Corruption – Page 67 – The Pen Hustle With Brandy Cavalli

Singer John Legend Launching ‘FREE AMERICA’ Campaign In Efforts To End Mass Incarceration

John Legend is using his talents to address a social cause. The Academy Award-winning singer has announced that he is launching a campaign to end mass incarceration, FREE AMERICA.

“We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend told the Associated Press. “It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.”

The first things on Legend’s agenda will be to perform at a correctional facility in Austin, TX and then to attend a press conference with state legislators to talk about Texas’ criminal justice system. The Grammy-award winner will also co-host a criminal justice event with Politico in Washington, DC and pay a visit to a prison in California.

More artists will be added to the campaign in the future.

“I’m just trying to create some more awareness to this issue and trying to make some real change legislatively,” he said. “And we’re not the only ones. There are senators that are looking at this, like Rand Paul and Cory Booker, there are other nonprofits that are looking at this, and I just wanted to add my voice to that.”

Tanay Hudson, All Hip Hop

Deputy Who Shot And Killed Man With Real Gun Instead Of Taser Avoids Murder Charge; Charged With Manslaughter

ericharris — Eric Harris was shot and killed by police during a police sting in Tulsa County. Photo: Reuters

Robert “Bob” Bates, the Tulsa County reserve deputy who “inadvertently” shot and killed a suspect when he grabbed his gun instead of his taser, was charged with second-degree manslaughter Monday.
The incident occurred earlier this month during a sting operation when 44-year-old Eric Harris, a convicted felon, sold a 9mm handgun and ammunition to an undercover officer. As additional law enforcement closed in to make an arrest, Harris fled, leading officers on a foot pursuit. Recently released body cam footage captured the moments when everything went awry.

Officers attempted to subdue Harris, who was reported to have been reaching towards his waistband. Authorities were unsure at the time whether or not he was armed, but was aware that Harris had a history of violence, particularly toward law enforcement.

Bates can be heard saying, “Taser! Taser!” as they struggle to gain control of Harris, but moments later a single gunshot is heard, followed by Bates saying, “I shot him! I’m sorry!”

Another unidentified officer can be heard saying, “Oh shit! Shit man, you shot him! You shot him!”

Officers continue to restrain Bates, who said he was losing his breath. Another unidentified officer responds by saying, “Fuck your breath.”

Reports indicate that Harris continued to be combative and uncooperative even after paramedics arrived and tried to administer aid.

“No human being deserves to be treated with such contempt,” the family of Harris, who called the officers’ response “appalling,” said in a statement Monday, NBC News reported.

Initially, Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz stood behind Bates’ actions, cited the fatal shooting as an accident, and determined that no crime had been committed by Bates.

“He made an error,” Glanz said. “How many errors are made in an operating room every week?”

However, once the case was turned over to Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler, charges were announced. Kunzweiler determined Harris’ death was the result of “culpable negligence,” which he defined as “the omission to do something which a reasonably careful person would do, or the lack of the usual ordinary care and caution in the performance of an act usually and ordinarily exercised by a person under similar circumstances and conditions.”

Attorneys representing the Harris family have accused the sheriff’s office of being corrupt and Glanz being soft on Bates, who has donated thousands of dollars to Glanz’s campaign funds, as well as cars to the department.

Glanz denies such treatment.

Guns.Com

Former Police Chief Testifies That Shower Posse Stockpiled Weapons & Explosives

Former police chief yesterday revealed that in the last decade, the west Kingston-based ‘Shower Posse’, or ‘Presidential Click’ gang – under the direction of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke – “invested” in a stockpile of firepower that made it a significant threat to the State.

Ellington said police intelligence shows that the gang made significant investments in an arsenal of weapons that included 50-calibre rifles, shoulder-mounted weapons, as well as explosives after a deadly firefight in 2001 between members of the security forces and thugs loyal to Coke in the west Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens.

“This represented a shift away from stand-off single-target weapons to group-target weapons, which was new and significant in terms of how criminals were arming themselves in Jamaica,” said Ellington, who was giving evidence before the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry.

He said that the level of investment, coupled with the high level of organisation displayed by the ‘Presidential Click’, made it a “non-traditional, insurgency level” threat to the authority of the State way beyond the capabilities of any other criminal gang operating across the island.

“None [of them] were on the scale of the Tivoli Gardens gang. The Clans [Clansman] and One Order gangs would be the two in the wings that would pose a significant threat, but they were not as organised as the Tivoli Gardens gang,” Ellington told the three-member panel.

“They didn’t make the kind of social investment in communities as the Tivoli Gardens gang did – buying loyalties and actually appearing to operate like a state within a state,” he underscored.

Jamaica Observer