They Lie, We Rise: Great News That’s Terrible For TrumpThey’ve got lies and bunkers; we’ve got marches, truth, and each otherWith all of the unhinged madness spewing out of the Trump regime, I sure am happy to have some more great news for you today. I hope it shows you how good people are fighting this tyranny alongside us—and brings you some relief. Let’s jump in.
In Detroit, MI, a silent march in support of immigrants was led by religious leaders to the ICE Regional Field Office. The group, “Strangers No Longer,” is requesting dialogue with ICE. Their next move is to have their Congressperson ask for a meeting with ICE, on their behalf. Demonstrations were also held in more than a dozen cities in the Southern US as part of “Moral Mondays.” Their goal is to call out the pain Trump and Republicans are inflicting on Americans.
This included faith leaders in Greenville, SC, who delivered a casket to GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham’s office—in response to him voting for the big evil bill. I’m glad folks like Graham are getting called out. It was all put together by Rev. William Barber’s growing coalition of groups, who are standing up to the unhinged Trump regime. Rev. Barber has always been one willing to cause “good trouble”—peaceful and fearless in his efforts.
In Washington, GOP Rep. James Comer used a digital signature to send subpoenas and letters—regarding his bogus investigation into former President Joe Biden’s use of the autopen. For those who don’t know, an autopen is a machine that replicates signatures for people. Sort of how a computer did for Comer. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, which is why I’ve been calling on Comer to resign for years.
A board of federal judges blocked Trump’s pick for US Attorney in upstate NY, John Sarcone. His interim role expired yesterday. Sarcone spent his time attacking Biden, police, press, immigrants, and others. Good riddance, we hope.
Mike Waltz, who was booted from his job as National Security Advisor over the Signalgate scandal, was back in front of the Senate yesterday. Trump nominated Waltz to be US Ambassador to the UN, but he shouldn’t even be allowed on government property. Dem Sen. Cory Booker called Waltz out for his failures, saying: “In a moment when our national security was clearly compromised—you denied, you deflected, and then you demeaned and degraded those people who objectively told the truth and criticized your actions.” Booker called this all “disqualifying” for the new role, and said: “It also to me just shows profound cowardice.” It sure does.
AG Pam Bondi held a propaganda press conference that lasted around 23 minutes yesterday. The topic was “combating drug cartels,” but the first question was about releasing more evidence regarding Epstein. The photo above shows how Bondi immediately responded to it. “Nothing about Epstein. I’m not going to talk about Epstein,” Bondi said, as she stepped back from the microphone, shaking her head. Around the same time, Republicans voted down an amendment to a bill that would release the Epstein files. All this will do is rile up maga, and make people ask more questions about Epstein. Good.
Next week, Trump plans on traveling to Scotland for a corrupt business trip on the taxpayer’s dime. Yeah, he will have a meeting or two with politicians, but that’s not why he’s really there. Trump’s opening a new golf course. Seriously. Trump was also recently invited by King Charles for a state visit to the UK in September. As of now, Trump won’t be able to spread his lies in front of Parliament. Funny enough, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney may be given that honor, only days before Trump’s visit. I’m sure Trump’s already furious about it. Tomorrow, people across the US will protest Trump, and celebrate the late great John Lewis—5 years after his passing. If you can’t make some “good trouble” in person, I hope you can amplify the events on social media. I’ve been taking on Trump for nearly a decade—and I’m not stopping now. On top of our daily reporting, our Contact Congress campaign reaches Senators and Reps thousands of times a day. And our social media work dominates the trends. But none of this happens without support from our readers, and right now we need all hands on deck. We’re 100% reader-funded—with no billionaires, no ads, and no nonsense. So if you haven’t yet, please join us as a paid subscriber today: Thanks for being here, no matter how you subscribe. Onward! Scott What do you think about Trump opening a new golf course overseas? Don’t forget to like, re-stack, and share this post! Another way to help us out is by giving gift subscriptions away to friends and family! You can get yours by clicking the link or button below: https://www.dworkinsubstack.com/subscribe?gift=true All links related to this article are at the top of the comments section. For all contact Congress links, or to volunteer, you can go here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-for-the-watchdog-coalition COMMENTS: Find a protest honoring John Lewis here: https://goodtroubleliveson.org/ NEW: Sens. Booker and Padilla are proposing a new law to require ICE to unmask and display clear identification. Tell your Senators and Rep they need to support this via the link below. And please share! https://tinyurl.com/bp8cau82 NEW: Tell Congress: Reverse Trump’s NOAA cuts and save the National Weather Service https://tinyurl.com/bdbur8df K Starling includes several virtual options for those who cannot make a "Good Trouble Lives On" event in person. You can find her listing of all events here: The virtual events are listed at the end of the Google sheet. This is the one that sounded most interesting to me: https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/806632/ They are honoring John Lewis's legacy by telling the stories of several fellow activists who themselves make "Good Trouble". JOHN LEWIS RISKED HIS LIFE FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE! REPUBLICANS, RACISTS, WHITE SUPREMACISTS have not ended their fights to DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS, they have adopted different tactics by purging voters, supporting ELECTION DENIERS, making it more difficult to REGISTER TO VOTE, discouraging VOTERS with LONG LINES due to inadequate VOTING EQUIPMENT, MOVING POLLING PLACES WITH NO NOTICE, outlawing people providing FOOD & DRINK to those forced to stand in lines for HOURS in order to VOTE. In order to DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS, the EXTREMISTS are working to eliminate ABSENTEE VOTING, eliminate EARLY VOTING, make it more difficult to REGISTER TO VOTE. Just consider that if you're a LOW WAGE EARNER working 2 jobs just to get by, how can you take a day off to travel - maybe some place where you have no transportation - in order to REGISTER TO VOTE.... It's DELIBERATE! That's before considering TEXAS GERRYMANDERING that the ORANGE TURD pushed to accomplish. And now the THREATS against TEXAS DEMOCRATS who want to boycott to prevent action? CHECK OUT DEMOCRACY DOCKET by Marc Elias among others. Do we want to sacrifice our RIGHT TO VOTE? MASSACHUSETTS is not perfect, but VOTER TURNOUT has increased due to ABSENTEE BALLOTS & EARLY VOTING! Isn't that what matters? BE SUSPICIOUS OF ANY PROPOSED CHANGE IN VOTING! FOX NEWS = FAKE NEWS LIARS PAID $787 MILLION to DOMINION VOTING for their ELECTION LIES in order to avoid trial. SMARTMATIC has pending trials. (There have been other lawsuits & settlements you can look up if inclined, even NEWSMAX settled.) THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS SACRED! LET'S TREAT IT AS SUCH! PLEASE! NEVER STOP COMMENTING! IT MATTERS! There are NOOKS & CRANNIES of BRAINWASHED SUPPORTERS around all of us....I share your insightful comments... IF REPUBLICANS DIDN'T LIE, NO ONE WOULD ELECT THEM! Speak out for DEMOCRACY & what's RIGHT! SCOTT DWORKIN's WATCHDOG COALITION is unparalelled, but there are other voices that provide additional issues.... If you don't have time there are 2 single click sites where you can participate in PETITIONS... CIVIC SHOUT https://civicshout.com/ THE JUGGERNAUT PROJEFT https://juggernautproject.com/ |
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
They Lie, We Rise: Great News That’s Terrible For Trump
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
FOCUS: Reverend William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove | Yes, Black Officers Killed Tyre Nichols. What Is the Correct Response to That?
07 February 23
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The hierarchy of racial terror has never been enforced only by white people. Nor has it harmed only Black people
But in this moment we must mourn and cry another pain. The men who killed Tyre Nichols were Black, as he was. This is not a case of individual racists, but another example of a policing system rabid with brutality and death. This kind of death is not new, and a true remembering of Black history must address this too. This most recent atrocity that the world witnessed in the video from Memphis is a symptom of a deeper social sickness that must be confronted before we as a nation can be whole.
To remember Black history is to also recall how Black overseers were recruited to maintain order on America’s plantations. When an enslaved person defied the slaveholder’s orders, it was often another Black person who was tasked with strapping the defiant bondsman to a whipping post and brutalizing him in front of other enslaved people. During the civil rights movements, Black and white activists reported terrible beatings in southern jails at the hands of Black men – sometimes fellow inmates – who did the bidding of local sheriffs. The hierarchy of racial terror has never been only enforced by white people. Nor has it only harmed Black people.
From Black and white abolitionists to Black, white, brown and Native civil rights workers, anyone who has directly challenged America’s racial hierarchy has been subject to brutality. But moral fusion movements have also been clear that our goal is to transform systems that devalue the lives of all poor and marginalized people.
Over the past decade, the Black Lives Matter movement has done important work to raise consciousness about the way that non-white people disproportionately suffer from police brutality. But this brutality can also be directed at white people. Just last year a white officer in Concord, North Carolina, shot and killed a poor white man, then lied about what had happened until the body-camera footage of the incident was released. When law enforcement is tasked with defending an order in which inequality is normal, brutality is what poor people come to expect from their interactions with the law.
This is why moral fusion movements that have challenged America’s system of racial hierarchy have never been made up of Black people only. It is also why these movements have not directed their challenge solely at the enforcers of an unjust system.
To focus only on “police reform” in our present crisis would be akin to working for an end of the whipping post during slavery. Abolitionists did not simply demand better treatment of enslaved people. They insisted that slavery was wrong. Likewise, the civil rights movement did not simply protest the brutal enforcement of Jim Crow segregation. They insisted that segregation was wrong because it dehumanized Black people and propped up an economic system in which poor white people were offered the “psychological wages” of whiteness while they continued to struggle to feed their families.
The public lynching of Tyre Nichols is a harsh reminder that we live in an America where some people’s lives are considered expendable. The officers who murdered this man did not act alone. Who else killed Tyre? Every politician who has been silent of the issues of violent public policy that denies some Americans basic human rights like housing, healthcare and a living wage. Also, every preacher and moral leader who remains quiet and doesn’t challenge the value gap in our society until another fatality is caught on camera. Who else bears responsibility for this brutality? Every American who has refused to believe on-the-ground activists who are crying for justice, and every politician who forfeited the chance to say: “No others bills in Congress until we have police reform, voting rights, living wages and universal healthcare.”
Yes, the officers who brutalized Tyre must be held accountable for their actions. Far too often, officers who abuse their power and the public trust face no consequences in cases like these. But we must also acknowledge that their brutality is a byproduct of too many Americans passing the buck and abdicating responsibility for a society where 700 people die every day, not because God has called them home but simply because they are poor.
Fifty-five years ago, Dr King went to Memphis because two Black garbage workers had been killed on the job by faulty equipment. He wasn’t there simply because the workers were Black, nor was he there only to demand repair of the equipment that had killed them. King, who was in the midst of organizing the Poor People’s Campaign, was in Memphis because working people were standing together to demand dignity under the slogan “I Am A Man”. Until Black, white, Native and brown people unite to insist that our present economic reality is wrong and can be changed by policies that lift from the bottom so everyone rises, we cannot truly say that we have learned the lessons of our history or honored the life of one more soul who has died at the hands of law enforcement.
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Wednesday, April 28, 2021
RSN: FOCUS | "A Warrant Is Not a License to Kill": Rev. William Barber Condemns Police "Execution" of Andrew Brown
27 April 21
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FOCUS | "A Warrant Is Not a License to Kill": Rev. William Barber Condemns Police "Execution" of Andrew Brown
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Excerpt: "Hundreds of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to protest the police killing of Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old Black father shot dead in his car on April 21."
MY GOODMAN: Hundreds of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Elizabeth City, North Carolina, for a fifth day to protest last week’s police killing of Andrew Brown, a 42-year-old Black father. On Monday, authorities allowed Brown’s family and attorneys to watch a 20-second video clip of the shooting. The family says it shows Andrew Brown was shot in the back of the head while his hands were on the steering wheel of his car. His son, Khalil Ferebee, described the shooting as an “execution.”
KHALIL FEREBEE: It’s like we’re against all odds in this world. My dad got executed just by trying to save his own life. You know, he was not in no — the officers was not in no harm of him at all. It’s just messed up how this happened, for real. For real. He got executed. It ain’t right. It ain’t right at all.
AMY GOODMAN: Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, an attorney for Andrew Brown’s family, described what she saw in the 20-second snippet.
CHANTEL CHERRY-LASSITER: Andrew Brown was in his driveway. The sheriff truck blocked him in his driveway so he could not exit his driveway. Andrew had his hands on his steering wheel. He was not reaching for anything. He wasn’t touching anything. He wasn’t throwing anything around. He had his hands firmly on the steering wheel. They run up to his vehicle shooting. He still stood there — sat there in his vehicle with his hands on the steering wheel while being shot at. Now, keep in mind, this is 20 seconds. I have three pages of notes for 20 seconds. We watched this over and over and over to make sure we were clear at what was being — going on and what was transpiring.
AMY GOODMAN: Attorney Ben Crump, who’s also representing Andrew Brown’s family, called on authorities to publicly release all bodycam footage.
BENJAMIN CRUMP: We want to say on the record from the onset: We do not feel that we got transparency. We only saw a snippet of the video, when we know that the video started before and after what they showed the family, and they determined what was pertinent. Why couldn’t the family see all the video? They only show one bodycam video, even though we know there were several bodycam videos, if they were following the law and the policy in this county that everybody has video cameras on their uniforms.
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew Brown was shot dead April 21st while the County Sheriff’s Office was attempting to serve him an arrest warrant on drug charges. Officials in Elizabeth City have already declared a state of emergency ahead of the public release of the bodycam footage, warning it could result in a “period of civil unrest.” At least eight officers were at the scene of the shooting. Seven sheriff’s deputies have already been placed on paid administrative leave; two other deputies have resigned, and another retired over the past week. This is attorney Bakari Sellers, who’s also representing the Brown family.
BAKARI SELLERS: Only in this country can you have the trial of Derek Chauvin be interrupted by the death of Daunte Wright, be interrupted by the death of Adam Toledo, be interrupted by the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, and now we find ourselves here in Elizabeth City.
AMY GOODMAN: The Reverend William Barber was also there yesterday. On Saturday, Reverend Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign traveled to Elizabeth City to meet with the family of Andrew Brown.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: It happened to a man. It happened to a father of seven. It happened to a cousin, to a nephew. He is not a caricature. He is a man, a young, 42-year-old Black man. Say his name.
CROWD: Andrew Brown.
AMY GOODMAN: The Reverend William Barber joins us now, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Reverend. Let’s begin with yesterday. What a scene unfolded, as the family had been promised at 11:30 in the morning they’d be shown unedited video of what happened to Andrew Brown. It went on. They waited for hour after hour. And then they go inside, and they’re shown a 20-second snippet. Can you explain what took place — you were there outside — what they saw and what you’re demanding?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, thank you so much, Amy.
And, you know, we have three powerful attorneys that are representing the family. Harry Daniels, who’s representing one of the mothers and five siblings — people ought to know there are five minor children and two grown children. And he’s also representing one of the aunts. And then you have attorney Ben Crump and Bakari Sellers representing the older children. And they’re all combined and working together.
Let me set a context, Amy. And that is, the sheriff and the DA — we need to start saying the DA, because the county lawyer is not the DA. The sheriff and the DA could have gotten all of this done within an hour or so. The law simply says a judge has to do it. And all it would have needed was the sheriff and the DA, or the DA alone could have gone to the judge and said this needs to be released. And we’re in the context of when something happened like this in Columbus, it was released — Columbus, Ohio, was released almost immediately. And the same thing could happen in North Carolina, just would have been one extra step.
When we went there, this young man, 42 years old — and by the way, never have — no gun was found. No drugs were found. And this boy has no history of any kind of violence or violence on his record.
They had been promised — we had been promised to see the tape. I was there. They didn’t even let all the family in. They didn’t let some of the aunts in. They literally closed the door and wouldn’t let them in.
And yesterday represented 120 hours — 120 hours — since this murder. And, in fact, I want to mention to you that this is the second one on the East Coast since and during the Chauvin trial. There’s another one called Donovan Lynch in Virginia Beach, who was also shot. And in his instance, there were no body cameras. They cut the cameras off. So, now we have Andrew Brown. They waited 120 hours to get 20 seconds. A hundred and twenty hours to get 20 seconds. That is absolutely ridiculous.
We also learned on Saturday, because one of the local reporters asked us in our press — in the press conference: What did we think about them using a SWAT-like team to go get this one person that they allegedly had a warrant for? And, you know, a warrant is not a license to kill. A warrant doesn’t mean you get executed on the spot. A warrant doesn’t mean you’re guilty. And there’s no — the Supreme Court has said if you flee, it is not illegal, that people don’t have a right to shoot you in the back. And we know from the audio reports he was shot in the back.
AMY GOODMAN: The back of the head.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: In the back of the head, that’s right. And we don’t know how many shots. You know, today there’s going to be an independent autopsy that will be actually released. But 20 seconds after 120 hours, that is absolutely unacceptable. And they were promised that they would be able to see it.
Now, one last thing. They said they needed to redact the film. Now, this is the people that’s supposed to be doing the investigation. You know, in national security matters, you redact. But the national security here is, they haven’t shown the tapes. And the family wasn’t even asking that they see — that they see, the whole public; they were saying, “Can we and our lawyers see this?” And they said, “No, we have to redact the tape. We’ve got to do certain things with the tape.” And this is problematic.
The last thing you should know is the DA there could have asked the state attorney general to come take this over, because they bungled it and fumbled it. He could easily say, “I want the state attorney general.” And you have to know, in North Carolina, the state attorney general can’t just take it over. The law says the local DA must ask.
And today we’re meeting with pastors, the North Carolina NAACP, Repairers of the Breach, the AME Zion Church, the North Carolina Council of Churches. We’re meeting with some of the lawyers. And afterwards, we are going to announce and declare a moral emergency and a justice emergency. There is no real emergency in the city. There has been no violence. It’s all been peaceful and everything. So the real emergency here is a moral emergency and a judicial emergency.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Reverend Barber, I wanted to ask you — you mentioned that the autopsy results will be available soon. But this issue of the number of shots fired, the police know that — they knew that immediately. They could have at least said this number of shells were spent by all of the officers on the scene. It seems to me, especially given the fact that we’re hearing that two officers have already resigned and one retired, that that clearly is a signal, when some police are leaving immediately, before even any investigation is through, that this is a horrendous shooting. Your thoughts about this whole issue of not even giving information on the number of bullets fired? And also, is there a role for the governor here to step in, in some way or other, on this case?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah. The governor has already said that the tapes should be released, and so has the state attorney general. The tapes should be released. You know, North Carolina does not make its bodycam automatic public record. Now, that bill is sitting in the General Assembly right now, and the Republican Legislature has blocked it. And even some of the police associations have fought against it. But it could be passed in 20 seconds right now, if they wanted to do that.
But you’re exactly right in terms of things that could have been done immediately. We could have known exactly how many officers went and why that many officers went. We could know what kind of team went. Was this just sheriffs? Was this some kind of SWAT team? We could know what kind of weapons they used. Was it pistols? Was it assault rifles? And we should be able to know exactly how many shots were fired. All of those things could have been done almost immediately, or at least within the first day. And none of that has taken place.
You know, this is one of the reasons why we have to challenge this issue. I was looking at a report from NewsOne, that was done last year, I believe, and it showed how there were these eight white killers, some of them mass murderers, like Dylann Roof, who was arrested and, some say, even got a hamburger. But all of these persons were white. They were arrested. Some of them resisted arrest. They killed people. All were arrested. None of them ended up dead.
But too often we hear about Black men being shot in the back or Black women being shot in their beds by these police. And what we say is — and it doesn’t matter even if some of the cops were Black. That doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is, a gun and a badge and the ability to take a piece of paper and extract your loved one from your home, or wherever they are, is too much power for a bigot and for a trigger-happy officer that kills — that can literally kill people in my name, because they get their power from the state.
That’s also why, Amy and Juan, we need federal laws. You know, what we really need is, when and if police murder or execute someone, and we know that, we need accountability. We need arrests. We need prosecution without immunity. We need the appropriate prison time. And some of us are beginning to say we need payment. And it doesn’t all need to come from an insurance company that’s paid for by the taxpayers. It needs to come out of these people’s pensions and from these police departments. And then we need pattern and practices investigations.
You know, this is eastern North Carolina. There is a long history of this. My father — I was raised here in this area. And I’m about — just a few miles from where I live is Elizabeth City. It’s the home of Elizabeth City State University. It’s the Black Belt of North Carolina. It’s where slave patrols used to chase down Black people heavily, because this is where most of the slavery was in North Carolina. I can remember, in the 1970s, my father was fighting against police in the eastern North Carolina and a sheriff in another county, who almost made it a habit to shoot somebody every so often who was African American. So, there is a lot of undercover things that are going on here. This is the same eastern North Carolina where, in the last few years, we helped two — what was it? — one, two, three African American men who were put in jail for murder, only to be found that they were not guilty, and released after 20 and 22 years in jail, and even a young man over in Wilson, which is in eastern North Carolina, that was put in jail and was threatened with life imprisonment, only to find out he didn’t do the killing.
So, this is eastern North Carolina. This is the South. And that’s why we must pay a lot of attention to this and understand what’s going on here, because this case is about Andrew Brown, it’s about the South, and it could break open some things in the South, because some of the most horrendous laws, the most restrictive laws, when it comes to policing, some of the most egregious things that have happened down through the years have happened in these Southern, small, rural counties across America.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I’m wondering, Reverend Barber, in the wake of the guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin and after now nearly a year of massive protests all around the country in terms of Black Lives Matter, your sense of — these killings continue to happen as if these police departments are not heeding or listening to the massive outcry in the — not only in the African American community, but among people of color and people of goodwill everywhere. Your thoughts about what’s happening right now in terms of law enforcement in the country?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, it makes everybody unsafe. I mean, you look at these marches even in eastern North Carolina. They’re mixed, Black and white and Brown and Native and Asian, gay and straight, young and old. I mean, that’s one of the things people understand, that rogue cops or a systemic problem within policing makes us all unsafe. When you don’t have any transparency and trust, we are all in tremendous danger. It is a violation not only of humanity; it is a violation of fundamental constitutional rights, and it is very dangerous.
As I said, I’m a nonviolent person. I practice nonviolence. But the only person I know that can come to my door with a piece of paper and take my wife and my children out, or someone I love, and just take them, and I don’t resist and don’t say, “No, you can’t have them,” is an officer of the law. That’s the only person that I’ll say to my loved ones, “I’ll see you downtown.” That is too much power. And we’ve got to get — that’s why we have to have these federal laws. We can’t have one standard in one county with one DA and one sheriff and then another standard in another county and then another standard in another county.
And I will tell you what people are saying. You know, even my sons, they said, “Daddy, it almost looks like and feels like Chauvin gets arrested and gets prosecuted, and there is an increase, you know, like, ’We’re going to get them now.’” Now, that can’t be proven, but people feel like that. They say, “What is going on?” The more these officers get exposed, it seems like they’re getting more reckless. I watched the tape —
AMY GOODMAN: And, Reverend Barber, just making that point, you have Chauvin verdict comes down last Tuesday; on Wednesday, two men are shot. I mean, for people who are confused, you have [Andrew] Brown in North Carolina. He is shot dead by sheriff’s deputies.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: You got it.
AMY GOODMAN: On the same day, in Virginia, a Black man was hospitalized after he was shot by a sheriff’s deputy who responded to a 911 call. Less than an hour earlier, the same sheriff’s deputy drove that same man, Isaiah Brown — not [Andrew] Brown, Isaiah Brown — home after Brown’s car broke down.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: That’s right.
AMY GOODMAN: Isaiah Brown was unarmed, was holding a cordless phone in his hand, when the officer fired seven shots at him. Brown’s family said he was on the line with the police, with 911, when he was shot. Can you comment on this, and then, finally, this demand for the George Floyd Police Accountability Act?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Yeah. Yeah, well, you’re exactly right, and shot seven times. I want folks to hear the multiplicity of bullets. We’re not talking about — you know, one time is enough, but shot seven times. And we said we don’t know how many shots — they said the car was riddled with bullets with Andrew Brown.
And then, don’t forget, in the midst of the Chauvin trial, you’ve got Donovan Lynch who was shot in Virginia Beach and killed. And that case is being dealt with. And then we’ve had two teenagers that were killed — all of this during and after the trial. I mean, this is the pandemic of injustice and the pandemic of police brutality and violence. And it must be held accountable. I mean, a police person must be held accountable, murder.
And let us not forget, in the South, when Walter Scott was shot in the back, it took federal prosecution to get that particular officer, Michael Slager, I believe. It took federal prosecution. The state didn’t even prosecute him. It took federal. And then, let us not forget what it took to get Chauvin. It took millions of people marching. It took a nine-minute video by a young girl. It took the attorney general. It took calling a prosecutor out of retirement. It took police turning on themselves. People who thought the Chauvin trial represented some fundamental shift are actually mistaken. That is one case. But that has not dealt with the systematic issues that we’re addressing.
And, Amy, we must have this bill. Many of us are looking at it to see if it needs to be even stronger, because, I’m going to tell you, one of the things that a lot of these people count on is to continue the immunity, but also they know that if they kill someone and they’re tried in the state and they get acquitted in the state, they can’t be tried again. And you know from the civil rights movement, oftentimes the Klan did things because they knew they weren’t going to get found guilty at the local level, and if they got charged at the federal level, they only faced five years. We must make sure that these federal laws are of such that it’s automatic that there’s going to be prosecution and there will be a penalty that meets what a penalty for murder ought to be, and there’s not going to be any immunity, and there will be arrest. And we’re going to have to have laws that say there will be independent prosecution, not these local prosecutors that are tied in with the police departments and those things. That’s what has to happen.
And I like what Garland is doing, the new attorney general. And it’s going to have to happen not only in Louisville, not only in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but it’s going to have to happen in places like Elizabeth City in Pasquotank County and in the South. This is serious business. It is systemic. I don’t care even if Lindsey Graham says racism is not systemic. It’s systemic in voting. It’s systemic in healthcare. It’s systemic in economics. And it’s certainly systemic when it comes to police violence against people of color.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you, Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach, longtime North Carolina reverend, as he continues to deal with what’s happening in Elizabeth City, in Virginia, in Columbus, Ohio. And a correction: I said Anthony Brown; I meant Andrew Brown, the man who was killed in North Carolina. Ma’Khia Bryant, the 16-year-old, was killed in Columbus, Ohio, the teenager who was 16 years old, one year younger than the video — than the young woman who filmed the murder of George Floyd. Ma’Khia Bryant was killed by police on the day that the Chauvin verdict came down. Then, the next day, Andrew Brown was killed, Isaiah Brown was shot by police.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: And Donovan Lynch. Don’t forget Donovan Lynch. We need to know about that case, because in this fight, Amy, we can’t just be bothered when a white cop kills a Black person. Even if it’s a Black person who shoots an unarmed Black person — and in Donovan Lynch’s case, it was a Black and a white officer — it does not matter. Police don’t care what your color is. I don’t care if you shoot somebody white, Black, Brown, Native. If it’s a bad shoot, it’s a murder or an execution, they must be prosecuted. So, call Donovan Lynch. Call Andrew Brown. Call Ma’Khia, little Adam Toledo up in Chicago. This is just too much. And we must unite. We must fight this. And we’ve got to [inaudible] laws and standards. They got 20 seconds after 120 hours. A hundred and twenty hours, they only got a chance to see 20 seconds.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Reverend William Barber, thank you so much for being with us. And be safe.
Next up, we’re heading to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to look at a shocking report about how two Ivy League schools — University of Pennsylvania and Princeton — have been using the bones of a child killed in the 1985 MOVE bombing, when the city bombed the house of the radical Black group MOVE, killing 11 people, including five kids. How is it possible these bones have been used for decades? We’ll get response from Mike Africa Jr., a second-generation-born MOVE member. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “La Cigarra” by Afro Yaqui Music Collective, a tribute to political prisoners around the world.
MAGA's Jimmy Patronis Wants To Legalize Machine Guns.
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