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Mr. Scorpio
Mr. Scorpio's Journal
Mr. Scorpio's Journal
January 28, 2014
A Chicago father has been charged after his son accidentally shot himself with a gun that he was given as a Christmas present.
According to Park Ridge Police Cmdr. Jason Leavitt, the 14-year-old boy shot himself in the leg on Jan. 6. However, police did not reveal the shooting to the media until 17 days later.
The gunshot wound was not life-threatening.
The boy’s father, 52-year-old Joseph Streff, was charged with reckless conduct four days after the shooting. Records indicated that Streff and his son lived at different addresses.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/28/chicago-14-year-old-shoots-himself-with-gun-dad-gave-him-for-christmas/
Daddy would have been better off giving his kid a pit bull puppy instead. They're way more safer than guns in the hands of a 14 YO.
Chicago 14-year-old shoots himself with gun dad gave him for Christmas
A Chicago father has been charged after his son accidentally shot himself with a gun that he was given as a Christmas present.
According to Park Ridge Police Cmdr. Jason Leavitt, the 14-year-old boy shot himself in the leg on Jan. 6. However, police did not reveal the shooting to the media until 17 days later.
The gunshot wound was not life-threatening.
The boy’s father, 52-year-old Joseph Streff, was charged with reckless conduct four days after the shooting. Records indicated that Streff and his son lived at different addresses.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/28/chicago-14-year-old-shoots-himself-with-gun-dad-gave-him-for-christmas/
Daddy would have been better off giving his kid a pit bull puppy instead. They're way more safer than guns in the hands of a 14 YO.
January 28, 2014
Siamese Fighting Fish don't have time for any BS, Siamese Fighting Fish only has time to be fabulous
January 28, 2014
What happened to Buzzflash?
The site is down with a 404 notification.
Earlier, they changed from plain old Buzzflash to Truth-Out Buzzflash.
Anyone know what's happening?
January 25, 2014
Racism -20 years for selling $10.00 of crack and then beaten to death in prison -Rocrast Mack’s Murder At Alabama Prison Followed Trail Of Violence By Guards
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Late on the night of August 4, 2010, a badly beaten young man arrived at the trauma ward of Jackson Hospital here. Although the patient was hardly a flight risk, security was tight and prison guards crowded into the emergency room as doctors began treatment.
The patient’s limp body spoke to the savagery of an assault that had left deep contusions on his legs and torso, and inflamed knots bulging from his head and face. He was unresponsive, with fixed and dilated pupils, and doctors quickly diagnosed a traumatic brain injury. Only a ventilator kept him alive. He never regained consciousness and died the next day.
His name was Rocrast Mack. An Alabama prison inmate, his death at age 24 came at the hands of six corrections officers, who took turns battering him with their fists, feet and batons in retribution for a minor altercation with a female guard earlier that night, according to witness accounts and prison records.
Civil rights advocates call Mack’s death an avoidable tragedy, the inevitable product of a profoundly dysfunctional state corrections system in Alabama that ranks among the very worst America has to offer.
It is a system flooded with low-level drug offenders like Mack, who was sentenced to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to selling $10 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover cop in 2009.
Alabama is also emblematic of a broader problem facing America’s prison system: In many states, there simply isn’t enough room to hold all of the people who are incarcerated. Against that tableau, inmates often born and bred in hard luck circumstances now find themselves mired in a loop of violence that extends from the street and into prisons themselves.
Yet even in a nation that has little to boast about in terms of prison efficiency and quality, Alabama stands out for what appears to be the sheer brutality and freewheeling nature of its corrections system.
Starved of funds, the state’s aging prisons suffer from the worst overcrowding in the nation, operating at an average of 190 percent of their design capacity. Ventress Correctional Facility, where Mack died, is an outlier even by this standard. Built in 1990 and designed to accommodate just 650 men, the facility now holds 1,665 prisoners — more than 255 percent of its capacity.
Alabama has not ignored Mack’s death. Last month, more than a year after it occurred, the Alabama attorney general charged the ranking officer at the scene, Lt. Michael A. Smith, with intentional murder for the beating.
The charge, which could put Smith behind bars for life, is unusual. Even when excessive force is alleged after an inmate death, prosecutors rarely bring charges above manslaughter or negligent homicide, according to Gene Atherton, a former prison administrator and consultant on use of force in prisons and jails.
Federal prosecutors have also taken action. On Nov. 18, the Justice Department said a junior officer involved in the assault, Scottie T. Glenn, had pleaded guilty to two felonies: violating Mack’s civil rights and conspiring with fellow officers to cover up the assault.
Civil rights advocates welcome the charges, but say they don’t go nearly far enough. What is truly needed, they say, is widescale reform to alleviate brutally harsh conditions that foster violence by inmates and guards.
http://curvyones.tumblr.com/post/74506045850/racism-20-years-for-selling-10-00-of-crack-and
Did You Know?
Racism -20 years for selling $10.00 of crack and then beaten to death in prison -Rocrast Mack’s Murder At Alabama Prison Followed Trail Of Violence By Guards
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Late on the night of August 4, 2010, a badly beaten young man arrived at the trauma ward of Jackson Hospital here. Although the patient was hardly a flight risk, security was tight and prison guards crowded into the emergency room as doctors began treatment.
The patient’s limp body spoke to the savagery of an assault that had left deep contusions on his legs and torso, and inflamed knots bulging from his head and face. He was unresponsive, with fixed and dilated pupils, and doctors quickly diagnosed a traumatic brain injury. Only a ventilator kept him alive. He never regained consciousness and died the next day.
His name was Rocrast Mack. An Alabama prison inmate, his death at age 24 came at the hands of six corrections officers, who took turns battering him with their fists, feet and batons in retribution for a minor altercation with a female guard earlier that night, according to witness accounts and prison records.
Civil rights advocates call Mack’s death an avoidable tragedy, the inevitable product of a profoundly dysfunctional state corrections system in Alabama that ranks among the very worst America has to offer.
It is a system flooded with low-level drug offenders like Mack, who was sentenced to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to selling $10 worth of crack cocaine to an undercover cop in 2009.
Alabama is also emblematic of a broader problem facing America’s prison system: In many states, there simply isn’t enough room to hold all of the people who are incarcerated. Against that tableau, inmates often born and bred in hard luck circumstances now find themselves mired in a loop of violence that extends from the street and into prisons themselves.
Yet even in a nation that has little to boast about in terms of prison efficiency and quality, Alabama stands out for what appears to be the sheer brutality and freewheeling nature of its corrections system.
Starved of funds, the state’s aging prisons suffer from the worst overcrowding in the nation, operating at an average of 190 percent of their design capacity. Ventress Correctional Facility, where Mack died, is an outlier even by this standard. Built in 1990 and designed to accommodate just 650 men, the facility now holds 1,665 prisoners — more than 255 percent of its capacity.
Alabama has not ignored Mack’s death. Last month, more than a year after it occurred, the Alabama attorney general charged the ranking officer at the scene, Lt. Michael A. Smith, with intentional murder for the beating.
The charge, which could put Smith behind bars for life, is unusual. Even when excessive force is alleged after an inmate death, prosecutors rarely bring charges above manslaughter or negligent homicide, according to Gene Atherton, a former prison administrator and consultant on use of force in prisons and jails.
Federal prosecutors have also taken action. On Nov. 18, the Justice Department said a junior officer involved in the assault, Scottie T. Glenn, had pleaded guilty to two felonies: violating Mack’s civil rights and conspiring with fellow officers to cover up the assault.
Civil rights advocates welcome the charges, but say they don’t go nearly far enough. What is truly needed, they say, is widescale reform to alleviate brutally harsh conditions that foster violence by inmates and guards.
http://curvyones.tumblr.com/post/74506045850/racism-20-years-for-selling-10-00-of-crack-and
January 25, 2014
Another Chris Christie outrage: Data shows stark racial gap in Sandy aid distribution
Amid growing questions about lane closures on the George Washington Bridge and Sandy aid to Hoboken, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is facing an additional charge about his administration’s disbursement of relief aid. State data, obtained from the Christie administration through a lawsuit by the Fair Share Housing Center, reveal a dramatic racial gap in who received preliminary approval for funds from Sandy relief programs.
According to the data, decried by groups including the New Jersey NAACP, the Latino Action Network and the New York Times editorial board, the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation Program rejected 35.1 percent of African-American applicants, 18.1 percent of Latino applicants, and only 13.6 percent of Caucasian applicants. The Resettlement Program rejected 38.1 percent of African-Americans, 20.4 percent of Latinos and 13.6 percent of Caucasians.
Speaking to Salon late last week, FSHC staff attorney Adam Gordon urged the federal government to expand its investigation to include the racially disparate aid distribution, accused the Christie administration of trying to change the topic by attacking his organization, and charged “neglect and callous indifference in the needs of Latino and African-American communities impacted by Sandy.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.
Your assessment of this data shows that African-Americans were more than twice as likely as whites to get rejected by the RREM program and by the Resettlement program. What explains that disparity?
We’re still trying to figure that out. And really, we’re talking to a lot of people who have been in that situation who are African-American and Latino and, you know, a lot of people feel like they’ve been rejected for no reason. You know, we’ve talked to people who live in mold-infested houses [with] serious damage, and got a rejection letter — and they can’t figure it out. So we’re still trying to figure it out.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/22/new_chris_christie_outrage_data_shows_stark_racial_gap_in_sandy_aid_distribution/
According to the data, decried by groups including the New Jersey NAACP, the Latino Action Network and the New York Times editorial board, the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation Program rejected 35.1 percent of African-American applicants, 18.1 percent of Latino applicants, and only 13.6 percent of Caucasian applicants. The Resettlement Program rejected 38.1 percent of African-Americans, 20.4 percent of Latinos and 13.6 percent of Caucasians.
Speaking to Salon late last week, FSHC staff attorney Adam Gordon urged the federal government to expand its investigation to include the racially disparate aid distribution, accused the Christie administration of trying to change the topic by attacking his organization, and charged “neglect and callous indifference in the needs of Latino and African-American communities impacted by Sandy.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.
Your assessment of this data shows that African-Americans were more than twice as likely as whites to get rejected by the RREM program and by the Resettlement program. What explains that disparity?
We’re still trying to figure that out. And really, we’re talking to a lot of people who have been in that situation who are African-American and Latino and, you know, a lot of people feel like they’ve been rejected for no reason. You know, we’ve talked to people who live in mold-infested houses [with] serious damage, and got a rejection letter — and they can’t figure it out. So we’re still trying to figure it out.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/22/new_chris_christie_outrage_data_shows_stark_racial_gap_in_sandy_aid_distribution/
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