Family Of Tamir Rice Billed For Final Ambulance Ride

 

Associated Press — The city of Cleveland is asking Tamir Rice’s estate to pay $500 for ambulance and medical services he received after being shot by a police officer.

The city requested the money as the 12-year-old boy’s “last dying expense” in a creditor’s claim filed Wednesday in Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Probate Court. The claim states the money is overdue.

A Rice family attorney calls the claim “callous and insensitive.”

Rice, who was black, was shot by a white officer while playing with a pellet gun outside a recreation center in November 2014. A grand jury in December declined to indict the officer or his partner for the shooting.

A Cleveland police union president calls the city’s claim “unconscionable.”

$4.6 Million In Counterfeit Money Siezed From Vietnamese Couple  

  
A Vietnamese couple’s inability to keep its story straight resulted in U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seizing $4.65 million in funny money from the travelers at the Detroit Metro Airport on Friday.
“The couple attempted to import the counterfeit U.S. $100 bills and Vietnamese Dong into the United States to be offered as burnt-offerings to the deceased, as often practiced in certain Asian cultures,” the release explained.

Customs encountered the couple on Friday when they arrived at Metro Airport from South Korea. When the couple made conflicting statements about how much money they were carrying in excess of $10,000, their luggage was examined.

A secondary search of their luggage resulted in the discovery of 93 bundles of counterfeit U.S. $100 bills and 32 bundles of counterfeit Vietnamese Dong,” the statement said.

It was not immediately known how much money the counterfeit Dong came out to, said Customs spokesman Ken Hammond.

The U.S. Secret Service, which is sworn to fight the counterfeiting of American currency — in addition to the job it is best known for, protecting the president of the United States — has custody of the funny money.

“Hell money,” as it is called, is meant to resemble legal tender, and is common in the Vietnamese culture, Hammond said.

The Vietnamese couple never tried to spend the money, and was allowed to continue on their travels, Hammond said. That said, Customs did note that “the manufacturing of, and/or importation of counterfeit Federal Reserve notes could result in federal charges.”

Originally posted on Detroit News.

BLACK HISTORY: PBS Channel Features The Black Panther Party 

In October of 1966, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs.