Friday, October 20, 2017

Children without water in Flint, while another child looks out for her peers.

October 19, 2017

We check back in with Jeneyah McDonald, (click here) whom we first met nearly two years ago. McDonald, who lives in Flint, Mich., says she still doesn't have drinking water.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Ever since the water crisis in Flint began, we've been checking in with Jeneyah McDonald. I first arrived at her house in February of last year. She was making dinner and trying to teach her boys to stay away from the water. They were 2 and 6 years old at the time.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

JENEYAH MCDONALD: I don't know any way to explain to a 6-year-old why can't take a bath anymore every day, why you can't help mommy wash the dishes anymore. So I told him it's poison, and that way he'll know I'm serious. Don't play with it even when I'm not looking. If this is poison, I better not touch it.

SHAPIRO: And Jeneyah McDonald joins us once again now from her home in Flint. Jeneyah, it's so good to talk to you again.

MCDONALD: Oh, it's always good to talk to you, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Boy, it's been more than a year and a half since we first met. Are you still using bottled water for everything?

MCDONALD: Every day.

SHAPIRO: Wow.

MCDONALD: Nothing has changed.

SHAPIRO: Nothing has changed.

MCDONALD: Nothing....

In the story below an 11 year old discovered a way to test the water for lead. She did so in less time it has taken for the water to be returned to Jeneyah McDonald. There is something wrong with the expediency this is occurring in Flint.

October 20, 2017
By Laurel Wamsley

When the drinking water in Flint, Mich., (click here) became contaminated with lead, causing a major public health crisis, 11-year-old Gitanjali Rao took notice.

"I had been following the Flint, Michigan, issue for about two years," the seventh-grader told ABC News. "I was appalled by the number of people affected by lead contamination in water."

She saw her parents testing the water in their own home in Lone Tree, Colo., and was unimpressed by the options, which can be slow, unreliable or both.

"I went, 'Well, this is not a reliable process and I've got to do something to change this,' " the seventh-grader told Business Insider.

While Rao was doing her weekly perusal of MIT's Materials Science and Engineering website to see "if there's anything's new," she tells ABC that she read about new technologies that could detect hazardous substances, and decided to see if they could be adapted to test for lead....

...And she set about devising a more efficient solution: a device that could identify lead compounds in water, and was portable and relatively inexpensive....

October 21, 2016

...But even if there aren’t hard statistics, (click here) the problem of racial bias among police isn’t new. In fact, it’s been a concern of the FBI for at least a decade. Exactly 10 years ago this week, the FBI warned of the potential consequences — including bias — of white supremacist groups infiltrating local and state law enforcement, indicating it was a significant threat to national security....

FOX News had two new racist terms today.

"Rogue police"

"Dysfunctional Black Neighborhoods"

They were both used in reference to the killing of unarmed young black men.

Rogue police? Really? Heck, there sure seems to be a lot of them to be considered rogue.

October 19, 2017
By Elvia Malagon

...Earlier this year, (click here) three current or former Chicago police officers were indicted on charges of conspiring to cover up alleged wrongdoing by Van Dyke. Detective David March and Officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney are accused of creating police reports with false information in an attempt to prevent a criminal investigation into the shooting....

And this is just one dead African American.

October 20, 2017
By Breanna Edwards

Well, (click here) if you wanted evidence as to how little this country values black lives, look no further than Tulsa, Okla., where a white former reserve deputy (aka a wannabe cop) walked out of prison, scot-free, after serving less than half of his already meager four-year sentence for killing an unarmed black man.

Robert Bates, 76, was released from North Fork Correction Center in Sayre, Okla., on Thursday morning after serving 497 days. That’s a little more than 16 months for killing Eric Harris. Bates is expected to serve probation for the remainder of his sentence, according to the Associated Press. 

Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson Matt Elliot said that Bates earned earlier release through good behavior, not because his case was given precedence over others....


October 20, 2017
By Andrew Knapp

An 86-year-old unarmed black motorist in Kingstree (click here) was jolted with a Taser because the white police officer who stopped him expressed worry that the wandering dementia patient would be hit by a car.

Albert Chatfield remained hospitalized in intensive care Friday, four days after being injured during the confrontation in the small town two hours north of Charleston, family members said.

His loved ones and their attorney bemoaned the officer’s use of force as unconstitutional and unnecessary in corralling an elderly motorist who posed no threat to police....

...University of South Carolina law professor Seth Stoughton, a former officer, said Kingstree’s explanation of the encounter draws a conclusion about why force was used without giving necessary details to support it. Stoughton called the case "problematic."

“The court has been very clear that officers can use Tasers to defend themselves or defend someone else who is being attacked,” he said. “I have yet to see an officer who would legitimately fear your average unarmed 86-year-old.”

Scrutiny of police uses of force, particularly against black people, has spread nationwide in recent years. Much attention has focused on shootings, including the 2015 killing of Walter Scott by a North Charleston officer....

The odds for 86 year olds don't seem to be getting better. If that is dysfunction, then it belongs to the cops, not the community.

January 26, 2016

New York  -- Police in Brooklyn (click here) were looking for a suicidal man in his 20s. 

They found an 86-year-old man cooking soup in the kitchen.

He had a knife in one hand and an onion in the other. That's when police tasered him.

He's lucky to be alive and now he's suing.

John Antoine came to this country from Trinidad 45 years ago. He's the father of six and has more grandchildren than he can count....