Message to the American Sociological Review: White people, whether they are citizens or non-citizens are not being systematically mistreated by the criminal justice system

White supremacy is carried out through deception and the promotion of confusion is major tool of racists. [MORE] Here, white sociologists attempt to confuse by using the terms "citizenship" and race when analyzing sentencing decisions in federal courts. This is deception - all the non-citizens referenced in the study are non-white! White people, whether they are citizens or non-citizens are not being mistreated by the criminal justice system. Non-white people no matter how they have been classified by white people are victimized by the so-called criminal justice system, everyday. Don't believe it? Go to your local or federal court and observe the arraignments, trials and sentencing hearings for yourself. As with all things concerning non-white persons the following should be considered in the context of white supremacy/racism

From [HERE] Citizenship status is the most significant factor affecting U.S. federal court sentencing decisions, finds a study published in the American Sociological Review. “Compared to U.S. citizens, noncitizen offenders are over four timesmore likely to be incarcerated, and this effect is larger than the effects for race, ethnicity, gender, age, education, being convicted at trial, and any of the offense types,” write Michael T. Light, Michael Massoglia, and Ryan D. King. Noncitizens are also likely to be incarcerated for longer periods of time than citizens, with undocumented immigrants receiving the harshest penalties. The study, which has received media attention, is based on 2008 sentencing data and controls for other factors relevant to sentencing outcomes.

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Racist Suspect Wisconsin DA Brad Schimel Allegedly Made Racist Statements on Video: Judge Stays Release of Video before Election

From [HERE] The Wisconsin Department of Justice appealed an order Friday to release two videos alleged to contain racist and sexist comments made by the Republican candidate for state attorney general.     

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess had one day earlier ordered the release of the videos, which are being sought by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, but issued a temporary stay so that the state could appeal.     

The judge will hold a hearing Monday to determine whether to continue to delay disclosure of the videos.     

Democrats claim that the videos show Brad Schimel, a white Republican district attorney running for attorney general this year, making "offensive racial remarks and ethnic slurs, including but not limited to stereotyped accents, as well as sexist remarks" during a statewide prosecutors education conference. Last month, Schimel said he would have defended a ban on interracial marriage had he been attorney general in the 1950s. [MORE]

Schimel is currently the District Attorney for Waukesha County, which is 96% white. According to a recent report, The last Marquette University Law School poll released just six days before the election shows Republican Brad Schimel slightly ahead of Democrat Susan Happ in the race for Wisconsin attorney general.

Wisconsin had the second highest rate of Black incarceration in the country, fueled by Milwaukee statistics. The rate was more than ten times the rate for whites.

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Will Racism Therapy Help Arizona sheriff Deal with his Fear of a Non-white Planet or his Color Desire? Federal judge orders Arpaio to undergo racial profiling training

From [HERE] A judge for the US District Court for the District of Arizona on Tuesday ordered Maricopa Country sheriff Joe Arpaio to undergo the same training as his deputies to assist in the prevention of racial profiling and unlawful detention in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) as part of the ongoing case against Arpaio for racial profiling. Recently, Arpaio made a statement that he would have no problem conducting an immigration sweep akin to the police action performed in the town of Guadalupe in 2008, which was later deemed unconstitutional by a federal court. The judge stated Arpaio's comments undermined the MCSO's efforts to comply with heightened standards against racial profiling and in Tuesday's hearing the judge criticized [AZ Central report] the MCSO's internal investigation into office misconduct. [MORE] Losing his job was never an issue. White supremacy is carried out through various pretenses. 

According to Dr. Welsing, white people are primarily motivated to practice racism to survive due to their numerical inadequacy and color desire/deficiency. That is, they are vastly outnumbered by non-whites and their numbers are shrinking. White people are genetic recessive and can therefore be genetically annihilated through assimilation with non-whites. They also have an intense color desire and many dislike their appearance, causing great anxiety and fear. She says "perhaps some psychiatrist will develop a method of mass psychotherapy (i.e„ therapeutic counter-racist theater) to help whites become comfortable with their color and their numbers." [MORE] Maybe this would help Arpaio? 

According to Anon, there are different types of white people. What kind of white man is Arpaio?

There are whites who:

  • are practicing racism against non-whites at a particular moment
  • are not practicing racism at that moment but have practiced it at a previous time, or will practice it at a later time
  • are not practicing racism at that moment, but say and do nothing to stop those who are
  • are not practicing racism at that moment, but have no problem with other whites practicing racism (don’t care)
  • are benefiting from the crime of racism even if they are not practicing racism at that moment
  • refuse to tell WHO is practicing racism; HOW racism is being practiced; and refuse to help the victims with the information they have
  • oppose racism by exposing and opposing whites who practice it [MORE

US: New world order is endless wars against non-whites

Press TV

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has called the new world order an era with endless wars saying America should prepare for this epoch.

“We are seeing a new world order — post-World War II, post-Soviet Union implosion — being built,” Hagel said in Ekaterina, Blinova on Thursday.

He said certain issues are currently posing serious threats to the United States and that the US would have to continue to deal with these issues in the “foreseeable future”.

"Tyranny, terrorism” and other threats are “going to be with us," he said, adding, "I see these things continuing to stay out of there."

He described the US as the global leader which will "continue to grapple with overseas threat for the foreseeable future".

Hagel also said US-led campaign against the ISIL terrorist group in the Middle East is “a steady, long-term effort. It's going to require coalitions of common interest.”

Since late September, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

Israel enacts more nazi like restrictions - bars Palestinians under 50 from entering Al-Aqsa mosque

Aljazeera

Tension remained high in Jerusalem on Friday as Israeli authorities imposed strict restrictions on Palestinians seeking to enter the Al-Aqsa mosque, preventing men under age 50 from coming into the compound, local media reported. 

No restrictions were in place for female worshippers, according to an Israeli police statement issued Thursday night. It added that nearly 3,000 policemen and border guard soldiers would be deployed across Jerusalem on Friday. Israel had closed Al-Aqsa compound Thursday following clashes that broke out after the shooting of a right-wing Jewish activist at a rally in Jerusalem the previous evening. Yehuda Glick, who survived the attack, was a proponent of strengthening Israeli control over the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque, where some Jewish activists hope to eventually rebuild the Second Temple.

Mindful of the potential for conflict at Islam's third-holiest site provoking a cataclysmic confrontation, Israeli authorities have sought to maintain a delicate status quo at Al-Aqsa since occupying East Jerusalem in the war of 1967. Right-wing Jewish groups have been agitating ever more vocally against their government's restrictions on their access to the area — Glick was attacked at a conference of Israeli groups pressing to change the rules on what Israel calls the Temple Mount. For his part, Palestinian Authority President  Mahmoud Abbas called Al-Aqsa a “red line” and branded Israel's closure of access on Thursday an “act of war.” Al-Aqsa had provided the spark that ignited the last major Palestinian uprising — the second intifada — which began in August of 2000 with protests triggered by a controversial show of force on the Temple Mount by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon, who later became prime minister.

On Thursday after Glick's shooting, Israeli forces shot and killed Mutaz Hijazi, a Palestinian man suspected in the assassination attempt. In response, various Palestinian factions called for a “Day of Rage” on Friday.

Wrongfully Convicted African-Americans Wait Longer To Be Exonerated Than Others: Study

HP

It took 18 years for DNA evidence to surface that cleared Derrick Williams of a rape and attempted kidnapping in Florida. Prosecutors had relied on the testimony of the victim, who identified Williams as her attacker in 1992. But he walked free at age 48 in 2011 because his DNA didn't match that left on a gray T-shirt by the actual perpetrator.

The truth might have surfaced sooner if Williams were white or Latino instead of African-American.

There's no way to know for sure, of course, but data about wrongful convictions show that blacks who are exonerated after a bogus conviction have served 12.68 years on average before the good news, according to Pamela Perez, professor of biostatistics at Loma Linda University. It takes just 9.4 years for whites and 7.87 for Latinos.

"Black Americans are exonerated at a substantially slower rate than any other race," said a new report from Perez, shown exclusively to The Huffington Post.

There's enough of a pattern that the differences between racial groups cannot be called random, Perez said. But there isn't enough information to explain what caused the differences.

"All we can do is infer," Perez told HuffPost. "You can't prove a darn thing."

She discovered the different timespans by examining 1,450 exonerations listed on the National Registry of Exonerations through Oct. 20, 2014. Perez conducted the research for Safer-America.com, a consumer research group.

Safer-America translated the data into a map showing exoneration information across the U.S.

White Nurse defies Governor/police Ebola quarantine with bike ride [could a black woman do this?]

From [HERE] A white nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone but has tested negative for the virus went for a bike ride on Thursday, defying Maine's order that she be quarantined in her home and setting up a legal collision with Governor Paul LePage.

Attorneys for Kaci Hickox, 33, said they had not yet been served with a court order to enforce the 21-day quarantine - matching the virus's maximum incubation period - but remained prepared to fight such an order if necessary. [MORE]

White Prosecutor Clears mostly White Ferguson Grand jury of misconduct in investigation of White Cop who Killed Michael Brown

What is White Collective Power? From [HERE] The white St. Louis County prosecuting attorney said Thursday that he has investigated accusations that grand jurors leaked information about their investigation of white police officer Darren Wilson and has found no evidence to support these claims. The grand jury is mostly white (9 of 12).

In September, white Judge Carolyn Whittington granted white prosecutor Robert McCulloch's, request to give the mostly white grand jury (9 of 12) until January 2015 to figure out whether there is probable cause to charge Wilson with a crime in the fatal shooting of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown. Wilson is still at large.

In a prepared statement, Robert P. McCulloch defended the integrity of this grand jury’s work and said that to suggest otherwise is “wrong, irresponsible and does a great disservice to the public.”

Specifically, McCulloch said his office investigated one accusation that surfaced on Twitter, involving a woman who allegedly said she knew a juror who told her there wasn’t enough evidence to “warrant an arrest” of Wilson.

McCulloch said the investigation showed the person’s Twitter account was hacked, adding that “the origin/author of the tweet is unknown. The owner of the account has no connection with any member of the grand jury.”

McCulloch also said that he has reviewed recent stories by news media that included information about Wilson’s testimony before the grand jury, physical evidence that was presented and eyewitness testimony that they have heard. He said the stories themselves dispel any notion that the information came directly from the grand jury.

He also said no one in his office has engaged in leaks and he criticized those who have disclosed information about the case to news media. [MORE]

McCulloch could have filed charges directly in this case himself but chose to take the case to a grand jury. All signs are that McCulloch does not want the grand jury to indict white police officer, Darren Wilson. He selected a mostly white (9 out of 12) grand jury. Also, McCulloch’s office has declined to recommend any charges to the grand jury. Instead, McCulloch’s prosecutors handling the case are taking the highly unusual course of dumping all evidence on the jurors and leaving them to make sense of it. McCulloch’s office claims that this is a way to give more authority to the grand jurors, but it looks more like a way to avoid charging Wilson at all — and to use the grand jury as cover for the outrage that will ensue.

'When you move people around you destabilize them. Gentrification or "Racial Dislocation" is an Integral, Ongoing Part of White Supremacy.' - Neely Fuller

Black & Brown folks need to wake up and realize they are in a system of white supremacy. Then they can stop expecting something else and deal with reality - or deal with things as they are and not as we want them to be. 

Mic.com takes a look at seven cities that are undergoing the process of negro removal. Remeber folks that 90% or more of the world is Non-white. Non-whites are moved around in every place they are in close proximity with Whites. This is what powerless class means. To end racism, end white power. 

From [HERE] White people show up, the area is flooded with resources, property value goes up and many former residents are forced to move out. We've seen such systems before, those which literally move poor people around, in and out of their homes, at the behest of the wealthy. It's usually called "colonialism." And it's not an inaccurate comparison.

This dynamic came to a head last week when a group of Dropbox employees in San Francisco's notoriously gentrifying Mission District tried to kick a group of local kids off a soccer field they had reserved:

This outcome was uncharacteristically positive, in the short term. A petition and City Hall rally followed, after which the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department ruled that "adult permits" would no longer be issued for the Mission Playground soccer field, according to Latino Rebels.

Most gentrified neighborhoods aren't so lucky. Change is ruthless and unapologetic. Once an area becomes unaffordable for its low-income residents, it tends to stay that way, and the "storied history," "selective nostalgia" and "carefully sprinkled grit" that define this particular iteration of "urban life," in the words of Al Jazeera columnist Sarah Kendzior, become the lens through which America's cities are increasingly viewed.

Affordable housing requirements on hold in DC

Neighborhoods, then, are not just homes, but opportunities for profit and redevelopment. And the renewal fantasy that defines them hides an often racist history of deliberate and concentrated impoverishment, one that's inevitably copied wherever poor residents are forced to move next — usually the isolated suburbs they were barred from occupying in the first place.

It's a pattern as old as America itself — and it's not going away any time soon. To illustrate, here are seven cities that have been radically altered by gentrification in the 21st century, as defined by the percentage of urban homes that went from the bottom half of home price distribution to the top half. Data was compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and calculates for the period between 2000 and 2007. [MORE]

The Largest U.S. Financial Companies are a Corporate Brotherhood of White Men whose Uncontested Monopoly of Power Depends Upon Your Obedience & Habit of Subordination

This article is from 4th Media. As with all things concerning non-whites and people activity it should be considered in the context of the white supremacy/racism system in which it exists, the reality which non-white people must face.  This lens is explained well by Amos Wilson:

'As J.C. Smith contends, "monopoly is the essence of power." The exercise of power by the White American ruling elite requires that it retain a monopoly of three kinds of power - physical or military power, economic power, and ideological power. The corporate brotherhood of the white collective -  the brotherhoods of producers, merchants, and bankers who organize and control economic power -together represent the apex of the White pyramidal structure, since economic power is the primary means of directly and indirectly controlling military and ideological power. This corporate brotherhood of white men control access to the so-called "free market" and exclude Black people from it. Consequently, the White man's free market imprisons the the Back man - when it does not enslave him.

The White Brotherhood's Collective's uncontested monopoly of capital and the dominating power it undergirds rests largely on a would be Black Brotherhood Collective's habit of subordination, programmed acceptance of its legitimacy and ready obedience to its demands. Importantly, Blacks have been programmed to believe in their atomized individuality and have a vitiating ambivalence in regard to their collective identity as a group and an unwillingness to use their collective identity as a basis for acquiring capital and property, and deriving from them power to challenge that held by its white counterpart.' [MORE]

From [4thMedia] Many people have heard of the Bilderberg Group, Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission. But what are the names of the families who run the world and have control of states and international organizations like the UN, NATO or the IMF?

To try to answer this question, we can start with the easiest: inventory, the world’s largest banks, and see who the shareholders are and who make the decisions.

The world’s largest companies are now: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Let us now review who their shareholders are.

Bank of America:

State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon.

JP Morgan:

State Street Corp., Vanguard Group, FMR, BlackRock, T. Rowe, AXA, Capital World Investor, Capital Research Global Investor, Northern Trust Corp. and Bank of Mellon.

Citigroup:

State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Paulson, FMR, Capital World Investor, JP Morgan, Northern Trust Corporation, Fairhome Capital Mgmt and Bank of NY Mellon.

Wells Fargo:

Berkshire Hathaway, FMR, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, Wellington Mgmt, AXA, T. Rowe and Davis Selected Advisers.

We can see that now there appears to be a nucleus present in all banks: State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock and FMR (Fidelity).

To avoid repeating them, we will now call them the “big four”

Goldman Sachs:

“The big four,” Wellington, Capital World Investors, AXA, Massachusetts Financial Service and T. Rowe.

Morgan Stanley:

“The big four,” Mitsubishi UFJ, Franklin Resources, AXA, T. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon e Jennison Associates. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon and Jennison Associates.

We can just about always verify the names of major shareholders. To go further, we can now try to find out the shareholders of these companies and shareholders of major banks worldwide.

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More Pretension from White Democrats in Missouri: Ferguson Commission On Inequality Announced by Racist Suspect Governor

What are these white Missouri democrats doing about replacing the system of racism/white supremacy?  In photo St. Louis Mayor, Francis Slay. The Democratic Party has dominated St. Louis city politics for decades. The city has not had a Republican mayor since 1949 and the last time a Republican was elected to another city-wide office was in the 1970s. [MORE]. Slay is the longest serving mayor of the city of St. Louis having been re-elected to a fourth term in April 2013. 

Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon, also a racist suspect is the current Governor of Missouri. He is a democrat. [MORE] There has only been one Republican Governor of Missouri since 1993 (Matt Blunt, who served one term). Nixon has refused to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and file charges in the Michael Brown murder. Instead he has supported white St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, also a racist suspect and a democrat. Now Nixon has created the so called "Ferguson Commission", which sounds like bullshit. Story below. 

McCulloch could have filed charges directly himself but chose to take the case to a grand jury. All signs are that McCulloch does not want the grand jury to indict white police officer, Darren Wilson. He selected a mostly white (9 out of 12) grand jury. Also, McCulloch’s office has declined to recommend any charges to the grand jury. Instead, McCulloch’s prosecutors handling the case are taking the highly unusual course of dumping all evidence on the jurors and leaving them to make sense of it. McCulloch’s office claims that this is a way to give more authority to the grand jurors, but it looks more like a way to avoid charging Wilson at all — and to use the grand jury as cover for the outrage that will ensue.

McCulloch's father was a police officer killed in a shootout with a black suspect, and several of his family members are, or were, police officers. He has not prosecuted a single police shooting in 23 years. [MORE] (do not expect justice). 

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill (in photo) has defended McCulloch and made a statement in support of him. She is also a racist suspect. 

What are these Democrats doing for their loyal Black votary? Specifically what have they done to address White Supremacy/Racism and all the problems it causes such as poverty, economic inequality, lack of economic development, unemployment, drug addiction, infant mortality, AIDS, chronic welfare dependency, affordable housing, homelessness, servant education, the administration of justice, police brutality, incarceration and other symptoms of white supremacy/racism?

new study released in September found that in St. Louis:

• The median household income of a white family was $59,041, while a black family had a median income of $30,479.

• The percent of white families living in poverty was 9.2 percent, while 30.6 percent of black families lived in poverty.

• A black infant was 3.6 times more likely to die in the first year of life than a white infant.

• Blacks were more than twice as likely to have no health care coverage than whites. [MORE]

Neely Fuller explained that "Most white people hate Black people. The reason that most white people hate Black people is because whites are not Black people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you." White folks may differ amongst themselves about politics (Democrats, Republicans [White Party]) but all are racist suspects. "As long as white supremacy exists every person classified as white should be suspected of being a racist (white supremacist)." 

White Domination is carried out through violence and/or tactics based on deception, through pretention. Such as: pretending to provide economic progress while working to hinder it, pretending to to provide educational progress while working to hinder it and Pretending to promote justice, while working to continue, and refine, the practice of injustice. [MORE]

From [HERE] Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced on Tuesday the creation of the Ferguson Commission. The independent and regional commission’s purpose is to study and recommend how to address underlying, systemic inequality after months of protests.

The protests surged after a white police officer shot and killed the black, unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9. The Ferguson Commission plans to analyze the social and economic conditions underscored by the unrest in the St. Louis suburb since the shooting.

Nixon explained his plan for the commission during a speech at the Florrissant Valley Community College, which is not far from where Brown was shot and killed. The governor intends for the study to be “thorough, wide-ranging, and unflinching,” while delving into governance, poverty, education, and law enforcement. He also wants the recommendations of changes from the commission to make Ferguson “a stronger, fairer place for everyone to live.” [MORE]

The Restaurant Industry is Rife With Race Discrimination

From [HERE] A new study from the Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC United) found that race discrimination pervades the restaurant industry nationwide.

ROC investigated the policies of 273 fine-dining restaurants in the Metro-Detroit area, New Orleans, and Chicago — three cities where people of color constitute the majority of the population. It found that applicants of color are only 73 percent as likely to get a job offer. And earning 44 percent less than their white counterparts, workers of color are effectively charged a “race tax,” according to the labor group.

The quality of jobs also differs by race. People of color are generally confined to “lower-wage” work and “less visible” work in “back of the house” positions like prep cooks and dishwashers and lower tier front of house positions like bussers and runners. Just 22 percent have non-managerial, top tier, front-of-the-house positions, while white workers hold 81 percent of managerial positions.

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White People & their Revenge Justice: So long as death penalty is used to Execute mostly non-whites who killed whites, White People Support it -Gallup

[Since 1977, the overwhelming majority of death row defendants (77%) have been executed for killing white victims, even though Blacks make up about half of all homicide victims] [MORE] Lyncing functioned as a powerful incentive for blacks to "learn their place" in the racial hiearchy. [MORE]

From [HERE] Six in 10 Americans favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, generally consistent with attitudes since 2008. Since 1937, support has been as low as 42% in 1966 and as high as 80% in 1994.

White Americans' support for the death penalty has varied over time, but apart from a single reading in 1966, the public has consistently favored it. Support ebbed from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, when the application of the death penalty was questioned and ultimately led to the Supreme Court's invalidating state death penalty laws. Subsequent to that, newly written laws passed constitutional muster and states began to use the death penalty again in the late 1970s, with support among Americans increasing to 70% or more in the mid-1980s to the late 1990s.

The broader trend over the last two decades has been diminished support for the death penalty, including a 60% reading last year, the lowest since 1972. [MORE]

Two different SWAT Raids. Two White Officers Dead. One Defendant is Black, One White. [Black Man Faces Death Penalty. White Man's Case Dismissed]

Replace White Supremacy with a system of Justice. From [HERE] One Friday last May, the sun had not yet risen when a SWAT team ignited a flash-bang grenade outside Marvin Guy's apartment in Killeen, Texas. Officers were trying to climb in through a window when Guy, who had a criminal record and was suspected of possessing cocaine, opened fire. Four officers were hit; one of them was killed.

Five months earlier, 100 miles away, a SWAT officer was shot during a predawn no-knock raid on another house. In that case, too, police threw a flash-bang grenade and tried to enter the residence. Henry "Hank" Magee, according to his attorney, grabbed his gun to protect himself and his pregnant girlfriend. "As soon as the door was kicked in, he shot at the people coming through the door," says his attorney, Dick DeGuerin. With his legally owned semi-automatic .308 rifle, Magee killed one of the officers. 

The cases are remarkably similar, except for one thing: Guy is black, Magee white. And while Magee was found to have acted in self-defense, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Guy. He remains in jail while he awaits trial.

Historically, police serving warrants were required to knock on a door, announce their presence, and wait for an answer. But in SWAT raids, this is often no longer the case. Police aren't required to announce themselves if they believe the circumstances present a threat of physical violence, or if they believe evidence would be destroyed. According to a study by the American Civil Liberties Union, no-knock warrants are used in around 60 percent of drug searches.

Like Guy, Magee was initially charged with capital murder, which is punishable by death. But before Magee's trial, a grand jury found there was not enough evidence for him to stand trial on that charge. "In essence it was a ruling in self-defense," DeGuerin said. Guy has been through the grand jury process as well, his attorney said, but in his case, the grand jury allowed prosecutors to move ahead with capital murder charges. So while Magee awaits trial for felony possession of marijuana, Guy awaits potential execution.

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The Routine Traffic Stop from Start to Finish: Too Much "Routine", not Enough 4th Amendment

The subject of this Article is an exceedingly important one, as is reflected by the fact that in recent years more Fourth Amendment battles have been fought about police activities incident to what the courts call a "routine traffic stop" n7 than in any other context. There is a reason why this is so, and it is not that police have taken an intense interest in such matters as burned-out taillights and unsignaled lane changes per se. Rather, as anyone not on a trip to Mars over the past decade or so is surely aware, the renewed interest of the police in traffic enforcement is attributable to a federally sponsored initiative related to the "war on drugs." n8 Both in urban areas and on the [*1845] interstates, police are on the watch for "suspicious" travelers, and when a modicum of supposedly suspicious circumstances are observed - or, perhaps, even on a hunch or pursuant to such arbitrary considerations as the color of the driver's skin n9 - it is only a matter of time before some technical or trivial offense produces the necessary excuse for a traffic stop. n10 Perhaps because the offenses are often so insignificant, n11 the driver may be told at the outset that he will merely be given a warning. But then things get ugly. As a part of the "routine," a criminal-history and outstanding-warrants records check is run on the driver and passengers; they are closely questioned about their identities, the reason for their travels, their intended destinations, and the like, and may be quizzed as to whether they have drugs on their persons or in the vehicle. The driver may be induced to submit to a full search of the vehicle, or a drug-sniffing dog may appear on the scene and "do his thing."

[*1846] My favorite illustration of this tactic is United States v. Roberson. n12 A Texas state trooper on patrol at night passed a van and noted it had out-of-state plates and four black occupants, so he pulled off onto the shoulder after cresting a hill, turned his lights off, and then observed the van change lanes to provide more distance between it and the vehicle parked on the shoulder. The lane change was unaccompanied by a signal, which hardly seems remarkable in view of the fact that the van was "the only moving vehicle on that stretch of road," but the trooper "obviously regarded this as a serious traffic offense," for he pulled the van over. n13 He then questioned the van's occupants on unrelated matters and finally exacted consent to search the vehicle, which resulted in the discovery of drugs. Despite the court's familiarity with this trooper's "propensity for patroling the fourth amendment's outer frontier" and his "remarkable record" of turning traffic stops into drug arrests on 250 prior occasions, the defendants in Roberson were deemed to be without any basis to challenge the stop because, after all, the trooper had "observed a traffic infraction before stopping the vehicle"! n14

Cases of this genre raise a number of important issues concerning the Fourth Amendment legalities of the "routine traffic stop" from start to finish. As to the start, there are various questions concerning the limitations upon when such a stop may be initiated. As to the finish, there are questions concerning what is necessary to constitute a termination of custody and what official actions thereafter will or will not constitute a new seizure. And then there is the in-between, that critical period between start and finish; as to it, there is another set of questions concerning how long the seizure may continue and what investigative techniques and tactics are permissible during that interval.

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Despite Abrasions to Face, Shoulders, Arms & Grave Desecration, "Crackertown" Cops say No Evidence of Foul Play in Death of Black Teen Found Hanging from Swing Set

In photo Lennon Lacy was found hanging on this swing set. 

From [HERE] and [HERE] Friday 29 August was a big day for Lennon Lacy. His high school football team, the West Bladen Knights, were taking on the West Columbus Vikings and Lacy, 17, was determined to make his mark. He’d been training all summer for the start of the season, running up and down the bleachers at the school stadium wearing a 65lb exercise jacket. Whenever his mother could afford it, he borrowed $7 and spent the day working out at the Bladenboro gym, building himself up to more than 200lbs. As for the future, he had it all planned out: this year he’d become a starting linebacker on the varsity team, next year he’d earn a scholarship to play football in college, and four years after that he’d achieve the dream he’d harboured since he was a child – to make it in the NFL.

“He was real excited,” said his Knights team-mate Anthony White, also 17, recalling the days leading up to the game. “He said he was looking forward to doing good in the game.”

But Lacy never made it to the game that night. At 7.30am on Friday – exactly 12 hours before the game was scheduled to start – he was found hanging from a swing set about a quarter of a mile from his home. The Knights had lost one of the most promising players; his tight-knit family was thrown into despair; and a question echoed around the streets of the tiny town of Bladenboro, North Carolina: what had happened to Lennon Lacy?

The last person known to have seen Lacy alive was his father, Larry Walton. Around midnight on the night before the game, he came out of his bedroom to fetch a glass of water and saw his son preparing his school bag for the following morning. “I told him he needed to get to bed, the game was next day, and he said ‘OK, Daddy’.” A little later Walton heard the front door open and close; Walton assumed Lacy must have stepped out of the house, but thought no more of it and went to sleep.

Lacy’s mother, Claudia, said “I know my son. The second I saw him I knew he couldn’t have done that to himself – it would have taken at least two men to do that to him.”

She noticed what she describes as scratches and abrasions on his face, and there was a knot on his forehead that hadn’t been there the day before. In a photograph taken of Lacy’s body lying in the casket, a lump is visible on his forehead above his right eye. “From that point on it was just not real, like walking through a dream,” she said.

Five days after Lennon Lacy was found hanging, the investigating team – consisting of local police and detectives from the state bureau of investigation – told the family that it had found no evidence of foul play. There was no mention of suicide, but the implication was clear. In later comments to a local paper, police chief Hunt said: “There are a lot of rumours out there. And 99.9% of them are false.”

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Surrounded by Water, Inhumane White Folks Continue Detroit Water Shut Offs for its non-paying Black "customers"

Although Detroit was founded on a river, draws its name from a French word for "strait," and lies between two of the Great Lakes, water has become scarce for some of its poorest, mostly Black residents. [MORE]

From [HERE] and [HERE] Surrounded by a frenzy of cameras, Detroit resident Rochelle McCaskill explained her predicament to a team of United Nations officials on Sunday: The numbers simply didn’t add up.

Out of her $672 monthly disability check, McCaskill spends $600 rent, she said, leaving her unable to pay the city’s water bills, which have skyrocketed to more than twice the national average.

“They need a category for those of us who cannot pay,” [powerless class] said McCaskill, whose water was shut off this summer as part of a wave of disconnections that, block by block, have left thousands of city residents without running water.

The city turned off McCaskill’s water despite the fact that she had been paying down her $540.10 water bill in increments and that she suffers from MRSA, a contagious infection that the NIH considers a “serious public health concern” and requires frequent bathing.

“It makes you feel like a failure in your own home,” she said, as she described washing and brushing her teeth with buckets of water delivered by the community group We the People of Detroit, part of the People’s Water Board Coalition.

McCaskill was one of dozens of residents, teachers, water department employees and parents who testified to two U.N. officials, who expressed concern that the shutoffs threatened residents’ human right to water and, in a city where the population is more than 80 percent African-American, could constitute discrimination under international law.

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MisEducation in Service of White Domination: Racist Suspects Seek to Remove Books on Inequality and Social Unrest from Schools

From [HERE] Late last month, for the 32nd year in a row, Banned Books Week was marked across the US. Spearheaded by the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom, the annual salute to the freedom to read has become a fixture. It aims to counterbalance perennial challenges to the content of books and efforts to get them banned, usually from schools and libraries.

The ALA collects information on which books are objected to and reports on prominent recurring themes that tend to generate moral or ideological indignation. Subjects such as religion, race, gender, sexuality and allegations of sexually explicit content or offensive language frequently top the list.

More worrying, however, is the recent rise in efforts to get books banned that cover poverty and social class. At a time when rising inequality and the demonisation of poorer people (both in the UK and the US) is commonplace, such attempts to remove books that depict the reality of life for people who are struggling should concern us all.

Numerous studies have shown that reading about people, issues or circumstances unfamiliar to us can engender empathy – in times of acute social and economic divisions this becomes all the more important. It is not just wealth that separates rich and poor, but ignorance and the absence of social contact.

The US has a longstanding tradition of books being challenged on sometimes spurious grounds (often, but not always from the conservative right) even while the first amendment of the constitution protects “access to ideas as well as free speech”. There are numerous organisations, including the ALA and National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) that contest such moves, still, there’s something unsettling about the recent manifestation of complaints on socio-economic grounds.

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