Tag: assault

Why I can no longer support Alan Grayson

Earlier today, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) physically assaulted Edward-Issac Dovere, a reporter for POLITICO, at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia earlier today.

Earlier this year, I endorsed Alan Grayson for the U.S. Senate seat that is up for election this year in Florida, and in 2014, I included Grayson on my bucket list of political figures that I’d like to meet in person. However, I am officially pulling my endorsement from Grayson, and, if I were to write an updated bucket list of elected officials and/or other political figures that I’d like to meet in person, Grayson’s name would be nowhere to be found on such a list.

It is a known fact that Lolita Grayson, Alan Grayson’s ex-wife, has repeatedly accused Alan Grayson of abusing her. Now, we have documented footage of Grayson abusing a member of the press. I will admit that I have given Alan Grayson too much of a benefit of the doubt when it comes to the domestic abuse allegations that his ex-wife has leveled against him. However, I cannot reasonably give Alan Grayson the benefit of the doubt any longer when it comes to his track record of abusing others. The Alan Grayson that is currently on the campaign trail is not the highly-effective progressive and the most electrifying man in American politics that I have long admired Grayson as. Instead, the Alan Grayson that is currently on the campaign trail is a thin-skinned bully and an abuser who doesn’t electrify any reasonable person.

Physical abuse of any kind should NEVER be tolerated. In fact, I call on the U.S. House of Representatives to begin expulsion proceedings against Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida.

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Donald Trump condones mob violence against a black person

Jeremy Diamond, a reporter for CNN, posted this Twitter video of a black man being physically assaulted by attendees of a Donald Trump presidential campaign rally in Birmingham, Alabama earlier today:

According to CNN and Raw Story, the protester was heard saying “black lives matter”, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, which prompted several Trump supporters to physically assault the protestor. Trump himself can be heard saying “get him the hell out of here” or something along those lines, which, in effect, amounted to condoning the violence against the protester. According to the Birmingham (AL) Police, three people were removed from the rally by law enforcement as a result of the scuffle.

With Donald Trump calling for an unconstitutional surveillance scheme of mosques in the United States and preventing Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. instead of facing the threat of death at the hands of ISIS and/or the Assad regime in Syria, it’s no surprise that a mob of Trump’s far-right supporters would physically assault a peaceful protestor. While Trump has every right to remove people he doesn’t like from a campaign event (all other presidential candidates have the same right to remove people they don’t like from their campaign events), his supporters don’t have the right to form a mob and beat up a peaceful protestor.

Donald Trump is inciting violence against Hispanic people

Scott Leader, a 38-year-old white man who allegedly assaulted a homeless Hispanic man in Boston, Massachusetts, cited Donald Trump as his justification for violence:

Police said Scott Leader, 38, told them it was OK to assault the man because he was Hispanic and homeless.

“Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” he allegedly told the police.

Leader and his brother, Steve Leader, were arrested yesterday. The attack occurred as the Leader brothers were going home after attending a baseball game at Fenway Park. It’s not known at this time whether the person who was assaulted is an undocumented immigrant or not. Slate magazine described the attack as follows:

…The brothers say the Hispanic man threatened them, but a prosecutor described the attack as “unprovoked” and the man reportedly told police that he was woken from sleep because the two brothers were urinating on his face. He suffered a broken nose and was reportedly struck several times in the head area with a metal pole.

Donald Trump’s absurd crusade against immigration isn’t just racist and un-American. It has now resulted in one documented instance of a Hispanic person being physically assaulted by white racists. What is even worse is that Trump, when notified by the Boston Globe of the Leader brothers’ attack, praised the attackers as “passionate” about his candidacy:

Trump, told of the alleged assault, said “it would be a shame . . . I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”

While Trump is probably never going to be charged with inciting violence, he’s clearly inciting violence against Hispanic people and not strongly condemning hate crimes that his supporters are committing.

My thoughts about no charges being filed against the police officer who killed Tony Robinson

Earlier today, Dane County, Wisconsin District Attorney Ismael Ozanne announced that he would not file any criminal charges against Matt Kenny, a member of the Madison, Wisconsin Police Department, despite the fact that he shot and killed 19-year-old Tony Robinson, who was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

Here’s my thoughts about this:

Right Decision, Bad Law

Given the description that Ozanne of what led to Kenny’s decision to shoot and kill Robinson, I believe that Ozanne made the right decision, given the current Wisconsin state law regarding law enforcement officers using deadly force. However, I believe that the law gives police officers in Wisconsin too broad of authority to use lethal force, and that many other states have similar laws on the books. Because Wisconsin state law allows law enforcement officers to use deadly force if, for whatever reason, the officer reasonably believes that someone is threatening to either kill or cause great bodily harm to the officer, the police shooting of Robinson was justified in the eyes of the law, but not justified in the eyes of my personal opinion. I believe that deadly force should never be used against an unarmed person like Robinson was at the time he was shot and killed by Kenny, and that deadly force should only be used if the suspect(s) is/are armed, the suspect(s) show(s) intent to use the weapon(s) against law enforcement officer(s) and/or others, and the officer(s) have no other option but to use deadly force.

Madison’s Police Taser Policy is Absurd

If you’re wondering why Kenny did not use a taser in order to stop Robinson without killing him, that’s because of an absurd policy in Madison that prohibits law enforcement officers from using a taser except when another officer is present at the scene. Madison’s taser policy should be amended to allow for officers to use tasers to stop suspects without another officer being present, and similar policies in other jurisdictions should be amended as well.

Racial Disparities are Systemic in Madison

Despite being America’s most progressive city, there’s systemic racial disparities between white people and black people in Madison. If you’re a black person in Madison, you’re anywhere from 8 to 11 times more likely to be arrested than a white person in Madison:

The Race to Equity report also found that black adults in Dane County were more than eight times as likely to be arrested as white adults in 2012, which was higher than the black-white arrest disparity in Wisconsin (4-to-1) and the entire nation (2.5-to-1) in 2010. While black men made up only 4.8 percent of the county’s total adult male population in 2012, they comprised more than 43 percent of all new adult prison placements that year.

Updated numbers for only Madison may be even worse: Erica Nelson, who authored the Race to Equity report, told PolitiFact Wisconsin that black adults are 10.9 times as likely as white adults to be arrested in the city, based on a preliminary analysis of the Madison Police Department’s 2013 annual report.

I Strongly Support a Peaceful, Constructive Movement Against Police Brutality and Systemic Racism

So as long as the protests are peaceful and constructive in nature, I strongly support protests against brutality by law enforcement officers and systemic racism in our society. A lot needs to be done to make America a truly equal place. Protests should be non-violent, raise awareness of the problems of police brutality and systemic racism, and raise awareness of various solutions to hold police officers who engage in brutality accountable and end the systemic racism in this country.

The problems of police brutality and systemic racism in this country go beyond Madison, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Baltimore, New York City, and Ferguson. They are nationwide problems that need to be addressed by the people, the media, and public officials. Most importantly, there needs to be a concerted effort in this country to, through non-violent protests, supporting progressive-minded candidates for public office, and implementing new laws and policies, to end police brutality and systemic racism in this country once and for all.

The New York City media is a textbook example of how the corporate media encourages racism in America

The local news media in the New York City television market, the largest local television market in the entire country, is a textbook example of how the local television newscasts in this country encourage racism in America.

Color of Change, an organization noted for its progressive and civil rights advocacy, published this infographic to their Twitter page. The infographic makes these two main points:

  1. While 51% of the people arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for murder, assault, and/or theft are black, a whopping 75% of the people that local television newscasts in the New York City market broadcast as being responsible for murder, assault, and/or theft are black.
  2. The fact that the local television newscasts in the New York City market broadcast instances of black people being responsible for crimes at a considerably higher percentage than the percentage of black people who are arrested by the NYPD for crimes cause many non-black viewers in the New York City area to develop hatred towards black people and drive a stereotype that all black people are criminals that should be avoided at all costs, which is an absolutely false stereotype.

You can view the full report on how local television newscasts in the New York City media market encourage racism in the New York City area here. The report studied local newscasts on four New York City local TV stations: WCBS-TV, WNBC-TV, WNYW-TV, and WABC-TV.

As a resident of the Champaign-Springfield television market in Illinois, I can attest that the local TV stations around here also broadcast instances of black people being accused of crimes at a far higher rate than the percentage of black people in the area covered by the Champaign-Springfield television market. In fact, the fact that local TV stations across the country tend to report instances of black people being accused of crimes at a far higher rate than the percentage of black people in the local television markets they serve is, more than likely, a nationwide problem that is dividing this country along racial lines.