THE CASH STUFF FOR 05-27-21

                 

                                                      NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES

OUTRAGE IN THE 

NIKOLE HANNAH JONES

TENURE CONTROVERSY

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

If there’s anyone concerned about how awardwinning New York Times investigative journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones, recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” is doing amid the growing controversy over how she’s been treated by UNC-Chapel Hill after being hired for a heralded position at it’s journalism school without the benefit of tenure, she says don’t.

“I have been overwhelmed by all of the support you all have shown me,” Hannah-Jones tweeted under her alias “Ida Bae Wells” May 20th. “ “It has truly fortified my spirit and my resolve. You all know that I will [be] OK. But this fight is bigger than me, and I will try my best not to let you down.”

It is that feisty, defiant, intellectual spirit the heralded black journalist is known for, especially after being targeted by political conservatives and contrarian historians for her keenly researched, long-form Pultizer Prize winning New York Times Magazine series, “The 1619 Project,” which tells the story of how slavery was so vital to the founding of what would eventually become the United States of America over 400 years ago when people of African descent were first brought to these shores.

The narrative profoundly contradicts the more popular adage that the nation was formally founded in 1776, when colonists declared their independence from England in search of freedom, thus downplaying slavery as the institution with which colonists built a powerful economy with.

But maintaining the 1776 narrative has proven to be the main mission of those like Republican former Pres. Donald Trump, Republican U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and NC U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis who have opposed Hannah-Jones, accusing her of “Marxist” anti-American rhetoric, and chiding the New York Times for giving her the prime platform with which to disseminate it, especially to American students.

“Americans do not want their tax dollars diverted from promoting the principles that unite our nation towards promoting radical ideologies meant to divide us,” Tillis wrote to a constituent in a May 21st letter.

And there lies what’s at the heart of the UNC-Chapel Hill versus Hannah-Jones tenure controversy, observers say. 

As first reported by NC Policy Watch several weeks ago, Hannah-Jones was hired by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media (from which Hannah-Jones earned her Master’s Degree in 2003) to be the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.

Her journalistic bona fides, by all accounts, exceeded the requirements.

Hannah-Jones previously reported for the Raleigh News and Observer for several years before going to The Oregonian in Portland, and then Pro Publica in New York. Her reporting gained prime notice, and applause, at the New York Times Magazine, where she focused on social justice issues before overseeing The 1619 Project.

When Hannah-Jones was hired by UNC’s Hussman School, Dean Susam King said in April, “Giving back is part of Nikole’s DNA, and now one of the most respected investigative journalists in America will be working with our students on projects that will move their careers forward and ignite critically important conversations.”

But conservatives close to the UNC Board of Trustees reportedly weren’t having it, especially when tenure, as approved by the faculty tenure committee and normally rubber-stamped by the UNC-Chapel Hill trustee board, was part of the hiring package for Hannah-Jones. Shortly after it was announce that Hannah-Jones was coming to UNC-Chapel, pressure was brought to bare on the Hussman School to eliminate the tenure offer - a lifetime appointment -  changing it to just a five -year contract with the possibility of tenure at the end.

For example, Shannon Watkins of the conservative James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (formerly the Pope Center) called Hannah-Jones an “activist-scholar.”

The two previous Knight Chairs, sponsored by the Knight Foundation of Knight -Ridder Newspapers, have been hired with tenure.  The fact that Hannah-Jones was an outspoken black female professional did not escape anyone in how she was being treated, and the reaction from UNC faculty, students and colleagues was strong.

“As Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty, we are stunned at the failure to award tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize, Peabody, and MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” winner and UNC-Chapel Hill 2019 Distinguished Alumna recently inducted into the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame,” they wrote in a May 19th open letter.

“We demand explanations from the university’s leadership at all levels,” the faculty latter continued. “Nikole Hannah-Jones does necessary and transformative work on America’s racial history.”

The UNC Board of Trustees is seen as having the final word on the Hannah-Jones hiring and tenure issue.

UNC student leaders wrote an open letter to Hannah-Jones, which said in part, “ We are frustrated and disappointed that our university, the flagship institution of the UNC System, has failed not only you, an outstanding alumna but its students, its faculty, its community as a whole…”

Protesters with signs interrupted the May 20th  UNC-Board of Trustees meeting under threat of arrest. The Carolina Black Caucus also issued a letter declaring “We stand in protest.”

Lamar Richards, UNC-Chapel Hill student body president who also sits on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board, wrote an open letter chastising his colleagues for not taking the matter up in a vote thus far. Richards urged them to do so.

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REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER

REV. DR. T. ANTHONY SPEARMAN

KEITH RIVERS

ELIZABETH CITY RESIDENTS SIGN LETTER TO 

        DOJ IN ANDREW BROWN JR. CASE

NC NAACP, REV. BARBER, ASK

US JUSTICE DEPT FOR FULL

“PATTERN AND PRACTICE”

PROBE IN ELIZABETH CITY

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

The FBI is already in Elizabeth City conducting a federal civil rights investigation into the April 21st Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Dept. fatal shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr..

But the heads of the NC NAACP, the Pasquotank County NAACP and Repairers of the Breach are now also petitioning US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta to conduct a “pattern and practice” probe of both the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Dept. and the Pasquotank County District Attorney’s Office, “…to address the crisis of trust  and the legitimate calls for accountability and change boiling over in Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, and the surrounding jurisdictions, as well as to identify and help rectify systemic deficiencies which contribute to misconduct and enable it to persist.”

The civil rights leaders are requesting the federal probe via a May 24th letter to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which is also signed by several hundred citizens of Pasquotank County.

Reverend Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NC NACCP; Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign; and Keith Rivers, president of the Pasquotank County Branch of the NAACP, spoke to reporters Friday in Elizabeth City, and had local citizens present sign a petition accompanying the letter.

“In the name of justice….Dr. King once said, ‘We are not satisfied,” Rivers told reporters, “…and we won’t to be satisfied, until justice rolls down like water.”

The missive and press conference were in response to the May 18th press conference by Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble where he announced he would not criminally charge the seven deputies for fatally shooting Brown, 42, maintaining that it was “justified” because the suspect allegedly used his car “as a weapon” when deputies attempted to serve him with a felony arrest warrant while he was in his car in front of his home.

Clips from police bodycams of the April 21st incident that Womble “displayed” shows Brown behind the wheel of a BMW vehicle as the deputies rolled up into his yard. As the deputies trained their weapons on the vehicle and demand that Brown exit it, the BMW backs up, then goes forward as shots ring out from three of the seven deputies. The vehicle rolls a few feet away until it crashes into a tree in another yard.

When deputies reach the car with weapons still drawn, and finally open the driver-side door, they discovered that Andrew Brown Jr. had been shot in his right arm, an once in the back of the head, the “kill shot.”

D.A. Womble contended that the bodycam clips showed that legally, Brown used his car “as a weapon” to fend off the deputies and was “a perceived threat,” but most observers, upon seeing the clips, believe that Brown was fleeing from law enforcement, and any contact made was by a deputy trying to stop the car physically.

One of the Brown family’s attorneys, Bakari Sellers, disagreed with Womble on Twitter, tweeting, “Four officers didn’t shoot, didn’t feel life was in danger.”

Because the shooting took place in a residential neighborhood (one of the fourteen bullets fired was later found across the street in a neighbor’s house), and there is a law enforcement policy about shooting at a moving vehicle, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II says the three deputies who fired their weapons will keep their jobs, but will be disciplined and retrained.

Wooten also chided his deputies for not having emergency medical services on standby, and two of his deputies for not having their body cameras on.

But atty. Sellers made clear that, on behalf of the family, the killing of Andrew Brown Jr. was unjust, and if they can’t get criminal justice, they will certainly seek civil justice by way of a lawsuit.

Others, like 2022 U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley, have called for “a special prosecutor” to conduct “an independent investigation,” calling D.A.. Womble’s decision “a stunning lack of transparency.”

At Friday’s press conference, Spearman, Rivers and Barber joined the rhetorical fray, calling for the  federal “pattern and practice” probe.

“How long will it take before those who are called to uphold justice, finally uphold justice?,” NC NAACP Pres. Rev. T. Anthony Spearman rhetorically asked.

“We want [U.S.] Attorney General Garland to understand that….we stand behind a full FBI investigation by the [US] Justice Dept.,” Rev. Dr. Barber concluded, reiterating the need for  a full review of law enforcement in the Pasquotank County region.

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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 05-27-21

$25,000 GEORGE FLOYD SCHOLARSHIP GIVEN TO FSU BY SISTER

[FAYETTEVILLE] Bridgett Floyd, the sister of police brutality victim Georg Floyd, has donated $25,000 to Fayetteville State University in his memory. Tuesday, May 25th was the one year anniversary of Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, who was lat convicted of the crime the shook the world. The FSU scholarship was given to the school on behalf of the Raleigh-headquartered George Floyd Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to social justice and education.

DURHAM SCHOOL BOARD OPPOSES ANTI-CRITICAL RACE THEORY BILL

[DURHAM] The Durham County School Board is now on record opposing HB 824, the pending state House legislation that if passed, would profit the teaching of racism has played a key role in American history. In it’s resolution, the board says HB 824 would “restrict and prohibit honest conversations about race, conflict with the existing state and local education standards, and infringe free speech rights of students, educators and staff.” The board says it believes that students should be taught the truth about North Carolina and American history.

ELIZABETH CITY POLICE CHARGE DRIVER WITH HITTING TWO PROTESTERS WITH HER CAR

[ELIZABETH CITY] A motorist has been charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill after she allegedly hit two demonstrators protesting the killing of Andrew Brown, Jr. with her car Monday night. Police say Lisa Michelle O’Quinn of Greenville was also charged with one count of careless and reckless driving, and one count of unsafe movement. Th two victims were Black females, and they’re injuries were deemed non life threatening.

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THE CASH JOURNAL FOR MAY 20TH, 2021

ATTY BAKARI SELLERS

D.A. ANDREW WOMBLE

                                                            ANDREW BROWN JR.

BROWN FAMILY ATTORNEY DISPUTES

D.A. IN ANDREW BROWN POLICE

SHOOTING; NO DEPUTIES CHARGED

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

An attorney for the family of police shooting victim Andrew Brown Jr. disputes the version of events presented by Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble Tuesday, and hinted at a civil lawsuit down the road since no deputies will be criminally charged.

Atty. Bakari Sellers tweeted Tuesday that contrary to assertions by Womble, Brown, 42, was not using his car as a weapon in his getaway attempt from seven deputies serving him with arrest warrants fo alleged drug dealing at his home on April 21st.

“#Andrew Brown was not using his vehicle as a weapon, Sellers tweeted. The “contact” was minimal at best and initiated by officers.”

No officers will be criminally charged, declared Womble during the Tuesday press conference in Elizabeth City Tuesday.  He added that North Carolina law governing the actions of law enforcement officers in the process of serving warrants justified their using their weapons the moment  Brown got behind the wheel of his car and decided to drive off.

“[Brown] was beyond law enforcement when multiple shots were fired, including kill shot to the back of the head.,” tweeted Sellers.

Police bodycam video played by Womble at the press conference showed several armed officers surrounding Brown in his vehicle, demanding that he get out immediately. Brown backed his vehicle up. One of the officers grabs for the driver’s side door handle as Brown begins to pull off.

As Brown drives away, shots are fired at his vehicle.

"The decision to flee, which Brown made on his own, quickly escalated the situation from a show of force to an employment of force," Womble said. "That he drove recklessly and endangered the officers is not uncertain. Therefore, I find that Brown's actions and conduct were indeed dangerous by the time of the shooting."

Several reporters during the televised news conference noted that it looked as if Brown was more intent on getting away, than trying to hit any of the armed officers. But Womble insisted that the car could have been stationary, and yet three of the seven armed officers present were legally justified in firing fourteen shots at the car in an attempt to stop Brown.

Atty Seller disagreed.

“Four officers didn’t shoot, didn’t feel life was in danger,” he tweeted.

The tragic incident concluded when Brown, fatally shot in the back of his head, crashed his vehicle across a lot into a tree.

D.A. Womble justified the use of firepower, saying that Brown had a history of resisting arrest.

Womble’s presentation Tuesday was based on the investigation done by the State Bureau of Investigation, as is required during a police shooting in North Carolina. The SBI confirms that Andrew Brown Jr. was not carrying a weapon, but was in possession of drugs.

The April 21st encounter took all of 44 seconds. Brown was already sitting in his car when the seven sheriff’s deputies pulled up in a truck, ordering him to get out of the vehicle. 

Womble claims that Brown struck a deputy twice with his vehicle in his escape attempt, thus justifying actions of law enforcement that followed.

Protesters could be heard from outside denouncing Womble’s decision even before the press conference concluded. Elizabeth City has been the scene of angry, yet peaceful protests ever since the killing of Andrew Brown Jr.

Atty Sellers told WRAL-TV that “a civil suit will be filed expeditiously.”

Though Womble “displayed” clips from five of the police bodycams present, he insisted that he could not technically give the family nor the media any of it because of North Carolina law mandating that only the custodian of the videos, in this case the Pasquotank Sheriff’s Dept. could petition the court to do so.

A judge has ruled that he may release the police videos after the SBI investigation was completed, which it is now.

The FBI is conducting a probe or possible civil rights violations.

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                                                                HENRY MCCOLLUM

                                                                    LEON BROWN

TWO FALSELY CONVICTED BROTHERS

AWARDED $75 MILLION BY

FEDERAL JURY IN RALEIGH

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

A federal jury in Raleigh May 14th awarded $75 million to two African-American half-brothers who were falsely convicted of a 1983 rape and murder of an 11 year-old girl in Red Springs.

Henry McCollum and Leon Brown - both reportedly intellectually-disabled - were awarded $31 million each in compensatory damages, and $13 million in punitive damages. 

Both had originally been sentenced to death row after the conclusion of their first trial.

The Robeson County Sheriff’s Dept. settled it’s part of the damages earlier in the day for $9 million. That agency falsely arrested and charged the brothers when they were teenagers for the crimes. DNA evidence eventually proved McCollum and Brown were not guilty 31 years later. They were freed from prison in 2014 when a judge overturned their convictions.

Shortly after, both had received full pardons of innocence from then Gov. Pat McCrory.

The McCollum and Brown case is noteworthy not only because of the large sum in damages awarded to them after so many years, but for why it was so large. Multiple law enforcement agencies pinned the ghastly crime on them based on shoddy evidence, the record shows.

According to attorneys for the pair, the civil rights of McCollum and Brown were violated by the Red Springs Police Dept. the Robeson County Sheriff’s Dept., and the State Bureau of Investigation when the brothers were forced to give coerced false confessions, exculpatory evidence was suppressed, and due process was violated.

Defense attorneys for two SBI agents involved in the case tried to argue to the jury during closing arguments Friday that McCollum and Brown were “rapists and murderers,” but presiding U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle shut them down, noting to the jury that the brothers had already been determined innocent of the crimes.

Over the years, defense attorneys even tried to argue that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, law enforcement did nothing wrong, but to no avail.

The jury took just five hours Friday to determine that McCollum and Brown were then victims of gross injustice.

Now that the brothers are not only free, but properly compensated for their years of anguish and false imprisonment, they will have their finances  properly managed by guardians. Their first civil suit attorney, Patrick Megaro of Florida, was found to have stolen a good deal of the $750,000 each in state restitution they had received after they were granted pardons of innocence. That attorney was ordered off of  their case in 2018, and made to return $500,000 that he took.

One of the brothers, Leon Brown, resides in a group home for the mentally impaired because of his over three decades in prison.

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                                           NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES

GOP LAWMAKERS PASS

LAW AGAINST TEACHING

ABOUT NATION’S RACIST

PAST

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

If Republican-led legislatures indeed have a lot in common, then what happens there can be expected to also happen in North Carolina.

In the Texas House of Representatives, House Bill 4509 will mandate

that “…K-12 school districts an open-enrollment charter schools [would be required to] teach “informed American patriotism” through the founding documents of the United States,…[and] promote understanding of the “fundamental moral principles” of the nation.”

Here in North Carolina, Republican lawmakers pretty much want the same, but they’re going about it a different way.

They want to ban the teaching of anything else but “American patriotism.”

Enter House Bill 324, a measure if passed into law “…would prohibit public schools from promoting the idea that one race or sex is inherently superior to another; an individual is racist, sexist, or oppressive based solely on their own race or sex (consciously or unconsciously); an individual should receive special treatment solely because of his or her race or sex; moral character is determined by race or sex; or based solely on race or sex, an individual bears responsibility for actions taken in the past by members of that same race or sex,” reports the Carolina Journal, the online magazine of the conservative John Locke Foundation.

Indeed, in the aftermath of Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s campaign against North Carolina public schools upgrading their social studies curricula to reflect the realities of this state and nation’s racist past, comes legislation to prevent students from learning more about the 1898 Wilmington race massacre; the destruction of Native-American tribes, and the marginalization of the Asian-American community, among other injustices, by many whites.

“North Carolina’s school children should be taught how to think—not what to think,” said Lt. Gov. Robinson in a statement after HB 324 was passed. Radical leftists complain that this legislation is ‘white-washing history’ and ‘academic apartheid.’ Students should absolutely learn the horrific facts associated with slavery, Jim Crow, and other dark times in our nation’s history. They should not, however, be subjected to pseudo-science social justice initiatives like the ‘1619 Project’ and ‘Critical Race Theory,’ which seek to divide us along racial lines and teach that the systems of our Republic and the history of our great American experiment are shameful.”

Robinson continued, “Our children, regardless of their background, should know that it is their shared and diverse experiences that make America great, and learning about those experiences should bring them together—not drive them apart,” Robinson added. “This legislation ensures that our students will be taught that we all have value, regardless of who we are—or who our ancestors were.”

During tense debate, however, Democrats countered that North Carolin teachers will be prohibited from dealing with racism, and the fact that America was built on it.

“This is an anti-American history bill,” charged Rep. James Gailliard, Black Democratic representative from Nash County.

And it’s not just in the state’s middle and high schools where Republicans and conservatives racism erased off the social studies blackboard.

The recent announcement that UNC-Chapel Hill hired alumna and Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the esteemed “1619 Project,” - the heralded New York Times series that documented how slavery was so crucial to the founding of the United States - to occupy UNC’s Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, was greeted by the right-wing with disdain.

“…Hannah-Jones’s hiring “signals a degradation of journalistic standards,” wrote Shannon Watkins for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (formally known as the conservative Pope Foundation),  “which should deter any serious student from applying to the journalism school.”

There can be no doubt that the GOP culture wars are in full effect here in North Carolina - where former Pres. Donald Trump is expected to attend the NC Republican State Convention in Greenville next month - and across the country.

What Democrats do to counter this GOP section to losing the November 2020 election remains to be seen.

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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 05-20-21

TRUMP TO ATTEND NC GOP CONVENTION

[GREENVILLE] For those North Carolinians who haven’t had enough of him, former Pres. Donald Trump will be returning to North Carolina on June 6th to speak at the NC Republican State Convention in Greenville. Observers note that his NC appearance may be part of his expected plan to run for a third time for president in 2024, after losing the 2020 election. However, Trump faces numerous criminal investigations currently, and may be unavailable for that run.

ELIZABETH CITY COUNCILMAN SAYS VIDEO SHOWS DEPUTIES URINATING ON HIS BUSINESS PROPERTY

[ELIZABETH CITY] Gabriel Adkins, an Elizabeth City city councilman, says that he has video of a Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputy urinating on his funeral home property via security camera, and believes it’s in retaliation for Adkins’ protest against the sheriff’s department after the shooting death of Anthony Brown, Jr. on April 21st. Adkins says his security camera caught at least one deputy both last Friday and Saturday nights. He has posted the video on his Facebook page.

NC APPELLATE COURT JUDGE ACCUSED OF TRYING TO HIT PROTESTERS WITH HIS SUV

[FAYETTEVILLE] A Black Lives Matter protester allege that NC Court of Appeals Judge John Tyson tried to hit her and other protesters on the street right outside the Market Place with his SUV on May 7th. Myah Warren has filed charges against Judge Tyson, charging him with assault with a deadly weapon. Fayetteville police are investigating the incident. Judge Tyson has only said that protesters were in the road while he was driving through.

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THE CASH STUFF FOR THURSDAY, MAY 13, 2021

                                                                      ROGER FLOYD

[ANDREW BROWN PORTION UPDATED]

GEORGE FLOYD’S NC FAMILY

UNVEILS MAY 25TH “DAY

OF ENLIGHTENMENT”

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

In under two weeks from now, May 25th will be the first anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd at the hands of former Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin.

But according to Floyd’s family last Saturday, May 25th will also be a “Day of Enlightenment” to commemorate the dark anniversary, honor George Floyd, and promote a hopeful change in societal attitude towards racism.

Last Saturday, the Floyd family from Fayetteville - where he was born 46 years prior to his death - gathered at the John P. “Top” Greene Community Center in Southeast Raleigh, along with Mayor Mary Ann Baldwin and District C City Councilman Corey Branch, to announce the inaugural kickoff of the special occasion, and also the establishment of the multicultural nonprofit George Floyd Memorial Center in Raleigh.

Their hope is that the center - estimated to cost between $10-$20 million -  will be a source of inspiration and information for generations to come.

The center’s motto will be “Achieving Greatness Through Focused Service.”

"We want them to know that they can make a difference! You don't have to die to make a difference,” Thomas McLaurin, Floyd’s cousin, told those gathered Saturday. “We want them to live and make a difference, and see things [as] they could be in our community moving forward."

Even though George Floyd was a native of Fayetteville, his family plans to build the namesake center in the Capital City, and are in the process of fundraising towards the effort. The center, once completed, will contain an interactive museum, classrooms, and a leadership academy, as well as online educational programs, all geared towards helping young people find a positive path through life.

The Floyd center, with a projected construction and opening within the next two to three years, will also sponsor a scholarship fund to assist in that effort.

McLaurin says the family is hopeful that it can identify a site for the center close to Shaw University in downtown Raleigh and Southeast Raleigh, primarily because they have been in discussions with Shaw about collaborating on various projects.

The center is also a way to turn the tragedy of George Floyd’s death into a peaceful, and effective way to deal with the specter of racist police brutality that has plagued the nation for so long.

“We want to use the name George Floyd to make an influence,” McLaurin said, adding that the family wants to “change the world” by turning “from hurt to hope.”

        Mayor Baldwin and Councillor Branch made clear that the city of Raleigh was onboard with the goals of the Floyd family and the proposed center. They brought an official proclamation making May 25th “A day of Enlightenment” in honor of George Floyd.

“”…[W]e’ll help draw attention to the long history of racism and discrimination in our world and provide an opportunity for people in our community to stand together and embrace a hope for the future,” Councillor Branch said.

Meanwhile, as the family of George Floyd gathered Saturday to announce their efforts to pay tribute to the fallen police brutality victim, the family of Andrew Brown Jr., joined by clergy and supporters, peacefully marched through the streets of Elizabeth City, demanding transparency in the investigation of the fatal April 21st shooting of Brown by Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies during the course of serving a warrant on Brown.

A local judge restricted what footage the family could see of police bodycam video of the slaying, saying that it will remain restricted while an SBI probe is underway. 

Who the family and attorneys did see about 20 minutes of the police footage on Tuesday, they said Andrew Brown jr. was “ambushed” by sheriffs deputies while he was in the car he was ultimately shot to death in. They maintained that at no time was he a threat to any of the deputies present.

Attorney Chance Lynch, representing the family, told reporters Tuesday, “there were so many shots that we had difficulty in counting the number.” Lynch maintained that Brown never moved the vehicle until after the first shot from law enforcement.

Civil rights leaders Rev. Dr. William Barber and NC NAACP Pres. Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman have echoed Gov. Roy Cooper in calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the case.

The FBI is also conducting a federal civil right investigation.

On Monday,  state Senate committee voted  to rewrite North Carolina’s law governing release of police bodycam video, allowing families of police shooting victims to see it within five days.

Law enforcement would have the right to object.

                                    -30-

CROSSOVER WEEK SEES 

BILLS OF KEY INTEREST

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Welcome to Crossover Week at the NC General Assembly.

According to WUNC North Carolina Public Radio, legislative “crossover”is when “…a bill must have passed at least one chamber of the Legislature by the end of the day today (May 13th) to stay alive for consideration this year in the other chamber.”

Of course, lawmakers in the past have found creative ways around this “rule.”

The following are highlights of House bills that might not make today’s crossover deadline, but are worth keeping an eye on going into next session.

HB 247 - Standards of Student Conduct

AN ACT TO MAKE VARIOUS CHANGES TO LOCAL STANDARDS OF STUDENT CONDUCT.

Where local school boards, “…in consultation with teachers, school-based administrators, parents, and local law enforcement agencies, shall adopt policies to govern the conduct of students and establish procedures to be followed by school officials in disciplining students.”

The school board policies “shall include or provide for the development of a Code of Student Conduct that notifies students of behavior expected of them, conduct that may subject them to discipline, and the range of disciplinary measures that may be used by officials.

HB 536 - Law Enforcement Duty to Intervene

AN ACT TO ESTABLISH A DUTY FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS TO INTERVENE IN AND REPORT EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE.

In the aftermath of the police murder of North Carolina native George Floyd, where three Minneapolis police officers did nothing to stop a fourth officer, Derek Chauvin, from pressing his knee to the neck of Floyd for 9 minutes 29 seconds, effectively killing him, this proposed amendment to NC General Statute 15A-401 reads:

Duty to Intervene and Report Excessive Use of Force - A law enforcement officer, while in the line of duty, who observes another law enforcement officer use force against another person that the observing officer reasonably believes exceeds the amount of force authorized by [this law], and who possesses a reasonable opportunity to intervene, shall if it is safe to do so, attempt to intervene to prevent the use of excessive force. Additionally, the observing officer shall, within a reasonable period of time not to exceed 72 hours thereafter, report what the officer reasonably believes to be an unauthorized use of force to a superior law enforcement officer within the agency of the observing officer , even if the observing officer did not have a reasonable opportunity to intervene.

HB 608 - Dignity for Women Who are Incarcerated

AN ACT TO PROMOTE THE DIGNITY OF WOMEN WHO ARE INCARCERATED.

A proposed law to protect the rights of the female incarcerated.

Prison personnel shall not apply leg restraints; handcuffs or other wrist restraints; restraints connected to other incarcerated persons or waist shackles to “…a pregnant female [prisoner] during the second and third trimester of pregnancy, during labor and delivery, and during the six-week postpartum recovery period (unless an important individualized circumstance exists). “In this case, only wrist handcuffs held in front of the female [prisoner’s] body may be used and only when she is ambulatory.”

The proposed law also prohibits anyone other that a “certified health care professional …[to] conduct body cavity searches of a female [prisoner] who is pregnant or in postpartum recovery period…” unless there is probable cause to believe the female [prisoner] “…is concealing contraband that presents a threat of him to to the female [prisoner], the fetus, for another person.”

HB 805 - Prevent Rioting and Civil Disorder

AN ACT TO INCREASE THE PENALTIES FOR RIOTING OR INCITING RIOTING THAT RESULTS IN DAMAGE TO PROPERTY, SERIOUS BODILY INJURY, OR DEATH AND ASSAULTING EMERGENCY PERSONNEL DURING A RIOT OR STATE OF EMERGENCY; TO ALLOW RECOVERY OF TREBLE DAMAGES FO PROPERTY DAMAGE OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY RIOTING OR LOOTING; ND TO REQUIRE PRETRIAL RELEASE CONDITIONS FOR RIOTING AND LOOTING OFFENSES TO BE DETERMINED BY A JUDGE.

Under this proposed law, “A riot is a public disturbance involving an assemblage of three or more persons which by disorderly and violent conduct , or the imminent threat of disorderly and violent conduct, results in injury or damage to persons or property or creates a clear and present danger of injury or damage to person or property.”

Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class I misdemeanor, or a Class H felony if the person possesses any dangerous weapon or substance.

Any person who willfully engages in a riot is guilty of a Class F felony if in the course of and as a result of the riot there is property damage in excess of fifteen hundred dollars ($1500) or serious felony bodily injury, and of a Class E felony, if in the course of, and as a result of the riot, there is a death.

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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 05-13-21

NC’S PRICE GOUGING LAW ACTIVATED AFTER GAS SHORTAGE

[CHARLOTTE] In the Queen City, an estimated 71% of gas stations have run out of fuel. In Raleigh, 60%. All over the state, and indeed the Southeast, “Out of Gas” signs are being posted in the aftermath of the Colonial Pipeline Russian ransomware attack earlier the week. Consumers and businesses are lining up to get as much gasoline as possible, but legally, that prohibits gas stations from raising the price of gas beyond reason. Officials hope the pipeline will be up and running by the end of the week.

VACCINE DEMAND DOWN IN NORTH CAROLINA

[GREENSBORO] The demand for COVID-19 vaccine in North Carolina has dropped in the past week by 78%, officials say. More than half of the state’s adult population have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The goal is to reach herd immunity, which would be 70-85% of the population immunized. The sooner that happens, the sooner places can reopen back to normal capacity, and face masks in public can be removed.

NC REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS MOVE TO OUTLAW CRITICAL RACE THEORY

[RALEIGH] Following the lead of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Republican lawmakers in the state House have fast-tracked a bill that, if adopted, will “give students a positive view of American history” and not deal with its racist past. Rep. James Gaillard (D-Nash), who is Black, has called the measure, “a bill of hatred…a bill of privilege…a bill of fragility.”

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THE CASH STUFF FOR 05-06-21

                                                                         REV. BARBER

WHY THE GOP DISMISSES

THAT SYSTEMIC RACISM

EXISTS

By Cash Michaels

An analysis

Why do Black Republicans like NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, agree with prominent white Republicans, that systemic racism does not exist today?

“Does racism exist?,” Robinson asked rhetorically back in February. “Of course. Has racism been “systemic” at points in our nation’s past? It has. Is our current system of government racist? No it is not!”

Unfortunately, in an effort to tow the Republican Party line, Robinson ended up later contradicting himself.

"I do not believe that we live in a systemically racist nation, nor have we ever lived in a systemically racist nation,” Robinson is quoted as saying while opposing a change in North Carolina’s social studies curricula.

The verbose Black Republican is in lock step with his party’s leadership like Sen. Tim Scott, Sen. Lindsay Graham, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and of course, former President Donald Trump - all of whom have denounced systemic racism as the product of liberal Democratic imaginations.

“Hear me clearly,” Sen. Scott, the U.S. Senate’s only Black Republican, said during his rebuttal last week to Pres. Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress where he denounced white supremacy and racist police brutality.

“America is not a racist country.” Scott declared.

First one needs to ask, “What is systemic/systematic racism, and did it, contrary to Lt. Gov. Robinson’s confused opinion, ever exist in this country?’

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, systemic racism is defined as “…policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization, that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race.”

Without question, the historic existence and perpetuation of Black human bondage on these shores since 1619 - more commonly known as slavery, America’s “original sin” - and the subsequent rules and laws that maintained its inherent injustice in this society, is the most pronounced evidence of systemic racism.

Legislation requiring racial segregation of public facilities and services; empowerment of  racial discrimination in private discourse; and ignoring racial injustice to the citizenship of nonwhites, was the manifestation of systemic racism starting in the mid-1860s.

“The practice of America was built on racism,” preached civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton Monday during the funeral for police shooting victim Andrew Brown, Jr. in Elizabeth City.

“Since African Americans have been in this country, racism has been embedded within the Constitution, statutory laws, social conventions and in the rules and regulations of every major institution in which people of color are involved,  engaged or impacted,” says Atty. Irving Joyner, law professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law. “That racial animus is further enforced by the many individuals who govern, interpret and manage the dominant institutions in this country and the individual states.”

In other words, while many of the obvious manifestations of past systemic racism have died on the vine through aggressive civil rights and legislative actions like boycotts, freedom marches, and landmark voting rights legislation, there is increasing evidence of the clock being “turned back” today on many of the same issues activists thought had been resolved forty and fifty years ago.

“Systemic racism is choking the life out of American democracy,” Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach, preached just last year after the police murder of North Carolina native, George Floyd.

Thus, the revolving civil rights challenges of this time, based on how Republican-led state legislatures are working feverishly to limit voting rights; the call for reimagining the behavior of public safety based on the continuing and disturbing pattern of police brutality towards African-Americans; the inequality of this nation’s educational system; the unequal quality of it’s health care system; and the continued lack of opportunity when it comes to employment and small business development for African-Americans,  is systemic racism;  activists and observers say.

And yet, with evidence of current systemic racism undeniable, Republican leaders - both Black and White - continue to denounce it’s very existence, and move decisively to disallow any unapproved teaching of it’s torrid history in the nation’s public schools, which is why Republicans are so adamantly against any dissemination of the New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize award-winning 1619 Project.

The acclaimed project documents that “…one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery, ” Project editor Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote.

Republicans, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a recent letter to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, want the 1619 Project removed from American History and Civics Programs, however,  because  the Project ,  “…has become infamous for putting ill-informed advocacy ahead of historical accuracy [and has]  many factual and historical errors, such as the bizarre and inaccurate notion that preserving slavery was a primary driver of the American Revolution.” 

“The reason so many conservatives are threatened by the 1619 Project is that the story the authors tell is prophetic,” wrote Nancy LeTourneau in the August 22, 2019 online edition of The Washington Monthly.

“It challenges the totalism on which [conservatives]entire world view has been constructed. It is their mindset, which monopolizes imagination and stifles alternatives, that lays the groundwork for authoritarianism.”

In other words, it is vitally important for Republicans and conservatives  to control the narrative of how Americans, particularly White Americans, think of themselves, in order to further promote their agenda. 

For evidence of this, look no further than Republican/conservative behavior/reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, the public health restrictions mandated by the medical community, and now the Republican/conservative singular resistance to available vaccinations.

If scientific facts run contrary to their worldview, the history and existence of systemic racism certainly don’t stand a chance.

Thus, falsely claiming that Pres. Trump actually won the 2020 election; that Democrats are evil threats to the country, and that the founders of this nation did not have a racist bone in their bodies, actually poll well among among Republicans/conservatives as accepted “realities.”

Giving pride and agency to the false beliefs that America can do no wrong, and never has, no matter what it’s documented history shows, is the Republican banner.

Denying systemic racism actually exists allows those invested in what the right-wing dictates America is to propagate a false narrative that furthers their designs for power.

“American inequality, rooted in our original sin of race-based slavery, has gone on far too long.” Rev. Barber says. “Now is the time for radical reconstruction. We invite all Americans to stand together and say, "We won't be silent anymore."

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                                                   CHERI BEASLEY

                                                    ERICA D. SMITH

SMITH , BEASLEY SPEAK 

OUT ON ANDREW BROWN CASE

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

The two African-American female candidates in the 2022 U.S. Senate race on the Democratic side have wasted little time taking to social media to address the issues surrounding the controversial April 21 fatal police shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr. in Elizabeth City.

Both former state Senator Erica D. Smith, and former NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, have condemned the slaying, and called for greater transparency in the subsequent investigation.

‘Black men and women are being killed with impunity across the country,” Smith wrote via Twitter Monday, the day of Brown’s funeral. “We deserve and demand accountability. We deserve and demand justice. It’s for this case that we march, that we organize, and that we fight. #AndrewBrownJr. #ElizabethCity.”

“How long are we going to allow Black men and Black women to be shot down by the very people supposed to protect us?,” Smith wrote in a followup tweet. “We can’t wait another day.”

And finally, former Sen. Smith in another tweet, “RELEASE THE TAPE, THE WHOLE TAPE,” a reference to the police bodycam video that has been withheld from the family, public and press by a Superior Court judge, by request of the Pasquotank district attorney, until an SBI investigation has been completed.

Andrew Brown Jr.’s family and only one attorney were allowed to see only 20 seconds of the video from one of the five cameras recording. They were not allowed to retain any copies.

Cheri Beasley, who just entered the 2022 Senate last week, took to Facebook to express her dissatisfaction with the judge who denied the Brown family’s petition to release the tape.

This decision is an injustice to Andrew Brown’s family and the people of Elizabeth City,” Beasley wrote. “The full footage should be publicly released without delay.”

Beasley continued, “The federal investigation and the Governor’s call for a special prosecutor are urgently needed to ensure accountability and transparency, and prevent these tragedies from recurring.”

Ironically, it was a Republican candidate also in the 2022 U.S. Senate - former NC Gov. Pat McCrory - signed the bill into law that withheld police bodycam footage from the public, to be released only upon the order of a judge.

Brown, 46, was killed when Pasquotank County Sheriff’s deputies were reportedly serving him with a warrant at his home. At one point, Brown apparently attempted to get away from the deputies in a vehicle, and was shot in the process. 

A private autopsy commissioned by Brown’s family revealed that he was shot four times in the arm, and once fatally to the back of his head.

His family and attorneys called Andrew Brown’s killing by sheriff’s deputies “an execution.” 

He reportedly was unarmed at the time.

During Monday’s funeral service, in which Rev Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy and Rev. Dr. William Barber offered the Brown family worship of comfort, friends and family gathered to say goodbye, but also join in unity in a call for justice.

“The Holy Ghost is going to stand with you,” Rev. Barber told the family, “…until the truth comes out.”

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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 05-06-21

LONG FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST CONCORD FOR FALSE ARREST

[DURHAM] A man recently released from prison after 44 years for a crime he did not commit, and paid $750,000 by the state of North Carolina to compensate for time served, has now sued the city of Concord for the false arrest, including police officials past and present. Ronnie Long, 65, filed his federal lawsuit Monday in Raleigh. Long is alleging “intentional and/or reckless misconduct.” Evidence exonerating him was withheld. Long was convicted of rape in 1976, and sentenced to 80 years in prison.

GOV. COOPER PARDONS DARRYL ANTHONY HOWARD

[DURHAM] After spending 25 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit, Darryl Anthony Howard was released from prison in 2016, and pardoned by Gov. Roy Cooper just last week. Thanks to the Innocence Project, it was determined that two different Durham district attorneys either withheld evidence or failed to fully investigate evidence pointing to another suspect. Howard is now eligible to receive $750,000 from the state for his false arrest and imprisonment.

THREE NC BLACK HISTORIC SITES TO BE ADDED BY THE STATE

[EDENTON] The NC Dept. of Cultural and Natural Resources is adding three African-American sites to it’s historic sites list for visitation.Soon tourists can visit the home of civil rights activist Golden Frinks in Edenton. Called the Golden and Ruth Frinks Freedom House, it will be restored as a museum. Frinks, known as “The Great Agitator,” was a 1960s activist and close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who protested Jim Crow segregation in North Carolina and throughout the South. Then, the home of renowned 1800s furniture-maker Thomas Day in the small town of Milton, is being restored, with plans for a visitor’s center. And finally, expansion of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum near Greensboro and Burlington. Founded in 1902, this was the only residential school for African-Americans during the Jim Crow era.

All three projects are receiving state and federal funding.

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