Hillary Clinton blames “mass incarceration” of blacks for the riots in Baltimore. She called for a re-evaluation of prison sentences.
Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for broad criminal-justice reform, reflecting the former First Lady’s evolution from supporting the policies instituted by her husband two decades ago in a period of high crime rates.
Clinton called for body cameras in every police department in the country, as well as an end to an “era of mass incarceration.” Her speech came two days after the funeral in Baltimore of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died while in police custody, and amidst ongoing civil unrest in that city.
“There is something profoundly wrong when African-American men are far more likely to be stopped by the police and charged with crimes and given longer prison terms than their white counterparts,” Clinton said. “There is something wrong when trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve breaks down … We must urgently begin to rebuild bonds of trust and respect among American between police and citizens.”
Clinton offered few specific policy plans in the speech, and didn’t explain how police forces would pay for body cameras on all officers. She spoke broadly about reducing jail sentences for low-level offenders and the effects of imprisoning millions, particular African Americans. “We don’t want to create another incarceration generation,” Clinton said.
Policing experts who reconstructed the events of the day said that Baltimore police did not send enough officers to the situation at the start, failed to quickly make arrests once trouble began and did not deploy additional officers quickly enough.
Key decisions led the situation to spiral out of control in a short 90 minutes, a lesson other police departments should heed.
Police say black-clad May Day marchers hurled wrenches and rocks at officers and hit police with sticks as a Friday evening march through Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood turned violent, injuring three officers — two seriously.
Police responded with pepper spray, pepper balls and flash bang grenades. Officers said several dozen vehicles were damaged. Windows were broken in neighborhood businesses.
Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole said one officer had a dislocated shoulder, a second had a broken wrist, and a third had a burn injury to his leg and ankle. They’re recovering at Harborview Medical Center.
“Thankfully, they’re all conscious,” O’Toole said. “We talked to them. They’re in good spirits. Just happy the situation didn’t become more serious.”
The injuries occurred at 7:30 p.m. when officers issued a dispersal order to the group and attempted to clear the street at Broadway and Howell, Seattle police said.
Protesters hurled bottles, rocks, bricks, wrenches, and other projectiles at police, who responded by utilizing pepper spray and pepper balls to break up the increasingly violent crowd, police said. They added protestors also began pushing barricades and trash cans into roadways, and raided a fenced construction site for items they later burned in the street.
A May Day protest and march through the streets of Downtown Oakland, San Francisco, also turned violent Friday evening, with some businesses and cars being vandalized.
Friday’s protest began peacefully. About 500 people protesting several issues, from police brutality to capitalism, marched from Frank Ogawa Plaza and eventually up Broadway. Later on, vandals went on a rampage. They broke windows of business and vehicles and set a car on fire on the Broadway Auto Row.
One of the marchers said she was okay with vandalism that targeted big business.
“I see it like a game of chess and if one day we can throw rocks at police, right or wrong, however you feel about it, then that’s a day we took a stand. And that, in my mind, to some extent, is a win against the system,” Melissa Crosby said.
Baltimore is bracing for fresh protests this weekend, following a tumultuous week that included looting and arson, the arrival of National Guard troops and the filing of criminal charges against six police officers in the case of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose death in police custody set off the unrest.
Thousands of people are expected here Saturday for a march organized by Malik Shabazz, president of the Washington-based Black Lawyers for Justice and a former chairman of the New Black Panther Party. For nearly two weeks, ever since Mr. Gray died, city leaders have been warning against “outside agitators,” an oblique reference to Mr. Shabazz, who is clearly making them nervous.
“They should be nervous,” Mr. Shabazz said in an interview Friday night. “The youth went off and had a rebellion because the established leadership has not represented them well.”
A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.
The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.
The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.
Gray was found unconscious in the wagon when it arrived at a police station on April 12. The 25-year-old had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later, touching off waves of protests across Baltimore, capped by a riot Monday in which hundreds of angry residents torched buildings, looted stores and pelted police officers with rocks.
Meanwhile City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby says Freddie Gray received his critical injuries in Baltimore police custody and has charged all six officers involved in his death.
The state medical examiner’s office turned over Gray’s autopsy on Friday morning, a day after the police turned over their investigation into Gray’s death.
New York City police arrested more than 60 people Wednesday as protesters marched in solidarity with those in Baltimore, where demonstrations and riots were sparked by Freddie Gray’s death in police custody.
The arrests come after hundreds of people gathered in New York’s Union Square to rally against Gray’s death and in support of those in Baltimore. The NYPD had warned participants that marching into the streets or blocking sidewalks could result in arrests.
More than 60 people were arrested throughout the night, an NYPD spokesperson told Reuters. Police are charging many of the protesters with disorderly conduct, according to CNN.
The event was organized by the Millions March coalition, which asked participants who support “social, economic, and racial justice” to head down to Union Square to “stand in solidarity with them and with their resistance because their resistance is for justice and their justice is our justice.”
“People of Baltimore have taken to the streets day after day for justice for Freddie Gray and for Black lives across the country but now that the National Guard has been called in and a curfew set, we must stand in solidarity with the people of Baltimore,” the group wrote on the Facebook page for Wednesday’s event.
“The media will continue to paint the people of Baltimore as rioters and looters but people forget that the City and Police of Baltimore loot and destroy Black and Brown communities of Baltimore every day of the year.”
Hundreds of protesters showed up to Union Square to begin the rally. Prior to the rally’s commencement, police used loudspeakers and distributed flyers warning demonstrators that they could be arrested if they walk in the streets or block the sidewalks.
In Washington, DC, the National Black United Front scheduled its own rally in support of Gray and “all those that have been killed by at the hands of police terrorism.”
Speaking with the Washington Post, one local activist described the motivation behind the event.
“We wanted to come out and show our solidarity with folks who are protesting for Freddie Gray in Baltimore and continue to bring national attention to this, and not allow for this, like any incident, to be treated as isolated to one city,” said Eugene Puryear.
Several hundred people turned out, where protesters were set to march to the White House.
The dead wood media limps in dead last among institutions younger voters trust to “do the right thing,” according to a new and massive Harvard University survey.
In the school’s Institute of Politics poll of over 3,000 18-29-year-olds, a tiny 12 percent said they believe the do the right thing. A whopping 88 percent said “sometimes” or “never.” Just 2 percent said they trusted the media to do the right thing “all of the time,” and 39 percent said “never.”
The poll is the latest nail in the media’s coffin, a downward spiral that has resulted in fewer younger Americans reading traditional media and especially traditional platforms such as newspapers and magazines.
A former employee of Al Jazeera America is suing the network for $15 million, alleging that a manager with close ties to top executives discriminated against female employees and made disparaging remarks about Jews and Israel.
Matthew Luke, who started with the network in 2013 ahead of its launch as supervisor of media and archive management, filed the lawsuit in New York Supreme Court on Tuesday. In it, he alleges that Osman Mahmud, who rose through the ranks to become Luke’s supervisor as senior vice president of broadcast operations and technology, removed female employees from projects, excluded women from emails and meetings and made discriminatory, anti-Semitic and anti-American remarks such as “whoever supports Israel should die a fiery death in hell.”
Not long after Luke went to human resources to report on the behavior, he alleges he was told he did not fit into the company’s culture and was fired.
In an interview with The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Mahmud denied the charges, calling them a “pack of lies” and if he had said such remarks more people would’ve reported them.
The network, the American arm of the popular and widespread Al Jazeera network, was launched with big budgets and great fanfare last year after buying Current TV. But the network has struggled mightily in ratings and, according to the New York Post, is starting to lay off staffers and substitute more programming from Al Jazeera English.
An analysis of social media traffic in downtown Baltimore Monday has unearthed striking connections to the protests in Ferguson, Mo. last year, according to a leading data mining firm that shared its findings exclusively with Fox News.
The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because of its government work, found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore that were also tied to the peak period of violence in Ferguson.
While further analysis is being conducted on the data, it suggests the presence of “professional protesters” or anarchists taking advantage of Freddie Gray’s death to incite more violence.
Gray, 25, died April 18, a week after being injured while in police custody. A wave of violence erupted in Baltimore following his funeral Monday.
One account, which also tracked the recent union protests in New York City as well as other disturbances, tweeted photos of Gray’s funeral and used language that seemed to anticipate violence in Baltimore.
United States President Barack Obama has called on the nation to do some soul searching if the underlying tensions between African American communities and the police are to be fundamentally addressed.
Speaking at the White House a day after hundreds rioted on the streets of Baltimore on the East Coast, the President also slammed the ‘thugs’ and ‘criminals’ who infiltrated legitimate protests after the death of a black man while in police custody.
Scenes of chaos, looting and wanton destruction erupted soon after the funeral of a black man who died while in police custody nine days ago. A day later, the National Guard was made to bring order to the streets.
But this is a cycle that the President believes will take more than just sending in the cavalry.
The US has expanded the size of their criminal justice system over four decades to contain ethnic strife.
The American criminal justice system is dominated by racial disparities. Since 2002, the United States has had the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Although prison populations are increasing in some parts of the world, the natural rate of incarceration for countries comparable to the United States tends to stay around 100 prisoners per 100,000 population.
The US incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 residents, more than any other country. In fact, the rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world.
The state of Louisiana is often called out for having the single highest incarceration rate in the world.
African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, at nearly six times the rate of whites.
Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime.
Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44% of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).
Obama says, “In those environments, if we just think we’re going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we’re not going to solve this problem and we’ll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets and everybody will feign concern until it goes away and then we go about our business as usual.”
These are Obama’s first remarks after the death of Freddie Gray 10 days ago and he called for a rethink on education, criminal justice and economic development, particularly in poor communities.
The home of the rich, New York, is tied with Rwanda, which has the third highest national incarceration rate. Rwanda incarcerates so many people (492 per 100,000) because thousands are sentenced or awaiting trial in connection with the 1994 genocide.
Next comes the state of Washington, which claims the same incarceration rate as the Russian Federation.
On their nine-day trip to Africa, Bill and Chelsea Clinton are traveling with 20 wealthy donors and supporters, some of whom have also been fundraising for Hillary’s presidential bid and others who are expected to give big to her campaign.
The opportunity to accompany Bill Clinton on trips across the globe on behalf of his philanthropic foundation for years has been considered both a reward for past donations and an inducement for future giving, say sources familiar with the foundation’s finance operation. This time, they say, it was an especially coveted invite that was extended to wealthy Clinton supporters — including those who are also expected to give generously to Hillary’s campaign.
The foundation, which provided POLITICO with the list of donors on the trip, said the group represents both longtime supporters as well as those who are just getting involved and provides an opportunity to see the projects they are contributing to.
Among those along for the ride, which began yesterday: Democrat Jay Jacobs and his wife, Mindy, longtime Clinton fundraisers and foundation supporters; billionaire CEO Lynn Forester de Rothschild; Washington lobbyist Liz Robbins, who in the past has hosted events for the Clintons at her East Hampton home; wealthy Ugandan Rumi Verjee, who made his fortune franchising Domino’s Pizza in England; and John and Rebecca MacKay, who have donated between $5 and $10 million to the foundation.
The labor movement might not yet be ready for Hillary, but Hillary is ready to start wooing labor. In an email sent out Tuesday to labor organizers by political director Amanda Renteria and obtained by POLITICO, the Clinton campaign announced it has hired Nikki Budzinski, former national labor coordinator at the UFCW, as its labor outreach director.
The announcement came the same day that the country’s most powerful union leader, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, delivered a much-publicized speech with the message that organized labor isn’t ready to endorse Hillary just yet.
Renteria said that filling the labor outreach post “has been a top priority for us given the importance of labor issues to Hillary and everyday Americans across the country. I also know that Hillary and so many of us here already have long-standing relationships within the labor community, and we’re looking forward to maintaining and growing those relationships as a team.” Budzinski will join the campaign on May 15, the email said.
While conducting an interview with Democratic Maryland Representative Elijiah Cummings, CNN host Brooke Baldwin questioned whether the violence in Baltimore had something to do with the amount of military veterans in the police department.
“Another thing that has to be done here, is we’ve really got to look at our police department,” Cummings began.
“But in what sense?” Baldwin asked. “We talk about training, we talk about having officers — I was talking to the city councilman here last week. He said, ‘Brooke, these people have to live in the communities… or there’s a lack of emotional investment.’”
“And a lot of these young people — I’ve been talking about this so much. A lot of young people — and I love our nation’s veterans, but some of them are coming back from war, they don’t know the communities, and they are ready to do battle.”
“Yeah they definitely need training,better training, and they need better recruitment,” Cummings agreed.
Rioters plunged the US city of Baltimore into chaos, torching a pharmacy, setting police cars ablaze and throwing bricks at officers hours after thousands mourned the man who died from a severe spinal injury he suffered in police custody.
The Maryland governor declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to restore order — but authorities were still struggling to quell pockets of unrest after midnight, local time.
The riot was the latest flare-up over the mysterious death of African-American Freddie Gray, whose fatal encounter with officers came amid the national debate over police use of force, especially when black suspects are involved.
Police have declined to specify the races of the six officers involved in his arrest, all of whom have been suspended with pay while they are under investigation.
The violence, which began in West Baltimore — within a 1.5km of where Gray was arrested and pushed into a police van this month — had by the end of the day spread to East Baltimore and neighbourhoods close to downtown and near the baseball stadium.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in her first day on the job, said she would send Justice Department officials to the eastern US city in coming days.
A week-long, daily curfew was imposed from 10pm to 5am, the mayor said, and Baltimore public schools announced they would close for the day. At least 15 officers were hurt, including six who remained in hospital, police said. Two dozen people were arrested.
Officers wearing helmets and wielding shields occasionally used pepper spray to keep the rioters back. For the most part, though, they relied on line formations to keep protesters at bay.
But Gray’s family said violence is not a way to honour him.
“The violence is wrong,” Gray’s twin sister, Fredericka Gray, said. “I don’t like it at all.”
A lawyer for Gray’s family, Billy Murphy, said the family had hoped to organise a peace march this week.
Emergency officials were constantly thwarted as they tried to restore calm in the affected parts of the city of more than 620,000 people. Firefighters trying to put out a blaze at a chemist were hindered by someone who sliced holes in a hose connected to a fire hydrant, spraying water all over the street and nearby buildings. A massive fire erupted in East Baltimore that a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake initially said was connected to the riots. He later texted an Associated Press journalist saying officials were still investigating whether there is a connection.
The Mary Harvin Transformation Centre was under construction and no one was believed to be in the building at the time, said spokesman Kevin Harris. The centre is described online as a community-based organisation that supports youth and families.
Earlier, the smell of burned rubber wafted in the air in one neighbourhood where youths were looting a liquor store. Police stood still nearby as people drank looted alcohol. Glass and trash littered the streets, and other small fires were scattered about. One person from a church tried to shout something from a megaphone as two cars burned.
“Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs, who in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for, tearing down businesses, tearing down and destroying property, things that we know will impact our community for years,” said Ms Rawlings-Blake, a lifelong resident of the city.
Police urged parents to locate their children and bring them home. Many of those on the streets appeared to be African-American youths, wearing backpacks and khaki pants that are a part of many public school uniforms.
Later in the day, people began looting clothing and other items from stores at the mall, which became unprotected as police moved away from the area. About three dozen officers returned, trying to arrest looters but driving many away by firing pellet guns and rubber bullets.
Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and about 200 others, including ministers and mostly men, marched arm-in-arm through a neighbourhood littered with broken glass, flattened aluminium cans and other debris, in an attempt to help calm the violent outbursts. As they got close to a line of police officers, the marchers went down on their knees. After the ministers got back on their feet, they walked until they were face-to-face with the police officers in a tight formation and wearing riot gear.
Gray was arrested on April 12 after making eye contact with officers and then running away, police said. He was held down, handcuffed and loaded into a van without a seat belt. Leg cuffs were put on him when he became irate inside.
He asked for medical help several times even before being put in the van, but paramedics were not called until after a 30-minute ride. Police have acknowledged he should have received medical attention on the spot where he was arrested, but they have not said how his spine was injured. He died on April 19.
Law enforcement intelligence officials have put out a warning that someone has sent a text calling on people to kill “all white police officers” in reaction to the death of Freddie Gray while in Baltimore police custody, raising fears violence could spread nationally, according to safety memos obtained by The Washington Times.
Officers are being warned of possible ambushes and urged to change travel patterns and to tone down clothes or emblems that identify them as police.
The Baltimore police department separately put out a press release on Monday saying various gangs, including the Black Guerrilla Family, Bloods and Crips “haver entered into a partnership to ‘take out’ law enforcement.”
A memo from the West Virginia Intelligence Fusion Center is more specific, saying the gangs’ targets are white officers. Its report quotes another memo from the Eastern Shore Information Center in Salisbury, Md.
“Law enforcement officers are reminded to remain vigilant when conducting traffic stops and in general contact with citizens,” says the West Virginia center, which monitors criminals.
The Eastern Shore center “officer safety bulletin” states that the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office received information from a citizen who received a text with a Chicago area code.
The text said, “Kill all white police officers!! As many as you can!! Bunch of thugs with badges!!”
The Eastern Shore center took the text seriously enough to send out a warning to officers.
The guidance states, “Law enforcement officers are encouraged to remain vigilant when conducting traffic stops or other ‘routine’ contacts with citizens. Officers should be mindful of suspicious calls for service that maybe be conducive of an ambush.”
Wages of America’s middle class have dropped below 1970s levels as immigration has surged 325 percent, according to a new congressional report that questions claims that native Americans are economically helped by greater immigration.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report studied immigration and middle class income from 1945-2013 and found that as immigration slowed between 1945 and 1970, American incomes increased.
But when immigration expanded, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of Americans went flat and then dropped beginning in 2000.
In the report to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the CRS reported that the foreign-born population of the United States surged 324.5 percent, from 9,740,000 to 41,348,066, from 1970 to 2013.
Three more women on Thursday accused Bill Cosby of sexually abusing them decades ago, as the veteran comedian gets ready for the final show in his US comedy tour.
Janice Baker Kinney, Marcella Tate and Autumn Burns said at a press conference hosted by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred that Cosby, 77, drugged and sexually assaulted them in separate incidents between 1970 and 1982.
They join more than three dozen women, many of whom are represented by Allred, who have made similar accusations in public over the past year.
Kinney said she met Cosby with a friend in May 1982, when she was 24, while working at Harrah’s in Reno, Nevada. She said she visited Cosby’s residence with her friend, where he gave her some pills. She said she later woke up naked, in bed with the comedian, and he told her to keep their encounter to themselves.
“I was mortified at what had happened,” Kinney said. “All this time, and for many, many years, I felt that this was my fault.”
Cosby, best known for his “America’s Dad” character Dr. Cliff Huxtable on the top-rated “Cosby Show,” has never been charged over any of the allegations. He settled a 2005 civil lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct.
The allegations have led to cancellations of a number of stops on his live “Far From Finished” comedy tour.
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