A childcare worker in Riverdale, Georgia was arrested last Friday for kicking a 20-month old student. The footage of the incident was released Monday via WSB-TV.
The daycare co-owner of Kids R Kids, Bob Phelps, released the surveillance tape with the intention of allowing the public to judge the incident for themselves. In the footage that takes place in a playroom, Jayden Reece is approaching 22-year-old Alexis J. Wilson-Britten. Before he reaches the teacher, she shoves him with her foot.
“We were able to look at surveillance video that shows this worker kicked this child not once, but twice,” said Clayton County Police Spokesperson JaQuitta Williams.
According to police, Jayden was not injured.
Phelps said Wilson-Britten was already scheduled to be fired for poor performance before she assaulted the baby boy.
“She didn’t have any malice or anything that I could see,” said Phelps. “It’s not the type of employee I hold in my staff. She was just in error. She made a rash decision.”
A short time before Wilson-Britten pushed the boy, she reportedly called the front desk of the daycare and said she needed a break. Someone had been sent to relieve her.
“She made a bad decision,” said Phelps.
Wilson-Britten was arrested and charged with simple battery. She was later released on bond.
After the incident, Jayden’s father became suspicious of further abuse happening within the child care facility. He said Jayden’s twin brother, Ayden, had broke his arm at school the day before. Phelps said that Ayden’s injury was an accident, and it happened while he was playing outside on the playground. The daycare is under investigation for the the event.
Phelps insisted to reporters that safety is the school’s main priority. The Kids R Kids co-owner also assured that Wilson-Britten’s actions are completely unacceptable at his facility.
Deuteronomy 28:
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,
57 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.
Job 39:
16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labour is in vain without fear;
17 Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding.
Lawrence Otis Graham says that he and his wife thought that if they worked hard and maintained great jobs, they could insulate their children from the blatant manifestations of bigotry that they experienced as children in the 1960s and ’70s. I knew the day would come, but I didn’t know how it would happen, where I would be, or how I would respond. It is the moment that every black parent fears: the day his child is called a nigger. My wife and I, both African-Americans, constitute one of those Type A couples with Ivy League undergraduate and graduate degrees who, for many years, believed that if we worked hard and maintained great jobs, we could insulate our children from the blatant manifestations of bigotry that we experienced as children in the 1960s and ’70s. We divided our lives between a house in a liberal New York suburb and an apartment on Park Avenue, sent our three kids to a diverse New York City private school, and outfitted them with the accoutrements of success: preppy clothes, perfect diction and that air of quiet graciousness. We convinced ourselves that the economic privilege we bestowed on them could buffer these adolescents against what so many black and Latino children face while living in mostly white settings: being profiled by neighbors, followed in stores and stopped by police simply because their race makes them suspect. But it happened nevertheless in July, when I was 100 miles away. It was a Tuesday afternoon when my 15-year-old son called from his academic summer program at a leafy New England boarding school (I’ve changed its name here) and told me that as he was walking across campus, a gray Acura with a broken rear taillight pulled up beside him. Two men leaned out of the car and glared at him. “Are you the only nigger at Mellon Academy?” one shouted. Certain that he had not heard them correctly, my son moved closer to the curb, and asked politely, “I’m sorry; I didn’t hear you.” But he had heard correctly. And this time the man spoke more clearly. “Only … nigger,” he said with added emphasis. My son froze. He dropped his backpack in alarm and stepped back from the idling car. The men honked the horn and drove off, their laughter echoing behind them. By the time he recounted his experience a few minutes later, my son was back in his dorm room, ensconced on the third floor of a red-brick fortress. He tried to grasp the meaning of the story as he told it: why the men chose to stop him, why they did it in broad daylight, why they were so calm and deliberate. “Why would they do that — to me?” he whispered breathlessly into the phone. “Dad, they don’t know me. And they weren’t acting drunk. It’s just 3:30 in the afternoon. They could see me, and I could see them!” My son rambled on, describing the car and the men, asking questions that I couldn’t completely answer. One very clear and cogent query was why, in Connecticut in 2014, grown men would target a student who wasn’t bothering them to harass in broad daylight. The men intended to be menacing. “They got so close — like they were trying to ask directions. … They were definitely trying to scare me,” he said. “Are you OK?” I interrupted. “Are you —” “Yeah,” he continued anxiously. “I’m OK. I guess. … Do you think they saw which dorm I went back to? Maybe I shouldn’t have told my roommate. Should I stay in my dorm and not go to the library tonight?” Despite his reluctance, I insisted that he report the incident to the school. His chief concern was not wanting the white students and administrators to think of him as being special, different, or “racial.” That was his word. “If the other kids around here find out that I was called a nigger, and that I complained about it,” my son pleaded, “then they will call me ‘racial,’ and will be thinking about race every time they see me. I can’t have that.” For the next four weeks of the summer program, my son remained leery of cars that slowed in his proximity (he’s still leery today). He avoided sidewalks, choosing instead to walk on campus lawns. And he worried continually about being perceived as racially odd or different. Herein lay the difference between my son’s black childhood and my own. Not only was I assaulted by the N-word so much earlier in life — at age 7, while visiting relatives in Memphis — but I also had many other experiences that differentiated my life from the lives of my white childhood friends. There was no way that they would “forget” that I was different. The times, in fact, dictated that they should not forget; our situation would be unavoidably “racial.” When my family moved into our home in an all-white neighborhood in suburban New York in December 1967, at the height of the black-power movement and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights marches, integration did not — at all — mean assimilation. So my small Afro, the three African dashiki-style shirts that I wore to school every other week, and the Southern-style deep-fried chicken and watermelon slices that my Southern-born mother placed lovingly in my school lunchbox all elicited surprise and questions from the white kids who regarded me suspiciously as they walked to school or sat with me in the cafeteria. After all, in the 1960s, it was an “event” — and generally not a trouble-free one — when a black family integrated a white neighborhood. Our welcome was nothing like the comically naive portrayal carried off by Sidney Poitier and his white fiancee’s liberal family members in the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, which had opened the very month that we moved in. It wasn’t about awkward pauses, lingering stares and subtle attempts of “throwing shade” our way. It was often blatant and sometimes ugly. Brokers openly refused to show houses to my parents in any of the neighborhoods that we requested, and once we found a house in The New York Times Sunday classifieds, the seller demanded a price almost 25 percent higher than listed in the paper. (My parents paid it.) A day after Mom and Dad signed the contract, a small band of neighbors circulated a petition that outlined their desire to pre-emptively buy the house from the seller to circumvent its sale to us. My parents were so uncertain of this new racial adventure that they held onto our prior house for another four years — renting it on a year-to-year lease — “just in case,” as my mother always warned, with trepidation on her tongue. Referred to as “that black family that moved onto Soundview,” we never quite felt in step with our surroundings. A year after moving in, my 9-year-old brother was pulling me down our quiet street in his red-and-white Radio Flyer wagon when we were accosted by a siren-screaming police car. An officer stepped out shouting, “Now, where did you boys steal that wagon?” Pointing breathlessly to our house a few yards away, we tried to explain that it was my brother’s new wagon, but the officer ushered us into the back seat. Our anguished mother heard the siren and ran across three lawns to intervene. What I remember most is how it captured the powerlessness and racial isolation that defined our childhood in that neighborhood. We never encountered drawn or discharged guns like those faced by unarmed black teenagers Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., or Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. But I was followed, stopped and questioned in local stores and on local streets frequently enough that I wondered whether my parents would have been better able to protect us from these racial brushes had they been rich, famous, or powerful — or if they had been better acquainted with the white world in which they immersed us. Perhaps I was naive to think that if they had been raised outside segregated Southern neighborhoods and schools, they would have been better able to help us navigate the life we were living. In the 1970s, I imagined that the privileged children of rich and famous blacks like Diana Ross, Bill Cosby or Sidney Poitier were untouched by the insults and stops that we faced. Even though the idea wasn’t fully formed, I somehow assumed that privilege would insulate a person from discrimination. This was years before I would learn of the research by Peggy McIntosh, the Wellesley College professor who coined the phrase “white male privilege,” to describe the inherent advantages one group in our society has over others in terms of freedom from discriminatory stops, profiling and arrests. As a teenager, I didn’t have such a sophisticated view, other than to wish I were privileged enough to escape the bias I encountered. And that was the goal we had in mind as my wife and I raised our kids. We both had careers in white firms that represented the best in law, banking and consulting; we attended schools and shared dorm rooms with white friends and had strong ties to our community (including my service, for the last 12 years, as chairman of the county police board). I was certain that my Princeton and Harvard Law degrees and economic privilege not only would empower me to navigate the mostly white neighborhoods and institutions that my kids inhabited, but would provide a cocoon to protect them from the bias I had encountered growing up. My wife and I used our knowledge of white upper-class life to envelop our sons and daughter in a social armor that we felt would repel discriminatory attacks. We outfitted them in uniforms that we hoped would help them escape profiling in stores and public areas: pastel-colored, non-hooded sweatshirts; cleanly pressed, belted, non-baggy khaki pants; tightly-laced white tennis sneakers; Top-Sider shoes; conservative blazers; rep ties; closely cropped hair; and no sunglasses. Never any sunglasses. No overzealous police officer or store owner was going to profile our child as a neighborhood shoplifter. With our son’s flawless diction and deferential demeanor, no neighbor or play date parent would ever worry that he was casing their home or yard. Seeing the unwillingness of taxis to stop for him in our East Side Manhattan neighborhood, and noting how some white women clutched their purses when he walked by or entered an elevator, we came up with even more rules for our three children: 1. Never run while in the view of a police officer or security person unless it is apparent that you are jogging for exercise, because a cynical observer might think you are fleeing a crime or about to assault someone. 2. Carry a small tape recorder in the car, and when you are the driver or passenger (even in the back seat) and the vehicle has been stopped by the police, keep your hands high where they can be seen, and maintain a friendly and nonquestioning demeanor. 3. Always zip your backpack firmly closed or leave it in the car or with the cashier so that you will not be suspected of shoplifting. 4. Never leave a shop without a receipt, no matter how small the purchase, so that you can’t be accused unfairly of theft. 5. If going separate ways after a get-together with friends and you are using taxis, ask your white friend to hail your cab first, so that you will not be left stranded without transportation. 6. When unsure about the proper attire for a play date or party, err on the side of being more formal in your clothing selection. 7. Do not go for pleasure walks in any residential neighborhood after sundown, and never carry any dark-colored or metallic object that could be mistaken as a weapon, even a non-illuminated flashlight. 8. If you must wear a T-shirt to an outdoor play event or on a public street, it should have the name of a respected and recognizable school emblazoned on its front. 9. When entering a small store of any type, immediately make friendly eye contact with the shopkeeper or cashier, smile, and say “good morning” or “good afternoon.” These are just a few of the humbling rules that my wife and I have enforced to keep our children safer while living integrated lives. For years, our kids — who have heard stories of officers mistakenly arresting or shooting black teens who the officers “thought” were reaching for a weapon or running toward them in a menacing way — have registered their annoyance at having to follow them. (My 12-year-old daughter saw the importance of the rules when, in late August, she and I were stopped by a county police officer who apparently was curious about a black man driving an expensive car. He later apologized.) Not many months ago, my children and I sat in the sprawling living room of two black bankers in Rye, N.Y., who had brought together three dozen affluent African-American parents and their children for a workshop on how to interact with law enforcement in their mostly white communities. Two police detectives and two criminal-court judges — all African-American — provided practical suggestions on how to minimize the likelihood of the adolescents being profiled or mistakenly hit by a Taser or shot by inexperienced security guards or police officers. Some of the parents and most of the kids sat smugly, passing around platters of vegetables and smoked salmon — while it helped to have the lessons reinforced by police officers, we had all heard it many times before. My kids and I had it all figured out. Or so we thought. The boarding-school incident this summer was a turning point for us — particularly for my son and his younger siblings. Being called a nigger was, of course, a depressing moment for us all. But it was also a moment that helped bring our surroundings into clearer focus. The fact that it happened just days before the police shooting of Michael Brown increased its resonance for our family. It also was a lesson for us to grasp that some white men may believe such acts are really no big deal. I called a dean at the boarding school, who seemed to justify the incident as something that “just happens” in a place where “town-and-gown relations” are strained, but he had little else to say. My son’s school adviser never contacted me about the incident, acting with the same indifference that so many black parents have come to expect. After I reached out to them, I never heard from either man again. Like so many whites who observe our experiences, these two privileged white males treated the incident like a “one-off” that demanded no follow-up and that quickly would be forgotten. Through no fault of their own, many white men, I think, are unaware or unappreciative of the white male privilege that they enjoy every day, which Wellesley professor McIntosh wrote about in her studies of race, gender, class and privilege. They have no idea how much they take for granted, or know of the burdens endured daily by many people in their own communities. Nor do they appreciate the lingering effects of such burdens and daily traumas. Perhaps many feel that racism is inconsequential, if not altogether dead. After all, as some of my white colleagues have pointed out cynically, how much racism can there be if the country elected a black president? Let me say that to acknowledge that white male privilege exists does not mean that white privileged men are hostile or racist — or that all bad things that happen to black people are occurring only because of racial bigotry. But I am no better able to explain the lackadaisical response of the two white men to whom I reported the incident than I am able to explain the motives of the two white men who called my son a nigger in the first place. And perhaps this is why it is so difficult to fairly and productively discuss the privilege (or burdens) that are enjoyed (or endured) by groups to which we don’t belong. Try as I may to see things from the perspective of a white person, I can see them only from the experience that I have as a black man and had as a black boy. As we observe each other and think that we have a close understanding of what it means to be black, white, Hispanic, Asian, male, female, rich or poor, we really don’t — and very often we find ourselves gazing at each other through the wrong end of the telescope. We see things that we think are there but really aren’t. And the relevant subtleties linger just outside our view, eluding us. Lawrence Otis Graham is an attorney in New York and the author of 14 books, including “Our Kind of People” and “The Senator and the Socialite.” This essay is adapted from a piece published originally in the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @LawrenceOGraham.
Deuteronomy 7: 6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
Leviticus 20: 26 And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.
First, he was cleared by the DA — and now he wants to be cleared by the fashion police.
The man who was attacked on an F train by women who mocked his 1980s-style 8-ball jacket will not be charged with assault for hitting one of them because he acted in self-defense, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said on Wednesday.
Jorge Peña, 25, hailed the news that he’s been cleared criminally. He also insisted that he was in the right from a fashion perspective.
He told The Post that the jacket is actually highly fashionable right now and was worn by the rapper TI in a recent music video.
“I love this jacket,” Peña said. “But I don’t think I can wear it anymore.
“People will just know me because of it and what happened.”
Peña — a former pro baseball prospect — was riding the train home from work Friday night when a pack of wild women started mocking his clothes and then one pulled off her stiletto boot and hit him in the head.
“I never slapped anyone before. Especially a girl,” said the 6-foot-6 Peña.
“But when I saw that blood, I couldn’t take it. She attacked me like a man.”
The woman who allegedly hit Peña with her stiletto boot, Danay Howard, 21, and Shanique Campbell, 20, who clobbered Peña with her purse, were charged with felony assault.
On the YouTube video, they are seen mocking Peña and knocking the phone from the hand of the person filming them before Howard attacks Peña and he responds by slapping her.
“You got a wack 8-ball jacket that came out in 1990,” Howard yells at Peña. “Get your money game up.”
The jacket was named one of the “Greatest Fashion Trends” of the ’90s by Complex Magazine and was featured on an episode of “Seinfeld.”
The video of the subway incident has racked up more than 4 million views since it was posted Sunday.
“Thank God for smartphones,” said defense attorney Cary London, of the law firm London Indusi.
“The DA’s office was able to have all of the information in front of them at an early stage to show that our client did nothing wrong and acted in self-defense.”
Peña plans to sue the city over his four days spent in jail after his arrest, said London.
A DA spokesperson confirmed that the charges against Peña were dropped once it was clear he had acted in self-defense.
Peña came to the US from the Dominican Republic and was a right-handed pitcher for an Oakland A’s minor-league farm team until injuries forced him to end his dream of reaching the big leagues in 2010.
Ecclesiastes 7:
26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.
Isaiah 3:
16 Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:
17 Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.
There's a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border, and Wall Street is betting that it will result in a boom for private prisons.
Geo Group (GEO)and Corrections Corporation of America (CXW) are two of America's largest for-profit prison operators. They have thousands of open beds, and they have deep relationships with the federal agencies charged with doling out contracts to house undocumented immigrants, including children.
"It's highly likely that the federal government will have to turn to the private sector for help with this crisis. Both companies are extremely well positioned," said Brian Ruttenbur, an analyst at CRT Capital Group who covers the stocks of Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
Investors are clearly seeing dollar signs. Shares of both CCA and Geo Group have spiked since the border crisis landed on front pages this summer. CCA has climbed 8.5% since July 30, and Geo Group is up over 7%. That's a lot better than the S&P 500's 1.5% advance over that time span.
Related: Crisis on the border
The Obama administration has already shifted over $405 million in funds to address the crisis and is urging Congress to pass a $3.7 billion emergency supplemental bill.
"Investors see this as an opportunity. This is a potentially untapped market that will have very strong demand," said Alex Friedmann, an activist investor who owns shares of both CCA and Geo Group.
Positioned to profit: Some of the prisons CCA and Geo Group own are not filled and others are completely idle. That means they are in the unique position to offer their services to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (known as ICE).
Ruttenbur said CCA and Geo Group have both been talking to the federal government about how they can help.
"We are always in conversations with our government partners including ICE, but we don't have anything new to report," a CCA spokesman told CNNMoney. Geo Group did not respond to a request for comment.
The best outcome for these companies would be landing a contract with the government to help house some of the undocumented immigrants at existing facilities that are currently idle.
That's exactly what happened last month when the U.S. border control inked a contract with Geo Group to give its adult detention center in Karnes County, Texas a makeover. Now the facility is able to house hundreds of immigrant women and children.
Bullish long-term trends: Of course, there's no guarantee CCA and Geo Group will end up benefiting from the border crisis. It's notoriously difficult to call the timing on any government contract.
"I've been doing this 20 years and I've never gotten that right," said Ruttenbur.
Still, analysts remain very bullish on the for-profit prison industry. Both companies reported better-than-expected earnings and raised their outlook for the rest of the year -- a double high-five that investors love to see.
Wall Street also applauded when CCA and Geo Group, which went public during the 1980s and 1990s, recently converted to real estate investment trusts, or REITs. That status, which is also used by hospitals and office building operators, gives them enormous tax advantages.
For-profit prisons are not without controversy. Some of these facilities have been criticized for poor conditions, including the CCA-run T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas. A 2007 lawsuit that alleged immigrant families at the center were kept under virtual 24-hour lockdown and denied adequate services. The U.S. government stopped housing families there in 2009.
But investors are attracted to prison stocks because they give generate lots of cash flow, have strong dividend yields and high occupancy rates compared to other real estate options.
"The long-term trends are very much in place right now because the federal, state and local governments aren't willing to put up the capital to build new facilities. The only group building new facilities is the private sector," said Ruttenbur.
Joel 3:
3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.
Obadiah 1:
10 For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever.
Members of a Missouri-based Ku Klux Klan chapter sent a chilling message in Ferguson claiming they will use “lethal force” to defend themselves from “terrorists masquerading as ‘peaceful protesters.’”
The Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK distributed fliers saying protesters have “awakened a sleeping giant,” and that demonstrators have threatened the lives of law enforcement, the community and their families.
“You have been warned by the Ku Klux Klan!” the flier reads. “There will be consequences for your actions against the peaceful, law abiding citizens of Missouri.”
Distributing fliers is no new method for the KKK, who have repeatedly dispersed threatening notices in communities around the nation from Florida to Chicago.
On Wednesday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes invited Frank Ancona, the leader of the KKK chapter in Missouri, to discuss reasons for spreading the fliers around Ferguson.
Hayes also questioned Ancona on the irony of the group’s mission in claiming to fight violence with more violence, saying it seems as though they are “attempting to bring about the exact same thing” they are against.
“No, actually it’s addressing the people who are making these terroristic threats and letting them know that the people of Missouri have rights too,” Ancona said.
He went on to refute accusations of incitement by explaining: “There are remedies under the law. The flier, if you read it, it says ‘defend’, it talks about defense. So, in order to defend yourself, that means you’re being attacked.”
Ancona also said he firmly believes that the fliers are making the situation better in St. Louis.
Following Ancona’s appearance on All In, Hayes reportedly received criticism from viewers who spoke out against the host for allowing Ancona a platform to share his controversial views.
The constant and critical responses of the segment prompted Hayes to address viewer concerns in a separate video following the close of the show.
“I still think it was the right call, in fact I may even feel that *more* strongly than I did last night. That said, I 100% understand why some people don’t see it that way. We debated and wrestled with whether or not to do it and weighed the pros and cons and ultimately decided there was real news/journalistic value in putting him on,” Hayes said.
“We wouldn’t have booked him to give us “his take” or “weigh in” on what’s going in Ferguson or some other story. We interviewed him because he was actually the person distributing those fliers.”
Psalm 55:
20 He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant.
21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Genesis 25:27
27 And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.
Over 300,000 Americans have already been infected with the potentially fatal 'kissing bug disease' called Chagas but U.S. healthcare workers lack of knowledge about the illness is letting many cases of the parasite unnoticed. Some doctors are calling it the 'new AIDS' because of the way it develops.
Researchers who gathered on Tuesday at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in New Orleans said that if caught early the disease can be cured however sometimes the disease can be asymptomatic and there is a dearth in medication for the condition.
The CDC reports that the initial symptoms of the disease caused by a parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, which is spread through the feces of kissing bugs includes fever, fatigue, body aches, rash, diarrhea and vomiting. One of the first visual signs can be a skin lesion or a purplish swelling of the lid of one eye.
The disease can develop in the body causing eventual heart failure and other deadly complications that by the time they are realized cannot be helped with medicine.
Deuteronomy 28:
59 Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
60 Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.
61 Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
Law Enforcement, Businesses Prepare for Possible Unrest With Decision on Whether to Indict Police Officer
Workers are boarding up windows in Ferguson, Mo., and police are re-stocking tear gas as they prepare for civil unrest that could follow a grand jury decision on whether to indict a police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old.
Soon after the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson, a grand jury began deciding whether to indict the officer for his role in the death. The jury, which has been meeting weekly for the most part, could make a decision as early as mid-November, the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office said.
And as the nation awaits that decision, those on the ground are making preparations. “We’ve been doing board-ups for probably the past month, the phone’s been ringing off the hook,” said Brian Krieger, owner of American Board Up and Construction Services in St. Louis. “I’ve already purchased 500 sheets of plywood.”
He said he expects work to increase in the coming days as businesses, especially those in the Ferguson area, take precautions for the announcement.
Local police, whose military-style gear seemed to fuel some of the violent confrontations during the summer, have been increasing training and trying to find ways to diffuse protests when the grand jury decision is announced.
As things intensified in August, the state police were put in charge, and later the National Guard was called in. Now, a unified command of state, county and city police departments are gearing up. A spokesman for the unified command couldn’t be reached for comment.
“Commanders in our department have been meeting almost daily,” said Brian Schellman, spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department. “We don’t really know what to expect, but as a police department it’s our job to prepare ourselves. We can’t be caught off guard one way or another.”
The department has spent more than $100,000 on gear since August, including $42,824 on “less-lethal munitions” and more than $2,000 on flex cuffs, which are single-use plastic restraints, Sgt. Schellman said. The department also replaced two cruisers totaled during protests.
Officers who might be assigned to crowd control have received extra training on responding to civil disturbances, including how to avoid unnecessary conflict with protesters, as well as how to deal with media rights and 14th Amendment considerations.
“If we never have to use tear gas again, we’re fine with it,” Sgt. Schellman said. “We will never use it against peaceful protesters.”
The Justice Department on Thursday began a two-day “Fair and Impartial Policing” training session for local law enforcement, said a department release. “Training is specifically designed to enhance officers’ understanding of how bias—including implicit or unconscious bias—affects officer behavior,” the statement said.
St. Louis-area school districts have been working with security officials to plan ways to help students safely make their way to and from school on streets that might have active protests, said Sherrie Wehner, spokeswoman for EducationPlus, a nonprofit consortium covering 61 school districts in the area.
The grand jury of 12 convened in May, but after being given the Brown case, their term of service was extended through January. In September, they began working solely on the Brown matter, meeting according to their own scheduling.
The St. Louis County Prosecutor’s office, which is overseeing the process, said it expects a decision as early as mid-November, said office spokesman Ed Magee. The jurors are still hearing testimony and have yet to begin deliberating, he said.
The grand jury has been dogged by alleged leaks from those involved with their deliberations and criticisms of a lack of transparency, leading some to assume Mr. Wilson won’t be indicted, said Mervyn Marcano, spokesman for Ferguson October, a protest organizing group.
“Folks are outraged not only by the killing of Mike Brown, but the government’s handling of the case,” Mr. Marcano said. “I think you’ll see some level of anger no matter what the charge is.”
Organizers have said they are trying to control the rage.
“We’re certainly planning for peaceful protest,” Mr. Marcano said, adding that the group can only “plan for nonviolent protest and hope for the best.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri announced Thursday the launch of a smartphone app that helps people record footage of interactions with law enforcement and then send an automated incident report to the organization for review.
The app has been in place in New York since 2012 and downloaded more than 30,000 times.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder criticized unauthorized releases of information about the case. “Whoever the sources of the leaks are needs to shut up,’’ he said.
Mr. Holder said there is a clear need for “wholesale change’’ in the Ferguson Police Department, but noted that it was wrong for people to try to predict exactly what those changes will be, or what the outcome of investigations into the shooting of Mr. Brown will be.
In addition to the grand jury, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is conducting a pattern-and-practice probe to determine whether the 53-member Ferguson force has been properly trained and supervised on fair treatment of people.
Blocks away from the Ferguson police station, Kelly Braun said her stomach aches because she’s worried.
Ms. Braun, owner of Marley’s Bar and Grill in downtown Ferguson, hasn’t closed her six-year-old business—even during the most violent days of unrest in Ferguson. She said she plans to stay open, even if there are no customers, because her employees depend on a paycheck. But she thinks there is a chance the grand jury announcement will force her to temporarily close.
“A few weeks ago, [protesters] marched by screaming that they were going to burn our place to the ground,” she said.
Cold fall weather is also a consideration and could affect turnout and intensity of outdoor protests, said Dr. Paul Gilje, a history professor at the University of Oklahoma who wrote the book “Riots in America.”
“Weather does matter. It’s hard to be out in the street rioting if the weather’s 25 degrees,” he said. “But it’s not impossible.”
ECCLESIASTES 7:
7 Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the heart.
PROVERBS 13:
12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
A Mississippi heritage group has launched a proposed ballot measure which would amend the state's constitution to recognize Christianity as the official religion of the state and English as the official language of the state.
The 12-part measure would also establish "Confederate Heritage Month," which would provide a curriculum base for school children to learn about "Mississippi's Confederate history, heritage, achievements, and prominent people," the initiative reads.
The initiative has been endorsed by former Miss America and Mississippian Susan Akin, Mississippi author Julie Hawkins and former state Rep. Mark DuVall, who tried and failed to pass legislation while he was in office in 2011 that would have allowed the restoration of Colonel Reb as Ole Miss' mascot.
"We want to give Mississippians the voice they deserve regarding their heritage," said Arthur Randallson, director of the Magnolia State Heritage Campaign. "We believe people should get a chance vote on these important issues and preserve these elements of our heritage."
Additional proposed changes under the initiative include flying the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of the Mississippi state capitol, mandating that the Mississippi state flag pledge of allegiance be recited after the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, and the mandatory broadcast of the song "Dixie" immediately following the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" in public venues.
It also includes multiple provisions regarding the state's universities. State universities Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi University for Women and Mississippi Valley State University would not be permitted to merge or consolidate. If passed, the University of Mississippi's on-field mascot would once again become "Colonel Reb" and the song "Dixie" would be played by the university. The initiative would also secure the existing mascots and traditions of Mississippi State University and University of Southern Mississippi.
For the initiative to make the 2016 ballot, 107,216 Mississippi residents have to sign the petition by October 2015. Randallson said the chances of the group receiving enough signatures to make the ballot "are virtually guaranteed," and he said he feels optimistic about the initiative's chances of receiving a majority of the votes in Mississippi if it advances to the 2016 ballot.
"Ballot measures are inherently difficult to predict," said John Bruce, chair of the political science department at University of Mississippi. "I'm sure they will receive the signatures to make the ballot. Never say never, but at this point, (the initiative being adopted) looks like a long shot."
The initiative began in 2011 after a failed ballot measure attempt by Randallson's former group, the Colonel Reb Political Action Committee. That 2011 ballot measure would have allowed the Colonel Reb mascot back on the sidelines in Oxford.
After the 2011 ballot measure failed, Randallson, who was then chair of the Tea Party of Mississippi, said he approached fellow Tea Party members and other colleagues involved with the Colonel Reb PAC.
"It was so much bigger than just Colonel Reb, and we felt that a broader initiative would be in the best interest of the state's voters," Randallson said. "We started formulating thoughts and developed the 12 provisions."
With a base of topics ranging from politics to religion to education, Randallson hopes the initiative will be marketable to voters in Mississippi. While he has already garnered signatures for the petition, others have expressed displeasure with the effort. Blogs and social media have begun lighting up about the issue, with users offering words like "offensive" and "embarrassing" to describe the proposal, and one blog claimed that part of the initiative was "yet another slap against racial equality and the Bill of Rights."
"If you're already being perceived poorly as Mississippi is, you'd want to stay away from those stereotypes and nullify them," Bruce said. "That's not what the group is doing at all."
DEUT 4:
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
EZEKIEL 3:
4 And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them.
5 For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel;
6 Not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.
