Source
# Story Highlights
# NEW: Witness says, "The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him"
# Man had history of mental illness, AP reports, ignored orders to halt
# Police kill Khiel Coppin, 18, after reports of a family dispute and a weapon
# New York Times: Cops fired 20 shots, realized Coppin held only a hairbrush
Another neighbor, Wayne Holder, said police should be required to see a weapon before opening fire on a suspect. "At least see a gun before you start to discharge it," Holder said. Police "don't even have to see it, [if] they think you got one, you're going to get shot."
The AP reported that the teen had a history of mental illness and his mother had tried to have him hospitalized earlier in the day.
A bystander who said he saw the shooting told CNN affiliate WABC-TV that the man was unarmed. "He dropped the brush," said the bystander, Dyshawn Gibson. "He put his hands up. Police just started firing."
As the teen approached officers, police ordered him to stop, police spokesman Paul Browne told AP. The teen refused and continued to approach, Browne said, prompting police to open fire.
An initial police statement given to reporters Monday night said the man was seen earlier pacing around the apartment.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Officers shot and killed an 18-year-old man who they believed to be armed, New York police said, but witnesses said Tuesday he was only holding a hairbrush.
The Monday night shooting followed a 911 call from the man's mother. Police described the situation as "a family dispute with a gun."
After officers arrived, the teen refused to halt as he approached police, prompting them to open fire, The Associated Press reported.
Police told The New York Times they believed the teen, Khiel Coppin, had a gun, but after five officers fired 20 shots they realized he was holding only a hairbrush.
"The boy didn't have no gun, he had a brush on him," said Andre Wildman, a neighbor who told CNN that he saw the shooting.
"He began screaming from the window at his mother and the police," the police statement said. "At some point, the male climbed out of the window and began crossing the sidewalk toward the police."
That's when police began firing, a police spokesman said.
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The police spokesman said officers were called to the apartment building in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood at about 7 p.m. by Coppin's mother who said she was having a dispute with her son.
According to a statement, police said Coppin's mother reported that her son was armed. But The New York Times quoted police who said Coppin himself was overheard on the mother's 911 call threatening to kill her and claiming "I have a gun." E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Rash of Noose Incidents Reported
By ERRIN HAINES – Oct 10, 2007
Source
ATLANTA (AP) — In the months since nooses dangling from a schoolyard tree raised racial tensions in Jena, La., the frightening symbol of segregation-era lynchings has been turning up around the country.
Nooses were left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, at a Long Island police station locker room, on a Maryland college campus, and, just this week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The noose — like the burning cross — is a generations-old means of instilling racial fear. But some experts suspect the Jena furor reintroduced some bigots to the rope. They say the recent incidents might also reflect white resentment over the protests in Louisiana.
"It certainly looks like it's been a rash of these incidents, and presumably, most of them are in response to the events in Jena," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists and other hate groups. "I would say that as a more general matter, it seems fairly clear that noose incidents have been on the rise for some years."
Thousands of demonstrators, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, converged on Jena on Sept. 20 to decry what they called a racist double standard in the justice system. They protested the way six blacks were arrested on attempted murder charges in the beating of a white student, while three whites were suspended but not prosecuted for hanging nooses in a tree in August 2006.
The noose evokes the lynchings of the Jim Crow South and "is a symbol that can be deployed with no ambiguity. People understand exactly what it means," said William Jelani Cobb, a professor of black American history at Spelman College in Atlanta.
He said the Jena incident demonstrated to some racists how offensive the sight of a noose can be: "What Jena did was reintroduce that symbol into the discussion."
Though the terror of the civil rights era is gone, the association between nooses and violence — even death — remains, Potok said.
"The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan," Potok said.
Potok dismissed the idea that the placing of a noose could be interpreted as a joke, even among people born after the end of segregation.
"I think that it's true that most of these kids don't know much about civil rights history," he said. "But every single one of them understands what a noose means at the end of the day."
As word of the Jena case began circulating, reports of similar incidents arose.
In July, a noose was left in the bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a cutter. A noose was found in August on the office floor of a white officer who had been conducting race-relations training in response to the incident.
In early September, a noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.
On Sept. 29, a noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities.
On Oct. 2, a noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.
Last week, the president of historically black Grambling State University in Louisiana announced he would seek sanctions against five teachers who participated in a lesson on race relations that included placing a noose around the neck of a child at a mostly black, on-campus elementary school.
The Columbia incident involved a black professor of psychology and education, Madonna Constantine, who teaches a class on racial justice.
The Columbia investigation also follows the arrest on Sunday of a white woman on hate-crime charges alleging she hung a noose over a tree limb and threatened a black family living next door in New York City. The two incidents were "the first noose cases in recent memory" in the city, said Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the police Hate Crime Task Force.
Not that the use of nooses for racial intimidation is a new phenomenon.
In 2002, white employees at a Texas industrial company put a noose around a black co-worker's neck. Charles Hickman sued and was awarded more than $1 million last year.
Potok said the recent noose incidents could represent white backlash over the demonstrations in Jena.
"We're seeing a lot of generalized white resentment," he said. "The conversation among many white people, particularly in the South, amounts to the idea that Jena was a black-on-white hate crime that is being widely misconstrued as a case of racial oppression of blacks."
Source
ATLANTA (AP) — In the months since nooses dangling from a schoolyard tree raised racial tensions in Jena, La., the frightening symbol of segregation-era lynchings has been turning up around the country.
Nooses were left in a black Coast Guard cadet's bag, at a Long Island police station locker room, on a Maryland college campus, and, just this week, on the office door of a black professor at Columbia University in New York.
The noose — like the burning cross — is a generations-old means of instilling racial fear. But some experts suspect the Jena furor reintroduced some bigots to the rope. They say the recent incidents might also reflect white resentment over the protests in Louisiana.
"It certainly looks like it's been a rash of these incidents, and presumably, most of them are in response to the events in Jena," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacists and other hate groups. "I would say that as a more general matter, it seems fairly clear that noose incidents have been on the rise for some years."
Thousands of demonstrators, including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, converged on Jena on Sept. 20 to decry what they called a racist double standard in the justice system. They protested the way six blacks were arrested on attempted murder charges in the beating of a white student, while three whites were suspended but not prosecuted for hanging nooses in a tree in August 2006.
The noose evokes the lynchings of the Jim Crow South and "is a symbol that can be deployed with no ambiguity. People understand exactly what it means," said William Jelani Cobb, a professor of black American history at Spelman College in Atlanta.
He said the Jena incident demonstrated to some racists how offensive the sight of a noose can be: "What Jena did was reintroduce that symbol into the discussion."
Though the terror of the civil rights era is gone, the association between nooses and violence — even death — remains, Potok said.
"The noose is replacing the burning cross in the mind of much of the public as the leading symbol of the Klan," Potok said.
Potok dismissed the idea that the placing of a noose could be interpreted as a joke, even among people born after the end of segregation.
"I think that it's true that most of these kids don't know much about civil rights history," he said. "But every single one of them understands what a noose means at the end of the day."
As word of the Jena case began circulating, reports of similar incidents arose.
In July, a noose was left in the bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a cutter. A noose was found in August on the office floor of a white officer who had been conducting race-relations training in response to the incident.
In early September, a noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.
On Sept. 29, a noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities.
On Oct. 2, a noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.
Last week, the president of historically black Grambling State University in Louisiana announced he would seek sanctions against five teachers who participated in a lesson on race relations that included placing a noose around the neck of a child at a mostly black, on-campus elementary school.
The Columbia incident involved a black professor of psychology and education, Madonna Constantine, who teaches a class on racial justice.
The Columbia investigation also follows the arrest on Sunday of a white woman on hate-crime charges alleging she hung a noose over a tree limb and threatened a black family living next door in New York City. The two incidents were "the first noose cases in recent memory" in the city, said Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the police Hate Crime Task Force.
Not that the use of nooses for racial intimidation is a new phenomenon.
In 2002, white employees at a Texas industrial company put a noose around a black co-worker's neck. Charles Hickman sued and was awarded more than $1 million last year.
Potok said the recent noose incidents could represent white backlash over the demonstrations in Jena.
"We're seeing a lot of generalized white resentment," he said. "The conversation among many white people, particularly in the South, amounts to the idea that Jena was a black-on-white hate crime that is being widely misconstrued as a case of racial oppression of blacks."
Hate crimes charges urged for six accused in torture case
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- Hundreds of people gathered at West Virginia's Capitol on Saturday to urge prosecutors to add hate crime charges against six white people charged in the beating, torture and sexual assault of a 20-year-old black woman.
Authorities say the accused, three men and three women, held Megan Williams captive for days at a rural trailer -- sexually assaulting her, beating her and forcing her to eat human and animal feces.
"Hate crimes are out of control in America," Malik Shabazz, a legal adviser to Williams and her family and a founder of Black Lawyers for Justice, told the group.
"Nooses are being hung and our women are being raped by white moms. What happened to Megan Williams was a hate crime and we want this prosecuted as a hate crime."
Shabazz pointed to statements from suspect Frankie Brewster and her son, Bobby Brewster, that racial epithets were used every time Williams was stabbed.
Shabazz staged the rally despite a request by the city's black ministerial association and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People not to gather because it could harm the prosecution's case.
All six face kidnapping and sexual assault charges. Kidnapping carries a possible life sentence.
Abraham, who urged Williams and her family not to talk about the case or attend the rally, has said it might be difficult to prove a hate crime charge because Williams had a "social relationship" with one of the suspects for at least several months before the alleged assaults.
Williams attended the rally wearing a T-shirt with the message "Protect the Black Woman." In a brief speech, she showed her appreciation to her supporters.
The Associated Press generally does not identify suspected victims of sexual assault, but Williams and her mother agreed to release her name.
Joe Marchal said he drove three hours from Berea, Kentucky, with his wife and infant son to show his support for Williams.
"If no one came out today, imagine how that would make Megan Williams feel," said Marchal. "We're here for her."
In addition to calling attention to hate crimes, organizers hoped the rally would help raise money for Williams' medical care and future educational expenses.
Zayid Muhammad, the national minister of culture for the New Black Panther Party, came to the rally from Newark, New Jersey.
"As a father of a daughter and a child of African ancestry, the idea that I can sit by idly, (in) the face of one of the most violent and obscene acts committed against a black woman in my life, was too appalling," Muhammad said. "I had to come."
The Rev. Al Sharpton had been expected to participate but did not appear.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Genarlow Wilson considers his future
Source
Genarlow Wilson, the Georgia man who served more than two years in prison for a consensual sex act, has received several offers to pay for his college costs, including one from businessmen who helped raise $1 million in an unsuccessful attempt to get him released on bond in June.
Wilson, who was given a 10-year sentence for receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, was released Friday after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the sentence violated the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
"I want to help people. I know how it feels to be without," says Wilson, who was a homecoming king and athlete with a 3.2 grade-point average at Douglas County High School in Douglasville, Ga. His conviction stemmed from a New Year's Eve party in 2003.
Wilson, 21, says prison forced him to mature. "I want to be a mentor," he says, to help young people "learn from their mistakes and help them make wiser decisions."
He hopes to enroll in college in January and study sociology. "This situation, what I had to endure, has a lot to do with sociology," he says.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Georgia | June | Genarlow Wilson | Georgia Supreme Court
His attorney, B.J. Bernstein, says Wilson has had several offers of aid. One came from Whitney Tilson, a New York investment manager who, with 10 friends, pledged $1 million to a bond fund in June in an attempt to get Wilson out of prison. A judge ruled him ineligible for bond while his appeal was pending.
Tilson, who has never met or spoken with Wilson, says he and two of those friends have agreed to help pay for Wilson's college costs, and he expects others to join them.
"We're committed to doing whatever's necessary to help Genarlow get back on his feet and establish himself so he can lead a happy and productive life," says Tilson, managing partner of T2 Partners Management and Tilson Mutual Funds.
Tilson says he hopes to connect with Wilson "when he's caught up on his sleep."
For the time being, Wilson says, "I'm taking one day at a time."
Of his first weekend out of prison, he says he enjoyed "being able to sleep in my own bed and eat all the food I want to eat."
Genarlow Wilson Story as told by ESPN Part One
Genarlow Wilson Story as told by ESPN Part Two
Genarlow Wilson Jail Release Coverage
Genarlow Wilson, Today, 10/29/07
Legislator calls West Palm Beach Housing Authority a 'ticking time bomb'
By Leon Fooksman | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Source
Calling the management of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority a "ticking human time bomb," a state representative has called for its board to be dissolved.
In addition, state Rep. Priscilla Taylor, D-West Palm Beach, asked federal housing officials last month to take charge in resolving financial, security and other problems in the public housing projects overseen by the authority. She outlined her concerns in a letter to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in the wake of a public outcry over June's brutal gang rape at Dunbar Village.
Taylor, who represents residents at Dunbar Village and most of the city's other housing projects, said her demands followed talks in recent months with public-housing residents and community leaders who complained about leaky apartments, lack of social services and the presence of "gang lords" in Dunbar Village.
"The present board does not seem well informed, nor involved or knowledgeable to the extent that would be expected of a board with such an important mission," Taylor wrote in the Sept. 24 letter to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. "Recent site inspections of the development indicate that security is virtually nonexistent, that the properties [externally and internally] have been poorly managed, many boarded up, become homes for gang lords and drug dealers."
HUD has received the letter, and Taylor's issues are under review, department spokesman Donna White said.
Housing authority board chairwoman Thyra Starr said she has not seen Taylor's letter and declined to comment on the complaints.
"As a legislator, she has the responsibility to put out [her concerns] and it's her right to do so," Starr said.
Authority Executive Director Laurel Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite attempts by phone.
Taylor said she decided to reach out to HUD when the authority did not provide her with a line-item budget and learned that the authority was not promptly responding to residents' complaints. She said she also was alarmed that board members and authority staff were not "in tune" with ongoing problems at recent meetings with her and city commissioners.
"The people deserve better," Taylor said.
Authority officials have said that they are attentive to residents' complaints and that Dunbar Village's crime problems come from people who visit the complex. At least three of the four youths accused of raping the 35-year-old woman and assaulting her son have lived at Dunbar Village.
The authority has gotten mostly high scores for financial management and other categories from HUD managers in recent years, records show.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
For recently published stories on Dunbar Village and video reports, go to Sun-Sentinel.com/
dunbarvillage
Source
Calling the management of the West Palm Beach Housing Authority a "ticking human time bomb," a state representative has called for its board to be dissolved.
In addition, state Rep. Priscilla Taylor, D-West Palm Beach, asked federal housing officials last month to take charge in resolving financial, security and other problems in the public housing projects overseen by the authority. She outlined her concerns in a letter to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development in the wake of a public outcry over June's brutal gang rape at Dunbar Village.
Taylor, who represents residents at Dunbar Village and most of the city's other housing projects, said her demands followed talks in recent months with public-housing residents and community leaders who complained about leaky apartments, lack of social services and the presence of "gang lords" in Dunbar Village.
"The present board does not seem well informed, nor involved or knowledgeable to the extent that would be expected of a board with such an important mission," Taylor wrote in the Sept. 24 letter to HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson. "Recent site inspections of the development indicate that security is virtually nonexistent, that the properties [externally and internally] have been poorly managed, many boarded up, become homes for gang lords and drug dealers."
HUD has received the letter, and Taylor's issues are under review, department spokesman Donna White said.
Housing authority board chairwoman Thyra Starr said she has not seen Taylor's letter and declined to comment on the complaints.
"As a legislator, she has the responsibility to put out [her concerns] and it's her right to do so," Starr said.
Authority Executive Director Laurel Robinson could not be reached for comment Tuesday despite attempts by phone.
Taylor said she decided to reach out to HUD when the authority did not provide her with a line-item budget and learned that the authority was not promptly responding to residents' complaints. She said she also was alarmed that board members and authority staff were not "in tune" with ongoing problems at recent meetings with her and city commissioners.
"The people deserve better," Taylor said.
Authority officials have said that they are attentive to residents' complaints and that Dunbar Village's crime problems come from people who visit the complex. At least three of the four youths accused of raping the 35-year-old woman and assaulting her son have lived at Dunbar Village.
The authority has gotten mostly high scores for financial management and other categories from HUD managers in recent years, records show.
Leon Fooksman can be reached at lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.
For recently published stories on Dunbar Village and video reports, go to Sun-Sentinel.com/
dunbarvillage
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
4 contractors fired after hanging nooses at Houston facility
Source
Four contract workers were banned from FMC Technologies after they hung nooses at one of the firm's Houston facilities, the company announced Tuesday.
The three men and one woman also were fired from their jobs with the contractors for FMC, an oil-field services equipment manufacturer, said Maryann Seaman, FMC spokeswoman.
"FMC has zero tolerance for workplace harassment," Seaman said.
Seaman said about a month ago an employee notified company officials that he had seen a noose hanging in the FMC's Gears Road facility.
Three workers were banned from FMC after they were discovered to have been involved in placing the noose, she said.
Last week, another noose was seen hanging in the same facility, Seaman said, and another person was banned from the firm because she was involved in placing that noose.
Seaman said the company is investigating the cases. So far, she added, the firm has has not contacted law enforcement authorities, but it will do what is ever necessary once its investigation is complete.
Seaman said the incidents are especially troubling on the heels of an incident about a year ago in Jena, La., in which nooses were hung from a tree at a high school campus and racial tension erupted.
"It's certainly sad," said Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's taken us back to the days of the 1950s and 1960s. We have to be more cognizant of diversity. Education is the key."
Seaman said no one appears to have filed complaints related to the FMC incidents with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The number of lawsuits the EEOC filed related to nooses has dropped steadily from 10 in 2001 to two so far this year, said James Ryan, EEOC spokesman.
The EEOC recently won settlements in three harassment cases related to nooses, including one in the Houston area, Ryan said.
In May, the EEOC reached a $390,000 racial harassment litigation settlement with Pemco Aeroplex of Birmingham on behalf of a class of black employees who were subjected to racist graffiti, slurs and the display of nooses, Ryan said.
The EEOC settled a racial harassment suit in January for $600,000 against AK Steel Corp. of Butler, Pa., Ryan added, after nooses were displayed and Klu Klux Klan videos were shown in employee lounges.
In March 2006, Ryan said, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million in a case against Commercial Coating Service, Inc. of Conroe, Texas, in which a black worker was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
Four contract workers were banned from FMC Technologies after they hung nooses at one of the firm's Houston facilities, the company announced Tuesday.
The three men and one woman also were fired from their jobs with the contractors for FMC, an oil-field services equipment manufacturer, said Maryann Seaman, FMC spokeswoman.
"FMC has zero tolerance for workplace harassment," Seaman said.
Seaman said about a month ago an employee notified company officials that he had seen a noose hanging in the FMC's Gears Road facility.
Three workers were banned from FMC after they were discovered to have been involved in placing the noose, she said.
Last week, another noose was seen hanging in the same facility, Seaman said, and another person was banned from the firm because she was involved in placing that noose.
Seaman said the company is investigating the cases. So far, she added, the firm has has not contacted law enforcement authorities, but it will do what is ever necessary once its investigation is complete.
Seaman said the incidents are especially troubling on the heels of an incident about a year ago in Jena, La., in which nooses were hung from a tree at a high school campus and racial tension erupted.
"It's certainly sad," said Yolanda Smith, executive director of the Houston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It's taken us back to the days of the 1950s and 1960s. We have to be more cognizant of diversity. Education is the key."
Seaman said no one appears to have filed complaints related to the FMC incidents with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The number of lawsuits the EEOC filed related to nooses has dropped steadily from 10 in 2001 to two so far this year, said James Ryan, EEOC spokesman.
The EEOC recently won settlements in three harassment cases related to nooses, including one in the Houston area, Ryan said.
In May, the EEOC reached a $390,000 racial harassment litigation settlement with Pemco Aeroplex of Birmingham on behalf of a class of black employees who were subjected to racist graffiti, slurs and the display of nooses, Ryan said.
The EEOC settled a racial harassment suit in January for $600,000 against AK Steel Corp. of Butler, Pa., Ryan added, after nooses were displayed and Klu Klux Klan videos were shown in employee lounges.
In March 2006, Ryan said, the EEOC obtained more than $1 million in a case against Commercial Coating Service, Inc. of Conroe, Texas, in which a black worker was racially harassed and choked with a noose by his coworkers in a company bathroom.
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