who can be heard announcing twice that he's with the sheriff's office. The footage also shows Fortson had his left hand up, palm showing, gesturing that he meant no harm towards the deputy when he opened the door.
Duran shot Fortson within mini-seconds of the door opening. Fortson died of his injuries
Duran said he saw Fortson armed with a gun and that Fortson took a step toward the deputy and had a look of aggression in his eyes, according to an interview Duran conducted with the sheriff’s office during their subsequent investigation.
“I put so many pictures of my baby on social media,” Chantemekki Fortson said. “He would never put aggression in his eyes if he wanted to. Roger was helping to raise his 16-year-old brother.”
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Fortson family, said at Monday's press conference that the deputy went to the wrong apartment.
He [Roger Fortson] was in the apartment by himself with his dog, Chloe, video-chatting with his girlfriend,” Crump said. “There was no domestic dispute. ...”
Fortson's girlfriend, who asked not to be identified due to fears for her safety, spoke last month to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV, telling the station the couple was having a conversation about weekend plans when the shooting occurred.
Former deputy Duran was placed on administrative leave following the shooting while it was investigated. "Hearing sounds of a disturbance, he reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun,” according to a sheriff’s office statement released on May 9. "[This was] after the deputy had identified himself as law enforcement."
“This tragic incident should have never occurred,” Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said in a statement on Friday, announcing that Duran had been fired. “The objective facts do not support the use of deadly force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson’s actions. Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime. By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual.”
The Florida state attorney's office did not respond to ABC News’ most recent request for a statement, but in a previous statement said they would wait for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to finish their investigation before deciding on whether to file charges. That investigation is ongoing, according to Friday's sheriff's office statement.
“Our role is to investigate the deputy’s use of force and we will submit our investigative findings to the local state attorney’s office,” FDLE previously told ABC News in a statement. “Each investigation is thorough and unique and there is not a definitive timeline for completion. Our investigation remains active until the prosecutorial review and their findings are completed.”
Terrence Howard: 'COVID Shots Cause Death and Disease. I Can’t Understand How Black People Can Trust the Government to Take COVID Shots, It's Been using Biowarfare Against Citizens for a Long Time'
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As a general rule, coin-operated showcase Blacks are very obedient and never do or say anything to contradict or challenge the prevailing views of their elite, white masters who control them through reward and punishment. However, Mr. Howard appears to have totally lost his mind - the mind given to us from birth by the vested interests. Congrats! The complete Joe Rogan Show with Terrence Howard is below.
Dr Umar: 'CoinOperated MassaBators who Tried to Destroy Kyrie Irving Failed. SNiggers Charles Barkley and Stephen A Smith, Vaginal McNegro Michael Wilbon and Halfrocentric SNAG Broussard are Traitors'
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FUCK ALL SNIGGERS
According to FUNKTIONARY:
blackstabbers – flunkey buck-dancing and sniggering Negroes who multiply their trinkets by carrying out division amongst their own people. Blackstabbers typically come in the form of “trusted” friends who work as spies and agent provocateurs for the FBI. Blackstabbers were bountiful during the FBI’s COINTELPROgram. FBI’s domestic spying budget has increased and so have the bucket-mouth Negro flunkeys and Snigger operatives. The names and dirty deeds of Blackstabbers and their families will be enshrined, dishonored and disgraced (posthumously and currently) in the soon-to-be erected African-American Hall of Shame. The website will have pictures, linking evidence and biographies. Sing!! “They smile in your face—plotting to turn on their race—the blackstabbers.” With credits and apologies to the good O’Jays. (See: Sniggers, Coin-Operated, Sambo, Black Flask Brigade, UNCLE TOM & Piece-Activist)
auto-coon – (noun) a cookie-cutter rapper/entertainer that sells his/her community and dignity out to profit from ignorance. Auto-coons are typically produced in great numbers by major recording labels and corporate media. (Verb) –to fall back on the gimmicks, buffoonery, and swagger-jacking to sell records due to lack of intelligence, real talent, and creativity.
$nigger – a sold-out snitching-smiling Sambo-Negro. 2) a South-Bender offender. $niggers smile for nothing except an empty mind while selling-out their own kind. They typically have an intellectual base yet are devoid of intelligence, thus promoting the on-going smiling face. They also often giggle and have a frivolous conception of society and scant knowledge of the vestiges of the trans-Atlantic slave trade that even brought their sorry-ass selves to shore. $niggers are traitors and pawns of the downpressors. Watch the company you keep! $niggers like famed Civil Rights era photographer Ernest Withers, an FBI informant, who “shot” (photographed) Dr. Martin Luther King before providing the FBI with critical details about where King was staying and information on his meeting with black militants on April 3, 1968—the day before they (FBI government operatives, informants, Memphis police, and/or their unsuspecting patsy) shot him dead in Memphis. Withers provided the information that “no one but the perpetrator could have known” conclusive evidence that the government was behind and the “front” for the assassination. Don’t cross-over unless you are ready to bend-over! $niggers get stitches—and word is bond(age). We need a “$nigger Hall of Shame” established for traitors to freedom, self-determination, and justice and then include the informant who will run and snitch to the master downpressors even about this initiative as well. Never forget, every brother ain’t a brother—some of them are paid undercover. “Whoever thought that hip-hop would be down and in bed with the feds? Hoover Music!” ~Public Enemy. He ain’t heavy—he’s a $nigger! (See: Straw Boss, Sambo, Black Flask Brigade, FBI, FOIA, Coin-Operated, SNAGs, Infiltraitor, Hoover Music, Snitchcraft & Criss-Crossover)
SNAGs – $nitch-ass Negroes Aiding Governments. 2) COINTEL-BROs. 3) Smile Negro And Grin—while I put it in. SNAGs are coin-operated piece-activist sniggering infiltraitors from the native Black American community. SNAGs are on the stroll, exacting Black life as the toll, while klandestinely on the rogue “government” payroll. Dumb-ditty dumb where the hell do these sorry-ass sellout Negroes come from? When you see them, go and give them some—or at least a piece of your mind. It’s easy to heckle and hyde, but why do we seem to always let self-hating sucker-perpetrating Negroes electric slide? SNAGs are Negroes who run from the fabric, the very essence of their Afrikan heritage struggle, culture and consciousness, and run to support the psychopathological dominant minority elite European global racist-supremacist mindset and Agenda along with its narcissistic projections and population control objectives (genocide and eugenics). [MORE]
Halfrocentric – a brother who is Afrocentric in fashion and rhetoric but not in action and consciousness. He reads, and can even quote, Ellison’s “Invisible Man” but will show up at a Republican $1,000 plate benefit for the already well-to-do.
Bark & Clap Politricks: At Rally Biden (a grimacing corpse) Hands Out Pillows and Mattresses to Sleeping Toms who Make Believe Boilerplate Liberalism Addresses Problems Plaguing Black Communities
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The great rebel Dr. Amos Wilson stated specifically in regard to Black people, ‘People who are dominated by another people through ideas cannot possibly have any meaningful political philosophy, real leaders or any non-superficial culture. The only philosphy or theory such a dominated people could have would be one that enables the other group to dominate them.’
According to ABC, in Philadelphia Corpse Biden and Quisling Harris launched their Black sleeping tom outreach and warned of a second Trump term but otherwise offered nothing of tangible value to the votary.
Black people, once envied and imitated by people seeking freedom throughout the world are now demobilized and have no effective political organizations, no real leaders and “black politics” is literally void of any actual substance. In their relations with Democrats Black voters function like trained seals or dogs that “bark and clap” at election time and then shut-up afterwards. Norman Kelly called this phenomenon “bark and clap politics.” [MORE]
Dumbocrats in turn have no messaging or organizing aimed at black people. Norman Kelly explained Democrats essentially offer no substantial policy initiatives that benefit African-Americans and “No real agenda drives politics beyond having the Democratic candidate show up.” ‘Democrats don’t stand for anything in regard to Blacks (except for their right to vote for democrats); black people are voting against republicans but not for Democrats.’ Similarly, Robert Smith observed ‘that what is striking about any so-called ‘black agenda’ from Democrats is that its not really black. That is, relatively few items are race specific.’ Kelley further explained, ‘Democrats offer only boilerplate liberalism and no legislative initiative. And why would they need one? Democrats know they will suffer no sanctions from disgruntled and politically emasculated blacks.’
Here, Dems push so-called ‘climate change,’ on demand aborticide, genderplex confusion, free distribution of experimental “vaccines” and their Donald Trump obsession onto Black people as if this ad-hoc collection of issues will address the myriad of problems plaguing Black communities caused by the system of racism white supremacy and government authority. Elite whites and their McNegro probots are quick to remind anyone that “Black voters are not a monolith, and their attitudes differ based on upbringing, geography and other factors.” Such an overstatement purposefully misses the point. No group of people is a monolith; obviously individuals are not the group. But black people are not white people – and white liberals are not subjected to the system of racism white supremacy. And white liberals’ menu of political concerns and grievances have little to do with the realities of daily life that Black people face. [MORE]
Led by white liberals black people remain in a state of checkmate. According to the Urban League’s 2022 State of Black America, Black people haven’t progressed since 1965. Blacks are about three-fifths along the way to experiencing equal status with White Americans. The Black-White disparity persists across virtually every line or indicator of life and quality of life in the United States. Black people occupy the bottom of nearly every statistical category of life. [MORE] US Census data reveals that the unemployment gap between whites and blacks is virtually unchanged over the last 50 years. The income and wealth gaps have actually widened. So has the gap in educational attainment. The jobless rate among African-Americans has remained double to whites for over 5 decades. Among other things, according a to a NY Times analysis the race gap in higher education has also widened. The median Black household income was $43,862 versus $63,823 for Whites. Blacks still trail Whites in homeownership, the traditional path to wealth building in the country, and their homes were valued less than Whites. [MORE] Norman Kelley observed that despite Black people’s heavy involvement in the Democratic Party, schools have remained as segregated as before Brown v. Board of Education, which was decided over 70 years ago. [MORE] According to NSBA nearly one third of Black students lived in poverty (32%), compared with 10% of white students in families living in poverty. While white liberals indulge and captivate Blacks with fantasy talk about reparations, 80% of African-American fourth-graders can barely read and understand mathematics and only 19% were scored proficient in math. [MORE] According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) just 18% of Black eighth-graders reach reading “proficiency.” [MORE] And in 2015 NAEP found that only 17% of Black 12th graders were proficient at reading. [MORE] In 2017, Ballou High School in DC came under intense scrutiny for pushing failing students through to graduation in order to achieve a 100% graduation and college acceptance rate. Teachers stated that many of their 12th graders couldn’t read and write. In 2017-18, only 7% of public school teachers and 11% of public school principals were Black. [MORE] In regard to housing, although Blacks make up only 13 percent of the general population they account for 37% of all homeless people and account for more than 50% of homeless families with children. [MORE] Similarly, Black renters comprise 18.6% of America's renter population, yet they make up 51.1 % of those affected by an eviction filing and 43.4% of those evicted nationally. Is it MAGA republicans or wealthy white liberals evicting Blacks and forcing them into the streets of Chicago, LA, NYC, Philadelphia and Washington D.C? Additionally, Black people disproportionately comprise 40% of the 1.8 million incarcerated people in the US. Although dumbocrats give lip service to decarceration and criminal justice reforms, is it MAGA republicans or elite liberal authorities cramming Black people into jails in NYC, Milwaukee, Chicago, Columbus, Minnesota, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Oakland, Atlanta, Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, New Orleans and elsewhere? Who maintains the jails in reprehensible conditions in LA, DC, Atlanta and NYC? Similarly, dumbocrats like corpse Biden often make campaign promises about police accountability - yet the police departments in numerous cities historically controlled by white liberal politics such as NYC, LA, Cleveland, Oakland, San Francisco, St. Louis, Wash DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Detroit are some of the worst violators and have hosted some of the most horrific episodes of police brutality. Black people’s so-called “rights” are tuned on and off like light switches in said jurisdictions where police surveil, stop, detain and search law abiding Black people’s clothing, their cars and generally interfere with their freedom of movement as they attempt to go about their daily lives. In such liberal places cops have mauled, injured and put thousands of Black people into greater confinement and also murdered hundreds of other Black and Brown people with impunity. [MORE]
14TH AND U STREET NW WASHINGTON DC 2022. PHOTO IS THE PROPERTY OF VINCENT BROWN
According to FUNKTIONARY:
Political power is the instantiation and active application of threat, duress and coercion upon a people in a given geographical (arbitrary) boundary. “All political power whether gained by conquest or consent, is coercive. Any public authority that is entrusted with the general prerogative of coercion is essentially and therefore eventually totalitarian. Contract—consent to mutual service and not unilateral domination—therefore is the only alternative to coercion.” ~ Spencer Heath. I am simply exposing the doctrines of limits that are infecting our world (and have been for aeons). Rather than playing by the enemies (of freedom) rules, we’ll play on the side of reality. Our advantage is that truth is unprovable, while reality needs no proof. Teach the nature of reality, not truth. Practice the Golden Rule over the Iron Rule and watch Society enter into a new dawn of economic prosperity and human possibility where freedom, creativity and love forever reign supreme. (See: THC, Authority, STATE, Constitution, Golden Rule, Iron Rule, Force Continuum, Truth, Law, Symbiocracy, Contract, Tyranny, Voting, Elections, Dictatorship, Coercion, Fascism, Service, Kingdom of Heaven, Freedom, Slavery, Taxtortion, Property & Labor)
POLITICS – Power Over Living Individuals Taxing Incessantly Confiscating Systematically. (See: Government)
Sleeping Tom – a person of Afrikan descent who has not consciously awakened to fully embrace his or her own asili (connective cultural tissue, heritage, imprimatur, and imperative). 2) a socially unconscious person of Afrikan descent who participates in secret balloting (voting). A sleepin’ Tom lives and reacts out of another culture’s asili or out of the mind of another; not their own. 3) a Negro who is unaware that he is all souled-out. 4) a Negro who isn’t aware that he is in fact and in deed a certified Sambo. 5) a broken, token Negro; a coin-operative. (See: Straw Boss, Asili, Doublemindedness, Sambo, Uncle Tom-Tom, Coin-Operated, Black Flask Brigade & Secret Ballots)
Alabama Authoritarians Murder White Man (Jamie Mills) Despite Clear Evidence that Prosecutors Falsified Case Against Him - Supreme Court Denied Review, Allowing his Execution
/From [HERE] In 2005, Jamie Mills and two other suspects—his wife, JoAnn Mills, and a known local drug dealer, Benjie Howe—were arrested and charged with capital murder in the deaths of Floyd and Vera Hill. Benjie Howe was in possession of one victim’s medicine and a large amount of cash when he was arrested. Jamie and JoAnn Mills were arrested after physical evidence from the crime, including the murder weapons, was found in the trunk of their car.
JoAnn Mills told police in two different statements that she suspected Benjie Howe had planted the weapons in their car and that Mr. Howe had brought stolen items to their home in the past. Her statements were corroborated by police accounts that, in the weeks preceding the murder, officers saw Mr. Howe frequenting the Mills’s home where the murder weapons were found and evidence that the trunk of the Mills’s car had no lock and could easily be opened.
It was only after police threatened JoAnn Mills’s children and falsely claimed that DNA evidence on the murder weapons matched Jamie Mills that she gave a third statement implicating Jamie. Other than the evidence found in the unlocked trunk, JoAnn’s third statement was the only evidence connecting Mr. Mills to the crime.
The State’s Key Witness
The State’s case against Jamie depended on the jury believing that JoAnn—who had been charged with capital murder and was facing the death penalty or life without parole if convicted at her own trial—was credible when she testified against Jamie consistent with her third statement.
Accordingly, at the outset of JoAnn’s testimony, the district attorney affirmatively elicited that she had not been offered a plea deal in exchange for her testimony:
District Attorney: And are you doing this of your own free will?
JoAnn Mills: Yes, sir.
District Attorney: Have there been any deals or offers or anything like that made to you?
JoAnn Mills: No, sir.
On cross, JoAnn insisted that she was “up here admitting to capital murder without any hope of help from the district attorney’s office.”
Mr. Mills’s defense counsel also questioned the district attorney “on the record” about the existence of a plea offer or any inducement. The district attorney responded:
Prosecutor: There is not.
Defense: Not a promise, not a maybe, not a nudge, not a wink, because we think it stretches the bounds of credibility that her lawyer would let her testify as she did without such an Inducement.
Prosecutor: There is none.
Defense: None?
Prosecutor: Have not made her any promises, nothing.
Defense: Have you suggested that a promise might be made after she testifies truthfully?
Prosecutor: No.
Defense: No inducement whatsoever?
Prosecutor: No.
In closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury the case came down to Jamie’s word against JoAnn’s, and urged the jury to believe JoAnn because she was not promised anything in exchange for her testimony.
The jury convicted Mr. Mills of capital murder and he was sentenced to death. Ten days later, the State dismissed the capital murder charges against JoAnn Mills. She pleaded to a lesser offense and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
New Evidence of Prosecutorial Misconduct
Mr. Mills’s counsel filed a motion for a new trial after learning that the State dismissed capital murder charges against JoAnn Mills, arguing this evidence established that JoAnn did have a deal in exchange for her testimony. The motion was denied without a hearing.
Over the course of the last 17 years, Mr. Mills has asked the State to reveal evidence of its deal with JoAnn Mills on 15 separate occasions, and each time, the State has denied the existence of any such deal.
But newly discovered evidence establishes that the State’s representations at trial and throughout the appeal and postconviction proceedings were false.
JoAnn Mills’s lawyer, Tony Glenn, submitted a sworn affidavit and supporting evidence showing that he met with the district attorney and the victims’ family to obtain a deal that would spare her the death penalty in exchange for her testimony against Jamie Mills. “According to Glenn,” Eleventh Circuit Judge Nancy G. Abudu wrote, “before Mills’ trial, the victims’ daughter agreed not to oppose the State offering JoAnn a plea deal, and the district attorney agreed to not pursue the death penalty against JoAnn—so long as she ‘testified truthfully’ at Mills’ trial.”
This new evidence from JoAnn Mills’s attorney establishes that the State falsely told the jury, trial judge, defense counsel, and every state and federal court that JoAnn Mills had nothing to gain from testifying against Mr. Mills.
Based on this new evidence, Mr. Mills filed a motion in federal court on April 5, 2024, requesting that the court reopen his appeal.
The State continues to deny the existence of a deal and urged the federal court to dismiss Mr. Mills’s motion and allow the State to move forward with his execution without reviewing this critical issue, and with no consequences for the State’s misconduct.
The federal district court denied relief, and Mr. Mills asked the federal appeals court to stay his execution and review his claims. On May 28, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal and denied Mr. Mills a stay of execution, ruling that the evidence he presented was not sufficient to reopen his case for further review.
Judge Abudu disagreed with the other two judges. In a separate opinion stressing the importance of reliability in death penalty cases and underscoring that prosecutors are forbidden from suppressing favorable evidence and are obligated to correct false testimony, she wrote that Mr. Mills met the threshold requirement to obtain review of his claims. The factual issues raised by the new evidence “should be resolved by the district court after an evidentiary hearing,” she wrote.
Mr. Mills appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied review on Thursday afternoon.
Serious Questions Remain
When new evidence raises serious questions about whether a person has been wrongly convicted and illegally sentenced to death, courts have a responsibility to evaluate the evidence and give the legal arguments full consideration. Failing to do so undermines our system of justice.
More than half of wrongful convictions can be traced to witnesses who lied in court or made false accusations. False testimony by jailhouse informants is especially common in death penalty cases.
The consequences of prosecutors’ failure to disclose prosecutorial misconduct like the misconduct that took place in Mr. Mills’s case are striking. Since 1988, data from the National Registry of Exonerations shows that 987 people were wrongly convicted because of official misconduct by prosecutors, including perjury or false reports by police and other witnesses. The exonerees in these cases spent an average of 12 years each in prison.
The consequences of misconduct in death penalty cases can be irrevocable. Alabama sentences more people to die than any other state and has one of the highest execution rates per capita in the country. With 73 executions and nine exonerations since 1976, Alabama has a shocking rate of error: for every eight people executed, one has been exonerated.
In this case, new evidence raised significant questions about the reliability of Jamie Mills’s conviction and death sentence, including as Judge Abudu wrote, “why JoAnn’s attorney would sign an affidavit against his client’s interests that could jeopardize his own legal career” if it were not true?
The State never denied that there was a pretrial meeting with the victim’s family, which begs the question—how could it be true that JoAnn had absolutely no reason to hope for a deal from the district attorney if she provided the critical testimony the State needed? Why would she get on the stand and confess to capital murder without a deal? And if there was no prior agreement, how can the fact that the capital charges against her were dropped—and she not only avoided the death penalty but received a parole-eligible sentence—a mere 10 days after Jamie Mills was sentenced to death be explained?
As Judge Abudu found, the failure to provide process in a death penalty case where Jamie Mills has maintained his innocence—despite a affidavit from an officer of the court attesting under oath that a plea deal did exist—creates a “risk of injustice” and “risk of undermining the public’s confidence in the judicial process.”
Risk of Unnecessary Torture
Mr. Mills filed a separate lawsuit alleging that the State of Alabama has subjected condemned prisoners to unnecessarily prolonged torture on the execution gurney without access to counsel or the courts in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
In the last two years, Alabama prison officials have kept condemned men strapped down to a gurney for hours, even while a stay of execution is in place, without access to legal help to challenge or even document the State’s actions, done in secret behind closed doors.
The district court denied Mr. Mills’s challenge on May 21 and, on May 28, the Eleventh Circuit refused to review his claims, even though as Judge Abudu wrote in a separate opinion, Alabama’s “troubling” pattern of delay during executions means that:
Mills has a valid fear that he will be unnecessarily placed on the execution gurney if a stay is in place, while the IV team is not attempting to establish IV access, or while officials transport witnesses to the viewing area, without being given any updates from officials on the status of his cases or the ongoing execution protocol.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Mr. Mills’s petition for review Thursday afternoon.
Could a Black Man Pose Imminent Danger to a White Cop while Running Away from Him on the Other Side of a Fence? $20M Suit Filed after San Bernadino Cop Hunted/Murdered Robert Brown After Profile Stop
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From [HERE] and [HERE] The city of San Bernardino is facing a $20 million wrongful death claim following a deadly police shooting in December.
On Dec. 27, 28-year-old Robert Brown was pulled over for an alleged expired registration. According to the San Bernardino police, Brown ran from the vehicle and hopped a fence while holding a handgun. An officer then fired several shots, fatally striking him.
Brown’s family says the shooting was an overreaction, and alleges that he was pulled over due to racial profiling.
“He didn’t deserve to die like that,” Brown’s father, Willie Brown, said. “He ran, so what? They shoot him in his back? For a traffic infraction? And to say he had a gun?”
“There was no reason for Robert to be shot,” said attorney Brad Gage, who filed a claim on behalf of Brown’s family. “When Robert was shot, he had no gun.”
Regardless of whether Brown had a weapon, Gage said, the officer opened fire as the suspect was fleeing and posing no danger to him.
The officer violated department policy by engaging in the pursuit and not relaying his location to dispatch during the chase, the attorney said.
Gage also questioned the officer’s decision to shoot through the fence.
“He doesn’t know what’s behind there, and that’s something that endangers everyone in the community,” he said.
In released body cam footage, Brown can be seen holding an object in his right hand as he runs away, which the police department claims is a gun. Police said a nine-millimeter handgun, which had been reported stolen from out of state, was found at the scene.
In a news release, police included video stills of the officer’s body-worn camera, circling Brown’s hands in red to indicate that he was carrying a gun.
But the family’s attorney, Brad Gage, questioned the police’s version of events. Brown’s family maintains in the claim that San Bernardino police “appear to have planted a gun in an attempt to claim the shooting was justified as self defense.” “A stolen gun could come from anywhere. That could be in the police locker,” Gage said.
Body-camera video released by Brown’s family shows the officer chasing him for a short distance. Brown runs past the gate of a home and into a backyard, then jumps over a fence, using both hands to pull himself over.
“As such it was evident he was not holding any gun,” the claim reads.
Tubbs yells out, “Stop, stop!” as Brown jumps over the tall chain-link fence, lined with wood panels, the video shows.
The officer doesn’t jump over, instead shooting his gun five times through the fence, fatally wounding Brown.
The claim against San Bernardino alleges civil rights violations and seeks $20 million in damages. If it’s denied by the city, it could set the stage for a lawsuit.
4th Circuit Gives Partial Victory to Army Lieutenant Niggerized by Cops @ Gas Station: 'Its Unconstitutional to Detain a Compliant Person @ Prolonged Gunpoint when he's no danger to the public or cops
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‘PPRECIATE’ YOUR SERVICE NGHR [military uniforms don’t necessarily protect against abuse of authority by law enforcement.]. From [HERE] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit court delivered a ruling on Friday that provided a partial judgment in favor of the Black and Latino Army lieutenant, Caron Nazario, who had been pepper-sprayed and handcuffed during a traffic stop by two Virginia police officers.
Nazario claimed the two police officers violated his Constitutional rights when they pepper-sprayed, handcuffed him on the ground, and threatened him. A trial court rejected Nazario’s arguments relating to excessive force, unreasonable seizure, and rights deprivation finding that the officers had probable cause because Nazario failed to comply with law enforcement. The majority predominately supported the lower court’s decision. However, it overturned the court’s granting of qualified immunity to police officer Joe Gutierrez regarding a Fourth Amendment claim for an unreasonable seizure.
“The Fourth Amendment, which is grounded in reasonableness, can be transgressed by an unwarranted threat of deadly force,” U.S. Circuit Judge Robert King wrote. “Although we may not have heretofore adopted the principle — we are satisfied that it can be unconstitutional to hold a person at prolonged gunpoint when he is compliant and presents no danger to the public or law enforcement officers”
Video footage from a December 2020 interaction showcasing an encounter between Lt. Caron Nazario and police officers that attracted attention. The officers stated that Nazario’s vehicle had been missing a rear license plate. In the lawsuit, Nazario states that the car had been purchased recently and held a temporary tag. In the video, two officers were seen pointing handguns at the uniformed lieutenant. An officer then attempts to open the car door while Nazario uses his elbow to secure it closed. The Fourth Circuit majority considered Nazario’s refusal to exit the car a disobedient act toward law enforcement.
“The orders to Nazario to step out of the vehicle were lawful because the Policemen had probable cause to stop Nazario’s vehicle for failure to clearly display a license plate,” the opinion wrote.
A jury awarded a settlement last year, resulting in a $2,685 award to Nazario in compensatory damages. The situation highlights concerns among Black drivers about police mistreatment during traffic stops.
New Study that Analyzed 98 Million US Traffic Stops Concluded that Police Stop Black Drivers and then Search Their Cars at 2 Times the Rate of Whites
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From [HERE] A new study by researchers from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research has found that Black drivers are more frequently searched during traffic stops without finding contraband compared to white drivers. The findings, published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, highlight a pervasive bias in policing across multiple states and counties.
Analyzing 98 Million Traffic Stops Across the U.S.
Maggie Meyer, a doctoral candidate in psychology, and Richard Gonzalez, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at ISR and professor of psychology, analyzed data from 98 million traffic stops using the Stanford Open Policing Project database. They examined traffic stops in 14 state police departments and 11 local law enforcement departments between 1999 and 2017.
The researchers found that innocent Black drivers were likely to be searched about 3.4 to 4.5 percent of the time, while innocent white drivers were likely to be searched about 1.9 to 2.7 percent of the time.
“We show that there’s this pervasive bias in multiple states and multiple counties across different stop and search reasons that we need to understand,” said Meyer. “We’re not the first people to find racial bias in policing and we won’t be the last, but hopefully, this gives a clear place to intervene.”
Developing the Overlapping Condition Test to Account for Missing Data
To account for the unknown information about whether drivers who weren’t searched held contraband, the researchers developed the Overlapping Condition Test. This test is based on a standard descriptive tool in statistics called a 2×2 table, which allows researchers to jointly evaluate a decision and an outcome using hit rates and false alarm rates.
The researchers explored the possible values of the missing information and found that even without knowing the actual values, the bias was still present.
“It’s analogous to presidential elections with the electoral college. An election can be called because one candidate already has enough electoral votes to win, even though all of us haven’t been counted,” Gonzalez said. “Even if those uncounted votes went for the other candidate, one candidate has already got it in the bag.”
MI Trooper Charged w/Murdering Samuel Sterling. White Cop Intentionally Drove Onto Sidewalk and Violently Struck Fleeing Black Man w/a Minivan, Crushing Him. Then Handcuffed Him as He Laid Dying
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From [HERE] A white Michigan State Police detective has been charged with murder after investigators say he fatally struck a fleeing Black man with an unmarked SUV last month near Grand Rapids, state prosecutors announced.
Detective Sgt. Brian Keely on April 17 tried to arrest the suspect, 25-year-old Samuel Sterling, but Sterling fled and was chased by law enforcement officers by vehicle and on foot, according to the Michigan Department of the Attorney General.
As Sterling was running through a fast food restaurant parking lot in the suburb of Kentwood, the detective – driving an unmarked SUV – turned and struck Sterling with the vehicle, prosecutors said.
After the charges against Keely were announced, Sterling family attorney Ven Johnson said, “We applaud and appreciate Attorney General Dana Nessel for doing the right thing based on the overwhelming evidence that Keely broke the law when he ran over Samuel Sterling.”
Keely’s attorney, Marc Curtis, said in a release, “It is unfortunate that in this time of political correctness, Michigan’s Attorney General has chosen to ignore the facts of this incident and rely on political pressure.”
Video Speaks for Itself
On May 10, state police announced the investigation was complete and all evidence had been turned over to the attorney general’s office. That same day, the agency released an edited compilation of body-worn and dashboard camera footage of the incident.
The footage shows at least one officer chasing Sterling on foot into a Burger King parking lot when a large grey SUV veers into the lot and hits Sterling, appearing to pin him against the restaurant wall.
After the SUV reverses away from him, several officers converge on Sterling and order him to put his hands behind his back. Sterling repeatedly screams, “My back,” and groans in pain. After his hands are cuffed in front of him, Sterling continues to complain that his back and entire body hurt.
“Don’t move man,” an officer says. Officers ask him where he feels pain and repeatedly tell him not to move until emergency medical personnel arrive. Another officer says, “We don’t want you to move your back.”
Sterling’s family was “stunned and appalled” when they watched the footage, their attorney said in a statement to CNN affiliate WWMT.
“No one person should be able to appoint themselves as judge, jury and executioner, yet deaths from police brutality and excessive force continue to occur too often. We will continue to seek justice for his family and hold accountable those responsible for his death,” Johnson said.
At the time of the encounter, law enforcement officers representing multiple departments, including the US Marshals Service, “were working a fugitive arrest operation” in an attempt to arrest Sterling, who “was wanted on multiple warrants,” Grady said in April. Authorities did not reveal the nature of the charges.
Keely will be arraigned in Kentwood district court, though the date has not been set.
