18 June 20
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Founder, Reader Supported News
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17 June 20
Cornel West on US Protests: The Chickens Have Come Home to Roost
Azad Essa, Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "Can we separate America's treatment of Black people internally from its racist foreign policy abroad? And why are so many people from so many countries enamored by the Black struggle in the US?"
Azad Essa, Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "Can we separate America's treatment of Black people internally from its racist foreign policy abroad? And why are so many people from so many countries enamored by the Black struggle in the US?"
This screengrab taken from body camera video shows Garrett Rolfe with Rayshard Brooks in the moments before Brooks's killing. (photo: Atlanta PD)
Revealed: Officer Who Killed Rayshard Brooks Accused of Covering Up 2015 Shooting
Justin Miller and Justin Glawe, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "The Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks was accused of covering up an earlier shooting he and other officers participated in, according to a judge who reviewed the case."
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Justin Miller and Justin Glawe, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "The Atlanta police officer who shot and killed Rayshard Brooks was accused of covering up an earlier shooting he and other officers participated in, according to a judge who reviewed the case."
Garrett Rolfe was fired by the Atlanta police department following what officials called the “unjustified” killing of Brooks on Friday. Rolfe shot Brooks twice in the back as Brooks ran away after a scuffle with officers when they attempted to arrest him. It was among a recent spate of killings of black men by white police officers, which have ignited a national uprising against police brutality and racism.
In August 2015, Rolfe and two other officers opened fire on Jackie Jermaine Harris, who they chased after he was caught driving a stolen truck, the Guardian can reveal after reviewing court documents on the incident.
However, the shooting was not reported by the police involved. Harris, like Brooks, is African American.
Harris rammed a police vehicle and officers shot at him several times inside the truck, striking Harris once and collapsing his lung. Harris survived and later pleaded guilty to charges including theft, property damage, fleeing arrest and damaging a police vehicle.
Judge Doris L Downs, during a 2016 court hearing, called the case a “disaster” and said “it’s the wildest case I’ve seen in my 34 years here.”
Downs said she was so troubled by officers failing to report the shooting that she wanted the matter investigated.
“None of the police put in the report that they shot the man – none of them. And they sent him to Grady [Memorial Hospital] with collapsed lungs and everything, and the report doesn’t mention it,” Downs said.
“I am ethically going to be required to turn all of them in.”
Downs even suggested state and federal authorities get involved.
She said: “What the police did was wrong, and they will have to answer for what they did.”
It is unclear if any action was taken. Downs could not be reached for comment.
The Atlanta police department and Fulton county district attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it did not investigate the shooting, according to a spokesperson.
Harris echoed the judge’s concern about the officers’ conduct at his court hearing.
“I just don’t want them to get away with what they did to me,” said Harris, who was sentenced to time served and one year’s probation.
Rolfe was apparently not disciplined, according to a personnel file released by Atlanta police on Tuesday, which listed the 2015 incident only as a “firearm discharge” but did not say how the department addressed the incident. Rolfe could not be reached for comment.
Harris’s attorney Serena Nunn said police admitted in their report that Harris had been injured during the incident – but not that police shot him.
She said: “Being shot in the back and ultimately having your lung collapse is something more than an injury that was caused during the incident.”
“We do expect officers to uphold the law. I cannot think of a plausible reason as to why they would have omitted that information [about the shooting],” Nunn told the judge.
The prosecutor could not say why the shooting was not in the report.
Han Chung, who was then a Fulton county assistant district attorney, said: “I’ve heard some plausible reasons why this may have occurred. Now, I don’t know how credible those plausible reasons may be, and I haven’t heard it from those officers first-hand.”
Rolfe was the subject of four citizen’s complaints during his six years on the force, none of which were sustained by police. The department disciplined him for three other incidents, including once for “use of force” involving a firearm, a year after the Harris shooting.
In a letter to Downs sent from an Atlanta jail, Harris said the public would not be safe as long as Rolfe and the other officers who shot him continued to patrol the city.
“Not only have I been wronged, but society as well [has been wronged] by allowing this officer to continue to patrol our streets of Metro Atlanta,” Harris wrote.
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Demonstrators Kneel in a moment of silence outside the Long Beach Police department. (photo: Ashley Landis/AP)
Frances Fox Piven on Why Protesters Must "Defend Their Ability to Exercise Disruptive Power"
Mie Inouye, Jacobin
Inouye writes: "In a mid-May interview, Frances Fox Piven predicted 'waves of mass protest' in the United States' near future. Since then, the country has erupted into an unprecedented multiracial mass movement against police brutality."
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Mie Inouye, Jacobin
Inouye writes: "In a mid-May interview, Frances Fox Piven predicted 'waves of mass protest' in the United States' near future. Since then, the country has erupted into an unprecedented multiracial mass movement against police brutality."
READ MORE
Police and private security personnel monitor security cameras at the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative in New York City. (photo: John Moore/Getty)
ACLU | Facial Recognition vs. Protesters
ACLU
Excerpt: "For the past few weeks, we've all watched in real-time as the police attack the rights of protesters and the press across the country."
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ACLU
Excerpt: "For the past few weeks, we've all watched in real-time as the police attack the rights of protesters and the press across the country."
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The Trump administration will resume Federal executions next week. (photo: iStock)
After 17 Years, Bureau of Prisons Set to Resume Federal Executions
Lauren Gill, The Appeal
Excerpt: "A civil rights advocate calls the scheduled executions of four men 'appalling' and a return to a 'biased, arbitrary, and error-prone' system."
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Lauren Gill, The Appeal
Excerpt: "A civil rights advocate calls the scheduled executions of four men 'appalling' and a return to a 'biased, arbitrary, and error-prone' system."
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Central Palo Seco power station of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) is seen behind a cemetery, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jan. 22, 2018. (photo: Alvin Baez/Reuters)
No Oversight of $1.5 Billion Electric Project Raises Alarm Over Privatization of Puerto Rico's Power
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "As hurricane season begins, we look at moves to privatize Puerto Rico's electric grid and a new investigation that reveals the island's government failed to follow proper oversight or examine the environmental impact when it issued a .5 billion contract to a company for the first large power generation project since Hurricane Maria, that will continue its reliance on fossil fuels."
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Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "As hurricane season begins, we look at moves to privatize Puerto Rico's electric grid and a new investigation that reveals the island's government failed to follow proper oversight or examine the environmental impact when it issued a .5 billion contract to a company for the first large power generation project since Hurricane Maria, that will continue its reliance on fossil fuels."
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Deforestation and wildlife habitat loss in Uganda. (photo: Ron Waddington)
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Leaders from three international NGOs - the United Nations, the World Health Organization and WWF International - teamed up to issue a stark warning that pandemics like the coronavirus are a direct result of the destruction of nature caused by humans."
"We have seen many diseases emerge over the years — such as Zika, AIDS, SARS and Ebola — and although they are quite different at first glance, they all originated from animal populations under conditions of severe environmental pressures," they wrote, adding those examples "all illustrate that our destructive behavior toward nature is endangering our own health."
As The Washington Post noted, the novel coronavirus that has led to a global pandemic likely started in a bat — the same host that was also linked to SARS, Ebola and MERS, among other viruses.
The three authors call for a green and healthy recovery in the wake of COVID-19. They note the importance of ending farming practices that destroy nature and the need to reform meat-intensive diets. And yet, they're watching the world go the wrong way.
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