Tag: #BlueLivesMatter

#BlueLivesMatter: Police Officer Killed in Hit-and-Run By Murder Suspect in Downtown Memphis. It Doesn’t “Take a Village”. It Takes a Father.

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

CkKoGGCVAAExTRLAmid the renewed drive to revitalize Downtown Memphis, the unfathomable number of homicides continues to throw up roadblocks.

The Commercial Appeal reports that

An 18-year veteran of the Memphis Police Department died Saturday night after being struck downtown by the vehicle of a fleeing shooting suspect.

Verdell Smith, 46, died at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, making him the latest casualty in a brutal year that’s seen 95 homicides so far — possibly more if the death of a woman whose body was found in Frayser earlier Saturday evening is ruled a homicide or if any of three other victims in the crime that claimed Smith die.

“This highlights the dangers officers face every day,” MPD Director Michael Rallings said during a press conference outside Regional Medical Center shortly before 2 a.m. 

In a strongly-worded statement released at 2:30 a.m., Mayor Jim Strickland called on Memphians to remember Smith’s family in prayer on Sunday.

“My family joins all of Memphis in mourning the loss of Officer Verdell Smith, who gave his life in service to our city.  I call on every Memphian to remember Officer Smith’s family in prayer and reflection today and in the coming days — and to be grateful for the dangerous, important work our men and women of MPD perform every day.

“I am angry this morning — angry at the senseless loss of a dedicated public servant, and angry at the absolutely unacceptable level of violence in our city,” Strickland added. “We must not accept this as our norm. I most certainly will not, and I will continue to act to make our city safer.”

Rallings said no charges have been filed yet against the suspect who felled Smith, who left a father, fiance and children.

Memphis police spokesman Louis Brownlee sent this tweet shortly before Rallings spoke:

Smith was struck after the unidentified suspect, who was taken into custody and transported to the Regional Medical Center in noncritical condition, shot three people during a spree that began in the Pinch District at Westy’s Restaurant and Bar and spilled over to Bass Pro Shops before ending near Beale and Third streets.

Rallings said police at Main and Exchange heard shots at 9:55 p.m. and found two male victims at Westy’s. They were transported to Regional Medical Center and remained in critical condition.

At 10:02 p.m., Rallings said police got a call to the nearby Bass Pro, where a male employee had been shot. He was taken to Regional Medical Center in noncritical condition.

The suspect fled in a silver vehicle and was spotted on Riverside Drive before officers lost sight near the interstate.

Rallings said police weren’t sure what route the suspect took next, but he ended up at Beale and Third as officers were working to clear the area. That’s where Smith was struck.

The suspect was taken into custody after a foot chase.

Martin Norris and Jake Schorr IV, employees of Westy’s, said a man walked up from the south on Main Street, talking loudly to himself, pulled a handgun and shot two customers who were sitting at a picnic table in front of the restaurant.

Norris and Schorr chased the man down the block, but he crossed Front Street and jumped a fence, heading toward the parking lot of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid.

There, truck driver Luis Cortez of Laredo, Texas, was exiting Bass Pro with his family when he heard gunshots in the parking lot. Cortez said the victim appeared to be a store employee who had been collecting shopping carts.

Cortez said he saw a car near the victim, but couldn’t see inside it because of dark-tinted windows. The car sped away and the victim ran to the store entrance, Cortez said.

Memphis resident Tina Jamison said she was on Beale when the crash occurred, and she approached officers on the street.

“We heard on the scanner, ‘officer down,’ Jamison said.

She said when she heard commotion, she initially thought there had been a fight on Beale.

“They told us to go inside one of the restaurants,” she said.

This murder is just one example of a horrifying trend which has been happening for a while now, in my City of Birth.

As a 57-year old resident of the Memphis Area, I have borne witness to the governmental mismanagement and resulting decay and degeneration of what was once of the friendliest places in the country to live.

There are still friendly people in Memphis, but, chances are, they work in Memphis and are living in the suburbs, like I do.

The mass exodus of Memphis taxpayers started during the reign of  “King” Willie Herenton, whom while Mayor from 1991 – 2008, told taxpayers of the Caucasian persuasion, if they did not like the way he was running the city, they could leave.

So, they did.

Since then, violent crime in Memphis has steadily risen, to the point where some suburban husbands will not allow their families to enter Memphis during the day or night.

The most recent Mayor, Jim Strickland, seems to be working hard to revitalize Downtown Memphis.

The big news this past weekend, was that Service master will relocate their Headquarters from East Memphis  to Downtown, as Peabody Pleace, adjacent to the Historic Peabody Hotel.

That’s the good news.

The bad news , before the tragic murder of Office Smith, was crime on Memphis’ most famous street, was hurting business…

Beale Street leaders can’t agree on a method to control overcrowding and violence among visitors.Paul Morris, former manager of Beale for the Downtown Memphis Commission, tells local media that two back-to-back incidents occurred Sunday, the latest in a string of at least 18 stampedes since 2013.

The Beale Street Merchants Association and other organizations are considering Beale Street Bucks as a way to tighten admission. Visitors would have to pay a $5 or $10 admission fee to access the street.

Other options include more tightly controlling admission when the street becomes dangerously crowded, or stopping people from entering until the crowd thins out.

The Beale Street Development Corporation says they don’t agree with the Beale Street Bucks proposal, saying any fee would deny equal access to the historic area.

On Resurrection Sunday Afternoon, back in 2014, I was sitting beside my then-30-year old step son, watching “Avatar”, as my then-6 year old grandson came over and crawled up between us, putting his head on his Daddy’s chest. He was worn out from attending church with us that morning, followed by a lunch of ham, au gratin potatoes, and deviled eggs, which Grandma cooked, finished off by a dessert of all the chocolate that the Easter Bunny brought.

Of course, that darn rabbit had made a stop over here.

As I watched my grandson laying there, I thought about what a difference having a father makes in a boy’s life.

My father certainly made an everlasting difference in mine. He is the one who led me to Christ, counseling and supporting me, and loving me until he passed away after Christmas in 1997.

I think of him and thank God for him often.

I have had the privilege of being the step-father of 3 very different boys, now grown into young men. The first one works as an account executive with a major company. The second one is a seminary student who is planting a church in Midtown Memphis. And the last one, who I mentioned earlier, is an over the road truck driver, who is home every weekend.

I think often about all three of these young men often and pray that I have made a difference in their lives.

What got me thinking about the role that fathers play in the lives of young men, is all of the gang-related violence  and black-on-black homicides, that are going on in our American Cities, like my Hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

In today’s modern culture, the stigma of having a baby out of wedlock is quite frankly no longer a stigma. In some corners, especially the Liberal ones, It is actually considered a sign of Feminine Independence.

Among a lot of the young black male population, it is a sign of prestige to be a player, or, as we used to call it, a “ladies’ man”.

This practice has become so popular, that now 75 percent of America’s black population is being born out of wedlock and being raised without a father.

Grandfathers, uncles, clergy, and school coaches and principals try to fill in the gap and help these boys as they grow up, but a boy needs a man around every day of their life.

They need a consistent role model to teach them right from wrong, how to treat women, and how to be a man.

Regardless of what all of the Liberal experts say, a male father figure is essential in building a young man’s self- image.

So, what’s the answer?

A song that Elton John came out with during his comeback in the 1980s goes,

Mama don’t want you
Daddy don’t want you
Give it up baby, baby
Mama can’t buy you love

Municipal and Federal Governments can throw as much money at the problem of gang-related violence as they want to, but, until this Cycle of Irresponsibility, i.e., irresponsible parents creating irresponsible kids, somehow gets broken, through prayer, education, and community/church involvement, crime will continue to escalate in America’s Cities.

Because, if the parents do not want to love, care for, and raise their children in the way that they should go, the gangs and the other criminals in the ‘Hood sure will.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Obama’s DOJ Suing City of Ferguson on Behalf of the Rioters. Welcome to Bizarro World.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

untitled (28)The longer the reign of King Barack the First drags on, the more I become convinced that we are living in an old Superman Comic Book, stuck in Bizarro World.

USA Today reports that

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is suing the city of Ferguson in an attempt to forcibly overhaul the city’s troubled police and court operations, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday.

The decision comes hours after city leaders sought to revise a long- negotiated settlement, citing prohibitive costs of executing such a deal.

“There is no cost for constitutional policing,” Lynch said late Wednesday.

“Painstaking negotiations lasted more than 26 weeks as we sought to remedy literally years of systematic deficiencies,” she said of the government’s action, which followed a public announcement last month of a tentative agreement that the attorney general described as “both fair and cost-effective . . . Last night, the City Council rejected the consent decree approved by their own negotiators; their decision leaves us no further choice.”

Lynch said the residents of Ferguson have been waiting “decades for justice,” having endured civil rights breaches that established a pattern and practice of racially biased policing .

“I think the city of Ferguson had a real opportunity to step forward here,” a visibly disappointed attorney general said. “Instead, they have chosen to step in the past.”

Earlier Wednesday,  Ferguson Mayor James Knowles signaled that the city was ready to take on the Justice Department in federal court. He defended Ferguson’s unanimous decision to revise the agreement by removing language from the agreement, which local leaders asserted, mandated big raises for police officers.

Local leaders also sought to free the city from its obligations under the agreement should Ferguson seek to shutter the police department altogether and enlist another agency to provide public safety services.

“The ball is in their court,” Knowles said at a hastily called news conference in Ferguson. “We’re sitting and waiting to talk. If they want to threaten legal action, then that’s what they’re threatening.”

The threat became reality within hours of the mayor’s appearance when the Justice lawsuit was filed in a Missouri federal court, alleging local law enforcement conduct routinely violated the Constitution.

“The residents of Ferguson have waited nearly a year for their city to adopt an agreement that would protect their rights and keep them safe,” Lynch said. “They have waited nearly a year for their police department to accept rules that would ensure their constitutional rights and that thousands of other police departments follow every day.”

When Ferguson and Justice reached a tentative agreement last month, Knowles said the city did not then have a clear understanding of the cost of implementing it.

“I don’t know if I’d characterize it as an absolute agreement in principle,” Knowles said. “Also an agreement in principle doesn’t allow you to assign a numerical value of every piece of the agreement.”

The push to amend the deal comes after Knowles and council members raised concerns it could cost nearly $10 million over the next three years to implement.

The city of 21,000 has a budget of about $14 million and is facing about $2.8 million in debt after the August 2014 police shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, sparked weeks of sustained and often violent protests. Much of the debt accrued from police overtime during the unrest following Brown’s death and lost tax revenue from businesses destroyed or badly damaged in rioting.

A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson, the officer involved in the incident, and the Justice Department said it would not pursue federal civil rights charges against him. But the incident and subsequent protests led Justice to launch a wide-ranging investigation, concluding nearly a year ago that the city’s police and municipal court unfairly targeted African-American residents, who make up about 70% of the population.

Ferguson’s troubles and similar problems in cities across the country prompted a national discussion on police tactics and the appointment of a special White House panel, which in part urged the adoption of new strategies to rebuild a broken trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

In Ferguson, city leaders hosted a series of emotionally-charged hearings this month on whether it should ratify the tentative Justice settlement. Some residents urged the City Council to reject the deal and take their chances in court. Others favored the agreement as a way for the city to regain the trust of a wary African-American community.

Wesley Bell, a Ferguson council member, said members of the council felt it was important present their concerns about the costs of implementing the deal. He said the amendments to the agreement were not meant to be a “take it or leave it” offer.

“We hope the Justice Department is willing to sit down and talk to us and continue negotiations,” Bell said. “If this case goes to court, it will not be because of the city of Ferguson.”

Proponents of Justice agreement noted that fighting a legal battle would be costly and could prove more expensive in the long-term than settling now. Knowles disputed that notion Wednesday, saying the city’s analysis shows “the agreement, as it currently stands, will cost more to implement than it would be to fight a lawsuit.”

“Substantially more,” Knowles added.

Meanwhile, in my Hometown of Memphis, TN, 4 Black Americans died yesterday, killed by other Black Americans.

And, this past month, in the Windy City of Chicago, which has some of the strictest Gun Control Laws in the nation, newsmax.com reports that

Chicago’s homicide rate jumped to a 15-year high in January after authorities recorded 51 murders in the first month of the year.

The homicide increase was a sharp rise from the 29 murders reported in January 2015, and 20 in 2013, according to USA Today. Overall, there were 241 shooting incidents in  January, an increase from 119 such incidents last year.

The “unacceptable increase in violence was driven primarily by gang conflicts and retaliatory violence,” said Chicago’s interim police superintendent, John Escalante, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

Well, I realize that I’m just an ig’nant old cracka’, living down here in the Bible Belt, but, it occurs to me that if the Ferguson, New York City., and Baltimore Rioters, murders, and other assorted lawbreakers  (paid and unpaid…thank you, George Soros) had jobs, they would not have been “so mistreated ” at the hands of those mean ol’ Police Officers (White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic).

So, perhaps the President of the United States should focus his attention to giving “his people” (who are actually supposed to be all of us) educational training and the cultural impetus to exercise personal responsibility, in order to gain employment, be men and women, support their families, and thrive as Americans.

A few years ago, I worked at our county’s State Employment Center Office.

While at the Employment Office, I was able to observe Americans, both Black and White, down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of “unemployed ” who came to this particular office were Black.

I saw Black American Families whose existence living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats have hypnotized into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of my lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are: I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition. It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream. It makes you reliant on a politically motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy, so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”. Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

Instead of moving forward, by exercising the self-reliance that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached so well, these people I saw, were content on being “taken care of” by Uncle Sugar, as if being held down by their own poor, miserable circumstance, was a good thing.

Dr. King, I am sorry to tell you that racism and injustice is still going on in America. Unfortunately, it will not end any time soon, There are two many race-baiters profiting off of it.

Including, the President of the United States.

The part of your magnificent speech about “the content of their character” has been purposefully ignored by the professional race-baiters and assorted politicians (but, I repeat myself) for the entire 7 years that the “Firt Post-Racial President” has been in office.

Dr. King, your call for self-reliance took a back seat to the self-serving agenda of Professional Race-Baiters, such as “Community Organizers” and Politicians, a long time ago.

And, those who sacrifice themselves, while serving and protecting us on the streets of America everyday, make convenient scapegoats, for the Political Failure of the Great Society.

Until He Comes,

KJ