Posts Tagged Murder
A Futile War: Part I
Posted by zoboxrox in War on Drugs, crime, human rights, justice, tragedy on July 28th, 2009
In honor of the late great Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man in America, Part I of my look at the War on Drugs focuses on the following snippets from an article he wrote for The Huffington Post in March 2006 (my comments are in orange).
When I wanted to understand the truth about the war on drugs, I took the same approach I did to the war in Vietnam: I hit the streets and reported the story myself. I sought out the people whose lives this war has affected. Allow me to introduce you to some of them… [there is an entire website dedicated to the innocent victims of the drug war, their ages range from 8 months to 88 years].
…Jan Warren, a single mother who lived in New Jersey with her teenage daughter. Pregnant, poor and desperate, Jan agreed to transport eight ounces of cocaine to a cousin in upstate New York. Police officers were waiting at the drop-off point, and Jan - five months pregnant and feeling ill - was cuffed and taken in.
Did she commit a crime? Sure. But what awaited Jan Warren defies common sense and compassion alike. Under New York’s infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws [recently dismantled by Albany legislature and Governor David Patterson, who is quoted as saying “I can’t think of a criminal justice strategy that has been more unsuccessful than the Rockefeller drug laws”], Jan - who miscarried soon after the arrest - was sentenced to 15 years to life…
In Tulia, Texas, an investigator fabricated evidence that sent more than one out of every ten of the town’s African American residents to jail on trumped-up drug charges in one of the most despicable travesties of justice this reporter has ever seen [here is a link to this story, even more info here]….
…[The Drug War] surely hasn’t made our streets safer [see graph below*]. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people…disproportionately people of color…who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this effort - with no one held accountable for its failure.
Amid the clichés of the drug war, our country has lost sight of the scientific facts. Amid the frantic rhetoric of our leaders, we’ve become blind to reality: The war on drugs, as it is currently fought, is too expensive, and too inhumane
Weekend Update
Posted by zoboxrox in corporate america, crime, human rights, international, justice, religion, tragedy on June 8th, 2009
A lot of people responded to the article I wrote a few months ago, Authority to Kill a Minority. Well I noticed this article recently and I wanted to update you all on the situation of the murder of Oscar Grant, by BART officer, Johannes Mehserle.
An Alameda County Superior Court judge has ruled there is enough evidence to have former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle stand trial on a murder charge for fatally shooting Oscar Grant III.
Cell phone video shows Mehserle, 27, shot 22-year-old Grant once in the back as he lay face down on the platform of the Fruitvale BART station early on New Year’s Day. Police had been called to the station to respond to reports of a fight on a train.
The judge said in his ruling, “Grant and the others may have been loud, uncooperative and argumentative, but these young men did nothing to warrant the use of deadly force.”
Another update comes to us from Laos, where Samantha Orobator was awaiting trial for smuggling drugs into the country. After pleading guilty, Samantha was spared the death penalty, and instead convicted to life in prison. The United Kingdom and Laos, aided by Sweden, are in talks for a prisoner exchange, so that Samantha may be permitted to carry out her sentence in her home.
Samantha Orobator, 20, from South London, admitted attempting to carry 680g (24oz) of heroin on to a flight from Laos to Thailand last August. Campaigners are pressing for her to be returned to serve her sentence in a British jail before the birth of her child, expected in September. But the one-day trial, in Vientiane, the Laotian capital, has not clarified the most puzzling question about the case: how did the Nigerian-born Orobator become pregnant in the notorious Phanthong prison?
The conception may have saved her life. Like other South-East Asian countries, Laos takes an unforgiving attitude to the drug trade and in most cases heroin smugglers face death by firing squad for amounts of more than 500g. Under Laotian law, however, a pregnant woman cannot be executed.
What Makes This War Different From All Others?
Posted by zoboxrox in crime, health, human rights, international, malfunction, military, tragedy on May 12th, 2009
Recent news reports of the murder of five US troops by a fellow soldier on an army base in Baghdad, Iraq went more or less unnoticed, despite the fact that it is the deadliest attack of its kind (US soldiers killing their own), although by far not the first.
Monday’s attack marks the sixth incident in which a service member was killed by a fellow service member since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In March 2003, Capt. Christopher Seifert and Maj. Gregory Stone of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division were killed in a grenade attack at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait, that wounded 14 other officers. Sgt. Hasan Akbar was convicted by a court-martial in 2005 and sentenced to death.. Sgt. Joseph Tackett was fatally shot in June 2005 by a fellow soldier in Baghdad. Lt. Willie Davis later pleaded guilty to a charge of negligent homicide and was sentenced to 30 months in prison, the independent Army Times reported. The same month, Capt. Phillip Esposito and Lt. Louis Allen were killed in an explosion at a base in Tikrit, north of Baghdad. The military charged a sergeant in their company, Alberto Martinez, with murder in their deaths, but a military jury acquitted him in 2008. Two U.S. sailors based in Bahrain, Seaman Anamarie Camacho and Seaman Genesia Gresham, were shot and killed by a third sailor who then shot himself in October 2007, the Navy said. A 39-year-old soldier was charged with killing Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson and Sgt. Wesley Durbin in Tunnis, Iraq, in September.
While five or six years ago, such an event would 
have made headlines at multiple media outlets, CNN most likely would have named the incident and created a graphic, it wasn’t even covered by a majority of news sources and its appears the reason is a lack of interest among the public. To go one step further, it seems the civilian population has given up on outrage and instead adopted their own, “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy concerning the deteriorating mental state of our armed forces.
And perhaps for the first time, the Military are asking for help. Reports of long term and widespread Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, reaching all the way up the rankings, and an alarming suicide rate, by far the highest ever for the Army, which prompted a $50 million study from within to try to help the young people serving abroad and those who have come home.
A U.S. soldier is now more likely than a civilian to take his own life. The Army crossed that threshold at the end of 2008 — a year in which 140 soldiers killed themselves — a record high. And the situation is getting worse, not better.
So why is this happening? There are those who credit the current state of the military on lack of new recruits, perhaps due to a general unenthusiasm with the war. This thins out the soldiers they already have, sending them back for second and third tours, far sooner than they had expected to have to go. And the general outlook on the conflict can’t help. Instead of fighting for a defined purpose, this military finds itself trapped in what feels like an endless war that nobody believes in, seeing things they were never trained to see. The answer to this question is actually fairly obvious to me: “the first casualty of war is innocence.” Imagine yourself in this situation, imagine having killed dozens of people, mostly civilians at that (which make up a huge percent of the casualties in Iraq) for reasons you’re not quite sure about, to serve the most unpopular Commander in Chief we’ve ever had. I would be traumatized, depressed, and probably suicidal as well.
The real question is, why don’t we care anymore?
The Authority to Kill a Minority*
Posted by zoboxrox in crime, human rights, malfunction on January 12th, 2009
Turns out, if you are a young black man, unless you look like this (see above), the world hasn’t changed so much for you. Since January 1st, three young black men have been shot by police under suspicious circumstances, two were unarmed, two were killed, all three were under the age of 24, none were engaged in criminal activity.
1. Oscar Grant III, 22 years old, Father to 4 year old son Killed January 1, 2009; Oakland, CA.
Around 2am on New Years Day, Oscar and a group of friends were removed from a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train after reports that a fight had occurred. BART police were in the process of questioning and detaining the group, when a large number of spectators became interested in the events taking place and began filming with their cameras and phones. What occurred next has prompted days of rioting in the streets of Oakland. While the officers held Grant face-down on the ground, hands behind his back, with a knee on the back of his neck, BART cop Johannes Mehserle inexplicably stands, draws his weapon, and fires one shot into the back of the 22 year old father, who is then cuffed, turned over, and left dying on the ground. Grant later succumbed to the gunshot wound. Officer Mehserle has since resigned, but has not yet been arrested, as the investigation is still “ongoing.”
2. Adolph Grimes III, 22 years old, Husband and Father to 17-month ol
d son, Hurricane Katrina victim. Killed January 1, 2009; New Orleans, LA.
Adolph Grimes had just finished the five hour drive back home to New Orleans for the New Years, having relocated to Houston with his wife after Hurricane Katrina. Around 3 a.m. Grimes went out to his car to meet his cousin, when he was approached by a group of nine undercover narcotics task force officers. What happened next is still fairly unclear, there is no video of the incident, and the story the police officers have given contradicts what the Grimes family says they know to be true. The result, however, is undeniable. Another young black man lay dying, shot 14 times by police officers, twelve of which were in the back.
While Grimes did own a gun, it was legally purchased and registered. None of the nine officer’s identities have been released by the NOPD, and an investigation is once again, “ongoing.”
3. Robert Tolan, 23 years old, Shot in his own driveway. 
The final story is not quite as tragic, as the young man survived the incident, but still leads one to ask, why did this happen in the first place? Once again at 2 a.m. on New Years Eve, Tolan, the son of former professional baseball player Bobbie Tolan, was coming home from a restaurant with his cousin when Officer Sgt. Jeff Cotton, pulled into the driveway behind them, suspecting the young black men were in the process of stealing their own car.
Family members said the victim and his cousin were ordered to the ground. They reportedly complied to the officer’s order. But when Tolan’s mother and father came outside to question what was happening, the situation got a little heated.
According to Tolan’s family, one of the officers shoved Tolan’s mother against a wall. Tolan reportedly “leaned” up and questioned the officer about what was going on. At that point, Sgt. Cotton opened fire.
Tolan was shot in the chest. He was taken to Houston’s Ben Taub General Hospital. His family is focused on his recovery. The .45-caliber bullet from Cotton’s gun punctured his lung before lodging in his liver. The doctors say that he’ll likely have to live with the bullet in his liver for the rest of his life.
Robbie Tolan was shot in his own driveway, in front of his parents while defending his mother, under suspision of stealing his own car. Something is terribly wrong here.
Here are a two pretty insightful articles on Police Brutality and Violent Arrests in Minority Cases:
* Title of Post is reference to NWA song “F*** tha Police”
Permission to get outraged is given.
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