Source: AP

From BlackVoices

Gunmen opened fire on people marching in a neighborhood Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding at least 19.

The shooting – described by the FBI as a flare-up of street violence – shattered the festive mood surrounding the parade that drew hundreds of people to the 7th Ward neighborhood of modest row houses not far from the French Quarter. Cell phone video taken in the aftermath of the shooting shows victims lying on the ground, blood on the pavement and others bending over to comfort them.

At least three of the victims were seriously wounded. Of the rest, many were grazed and authorities said that overall most wounds were not life threatening. No deaths were reported.

The victims included 10 men, seven women, a boy and a girl. The children, both 10 years old, were grazed and in good condition.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu urged witnesses to come forward with information during a news conference Sunday night at a hospital where gunshot victims were taken.

“These kinds of incidents will not go unanswered. Somebody knows something. The way to stop this violence is for you all to help,” he said.

Mary Beth Romig, a spokeswoman for the FBI in New Orleans, said federal investigators have no indication that the shooting was an act of terrorism.

“It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans,” she said.

Read more on BlackVoices.com.

AP Photo/New Jersey State Police, File

Joanne Cheismard, who goes by the name of Assata Shakur, has made history in a sad way, as she has become the first woman on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” In 1973, Shakur, a member of the Black Liberation Army, found herself involved in a shootout with a New Jersey State Trooper named Werner Foerster during a traffic stop. She had been riding with fellow BLA members Sundiata Acoli and Zayd Shakur. She was wounded in the shooting, and Foerster was killed by his own firearm. Four years after the incident, she was convicted of first-degree murder, and sent to prison, where she was reportedly treated inhumanely. And by 1979, she found a way to escape from her New Jersey prison, and has been residing in Cuba since 1984. Many attempts have been made to try and capture her, but to no avail. Shakur is now 65, and in the mind of New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes, she “flaunts her freedom” while living in the country. So now the FBI has decided to try and paint her as a terrorist of all things and doubled the reward for her capture to $2 million so that they can finally get someone to send in a tip about where she is. Good luck with that…

“To this day from her safe haven in Cuba Chesimard has been given a pulpit to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary,” says Fuentes. New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa also told reporters, “We want her to come back here and face justice and serve out her sentence.”

But to paint her as a “supreme terror,” when she hasn’t been tied to any type of terrorist group or new threat is an extreme. As ABC News said, “Her supporters believe she was a target of law enforcement’s campaign against the Black Panther movement in the 1960s and 1970s,” and it today, she’s clearly still a major target, though she hasn’t been affiliated with any sort of terrorist activity since she’s been in political asylum. I’m all for people getting justice, but the way the FBI is handling this? No bueno.

Do you think they’ll find her? What do you think of the FBI making her a “Most Wanted Terrorist”?

Source: Guardian Express

It’s like the good old antebellum south in Louisiana right now where a 20-year-old woman is said to have suffered burns on more than half of her body after three men attacked her and wrote a racial slur and the initials “KKK” on her car Sunday.

According to USA Today:

Officers found Sharmeka Moffitt with burns on more than half of her body when they responded to her 911 call Sunday night, said Louisiana State Police spokeswoman Lt. Julie Lewis.

The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible hate crime, but no arrests had been made as of late Monday, Lewis said. She said Moffitt was in critical condition at a hospital and that some of her injuries were third-degree burns.

Moffitt told police the men doused her in a flammable liquid and set her on fire at a park in Winnsboro, a town in Franklin Parish. Lewis said she extinguished the fire using water from a spigot before a police officer arrived.

Officers found the letters KKK — an apparent reference to the Ku Klux Klan — and a racial slur smeared in a paste-like substance on the hood of her car, Lewis said.

On the 911 call, Moffitt described her attackers as three men wearing white hoods or hats, Lewis said. She later told a Winnsboro Police officer who responded to the call that the men were wearing white hoodies. She was unable to say what race her attackers were. The officer found no suspects or vehicles at Civitan Park where the attack allegedly happened, and the park has no surveillance cameras, Lewis said. She said the state crime lab was analyzing several pieces of evidence.

Sharmeka’s mother Edna Moffitt said her family is shocked by the attack, telling the News Star:

 “I have never known anything like this to happen in Winnsboro.”

She also said her daughter could be hospitalized for up to a month as a result of her burns.

Though Louisiana authorities may be slow to label this incident a hate crime, Otis Chisley, the president of the local branch of the NAACP says active KKK movement in the state would not be surprising.

“It’s prevalent throughout Louisiana,” he said. “It’s hidden but it exists.”

We’re definitely praying this young lady pulls through and her attackers are caught.

nydailynews.com

Well, let’s make that a former NBA player and now coach.

Mark Jackson, former member of the New York Knicks (and Indiana Pacers but that’s an afterthought), former ABC/ESPN announcer and current head coach of the Golden State Warriors found himself in the midst of an extortion plot after carrying on an affair with stripper Alexis Adams in 2006.  What he didn’t expect after he ended the affair, which lasted less than one year, was that Adams would hold on to everything he’d sent to her and use it against him.

According to The Smoking Gun, Adams and a co-conspirator, Marcus Shaw, set up an initial plan in April which ended up with Jackson being approached by Shaw with pictures he’d sent to Adams of his “private area” and demanded he fork over $5,000. Mark did so with no hesitation because he’s been married for 22 years to Desiree Coleman-Jackson and is also…an ordained minister.  However, that wasn’t enough for Adams and Shaw.

Two weeks later, Shaw emailed Jackson’s wife to give her the first opportunity to buy extra pictures he had before selling them to the public. He further added that he wasn’t trying to hurt her but “this is business, nothing personal.” This all became too much for Jackson who then turned to the FBI for help. They quickly turned this into an extortion sting and after all was said and done, Shaw had asked for $200,000 to which Jackson agreed to pay. It can only be assumed that when the exchange was supposed to take place, undercover agents were right on the scene to pick up Shaw and later, Ms. Adams.

What an embarrassing nightmare.  It’s one thing to cheat (which we know isn’t right) but it is something entirely different to cheat with a stripper and then get caught in an extortion case. You either need to keep it in your pants or be smarter about who you’re “sharing” with.

Before you ask, yes his wife has been standing by his side through it all.  After all, he was a huge star in his prime; do you think this is the first time she’s heard about extramarital affairs?

Source: IBtimes.com

A new breakthrough in the Trayvon Martin case could be a positive indication that George Zimmerman won’t get off for killing the teen boy as many suspect. As you know, the FBI has been conducting their own investigation into the shooting death that occurred Feb. 26, and ABC reports that the bureau plans to pursue a hate crime charge against the neighborhood watchman.

Zimmerman has already been charged with second-degree murder which could garner a maximum sentence up to life in prison if he’s convicted. With the hate crime charge, his sentence could be escalated to the death penalty. That is, if the prosecution can prove he intentionally went after Trayvon and shot and killed him because he is black.

Calls to 911 and the last conversation Trayvon had before being killed have already proven to much of America that Trayvon was followed and gunned down out of racial prejudice, but Zimmerman stands by his story that he shot the teen in self defense, after he punched, kicked, and knocked him to the ground. According to the Orlando Sentinel, there is a wealth of new evidence in the case against Zimmerman, including a data download with more than 60 CDs, Zimmerman’s phone records, and dozens of witness statements and interviews, 18 of which are from Sanford Police officers. There is also video from the 7-eleven store where Trayvon reportedly purchased Skittles and Arizona iced tea and from a clubhouse in retreat at Twin Lakes, the townhouse complex where the teen was killed.

To combat the hate crime charge, we can expect Zimmerman’s defense to harp on a photograph that recently surfaced which is reportedly Zimmerman’s mother in the arms of her grandfather, who is black. His mother also testified at a bond hearing that Zimmerman once risked his own personal safety to mentor a black child in a dangerous neighborhood because he didn’t want to abandon him. Essentially, it’s the “but I have a black friend” defense.

Do you think the FBI will successfully charge Zimmerman with a hate crime?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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Source: The New Republic

It took much longer than it should have, but the outrage over the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has finally caused the FBI and the Justice Department to open a formal investigation into the teenager’s death. In a statement, the Justice Department said:

“The department will conduct a thorough and independent review of all of the evidence and take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation.”

The victim’s family lawyer, Ben Crump, said public pressure was behind an earlier promise by the Justice Department to review the case. Some 533,000 signatures have been gathered on a petition on change.org calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot the unarmed teenager in a gated Florida community. Over the weekend, 911 tapes of witnesses to the shooting, including one where the victim and the shooter can be heard screaming in the background, sparked many to action, including a number of celebs. Spike Lee and Wyclef Jean sent out tweets encouraging their followers to sign the petition, and it seems the move is working.

Zimmerman initially escaped arrest under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, dubbed “shoot first, ask questions later” by opposers, which allows a potential victim who is “in fear of great bodily injury” to use deadly force in public places. Crump says that defense is ludicrous.

“It’s illogical, you can['t] claim self defense after you chase and pursue somebody,” he said. “That’s a courtroom defense. That’s not something the police accept on the side of the street.”

Hopefully it’s not something the FBI or the defense department will accept either and George Zimmerman will be arrested as he should have been on Feb. 26.

Have you signed the petition at Change.org?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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(CNN) – He had been on the run for four decades. He escaped from prison when Richard Nixon was in the White House, joined the Black Liberation Army in Detroit, hijacked a plane and (in)famously demanded that FBI agents deliver ransom money in bathing suits. And they did.  Now, after a manhunt spanning three continents that often appeared to run cold, the FBI has finally found George Wright.  At age 68, he was living quietly in the resort of Sintra near Lisbon in Portugal when he was arrested Monday.  The United States is seeking his extradition from Portugal to serve the remainder of a 15- to 30-year sentence for murder. Portuguese judicial authorities could not be reached Tuesday for details of the extradition process.  Wright is fighting extradition, a U.S. federal agent said, and his next court appearance in Portugal is in about two weeks.

Read More…

By Charlotte Young

Could there possibly be some unknown superhero protecting America’s streets from violent crime? Perhaps not. But there is a decrease in violent crime across the nation, and the surprising trend has criminologist experts baffled as they search for an explanation.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, an FBI report revealed that violent crime dropped 6 percent in 2010, compared to the previous year. This is the fourth consecutive annual decline. The report, entitled, “Crime in the Unites States,” compiles research from over 18,000 city, country, university and college, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies.

Violent crime encompasses murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Of the violent crimes, robberies saw the highest drop at 10 percent, and burglaries saw the lowest drop at two percent. Violent crime was not the only type of crime to drop. Property crime decreased by 2.7 percent in 2010; a consecutive annual drop since 2007.

With the housing market consistently stagnant and unemployment remaining high, current conditions would seemingly point to an increase in crime. In addition, budgets cuts have left law enforcement agencies with 1 percent less officers on the streets than in 2008.

Given these statistics and circumstances, criminologists are forced to re-consider the causes of crime. Criminal justice professor William Pridemore at Indiana University in Bloomington, says that it may take years to find an explanation for the FBI’s report.

There are several theories in the works. One possibility for the decline could be that technology improvements have enabled law enforcement to be more strategic in their approach to crime. Another reason could be that the elderly baby boomer generation comprises the group with the lowest criminal activity.

Professor Pridemore notes that the FBI report provides an interesting look at crime data, but it’s not representative of every individual area. Violent crime in New York City, for example, jumped up five percent in 2010.

The recession is also closely linked to domestic abuse crimes as family stress has risen in the poor economy. Pediatrics magazine published a report on Monday that revealed that during the recession, abuse of children under 5 increased by 65 percent.

By Alexis Garrett Stodghill

Imagine working for the CIA for 23 years, spending some of that time interrogating suspected terrorists using methods that might be illegal. When the time comes to share your personal experiences, your former employer chooses to use its power to block your freedom of expression. This is exactly what happened to Glenn Carle, whose book “The Interrogator” was published in June of this year — only after heavy meddling by the CIA. Carle’s memoir was published with heavy black bars through extensive passages of the tome to show where the CIA had demanded omissions — even for information that was common knowledge. The CIA took over complete control of how it was portrayed in another human being’s story.

These invasions were committed in an effort to prevent readers from perceiving a text published by a CIA veteran as being a confirmation by the CIA of anything the agency wanted to remain secretive about, including the emotional effects of its tactics. If that sounds convoluted, so is the reasoning behind it. Salon.com reports on the CIA’s logic in violating this individual’s legal rights:

…Carle complained when the [CIA] insisted on cutting information from his book that was already common knowledge. Two reasons are offered for such demands. One is the “mosaic theory of classification,” characterized by Carle as “one of the most harmful consequences of eight years of the Bush administration. And that is not a partisan statement.” [...]

The mosaic theory alleges that pieces of information that may seem innocuous enough on their own — including material that has already been cleared by the CIA — can, when combined with similar pieces of information, present a potential threat that might be of use to the enemy. “By that rationale,” Carle observed, “you should take every chemistry textbook out of every high school in America.” [...]

The other justification the agency commonly offers for redacting material is that some facts, although widely known, have not been officially acknowledged by the agency or the U.S. government. If the CIA were to approve a book stating those facts, it would supposedly amount to an acknowledgment.

The CIA has also been in the news recently for interfering with the publication of a book by former FBI agent Ali Soufan, which is highly critical of “[the CIA's] use of brutal interrogation techniques in the decade since 9/11,” also according to Salon. The CIA appears to want unlimited power to prevent eye witnesses from sharing their accounts of the agency’s perhaps unethical practices — methods justified by the war on terror.

(AP) — In New Brunswick, N.J., a building superintendent opened the door to apartment No. 1076 one balmy Tuesday and discovered an alarming scene: terrorist literature strewn about the table and computer and surveillance equipment set up in the next room.  The panicked superintendent dialed 911, sending police and the FBI rushing to the building near Rutgers University on the afternoon of June 2, 2009. What they found in that first-floor apartment, however, was not a terrorist hideout but a command center set up by a secret team of New York Police Department intelligence officers.  From that apartment, about an hour outside the department’s jurisdiction, the NYPD had been staging undercover operations and conducting surveillance throughout New Jersey. Neither theFBI nor the local police had any idea.

Read More…