Tag: Race Relations

Obama Says Colin Kaepernick Was ‘Exercising Constitutional Right’ By Sitting Through National Anthem



According to Fox 5 San Diego:
President Barack Obama said Monday that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick is “exercising his constitutional right” by not standing for the national anthem.

Obama said Monday during a news conference at the conclusion of the G20 summit in China. 

“I gotta confess that I haven’t been thinking about football while I’ve been over here and I haven’t been follow this closely, but my understanding, at least, is that is he’s exercising his constitutional right to make a statement. I think there’s a long history of sports figures doing so.”

Kaepernick has refused to stand for the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before 49ers pre-season games, protesting police violence against African Americans.

Kaepernick’s protests have spurred outrage in certain quarters, with some, including Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, calling for him to leave the country.

Obama took a measured approach Monday, saying that members of the military, getting in harm’s way for the flag and the country, could feel spurned by Kaepernick’s protest, he is also glad that Kaepernick is speaking up.

“As a general matter, when it comes to the flag the national anthem and the meaning that holds for our men and women in uniform and those who’ve fought for us — that is a tough thing for them to get past to then hear what his deeper concerns are,” he said. “But I don’t doubt his sincerity. I think he cares about some real, legitimate issues that need to be talked about and if nothing else what he’s doing has generated more conversation around some topics that need to be talked about. But I’d rather have young people engaged in the argument and trying to think through how they can be part of our democratic process than those who are just sitting on the sidelines.”

No Charges For South Carolina Officer Who Dragged Female Student Across A Classroom In Chair

Bossip — Last year a South Carolina school officer’s actions sparked a national debate after a video of him brutalizing a student over a verbal dispute went viral. Many believe ex-cop Ben Fields took it too far by dragging the peaceful young lady across a class room. His actions caused the unidentified student several injuries, including neck injuries and broken bones. Ben Field’s was fired after the incident.

According to the Daily News, termination is the height of his punishment. Field’s supervisor Sheriff Leon Lott said Field’s actions were so despicable, he wanted “to throw up”.

This however, had no effect to bring charges.  Richland County Solicitor Dan Johnson said in a 12-page court report Friday that he found no probable cause to charge the school resource officer because the incident “looked worse on camera”.

Johnson’s report includes statements from a slew of witnesses — one of whom said “the incident looked worse in the video than it did in the classroom.”

The report also included a formal account from Fields himself and he appears to have no regrets about his outrageous actions.

“I realized that I was going to have to physically remove the student from her seat to effectuate her arrest,” he said, adding that the desk only flipped over because the student locked her legs inside it.

“Looked worse on camera?” Um. OK.

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LAPD Releases Footage Showing Them Laughing After Killing Another Unarmed Black Man

Via NY Daily:

Los Angeles police officers found reason to laugh after struggling with a schizophrenic man who died in their custody, new video showed Thursday.

The city paid the family of 56-year-old grandfather Vachel Howard a $2.85 million settlement after they filed suit over his June 2012 death at the LAPD’s 77th Street Station Jail.

The video of the fatal clash between Howard and several officers remained out of public view until ProPublica published the silent security camera footage Thursday.

It’s not clear why the officers were chuckling after a nurse examined the motionless Howard, then walked away to get her stethoscope. A lawyer for Howard’s daughter told the investigative news outlet that the video shows how unnecessary it was for him to die.

“Mr. Howard posed no threat whatsoever,” said V. James DeSimone. “He was down on the ground, six officers on top of him, no guns in the nearby vicinity executing a chokehold where there was no threat to the officers or to anybody else. It’s out of policy, it’s unlawful, and in this case it’s murder.”

The police department and the city attorney’s office, which negotiated the settlement last fall after two years of litigation, declined ProPublica’s request for comment.

The officer believed to have used the chokehold received a 22-day suspension. Other officers at the jail that day said they feared for their own lives.

Howard was arrested June 4, 2012, on charges of driving under the influence, according to a 2013 review by the Board of Police Commissioners. Police suspected he had smoked crack and marijuana and possibly taken PCP.

He told one officer after a strip search that he had a history of paranoid schizophrenia and had not taken his medicine recently. The officers described him as apparently hallucinating after his arrest but cooperative during the search.

The struggle began afterward, when police said he became agitated while handcuffed to a bench and advanced toward a nurse in the jail’s dispensary moments later.

SMH! Another travesty. When will it end? Or has it just begun?

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