Is A Civil War Brewing in America?
May 1, 2017 14:45:32 #
Spread of Hate Crimes Has Lawmakers Seeking Harsher Penalties
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/hate-crimes-legislation.html?emc=edit_th_20170501&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=51247735
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/hate-crimes-legislation.html?emc=edit_th_20170501&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=51247735
May 1, 2017 15:19:16 #
Republicans Want to Punish Students Who Shut Down Controversial Speakers on Campus
Katie Reilly Apr 30, 2017
Republican lawmakers are wading into the intensifying debate over free speech on campus, proposing legislation in at least half a dozen states to regulate student protests and discipline hecklers.
Inspired by a spate of recent demonstrations that shut down controversial conservative speakers at universities from Vermont to California, Republicans are seeking more formal punishments for students who disrupt speeches, including expulsion.
"All across the nation and here at home, we've seen protesters trying to silence different viewpoints," Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly Robin Vos, a Republican, said in a statement last week, announcing the Free Speech on Campus Act. " We need more speech, not less; it’s time to put in appropriate measures to ensure all speech is protected at our universities."
In the past few months, schools across the country have struggled to handle protests and counter-protests that derailed events featuring controversial speakers. Conservative writer Charles Murray was shouted down and then physically confronted by protesters who surrounded his car at Vermont's Middlebury College. Peaceful protests turned violent and resulted in more than $100,000 in damage at the University of California, Berkeley, forcing the cancellation of an event with far-right pundit Milo Yiannopoulos. Last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter canceled her event at Berkeley, calling it a "dark day for free speech in America" after a lengthy back-and-forth that culminated in the Berkeley College Republicans suing the university.
The proposed Wisconsin law would require students to be suspended for at least one semester or expelled if they are twice found responsible for "interfering with the expressive rights of others." The bill also requires that campuses be open to all speakers who are invited and asks that universities strive to remain neutral on public policy issues.
The bill, which would only apply to state universities, is similar to legislation currently under consideration in Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia, according to the conservative Goldwater Institute, which drafted the bill after which they're modeled.
Those who support the legislation and those who oppose it all say they have the same aim: to shore up freedom of expression on campus. But their approaches differ — with liberals calling for the right to protest views they deem offensive, while conservatives say they want to protect space for unpopular ideas that spark disagreement.
Jim Manley, senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute, said the goal of the proposed legislation is to prevent future speaking events from being canceled. "The reaction should be: 'How can we challenge these ideas and present what we think is the right viewpoint?'" he said.
"It’s so important for universities to be bastions of free speech because the university is a place where you can think the unthinkable, and ideas can be debated in a way that helps us seek truth," Manley added. "If we put artificial guard rails on that discussion, we’re all the poorer for it."
Democrats in some states, though, have criticized the legislation as extreme and potentially harmful.
“I disagree strongly that the university needs us to tell them how to handle this,” Rep. Terese Berceau, a Democrat representing Madison, Wis., told the Wisconsin State Journal, calling the issue an "artificial, political controversy." Democratic Rep. Dianne Hesselbein said the bill might protect one student's right to free speech at the expense of another's. Other lawmakers said the bill is unnecessary because universities already have disciplinary policies for disorderly conduct.
And in North Carolina, where a similar bill passed the House last week, some Democratic lawmakers voiced concern that if universities strive to remain neutral on public policy, it could affect their ability to research or comment on climate change.
But free-speech watchdog groups said the proposed legislation could be a step in the right direction.
"I have to say, after a state legislative season where we’ve seen a lot of bills trying to penalize or prohibit protest, it’s certainly nice to see state legislatures trying to protect speech," ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said, while adding that it will be challenging to get the balance right. She said the bills are written too broadly and don't effectively distinguish between peaceful protests and aggressive obstruction.
Joe Cohn, l egislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which supports civil liberties on campus, said the provisions that enforce a minimum suspension or expulsion might be "too heavy-handed." But he said some sanctions are necessary when protests get out of hand, " otherwise you foster an environment where the way you get your way or the way you stop your political adversaries is engaging in violence."
Cohn, who is working with the Goldwater Institute and lawmakers on this legislation, said it's crucial to ensure that all forms of constitutionally protected speech remain protected under new laws. That means distinguishing between acts of free speech — booing or silently walking out of a lecture — and acts of censorship, which include grabbing a microphone, assaulting a speaker or blocking the entrance to a building.
"When you actually prevent others from hearing a speaker, then you have infringed on free speech rights," Cohn said. "And free speech means nothing if you don’t also have the freedom to listen."
Katie Reilly Apr 30, 2017
Republican lawmakers are wading into the intensifying debate over free speech on campus, proposing legislation in at least half a dozen states to regulate student protests and discipline hecklers.
Inspired by a spate of recent demonstrations that shut down controversial conservative speakers at universities from Vermont to California, Republicans are seeking more formal punishments for students who disrupt speeches, including expulsion.
"All across the nation and here at home, we've seen protesters trying to silence different viewpoints," Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly Robin Vos, a Republican, said in a statement last week, announcing the Free Speech on Campus Act. " We need more speech, not less; it’s time to put in appropriate measures to ensure all speech is protected at our universities."
In the past few months, schools across the country have struggled to handle protests and counter-protests that derailed events featuring controversial speakers. Conservative writer Charles Murray was shouted down and then physically confronted by protesters who surrounded his car at Vermont's Middlebury College. Peaceful protests turned violent and resulted in more than $100,000 in damage at the University of California, Berkeley, forcing the cancellation of an event with far-right pundit Milo Yiannopoulos. Last week, conservative pundit Ann Coulter canceled her event at Berkeley, calling it a "dark day for free speech in America" after a lengthy back-and-forth that culminated in the Berkeley College Republicans suing the university.
The proposed Wisconsin law would require students to be suspended for at least one semester or expelled if they are twice found responsible for "interfering with the expressive rights of others." The bill also requires that campuses be open to all speakers who are invited and asks that universities strive to remain neutral on public policy issues.
The bill, which would only apply to state universities, is similar to legislation currently under consideration in Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia, according to the conservative Goldwater Institute, which drafted the bill after which they're modeled.
Those who support the legislation and those who oppose it all say they have the same aim: to shore up freedom of expression on campus. But their approaches differ — with liberals calling for the right to protest views they deem offensive, while conservatives say they want to protect space for unpopular ideas that spark disagreement.
Jim Manley, senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute, said the goal of the proposed legislation is to prevent future speaking events from being canceled. "The reaction should be: 'How can we challenge these ideas and present what we think is the right viewpoint?'" he said.
"It’s so important for universities to be bastions of free speech because the university is a place where you can think the unthinkable, and ideas can be debated in a way that helps us seek truth," Manley added. "If we put artificial guard rails on that discussion, we’re all the poorer for it."
Democrats in some states, though, have criticized the legislation as extreme and potentially harmful.
“I disagree strongly that the university needs us to tell them how to handle this,” Rep. Terese Berceau, a Democrat representing Madison, Wis., told the Wisconsin State Journal, calling the issue an "artificial, political controversy." Democratic Rep. Dianne Hesselbein said the bill might protect one student's right to free speech at the expense of another's. Other lawmakers said the bill is unnecessary because universities already have disciplinary policies for disorderly conduct.
And in North Carolina, where a similar bill passed the House last week, some Democratic lawmakers voiced concern that if universities strive to remain neutral on public policy, it could affect their ability to research or comment on climate change.
But free-speech watchdog groups said the proposed legislation could be a step in the right direction.
"I have to say, after a state legislative season where we’ve seen a lot of bills trying to penalize or prohibit protest, it’s certainly nice to see state legislatures trying to protect speech," ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said, while adding that it will be challenging to get the balance right. She said the bills are written too broadly and don't effectively distinguish between peaceful protests and aggressive obstruction.
Joe Cohn, l egislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which supports civil liberties on campus, said the provisions that enforce a minimum suspension or expulsion might be "too heavy-handed." But he said some sanctions are necessary when protests get out of hand, " otherwise you foster an environment where the way you get your way or the way you stop your political adversaries is engaging in violence."
Cohn, who is working with the Goldwater Institute and lawmakers on this legislation, said it's crucial to ensure that all forms of constitutionally protected speech remain protected under new laws. That means distinguishing between acts of free speech — booing or silently walking out of a lecture — and acts of censorship, which include grabbing a microphone, assaulting a speaker or blocking the entrance to a building.
"When you actually prevent others from hearing a speaker, then you have infringed on free speech rights," Cohn said. "And free speech means nothing if you don’t also have the freedom to listen."
May 1, 2017 18:19:40 #
Leftists Work to Expunge 'Negro' From Place Names and Maps
image U.S. maps and charts are peppered with place names that include the word, "negro." "Negro" creeks, hills and hollows are common across the nation, particularly in the South and West. Often, the original names contained the widely condemned slur that also begins with "n."
http://www.gopusa.com/?p=23707?omhide=true
image U.S. maps and charts are peppered with place names that include the word, "negro." "Negro" creeks, hills and hollows are common across the nation, particularly in the South and West. Often, the original names contained the widely condemned slur that also begins with "n."
http://www.gopusa.com/?p=23707?omhide=true
May 2, 2017 13:14:30 #
Rallies across the U.S.; violence seen at some
MAY DAY protesters at Union Square in New York City. One said, “We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people.” (Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times)
By Nigel Duara, Jenny Jarvie and Melissa Etehad
Portland police said Monday that numerous arrests were made during May Day protests in their city, including three people detained near Pioneer Square.
Police asked everyone to stay away from downtown as fires were being reported and fireworks, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails were being thrown at police.
There was no immediate information on whether anyone was injured.
In Olympia, Wash., police said several officers were injured when protesters threw rocks and broke windows.
Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation Monday to march in May Day rallies, calling for immigration reform, workers’ rights and police accountability.
Galvanized by President Trump’s initiatives on immigrants in the country illegally, diverse crowds of demonstrators held peaceful rallies in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami.
In Atlanta, about 200 rallied under gloomy skies holding “ICE Get Out” banners and “Not One More Deportaton” placards to protest recent arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and to call on Atlanta officials to extend more protections to immigrants.
Aline Mello, a 28-year-old from Brazil, was among those at Atlanta’s City Hall for a May Day rally. Mello is a so-called Dreamer who received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Not long after Mello arrived for the rally, she texted her mom a photo of herself huddling under a pink umbrella and holding a sign saying, “We are Humans.”
Many demonstrators said they were concerned about Trump administration attempts at immigration initiatives such as building a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, enforcing a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries and threatening to withhold federal funds from municipalities considered “sanctuary cities.”
Outside City Hall, immigrant advocates linked up with a wide range of social justice groups fighting to raise the minimum wage, combat racism and sexism, and protect LGBTQ communities.
“We want Atlanta to be a real sanctuary city, not just a welcoming city,” Carlos Medina, a volunteer with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, told the crowd. “We want a fair salary: $15. We want the people to respect gender identity. And we want them to stop the deportations.”
After the rally, more than a hundred immigration and social justice advocates spilled into Atlanta’s City Council chamber to demand that the city raise the minimum wage to $15 and that the city comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain immigrants only when officials have a warrant.
Immigrant rights groups and labor unions organized multiple rallies across New York City, culminating Monday evening at Foley Square in what organizers said would be the city’s biggest planned rally for May Day.
Michael Bellamy was among those demonstrating in Union Square on Monday afternoon.
“We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people, and we want to celebrate those who work,” he said.
Earlier Monday, about 500 people rallied outside Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Manhattan. Twelve people were arrested for civil disobedience, said Jose Lopez of the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road, after protesters blocked the entrance to JPMorgan.
“We wanted to identify and name a number of corporate players who stand to profit from Trump’s agenda and immigration detention,” Lopez said.
In Chicago, Jorge Mujica, an organizer at Arise Chicago, said hundreds of people had gathered a few hours early in anticipation of the march from Union Park to Daley Plaza.
This year’s May Day, he said, felt different from previous years.
“Before we were not successful in pulling in other communities to join us,” Mujica said. “But Trump has united us.”
nigel.duara@latimes.com
Twitter: @nigelduara
MAY DAY protesters at Union Square in New York City. One said, “We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people.” (Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times)
By Nigel Duara, Jenny Jarvie and Melissa Etehad
Portland police said Monday that numerous arrests were made during May Day protests in their city, including three people detained near Pioneer Square.
Police asked everyone to stay away from downtown as fires were being reported and fireworks, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails were being thrown at police.
There was no immediate information on whether anyone was injured.
In Olympia, Wash., police said several officers were injured when protesters threw rocks and broke windows.
Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation Monday to march in May Day rallies, calling for immigration reform, workers’ rights and police accountability.
Galvanized by President Trump’s initiatives on immigrants in the country illegally, diverse crowds of demonstrators held peaceful rallies in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami.
In Atlanta, about 200 rallied under gloomy skies holding “ICE Get Out” banners and “Not One More Deportaton” placards to protest recent arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and to call on Atlanta officials to extend more protections to immigrants.
Aline Mello, a 28-year-old from Brazil, was among those at Atlanta’s City Hall for a May Day rally. Mello is a so-called Dreamer who received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Not long after Mello arrived for the rally, she texted her mom a photo of herself huddling under a pink umbrella and holding a sign saying, “We are Humans.”
Many demonstrators said they were concerned about Trump administration attempts at immigration initiatives such as building a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, enforcing a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries and threatening to withhold federal funds from municipalities considered “sanctuary cities.”
Outside City Hall, immigrant advocates linked up with a wide range of social justice groups fighting to raise the minimum wage, combat racism and sexism, and protect LGBTQ communities.
“We want Atlanta to be a real sanctuary city, not just a welcoming city,” Carlos Medina, a volunteer with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, told the crowd. “We want a fair salary: $15. We want the people to respect gender identity. And we want them to stop the deportations.”
After the rally, more than a hundred immigration and social justice advocates spilled into Atlanta’s City Council chamber to demand that the city raise the minimum wage to $15 and that the city comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain immigrants only when officials have a warrant.
Immigrant rights groups and labor unions organized multiple rallies across New York City, culminating Monday evening at Foley Square in what organizers said would be the city’s biggest planned rally for May Day.
Michael Bellamy was among those demonstrating in Union Square on Monday afternoon.
“We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people, and we want to celebrate those who work,” he said.
Earlier Monday, about 500 people rallied outside Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Manhattan. Twelve people were arrested for civil disobedience, said Jose Lopez of the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road, after protesters blocked the entrance to JPMorgan.
“We wanted to identify and name a number of corporate players who stand to profit from Trump’s agenda and immigration detention,” Lopez said.
In Chicago, Jorge Mujica, an organizer at Arise Chicago, said hundreds of people had gathered a few hours early in anticipation of the march from Union Park to Daley Plaza.
This year’s May Day, he said, felt different from previous years.
“Before we were not successful in pulling in other communities to join us,” Mujica said. “But Trump has united us.”
nigel.duara@latimes.com
Twitter: @nigelduara
May 3, 2017 14:53:40 #
Ex-officer pleads guilty in South Carolina shooting
Michael Slager admits to violating rights of black man he killed.
JUDY SCOTT discusses the guilty plea in the police shooting of her son, Walter Scott, two years ago. He was unarmed and running away when he was killed. (Jeffrey Collins Associated Press)
By Jaweed Kaleem
In a dramatic turn of events, a former South Carolina police officer who spent two years fighting charges in a high-profile shooting of an unarmed black man pleaded guilty Tuesday in his federal case.
Michael T. Slager entered his plea in federal court in Charleston, S.C., more than two years after he fatally shot Walter Scott five times as Scott was running away after being pulled over for a broken car brake light.
Slager pleaded guilty to one federal charge of violating Scott’s civil rights. In exchange, two other federal charges against him will be dropped, as will a state murder charge, according to his plea agreement.
The move allows Slager, an officer in North Charleston at the time of the shooting, to avoid a jury trial.
U.S. District Judge David Norton of the South Carolina District will decide Slager’s sentence, which could be life in prison. With a guilty plea, Slager has a better chance at a lesser sentence. Under the plea agreement, the federal government will advocate for Slager’s crime to be treated as a lower-level offense.
“The Department of Justice will hold accountable any law enforcement officer who violates the civil rights of our citizens by using excessive force,” Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “Such failures of duty not only harm the individual victims of these crimes; they harm our country, by eroding trust in law enforcement and undermining the good work of the vast majority of honorable and honest police officers.”
Slager entered his plea during a pretrial hearing Tuesday in Charleston before being handcuffed and led out of the court by U.S. marshals. The trial was scheduled for May 15.
“We hope that Michael’s acceptance of responsibility will help the Scott family as they continue to grieve their loss,” Slager’s lawyer, Andrew J. Savage III, said.
After the hearing, Scott’s oldest brother, Anthony Scott, said that “the healing begins today” for the family.
“I knew from Day One there was something wrong with the picture,” he said. “My brother was violated. He was gunned down running away, and this gentleman continued to stick to that story, but today he told the truth. He said he did it. That’s our victory.”
The April 2015 shooting of Scott, 50, was recorded on cellphone video by a bystander. The video became a rallying point of protests nationwide against high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of police.
But Slager’s case stood out for a rarity in police shootings: Last May, a grand jury indicted him on federal charges.
The indictment said that Slager used excessive force in violation of Scott’s civil rights when he shot Scott and that he falsely told state investigators under oath that he fired as Scott moved toward him with a Taser. Slager also was charged with use of a weapon during a civil rights offense. The indictment said the shooting was “without legal justification.”
At the arraignment, Slager pleaded not guilty.
In a statement, South Carolina Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, who led the state’s case against Slager, praised the developments Tuesday.
“We found justice in a resolution that vindicates the State’s interests by holding former police officer Michael Slager accountable for shooting Mr. Scott (in the back) when Slager knew it was wrong and illegal; as well as justice in a resolution that recognizes the egregious violation of Mr. Scott’s civil rights,” she said.
jaweed.kaleem @latimes.com
Michael Slager admits to violating rights of black man he killed.
JUDY SCOTT discusses the guilty plea in the police shooting of her son, Walter Scott, two years ago. He was unarmed and running away when he was killed. (Jeffrey Collins Associated Press)
By Jaweed Kaleem
In a dramatic turn of events, a former South Carolina police officer who spent two years fighting charges in a high-profile shooting of an unarmed black man pleaded guilty Tuesday in his federal case.
Michael T. Slager entered his plea in federal court in Charleston, S.C., more than two years after he fatally shot Walter Scott five times as Scott was running away after being pulled over for a broken car brake light.
Slager pleaded guilty to one federal charge of violating Scott’s civil rights. In exchange, two other federal charges against him will be dropped, as will a state murder charge, according to his plea agreement.
The move allows Slager, an officer in North Charleston at the time of the shooting, to avoid a jury trial.
U.S. District Judge David Norton of the South Carolina District will decide Slager’s sentence, which could be life in prison. With a guilty plea, Slager has a better chance at a lesser sentence. Under the plea agreement, the federal government will advocate for Slager’s crime to be treated as a lower-level offense.
“The Department of Justice will hold accountable any law enforcement officer who violates the civil rights of our citizens by using excessive force,” Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “Such failures of duty not only harm the individual victims of these crimes; they harm our country, by eroding trust in law enforcement and undermining the good work of the vast majority of honorable and honest police officers.”
Slager entered his plea during a pretrial hearing Tuesday in Charleston before being handcuffed and led out of the court by U.S. marshals. The trial was scheduled for May 15.
“We hope that Michael’s acceptance of responsibility will help the Scott family as they continue to grieve their loss,” Slager’s lawyer, Andrew J. Savage III, said.
After the hearing, Scott’s oldest brother, Anthony Scott, said that “the healing begins today” for the family.
“I knew from Day One there was something wrong with the picture,” he said. “My brother was violated. He was gunned down running away, and this gentleman continued to stick to that story, but today he told the truth. He said he did it. That’s our victory.”
The April 2015 shooting of Scott, 50, was recorded on cellphone video by a bystander. The video became a rallying point of protests nationwide against high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of police.
But Slager’s case stood out for a rarity in police shootings: Last May, a grand jury indicted him on federal charges.
The indictment said that Slager used excessive force in violation of Scott’s civil rights when he shot Scott and that he falsely told state investigators under oath that he fired as Scott moved toward him with a Taser. Slager also was charged with use of a weapon during a civil rights offense. The indictment said the shooting was “without legal justification.”
At the arraignment, Slager pleaded not guilty.
In a statement, South Carolina Solicitor Scarlett Wilson, who led the state’s case against Slager, praised the developments Tuesday.
“We found justice in a resolution that vindicates the State’s interests by holding former police officer Michael Slager accountable for shooting Mr. Scott (in the back) when Slager knew it was wrong and illegal; as well as justice in a resolution that recognizes the egregious violation of Mr. Scott’s civil rights,” she said.
jaweed.kaleem @latimes.com
May 3, 2017 14:54:14 #
Familiar tragedy, and response
The police killing of a Texas teen was senseless. The lack of national leadership on the issue is shameful.
H is name was Jordan Edwards. He was just 15, a good student and popular athlete at Mesquite High School in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs. His death Saturday night was senseless, sudden and cruel. It came as he was leaving a party and was struck in the head by a bullet fired from a rifle into the side window of a car in which he rode beside his older brother.
The assailant was a police officer, whose reason for pulling the trigger — whose reason for raising a rifle in the first place, or even for carrying such a powerful weapon at all while responding to nothing more serious than complaints about drunken partygoers — is (pending further investigation) anyone’s guess. The Balch Springs Police Department’s first story was that Jordan’s brother was backing the car toward the officer in “an aggressive manner” when the officer fired the rifle, but video of the incident showed that particular tale to be false. More information may come from other officers at the scene, but questioning was postponed while they were given time, according to a police spokesman, to “decompress.”
Fatal police shootings of unarmed African American men — and boys, like Jordan Edwards — have fueled righteous anger across the nation and have led many to claim that police departments are stocked with racial bigots bent on state-sanctioned murder. It is far more likely that officers who needlessly kill are very much like a majority of us — affected by unconscious and unwanted biases built into our history and culture, and lacking in the extraordinary skill, training and presence of mind that should be (but often are not) mandatory for professionals who wear badges, carry guns and are called upon to protect public safety by making split-second decisions under stressful circumstances.
In the end, though, the underlying reasons for unwarranted police killings are almost beside the point when the deadly results are the same. Too many police departments in small cities like Balch Springs, Texas, or Ferguson, Mo., and even large ones like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, fail in hiring, training, supervising and psychologically evaluating their officers. Too many departments are stuck in outdated tactics, despite a wealth of data and information about best practices. Too many police stop, search and arrest — and kill — blacks and Latinos in far greater numbers than whites in response to similar behavior. What’s more, department rules are relatively lenient toward officers who use their weapons, and criminal prosecution of unnecessary shootings is uncommon, leading to a culture in which police officers may feel confident they won’t be held accountable for their missteps.
In his second term, President Obama took some meek and tentative steps to bring policing practices up to date. The Department of Justice entered into consent decrees with agencies whose practices routinely violated the civil rights of those they policed. Many officers and their unions bristled at what they saw as outside interference. Many department and city leaders welcomed the assistance.
But federal help and pressure have now evaporated under the administration of President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, whose statements and directives reveal a stunningly shallow view of policing as a war between cops and criminals, and who see desperate attempts to curb police failures like the one that ended the life of Jordan Edwards as aid and comfort to the enemy.
We are left to rely on the too-often unreliable rectitude of police departments like the one in Balch Springs, which over the weekend said in effect that the victim had it coming to him. And on tools such as video, which on Monday compelled the department to retract its story and led the chief to acknowledge that shooting an unarmed teenager in the head with a rifle as his car was moving away from officers failed to meet the department’s “core values.” We are left to wonder why officers who witnessed the killing are accorded time to decompress before questioning, and to imagine how differently police might treat civilian triggermen and eyewitnesses.
Police have cautioned against over-reliance on video, even as many agencies have moved rapidly to equip officers with body cameras. They have resisted clear guidelines for when such images should be released to the public. (The Balch Springs video has not yet been released.) They have relied for the most part on their own counsel when deciding what weapons to carry and when to use them.
Without national leadership, and with courts that accord officers wide latitude, pressure to reform policing comes in the form of public anger. It is a dangerous, unfocused, unmanageable, unpredictable force — as those of us who were in Los Angeles 25 years ago well remember. Surely we can do better, but we struggle to figure out just how.
The police killing of a Texas teen was senseless. The lack of national leadership on the issue is shameful.
H is name was Jordan Edwards. He was just 15, a good student and popular athlete at Mesquite High School in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs. His death Saturday night was senseless, sudden and cruel. It came as he was leaving a party and was struck in the head by a bullet fired from a rifle into the side window of a car in which he rode beside his older brother.
The assailant was a police officer, whose reason for pulling the trigger — whose reason for raising a rifle in the first place, or even for carrying such a powerful weapon at all while responding to nothing more serious than complaints about drunken partygoers — is (pending further investigation) anyone’s guess. The Balch Springs Police Department’s first story was that Jordan’s brother was backing the car toward the officer in “an aggressive manner” when the officer fired the rifle, but video of the incident showed that particular tale to be false. More information may come from other officers at the scene, but questioning was postponed while they were given time, according to a police spokesman, to “decompress.”
Fatal police shootings of unarmed African American men — and boys, like Jordan Edwards — have fueled righteous anger across the nation and have led many to claim that police departments are stocked with racial bigots bent on state-sanctioned murder. It is far more likely that officers who needlessly kill are very much like a majority of us — affected by unconscious and unwanted biases built into our history and culture, and lacking in the extraordinary skill, training and presence of mind that should be (but often are not) mandatory for professionals who wear badges, carry guns and are called upon to protect public safety by making split-second decisions under stressful circumstances.
In the end, though, the underlying reasons for unwarranted police killings are almost beside the point when the deadly results are the same. Too many police departments in small cities like Balch Springs, Texas, or Ferguson, Mo., and even large ones like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, fail in hiring, training, supervising and psychologically evaluating their officers. Too many departments are stuck in outdated tactics, despite a wealth of data and information about best practices. Too many police stop, search and arrest — and kill — blacks and Latinos in far greater numbers than whites in response to similar behavior. What’s more, department rules are relatively lenient toward officers who use their weapons, and criminal prosecution of unnecessary shootings is uncommon, leading to a culture in which police officers may feel confident they won’t be held accountable for their missteps.
In his second term, President Obama took some meek and tentative steps to bring policing practices up to date. The Department of Justice entered into consent decrees with agencies whose practices routinely violated the civil rights of those they policed. Many officers and their unions bristled at what they saw as outside interference. Many department and city leaders welcomed the assistance.
But federal help and pressure have now evaporated under the administration of President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, whose statements and directives reveal a stunningly shallow view of policing as a war between cops and criminals, and who see desperate attempts to curb police failures like the one that ended the life of Jordan Edwards as aid and comfort to the enemy.
We are left to rely on the too-often unreliable rectitude of police departments like the one in Balch Springs, which over the weekend said in effect that the victim had it coming to him. And on tools such as video, which on Monday compelled the department to retract its story and led the chief to acknowledge that shooting an unarmed teenager in the head with a rifle as his car was moving away from officers failed to meet the department’s “core values.” We are left to wonder why officers who witnessed the killing are accorded time to decompress before questioning, and to imagine how differently police might treat civilian triggermen and eyewitnesses.
Police have cautioned against over-reliance on video, even as many agencies have moved rapidly to equip officers with body cameras. They have resisted clear guidelines for when such images should be released to the public. (The Balch Springs video has not yet been released.) They have relied for the most part on their own counsel when deciding what weapons to carry and when to use them.
Without national leadership, and with courts that accord officers wide latitude, pressure to reform policing comes in the form of public anger. It is a dangerous, unfocused, unmanageable, unpredictable force — as those of us who were in Los Angeles 25 years ago well remember. Surely we can do better, but we struggle to figure out just how.
May 3, 2017 14:55:38 #
Fatal police shootings of unarmed African American men — and boys, like Jordan Edwards — have fueled righteous anger across the nation and have led many to claim that police departments are stocked with racial bigots bent on state-sanctioned murder. It is far more likely that officers who needlessly kill are very much like a majority of us — affected by unconscious and unwanted biases built into our history and culture, and lacking in the extraordinary skill, training and presence of mind that should be (but often are not) mandatory for professionals who wear badges, carry guns and are called upon to protect public safety by making split-second decisions under stressful circumstances.
In the end, though, the underlying reasons for unwarranted police killings are almost beside the point when the deadly results are the same. Too many police departments in small cities like Balch Springs, Texas, or Ferguson, Mo., and even large ones like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, fail in hiring, training, supervising and psychologically evaluating their officers. Too many departments are stuck in outdated tactics, despite a wealth of data and information about best practices. Too many police stop, search and arrest — and kill — blacks and Latinos in far greater numbers than whites in response to similar behavior. What’s more, department rules are relatively lenient toward officers who use their weapons, and criminal prosecution of unnecessary shootings is uncommon, leading to a culture in which police officers may feel confident they won’t be held accountable for their missteps.
In the end, though, the underlying reasons for unwarranted police killings are almost beside the point when the deadly results are the same. Too many police departments in small cities like Balch Springs, Texas, or Ferguson, Mo., and even large ones like Baltimore, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, fail in hiring, training, supervising and psychologically evaluating their officers. Too many departments are stuck in outdated tactics, despite a wealth of data and information about best practices. Too many police stop, search and arrest — and kill — blacks and Latinos in far greater numbers than whites in response to similar behavior. What’s more, department rules are relatively lenient toward officers who use their weapons, and criminal prosecution of unnecessary shootings is uncommon, leading to a culture in which police officers may feel confident they won’t be held accountable for their missteps.
May 5, 2017 13:57:52 #
Shooting survivors say race factored into attack
Many who were at the San Diego apartments disagree with police on shooter’s motive.
ABOUT A DOZEN people who were at the Sunday pool party in San Diego where a shooter opened fire arrive at a news conference where they said they believed that the gunman, who was white, had a racial motivation. (Photographs by Nelvin C. Cepeda San Diego Union-Tribune) “WE FEEL heartbreak ... that [police are] trying to dismiss a part of the motive,” Lauren Chapman said. ()
By Lyndsay Winkley
SAN DIEGO — Survivors of a shooting at a crowded poolside birthday party returned to the University City apartment complex Tuesday with a unified message: Race played a role.
They spoke of their grief and their desire to connect with counselors to help them untangle their trauma. But their primary goal was to publicly state that they felt the shooting was racially motivated.
“As additional factors come in, we realize there are multiple components to this problem, but we feel heartbreak in the fact that [police are] trying to dismiss a part of the motive,” said Navy Lt. j.g. Lauren Chapman, who attended the party.
About a dozen people participated in the gathering, which was held on a grassy outcropping at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments. The pool area was a distant backdrop.
Although none were hit in the shooting by 49-year-old Peter Selis on Sunday night, all were there.
Most of the 30 or so people who attended the party were black or Latino. Selis was white, and all but one of the seven victims were people of color. One victim died.
San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said a day after the shooting that there was “zero information” indicating the crime was racially motivated. She also said Selis, who was fatally shot by police, was despondent over a recent breakup. He called and spoke to his former girlfriend during the incident so she could hear “his rampage.”
Records show Selis also faced serious financial troubles, filing bankruptcy in 2009 and again in 2015. He owed substantial amounts of money to medical groups, credit card companies and creditors, according to court documents.
A number of black community leaders questioned how police could have come to their conclusions so quickly.
“How, in less than 24 hours, did Shelley Zimmerman come to the result that there was no hate involved in this?” said Shane Harris, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization.
Capt. Brian Ahearn said Tuesday that the investigation is expected to take weeks.
Police again asked for anyone who may have information to come forward.
At Tuesday’s gathering at the Judicial Drive complex, several speakers recounted details that led them to believe race was a factor in the shooting.
Although the party was about 20 feet away from Selis, two white women who were closer were seemingly dismissed as targets. Selis also did not fire at a white security guard who, from the other side of a fence, ordered him to drop his gun after the shooting began.
lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
Winkley writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Many who were at the San Diego apartments disagree with police on shooter’s motive.
ABOUT A DOZEN people who were at the Sunday pool party in San Diego where a shooter opened fire arrive at a news conference where they said they believed that the gunman, who was white, had a racial motivation. (Photographs by Nelvin C. Cepeda San Diego Union-Tribune) “WE FEEL heartbreak ... that [police are] trying to dismiss a part of the motive,” Lauren Chapman said. ()
By Lyndsay Winkley
SAN DIEGO — Survivors of a shooting at a crowded poolside birthday party returned to the University City apartment complex Tuesday with a unified message: Race played a role.
They spoke of their grief and their desire to connect with counselors to help them untangle their trauma. But their primary goal was to publicly state that they felt the shooting was racially motivated.
“As additional factors come in, we realize there are multiple components to this problem, but we feel heartbreak in the fact that [police are] trying to dismiss a part of the motive,” said Navy Lt. j.g. Lauren Chapman, who attended the party.
About a dozen people participated in the gathering, which was held on a grassy outcropping at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments. The pool area was a distant backdrop.
Although none were hit in the shooting by 49-year-old Peter Selis on Sunday night, all were there.
Most of the 30 or so people who attended the party were black or Latino. Selis was white, and all but one of the seven victims were people of color. One victim died.
San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said a day after the shooting that there was “zero information” indicating the crime was racially motivated. She also said Selis, who was fatally shot by police, was despondent over a recent breakup. He called and spoke to his former girlfriend during the incident so she could hear “his rampage.”
Records show Selis also faced serious financial troubles, filing bankruptcy in 2009 and again in 2015. He owed substantial amounts of money to medical groups, credit card companies and creditors, according to court documents.
A number of black community leaders questioned how police could have come to their conclusions so quickly.
“How, in less than 24 hours, did Shelley Zimmerman come to the result that there was no hate involved in this?” said Shane Harris, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization.
Capt. Brian Ahearn said Tuesday that the investigation is expected to take weeks.
Police again asked for anyone who may have information to come forward.
At Tuesday’s gathering at the Judicial Drive complex, several speakers recounted details that led them to believe race was a factor in the shooting.
Although the party was about 20 feet away from Selis, two white women who were closer were seemingly dismissed as targets. Selis also did not fire at a white security guard who, from the other side of a fence, ordered him to drop his gun after the shooting began.
lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
Winkley writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
May 5, 2017 14:34:23 #
Boston confronts old, ugly story
Racist incidents this week at Fenway Park perpetuate an enduring reputation
SECURITY GUARDS are on alert as Baltimore Orioles star Adam Jones returns to the dugout at Fenway Park, where he endured racist taunts this week. (Charles Krupa Associated Press )
By Matt Pearce
It happened again, in Boston, where it has happened so many times over the years: another racist incident at Fenway Park.
The beloved hometown Red Sox and the visiting Baltimore Orioles were preparing to take the field Tuesday night. As a Kenyan woman sang the national anthem, the Boston Globe later reported, a middle-aged white man in a Red Sox hat and T-shirt leaned over to the man next to him and criticized the rendition with a racial slur.
The other fan, who is also white, was offended and complained to stadium security. The man was ejected and, according to Red Sox President Sam Kennedy, banned for life from the storied ballpark.
The episode became big news, but it was an old story.
That story goes like this: Boston is one of the nation’s most politically progressive cities. Boston has some of the nation’s top universities. Boston has undergone a dramatic demographic shift, going from 82% white in 1970 to less than 54% white today.
Yet Boston has never been able to wipe away a reputation for racism that has long stained its name and its communities.
Boston Magazine ran a feature in 2008 about how athletes saw Boston as so racist that they didn’t want to play there, posing this question: “If it’s not a fair label anymore, as so many of us insist, then why won’t it go away?”
Boston is the city where in the 1970s white residents violently resisted efforts to desegregate local schools by busing in black students.
It’s the city where in 2004 San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds said he could never play for the home team. “Boston is too racist for me,” Bonds told a reporter, who then suggested maybe the team would build a memorial to him and his greatness. “I’m black,” Bonds said. “They don’t build stuff for blacks.”
It’s the city about whose fans Angels center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. told the Los Angeles Times in 2007: “They’re loud, they’re drunk, they’re obnoxious; it’s one of the few places where you hear racial comments.... It’s just different.”
The national anthem incident is the second blowup over race at the ballpark this week. Orioles All-Star center fielder Adam Jones, who is black, told reporters that Boston fans taunted him with racial slurs and threw a bag of peanuts at him in the dugout. He called it “one of the worst” nights of abuse he’d received in his career.
“It is what it is, right?” Jones told USA Today. “I just go out and play baseball. But it’s unfortunate that people need to resort to those type of epithets to degrade another human being. I’m out there trying to make a living for myself and for my family.”
His remarks prompted Red Sox representatives to quickly apologize to Jones and ask fans to report similar conduct in the future.
“No player should have an object thrown at him on the playing field, nor be subjected to any kind of racism at Fenway Park,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The Red Sox have zero tolerance for such inexcusable behavior, and our entire organization and our fans are sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few.”
Jones’ complaints also started a familiar cycle of self-scrutiny among Boston residents and sports fans.
“I’m disappointed and discouraged that people like this still exist in the world, never mind my own city,” Jared Carrabis, a Red Sox supporter and writer at Barstool Sports, blogged about how Jones was treated . “No, a handful of fans do not represent the entire fan base, or the city for that matter, but this series of incidents on Monday night sure doesn’t help defuse the narrative that Boston is a racist city. And that is really, really aggravating.”
Last winter, “Saturday Night Live” star Michael Che, who is black, rankled some Bostonians when he riffed about supporting the Atlanta Falcons over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
“I just want to relax, turn my brain off, and watch the blackest city in America beat the most racist city I’ve ever been to,” Che said.
A joke, maybe, but one that he meant, and one that clearly wounded the city’s white liberals.
“Talk to your closest black friend and ask them to explain it to you,” Che said later during an appearance at Boston University. In response, the city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, who is white, told a local radio station that he wanted to talk to the comedian about his experiences with Boston.
“Clearly it is something that is still inside of him and still bothers him or he wouldn’t have made that statement,” Walsh told Boston Public Radio.
Boston’s reputation as an enlightened city of universities and liberalism has long coexisted with its legacy as a stronghold for whites of Irish descent who dominated neighborhoods like South Boston, known as “Southie.” Boston remains a leading locale for movies with white working-class protagonists.
“Boston’s racial troubles are especially strange when they are set against the city’s reputation as a center of learning, leadership in the abolitionist movement and liberal voting record in recent years on other issues, from Vietnam to the nuclear freeze,” the New York Times noted in 1983, adding, “It is possible to go to a baseball game at Fenway Park and not see a black fan.”
The Red Sox were the last major league team to racially integrate, in 1959, when the team added Elijah “Pumpsie” Green to their roster — after the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People protested his original assignment to the minor leagues.
The hometown Celtics, on the other hand, were the first NBA team to draft a black player (1950), put an all-black team on the court (1964) and hire a black coach (1966). But that legacy was overshadowed in the 1980s as the team dominated the league with a roster of mostly white stars.
In a 1990 photo essay by Spike Lee in Spin magazine, beneath a picture of a black man in a Celtics jersey, Lee wrote: “Boston sucks. This guy is an ‘Uncle Tom.’ ”
In his 2002 book, “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” Howard Bryant concluded: “The notion of Boston as the moral voice of a nation, as a social beacon and the home of abolition in the eighteenth and nineteeth centuries, was a myth, really.”
When faced with a new round of self-examination this week, the Boston NAACP president, Tanisha Sullivan, was circumspect.
“I think on some level the expectation is that we as a city are much further along than we really are,” Sullivan said. “We really need to have the courage to address certainly our history, recognize where we are, and be willing to do the ongoing work necessary to make sure that Boston truly is that city on the hill.”
matt.pearce@latimes.com
Racist incidents this week at Fenway Park perpetuate an enduring reputation
SECURITY GUARDS are on alert as Baltimore Orioles star Adam Jones returns to the dugout at Fenway Park, where he endured racist taunts this week. (Charles Krupa Associated Press )
By Matt Pearce
It happened again, in Boston, where it has happened so many times over the years: another racist incident at Fenway Park.
The beloved hometown Red Sox and the visiting Baltimore Orioles were preparing to take the field Tuesday night. As a Kenyan woman sang the national anthem, the Boston Globe later reported, a middle-aged white man in a Red Sox hat and T-shirt leaned over to the man next to him and criticized the rendition with a racial slur.
The other fan, who is also white, was offended and complained to stadium security. The man was ejected and, according to Red Sox President Sam Kennedy, banned for life from the storied ballpark.
The episode became big news, but it was an old story.
That story goes like this: Boston is one of the nation’s most politically progressive cities. Boston has some of the nation’s top universities. Boston has undergone a dramatic demographic shift, going from 82% white in 1970 to less than 54% white today.
Yet Boston has never been able to wipe away a reputation for racism that has long stained its name and its communities.
Boston Magazine ran a feature in 2008 about how athletes saw Boston as so racist that they didn’t want to play there, posing this question: “If it’s not a fair label anymore, as so many of us insist, then why won’t it go away?”
Boston is the city where in the 1970s white residents violently resisted efforts to desegregate local schools by busing in black students.
It’s the city where in 2004 San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds said he could never play for the home team. “Boston is too racist for me,” Bonds told a reporter, who then suggested maybe the team would build a memorial to him and his greatness. “I’m black,” Bonds said. “They don’t build stuff for blacks.”
It’s the city about whose fans Angels center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. told the Los Angeles Times in 2007: “They’re loud, they’re drunk, they’re obnoxious; it’s one of the few places where you hear racial comments.... It’s just different.”
The national anthem incident is the second blowup over race at the ballpark this week. Orioles All-Star center fielder Adam Jones, who is black, told reporters that Boston fans taunted him with racial slurs and threw a bag of peanuts at him in the dugout. He called it “one of the worst” nights of abuse he’d received in his career.
“It is what it is, right?” Jones told USA Today. “I just go out and play baseball. But it’s unfortunate that people need to resort to those type of epithets to degrade another human being. I’m out there trying to make a living for myself and for my family.”
His remarks prompted Red Sox representatives to quickly apologize to Jones and ask fans to report similar conduct in the future.
“No player should have an object thrown at him on the playing field, nor be subjected to any kind of racism at Fenway Park,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The Red Sox have zero tolerance for such inexcusable behavior, and our entire organization and our fans are sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few.”
Jones’ complaints also started a familiar cycle of self-scrutiny among Boston residents and sports fans.
“I’m disappointed and discouraged that people like this still exist in the world, never mind my own city,” Jared Carrabis, a Red Sox supporter and writer at Barstool Sports, blogged about how Jones was treated . “No, a handful of fans do not represent the entire fan base, or the city for that matter, but this series of incidents on Monday night sure doesn’t help defuse the narrative that Boston is a racist city. And that is really, really aggravating.”
Last winter, “Saturday Night Live” star Michael Che, who is black, rankled some Bostonians when he riffed about supporting the Atlanta Falcons over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
“I just want to relax, turn my brain off, and watch the blackest city in America beat the most racist city I’ve ever been to,” Che said.
A joke, maybe, but one that he meant, and one that clearly wounded the city’s white liberals.
“Talk to your closest black friend and ask them to explain it to you,” Che said later during an appearance at Boston University. In response, the city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, who is white, told a local radio station that he wanted to talk to the comedian about his experiences with Boston.
“Clearly it is something that is still inside of him and still bothers him or he wouldn’t have made that statement,” Walsh told Boston Public Radio.
Boston’s reputation as an enlightened city of universities and liberalism has long coexisted with its legacy as a stronghold for whites of Irish descent who dominated neighborhoods like South Boston, known as “Southie.” Boston remains a leading locale for movies with white working-class protagonists.
“Boston’s racial troubles are especially strange when they are set against the city’s reputation as a center of learning, leadership in the abolitionist movement and liberal voting record in recent years on other issues, from Vietnam to the nuclear freeze,” the New York Times noted in 1983, adding, “It is possible to go to a baseball game at Fenway Park and not see a black fan.”
The Red Sox were the last major league team to racially integrate, in 1959, when the team added Elijah “Pumpsie” Green to their roster — after the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People protested his original assignment to the minor leagues.
The hometown Celtics, on the other hand, were the first NBA team to draft a black player (1950), put an all-black team on the court (1964) and hire a black coach (1966). But that legacy was overshadowed in the 1980s as the team dominated the league with a roster of mostly white stars.
In a 1990 photo essay by Spike Lee in Spin magazine, beneath a picture of a black man in a Celtics jersey, Lee wrote: “Boston sucks. This guy is an ‘Uncle Tom.’ ”
In his 2002 book, “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston,” Howard Bryant concluded: “The notion of Boston as the moral voice of a nation, as a social beacon and the home of abolition in the eighteenth and nineteeth centuries, was a myth, really.”
When faced with a new round of self-examination this week, the Boston NAACP president, Tanisha Sullivan, was circumspect.
“I think on some level the expectation is that we as a city are much further along than we really are,” Sullivan said. “We really need to have the courage to address certainly our history, recognize where we are, and be willing to do the ongoing work necessary to make sure that Boston truly is that city on the hill.”
matt.pearce@latimes.com
May 5, 2017 15:40:42 #
After mass shootings, firearm sales surge to first-time buyers
A GRAND TERRACE store owner, Frank Cobet, shows a customer a rifle days after the 2015 shootings in nearby San Bernardino. Many who buy in response to such attacks are new to gun ownership. (Barbara Davidson Los Angeles Times)
By Melissa Healy
Long after the victims are laid to rest and the shell casings are collected and cataloged, new research shows, mass shootings have a lasting ripple effect: For several weeks after the mayhem stops, a shooter’s deadly rampage pumps a higher-than-usual number of firearms into general circulation in the United States.
A study published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that in the six weeks after the 2012 shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., acquisitions of handguns in California alone ticked 53% higher than usual rates.
And, in the six weeks following the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino , in which 14 were killed and 22 others seriously wounded, handgun purchases in the state increased 41% over normal sales volumes.
In and around the city of San Bernardino, the spurt was especially dramatic: Gun sales there rose by 85% in the six weeks following the rampage by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik.
The additional 53,000 handguns that found their way into California households following the Newtown and San Bernardino assaults represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 30 million firearms privately owned statewide. But the study suggests that mass shootings are prompting the introduction of handguns into households that had never had them before, and spurring gun ownership among people — including women and Latinos — who have rarely bought them in the past.
As mass shootings continue unabated, the additional gun sales they spur have the power, bit by bit, to nudge the nation’s arsenal of privately held weapons — estimated to be 310 million in 2009 — ever higher.
“A large number of smaller spikes could add up to a major addition to the number of guns in a community,” said Stanford University injury-prevention researcher David M. Studdert , the study’s lead author.
The new findings, drawn from gun acquisition records in the Golden State, may well be a conservative gauge of how much mass shootings drive increases in gun sales and ownership. In California, would-be gun buyers must clear many more hurdles than exist in most states, including a 10-day waiting period, a purchase limit of one gun per month and a safety training requirement.
In an editorial published alongside the new study, Daniel W. Webster , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, wrote that in states with fewer restrictions and a more robust culture of gun ownership, “it seems likely that gun acquisitions inspired by mass shootings would be greater.”
The new findings didn’t just document increases in gun sales. They compared sales in the brief period following a highly publicized shooting to well-established patterns of gun sales, which vary seasonally and with events such as national elections.
The finding that gun sales exceeded expected levels jibes with less rigorous observations by gun researchers and journalists, who frequently chronicle runs on gun stores following mass shootings .
But the motives that drive those purchases are a matter of intense debate. Some have argued that those increases are largely driven by gun enthusiasts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in the wake of mass shootings, many gun owners fear the adoption of new limits on access to firearms. These consumers act quickly to buy or stockpile controversial weapons while they can.
But that impetus may be only be part of the picture. Instead, the new research offers evidence that in the wake of mass shootings, some citizens — probably rattled by the randomness of these events — conclude that owning a gun will make them safer.
The new study’s dissection of gun sales following two widely publicized events points to self-defense as an important prod to gun buying after a mass shooting. In particular, gun acquisition among two groups of people — women and first-time gun owners — bolsters that conclusion.
As buyers of handguns, men typically outnumber women 10 to 1. While men continued to be the leading buyers of handguns after a mass shooting, the bump in handgun purchases by women was 75% higher than usual after the Newtown shooting and 50% higher after the San Bernardino attack. (For men, the sales increased 48% and 38%, respectively, after the two shootings.)
People who had never bought a gun before were disproportionately more likely to buy a gun in the aftermath of a mass shooting as well. Handgun purchases by first-time buyers rose 72% more than expected after Newtown and 52% more than expected after San Bernardino, compared with increases of 35% and 29%, respectively, among established gun owners.
In the wake of the shootings in Newtown, the National Rifle Assn.’s Wayne LaPierre famously asserted that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
“The research says exactly the opposite,” counters Dr. Garen Wintemute , an emergency department physician who directs the violence prevention research program at UC Davis. A welter of research on households and states has found that higher rates of gun ownership are consistently linked to increased risks of suicide, of death or injury resulting from domestic violence and of firearms-related violence and injury, he noted.
That so many consumers react to mass shootings by bringing a handgun into the home means “we have been unable to translate our research knowledge into public awareness,” Wintemute said.
The new analysis did not consider rifles, which in 2014 and 2015 accounted for 45% of all ?rearm acquisitions in California. State data suggest, however, that before and after San Bernardino, the acquisition of such “long guns” saw increases that tracked with those seen in handgun sales. So handguns “may represent only about one-half of the total ?rearm acquisition response in California” to the San Bernardino shooting, the study authors suggested.
Regardless of how they are defined (whether three or four people must be killed, for instance), mass shootings have become a regular — some say escalating — feature of American life. If they drive even modest bumps in handgun ownership, “the cumulative effect of such ‘shocks’ ... may be substantial,” the authors concluded. “These events may drive nontrivial increases in overall ?rearm prevalence, which may in turn increase the risk for ?rearm-related morbidity and mortality in the long run.”
As “durable goods,” Wintemute noted, handguns can be expected to last for decades. And so might the risks that come with owning them.
“Someone may buy a handgun in his 20s and use it to kill himself in his 60s,” said Wintemute. “There’s the potential for long-lasting harm every time one of these events occurs, and there’s this excess in purchases.” That’s especially true, he added, when that post-shooting boost in purchases extends gun ownership to households that had never had a firearm.
“It just ratchets the risk up one extra notch,” Wintemute said.
melissa.healy@latimes.com
A GRAND TERRACE store owner, Frank Cobet, shows a customer a rifle days after the 2015 shootings in nearby San Bernardino. Many who buy in response to such attacks are new to gun ownership. (Barbara Davidson Los Angeles Times)
By Melissa Healy
Long after the victims are laid to rest and the shell casings are collected and cataloged, new research shows, mass shootings have a lasting ripple effect: For several weeks after the mayhem stops, a shooter’s deadly rampage pumps a higher-than-usual number of firearms into general circulation in the United States.
A study published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that in the six weeks after the 2012 shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., acquisitions of handguns in California alone ticked 53% higher than usual rates.
And, in the six weeks following the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino , in which 14 were killed and 22 others seriously wounded, handgun purchases in the state increased 41% over normal sales volumes.
In and around the city of San Bernardino, the spurt was especially dramatic: Gun sales there rose by 85% in the six weeks following the rampage by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik.
The additional 53,000 handguns that found their way into California households following the Newtown and San Bernardino assaults represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 30 million firearms privately owned statewide. But the study suggests that mass shootings are prompting the introduction of handguns into households that had never had them before, and spurring gun ownership among people — including women and Latinos — who have rarely bought them in the past.
As mass shootings continue unabated, the additional gun sales they spur have the power, bit by bit, to nudge the nation’s arsenal of privately held weapons — estimated to be 310 million in 2009 — ever higher.
“A large number of smaller spikes could add up to a major addition to the number of guns in a community,” said Stanford University injury-prevention researcher David M. Studdert , the study’s lead author.
The new findings, drawn from gun acquisition records in the Golden State, may well be a conservative gauge of how much mass shootings drive increases in gun sales and ownership. In California, would-be gun buyers must clear many more hurdles than exist in most states, including a 10-day waiting period, a purchase limit of one gun per month and a safety training requirement.
In an editorial published alongside the new study, Daniel W. Webster , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, wrote that in states with fewer restrictions and a more robust culture of gun ownership, “it seems likely that gun acquisitions inspired by mass shootings would be greater.”
The new findings didn’t just document increases in gun sales. They compared sales in the brief period following a highly publicized shooting to well-established patterns of gun sales, which vary seasonally and with events such as national elections.
The finding that gun sales exceeded expected levels jibes with less rigorous observations by gun researchers and journalists, who frequently chronicle runs on gun stores following mass shootings .
But the motives that drive those purchases are a matter of intense debate. Some have argued that those increases are largely driven by gun enthusiasts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in the wake of mass shootings, many gun owners fear the adoption of new limits on access to firearms. These consumers act quickly to buy or stockpile controversial weapons while they can.
But that impetus may be only be part of the picture. Instead, the new research offers evidence that in the wake of mass shootings, some citizens — probably rattled by the randomness of these events — conclude that owning a gun will make them safer.
The new study’s dissection of gun sales following two widely publicized events points to self-defense as an important prod to gun buying after a mass shooting. In particular, gun acquisition among two groups of people — women and first-time gun owners — bolsters that conclusion.
As buyers of handguns, men typically outnumber women 10 to 1. While men continued to be the leading buyers of handguns after a mass shooting, the bump in handgun purchases by women was 75% higher than usual after the Newtown shooting and 50% higher after the San Bernardino attack. (For men, the sales increased 48% and 38%, respectively, after the two shootings.)
People who had never bought a gun before were disproportionately more likely to buy a gun in the aftermath of a mass shooting as well. Handgun purchases by first-time buyers rose 72% more than expected after Newtown and 52% more than expected after San Bernardino, compared with increases of 35% and 29%, respectively, among established gun owners.
In the wake of the shootings in Newtown, the National Rifle Assn.’s Wayne LaPierre famously asserted that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
“The research says exactly the opposite,” counters Dr. Garen Wintemute , an emergency department physician who directs the violence prevention research program at UC Davis. A welter of research on households and states has found that higher rates of gun ownership are consistently linked to increased risks of suicide, of death or injury resulting from domestic violence and of firearms-related violence and injury, he noted.
That so many consumers react to mass shootings by bringing a handgun into the home means “we have been unable to translate our research knowledge into public awareness,” Wintemute said.
The new analysis did not consider rifles, which in 2014 and 2015 accounted for 45% of all ?rearm acquisitions in California. State data suggest, however, that before and after San Bernardino, the acquisition of such “long guns” saw increases that tracked with those seen in handgun sales. So handguns “may represent only about one-half of the total ?rearm acquisition response in California” to the San Bernardino shooting, the study authors suggested.
Regardless of how they are defined (whether three or four people must be killed, for instance), mass shootings have become a regular — some say escalating — feature of American life. If they drive even modest bumps in handgun ownership, “the cumulative effect of such ‘shocks’ ... may be substantial,” the authors concluded. “These events may drive nontrivial increases in overall ?rearm prevalence, which may in turn increase the risk for ?rearm-related morbidity and mortality in the long run.”
As “durable goods,” Wintemute noted, handguns can be expected to last for decades. And so might the risks that come with owning them.
“Someone may buy a handgun in his 20s and use it to kill himself in his 60s,” said Wintemute. “There’s the potential for long-lasting harm every time one of these events occurs, and there’s this excess in purchases.” That’s especially true, he added, when that post-shooting boost in purchases extends gun ownership to households that had never had a firearm.
“It just ratchets the risk up one extra notch,” Wintemute said.
melissa.healy@latimes.com
May 5, 2017 15:41:48 #
State settles Confederate flag lawsuit
Agreement clarifies that ban on display does not apply to individuals, even on government property.
ARTIST Timothy Desmond sued after his painting depicting the Confederate battle flag at the 1864 Battle of Atlanta was barred from the 2015 Big Fresno Fair. (Emily Ladeairous/Timothy Desmond Via Associated Press)
associated press
SACRAMENTO — California’s ban on displaying the Confederate flag doesn’t apply to individuals even if they are on government property, state officials said this week in settling a free-speech lawsuit.
Fresno artist Timothy Desmond sued after his painting depicting the flag was barred from the 2015 Big Fresno Fair. His painting shows Confederate soldiers fighting in the 1864 Battle of Atlanta, led by a soldier carrying the battle flag.
California’s 2014 law says the state cannot display or sell the battle flag of the Confederacy or any similar image unless it appears in a way that serves an educational or historical purpose. Fair officials used that law to ban Desmond’s painting a year later, but they let him display the painting during the 2016 fair.
The settlement signed by the state attorney general’s office on Monday says that the ban applies only to the state government and not to private individuals. Individuals are still free to carry, display or sell the flag on private or government property.
“The First Amendment is clear: The state may not ban the expression of certain points of view simply because some find them distasteful,” Center for Individual Rights President Terry Pell said in a statement Tuesday. “Freedom of speech has costs, whether in the form of hurt feelings of those who are forced to listen or the cost of police necessary to protect against the riots that sometimes result.”
The nonprofit, based in Washington, D.C., represented Desmond in the lawsuit.
Spokesmen for California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra did not return repeated requests for comment.
Desmond himself wasn’t commenting on the lawsuit or the settlement, a spokeswoman for the center said.
The center’s website describes him as a retired high school science teacher who regularly enters his paintings in local art fairs.
It says his relatives fought for the South during the Civil War, so he became interested in their lives and the battles in which they might have fought. He found that his great-grandfather’s brother may have fought in the Battle of Atlanta.
Agreement clarifies that ban on display does not apply to individuals, even on government property.
ARTIST Timothy Desmond sued after his painting depicting the Confederate battle flag at the 1864 Battle of Atlanta was barred from the 2015 Big Fresno Fair. (Emily Ladeairous/Timothy Desmond Via Associated Press)
associated press
SACRAMENTO — California’s ban on displaying the Confederate flag doesn’t apply to individuals even if they are on government property, state officials said this week in settling a free-speech lawsuit.
Fresno artist Timothy Desmond sued after his painting depicting the flag was barred from the 2015 Big Fresno Fair. His painting shows Confederate soldiers fighting in the 1864 Battle of Atlanta, led by a soldier carrying the battle flag.
California’s 2014 law says the state cannot display or sell the battle flag of the Confederacy or any similar image unless it appears in a way that serves an educational or historical purpose. Fair officials used that law to ban Desmond’s painting a year later, but they let him display the painting during the 2016 fair.
The settlement signed by the state attorney general’s office on Monday says that the ban applies only to the state government and not to private individuals. Individuals are still free to carry, display or sell the flag on private or government property.
“The First Amendment is clear: The state may not ban the expression of certain points of view simply because some find them distasteful,” Center for Individual Rights President Terry Pell said in a statement Tuesday. “Freedom of speech has costs, whether in the form of hurt feelings of those who are forced to listen or the cost of police necessary to protect against the riots that sometimes result.”
The nonprofit, based in Washington, D.C., represented Desmond in the lawsuit.
Spokesmen for California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra did not return repeated requests for comment.
Desmond himself wasn’t commenting on the lawsuit or the settlement, a spokeswoman for the center said.
The center’s website describes him as a retired high school science teacher who regularly enters his paintings in local art fairs.
It says his relatives fought for the South during the Civil War, so he became interested in their lives and the battles in which they might have fought. He found that his great-grandfather’s brother may have fought in the Battle of Atlanta.
May 5, 2017 17:06:16 #
When mass shootings occur, Californians buy more guns
HANDGUN sales in California rose by 53% and 41%, respectively, in the six weeks after the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and San Bernardino, a study shows. (Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times)
By Melissa Healy
Long after the victims are laid to rest and the shell casings are collected and cataloged, new research shows, mass shootings have a lasting ripple effect: For several weeks after the mayhem stops, a shooter’s deadly rampage pumps a higher-than-usual number of firearms into general circulation in the United States.
A study published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that in the six weeks after the 2012 shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., acquisitions of handguns in California alone ticked 53% higher than usual rates.
And, in the six weeks following the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino , in which 14 were killed and 22 others seriously wounded, handgun purchases in the state increased 41% over normal sales volumes.
In and around the city of San Bernardino, the spurt was especially dramatic: Gun sales there rose by 85% in the six weeks following the rampage by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik.
The additional 53,000 handguns that found their way into California households following the Newtown and San Bernardino assaults represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 30 million firearms privately owned statewide. But the study suggests that mass shootings are prompting the introduction of handguns into households that had never had them before, and spurring gun ownership among people — including women and Latinos — who have rarely bought them in the past.
As mass shootings continue unabated, the additional gun sales they spur have the power, bit by bit, to nudge the nation’s arsenal of privately held weapons — estimated to be 310 million in 2009 — ever higher.
“A large number of smaller spikes could add up to a major addition to the number of guns in a community,” said Stanford University injury-prevention researcher David M. Studdert , the study’s lead author.
The new findings, drawn from gun acquisition records in the Golden State, may well be a conservative gauge of how much mass shootings drive increases in gun sales and ownership. In California, would-be gun buyers must clear many more hurdles than exist in most states, including a 10-day waiting period, a purchase limit of one gun per month and a safety training requirement.
In an editorial published alongside the new study, Daniel W. Webster , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, wrote that in states with fewer restrictions and a more robust culture of gun ownership, “it seems likely that gun acquisitions inspired by mass shootings would be greater.”
The new findings didn’t just document increases in gun sales. They compared sales in the brief period following a highly publicized shooting to well-established patterns of gun sales, which vary seasonally and with events such as national elections.
The finding that gun sales exceeded expected levels jibes with less rigorous observations by gun researchers and journalists, who frequently chronicle runs on gun stores following mass shootings .
But the motives that drive those purchases are a matter of intense debate. Some have argued that those increases are largely driven by gun enthusiasts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in the wake of mass shootings, many gun owners fear the adoption of new limits on access to firearms. These consumers act quickly to buy or stockpile controversial weapons while they can.
That impetus may only be part of the picture. Instead, the new research offers evidence that in the wake of mass shootings, some citizens — probably rattled by the randomness of these events — conclude that owning a gun will make them safer.
The new study’s dissection of gun sales following two widely publicized events points to self-defense as an important prod to gun buying after a mass shooting. In particular, gun acquisition among two groups of people — women and first-time gun owners — bolsters that conclusion.
As buyers of handguns, men typically outnumber women 10 to 1. While men continued to be the leading buyers of handguns after a mass shooting, the bump in handgun purchases by women was 75% higher than usual after the Newtown shooting and 50% higher after the San Bernardino attack. (For men, the sales increased 48% and 38%, respectively, after the two shootings.)
People who had never bought a gun before were disproportionately more likely to buy a gun in the aftermath of a mass shooting as well. Handgun purchases by first-time buyers rose 72% more than expected after Newtown and 52% more than expected after San Bernardino, compared with increases of 35% and 29%, respectively, among established gun owners.
In the wake of the shootings in Newtown, the National Rifle Assn.’s Wayne LaPierre famously asserted that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
“The research says exactly the opposite,” counters Dr. Garen Wintemute , an emergency department physician who directs the violence prevention research program at UC Davis. A welter of research on households and states has found that higher rates of gun ownership are consistently linked to increased risks of suicide, of death or injury resulting from domestic violence and of firearms-related violence and injury, he noted.
That so many consumers react to mass shootings by bringing a handgun into the home means “we have been unable to translate our research knowledge into public awareness,” Wintemute said.
The new analysis did not consider rifles, which in 2014 and 2015 accounted for 45% of all ?rearm acquisitions in California. State data suggest, however, that before and after San Bernardino, the acquisition of such “long guns” saw increases that tracked with those seen in handgun sales. So handguns “may represent only about one-half of the total ?rearm acquisition response in California” to the San Bernardino shooting, the study authors suggested.
Regardless of how they are defined (whether three or four people must be killed, for instance), mass shootings have become a regular — some say escalating — feature of American life. If they drive even modest bumps in handgun ownership, “the cumulative effect of such ‘shocks’ ... may be substantial,” the authors concluded. “These events may drive nontrivial increases in overall ?rearm prevalence, which may in turn increase the risk for ?rearm-related morbidity and mortality in the long run.”
As “durable goods,” Wintemute noted, handguns can be expected to last for decades. And so might the risks that come with owning them.
“Someone may buy a handgun in his 20s and use it to kill himself in his 60s,” said Wintemute. “There’s the potential for long-lasting harm every time one of these events occurs, and there’s this excess in purchases.” That’s especially true, he added, when that post-shooting boost in purchases extends gun ownership to households that had never had a firearm.
“It just ratchets the risk up one extra notch,” Wintemute said.
melissa.healy@latimes.com
HANDGUN sales in California rose by 53% and 41%, respectively, in the six weeks after the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., and San Bernardino, a study shows. (Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times)
By Melissa Healy
Long after the victims are laid to rest and the shell casings are collected and cataloged, new research shows, mass shootings have a lasting ripple effect: For several weeks after the mayhem stops, a shooter’s deadly rampage pumps a higher-than-usual number of firearms into general circulation in the United States.
A study published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that in the six weeks after the 2012 shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., acquisitions of handguns in California alone ticked 53% higher than usual rates.
And, in the six weeks following the 2015 shootings in San Bernardino , in which 14 were killed and 22 others seriously wounded, handgun purchases in the state increased 41% over normal sales volumes.
In and around the city of San Bernardino, the spurt was especially dramatic: Gun sales there rose by 85% in the six weeks following the rampage by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife, Tashfeen Malik.
The additional 53,000 handguns that found their way into California households following the Newtown and San Bernardino assaults represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 30 million firearms privately owned statewide. But the study suggests that mass shootings are prompting the introduction of handguns into households that had never had them before, and spurring gun ownership among people — including women and Latinos — who have rarely bought them in the past.
As mass shootings continue unabated, the additional gun sales they spur have the power, bit by bit, to nudge the nation’s arsenal of privately held weapons — estimated to be 310 million in 2009 — ever higher.
“A large number of smaller spikes could add up to a major addition to the number of guns in a community,” said Stanford University injury-prevention researcher David M. Studdert , the study’s lead author.
The new findings, drawn from gun acquisition records in the Golden State, may well be a conservative gauge of how much mass shootings drive increases in gun sales and ownership. In California, would-be gun buyers must clear many more hurdles than exist in most states, including a 10-day waiting period, a purchase limit of one gun per month and a safety training requirement.
In an editorial published alongside the new study, Daniel W. Webster , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, wrote that in states with fewer restrictions and a more robust culture of gun ownership, “it seems likely that gun acquisitions inspired by mass shootings would be greater.”
The new findings didn’t just document increases in gun sales. They compared sales in the brief period following a highly publicized shooting to well-established patterns of gun sales, which vary seasonally and with events such as national elections.
The finding that gun sales exceeded expected levels jibes with less rigorous observations by gun researchers and journalists, who frequently chronicle runs on gun stores following mass shootings .
But the motives that drive those purchases are a matter of intense debate. Some have argued that those increases are largely driven by gun enthusiasts. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, in the wake of mass shootings, many gun owners fear the adoption of new limits on access to firearms. These consumers act quickly to buy or stockpile controversial weapons while they can.
That impetus may only be part of the picture. Instead, the new research offers evidence that in the wake of mass shootings, some citizens — probably rattled by the randomness of these events — conclude that owning a gun will make them safer.
The new study’s dissection of gun sales following two widely publicized events points to self-defense as an important prod to gun buying after a mass shooting. In particular, gun acquisition among two groups of people — women and first-time gun owners — bolsters that conclusion.
As buyers of handguns, men typically outnumber women 10 to 1. While men continued to be the leading buyers of handguns after a mass shooting, the bump in handgun purchases by women was 75% higher than usual after the Newtown shooting and 50% higher after the San Bernardino attack. (For men, the sales increased 48% and 38%, respectively, after the two shootings.)
People who had never bought a gun before were disproportionately more likely to buy a gun in the aftermath of a mass shooting as well. Handgun purchases by first-time buyers rose 72% more than expected after Newtown and 52% more than expected after San Bernardino, compared with increases of 35% and 29%, respectively, among established gun owners.
In the wake of the shootings in Newtown, the National Rifle Assn.’s Wayne LaPierre famously asserted that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
“The research says exactly the opposite,” counters Dr. Garen Wintemute , an emergency department physician who directs the violence prevention research program at UC Davis. A welter of research on households and states has found that higher rates of gun ownership are consistently linked to increased risks of suicide, of death or injury resulting from domestic violence and of firearms-related violence and injury, he noted.
That so many consumers react to mass shootings by bringing a handgun into the home means “we have been unable to translate our research knowledge into public awareness,” Wintemute said.
The new analysis did not consider rifles, which in 2014 and 2015 accounted for 45% of all ?rearm acquisitions in California. State data suggest, however, that before and after San Bernardino, the acquisition of such “long guns” saw increases that tracked with those seen in handgun sales. So handguns “may represent only about one-half of the total ?rearm acquisition response in California” to the San Bernardino shooting, the study authors suggested.
Regardless of how they are defined (whether three or four people must be killed, for instance), mass shootings have become a regular — some say escalating — feature of American life. If they drive even modest bumps in handgun ownership, “the cumulative effect of such ‘shocks’ ... may be substantial,” the authors concluded. “These events may drive nontrivial increases in overall ?rearm prevalence, which may in turn increase the risk for ?rearm-related morbidity and mortality in the long run.”
As “durable goods,” Wintemute noted, handguns can be expected to last for decades. And so might the risks that come with owning them.
“Someone may buy a handgun in his 20s and use it to kill himself in his 60s,” said Wintemute. “There’s the potential for long-lasting harm every time one of these events occurs, and there’s this excess in purchases.” That’s especially true, he added, when that post-shooting boost in purchases extends gun ownership to households that had never had a firearm.
“It just ratchets the risk up one extra notch,” Wintemute said.
melissa.healy@latimes.com
May 5, 2017 17:32:01 #
Barkley will bring bite to ‘Race’
The blunt-talking ex-NBA star vows to ask tough questions. No doubts there.
CHARLES BARKLEY will discuss fiery topics on “American Race.” (Jessica Chou)
LORRAINE ALI TELEVISION CRITIC
Charles Barkley has a new TNT series, “American Race,” and, no, it’s not a reality triathlon competition.
It’s about that other kind of race — the black, white and brown kind — that Barkley always seems to be getting in trouble for bringing up on that other TNT show, “Inside the NBA.”
“I knew I’d catch … for this going in,” said Barkley, 54, of his new docuseries exploring hot-button topics such as undocumented workers, Black Lives Matter and Oscars So White. “People say, ‘These jocks won’t stand up for anything.’ Then when you do stand up, they complain too. Which one is it?”
This is vintage Barkley, the cranky yet comical old- school commentator that’s made him a media superstar talking about sports and all else. He’s a handful — and he’s just getting warmed up.
“Did you see last year when that thing happened with [Colin] Kaepernick?” he continued, referring to the San Francisco 49er quarterback who took a knee during “The Star Spangled Banner” to protest racial injustice. “It was like WWIII. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. I’m smart enough to not let this stuff bother me. I’m just trying to do the right thing, and people are just going to have to deal with it.”
What they must deal with are four hourlong episodes airing over two nights — May 11 and 12 — when Barkley tours the country to answer some of his own questions about the relationship between law enforcement and the black community, Islamophobia in the Trump era and why America is so divided.
And it’s presented in a very Barkley-equse format. Prime example: the intro for the fourth installment in the series, “A Country Divided”:
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” says Barkley in the opening moments, “but America has lost its mind. … We got a bunch of cry babies out there who are upset ’cause their candidate lost, and the other side, they’re just gloating over their victory. … This is just plain stupid. What forces are keeping us apart?”
Or the episode exploring racism in Hollywood: “Last year’s Oscars, everyone went crazy because they were so white,” muses Barkley. “The Oscars have always been so white. I don’t know why last year became such a big deal. I think people get carried away. No one’s entitled to an Oscar. I’m from Alabama. They got real racism in Alabama, not just the fuddy-duddy stuff you got out here in L.A. This year’s Oscars had the most black winners ever, but people are still cautious. I want to know if people are overreacting, or is Hollywood racist?”
To answer Barkley’s often basic but honest questions, the hulking commentator travels across the country to sit at the dinner table with a Muslim family in Dallas, an undocumented Mexican family in Atlanta and chat in the kitchen of conservative white couple in the South.
While taping the show last year, he stopped at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Hollywood to be the celebrity guest for a night of improv sketch comedy. Barkley told stories of things he’d said in the past that had got him in trouble such as: “I’d never buy my girl a watch … she’s already got a clock over the stove” and that Col. Sanders is one of the black community’s most revered heroes. The troupe spun pointed and hysterical sketches out of those statements that are either hilarious or appalling or both.
After the show, while watching a football game in the green room, he said he’d said some things over his career that he probably should have thought about a little more before “opening his mouth.” But the point of dropping by the theater and shooting part of the show there is to get people talking.
“If you look at politics and people on television, they tell us what to think, the way things should be, but nobody ever asks us for our opinion,” said Barkley as stunned fans in the hallways ogled at him — he’s not your typical hipster comic who weigh about as much as one of his legs.
The 6-foot-6 mountain of a man was dressed in pedestrian black slacks, an office-appropriate button-down shirt and lace-up black shoes so huge they barely fit under the coffee table. He spoke seriously and passionately about why he, of all people, wanted to launch a series about race (“my daughter’s been a victim of stereotyping at the private school she goes to”) yet still found time to steal glances at a game. “The whole objective of the show is to have a civilized conversation. I didn’t want yelling and screaming, which is fine, but we’ve got a lot of yelling and screaming right now. The objective was like, let’s just have an honest discussion. We can agree to disagree.”
On “American Race,” Barkley’s sensibilities live somewhere between old-school crank, live-and-let live pragmatist and unpredictable loose cannon. He asks what many people are too afraid to — what’s the big deal? — and with the unapologetic candor that helped launch his post-game career into the stratosphere. He’s mixing it up nightly with the “Inside the NBA” crew of E.J. Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny (“The Jet”) Smith, who aren’t afraid to rip into each other. That’s the attitude he brings to “American Race.”
“If you want to have a one-sided opinion, you can go to Fox News and you know how they will be no matter what,” he says of the angle he takes on “American Race.” “I didn’t want to do this show from any one perspective.”
No matter who he’s talking to, whether its Ice Cube or an undocumented Mexican father (whose name was withheld for his protection) or extreme-right, white nationalist activist Richard Spencer, the reaction to Barkley was almost identical. School-boy crush mixed with nervous elation. They can’t quite believe they’re in the same room with Sir Charles.
Barkley may not have the political savvy of “United Shades of America’s” Kamau Bell, or the patience of Morgan Spurlock in “30 Days,” but as a unifying figure, there’s no one else who could do the job like Barkley.
“I grew up poor in Birmingham, near Montgomery and Selma — that’s like right in the middle of all that [civil rights] stuff. That’s why it’s important and significant in the future. Plus I just got too many questions that need answering.”
lorraine.ali@latimes.com
The blunt-talking ex-NBA star vows to ask tough questions. No doubts there.
CHARLES BARKLEY will discuss fiery topics on “American Race.” (Jessica Chou)
LORRAINE ALI TELEVISION CRITIC
Charles Barkley has a new TNT series, “American Race,” and, no, it’s not a reality triathlon competition.
It’s about that other kind of race — the black, white and brown kind — that Barkley always seems to be getting in trouble for bringing up on that other TNT show, “Inside the NBA.”
“I knew I’d catch … for this going in,” said Barkley, 54, of his new docuseries exploring hot-button topics such as undocumented workers, Black Lives Matter and Oscars So White. “People say, ‘These jocks won’t stand up for anything.’ Then when you do stand up, they complain too. Which one is it?”
This is vintage Barkley, the cranky yet comical old- school commentator that’s made him a media superstar talking about sports and all else. He’s a handful — and he’s just getting warmed up.
“Did you see last year when that thing happened with [Colin] Kaepernick?” he continued, referring to the San Francisco 49er quarterback who took a knee during “The Star Spangled Banner” to protest racial injustice. “It was like WWIII. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. I’m smart enough to not let this stuff bother me. I’m just trying to do the right thing, and people are just going to have to deal with it.”
What they must deal with are four hourlong episodes airing over two nights — May 11 and 12 — when Barkley tours the country to answer some of his own questions about the relationship between law enforcement and the black community, Islamophobia in the Trump era and why America is so divided.
And it’s presented in a very Barkley-equse format. Prime example: the intro for the fourth installment in the series, “A Country Divided”:
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” says Barkley in the opening moments, “but America has lost its mind. … We got a bunch of cry babies out there who are upset ’cause their candidate lost, and the other side, they’re just gloating over their victory. … This is just plain stupid. What forces are keeping us apart?”
Or the episode exploring racism in Hollywood: “Last year’s Oscars, everyone went crazy because they were so white,” muses Barkley. “The Oscars have always been so white. I don’t know why last year became such a big deal. I think people get carried away. No one’s entitled to an Oscar. I’m from Alabama. They got real racism in Alabama, not just the fuddy-duddy stuff you got out here in L.A. This year’s Oscars had the most black winners ever, but people are still cautious. I want to know if people are overreacting, or is Hollywood racist?”
To answer Barkley’s often basic but honest questions, the hulking commentator travels across the country to sit at the dinner table with a Muslim family in Dallas, an undocumented Mexican family in Atlanta and chat in the kitchen of conservative white couple in the South.
While taping the show last year, he stopped at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Hollywood to be the celebrity guest for a night of improv sketch comedy. Barkley told stories of things he’d said in the past that had got him in trouble such as: “I’d never buy my girl a watch … she’s already got a clock over the stove” and that Col. Sanders is one of the black community’s most revered heroes. The troupe spun pointed and hysterical sketches out of those statements that are either hilarious or appalling or both.
After the show, while watching a football game in the green room, he said he’d said some things over his career that he probably should have thought about a little more before “opening his mouth.” But the point of dropping by the theater and shooting part of the show there is to get people talking.
“If you look at politics and people on television, they tell us what to think, the way things should be, but nobody ever asks us for our opinion,” said Barkley as stunned fans in the hallways ogled at him — he’s not your typical hipster comic who weigh about as much as one of his legs.
The 6-foot-6 mountain of a man was dressed in pedestrian black slacks, an office-appropriate button-down shirt and lace-up black shoes so huge they barely fit under the coffee table. He spoke seriously and passionately about why he, of all people, wanted to launch a series about race (“my daughter’s been a victim of stereotyping at the private school she goes to”) yet still found time to steal glances at a game. “The whole objective of the show is to have a civilized conversation. I didn’t want yelling and screaming, which is fine, but we’ve got a lot of yelling and screaming right now. The objective was like, let’s just have an honest discussion. We can agree to disagree.”
On “American Race,” Barkley’s sensibilities live somewhere between old-school crank, live-and-let live pragmatist and unpredictable loose cannon. He asks what many people are too afraid to — what’s the big deal? — and with the unapologetic candor that helped launch his post-game career into the stratosphere. He’s mixing it up nightly with the “Inside the NBA” crew of E.J. Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny (“The Jet”) Smith, who aren’t afraid to rip into each other. That’s the attitude he brings to “American Race.”
“If you want to have a one-sided opinion, you can go to Fox News and you know how they will be no matter what,” he says of the angle he takes on “American Race.” “I didn’t want to do this show from any one perspective.”
No matter who he’s talking to, whether its Ice Cube or an undocumented Mexican father (whose name was withheld for his protection) or extreme-right, white nationalist activist Richard Spencer, the reaction to Barkley was almost identical. School-boy crush mixed with nervous elation. They can’t quite believe they’re in the same room with Sir Charles.
Barkley may not have the political savvy of “United Shades of America’s” Kamau Bell, or the patience of Morgan Spurlock in “30 Days,” but as a unifying figure, there’s no one else who could do the job like Barkley.
“I grew up poor in Birmingham, near Montgomery and Selma — that’s like right in the middle of all that [civil rights] stuff. That’s why it’s important and significant in the future. Plus I just got too many questions that need answering.”
lorraine.ali@latimes.com
May 6, 2017 08:47:49 #
The man who was the subject of an iconic Ferguson photo has died
(CNN)It's powerful. It's visceral. It's seared in our memory as one of the iconic images from those turbulent nights that followed a black man's death at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri.
It's the photograph of Edward Crawford, clutching a bag of chips in one hand as he cocks his arm back to throw a burning tear gas canister that riot police had fired to disperse protesters like Crawford. The photo was taken four days after Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, and the city had erupted in protest.
Crawford has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his uncle, Lester Davis, confirmed to CNN on Friday. St. Louis coroner's assistant Baxter Leisure said that a man with Crawford's name had died.
Crawford's uncle said he didn't believe the death was suicide.
This Aug. 13, 2014, photo by St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen shows Edward Crawford returning a tear gas canister fired by police who were trying to disperse protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. Four days earlier, unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by white police officer Darren Wilson. The killing ignited riots and unrest in the St. Louis area and across the nation. Cohen and members of the St. Louis Post Dispatch photo staff are winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography it was announced Monday, April 20, 2015, at Columbia University in New York.
"I don't want people to think it's some conspiracy theory," Davis said. "I don't believe my nephew killed himself either, maybe it was an accident."
The photo of Crawford was taken on August 13, 2014, by St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen. It has been printed on T-shirts, repurposed by artists, even plastered onto cell phone cases. On Twitter, it's been favorably compared to pictures from political revolutions in other countries -- but also falsely cited as proof of violence by Crawford.
"Before the photo was taken, the canister ... was shot and it landed a couple of feet away from me and some children standing on the sidewalk," Crawford told CNN in 2014.
"I was not throwing the canister at the police; I was merely getting the canister away from me and the kids."
Last year, MarShawn McCarrel, a Black Lives Matter activist involved in Ferguson protests, killed himself on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. At the time, the Columbus Dispatch reported it wasn't clear why McCarrel, 23, shot himself, but hours earlier he had posted a message on Facebook saying, "My demons won today. I'm sorry."
And in September, Darren Seals, another activist, was found dead in a burning car in St. Louis. Police said there was a single bullet wound to his head.
As for the Crawford family. "We just have to be there for each other, we've never dealt with anything like this," an emotional Davis said.
(CNN)It's powerful. It's visceral. It's seared in our memory as one of the iconic images from those turbulent nights that followed a black man's death at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri.
It's the photograph of Edward Crawford, clutching a bag of chips in one hand as he cocks his arm back to throw a burning tear gas canister that riot police had fired to disperse protesters like Crawford. The photo was taken four days after Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, and the city had erupted in protest.
Crawford has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, his uncle, Lester Davis, confirmed to CNN on Friday. St. Louis coroner's assistant Baxter Leisure said that a man with Crawford's name had died.
Crawford's uncle said he didn't believe the death was suicide.
This Aug. 13, 2014, photo by St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen shows Edward Crawford returning a tear gas canister fired by police who were trying to disperse protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. Four days earlier, unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by white police officer Darren Wilson. The killing ignited riots and unrest in the St. Louis area and across the nation. Cohen and members of the St. Louis Post Dispatch photo staff are winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography it was announced Monday, April 20, 2015, at Columbia University in New York.
"I don't want people to think it's some conspiracy theory," Davis said. "I don't believe my nephew killed himself either, maybe it was an accident."
The photo of Crawford was taken on August 13, 2014, by St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen. It has been printed on T-shirts, repurposed by artists, even plastered onto cell phone cases. On Twitter, it's been favorably compared to pictures from political revolutions in other countries -- but also falsely cited as proof of violence by Crawford.
"Before the photo was taken, the canister ... was shot and it landed a couple of feet away from me and some children standing on the sidewalk," Crawford told CNN in 2014.
"I was not throwing the canister at the police; I was merely getting the canister away from me and the kids."
Last year, MarShawn McCarrel, a Black Lives Matter activist involved in Ferguson protests, killed himself on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. At the time, the Columbus Dispatch reported it wasn't clear why McCarrel, 23, shot himself, but hours earlier he had posted a message on Facebook saying, "My demons won today. I'm sorry."
And in September, Darren Seals, another activist, was found dead in a burning car in St. Louis. Police said there was a single bullet wound to his head.
As for the Crawford family. "We just have to be there for each other, we've never dealt with anything like this," an emotional Davis said.
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.