"I've worked at the funeral home. I saw Billey Joe's wounds. And that wasn't an accident," said Chadrick Jack
Chadrick Jack, sports manager for the school district and the funeral home director who handled Johnson's arrangements, said he was disappointed in the ruling. He said Johnson's wound looked like it was made by a smaller weapon because a shotgun would have done more damage.
A star Mississippi high school football player accidentally shot and killed himself with his shotgun after he was pulled over during a traffic stop, a grand jury ruled Thursday.
Billey Joe Johnson, 17, a junior at southern Mississippi's George County High School, died of a wound to the left side of his head on Dec. 8 after a deputy pulled him over for running a red light. After an initial investigation, authorities said the wound had been self-inflicted.
The 16-member grand jury listened to 30 witnesses and looked at forensic evidence to try to determine whether it was an accident, suicide or even a possible slaying.
It concluded that no evidence, including DNA, indicated the deputy who pulled Johnson over had fired the shotgun and said no other people were involved in the shooting.
"The grand jury finds ... that Deputy Joe Sullivan was in his patrol car at the time of Billey Joe Johnson Jr.'s death," the ruling said.
The mystery surrounding the death has inflamed suspicion, with Johnson's family and the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People rejecting any notion that the black teen committed suicide. They said the talented running back, once clocked at 4.3 seconds in the 40-yard dash, had too much to live for, including a chance of playing in college and maybe the NFL.
His mother, Annette Johnson, said the 16-member grand jury's conclusion is wrong.
"I ain't buying that," she said, surrounded by supporters at the George County Circuit Courthouse. "We are going further and we are going higher."
Johnson family attorney Jerome Carter said he was glad the grand jury did not rule the teen's death was a suicide but still had concerns and that he would continue his own investigation.
The grand jury report said Sullivan, who is white, had gunpowder residue on his hands but concluded it came from him handling his service revolver the morning of the shooting. Based on the lack of Johnson's blood on Sullivan's clothes and eyewitness reports, the jury concluded the deputy could not have shot the athlete.
Johnson's hands also tested positive for gunpowder residue and there were no other injuries on his body, according to the report by the grand jury, made up of 14 white and two black members. The report did not detail how Johnson accidentally discharged the gun that had about a 28-inch barrel, which he had with him because he had planned to go hunting.
George County Sheriff Garry Welford said Thursday that his department's investigation found that after Sullivan took the teen's license and went back to his patrol car to check it, Johnson squatted down to move the shotgun from underneath the seat of his truck. He grabbed the barrel and the gun went off, said Welford, who did not know why the teen was trying to move the gun.
By the time other officers arrived, Johnson was lying on the ground outside of the driver's side door with a shotgun on top of him, the barrel pointing toward his head, police have said. The grand jury report said the safety was off and one spent round was in the chamber.
The Johnson family's attorney Carter said he hoped his team will be allowed to soon review the autopsy and other evidence.
"I'm very concerned with Detective Sullivan testing having gunshot residue on both of his hands having just logged in being on duty," Carter said.
The NAACP said it would submit its evidence to the U.S. Justice Department and ask for a federal probe
George County District Attorney Tony Lawrence said "It's a tragic accident, and I know it's hard for some people to accept that,"
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Are black men the most HATED in America?
DO YOU KNOW WHY THERE ARE MORE BLACK MEN IN JAIL THAN ANYONE ELSE?
IT'S NOT BECAUSE THEY COMMIT MORE CRIMES!
The racists among us, blatant and closeted, will be quick to attribute the imprisonment disparity to the misguided belief that blacks are inherently prone to criminality. I've seen no valid studies supporting that view. Blacks are disproportionately targeted, stopped, arrested, prosecuted, sentenced to long mandatory prison terms and executed. A study by the California Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts found that the justice system gives little attention or resources to investigating crimes against minorities and that minority defendants receive harsh treatment compared to white defendants in similar circumstances.
The study also found that black-on-black crime or Latino-on-Latino crime is not taken as seriously as crimes against whites. Judges seem to believe that violence is more "acceptable" to black women because they are viewed as coming from violent communities. A study by the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, which tracks the demographics of who in our society goes to prison and for what kinds of crimes, found that black men are going to jail in record numbers due to a surge in arrests for non-violent drug offenses.
The Sentencing Project also found that in 1993, 88% of those sentenced federally for crack cocaine distribution were black, while only 4.1% of the defendants were white. This, while there are studies showing that a majority of the nation's reported crack cocaine users are white. federal sentencing guidelines impose a five year minimum sentence if one is convicted of selling five grams of crack, yet the sale of an equal amount of powder cocaine yields only a one year sentence. Crack defendants tend to be black, while powder cocaine defendants tend to be white. Simple possession of more than five grams of crack is a felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for a first offender, while possession of the same amount of powder cocaine is a misdemeanor requiring no jail time. How do prosecutors decide which of these drug cases to pursue in federal court?
Drug trafficking indictments against five black men from Inglewood, California were thrown out after federal prosecutors refused to explain why the defendants were charged in federal court instead of state court. Federal sentences would be much stiffer for the offense than would state sentences. The decision to charge the men in federal court instead of state court is very significant. Federal law sets a minimum 10 year sentence for people convicted of selling more than 50 grams of crack. Under state law in California, the sentence for the same crime ranges from three to five years. In claiming racial bias in the case, the defendants noted that in 1991, all 24 crack cocaine cases handled by the federal public defender's office in Los Angeles involved black defendants. It was also shown that between 1991 and 1993, the federal public defender represented 53 defendants in crack cocaine cases, none of the defendants were white. In 1992, two hundred twenty-two white defendants charged with crack cocaine offenses were prosecuted in state court, effectively avoiding the harsh sentences required under the federal sentencing guidelines. In Los Angeles, where the case against the five blacks arose, not a single white offender had been convicted of a crack cocaine offense in the federal courts since 1986, when Congress enacted stiff new penalties.
So white criminals are allowed to walk free and roam the streets, putting our lives in danger because of this.
IT'S NOT BECAUSE THEY COMMIT MORE CRIMES!
The racists among us, blatant and closeted, will be quick to attribute the imprisonment disparity to the misguided belief that blacks are inherently prone to criminality. I've seen no valid studies supporting that view. Blacks are disproportionately targeted, stopped, arrested, prosecuted, sentenced to long mandatory prison terms and executed. A study by the California Judicial Council Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts found that the justice system gives little attention or resources to investigating crimes against minorities and that minority defendants receive harsh treatment compared to white defendants in similar circumstances.
The study also found that black-on-black crime or Latino-on-Latino crime is not taken as seriously as crimes against whites. Judges seem to believe that violence is more "acceptable" to black women because they are viewed as coming from violent communities. A study by the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, which tracks the demographics of who in our society goes to prison and for what kinds of crimes, found that black men are going to jail in record numbers due to a surge in arrests for non-violent drug offenses.
The Sentencing Project also found that in 1993, 88% of those sentenced federally for crack cocaine distribution were black, while only 4.1% of the defendants were white. This, while there are studies showing that a majority of the nation's reported crack cocaine users are white. federal sentencing guidelines impose a five year minimum sentence if one is convicted of selling five grams of crack, yet the sale of an equal amount of powder cocaine yields only a one year sentence. Crack defendants tend to be black, while powder cocaine defendants tend to be white. Simple possession of more than five grams of crack is a felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for a first offender, while possession of the same amount of powder cocaine is a misdemeanor requiring no jail time. How do prosecutors decide which of these drug cases to pursue in federal court?
Drug trafficking indictments against five black men from Inglewood, California were thrown out after federal prosecutors refused to explain why the defendants were charged in federal court instead of state court. Federal sentences would be much stiffer for the offense than would state sentences. The decision to charge the men in federal court instead of state court is very significant. Federal law sets a minimum 10 year sentence for people convicted of selling more than 50 grams of crack. Under state law in California, the sentence for the same crime ranges from three to five years. In claiming racial bias in the case, the defendants noted that in 1991, all 24 crack cocaine cases handled by the federal public defender's office in Los Angeles involved black defendants. It was also shown that between 1991 and 1993, the federal public defender represented 53 defendants in crack cocaine cases, none of the defendants were white. In 1992, two hundred twenty-two white defendants charged with crack cocaine offenses were prosecuted in state court, effectively avoiding the harsh sentences required under the federal sentencing guidelines. In Los Angeles, where the case against the five blacks arose, not a single white offender had been convicted of a crack cocaine offense in the federal courts since 1986, when Congress enacted stiff new penalties.
So white criminals are allowed to walk free and roam the streets, putting our lives in danger because of this.
Why are prisons being filled with black men?
Why are young black men portrayed as the faces of crime?
lets look at arrest by race statistics
In the all arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 6,324,006 cases
Blacks were arrested in 2,528,368 cases
In the violent crime arrest category
Whites were arrested in 248,167
Blacks were arrested in 156,718 cases
Forcible rape (does not include child molestation or statutory rape )
Whites were arrested in 11,381 cases,
Blacks were arrested in 6,089 cases
Aggravated Assault:
Whites were arrested in 200,634 cases
Blacks were arrested in 107,494 cases
Property crime arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 713,331
Blacks were arrested in 333,565 cases
"Between 1990 and 2001 the number of Blacks behind bars jumped from 360,000 to 622,200 an increase of 73%." It is reported that Black men (at 28.5%) are six times more likely than are White men (at 4.4%) to be imprisoned. Based on statistics, violent crimes arrest are relatively close between the races, with whites having a three to one arrest margin over blacks in the property crime category.
A disproportion of Black prisoners is contrary to available statistics. With Whites out numbering Blacks in the arrest category, the courts, parole, and probation systems are suspect and should be thoroughly examined. And with blacks only accounting for 14.2% of Michigan's total population, and whites 80.2%. Statistically speaking, whites should be a majority in Michigan's prison population.
Project Exile has shipped off thousands of African-Americans to serve long terms in Federal prisons. In May 31, 1999 AP story by Dominic Perella, then President Bill Clinton, praised Project Exile, "as a national model for fighting gun violence" prosecutors decide which defendants are subject to the 15 to life penalty. And statistics demonstrate, prosecutors, in more cases than not, target inner city defendants - usually black, for Project exile (15 years)
While defendants from outlying counties - usually white, face only state prosecution (5 years), for the same crimes. Miami Florida has a withhold of Adjudication. This is a tool Florida judges and prosecutors can use at their discretion that allows felony offenders to avoid a conviction.
Reported by the Miami Herald January 26 and January 30, 2004 series called Justice Withheld, "receiving a withhold allows you to legally say, you have never been convicted of a crime, even though a court found you guilty." In theory, withholds are handed out sparingly to supposedly deserving people in extenuating circumstances; but the Herald found that in practice, Withhold of Adjudication's "are handed out like Halloween candy." "Four-time losers get withholds." "Rapist and car thieves get withholds." "Drug dealers and batterers get withholds." And if, "you commit fraud or forgery, you've got an even chance of getting one." "Abuse or molest a child and your chances are actually better than even." The most detestable aspect is, the ones enjoying all that judicial mercy, are predominantly white defendants.
A study of the procedure showed, if "a black defendant commits the same crime and has the same record as a white defendant, the white defendant is 50 percent more likely to get a withhold.
Four years before the jena6 incident a Louisiana legislative investigating team sternly warned that the state’s juvenile justice system was horribly mangled. It found that the state couldn’t lock up juveniles fast enough for mostly non-violent crimes. The team noted that the sentences slapped on them were wildly out of proportion to their crimes, and that the kids had almost no access to counseling, job and skills training, and family support programs that could ensure that they didn’t wind up back in the system.
Though alternative sentencing programs are far more cost effective than jailing, they are scarce and under-funded, and Louisiana officials have resisted calls to increase funding and resources to boost these programs. The investigators also found unsurprisingly that black teens were hit with far stiffer sentences than white teens for the same crimes. It made no difference whether the whites had a prior history of criminal or bad behavior and the black teens were alter boys and had a squeaky clean record. The blacks still got harsher sentences. Countless studies show that a black teen is six times more likely to be tried and sentenced to prison than young whites, even when the crimes are similar, or even less severe than those committed by white teens.
Nationally, blacks make up 40 percent of youths tried in adult courts
and nearly 60 percent of those sentenced to state prisons.
The investigators implored the legislature to do something to correct the problem. They came up with a series of reform recommendations. They were largely ignored!!! The criminal justice system's harsh treatment of young blacks, like the Jena teens, fuels the suspicion of many, that judges, prosecutors and probation officers bend way over backwards to give young white offenders the benefit of the doubt. and are far less willing to label and treat, them as dangerous habitual offenders, even when they commit violent crimes. One study of the attitudes of probation officers toward black and white teen offenders found that they were far more likely to attribute black juvenile crimes to family or character flaws such as chronic disrespect toward authority. They were more likely to blame white bad behavior on conditions outside their control such as hanging out with the wrong crowd, or to troubling family conflicts.
From the cradle to the grave, in America, race matters and as it relates to crime, more whites are arrested than blacks but more blacks are in prison.
lets look at arrest by race statistics
In the all arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 6,324,006 cases
Blacks were arrested in 2,528,368 cases
In the violent crime arrest category
Whites were arrested in 248,167
Blacks were arrested in 156,718 cases
Forcible rape (does not include child molestation or statutory rape )
Whites were arrested in 11,381 cases,
Blacks were arrested in 6,089 cases
Aggravated Assault:
Whites were arrested in 200,634 cases
Blacks were arrested in 107,494 cases
Property crime arrest category:
Whites were arrested in 713,331
Blacks were arrested in 333,565 cases
"Between 1990 and 2001 the number of Blacks behind bars jumped from 360,000 to 622,200 an increase of 73%." It is reported that Black men (at 28.5%) are six times more likely than are White men (at 4.4%) to be imprisoned. Based on statistics, violent crimes arrest are relatively close between the races, with whites having a three to one arrest margin over blacks in the property crime category.
A disproportion of Black prisoners is contrary to available statistics. With Whites out numbering Blacks in the arrest category, the courts, parole, and probation systems are suspect and should be thoroughly examined. And with blacks only accounting for 14.2% of Michigan's total population, and whites 80.2%. Statistically speaking, whites should be a majority in Michigan's prison population.
Project Exile has shipped off thousands of African-Americans to serve long terms in Federal prisons. In May 31, 1999 AP story by Dominic Perella, then President Bill Clinton, praised Project Exile, "as a national model for fighting gun violence" prosecutors decide which defendants are subject to the 15 to life penalty. And statistics demonstrate, prosecutors, in more cases than not, target inner city defendants - usually black, for Project exile (15 years)
While defendants from outlying counties - usually white, face only state prosecution (5 years), for the same crimes. Miami Florida has a withhold of Adjudication. This is a tool Florida judges and prosecutors can use at their discretion that allows felony offenders to avoid a conviction.
Reported by the Miami Herald January 26 and January 30, 2004 series called Justice Withheld, "receiving a withhold allows you to legally say, you have never been convicted of a crime, even though a court found you guilty." In theory, withholds are handed out sparingly to supposedly deserving people in extenuating circumstances; but the Herald found that in practice, Withhold of Adjudication's "are handed out like Halloween candy." "Four-time losers get withholds." "Rapist and car thieves get withholds." "Drug dealers and batterers get withholds." And if, "you commit fraud or forgery, you've got an even chance of getting one." "Abuse or molest a child and your chances are actually better than even." The most detestable aspect is, the ones enjoying all that judicial mercy, are predominantly white defendants.
A study of the procedure showed, if "a black defendant commits the same crime and has the same record as a white defendant, the white defendant is 50 percent more likely to get a withhold.
Four years before the jena6 incident a Louisiana legislative investigating team sternly warned that the state’s juvenile justice system was horribly mangled. It found that the state couldn’t lock up juveniles fast enough for mostly non-violent crimes. The team noted that the sentences slapped on them were wildly out of proportion to their crimes, and that the kids had almost no access to counseling, job and skills training, and family support programs that could ensure that they didn’t wind up back in the system.
Though alternative sentencing programs are far more cost effective than jailing, they are scarce and under-funded, and Louisiana officials have resisted calls to increase funding and resources to boost these programs. The investigators also found unsurprisingly that black teens were hit with far stiffer sentences than white teens for the same crimes. It made no difference whether the whites had a prior history of criminal or bad behavior and the black teens were alter boys and had a squeaky clean record. The blacks still got harsher sentences. Countless studies show that a black teen is six times more likely to be tried and sentenced to prison than young whites, even when the crimes are similar, or even less severe than those committed by white teens.
Nationally, blacks make up 40 percent of youths tried in adult courts
and nearly 60 percent of those sentenced to state prisons.
The investigators implored the legislature to do something to correct the problem. They came up with a series of reform recommendations. They were largely ignored!!! The criminal justice system's harsh treatment of young blacks, like the Jena teens, fuels the suspicion of many, that judges, prosecutors and probation officers bend way over backwards to give young white offenders the benefit of the doubt. and are far less willing to label and treat, them as dangerous habitual offenders, even when they commit violent crimes. One study of the attitudes of probation officers toward black and white teen offenders found that they were far more likely to attribute black juvenile crimes to family or character flaws such as chronic disrespect toward authority. They were more likely to blame white bad behavior on conditions outside their control such as hanging out with the wrong crowd, or to troubling family conflicts.
From the cradle to the grave, in America, race matters and as it relates to crime, more whites are arrested than blacks but more blacks are in prison.
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