Judge Smacks Mentally Disabled Man, Yelling 'Run, N***er, Run!"

Published on May 27, 2014

"A Mississippi judge was accused of striking a mentally disabled black man and yelling, "Run, n-gger, run."

The family of 20-year-old Eric Rivers filed a complaint against Madison County Justice Court Judge Bill Weisenberger in connection with the May 8 incident at the Canton Flea Market, reported the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

The executive director of the state Judicial Commissioner said, if the allegations are true, Weisenberger would have violated multiple canons of the Judicial Code of Ethics."* Ana Kasparian, Dave Rubin (The Rubin Report) and Gina Grad (Gina Grad Show, Pretty Good Podcast) break it down on The Young Turks.

*Read more here from Travis Gettys / Raw Story:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/26/ms-judge-accused-of-smacking-mentally-disabled-black-man-yelling-run-n-gger-run/

African-Americans and Latinos Make Up 30% of Population But 60% of Prisoners

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/02/african-americans-and-latinos-make-up-30-of-population-but-60-of-prisoners/

An article published in Mother Jones on Monday pointed out some stark statistics about both the racial makeup of America’s overall prison population and private vs. public prisons. The article notes that African-Americans and Latinos make up 30 percent of the U.S. population but a whopping 60 percent of the country’s inmates. As it turns out, it gets even worse from there.

A study from the University of California at Berkeley shows that minorities are more likely than whites to serve out their sentences in private prisons, which has its own set of consequences, including more violence and an increased rate of recidivism.

The study, which looked at minority inmates in nine states, found more people of color in private prisons, which is important when one considers that private prisons are focused on profit as opposed to rehabilitation. One reason for the disparity has to do with the fact that fewer prisoners over 50 are housed in private prisons since health care for those prisoners can lead to higher costs. But there is also a higher likelihood that prisoners over 50 are white.

So private prisons make money from housing young minority inmates, while passing on the older inmates to government prisons, so that the taxpayer can foot the bill. This leads to the conclusion that private prisons aren't lowering costs by being more efficient, but by choosing inmates who are more likely to be healthy:

Private prisons claim to have more efficient practices, and thus lower operating costs, than public facilities. But the data suggest that private prisons don't save money through efficiency, but by cherry-picking healthy inmates. According to a 2012 ACLU report, it costs $34,135 to house an “average” inmate and $68,270 to house an individual 50 or older. In Oklahoma, for example, the percentage of individuals over 50 in minimum and medium security public prisons is 3.3 times that of equivalent private facilities.

In that sense, private prisons are being set up to make a profit off the backs of minority youth, whereas government prisons, and taxpayers, are being set up to pay more. It’s quite the con game.

Police Caught on Camera Breaking Mentally Disturbed Teen’s Arm

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/02/police-caught-on-camera-breaking-mentally-disturbed-teens-arm/

Many in the African-American community have been warning for years that police officers overstep their bounds, but it seems that the impact of rogue officers is just now reaching the mainstream.

The family of a 16 year old teen have filed a $1 million dollar lawsuit against the city of Rotterdam, New York after police officers were caught on camera breaking the teen’s arm.

The incident began after police were called on Jacob Gocheski because a school bus driver didn’t want the mentally ill teen on the bus due to “threats that the student made in an aggressive manner.”

By the time the incident took place, the bus was in Gocheski’s driveway, but the teen refused to leave the bus. Video shows the teen sitting in his seat, looking down and despondent. When the officers began to wrestle the teen out of his seat and put his hands behind his back, you can hear Gocheski’s arm begin to break in half.

“There was clear and obvious use of excessive force,” said Kevin Luibrand, attorney for the teen’s family. “They placed his arm in a position where they locked the arm and proceeded with significant force to break the arm between the shoulder blade and elbow, creating a displaced fracture.” Luibrand also says that the officers threatened to “hog tie” Gocheski and “exerted enough force to snap one of the strongest bones in the human body.”

Gocheski was charged obstruction of governmental administration, all for refusing to leave a school bus.

VIDEO BELOW:

St. Louis Mom Arrested at School for Comforting Her Special Needs Son

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/03/st-louis-mom-arrested-at-school-for-comforting-her-special-needs-son/

A St. Louis mom went to her son’s school to pick him up because he was in distress, but somehow she ended up being carted off to jail like a common criminal.

After receiving a call from her son’s school on Thursday alerting her that he was upset, mother Niakea Williams rushed to Walnut Groves Elementary School to pick up her son.

“I was lying in bed when I received a frantic phone call from the teacher, Michael was panicking,” Williams told local affiliate KMOV.

Her son Michael has Asperger’s syndrome.

After she was buzzed in by school officials, Williams was apparently so concerned about her son that she rushed past the school’s front desk, but not before telling a teacher why she was there.

“I saw a teacher and she said Ms. Williams what is wrong? I said something is wrong with Mikey and proceeded to go straight to my son,” said Williams.

While she was consoling her son, Williams was informed by the principal that she had violated school policy by not signing in.

“I didn't sign the book, but I had to check on my son. You can bring me the book, She said oh no, I've already called the police. You called what,” said Williams.

The school was placed on lockdown and a call was placed to local police reporting an “unauthorized entry to a school”, even though Williams had been buzzed in by school administrators.

“They escorted me away from my son, who already has emotional distress. Four officers told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back, I was under arrest,” said Williams.

Williams said school officials knew who she was and they'd called her to come see about her son, so she doesn't understand why she was arrested on trespassing charges.

She says she feels that she got arrested for being a mother who was concerned about her child.

Cop Who Gunned Down 16 Year Old Kimani Gray Awarded “Cop of the Year”

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/05/cop-who-gunned-down-16-year-old-kimani-gray-awarded-cop-of-the-year/

“Cops give a d@mn about a Negro, pull a trigger, k¡ll a n¡gga he’s a hero..” -2Pac

One of the officers who gunned down 16 year old Kimani Gray has declined to accept a “Cop of the Year” award due to community pressure, reports ThinkProgress.

Gray was fatally wounded in 2013 when two plainclothes NYPD officers opened fire on him. Officers alleged that Gray pulled a revolver on undercover cops, but no gun was ever found. Gray was shot 7 times, including three bullets to the back. 

Witnesses also disagreed about the sequence of events, with one eyewitness saying the teen was “running for his life” when he was gunned down: “He was running for his life, telling the cops, “Stop,” said witness Camille Johnson. "They really are, seriously, walking around, shooting little kids.” Another eyewitness said Gray was adjusting his belt at the time he was shot: 

Sgt. Mourad Mourad, one of two officers involved in the shooting, was named “Cop of the Year”  by the NYPD Muslim Officers Society, but declined to accept due to public pressure.

“He’s done a lot of work taking down criminals and taking a lot of guns and drugs off the street,” Lt. Adeel Rana told the New York Daily News when first asked why he'd been chosen for the award.

“It’s an insult to the family and the community,” said former city council member Charles Barron, who is close to the Gray family. “There has been a pattern in the Police Department to reward cops who killed our Black youth.”

In addition, the Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York, Linda Sarsour, said the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition contacted both the Muslim Officers Society and Sgt. Mourad directly to protest of the award.

Two Mississippi Inmates Are Still Awaiting Trial After 7 and 8 Years

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/04/two-mississippi-inmates-are-still-awaiting-trial-after-7-and-8-years/

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, but two men in Mississippi are still waiting for trials after 7 and 8 years.

The two inmates, Marktain Kilpatrick Simmons, 43 and Lee Vernel Knight, 47, both have mental issues and have been waiting years for a their day in court.  Both Simmons and Knight are being held at the Hinds County Detention Center.

Simmons was arrested for killing Christopher Joiner in 2006 and has yet to stand trial. Witnesses claim Simmons demanded money from Joiner, who was standing with a friend in a complex parking lot,  before stabbing Joiner.

Simmons was denied bond in 2006 after Judge Bill Gowan said he wanted more information about the accused man’s mental issues, reports The Clarion Ledger.

Knight was arrested in 2007 after having been arrested for stabbing his brother on Christmas day. Knight, a paranoid schizophrenic, was ordered in 2013 to be housed in a mental institution, but there have been no beds available.

District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says defense attorneys have dropped the ball.

“First of all they need adequate representation, and secondly they need someone who can give a mental evaluation that’s final and conclusive, because we can’t prosecute someone if they do not have a final mental evaluation or the results of that evaluation,” Smith said. “So someone who’s just there waiting for their mental evaluation is something that the defense attorney has to bring to the attention of the court and to our attention. We don’t know whether or not the person has that mental illness conclusively until we receive the medical information from the defense attorney.”

In total, 130 inmates have been in the detention center for a year or more without trial.

Alabama Inmates Say Strike is Last Resort Against “Slave Empire”

Melvin Ray (Credit: Free Alabama Movement)

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/04/alabama-inmates-say-strike-is-last-resort-against-slave-empire/

In an interview with Salon, Alabama inmates say they are engaging in a strike this weekend as the last resort against what they're describing as a modern form of slavery.

“We decided that the only weapon or strategy … that we have is our labor, because that’s the only reason that we're here,” Melvin Ray, inmate at the St. Clair correctional facility and founder of the prison-based group Free Alabama Movement, told Salon. “They're incarcerating people for the free labor.”

The Alabama state Senate recently passed a bill which allows private companies to use prisoners for agricultural work, and as it stands, prisoners already do laundry, kitchen, chemical work, and license plate production.

Ray says in January, a majority of the 1300 St. Clair inmates and 1,100 of Holman’s engaged in a work stoppage, while a Department of Corrections spokesperson downplayed the January work stoppage, saying that only a few inmates actually went on strike and others were prevented from working due to other unrelated concerns.

Ray feels as if this weekend’s strike will be even larger than the last one, but says prison officials are working to stop it before it even begins by thwarting communication and threatening organizers with solitary confinement if they persist.

Asked to describe the living situation, “It’s a hellhole,” he said. “That’s what they created these things for: to destroy men.”

Ray says he has to get inmates to understand that they don't have anything to lose.

“We have to get them to understand: You're not giving up anything. You don't have anything. And you're going to gain your freedom right here.”

He has previously used banned cell phones to document horrid conditions in the prison, such as “unsafe beef, broken fire exits and exposed wires.”

Ray said the strikers want rehab and an end to “the free labor system.”

“There is not even the pretense of doing anything about ‘corrections,’” Ray said. “They're running a slave empire.”

In 1998 Exiled Black Panther Assata Shakur Predicted That Prisons Would Become New Slavery

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/04/in-1998-exiled-black-panther-assata-shakur-predicted-that-prisons-would-become-new-slavery/

Law enforcement is still on the hunt for one black woman who stood up to white supremacy, one who was likely wrongly accused of killing a New Jersey police officer. That the hounds are on the trail is no surprise. Anyone who stands up for black people anywhere on the planet may as well emboss a brightly colored bulls eye directly onto their own forehead, which is why Obama never will never stand up, which is why Assata Shakur was added to the FBI’s most wanted list, during the first black president’s tenure.

Still, those like Shakur, who fought white supremacy and were exiled or executed for their trouble, were prescient. Thanks to Michelle Alexander’s diligent and unending mission to educate the public on mass incarceration, and Dr. Boyce Watkins’ work to broaden the base of those who support an end to mass incarceration, the issue has begun to resonate, even among semi-conscious blacks. In 1998, Shakur saw the writing on the wall and predicted that prisons were becoming the new slavery:

"Prisons are big business in the United States, and the building, running, and supplying of prisons has become the fastest growing industry in the country. Factories are being moved into the prisons and prisoners are being forced to work for slave wages. This super-exploitation of human beings has meant the institutionalization of a new form of slavery. Those who cannot find work on the streets are forced to work in prison."

We do have our own people who have their finger on the pulse of white supremacy. They know which way the wind is blowing. They are our weathervane. We'd be better equipped to protect ourselves if only we heard them, incorporated their teachings, and took seriously their warnings. But as an aspirational people, we are not, as a group, prone to gravitate toward the Assata Shakur's of our tribe.

White supremacy demands that we be exquisite in our assimilation, meaning more like white people. So we straighten our hair (or, if you're a man, cut the naps clean off), pull up our pants, buy 10 blue suits, and pick leaders who are pleasing to whites (Obama is so clean, remarked Senator Harry Reid), and discard our true weathervanes. So in the end, we are left with Barack Obama, who released the might of American law enforcement on Assata Shakur.

Second Grader Handcuffed at School for Misbehaving

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/05/second-grader-handcuffed-at-school-for-misbehaving/

There was once a time when a misbehaving child was placed in time-out as punishment. Times have obviously changed because one Kansas City boy says he was treated like a common criminal when caught yelling at school.

“Some of the kids were messing with me,” second grader Kalyb Primm said, according to local affiliate KSHB 41.

The boy says he began yelling after some kids decided to taunt him, but he never got physical. When a teacher tried but failed to calm Kalyb down, the boy says he was handcuffed by a security officer and taken to the principal’s office.

“We were halfway down the hall, he put handcuffs on and twisted my wrists a little,” Kalyb said.

“I don’t think any 7-year-old should be in handcuffs unless he was armed with a weapon, or vi?lent,” said Kalyb’s mother Tomesha Primm.

Kalyb’s father says when he arrived at the school, his son was in handcuffs.

A spokesman for the school said handcuffing second graders is the proper procedure and the security officer did nothing wrong.

Kalyb’s parents can’t understand why their young son was treated like a common criminal for merely yelling and neither can Kalyb.

“Criminals, robbers, bank robbers, stealers,” Kalyb said. “Because kids are not that bad.”

Kalyb’s parents want the school to review its policy for dealing with these types of incidents. They are also planning on moving their child to another school district where he won’t be traumatized by security officials.

Rikers Inmate “Baked to Death” in Overheated Cell

http://breakingbrown.com/2014/05/rikers-inmate-baked-to-death-in-overheated-cell/

A mentally ill inmate at Rikers passed away in an overheated cell just one day after officials at the prison had requested repairs for the heating problem.

The Associated Press reports that two requests for repairs were made on February 14 but delayed due to a holiday weekend. Since the following Monday was President’s Day, the request for the repairs wasn’t received until the following Tuesday.

Former Marine Jerome Murdough, 56, had been arrested one week before his death for trespassing onto a Harlem public housing project while seeking shelter from the cold. Authorities at Rikers found him dead in a pool of his own blood and vomit on February 15 with a body temperature of 103 degrees.


From the Associated Press:

One official who spoke at the time on the condition of anonymity described him as having “basically baked to death.” The mayor has called his death “very troubling,” and it prompted Department of Correction officials to suspend a correction officer, reassign a warden and transfer a mechanics supervisor.
Maintenance workers fixed the problem after Murdough’s body was found.

“To learn that Jerome Murdough died as a result of the city’s failure to remove him from a dangerous environment shows how senseless and avoidable his death was,” said family attorney Derek Sells, who is filing a lawsuit on behalf of the family. “Alma Murdough, Jerome’s mother, is beside herself at this news of how the city failed her son and wants to hold those responsible for his death accountable.”

Brutality: Officers Avoid Charges After Scalding Mentally Ill Black Inmate To Death With Hot Water Until His Skin Peeled

This man was tortured beyond belief…

Officers Not Charged After Burning Black Inmate To Death With Hot Water

The family members of a mentally ill Miami prisoner who was serving a 2-year sentence for drug possession are livid after learning that the officers who tortured him to death by with scalding hot water will face no punishment for their actions.

via Breaking Brown

A mentally ill inmate at the Dade Correctional Institution near Miami, Florida was tortured to death by prison guards, but investigators determined that there is not enough evidence to charge the guards.

Darren Rainey was serving a two year sentence for cocaine possession when he was forced into a locked shower by prison guards as punishment for defecating in his cell, says one inmate. Once Rainey was inside the shower, guards blasted him with scalding hot water as he begged for his life.

According to The Miami Herald, an inmate housed on the floor above the shower heard Rainey’s cries for help.

“I can't take it no more, I'm sorry. I won’t do it again,’’ Rainey shouted, the inmate said.

Saddest of all, Rainey was only a month away from the end of his sentence when guards turned the hot water to the highest setting and boiled him to death in the shower.

A report by Dade Department of Corrections Inspector General Jeffrey Beasley determined that Rainey was locked in the shower by prison guard Roland Clarke at 7:38 pm two years ago. By the time Rainey’s body was found, his skin had began to peel away from his body.

The state has still not completed Rainey’s autopsy, causing investigators to call off the inquiry.

SMH. Prisoners definitely don’t deserve top-of-the-line treatment, but this sounds like a clear cut case of blatant brutality.

- See more at: http://bossip.com/970740/brutality-officers-avoid-charges-after-scalding-mentally-ill-black-inmate-to-death-with-hot-water-until-his-skin-peeled/#sthash.PXVYLU3k.dpuf