U.S. Attorney General Officially announces investigation of Baltimore Police Department (Photo via newsweek.com)
Washington (CNN) The Justice Department launched on Friday a pattern or practice investigation into the methods of the Baltimore Police Department, weeks after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.
Calling police-community relations “one of the most challenging issues of our time,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Friday the investigation, which will look into whether the police department has used excessive force and conducted unlawful searches, seizures and arrests, and discriminatory policing practices through the lens of civil rights and constitutional violations.
She said she launched the investigation at the urging of Baltimore officials and community leaders, and with the support of the Baltimore police union. “Our goal is to work with the community, public officials, and law enforcement alike to create a stronger, better Baltimore,” Lynch said at a press conference Friday.
If violations are found, the investigation will result in a “court-enforceable agreement” to change the practices of the Baltimore Police Department.
Attorneys and investigators with the Justice Department’s civil rights division will meet with Baltimore law enforcement officials and community members in the coming days and weeks, Lynch said.
Lynch said the protests in Baltimore in recent weeks revealed that the trust between the community and Baltimore police officers “is even worse and has been severed” and said she hopes the investigation can lead to reforms to “create a stronger, a safer and a more unified city.”
She also emphasized that the turmoil in Baltimore — from Gray’s death in police custody to the ensuing protests and rioting — should not define the city.
“Earlier this week I visited with members of the community who took to the streets in the days following the unrest to pick up trash to clear the debris and they are Baltimore,” Lynch said, adding that youth leaders and tireless police officers focused on protecting the community “they too are Baltimore.”
(Photo Source: JEWEL SAMAD / Getty)
Four NYPD parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit against the Ramapo Police Department after claiming they were racially profiled during a recent traffic stop, CNNreports. The officers were stopped on April 21 while attempting to carry out an arrest warrant and wearing their badges, bulletproof vests, and a placard on their truck’s dashboard.
The force claims they received a 911 call about “four big people” with “bulletproof vests on” riding in an unmarked car. According to CNN:
Mario Alexandre and his colleagues — Sheila Penister, Annette Thomas-Prince and Samuel Washington — are all black New York State Parole officers. The parole officers have filed a civil lawsuit, alleging that they were racially profiled by the white officers and that their detainment was unnecessarily malicious and reckless.
In addition to being punched by a lieutenant, Alexandre says he showed his badge but was ignored by the rest of the officers.
Penister said that when she attempted to show her New York State ID to a police sergeant, he “became enraged and approached her in a threatening manner with his hand held on the butt of his gun,” court documents state. When all parole officers were identified, they allege they were still forcibly detained and not permitted to leave.
Penister later told reporters she still suffers anxiety towards other officers. All of the parole officers have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Ramapo Town Assistant Attorney Dennis Lynch says the police officers acted accordingly.
Lynch said called the actions of the police officers “reasonable under the circumstances” and that the “parole officers had not notified the town that they would be in town.”
The officers have not been placed on suspension, despite demands from the victims.
San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón (Photo via sfexaminer.com)
First came disclosures of racist and homophobic text messages exchanged by officers of San Francisco’s Police Department. That was followed by the discovery that sheriff’s deputies had been gambling on forced fighting matches between inmates at a city jail.
Then on Thursday, the San Francisco district attorney George Gascón announced that he was expanding the investigation of the city’s police and sheriff’s departments to examine whether those agencies have a deep-seated culture of systemic bias that has led to unlawful arrests or prosecutions.
In a year in which many of the nation’s major cities have been rocked by protests after the fatal police shootings of unarmed African-Americans, the broadened inquiry made clear that even a city known for its liberal politics can be buffeted by accusations that its officers behaved in a racially biased manner.
African-Americans in San Francisco have complained for years about harassment and the use of excessive force by the police. And while African-Americans make up about 5 percent of the city’s population, they account for half of its arrests and jail inmates, and more than 60 percent of the children in juvenile detention, according to city statistics.
D.A. Gascón, formerly the SFPD Chief of Police, said, “If just one individual was wrongly imprisoned because of bias on the part of these officers, that’s one too many.”
In Baltimore on Wednesday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake acknowledged a “fractured relationship between the police and the community” in her predominately African-American city and asked the Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation of the Police Department to determine whether officers had engaged in unconstitutional patterns of abuse or discrimination.
At a news conference in San Francisco announcing the expanded inquiry, the district attorney, George Gascón, acknowledged that the racist text messages had particularly undermined public confidence in both his office and the local criminal justice system.
“In the last few months, we have seen city after city where police use of force or other police activity is coming to the light and indicating that racial animosity and other types of biases play a significant role,” he said. “I think at one point we felt we would be immune from that type of activity.”
He also said he believed that the city’s tradition of inclusivity would allow it to avoid the tumult in Ferguson, Mo., and other cities where racial bias has been found to have played a role in the actions of police officers.
Last May, shortly after word began to spread that Dr. Dre had sold his eponymous headphone line to Apple, the superproducer made a proclamation: rap’s first billionaire was about to be crowned, and he hailed from Los Angeles.
“The first billionaire in hip-hop, right here on the [expletive] West Coast,” exclaimed Dre in a video clip that went viral almost instantly. But the deal, whose value was initially reported at $3.2 billion, ended up at an even $3 billion in cash. After taxes, Dre’s 25% stake left him with a $500 million windfall–$100 million more than FORBES estimated his stake to be worth last April–and a net worth of $700 million.
Amazingly enough, Dre is not the richest man in hip-hop; that honor goes to Diddy, who clocks in at $735 million. The news may come as a surprise to many, but while Dre’s wealth derived from a single jackpot idea, Diddy’s is the product of his interests in a slew of companies, a handful of which could one day give him a Beats-esque exit.
Diddy has a deal with Diageo’s Ciroc vodka that guarantees him a split of the proceeds if the brand is ever sold, an event that would surely land him a nine-figure check. He also owns a controlling stake, or close to it, in clothing lines Sean John and Enyce, alkaline water brand Aquahydrate, new tequila DeLeon and multimedia network Revolt. Diddy founded the latter as a sort of next generation MTV with a renewed focus on music.
“Revolt got built out of the frustration Sean was having with music media being able to get his albums out there,” says Revolt chief executive Keith Clinkscales. “Sean has been aggressive in being sure that we put the power of the platform in the hands of musicians to be able to create with fans in their authentic voice.” 2015 Top 5 Hip-Hop Artists By Wealth:
Diddy $730 Million
Dr. Dre $700 Million
Jay Z $550 Million
50 Cent $155 Million
Birdman $150 Million
Diddy isn’t the only hip-hop mogul with that aim. Jay Z, who ranks third with a fortune of $550 million, purchased and relaunched Scandinavian streaming service Tidal this year with promises of creating an artist-owned Spotify competitor set apart by exclusive content.
Though the star-studded rollout struck some as tonedeaf—prompting a flurry of rich-getting-richer criticism, and perhaps a change in strategy for Jay Z—Tidal is still early in its life as a company, and may yet prove to be an increasingly valuable asset to Jay Z and to the whole industry.
“It’s alerting people that streaming is a viable option for them to listen to music,” says Jay Frank, chief of digital marketing outfit DigMark, of Tidal. “The more that we have positive conversations on that, the more opposition we have to grow the business.” 50 Cent and Birdman round out the list of five, with fortunes of $155 million and $150 million, respectively. The latter’s total dipped slightly due to uncertainty surrounding Cash Money Records, by far his biggest asset, which has been dogged by rumors of the departure of big acts including superstar Lil Wayne.
Danotiss Smith and his mom, Belinda Hunt-Smith (Photo via huffingtonpost.com)
A Michigan senior is going to spend one of high school’s most important nights doing something special for, and with, his mother.
One afternoon last month, Belinda Hunt-Smith asked her 18-year-old son Danotiss Smith — whom she lovingly calls Stump, a nickname his great-grandfather gave him two days after he was born — about who he was taking to prom.
Unexpectedly, Stump told his mom he didn’t want to take anyone but her.
“He explained it to me like, ‘You’re always there, you do everything for me. I want you to go,” Hunt-Smith, who lives in Pontiac, told The Huffington Post. “For him to want to share that moment with me… I’m at a loss for words.”
The invitation was particularly meaningful to Hunt-Smith because, as her son knew, she didn’t go to her own prom. She turned down several dates because she couldn’t afford to buy a dress or get her hair done.
“It tore me up inside, because I really wanted to go. I think I cried every night up until prom,” Hunt-Smith said. She told classmates who asked why she wasn’t there that she hadn’t wanted to attend.
“I didn’t want people to know that I was in a bad situation,” she explained. “I [told myself] ‘If I ever have kids I’ll make sure they can go.'”
When Hunt-Smith was 11, her mom died of leukemia. Her dad decided he couldn’t take care of her and her siblings two years later, she said, and she moved in with her grandmother and helped raise her two younger brothers. She felt like she was on her own in life.
“It didn’t change my way of thinking, because I wanted to make my momma proud of me,” Hunt-Smith said. “She told me before she died, ‘You are my strongest kid.’ And I never understood it until now, but everything I went through, I came out of.”
Hunt-Smith is now filled with pride for her own son. She fondly remembers when he was a 4-year-old water boy for her older son’s third grade baseball team and ended up filling in as third baseman. “Do you know, my baby got on that base, and not one ball got past him?” she gushed.
Stump eventually switched to football and track. Next year he will go off to college in Iowa. But first, he and his mom will spend Friday evening at the Waterford Kettering High School prom — watch Hunt-Smith show off her dress and teach her son to dance in a video from Click on Detroit by clicking here.
“This is the best Mother’s Day gift I ever could have wanted,” she said. article by Kate Abbey-Lambertz via huffingtonpost.com
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
A day after U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch visited Baltimore in the wake of unrest after Freddie Gray died of fatal injuries received in police custody, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the city’s embattled police department, according to a live report on CNN.
Lynch visited the city on Tuesday and attended a series of meetings with the mayor, embattled Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, and members of Gray’s family, reports The Baltimore Sun. Gray’s death reinflamed nationwide tensions over police brutality in Black communities, sparking sometimes violent protests last week.
Justice Department spokesperson Dena Iverson released a statement Wednesday regarding the possible DOJ investigation: “The Attorney General has received Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s request for a Civil Rights Division ‘pattern or practice’ investigation into the Baltimore Police Department. The Attorney General is actively considering that option in light of what she heard from law enforcement, city officials, and community, faith and youth leaders in Baltimore yesterday.”
Rawlings-Blake’s announcement follows a bold move last week by Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby to bring charges against six police officers in Gray’s death, which has been ruled a homicide. article by Lynette Holloway via newsone.com
After appearing in the hit ABC Shonda Rhimes medical drama, and directing a number of episodes, Debbie Allen is getting ready to step into an even larger role, as an executive producer and regular director for the upcoming 12th season of the show, which actually hasn’t been officially renewed, but is obviously expected to be.
The ratings for “Grey’s Anatomy” continue to be strong for ABC, as part of the network’s booming Thursday night lineup, also known as Shonda night, given that all 3 drama series (“Grey’s,” “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder”) that air in primetime on that day, are all Shondaland babies. Also, ratings have apparently surged ever since (SPOILER ALERT) the show killed off one of its key players in Patrick Dempsey. Although it’ll be worth paying attention to see whether the momentum carries.
Debbie Allen has directed episodes of several different TV shows over the years, dating back to “Fame” in the 1980s, to “Jane the Virgin” and “Empire” most recently. This new deal ensures that she will be even more involved in the production of the series from here-on, while still also recurring as Dr. Catherine Avery.
The final episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” will air over the next two Thursdays. article by Tambay A. Obenson via blogs.indiewire.com
Sam’s Club and the Sam’s Club Giving Program recently announced the Small Business Economic Mobility Initiative, a five-year, multimillion-dollar philanthropic investment in small business growth through increased access to affordable capital and better borrower education. The first round of grants totaling $13.6 million went to eight national nonprofit organizations that provide access to capital and education to underserved U.S. small businesses including women, minorities and veterans. The announcement was made in celebration of National Small Business Week (May 4-8).
”Our founder Sam Walton started Sam’s Club to help small businesses get access to big business savings, save money and grow their businesses as a result,” Rosalind Brewer, president and CEO of Sam’s Club, said in a released statement. “Through this philanthropic investment, our founders’ legacy is carried forward by fortifying our communities’ lending resources to increase access to capital and borrower education for small business owners. In collaboration with dedicated nonprofits, we are proud to open doors for small business and strengthen the backbone of the U.S. economy.”
Through 2019, Sam’s Club’s Small Business Economic Mobility initiative aims to enable nonprofit Community Development Financial Institutions to make 5,000 loans to underserved small businesses with focus on women, minority and veteran-owned businesses with fewer than 20 employees; unlock $100 million in new capital from non-bank, community lending resources to low- and moderate-income small business owners; support 28,000 jobs in the small business community; and, reach one million underserved small business owners with education on responsible lending and better borrower practices.
Sam’s Club launched the philanthropic initiative to respond to the national struggle for small business owners in low-to-moderate income communities to attain affordable loans and navigate the lending process. By bringing together expertise, business initiatives such as the recently announced Business Lending Center and philanthropic investments, Sam’s Club and Sam’s Club Giving Program are uniquely positioned to help small business owners access affordable capital.
Across the country, small businesses and entrepreneurs report that access to capital is a major barrier to growth. According to The State of Small Business Lending report published by Harvard Business School fellow and former SBA Administrator Karen Mills, the share of small business loans provided by banks 20 years ago was about 50%, compared to only 30% in 2012. Specifically, minority owned businesses typically encounter higher borrowing costs, receive smaller loans and see their loan applications rejected more often by banks, according to a Minority Entrepreneurship Report published by UC-Berkeley and Wayne State University. article by Carolyn M. Brown via blackenterprise.com
Prince at the Grammy Awards in February. (Credit: John Shearer/Invision, via Associated Press)
A protest song was not enough.
Days after announcing his song “Baltimore,” a tribute to Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury while in police custody, Prince has announced a surprise “Rally 4 Peace” concert in Baltimore. It will be held Sunday at Royal Farms Arena.
“In a spirit of healing, the event is meant to be a catalyst for pause and reflection following the outpouring of violence that has gripped Baltimore and areas throughout the U.S.,” Live Nation, the concert promoter, said in a statement. “As a symbolic message of our shared humanity and love for one another, attendees are invited to wear something gray in tribute to all those recently lost in the violence.”
Tickets go on sale today at 5 p.m. EST at LiveNation.com. Part of the proceeds will benefit Baltimore youth charities, organizers said.
While “Baltimore” has yet to be released — Prince said he was considering streaming the track on Jay Z’s Tidal service — its lyrics were made available online. The song begins:
Nobody got in nobody’s way
So I guess you could say
It was a good day
At least a little better than the day in Baltimore
“Pariah” and “Bessie” director Dee Rees (CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES FOR HBO)
FX is developing a limited historical drama series with writer-director Dee Rees and Shondaland based on Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 book “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
The book chronicles the movement of some 6 million African-Americans from the south into the north and western regions of the country from the period of 1915 to 1970. “Warmth of Other Suns” tells much of the story through the eyes of three characters who made the journey in different decades. Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for her work at the New York Times, earned a host of critical acclaim for the book.
The TV adaptation is in the early stages of development. FX Prods. is shepherding with ABC Signature, the cable arm of ABC Studios, where Shondaland is based. Rees is writing the adaptation and exec producing with Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland’s Besty Beers.
Rees most recently wrote and directed HBO’s Bessie Smith biopic “Bessie,” which bows May 16. She made her feature directing debut in 2011 with the Sundance hit “Pariah.” article by Cynthia Littleton via Variety.com
