Author: brandycavalli

Today's post was by Brandy "Bee" Cavalli. Brandy is an international marketer, freelance writer based in Atlanta, GA.

The Black Panther Party Pens Heartfelt Letter To Afeni Shakur 

The Black Panthers wrote this touching letter after the passing of Black activist, organizer & fearless leader, Afeni Shakur Davis.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of our sister Afeni Shakur. 

Afeni was a sister, mentor, comrade and leader within the New York chapter of the Black Panther Party. 
As the section leader of the Harlem branch, Afeni was the one who personally welcomed many of us into the party. As the communications secretary, she was one of the highest ranking members on the East Coast and her leadership was the reason many young women joined. 

Afeni had a deep and profound love for the community and a passion for the people that made her a dynamic organizer and dedicated activist. She embodied the spirit of what it meant to be a Black Panther, waking up at 5AM to cook for the free breakfast program, coordinating the day to day office duties and personally being in the field. 

Afeni’s organizing laid the seeds for a legacy we still bear witness to today. While working with tenant organizations, Afeni led numerous rent strikes, resulting in several tenant owned buildings, some of which still exist today. She was instrumental in organizing health care professionals and patients at Lincoln Hospital and Harlem Hospital to develop the first patient bill of rights, a fore runner of the patient bill of rights now posted in every hospital.

After the Black Panther Party, Afeni continued her work in the community as a paralegal helping save hundreds of families from eviction and criminal convictions. She left an everlasting impact on the community and the arts world with her life long contributions that will never be forgotten. 

We send our deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathy to Sekyiwa, Jean and the entire Shakur family. We ask that young people everywhere continue Afeni’s legacy by lifting up her name and continuing to organize in their communities wherever they see injustice. 

We Love you dear sister Afeni. Long live your revolutionary spirit!

All Power To The People!

Sincerely,

The National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party

Sandra Beltran: Mexico’s Most Infamous Female Organized Crime Boss Gives Her First Post Prison Interview 

October 2015, Sandra Ávila Beltran, the revered “Queen of Cocaine” or “Queen of the Pacific” was released from prison.

She has spent the last seven years in confinement for money laundering, including two years in solitary confinement.

Avila, now in her early 50s, was arrested in 2007 in Mexico City with her Colombian boyfriend, Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez, whom officials claimed was also a powerful drug-world figure.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Avila is believed to have been a rare figure — a powerful woman — in Latin America’s testosterone-saturated drug world, and her story has become a kind of genre to itself, particularly with the success of ‘La Reina del Sur,’ the wildly popular Telemundo telenovela to which Avila’s life is sometimes compared. (Fortune)

 

Sandra Ávila Beltrán at home. Photograph: Jonathan Franklin

The former Cartel queen pin gave an exclusive interview, her first in nearly a decade, from her home near Guadalajara, Mexico. In that interview she lashed out at political corruption in Mexica, mocked the futility of drug prohibition and praised Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Ávila is the stuff legends are made of – one of the few women with access to the highest levels of cartel life. She has lived, worked and loved inside the upper echelons of the Mexican drug world since the late 1970s. At the height of her career, she showed a propensity to carry suitcases with millions of dollars in crisp $100 bills.

Check out the entire insightful interview with one of the notorious women of the underworld: Queen of Cartels: most famous female leader of Mexico’s underworld speaks out 

Teen Who Attempted To Grab Officer’s Gun At Las Vegas Rally Wanted ‘to Kill Trump’

The man arrested for trying to disarm a police officer inside a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas Saturday told authorities he intended to use the gun “to kill Trump,” according to a new criminal complaint.

Police arrested the 19-year-old after he attempted to pull a police officer’s gun from its holster inside a Las Vegas theater where Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was holding a campaign rally.
Police said Michael Sandford struck up a conversation with a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer under the pretense that he was seeking to get an autograph. During the conversation, police said Sandford tried to pull the officer’s service weapon from its holster. Other officers also assigned to provide security at the event were quickly able to detain Sandford and authorities said there was no further disruption to the event.

Sanford told police that he drove to Las Vegas from California “to kill Trump,” according to the complaint, after hearing a few days earlier in the news that he was expected there. On June 17, he practiced shooting a gun for the first time at a gun range in Las Vegas.

“Sanford further stated that if he were on the street tomorrow, he would try this again,” reads the complaint, obtained by CNN. “Sandford claimed he had been planning to kill Trump for about a year but decided to act on this occasion because he finally felt confident about trying it.”

He is expected to make his initial appearance in front of U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge George Foley at 6 p.m. ET Monday, according to a U.S. Attorney’s office spokesperson.

Sanford also told authorities that had he not tried to assassinate Trump at the Las Vegas event, he had planned to go to his next rally, in Phoenix, Arizona, and try again there.

Trump is under U.S. Secret Service protection but local law enforcement often supplements them at campaign events.
The Secret Service says it has charged Sandford with violating two federal laws following the incident, including assault, and he could face up to a decade in prison if convicted.

Many of Trump’s rallies throughout the campaign have been contentious, with protests both inside and outside the events. Secret Service agents had to run to Trump’s side during a campaign rally earlier this year in Ohio to protect him against a man attempting to rush the stage during his remarks.

Read the rest of this article on KTLA News