WHY WAS JASON WALKER
FATALLY SHOT BY DEPUTY?
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
Does Fayetteville now have it’s own Ahmaud Arbery case in the killing of Jason Walker?
That is the question troubling many in the African-American community as investigators look into the January 8th fatal shooting of the 37-year-old black man and single father by an off-duty Cumberland County deputy just yards away from Walker’s home.
The deputy, Lt. Jeffrey Hash, claims he was driving on Bingham Drive in Fayetteville when an unknown, unarmed Black man jumped on the hood of his pickup truck, grabbed the windshield wipers, and began breaking the windshield glass with them.
Hash told police afterwards that out of “ fear for my family,” he drew his weapon and fatally shot the Black man, later identified as Walker.
One witness to the incident, Elizabeth Ricks, a trauma nurse, says she thinks she saw Hash strike Walker with his vehicle as the Black man was crossing the street. She rushed from her car to try to save Walker’s life while Hash reportedly stood in place just identifying himself as a sheriff’s deputy.
But another witness was Anthony Walker, Jason’s father. In police bodycam video, he’s seen telling police that he saw his son jump up onto Hash’s pickup hood.
"He came out the yard and I was trying to get him to come back over here and I called him, I said, 'Come back, Jason.'” Anthony Walker said. "He was out here in the daggone street when that fella drove up and he jumped up on the guy’s hood, the guy jumped out and …. shooting."
The State Bureau of Investigation is probing the incident, and will turn it’s findings over to the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys upon completion for prosecution is any..
The story is both confusing and confounding.
How did Jason Walker end up on the hood of Lt. Hash’s car, if he was ever there at all?
What was the nature of Lt. Hash’s interaction with Walker before he was shot, if any?
Why didn’t Hash, a trained law enforcement officer, administer aid to Walker after the shooting?
According to the Fayetteville Police Dept., there was no record of Lt. Hash’s pickup truck hitting anyone per a contained “black box,” similar to what are in airplanes to record causes of crashes. Hash reportedly told police that Walker just jumped on top of the hood of his pickup for no reason grabbing for the windshield wiper.
The only reported wounds to Walker were four gunshots to his body.
Fayetteville city officials have asked federal authorities to investigate the case, in addition to the SBI.
In the meantime, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who many call “America’s Black attorney general” for his successful work representing the families of Black shooting victims, is speaking out on behalf of Jason Walker’s family.
During a January 13th press conference at a local Fayetteville church, Crump, who has represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, called for accountability for Jason Walker’s death.
“It is the right thing to do to speak up for the truth of what happened to Jason Walker,” Crump said, noting that Deputy Hash is using the same ‘self-defense” argument that three white men used in the 2020 racial killing of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia.They were eventually convicted.
Lt. Hash is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation. He was not charged nor arrested.
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REDISTRICTING CASE
TO BE HEARD BY NC
HIGH COURT ON FEB. 2
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The seven justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court will hear arguments in the recently appealed redistricting case that a three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously ruled in favor of Republican legislative leaders, despite claims of racial and partisan unconstitutionality.
The four Democrat, three Republican-member High Court will hear virtual arguments on February 2nd. The plaintiffs - North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, Inc. and Common Cause - appealed the January 11th decision, and are expected to have their briefs, and corresponding responses, submitted to the court by January 31st.
In their January 11th decision, the three-judge panel, consisting of two Republicans and one Democrat, ruled that despite how unfairly the legislative and Congressional voting districts were redrawn to give Republicans a decidedly overwhelming advantage in upcoming elections over the next ten years, they were nonetheless legal.
“This court neither condones the enacted maps nor their anticipated potential results,” the three-judge Superior Court panel wrote in its 260-page decision. “Despite our disdain for having to deal with issues that potentially lead to results incompatible with democratic principles and subject our state to ridicule, this court must remind itself that these maps are the result of a democratic process.”
Veterans of the NC redistricting process, like NC Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue (D-Wake), were not pleased with the ruling.
“To have an unleveled playing field…with this extreme partisan gerrymandering, is against the concepts of democracy and those clauses in the state Constitution that ensure that we are a government of the people, by the people and for the people - not one for politicians,” Sen. Blue said.
Other Democrats have also charged that the maps diluted Black voting strength.
During the course of the recent Superior Court trial the Republican map maker admitted to using outside maps to assist in drawing the final House version, which was contrary to the GOP promise to make the map drawing process transparent.
“…Republicans lied to their colleagues when they promised a fair and transparent redistricting process,” said NC Democratic Party Chairwoman Bobbie Richardson. “They cheated by using secret maps and closed door strategy sessions, then destroyed the maps they used. They are trying to steal seats through illegal partisan gerrymandering and are choosing to proceed with costly litigation that hardworking taxpayers will pay for.”
Republicans countered that they did nothing wrong, followed guidance not to use racial data, and were as open as possible in what they produced.
Three pending lawsuits challenging the Republican-drawn redistricting maps were consolidated into one in order for NC High Court review.
Candidate filing for the March 2022 primaries had been delayed by the NC High Court to May 17, in order to expedite judicial review of the new maps and allow for time to redraw them if necessary. The January 11th decision also mandated that candidate filing resume on Feb. 24th, through noon March 4th.
Published reports say the primaries could be delayed until June.
Various Democratic leaders, including Gov. Roy Cooper, complained that if approved, the new GOP maps would produce eleven Republican congresspeople out of fourteen congressional districts., as well as very few competitive legislative voting districts in the state House and Senate.
First District Congressman G. K. Butterfield, a Democrat, has already announced that he will not run for re-election because his congressional district was redrawn to the extent where he could not win.
Voting districts are redrawn every ten years in order to account for how much a state’s population expands or shrinks in order to produce proportional representation in the NC General Assembly and Congress.
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