Leonard Peltier Denied Parole For A Crime He Did Not Commit

I’ll try to keep this brief but it’s a fifty-year-old story so it may take a minute.

I was taught in school that Indians, AKA Native Peoples, were either kind to us when we arrived on their land, or they were savages hellbent on fighting the Whie Man. In college, I learned about Leonard Peltier and in researching him I came to see that it was us, the White Man, who were the savages; it completely and permanently changed my views on the government and Native Peoples.

This is the story of Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison since 1977 for the shooting of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ron Williams. This week the US Parole Commission once again denied Leonard Peltier's bid for parole; Peltier the case for parole based on several factors: his age,  his nonviolent record in prison and his declining health, which has been affected by diabetes, hypertension, partial blindness from a stroke and bouts of Covid. Peltier's last full parole hearing was 15 years ago—he will have an interim hearing in 2026—but his next full hearing won’t be until 2039 when he will be ninety-four.

Here are the facts of the case:

On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, in unmarked cars, followed a pick-up truck onto the Jumping Bull ranch on a federal warrant in connection with the theft of cowboy boots. The families immediately became alarmed and feared an attack; a shoot-out erupted and when it was over the Coler and Williams and one Native American, Joseph Stuntz were dead; the agents were shot at close range, while Joseph Stuntz was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet. Stuntz’s death has never been investigated, nor has anyone ever been charged in connection with his death.

According to the officials, Leonard Peltier—a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and an activist with the American Indian Movement [AIM]—was identified as the only person on the reservation in possession of the type of weapon that could fire the type of bullet that killed the agents.

And while dozens of people participated in the gunfight, only Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau, and Darrell Butler were arrested. At their trial Robideau and Butler claimed self-defense and were acquitted. When Peltier was tried separately in 1977, not a single witness who identified him as the shooter was presented and—unknown to his defense lawyers at the time—the federal government withheld a ballistics report indicating the fatal bullets didn't come from Peltier’s weapon. But the FBI has maintained his conviction was "rightly and fairly obtained" and "has withstood numerous appeals to multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court" because someone on the reservation murdered those two agents so why not Peltier.

Leonard Peltier fled to Canada and was arrested there in February 1976. The United States presented the Canadian court with sworn statements signed by Myrtle Poor Bear who said she was Peltier’s girlfriend and allegedly saw him shoot the agents but the facts that came out in his hearing proved that Poor Bear had never met Peltier and was not present during the shoot-out. Poor Bear has since recanted her statements and said the FBI threatened her and coerced her into signing the affidavits.

Peltier was extradited to the United States where he was tried in 1977. Key witnesses like Myrtle Poor Bear were not allowed to testify and unlike the Robideau/Butler trial in Iowa, evidence regarding violence between police and the government and residents on the Pine Ridge reservation was severely restricted.

At trial, an FBI agent who had previously testified that Coler and Williams followed a pick-up truck onto Pine Ridge, a vehicle that could not be tied to Peltier, changed his account; he testified that the agents had followed a red and white van onto the scene, a vehicle which Mr. Peltier allegedly drove occasionally. And while three teenaged Native witnesses testified against Peltier about the van, like Poor Bear they all later admitted that the FBI forced them to testify.

To this day not one witness identified Peltier as the shooter.

The U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case claimed that the government had provided the defense with all FBI documents concerning the case but more than 140,000 pages had been withheld in their entirety. In fact, an FBI ballistics expert testified that a casing found near the agents’ bodies matched the gun tied to Peltier and yet but ballistics tests that proved the casing did not come from Peltier’s gun were intentionally concealed.

The jury, unaware of those facts, found Peltier guilty and he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

After the trial, Peltier’s attorneys discovered new evidence obtained, and the hidden evidence, through a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] lawsuit and sought a new trial. At that trial, the Eighth Circuit ruled:

“There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case."

And then they denied the request for a new trial.

In fact, during oral arguments, the government attorney conceded that they did not know who shot the agents but claimed that Peltier is equally guilty whether he shot the agents at point-blank range or participated in the shoot-out from a distance even though Peltier’s co-defendants participated in the shoot-out from a distance but were acquitted; he alone was guilty because he was there.

Judge Heaney, who authored the decision denying a new trial, has since changed his opinion and voiced support for Peltier’s release, stating that the FBI used improper tactics to convict Peltier, that the FBI was equally responsible for the shoot-out, and that Peltier's release would promote healing with Native Americans.

Leonard Peltier has served over 47 years in prison for a crime that even the government says he did not commit, a crime for which the government withheld evidence, rewrote the narrative, and coerced witnesses into testifying against Peltier.

And given all this, given the numerous human rights awards Peltier has been given for his good deeds from behind bars which include annual gift drives for the children of Pine Ridge, fund raisers for battered women’s shelters, and donations of his paintings to Native American recovery programs., given his age, his health and time served, he is still being held behind bar.

And it doesn’t look like the FBI will ever admit the wrongs they perpetuated against Leonard Peltier; in the wake of Peltier being denied parole again, current FBI Director Christopher Wray praised the Parole Commission's decision, saying in a statement that Peltier "has been afforded his rights and due process time and again, and repeatedly, the weight of the evidence has supported his conviction and his life sentence."

Ain’t that America? Aren’t we the savages?

PS A couple of good books to read are In The Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter and Matthiessen, and Prison Writings by Leonard Peltier. Also on this blog from 2008: Leonard Peltier

PPS Y’all might think I have words about the alleged assassination attempt over the weekend, but I do not condone violence against anyone; my only thoughts are “alleged assassination attempt.”

Bowen Turner Raped Three Women And Got Probation

Once again the headlines throughout South Carolina are focused on the state’s “injustice system” though this time is not about the Murdaugh Murders. This is about 19-year-old Bowen Turner, accused of raping three women between 2018 and 2019 but given just five years’ probation on a single charge of first-degree assault and battery thanks to Judge Markley Dennis.

One of those victims was Dallas Stoller who committed suicide in November 2021 due to alleged bullying from classmates for reporting the rape. Bowen Turner raped Dallas Stoller in 2019, six months after he’d been accused of raping another girl, and yet despite the availability of physical evidence and witness testimony—as well as an affidavit from Dallas Stoller—the sexual assault charges against Turner were dismissed, because Stoller had died.

No one seems to care that she died of a self-inflicted wound after being raped.

Worse, is that while  out on bond in Stoller’s case—and just 41 days after his lawyers successfully argued to have his ankle monitor removed—Bowen Turner was accused of raping Chloe Bess.

Bowen was placed on house arrest for the rape of Stoller, but between November 2021 and February 2022, he violated that court order more than 60 times; he visited a golf course, he went to friends’ houses; he even went to Dallas Stoller’s grave. And though the court order called for his immediate arrest upon violation, the Second Circuit Solicitor’s Office—which appears to have known about the violations since early March—failed to act.

Instead, at the end of March, a hearing was scheduled for early April 8 to address the violations, and yet that hearing turned out to be not about violating his house arrest, but about a plea deal put in place by his attorney, Brad Hutto, who happens to be a powerful state senator.

In that plea deal, Turner’s first-degree criminal sexual assault charge was reduced to a first-degree assault and battery charge, even though Chloe Bess was willing to testify that she had been raped. Funny, though, because the plea deal now states that Bowen Turner just “harmed” or threatened to harm Chloe Bess, the same girl Brad Hutto slut-shamed in court in 2019, claiming she had consensual sex with Turner. Turner’s deal requires him to adhere to the rules of the sex offender registry for the next five years, and if he does that, the serial rapist will not have to register as a sex offender.

These are the facts of the cases against Bowen Turner … from the two young women who spoke out:

Dallas Stoller knew Bowen Turner. They were classmates and their families knew each other. They had the same friend circle, which was why they were both at the same party on Oct. 7, 2018.

Stoller admitted to drinking at the party, btu at some point her friends noticed she’d gone missing. One of her friends searched the woods and found Dallas Stoller lying on the ground unresponsive, and Bowen Turner standing over her  pulling his pants up.

Dallas Stoller’s mother picked her up shortly after she was found and took her to a hospital. She was badly beaten, bloody and bruised, one of her eyes was completely bloodshot from strangulation, and her was black and blue from strangulation.

Dallas completed a sexual assault exam at Medical University of South Carolina and identified her attacker as Bowen Turner. In January 2019, Turner was arrested and charged in Dallas’ case.

It was during the investigation, that Dallas’ family learned that Bowen Turner had been accused of another rape in April 2018 in Calhoun County. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division [SLED], investigated a third sexual assault accusation made against Turner, but no charges were filed in that case. 

But Bowen Turner, under arrest for raping Dallas Stoller, was released on a $10,000 bond and ordered to wear an ankle monitor. Three months later, his attorneys asked to have his ankle monitor removed, even though there was ample evidence that Turner violated his probation,  and the solicitor’s office and the judge agreed.

In early June 2019, Bowen Turner was accused of the rape of Chloe Bess.

Chloe Bess had gone out with a group of friends and her twin brother, but after a miscommunication, her brother and best friend left the party without her to get food. Chloe stepped outside to call her best friend and that’s when Bowen Turner found her.

Bowen Turner lived down the street from Chloe Bess and attended church where Bess’ father was the pastor, but they weren’t good friends. Bess told Turner she was going to leave, but he kept telling her not to leave; she found that strange and says:

“And then I just remember him pulling me into, like a tree line. There was a truck parked there. The next thing I know, I’m on the ground, and he’s a lot bigger than me, I only weigh like 115 pounds, … and so there was not much I could do at that moment in time.”

Chloe Bess says she tried to scream but nothing came out, and that’s when Bowen Turner raped her. After the assault, Chloe Bess got up and ran as fast as she could, hiding in the bushes and calling her friend.

Chloe Bess also had a sexual assault exam at the hospital and reported the assault to authorities and named Bowen Turner as her rapist.

Turner was again arrested. Though he was initially denied bond, his attorney, Brad Hutto, argued that Turner didn’t belong in the Department of Juvenile Justice because he “wasn’t a gang member.”

A judge placed Turner on house arrest with strict guidelines, and we already know how that went down; Bowen Turner, a privileged white rapist ignored the law and did as he pleased.

But what did Dallas Stoller and Chloe Bess do? Well, they endured significant bullying from people in the Orangeburg community, who posted comments on social media with the hashtag #FreeBowen. It was so bad for both girls, they changed schools.

Chloe Bess moved out of South Carolina state , while Dallas Stoller transferred from the College of Charleston to the University of South Carolina Beaufort, where the bullying continued until she took her own life last November.

How does this happen? How does a serial rapist get off so easily?

Well, in South Carolina, circuit court judges are ”elected” by state lawmakers, many of whom are trial lawyers. This system gives attorneys who are also legislators an unusual amount of power because the judges who rule in their cases also need their support for reelection. These legislator-attorney’s roles also grant them access to public agencies that non-legislator attorneys might not have, and it is because of this system that legislator-attorneys—many of whom are handsomely paid for their services—are particularly well-positioned to defend their clients. Critics of the system say these attorneys aren’t hired for their legal skills so much as they are for their influence.

In the case of Bowen Turner, it appears to have been either money well-spent or the perfect storm.

Prosecutor David Miller is highly respected in his field and has a long list of accomplishments in his career, but Miller has sought to become a circuit court judge and so would need support from members of the legislature … like Bowen Turner’s attorney, Brad Hutto, who has been a state senator since 1996.

In addition, Bowen Turner’s father, Walt Turner, was an investigator with the 1st Circuit Solicitor’s Office at the time Turner was charged, making him another familiar face in the Orangeburg Courthouse.

Then there’s Judge Markley Dennis who is known as a judge who is inherently friendly to defendants. According to news reports from 1994 to the present, Judge Markley Dennis has a history that includes controversial decisions:

In 1995 he sentenced a father, who admitted to raping his daughter from the age of 5 until she was 14, to therapy.

In 2000, Dennis was criticized for the light sentences he handed out to the perpetrators of one of the biggest public embezzlement scandals at the time in Sumter County. More than $3 million was stolen, misspent and misappropriated by more than a dozen Sumter school district administrators, and yet one of the men, a popular coach who was facing up to 25 years in prison, was given just 90 days in jail. The coach was ordered to pay $45,000 in restitution despite the more than $200,000 he’d been accused of taking.

The sick part of this is that these so-called legislator-attorneys defend this kind of bull shit by saying this is “how things work.”

Bowen Turner can rape three women in South Carolina, but not face charges in one case because the victim killed herself waiting for her day in court, and not face charges in the other case because a state Senator slut-shamed the girl.

It really isn’t the heat, it’s the stupidity.

Bowen Turner is a rapist. Everybody needs to know that.

And Brad Hutto needs to know that when Bowen Turner rapes again, and I’ve no doubt he will, that crime will be on his hands, too, because he used his influence over a judge to get a rapist off.

White Judges Keep Black Man In Prison For Life For Petty Theft

Back in 1997, 42-year-old Fair Wayne Bryant was convicted of stealing a pair of hedge clippers and was sentenced to … life in prison. For stealing garden equipment. Of note, of course, is that Bryant is a Black man, and this is Louisiana. Last week the Louisiana state Supreme Court denied a request to review Bryant’s case and he will continue to serve out his sentence … for stealing clippers.

In 2000, Fair Wayne Bryant had appealed his life sentence to be unconstitutionally excessive and over the past twenty years his case made its way through the Louisiana court system, finally landing at the state’s highest court. Bryant’s hopes for an appeal ended after a Louisiana Supreme Court panel—consisting of five White men and one Black woman—upheld his life sentence 5-1 last week.

The lone sane person on the panel was the Black judge, Supreme Court Justice Bernette Johnson, who called the original sentence "excessive and disproportionate to the offense" and made special mention of the cost to Louisiana taxpayers:

"Arrested at 38, Mr. Bryant has already spent nearly 23 years in prison and is now over 60 years old. If he lives another 20 years, Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost one million dollars to punish Mr. Bryant for his failed effort to steal a set of hedge clippers."

The state taxpayers have already paid $518,667 to keep Bryant in prison for the petty crime. Bryant had four previous four convictions—the first was for attempted armed robbery of a taxi driver in 1979, while the others were for theft, attempted forgery, and burglary—which the panel used as an excuse to keep him in prison for life.

Justice Johnson, in her dissent:

"Each of these crimes was an effort to steal something. Such petty theft is frequently driven by the ravages of poverty or addiction, and often both. It is cruel and unusual to impose a sentence of life in prison at hard labor for the criminal behavior which is most often caused by poverty or addiction."

After Bryant’s first appeal in 2000, Louisiana’s 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal, stated that a life sentence was an appropriate punishment for Bryant because he had already spent enough time in prison as an adult.

He had been to prison before, so why not sentence him to life … for stealing garden equipment.

Judge Johnson called Bryant’s life sentence a "modern manifestation of pig laws," which were formulated to particularly punish African-Americans for petty theft:

"Pig Laws were largely designed to re-enslave African Americans, and this case demonstrates their modern manifestation: harsh habitual offender laws that permit a life sentence for a Black man convicted of property crimes. This man’s life sentence for a failed attempt to steal a set of 3 hedge clippers is grossly out of proportion to the crime and serves no legitimate penal purpose."

Imagine a white man, even one with a basically non-violent criminal record, being sentenced to life for petty theft.

Can’t, because that doesn’t happen to white people.

MEAAW

We Are Still Far From The America In MLK's Dream

It’s Martin Luther King Day and, you know, we’ve learned a lot, and we’ve grown as a country, from those dark days when MLK spoke.

Haven’t we? Have we?

Last Friday U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco found four women guilty of misdemeanors after they illegally entered a national wildlife refuge along the US-Mexico border to leave water and food for undocumented migrants. Each of the women— Natalie Hoffman, Oona Holcomb, Madeline Huse and Zaachila Orozco-McCormick—face up to six months in prison for the charges and a $500 fine after being found guilty. Velasco’s ruling ruling marks the first conviction brought against humanitarian aid volunteers in ten years.

You know, because feeding people, undocumented people, is a crime; except people have also been fined for feeding homeless people, so maybe we’re a country that just doesn’t give a fuck about the hungry?

In an ever better display of news that would make MLK turn over in his gave, Karen Pence, the wife, or mother, I don’t know, of Michael Elizabeth Pence, the Vice President of this country, has taken a job teaching art at Immanuel Christian School in northern Virginia.

How nice … except the in northern Virginia that bans gay students and parents. In fact, the school has a "parent agreement" posted online that explains their hate-filled policy:

"I understand that the school reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission to an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student if the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home, the activities of a parent or guardian, or the activities of the student are counter to, or are in opposition to, the biblical lifestyle the school teaches. This includes … contumacious behavior, divisive conduct, and participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity.”

It goes on, but you know it’s just hate, masked as faith, because everyone knows, especially in the Pence household, that God Hates Fags.

Jilmar Ramos-Gomez served in the Marines, saw combat in Afghanistan and is dealing with the effects of PTSD stemming from his time in a war zone. He is a citizen of the United States, but, last month, federal immigration authorities took him into custody to face possible deportation.

It started in November, when Jilmar was arrested for trespassing onto the helipad area on the roof of a local hospital. He pleaded guilty to that charge, and a judge ordered him released. But instead of releasing him, the Kent County jail turned Jilmar over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] based on, they say, a request from ICE.

Maria Gomez-Velasquez, Jilmar’s mother, contacted a lawyer, who told authorities at ICE that Jilmar Ramos-Gomez was a US citizen, and a Marine war veteran; in fact, even the staff at Kent County jail knew he was a citizen and yet they still turned him over to ICE.

A spokesperson for ICE has no comment; the Kent County sheriff's department is investigating the incident, and claims if there was a mistake, it was made by ICE. But then why did Kent Country turn over Jilmar Ramos-Gomez to ICE in the first place.

Brown skin? Odd sounding name? An accent?

Since MLK died, we’ve barely taken a single step forward, and with this administration in power, we are taking many steps backward.

We have become a country that arrests people for feeding the hungry, a country where one of our leader’s wives can happily work for a hate-filled school, where a US citizen and veteran can be detained by ICE and threatened with deportation.

This most certainly is not the America that MLK dreamt of, and not the one I ever thought I would call home.

On the Other Hand, Cyntoia Brown, Sex-Trafficking Victim, Must Serve 51 Years Before Release

While Jacob Anderson rapes a woman and walks free, Cyntoia Brown, a Tennessee woman who was a victim of sex-trafficking, has been convicted … as a teenager … of shooting the man who pimped her out and must serve 51 years before she is eligible for release.

In case you didn’t get it, Cyntoia Brown is a black woman.

Brown was just 16-years-old in 2004 when she killed real estate agent Johnny Allen. Allen had solicited Brown for sex, taken her to his home and showed her his guns. Later in bed, Brown thought Allen was reaching for his gun to shoot her, so she grabbed a handgun from her purse and shot him first. She then stole the money from Allen’s wallet, took his guns and drove his truck to a Walmart.

At the time, Brown was a runaway, living with her 24-year-old boyfriend, a pimp known as “Kut Throat,” who raped her and forced her into prostitution. But teenager Cyntoia Brown was tried as an adult, convicted of first-degree murder, felony murder and aggravated robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison in 2006.

When her case received widespread attention, a documentary of her case was filmed; activists and celebrities tried to get her released.

But this week Tennessee’s Supreme Court said that, under the state’s law, defendants like Brown who were convicted of first-degree murder after July 1, 1995, can only be released from prison after serving at least 51 years of their sentences. 

After the Tennessee Supreme Court’s ruling made headlines, Brown’s advocates pointed out how white men and women who commit crimes are handed lighter sentences than people of color.

Like that of Keeva Delaney, who was twenty-three when she was convicted of killing her husband during an argument. Her sentence? One year in jail, and nine years of probation. Oh, but wait, it gets better. Delaney will serve her sentence one month at a time for ten years; yes, every June she must report to the jail and spend a month there, then take the next eleven months off before she goes back in for another thirty days.

And what about millionaire hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein? He was accused of trafficking minor girls and coercing them into sex acts in his mansion for at least six years. He got thirteen months.

A black woman, Cyntoia Brown, who was a sixteen-year-old girl forced into a life of prostitution as a child, killed a man and will spend 51 years in jail.

A White woman, Keeva Delaney, shot and killed her husband because maybe he was a little too friendly with another woman. She was given one year in jail, and the option of serving one month a year for ten years and living free the rest of the time.

A rich white man, Jeffrey Epstein, forced girls into sexual trafficking, and raped dozens of them in his own home. He’ll be jailed for thirteen months.

Ain’t that America.

Huffington Post

Logan Michael Osborn Will Serve No Prison Time For Rape Thanks To Judge Hauler

Logan Michael Osborn attended a high school play at Cosby High School with a fourteen-year-old girl. Afterwards they went for a walk; the girl was unfamiliar with the campus, but Logan was not. When the path ended at a fence, Logan Michael Osborn became aggressive.

He forced the girl onto her knees, then tied a belt around her neck and hands before he sexually assaulted her, releasing her only because she said her mother was coming to pick her up.

The girl's mother knew something was wrong, and the teen told her what happened during the ride home.

Logan Michael Osborn was arrested and charged with sexual assault. Now 19, he pleaded guilty in September of last year. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison ... with eight years suspended. Yes, he’d serve just two years for sexually assaulting a minor, but …

In January, Chesterfield Circuit Court Judge T.J. Hauler decided to pause the two-year term, saying that he wanted to review the case.  And just last week he declined to reinstate the original sentence so Logan Michael Osborn will serve no jail time for rape.

I wonder if Judge T.J. Hauler Barr knew that, at age 12, Logan Michael Osborn was charged with grabbing a student's genitals, or that he’d been accused by seven different girls of inappropriate sexual behavior.

Logan Michael Osborn will have to register as a sex offender, and has lost an academic scholarship to the University of Mary Washington, but he’s still an admitted rapist who will serve not one day behind bars.

And this isn’t the first time Judge Hauler has been in the spotlight for controversial decisions regarding someone accused of violent sexually-based crimes.

In 2016 he rejected the state of Virginia’s request to deny the release of Dana William, who was in prison for raping his ex-girlfriend; William had been accused—but not charged—in several other rapes.

But William was released because of Judge Hauler and soon after his release William strangled to his ex-wife’s father to death and abducted her mother. He killed himself as police were about to arrest him, and investigators later found the body of the mother on the side of a road.

It’s hard to tell the criminals from the judges, sometimes.

Pix 11

In Case You Were Wondering,THIS Is White Privilege

Last week Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke sentenced former University of Wisconsin-Madison student t Alec Cook to three years in prison for sexually assaulting three female students and choking or stalking two others.

He physically assaulted five women and gets three years.

Oh, yeah, he’s white. Oh, and Judge Ehlke also sentenced Cook to eight years of extended supervision once he's released from prison.

How.Awful.

Prosecutors were seeking 19 years behind bars; defense attorneys sought probation. For assaulting two women, and sexually assaulting three women.

Judge Ehlke, who is clearly an asshat, says he gave Alec Cook credit for having no criminal record, no bail violations and for sparing the victims a trial by pleading guilty.

Wait. What? Um, he has a criminal record, because he’s a rapist and assaults women; and he clearly asked for no trial because he’s clearly guilty.

And there’s more than just these five women. Cook was initially charged with more than 20 crimes against nearly a dozen women, including disorderly conduct and felony sexual assault for incidents between September 2014 and October 2016.

So, um, Judge Ehlke, he did have a criminal past, right? But Ehlke also said this sentence, this light sentence, this slap on the wrist, would give closure to his victims.

Yes. Seriously. Even more insane is that, in court, Alec Cook cried a little as he apologized to the women he attacked and told them that what happened was not their fault. So, clearly, he thought, or thinks, that women sometimes “ask for it”:

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. You told the truth, and everyone should believe you. This is my fault. You didn't deserve this. And neither did your families. To them, too, I'm so sorry."

One victim said told the court:

"Part of me died in order to survive that night with him and that part of me will never grow back." 

But Alec Cook will be out of jail in less than three years.

Meanwhile … also last week, Judge Ruben Gonzalez sentenced Crystal Mason, a Texas woman … a black woman … to five years in prison for voting illegally because she was a felon on probation.

See, that says to me that, in America, if you’re a white man, you can stalk, harass, assault, choke, strangle or rape up to a dozen women and get three years, but if you’re a black woman on probation for a felony and you vote in an election, you get five years.

That’s white privilege in America.

And it’s ugly.

Alec Cook

Crystal Mason

We Should ALL Be Kneeling: Say His Name, Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr.

I hadn’t heard of this one, and I don’t know how I missed it. But this, this story, is the problem with America, from the day it all began four years ago, right up through today and tomorrow unless, and until, we as a country get our act together and stop allowing this to happen unchecked and unpunished.

And let’s be clear, we allow it because we do nothing after we hear the story; maybe it’s because something good is on TV, or you got a new Snapchat you need to see, or a video game to play, or any number of other things that matter not one bit when compared the to life of anyone; or someone like Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr.

At 3PM in the afternoon, January14, 2014, two St. Lucie County Sheriff ‘s deputies, Christopher Newman and Edward Lopez, went to Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr.'s home. See, Hill, a 30-year-old black man—and that shouldn’t make a difference except that it makes all the difference—was loudly playing an expletive-laden song by Drake, and someone complained.

A woman, picking her children up from a nearby school called in the noise complaint, and Deputies Newman and Lopez were sent out to Hill’s home. When they arrived, they found the garage door closed; they banged on it, and eventually Hill opened for them.

The deputies say Hill was brandishing a gun and refused to drop it when ordered; words were exchanged and then Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr. closed his garage door on the deputies. Then, Christopher Newman fired four shots through the closed door, hitting Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr.  once in the head and twice in the chest.

A SWAT team was called; they released chemical agents into the home, and then used a robot to pierce the garage door and photograph the inside. Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr. was dead, and his gun, his unloaded gun, was in his back pocket.

He was killed for a lot of reasons, I guess; for playing music too loudly in his own home in the middle of the day … for being drunk, in his own home … for being Black in America … for brandishing a weapon, though of the three witnesses as to whether or not he produced a gun, two are sheriff’s deputies and one, Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr., is dead.

Two years later, in 2016, after a jury failed to indict Christopher Newman in the shooting death of Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr. his family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit; they hoped to receive some compensation for their suffering and wanted a jury to determine if Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr.’s rights had been violated.

John Phillips, the Hill family's attorney, didn’t set a monetary amount, but hoped jurors would see fit to award the family several hundred thousand dollars. Eight hours into a 10-hour deliberation the jury indicated it was unable to reach a verdict, but the judge sent them back to continue; two hours later, they handed down their decision.

Though the jury decided that Deputy Newman had not used excessive force in the shooting, they awarded the Hill family monetary compensation for Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr.’s death.

They gave the family $4 in damages: $1 for funeral expenses and $1 for each child’s loss.

They decided that Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr.’s life was worth four dollars … except it wasn’t.

The jurors also felt that since the sheriff’s office was just one-percent at fault in Hill’s death, with Hill being 99-percent at fault, that four-dollar settlement was reduced to four cents.

A penny for each of his children, and a penny for funeral costs.

Only that’s not it either; the judge, Robin Rosenberg, felt that since Hill was very intoxicated at the time of the shooting, the award was reduced again … to nothing.

Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr.’s life was worth nothing … because he was playing profanity-laced music loudly in his own home in the middle of the day and was drunk and closed his garage door on deputies.

Not worth a damn.

Jurors did not stay after the verdict to speak with lawyers and have not reached out to John Phillips; Judge Rosenberg, who determined that Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr.’s life was worth nothing, is also not speaking.

No one is speaking; no one.

So, we must speak, all of us; say his name … Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr. … to everyone; tell his story to everyone. He wasn’t a perfect man, by a long shot, but who among us is? He had his foibles, his run-ins with law enforcement—though those were all traffic related—but who exactly was he hurting that January day in his own home, with his garage door shut, drinking, perhaps too much, and playing his music loud?

Who was getting hurt by that, because as far as I can see the only ones hurt, were Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr., and his family.

If his murder, and I don’t care what a jury said, Gregory Vaughan Hill Jr. was murdered by Christopher Newman, is just one of the many reasons why athletes are kneeling during the National Anthem, then we, all of us, should be kneeling all the time.

I mean, kneeling? A man is gun down through the closed door of his own home and his life is deemed to be worth just $4 dollars, then four-cents, and then nothing.

We should all be kneeling and screaming.

Miami Herald

NYT

Tuesday Thought #1

Tuesday Thought #3

Anna Was Raped By Police Officers ... And It Was "Legal"

Anna—her last name has not been made public though she is known on social media as Anna Chambers ... not her real name—was sitting with two friends in a parked car when a charcoal gray van pulled up; two men got out and used their flashlights to see inside the car.

The men also flashed their badges and began asking questions. When they discovered marijuana in a cupholder, they ordered Anna and her friends out of the car. Anna was handcuffed, but her two male friends were told they could leave, and then the two officers took Anna into the back of that unmarked police van with tinted windows.

Inside the car each man raped Anna—who was crying and shouting ‘No’—through the streets of Brooklyn, stopping every so often to switch places and allow one to drive and the other to rape the young girl.

About an hour later, but just a few minutes’ drive from where these men took Anna, the detectives dropped Anna off on the side of the road; surveillance footage shows she was about a half-mile from a police station. She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, pacing, until she found a stranger who let her use a cell phone to call a friend.

The detectives didn’t arrest Anna; they issued no citation; they filed no paperwork about the stop. Once Anna returned home, her mother took her to the hospital where the semen collected in Anna’s rape kit was discovered to be DNA matches for Detectives Eddie Martins and Richard Hall of the Brooklyn South narcotics unit.

Both men have since resigned from the force and been charged with rape. A simple case, everyone, including Anna, thought: two cops dragged her from a car, put her in a van, drove around town and raped her. Simple.

But … in New York, there is no law specifically stating that it is illegal for police officers or sheriff’s deputies in the field to have sex with someone in their custody.

Let that sink in; it isn’t a crime for a police officer to take someone into custody and have sex with them; most officers caught in the act claim the sex to be consensual.

Some states have closed this “rape” loophole, but most have not because few people realize the loophole exists and because it is politically unpopular to push laws that target cops and anger their powerful unions.

So, they let a loophole that allows police officers to legally rape detainees because they don’t wish to piss off their union? Seriously?

Luckily, some good has come from Anna’s case, in that it has brought new attention to the loophole. On October 26, New York City Council member Mark Treyger—inspired and repulsed by Anna’s story—proposed a bill to make it illegal for police officers to have sex with anyone in their custody.

Seriously; they have to propose a bill to make rape a crime, in the case of police officers raping people in their custody.

Hopefully Anna’s case will be the end of that loophole.

Defendants Martins and Hall haven’t told their side though their lawyers have made it clear that they are pursuing the consensual sex defense; you know, Anna was removed from a car, her two male friends sent away, she was placed in handcuffs, driven around for hours, and raped repeatedly and then just let go. No charges filed against her for anything.

Again, let that sink in …and then remember that Anna will be taking this to trial, and she will not give up; she will not stop until, in America, it becomes illegal for a police officer to rape anyone.

Buzzfeed