Source: AP Images

On Tumblr, I follow some very militant black folk. Yesterday, and really for the past week and a half, I’ve seen some very extreme posts in support of Chris Dorner. In a series of posts, one woman said she wanted Chris Dorner to win, to get away, that those people, his victims, deserved to die. No, baby. If we can all agree on one thing, it’s that Dorner’s victims did not deserve to die.  That’s not the answer. Chris Dorner killed the daughter of the police chief who defended him in his case against the LAPD and her fiancé. That’s in addition to the two police officers he killed. If the LAPD fired him unjustly or for some racially motivated vendetta, they don’t deserve to die. And even if they did, it’s not Dorner’s decision to make.

In all of this, it’s clear that Dorner is mentally unstable, a sociopath who succumbed to evil in an attempt to avenge himself against what he claimed was years of racism. All of that being said though, I couldn’t help but empathize with him. While I would never defend Dorner’s method, being black in America affords you the “opportunity” to identify, in one way or another, with his story. How many of us have been mistreated, overlooked or blatantly disrespected simply because of our blackness? In his manifesto, which Dorner wrote to explain his actions, he said that since elementary school, he’d grown up in predominately white environments where he was often the victim of racism. Though the media has said that Dorner’s manifesto was an extensive rambling, full of incoherent thoughts and media shout outs; how many of us can relate to that story of growing up in or coming to work in a racist environment?

I have a friend who, in high school, transferred to a predominately white, private school and went through all types of hell, culminating in one of his classmates spitting on him in the hallway. It sounds like something from the ‘50s or ‘60s, but this was in the early 2000s. Would he have been wrong to retaliate? Maybe, who knows? But if he decided to strangle his classmate, (He didn’t.), you would understand his reaction. Racism is still very much alive in this country. It’s not a stretch for me to imagine the LAPD, or any other law enforcement agency for that matter, being discriminatory. They have plenty of history to support that claim. Like Dorner, I don’t believe the racism and discrimination against blacks stopped with Rodney King.  And over time, these repeated incidents of disrespect, unfairness and human indecency can work on a sane person’s nerves, patience, and compassion. It can gradually enrage you.  Yet, despite centuries of enslavement and subsequent racial injustices, black folks are expected to just endure it, forget it and move on, be above it. It was Audre Lorde who said, “Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.” That was just too much to ask of Chris Dorner and I get it.

I get it the same way I can understand Nat Turner rising up. It’s the reason I loved Django as much as I did. (Who wasn’t rooting for him to win?)  True, Dorner has been afforded far more opportunities and didn’t have it nearly as bad as the men I just mentioned. But the attitudes that contributed to Dorner’s mistreatment are akin to the mentality that made it okay to enslave blacks in this country, to legally consider them less than human and then torment them once they were freed. They’re the same attitudes that make the killing of an unarmed, black teenager remotely arguable in the court of law.

There’s a lot this country has to learn about racism and its detrimental effects to not only its victims but also its perpetrators. And in a completely unnecessary, sick, twisted and immoral way, I think that’s what Dorner was trying to do.

Joy DeGruy, an educator and author who writes and teaches about “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome” said that even Thomas Jefferson, who is widely regarded as racist, knew that Americans, both black, white and people in between, would struggle with the effects of slavery. In an interview with “Like It Is,”  a local, public affairs television show DeGruy explained Jefferson’s position:

Thomas Jefferson was fully aware of what the impact of—the long term impact of enslavement would be—on white people and black people. He talked about the horror associated with what slave masters did. And that their children imitated the behavior among their friends and younger children that were enslaved. And that that built into a sickness on the part of Europeans and a hatred and antipathy on the part of Africans. And his greatest fear is that it would end in the extermination on one or the other race. He says because God cannot side with us, meaning Europeans, in this contest. He cannot side with us which means God will side with them. He says ‘Indeed, I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.’ So Thomas Jefferson not only knew at the time the wrongness associated, but recognized the long term impact.”

What saddens me most about this whole Dorner incident is that innocent people died in his attack against institutionalized racism. And not only did innocent people die, I fear that because of the way he went about accomplishing his mission that America will simply disregard him as an angry, crazy, dangerous big, black man instead of an extreme representation of the feelings, sentiments and grievances black people in this country have been harboring for centuries.

Source: WENN

People of color suspiciously dying while in police custody appears to be a fairly common theme in news headlines these days, yet it seems that no one is really doing much about it. Back in July, a woman by the name of Alesia Thomas was reported to have mysteriously died after being picked up by five officers from the Los Angeles Police Department after she dropped her two children off at a South Los Angeles police station stating that she was struggling with a drug addiction and having a difficult time supporting her family.

After dropping her children off, the officers found her extremely distraught at her home and proceeded to arrest her on Child Endangerment charges. Eye witnesses say that when Alesia attempted to resist the arrest, the officers subdued her with a “leg sweep” and yelled weight-related obscenities at her. As Thomas continued to resist arrest, it was reported that officers placed her in a “hobble restraint device”, which basically attached her ankles to her handcuffed hands and proceeded to kick her in the genitals. Moments later Alesia died in the back of the squad car.

The way that the story is being told, over the summer a full investigation was launched on the officers involved in the arrest because it was considered a violent arrest.

MSNBC is now reporting that the family of the deceased woman is filing two lawsuits against the police department. One being for wrongful death and the other because the LAPD refuses to release the dash-cam video, which would provide more insight into all that went down on that fateful night. The family’s lawyer Benjamin Crump, who is also the attorney who is handling the Trayvon Martin case, believes that the footage is being withheld because the LAPD have something to hide.

“It’s really straightforward and clear,” he told MSNBC.com. “How long before they release this video? What is it they don’t want us to see? That’s the simple crux of the matter here. If this was your family and you lost a loved one in police custody and they tell you they have a video but they don’t want to show it to you, that’s insult to injury.”

This is an extremely sad story and our prayers go out to the Thomas family. We hope that justice is served soon for the unfortunate death of this 35-year-old mother of two.

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for madamenoire.com. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

Source: WENN

Cee Lo’s career has been on fire in the last few years with the super-talented singer-songwriter/rapper/producer performing at presidential fundraisers and most notably landing a spot on NBC’s reality singing competition “The Voice.” But all of that momentum could come to a screeching halt as a result of accusations of sexual battery that have been filed against the entertainer — even if he says it’s not true.

According to TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell us … a woman recently filed a police report with the LAPD, accusing “The Voice” judge – real name Thomas DeCarlo Callaway – of a sexual assault.

Our sources say detectives have already visited a restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles in connection with the case and questioned several employees, including the manager.   We do not know if the alleged incident occurred at the restaurant.

The LAPD is mum on the identity of the alleged victim, when and where the incident allegedly occurred, and what Cee Lo allegedly did.

TMZ says they’ve spoken with Cee Lo and he absolutely denies any wrongdoing, saying he hasn’t even been to the restaurant in question in three months and adding:

 ”Nothing ever happened there or anywhere else.”

Cee Lo also has someone backing up his claim, as another source who is regularly with him told TMZ:

“I have never seen Cee Lo act in a physical way toward anybody.”

Though Cee Lo, who grew up in the ATL, considered himself a “goon” in his younger days, the only controversies he’s been involved in since hitting the national radar have been related to his lyrical content and performance style. This accusation is by far the most serious of his career.

So far the investigation is in its early stages and no charges have been filed. Hopefully the truth will come out — whatever that is.

Are you surprised by this accusation?

Source: rihanna-ol.blogspot.com

By now you’ve probably forgetten about the investigation into the two Los Angeles police officers who leaked photos of Rihanna to the media after her 2009 domestic dispute with Chris Brown. The officers, Blanca Lopez and Rebecca Reyes, reportedly sent the images of the bruised and beaten Rihanna which became a media spectacle at the time to TMZ, but because prosecutors couldn’t find sufficient evidence to prove the gossip site paid the cops for the photos, they will not face criminal charges.

That decision was actually made in March but just went public in a report obtained by the LA Times. Internal investigators had obtained numerous search warrants and forensic exams of computer hard drives, phones and e-mail accounts, over the past three years but apparently came up short in terms of making anything stick. One report is said to have shown the officers received $62,000 for the pics but searches of the officers’ bank accounts revealed no evidence of a payment. Of course the cops could have had the money funneled to them in other ways but District Attorney’s office spokeswoman Jane Robison said, “You can’t go on a fishing expedition and subpoena everybody who might be related or a friend.”

Though these two may have escaped formal charges, they will likely lose their jobs at the very least. Both women are to appear before LAPD disciplinary panels in August and the department will recommend that they be fired. I would think leaking criminal evidence to the press regardless of whether these two were paid or not would be enough to warrant charges but maybe pay was the only thing that would have definitively linked them to the leak.

What do you think, should these officers have been charged?

Brande Victorian is the news and operations editor for madamenoire.com. Follow her on twitter @Be_Vic.

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Source: Borg.com

Zoe Saldana had an unfortunate surprise when she returned to her Los Angeles home on Sunday—someone had broken into it.

According to police officers, Zoe immediately noticed signs of entry and called LAPD right away to come out and take a report. What’s odd is that at first glance nothing appeared to have been stolen from Zoe’s home, which makes you wonder what kind of person was in her house and why.

Zoe is taking inventory just to be sure she didn’t overlook anything and hopefully none of her belongings were taken. But in the meantime she needs to step up that security system. It’s a good thing she wasn’t home when the intruder came!

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

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Crazy things are bound to happen at Grammy parties, but getting attacked by a woman who’s sleeping with your ex-husband, isn’t one of the things you’d expect. That’s what “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant and former “Deal or No Deal” model Claudia Jordan says happened to her at Drake’s Grammy after party Sunday night.

Apparently the ladies were at the same Greystone Manor Venue in LA, and while Claudia says she wasn’t paying her ex’s woman any mind, the woman kept staring her down until she eventually lost it and swung on her, hitting Claudia in the head. Security was notified and the woman was thrown out while Claudia filed a police report with the LAPD and went to the hospital to have her head and neck checked out.

Claudia told TMZ that her ex recently cut the woman off and she obviously blames her for the breakup, despite the fact that she hasn’t spoken to her ex in two years. I would ask how she knows her ex recently broke it off with the woman if that’s the case, but gossip travels fast. It definitely sounds like her ex was dealing with an unstable creature.

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

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(New York Times) — It had all the makings of another turbulent moment for the Los Angeles Police Department, an agency once notorious for an “L.A. Confidential” style of heavy-handed policing, hostile relations with minorities and corruption. Two months after triumphantly announcing the arrest of a suspect in a brutal beating at Dodger Stadium, the police admitted that they had arrested the wrong man, and charged two other people with the crime.  But unlike other potentially explosive episodes that have rocked this department over the decades, there were no indignant denials or attacks on critics. Instead, the police chief,Charlie Beck, wrote an op-ed article in The Los Angeles Times explaining what had gone wrong and expressing regret at some of his own public comments. “We can do much better,” Chief Beck wrote.  The moment reflected what has been a revolution for the police department that was once the model for Sgt. Joe Friday and “Dragnet.” Twenty years after the police beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape, and 10 years after the Justice Department imposed a consent decree to battle pervasive corruption in the Rampart Division, this has become a department transformed, offering itself up — in a way that not so many years ago would have been unthinkable — as a model police agency for the United States.

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(Los Angeles Times) — It was shortly after midnight, 20 years ago Thursday, when George Holliday awoke to the sounds of police sirens outside his Lake View Terrace apartment. Grabbing his clunky Sony Handycam, he stepped out on his balcony and changed the Los Angeles Police Department forever.

The nine minutes of grainy video footage he captured of Los Angeles police beating Rodney King helped to spur dramatic reforms in a department that many felt operated with impunity. The video played a central role in the criminal trial of four officers, whose not-guilty verdicts in 1992 triggered days of rioting in Los Angeles in which more than 50 people died.

The simple existence of the video was something unusual in itself. Relatively few people then had video cameras, Holliday did — and had the wherewithal to turn it on.  ”It was just coincidence,” Holliday reflected in an interview a decade ago. “Or luck.” Today, things are far different and the tape that so tainted the LAPD has a clear legacy in how officers think about their jobs. Police now work in a YouTube world in which cellphones double as cameras, news helicopters transmit close-up footage of unfolding police pursuits, and surveillance cameras capture arrests or shootings. Police officials are increasingly recording their officers. Compared to the cops who beat King, officers these days hit the streets with a new reality ingrained in their minds: Someone is always watching.

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(Black Voices) — CBS Los Angeles is now reporting new evidence that officers within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) may have played a role in the death of rapper Christopher Wallace, also known as the Notorious B.I.G and Biggie Smalls.  Wallace was murdered March 9, 1997.  According to witnesses, a lone gunman in the driver’s seat of a black Chevy Impala pulled up to the truck, where Wallace was sitting in the passenger seat, and opened fire. Wallace died shortly thereafter.

The Wallace family filed suit against the LAPD in 2005, bringing forth additional evidence that implicated LAPD officers in the death of Christopher Wallace. The two officers under suspicion are David Mack and Rafael Perez.  Both Perez and Mack are in prison now for unrelated crimes, Mack for bank robbery and Perez for stealing cocaine.  The new evidence involves an alleged conversation between Perez and a cellmate in the L.A. County jail. Mack and Perez were reportedly close confidants with Death Row Records, the label that represented rap artist Tupac Shakur, who was involved in a highly publicized dispute with Biggie.

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