BRANDON DAVONE SMITH
D.A. DAVID: BRANDON SMITH
CASE IS CLOSED DESPITE AUDIO
By Cash Michaels
Staff writer
New Hanover District Attorney Ben David reiterated this week a decision he made in November 2013 - the police shooting death of Brandon Davone Smith is closed.
Despite new public inquiries into Smith’s killing, David said in a press release that “This matter is closed and no new evidence has been presented that would cause the State Bureau of Investigation to reopen this investigation.”
The family of Brandon Smith has maintained throughout that despite claims by David and New Hanover County Sheriff Ed McMahon that Smith was responsible for the October 10, 2013 shooting of a NHC Sheriff’s detective in Wilmington’s Creekside community. The officer was wounded.
According to authorities, Smith, 30 at the time, had a history of violent felonies dating back to the 1990s, and refused to turn himself in.
Three days later, NHC deputies cornered Smith after a footchase, and fatally shot him when he refused to him his hands.
No gun nor weapon was found at the scene or on his person after the shooting.
Weeks later, after D.A. David justified the shooting, Sheriff McMahon defended his deputies, saying, “It's not OK when you are being apprehended to refuse and act aggressively, that's just not acceptable.”
Smith’s estranged wife said she didn’t believe that he would shoot a law enforcement officer.
“I don’t even think he shot the deputy,” Lindsey Smith said. “ think they are just blaming him. They said they were looking for him. So, instead of getting him and taking him into custody they shot him down and murdered him.”
The rest of Smith’s family also cast doubt on his slaying, and the way authorities say it happened. As evidence, they point to an audio recording of the shooting from on of the officers on scene.
“So it’s like they had it set in their mind what they were gonna do from the beginning,” Georgia Davis, Brandon Smith’s sister, told a local television station.“And then they did it, and we wanna know why?”
“The audio was captured by an in-car camera from a law enforcement vehicle that was away from the scene of the shooting.,” says D.A. David in his press release this week. “The technology that captured this audio was not like how many body cameras operate now with the camera and microphone in one unit on the wearer. The officer wearing the microphone connected to this audio was a WPD K39 officer. He was one of many law enforcement officials from numerous agencies who responded to the scene and was not one of the personnel involved in the shooting.”
David continued, “Audio from this incident is now circulating on social media. This audio is not new evidence. The SBI, the prosecutors who assessed the case, and the family of Brandon Smith and their civil attorney had the benefit of reviewing the entire investigative file years ago, including this audio. Members of the SBI and my office met with the Smith family attorney on at least two different occasions to allow them to review all the evidence (including allowing the attorney to interview the lead case agent from the SBI). The Smith family chose not to file a civil case within the five year statute of limitations. They, and others on their behalf, now seek to litigate this case in the press. That is not the proper venue to arrive at the truth.”
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS
ST. AUG U WELCOMES NEW PRESIDENT
[RALEIGH] After a national search, the Board of Trustees at Saint Augustine’s University announces the appointment of Dr. Irving Pressley McPhail as the University’s 12th President, effective July 15, 2020. Irving Pressley McPhail is founder and chief strategy officer at the McPhail Group LLC. A senior executive in higher education, urban public-school administration, and the nonprofit sector, Dr. McPhail was previously the sixth president and CEO at the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME), founding chancellor at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), president at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, and president at Lemoyne-Owen College. He also served as university provost at Pace University, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Delaware State University, and chief operating officer at the Baltimore City Public Schools.
FI\RST BLACK WOMAN APPOINTED TO RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL
[RALEIGH] for the first time in it’s history, the Raleigh City Council this week appointed an African-\American woman to serve as councillor. Atty. Stormie Forte will now represent District D on council, a seat vacated by former Councilman Saige Martin, who recently resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Atty. Forte was selected from over fifty qualified candidates. She will save out Martin’s unfinished term, which will end in 2021.
SEN. TILLIS SAYS VOTERS SHOULD BACK TRUMP BECAUSE LIFE WAS GOOD BEFORE THE PANDEMIC
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] U.S Sen Thom Tillis (R-NC) said this week that voters should not judge either Pres. Trump nor the Republican Party on how they’ve mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, but on how “good” their lives were before the virus.
“…You know why I know we’re going to win?” Tillis rhetorically asked during remarks at last week’s NC GOP Convention“Because people remember how good their lives were back in February.” Sen. Tillis is in a tough election campaign against democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.
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AFRICAN-AMERICANS SEE
PERIL IN GOP PUSH TO SEND
CHILDREN TO SCHOOL
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The community which sends it’s children to North Carolina public schools the most, is concerned about sending their children now given the limited plans available to ensure safety from the coronavirus pandemic.
African-American students comprised approximately 25.7% of the NC pubic school population for the 2015-16 school year. Assuming that percentage has remained fairly consistent in the years since, that means that black students routinely make up one-fourth of all students attending.
And yet, high profile Republicans from Pres. Donald Trump to NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger are demanding that all students return to school this fall, and do so without regard to catching or transmitting the deadly virus.
“We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools,” Trump told a White House roundtable last week, threatening to withhold federal funding from those states that don’t.
Given how the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting the black community, African-Americans on social media aren’t interested in their children being sent to schools where it would be next to impossible to enforce mask wearing, social distancing and the constant washing of hands.
Some were even very suspicious of Trump’s and the Republican’s motives for pushing for full school reopening so strong.
“Hell no,” declared a facebook poster named Karen. “Our black children will die [and] they don’t care.”
“The rich kids are in private schools or are home schooled,” chimed in another Facebook poster named Veronica. “The kids that will be harmed with unsafe and badly managed reopening will disproportionately be black and brown kids.”
“School reopening must be guided by science for the safety of all kids. Local school boards, parents, teachers and staff need to be at the forefront of reopening plans, not politicians with their own agendas,” Veronica concluded
And even public school teachers are expressing concern about managing their classes without stronger safety assurances.
On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper unveiled three reopening plans - the first involving minimal social distancing; the second with increased social distancing at no more than 50 percent capacity, and school buses at no more than 33 percent capacity; and third implementing remote computer only.
Cooper pushed The second, or Plan B, but also recommended the third, or Plan C or school districts if better suited.
Face masks will be required for all students, teachers and staff through 12th grade, along with daily symptom screenings.
Some large school districts, like Guilford, Wake and Durham, have already approved Plan B. Charlotte-Mecklenburg will vote on a choice. New Hanover is scheduled to release the results of a parent survey this week.
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GOP NOT GIVING UP
GETTING VOTER ID
FOR NOVEMBER
BY Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Even though two North Carolina courts have ruled that voter photo identification will not be implemented for the upcoming Nov. 3rd elections, state Republicans simply refuse to take “no” for an answer.
And that’s making state Democrats a bit nervous.
Republicans filed a motion in state Superior Court on July 9th, noting that the state Court of Appeals earlier in the year granted an injunction against voter ID for the November elections, but now should reconsider because the GOP-led legislature passed House bill 1169 removing one of the issues that triggered the injunction in the first place.
HB 1169, which passed with bipartisan support, primarily deals with election issues pertaining to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
But among the issues addressed was allowing poll workers to now allow public assistance identification to be used as voter ID. That was not one of the IDs allowed in the 2018 voter ID bill that spurred lawsuits resulting in injunctions stopping the laws enactment.
But in granting the injunction stopping voter ID for November, a judge noted the absence of allowing public assistance cards from what was allowed in the 2018 bill.
"With the enactment of H.B. 1169, the General Assembly has adopted nearly every 'ameliorative' amendment proposed ... and it also has addressed the key shortcoming identified by the Court of Appeals," Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, boosted in a statement after passage.
If there is a possible saving grace for Democrats, it’s this - public assistance cards don’t normally have photographs on them.
It will be up to a state judge whether HB 1169 satisfies that voter ID should be allowed in time for the Nov. 3rd elections.
It was earlier this year when a three-judge state appellate panel ruled that the 2018 voter ID law was designed with “discriminatory intent,” as alleged by in lawsuits by six Wake County defendants’ and issued injunctions staying the law until trial.
Last December, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the 2018 voter ID law, saying that she saw evidence of racial discrimination in the way the law came about.
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CHIEF DONNY WILLIAMS (2ND FROM LEFT) LEADS MARCH ALONG WITH NH C SHERIFF ED MCMAHON (LEFT), AND DISTRICT ATTORNEY BEN DAVID (SHIRT) AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY (JOHN DAVIS PHOTO)
(UPDATED) WILMINGTON DEALS WITH
DRAMATIC CHANGE,
TURMOIL AND HOPE
By Cash Michaels
Special to the NCPA
[WILMINGTON] From even before North Carolina native George Floyd was coldbloodedly killed by a Minneapolis police officer with a knee to his neck, the coastal port city of Wilmington - a place where raging white supremacist violently overthrew elected black control in 1898 - was dealing with extraordinary racism, and clear evidence that black lives really didn’t matter.
But few knew that, even in the midst of a deadly pandemic, that would dramatically have to change.
It was May 3rd when an angry white mob with guns, led by an off-duty New Hanover County sheriff’s duty, would allegedly assault the home of a black family demanding entry in neighboring Pender County under the premise of searching for a missing girl. No one was hurt, but the incident deeply disturbed African-Americans who felt threatened in a national atmosphere where angry whites felt free to falsely and verbally attack blacks for exercising their constitutional rights.
May 25th - the day that would literally rock the world when George Floyd fatally fell victim to outrageous police abuse in a disturbing video, igniting massive protests and demonstrations in cities all over the nation, including Wilmington.
Police chiefs across the state join demonstrators in decrying the death of Floyd, and in some cases, as with then interim Wilmington Police Chief Donny Williams, marched with them.
Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets, taking up the rallying cry heard all over to end police violence, remove confederate statues that honored white supremacist legacies, and “defund the police”- a cry to take funding from the local law enforcement budget, and transfer it to more social service programs for the poor.
BLM protesters in Wilmington also demanded the establishment of a civilian police review board, and the permanent appointment of Interim Chief Williams to head Wilmington law enforcement.
On the night of June 24th, two confederate statues were removed from the downtown Wilmington area by order of city government, per the demands of many in the African-American community who complained that they were reminders of past white racism and oppression that still plagued black people in the Port City.
That stunning news was then immediately followed by the welcomed announcement that Interim Chief Williams had indeed been made permanent to lead the police department, becoming the first African-American ever to do so.
But then the shocker. On his first day as the permanent chief, Williams announced the termination of three veteran white Wilmington police officers who were unknowingly caught on a police vehicle recording using racial slurs to describe Black Lives Matter demonstrators, black police officers, a black magistrate, and even their new black police chief.
And the officers were also caught using hate-filled speech, discussing starting a racial “civil war” to wipe blacks “off the f——-g map.”
The New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David announced that after reviewing the tapes, he couldn’t find evidence of the officers breaking any state law, but he did call for s federal Justice Department investigation. He also made sure the former officers could not serve as witnesses in any of the 70 cases they were involved in.
Chief Williams ensured that they could never work for the city of Wilmington again, and would be blackballed to ever work in any other North Carolina law enforcement agency. He also vowed that as long as he was police chief in Wilmington, he would not tolerate racist attitudes among his officers on the force.
Recently it was reported that one of the former officers, James “Brian” Gilmore, is appealing his termination, claiming that the remarks he was fired for, about whites “worshipping” black protesters, were actually constitutionally “protected” religious speech, not racial. Gilmore wants his job back.
Then on July 6th, the NC Clergy Truth and Reconciliation Mission filed a federal complaint against the ousted white officers with the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Justice Dept., seeking an investigation.
Finally, on Monday, July 13th, the New Hanover Board of Commissioners, by a 3-2 vote, passed a resolution that was simply unthinkable before the death of George Floyd - declaring racism a “public health crisis.”
“Racism has formed the basis for a public health crisis affecting our entire County and should be treated with urgency,” read the resolution in part. “This resolution calls upon legislators, health officials and others in our community to research and analyze data, and make meaningful changes to dismantle systemic racism. New Hanover County will seek to promote Racial equity….”
And at that same meeting, the NHC Commission Board voted to change the name of Hugh McRae Park - originally named after a prominent white supremacist in Wilmington’s past - to Long Leaf Park. The sign was immediately dismantled the day after.
In the span of just three months, Wilmington, given it’s torrid racial history, has seen the kind of transformative change no one could have imagined.
The question now, and for the future, is, can it last?
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