There’s a new boss in charge over at the New York Police Department and she’s making history with her seat at the top of the totem pole.
Kim Royster is currently the Commanding Officer in the NYPD’s Public Information Office and is set to be promoted to Deputy Chief at the end of this month, which will make her the highest ranking African-American woman in the history of the NYPD. As her history with the department goes, Kim is a 30-year NYPD veteran who first got her start in 1985 as a police administrative aid and has since worked her way to her current position as commanding officer.
Among Kim’s most notable accomplishments is her reputation for being the “driving force” behind NYC’s gun buy-back program, which has been credited with the removal of over 8,000 weapons off of the streets, according to the New York Daily News.
The million dollar question, of course, is how much of an impact Kim will be able to have on making necessary changes within the NYPD in the wake of the current tension between police and the Black community, and the answer is that she’ll reportedly be in a position to make things happen at her discretion. A “high-ranking source” tells the NYDN that as the Deputy Chief, one of Kim’s primary responsibilities will be to over see the recruitment process for the police academy and remain involved with the process through its’ completion.
Congratulations to Kim Royster on her promotion. We look forward to seeing ways in which she is able to bring about a change for the better within the NYPD.
article via clutchmagonline.com
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HOUSTON — The family of Sandra Bland, the Illinois woman found dead in a Texas jail cell last month, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Houston seeking to hold people involved in her death accountable. “We are looking for Waller County and the individuals involved to take accountability,” said attorney Cannon Lambert Sr., who is representing the family.
The lawsuit is filed against Trooper Brian Encinia, the sheriff of Waller County, Texas, two of the jailers and the Texas Department of Public Safety, Lambert said.
Encinia arrested Bland on July 10 in Waller County, Texas. Three days later, on July 13, she was found dead in a jail cell in Hempstead, Texas. Officials say she used a plastic bag to hang herself.
Many of Bland’s family, friends and others on social media worldwide have questioned that explanation. They say she was about to start a new job at Prairie View A&M University, her alma mater.
The 28-year-old was pulled over for failing to signal while changing lanes. She was arrested for allegedly kicking Encinia during a traffic stop near Prairie View A&M. Dashcam video does not make clear whether or not that happened, but does show the encounter quickly escalating after Encinia tells Bland to put out her cigarette.
The trooper was put on desk duty for violating procedures during the stop. “Mr. Encinia is still employed and it doesn’t make sense that the taxpayers are paying for the type of service that he employed on July 10,” Lambert said.
“This family needs an answer to the principle question of what happened to Sandra Bland. It’s why we filed suit,” he said.
The family would like the Department of Justice to investigate Bland’s death as they said the case requires a fresh set of eyes. Last week, Waller County officials released hours of video of Bland inside the jail to try to disprove claims of foul play.
On July 22, police released a 52-minute long dash camera video from Encinia’s car. The clip showed Encinia yelling for Bland to get out of her car and demanding that she put her phone away. “Step out, or I will remove you,” he said repeatedly, opening the driver’s door as she protested.
The release of the video raised questions on whether the video had been edited. The Texas Department of Public Safety disputed those claims, saying the “glitches” in the video came during the uploading process. The next day, the department released the video without the “glitches.”
“I watched the video once. I will not watch it again,” said Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland’s mother. She said watching the video she felt “anger, disgust, disappointment and sadness. I have chosen to channel those feelings in another way. … I am angry. Justice is going to be served if the justice system does what it’s supposed to do.”
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – The Jets announced Saturday that they have promoted longtime executive Jacqueline Davidson to director of football administration.
Davidson, who is African-American, now is one of the highest-ranking women in an NFL front office.
Davidson, who is African-American, now is one of the highest-ranking women in an NFL front office.
Davidson — the team’s lead negotiator of player contracts — will be responsible for managing the team’s salary cap and player budget, along with forecasting salary-cap trends in the NFL and ensuring that the Jets are compliant with the NFL collective-bargaining agreement.
“Jackie has served as an integral part of our football administration efforts under Rod Graves this offseason,” general manager Mike Maccagnan said of Davidson, now in her ninth season with the organization. “She’s bright and talented and she has earned this opportunity.”
Davidson first worked with the NFL in 2004 as a legal intern with the NFL management council. Before joining the Jets, she worked as staff attorney for the U.S. District Court in Alabama.
Davidson earned her juris doctorate from Cornell in 2005 and her bachelor of arts in economics from Davidson in 2002. She also is a member of the New York State Bar.
article by Kimberely A. Martin via newsday.com
President Barack Obama marks his 54th birthday Tuesday with a busy schedule that covers United Nations policy, his vice president, entrepreneurship, and the Iran nuclear deal.
In the morning, Obama welcomes United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Oval Office, with an agenda likely to range from Iran to climate change. The president addresses the U.N. General Assembly next month.
The president also holds his weekly lunch with Vice President Biden. This session holds special interest, coming in the wake of news reports that Biden will soon decide whether or not to seek the presidency in 2016.
In the afternoon, Obama hosts a first-time event: White House Demo Day, featuring entrepreneurs from across the country.
“Unlike a private-sector Demo Day, where entrepreneurs and startups pitch their ideas to funders, these innovators from around the country will ‘demo’ their individual stories,” says the White House schedule.
The president will view some of the demonstration exhibits and make remarks.
Obama ends the day by meeting with American Jewish community leaders to discuss the Iran nuclear deal.
It’s another part of an overall White House effort to promote the agreement in which the U.S. and allies reduce sanctions on Iran as it gives up the means to make nuclear weapons.
Congressional Republicans and some Jewish organizations oppose the deal, saying it gives Iran room to cheat and stressing Iranian threats against Israel.
Sometime along the way Tuesday, Obama will presumably celebrate his birthday. The president was born Aug. 4, 1961, in Hawaii.
article by David Jackson via usatoday.com
Thelma Golden, former curator at the Whitney Museum and current director and chief curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, has been picked by President Barack Obama to join the board of the Obama Foundation. Her role will be to plan the presidential library at the Barack Obama Presidential Center in the South Side of Chicago, a museum and library for Obama’s life, presidency, and legacy.
Other new members of the board include John Doerr, a venture capitalist who was on Obama’s USA Economic Recovery Advisory Board and Julianna Smoot, the former White House Social Secretary and Deputy Assistant to the President. Both Smoot and Doerr have played vital roles in fundraising for Obama, reports the Observer.
During Golden’s 15-year tenure at The Studio Museum (she has been the director for the past 10 years) the museum has seen immense visitor growth and international acclaim. She will also oversee a $122 million expansion. Golden is lauded for organizing pioneering exhibitions of African-American artists, raising profiles of important artists such as Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Chris Ofili, and turning the museum into a cultural focal point in Harlem.
“I am very much looking forward to joining the Board of Directors, and working to make the Obama Presidential Center a hub for creative expression through the arts,” Golden said in a statement on the foundation’s website. “The South Side of Chicago has historically been the nexus of several important cultural movements for African-Americans, and I believe the new Center will help usher in a new era of community engagement for this extraordinary neighborhood.”
According to the website, the Foundation “will inspire the next generation of young leaders all over the world. It will convene the brightest minds with the newest ideas from across the political spectrum, and draw strength from the rich diversity and vitality of Chicago, the city it calls home.”
article by Christie Chu via news.artnet.com
Kiki Baker Barnes was chosen as the 2015 Administrator of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Directors. Since 2006, Dr. Barnes has been the director of athletics at Dillard University in New Orleans.
Dr. Barnes also serves as president of the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. She is currently conducting research on the relationship between coach’s influence, student engagement, and student-athlete success.
“Dr. Barnes is not just a leader at Dillard,” said Dr. Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University. “She is a leader for our conference and for athletics nationally. Her energy and initiative have been great, and we are proud of her accomplishments.”
Dr. Barnes holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of New Orleans. She also earned a master’s degree in communication and media studies at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.
article via jbhe.com
NAACP leaders on Saturday kicked off a 40-day “Journey for Justice” march across the South, beginning with a rally in Selma, Ala., a city that played a pivotal role in the the 1960s civil rights movement, according to The Associated Press.
The goal of the march is to “call attention to the issue of racial injustice in modern America,” the report says. The trek will span across eastern seaboard states before ending in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15.
The event began on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where peaceful marchers were attacked by police in 1965 spurring the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which was signed into law 50 years ago this week. In November, the group led a march from Ferguson, Mo., to Jefferson City, Mo., in protest after Darren Wilson, a white police officer, was not indicted in the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teen.
“We know we can do the distance because our lives, our votes, our jobs and our schools matter,” said Cornell William Brooks, president and chief executive of the NAACP, reports Reuters.
“Let us march on, let us march on, let us march on till victory is won,” said Brooks, as he led about 200 marchers across the bride on the first leg of the journey, Reuters writes.
article by Lynette Holloway via theroot.com
article by Lynette Holloway via theroot.com
Some people in state and federal prisons will be eligible for Pell Grants under a program announced Friday by the U.S. Department of Education. The Second Chance Pell Pilot Program aims to help the incarcerated “get jobs, support their families and turn their lives around,” the department said in a press release.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 established Pell Grants as a type of federally funded financial aid for college students that students do not need to repay. The government decides how much aid to award each student based on financial need, cost of the school, enrollment status and future enrollment plans. The maximum amount per student for the upcoming school year is $5,775.
In 1994, Congress passed a bill that made people in state and federal prisons ineligible for Pell Grants. By that time, according to The Washington Post, 25,168 of the 3.3 million students who received the grants were prisoners, costing the government $34.6 million of the $5.3 billion it spent on the program. Some politicians felt that slice was too much of the pie. “Law-abiding students have every right to be outraged when a Pell Grant for a policeman’s child is cut, but a criminal that the officer sends to prison can still get a big check,” a congressman said at the time.
On Friday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in the press release: “America is a nation of second chances. Giving people who have made mistakes in their lives a chance to get back on track and become contributing members of society is fundamental to who we are—it can also be a cost-saver for taxpayers.”
Studies show that prison education programs help reduce recidivism rates, which in effect save taxpayer money. In its release, the Department of Education cites a 2013 RAND Corporation study, commissioned by the Department of Justice, which found that incarcerated people who participated in education programs were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than inmates who did not participate.
“We found that for every taxpayer dollar spent on correctional education, there is a five dollar savings due to released inmates desisting from crime and not returning to prison. From a straightforward public spending and public savings perspective, correctional education is a smart investment,” Robert Bozick, a sociologist at the RAND Corporation who worked on the study, said via email.
He added: “Many folks question the benefit of providing education to criminals. However, the reality is that the majority of incarcerated individuals in this country will be released back into the community, living and working in our neighborhoods. Therefore, preparing them to successfully integrate back into our communities and resist returning to crime is in everyone’s best interest.”
Without grants, incarcerated people must pay for their own education while behind bars, said Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News, a publication of the Human Rights Defense Center, a nonprofit group. “You have to be able to afford it and most students of course can’t afford it if they’re locked up because they make pretty low wages,” he said. “So this new development, which we heard about earlier this year, is certainly a welcome change.”
The Higher Education Act of 1965 established Pell Grants as a type of federally funded financial aid for college students that students do not need to repay. The government decides how much aid to award each student based on financial need, cost of the school, enrollment status and future enrollment plans. The maximum amount per student for the upcoming school year is $5,775.
In 1994, Congress passed a bill that made people in state and federal prisons ineligible for Pell Grants. By that time, according to The Washington Post, 25,168 of the 3.3 million students who received the grants were prisoners, costing the government $34.6 million of the $5.3 billion it spent on the program. Some politicians felt that slice was too much of the pie. “Law-abiding students have every right to be outraged when a Pell Grant for a policeman’s child is cut, but a criminal that the officer sends to prison can still get a big check,” a congressman said at the time.
On Friday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in the press release: “America is a nation of second chances. Giving people who have made mistakes in their lives a chance to get back on track and become contributing members of society is fundamental to who we are—it can also be a cost-saver for taxpayers.”
Studies show that prison education programs help reduce recidivism rates, which in effect save taxpayer money. In its release, the Department of Education cites a 2013 RAND Corporation study, commissioned by the Department of Justice, which found that incarcerated people who participated in education programs were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than inmates who did not participate.
“We found that for every taxpayer dollar spent on correctional education, there is a five dollar savings due to released inmates desisting from crime and not returning to prison. From a straightforward public spending and public savings perspective, correctional education is a smart investment,” Robert Bozick, a sociologist at the RAND Corporation who worked on the study, said via email.
He added: “Many folks question the benefit of providing education to criminals. However, the reality is that the majority of incarcerated individuals in this country will be released back into the community, living and working in our neighborhoods. Therefore, preparing them to successfully integrate back into our communities and resist returning to crime is in everyone’s best interest.”
Without grants, incarcerated people must pay for their own education while behind bars, said Alex Friedmann, managing editor of Prison Legal News, a publication of the Human Rights Defense Center, a nonprofit group. “You have to be able to afford it and most students of course can’t afford it if they’re locked up because they make pretty low wages,” he said. “So this new development, which we heard about earlier this year, is certainly a welcome change.”
An 8-year-old Baltimore boy who is being dubbed a medical phenomenon is looking forward to finally being able to play with his little sister and, hopefully, the new puppy he asked for.
And while Zion Harvey’s wishes seem simple enough, picking up his 2-year-old sister or eating a slice of pizza were both things he had difficulty doing after losing his feet and hands to sepsis as a toddler. But as the youngest patient to receive a double-hand transplant last month, the possibilities are endless.
While debuting his new digits at a Tuesday news conference, the little boy with wisdom beyond his years asked his family to stand so that he could thank them for helping him through his struggles.
“I want to say to you guys, thank you for helping me through this bumpy road,” he said.
The surgery, one of a few in a “small, but growing, transplant field, which has moved beyond internal organs,” the Baltimore Sun writes, was the first pediatric double hand transplant performed at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
More than 100 people worldwide have received upper-extremity transplants since the first was performed in France in 1998, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
“This is a monumental step,” said Scott Levin, chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Penn Medicine and director of the Hand Transplantation Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I hope personally we can help many more patients like Zion in the future.”
Zion, who was already taking drugs to prevent his body from rejecting a kidney transplant he received at 4-years-old, was considered a good candidate for the hands. Doctors were less concerned that Zion would have a negative response to the drugs, since he had been exposed to them for a while.
Only about 15 children a year are eligible to donate hands, so doctors weren’t sure when one would become available. They had to find hands that were the right color and size for Zion. While waiting for a match, the surgery team practiced the procedure on cadavers. They developed a step-by step playbook for the day of surgery. Then the call came: Hands were available. Ray was both nervous and excited. Zion was preoccupied with plans for a sleepover he would now have to miss, and it wasn’t until he arrived at the hospital that reality hit.
“Mom, I think I am nervous now,” he recalls saying as he lay in a hospital bed that engulfed his small body.
“There is no need to be nervous,” Zion’s mother, Pattie Ray, responded. “This is a good thing.”
The painstaking surgery took about 10-hours to complete. Two days later, when Zion finally took a look at his new hands, he was beyond excited. And along with using his hands to do everyday activities, Zion is looking forward to finally being able to play football.
His mother, who called the sport “dangerous,” is probably less excited about throwing around a football, but says she just wants to see her child do well.
article via newsone.com
The Ferguson cops charged Henry Davis with destruction of property because he bled on their uniforms when they beat him.
Then, as if fearing it might be outdone in ridiculousness, a federal district court ruled that Davis could not sue the cops for violating his Fourth Amendment rights because they had not injured him badly enough as he lay handcuffed on the jailhouse floor, a working man arrested on a traffic warrant in a case of mistaken identity.
“As unreasonable as it may sound, a reasonable officer could have believed that beating a subdued and compliant Mr. Davis while causing only a concussion, scalp lacerations and bruising with almost no permanent damage did not violate the Constitution,” the district court ruled in tossing out the case.
Davis appealed and his attorney James Schottel responded to absurdity with legal reasoning. He argued that the decisive factor was not the seriousness of Davis’s injuries but the nature of the officers’ actions.
The district court had ruled that the officers enjoyed “official immunity” because they “acted within their discretion and caused only de minimis [slight] injuries.”
Schottel contended that official immunity “does not apply to discretionary acts done in bad faith or with malice.”
The appeals court could not have been clearer in its response on Tuesday.
“We agree.”
The court went on to say, “That an officer’s conduct caused only de minimis injuries does not necessarily establish the absence of malice or bad faith as a matter of law.”
In recapping the case, the appeals court noted that Davis had been arrested by Police Officer Christopher Pillarick early on the morning of September 20, 2009. Davis was brought to what the appeals court calls “the crowded Ferguson jail.” Pillarick and Police Officer John Beaird escorted Davis to a cell where the only bunk was occupied.
“Davis requested a mat from a nearby stack,” the court says. “Pillarick refused because Davis was not cooperating. Davis refused to enter the cell.”
The cops radioed for backup. Police Officer Kim Tihen and Police Officer Michael White responded, along with Sergeant William Battard. “The deposition testimony differs dramatically concerning what happened next,” the court says. “It is undisputed that White pushed Davis into the cell and a short, bloody fight ensued.”
The court notes that there is no video of the incident, but there is “testimony supporting a claim that White, Beaird and Tihen each beat or kicked Davis after he was handcuffed and subdued on the floor of the cell.”
The lower court had contended that “a reasonable officer” could believe that in beating their handcuffed prisoner they were not violating the Constitution. The court further notes, “After the incident, Beaird completed four complaints charging Davis with the offense of ‘Property Damage’ for transferring blood onto the uniforms of Beaird, Tihen, White, and Pillarick.”