April 28, 2015

Vice President Joe Biden completes the swearing in of Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Photo: Department of Justice

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Loretta Lynch, the former federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, made history when the U.S. Senate on April 23 finally confirmed her nomination by a vote of 56 to 43 to become the first African-American woman to serve as the nation's attorney general.

Lynch simultaneously made history as the nominee for the nation's top lawyer's spot to wait the longest for a confirmation vote. But after 160-plus days and several protests by Black leaders and activists, Vice President Joe Biden swore Lynch into office on April 27. She is the 83^rd person to hold the post. Minutes later she went right to work.

Lynch could not have had a more challenging first day as the nation's top cop as protesters in Baltimore dominated the headlines throughout the day and into the night, looting businesses, burning cars and facing off with the city's law enforcement officers in reaction to the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died after his spinal cord was severed while in police custody.

Gray's death is just the latest in a series of police-related deaths of African-Americans, mostly unarmed, at the hands of police. These events have also raised the inevitable comparisons: Will Lynch be as passionate and determined as an advocate for civil rights as Holder was?

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington Bureau has no doubts.

"I was at her swearing in and we're very proud of her and very excited about her new leadership. She is someone who will continue to carry the mantle of addressing the real inequities and problems within our justice system as Holder," Shelton told the Trice Edney News Wire. "We're convinced that she is extraordinarily gifted and prepared to take the reins behind Holder's extraordinary tenure."

Given what some, including U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), calls "open season" on African-Americans, the NAACP and other organizations are looking to Lynch to make a fairer criminal justice system one of her top priorities.

"We worked very closely with Holder to put in place federal level antiracial profiling policies," Shelton said. "We're looking forward to her continuing that process through the patterns and practices unit and other applicable departments in agencies tied to the Department of Justice to fully implement these policies and concerns."

Voting rights and stemming the school to prison pipeline are other issues that the NAACP and other civil rights organizations hope will be at the top of Lynch's to-do list.

While Shelton and other civil rights leaders are convinced that Lynch is "the best person to hit the ground running" on the issues that matter to them most, San Francisco State University political scientist, Dr. Robert Smith, is not as convinced.

Holder, in the minds of many leaders and activists, set the gold standard for civil rights advocacy and often served as an outspoken surrogate for President Obama on issues of race and civil rights.

"It may be unfair to judge her by him but I think that's the way people will assess lynch," Smith said. "She also only has one-and-a-half years in office, so I don't know if she can do very much."

Smith also noted that Lynch may well have a different philosophy than her predecessor. For one thing, she has a stronger relationship with law enforcement and reportedly has made raising police morale a priority.

"I don't know why police morale would be low," Smith said. "They've gotten away with virtually everything they've done."

Lynch, he adds, seems to be a more of a "prosecutor's prosecutor," whose tenure thus far has been less focused on social justice and civil rights than Holder's.

"I think black leaders and observers of the Justice Department were very, very pleased with his tenure and will kind of look to him as a base mark by which to judge Lynch," Smith said, "He had a genuine interest in race and civil rights and I think she's a more traditional prosecutor."

Speaking after the swearing in, Lynch also issued a challenge to her new staff.

"We can imbue our criminal justice system with both strength and fairness, for the protection of both the needs of victims and the rights of all.  We can restore trust and faith both in our laws and in those of us who enforce them.  We can protect the most vulnerable among us from the scourge of modern-day slavery – so antithetical to the values forged in blood in this country.  We can protect the growing cyber world," Lynch said. "I cannot wait to begin that journey."

Her predecessor, former Attorney General Eric Holder, in his farewell speech to the agency's employees on April 24, expressed deep faith in Lynch's ability to lead the Justice Department during a very turbulent time.

Also, in her speech, Lynch thanked her parents, Lorenzo Lynch, a Baptist preacher who tirelessly lobbied lawmakers on her behalf during the confirmation process, and her mother, Lorine Lynch, "who raised a daughter whom she always told, whatever the dream, whether lawyer, prosecutor or even attorney general, 'Of course you can.'"

April 28, 2015

Now It is Baltimore
By Rev. Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - There Freddie Gray, a black man, was stopped on the street, pinned to the ground, dragged to the back of a police wagon, and died in police custody.  Six officers were suspended.  The Mayor promised justice.  But the city erupted in non-violent demonstrations that turned ugly, despite Gary’s family pleading for peace.  Over three dozen were arrested.  “Oh, Baltimore,” sang Nina Simone in 1978, “Ain’t it hard just to live.”

Baltimore is a tale of two cities.  The Inner Harbor now glimmers with new restaurants, new condominiums, the stadiums that house the Ravens and the Orioles.  West Baltimore in contrast is marked by boarded up stores, abandoned homes, and too many people with no hope.  The jobs are gone; the schools crowded, the streets harsh.  Here the police – many of whom live in the suburbs – are tasked with waging a war on drugs and enforcing order.  The inevitable result is a tinderbox, a spark away from bursting into flame.  One incident of police misbehavior from eruption.

We’ve been here before; Baltimore is not unique.  We’ve seen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in Staten Island New York, Trayvon Martin in Sanford Florida.  Now that demonstrations have put the question of police violence on the front pages, each week brings another horror, another victim, another injustice.

Much focus has been put on cameras as a technical fix, but we need a change of culture, of character, of circumstance.  Police need new training, and a new relationship with the communities they patrol.  But at the end of the day, police are not the answer.  They are the occupying force, but they are not the cause of the underlying distress.  

We’ve been here before too.  In 1968, after race riots had erupted in Watts,  Chicago, Detroit and Newark, Lyndon Johnson convened the Kerner Commission to investigate the causes of the riots.  The Kerner Report described a nation “moving towards two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.”  It called for better training for the police, but also for new jobs, new housing, an end to de factor segregation. Police misbehavior was often the match that sparked the eruption, but there would be no answer without fundamental change.  

Baltimore and America have changed, but for too many in our ghettos and barrios, the reality is the same.  The New York Times reports on 1.5 million “missing black men,” one of every six aged 24 to 54 who have disappeared from civic life.  They are either dead or locked away.  Jobs have dried up as manufacturing plants closed and where shipped abroad.  Mass incarceration – with African Americans still suffering from racial profiling and injustice – destroys possibility.   The official black unemployment rate is twice that of whites, but that does not even count those who want a job but have given up trying to find one. 

The stigmatization of African Americans continues.  African American children are more likely to be suspended for the same misbehavior than whites.  African American men are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be arrested if stopped, more likely to convicted if arrested.  The result hurts African Americans generally.  The Harvard sociologist Devah Pager has found that a white with a criminal record has a better chance getting hired than black with no record whatsoever.  Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job,” she concludes. 

We need a serious plan for urban redevelopment.  We need a plan to put people to work, a public works project that hires and trains and employs people in work that needs to be done.  We could provide guarantees to pension funds to invest in rebuilding the boarded up homes.  We could train young people to retrofit buildings with solar and energy efficient insulation and windows.  We could insure that transportation exists to take workers to where the jobs are.   

Baltimore has put us on notice once more.  Our cities are at a breaking point.  There are more horrors to come, more explosions to follow.  50 years after the Kerner Commission, we ignore its teachings at our peril.

April 28, 2015

The Baltimore Rebellion and Newton’s Third Law of Motion
By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.” Or, as it is more commonly stated, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. – Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion 1687

Sparked by the not so mysterious April 19th death of Freddie Gray at the hands of the Baltimore police, citizens of West Baltimore and other outside agitators took to the streets in yet another seemingly endless display of urban unrest.  Reporters from mainstream media outlets such as CNN are unable to place the unrest in any substantive historical context.

“I don’t remember seeing anything like this in the United States of America in a long time” — @wolfblitzer and CNN’s Don Lemon refuses to engage in any substantive analysis of the basis of the outrage in Baltimore.  He prefers to simply state, “…the city is burning because someone in essence set it on fire.” 

Let’s try to use what we do know to figure out what it is that we “don’t” know.  A 25-year-old Baltimore man named Freddie Gray made eye contact with a police officer and took off running.  Gray was pursued by the police.  There is no known video of the pursuit.  There is video of a handcuffed Gray being lifted to his feet, seemingly unable to walk and screaming in pain. He is dragged by police to a van and placed into it by the police because it appears that he is unable to get into it under his own power.  Within one hour of being in custody, Gray arrives at the police station in medical distress, unable to walk or talk.  

He later lapses into a coma and dies of his injuries a week later.  The preliminary report is that Freddie Gray’s spinal cord was 80% severed and his voice box was crushed.Many are asking “why did he run?” Maybe the question should be, “why did they pursue him?”  When did it become illegal to look at a police officer and then take off running?According to CNN, “Police Commissioner Anthony Batts told reporters there are no excuses for the fact that Gray was not buckled in as he was transported to a police station.”  That’s a factbut it does not appear that failing to buckle Freddie Gray into his seat was the problem.

The video indicates that Gray’s inability to use his legs and his inability to get into the van under his own power are evidence that his neck was broken during the take down and subsequent cuffing. As an eye witness says on the tape, “hey, that boy’s legs look broke…”  His injuries are consistent with a knee being placed against the back of his neck with tremendous force as he laid on the ground and was being restrained.  

That is also consistent with police tactics and training.Initially, people in Baltimore took to the streets with peaceful protest but those protest turned violent; resulting in looting, burning, and total mayhem. When asked why she did not use a show of force much earlier in the protest, Mayor Rawlings-Blake said, “We also gave those who wish to destroy space to do that as well.”  It is now apparent that Mayor Rawlings-Blake got what she allowed and much more. She finally called for and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan activated the National Guard.So, the people who she allowed to “destroy space” are now the same people Mayor Rawlings-Blake is condemning as “thugs”.

But this reaction in the streets should have been anticipated.  Actually, it follows the natural laws of physics.  Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, ““When one body (the police) exerts a force on a second body (the community), the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.”  More simply put, when police officers treat a community that they are sworn to protect and serve as enemy combatants, the community will rebel. When a people see a police force that is supposed to protect and serve them turn into an occupying force, they will revolt. 

This is not to in any way shape or form condone the rebellion, but before you can solve a problem you must understand and address its root cause.  In his speech, “The Other America” Dr. King said, “…I am still committed to militant…non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view…But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society…These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard…”When Baltimorean’s return home from their stint in the pre-school to prison pipeline with no skills and no vote; no one is listening.  

According to Business Insider, “Baltimore has lost nearly a third of its population since its peak of about 950,000 residents in the 1950s; an estimated 16,000 buildings are vacant or abandoned while more than 4,000 people are homeless” and no one is listening. When Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Victor White, III, et al are shot down, choked out or have their necks snapped in the street by the police; no one is listening. But a new Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s first priority is to “restore the morale of police forces” not use all of the power of her office to protect the citizens who have become their victims. She’s obviously not listening.The rebellions in Ferguson and Baltimore are no more un-American than Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 or Shay’s Rebellion in 1787.  The issues are basically the same.  

As Howard Zinn writes in “A People’s History of the United States, “Were the Founding Fathers wise and just men trying to achieve a good balance…They certainly did not want an equal balance between slaves and masers, propertyless and property holders, Indians and white.”  That’s what we have today.The Baltimore Rebellion follows the natural laws of physics, Newton’s Third Law of Motion and it is the language of the unheard.  Hey America, can you hear me now?

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the Sirius/XM Satellite radio channel 126 call-in talk radio program “Inside the Issues with Wilmer Leon” Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com  © 2015 InfoWave Communications, LLC.

April 28, 2015

By Hazel Trice Edney

CNN aerial video of the Southern Baptist Church's high rise after being set afire Monday night.

Some protestors wore bullseyes on their backs representing police killings of Blacks. Photo: Hazel Trice Edney

Young man yell frustrations at police in riot gear. Photo: Hazel Trice Edney

BALTIMORE - (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Protests gave way to chaos, looting and burning this week as 25-year-old Freddie Gray was laid to rest on Monday. He died April 19, a week after receiving a severe spinal cord injury while in the custody of Baltimore police.

A state of emergency has been declared after hundreds of high school-aged students, joined and assisted by some adults, set fire to buildings and cars. At least 27 people were arrested and 15 police officers were injured. The partial construction of a high rise for senior citizens built by a local Black church was burned to the ground; a CVS was born and other store fronts were shattered, rocks and bottles were thrown at the police and apparently thousands of dollars in merchandise were taken from local stores.

Despite attempts of police, local pastors and peaceful protestors to stop the chaos, the looting and burning continued in the aftermath of yet another police killing of a Black man - a scourge that has plagued American cities for decades. The tragic and often unjustified police killings are now amplified by cell phone video tapes and the protests are being fueled through social media.

Thousands of additional law enforcement officers have been called in to help the Baltimore police. They include Maryland State Police and the National Guard.

“This is one of our darkest days as a city. And I know that we’re better than this,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who announced a 10 pm curfew starting Tuesday this week. Calling the looting group “thugs”, she announced that she had contacted Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan for help. He in turn declared the city of Baltimore in a “State of Emergency”. He also obtained permission from President Obama to request the assistance of the National Guard.

But, Rawlings-Blake has also vowed to get to the bottom of what happened to Gray April 12 when he was first running from the police; then was arrested and ultimately taken from a paddy wagon unable to walk or speak. He died seven days later. The only police admission so far is that they refused to get him timely medical attention and they failed to buckle him in to the paddy wagon.

New Attorney General Loretta Lynch issued her first statement after swearing in:

“I condemn the senseless acts of violence by some individuals in Baltimore that have resulted in harm to law enforcement officers, destruction of property and a shattering of the peace in the city of Baltimore.  Those who commit violent actions, ostensibly in protest of the death of Freddie Gray, do a disservice to his family, to his loved ones, and to legitimate peaceful protestors who are working to improve their community for all its residents.”

Her statement continued, “The Department of Justice stands ready to provide any assistance that might be helpful.  The Civil Rights Division and the FBI have an ongoing, independent criminal civil rights investigation into the tragic death of Mr. Gray.  We will continue our careful and deliberate examination of the facts in the coming days and weeks.”

“I want you all to get justice for my son, but don’t tear up the whole city,”

But these actions came too late for the Rev. Donte’ Hickman, pastor of the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore.  A high rise for senior citizens that his church was building was burned to the ground.

“I haven’t lost my focus. I haven’t lost my sense of resiliency, I haven’t lost my hope,” Hickman told reporters at the scene. “I’ve been a little heartbroken. My eyes have been filled with tears because someone didn’t understand that we exist in the community to help revitalize it.”

Dr. Jamal Bryant, pastor of Baltimore’s Empowerment Temple, joined by other pastors, repeatedly appealed for calm and against violence. However, he empathized with the peaceful protestors saying he believes all police officers must be retrained “on racial sensitivity and we’ve got to reevaluate how there is a shield around police officers, but no protection for citizens.”

One of the frustrations is how long it has taken to investigate the death of Gray. Because of a so-called Law Enforcement Bill of Rights, the Baltimore officers involved have up to 10 days before they can even be debriefed.

As of Tuesday morning, the looting and burnings had ended, but the anger is far from over.

The National Action Network’s Rev. Al Sharpton, on MSNBC, announced that he will be going to Baltimore at the request of local pastors and activists.

“One of the things I think we have to address is that if the objective is justice and changing the accountability of law enforcement; then we cannot do it in a violent way or becoming like what we’re fighting,” Sharpton said.

Reflecting on the Watts riot of 50 years ago, Sharpton said, “You’ve always had people that, out of frustration, act in a way that ends up adding more [problems] than it does solving the problems. And it usually is police incidents that bring this on. When people feel that they have no kind of way of redress with law enforcement, they explode. That is not to excuse it, that is not to rationalize it, but to acknowledge it.”

The uprisings followed a weekend of mostly peaceful protests after Gray died from what was reportedly an 80 percent severed spinal cord and a crushed larynx after he was arrested by police. It is still unclear why the police arrested Gray in the first place. They cite the fact that he ran as they approached him. They later found a small knife clipped to his pocket, but even the mayor said the knife was not an illegal size.

Protests began to grow tense and near a breaking point on Saturday night when police in riot gear blocked intersections to restrain marchers to particular areas to prevent the blocking of traffic. Some protestors, attempting to articulate their frustrations to police, appeared to become agitated when an officer told them they could not hear them while wearing their riot helmets.

What appeared lost in the midst of the uprising was the question of the status of those six police officers on paid leave while investigations continue in their arrest of Freddie Gray. The conclusion of the investigation, the final autopsy report on the cause of Gray’s death, and whether the officers involved in Gray’s death will be held accountable are the key questions that will determine the mood and movement of the community.

Lynch concluded: “As our investigative process continues, I strongly urge every member of the Baltimore community to adhere to the principles of nonviolence.  In the days ahead, I intend to work with leaders throughout Baltimore to ensure that we can protect the security and civil rights of all residents.  And I will bring the full resources of the Department of Justice to bear in protecting those under threat, investigating wrongdoing, and securing an end to violence.”

Meanwhile, Pastor Hickman, whose church was burned, says he sees beyond the destruction: “Now we’re are calling on resources to come back. To see this as an opportunity to revive East Baltimore and the city of Baltimore.”