Depraved killers or suffering from mental issues?

What is up with folks taking out their own family members, lately? And to hear some folks tell it it's not the type of people you would suspect of doing such things.

Let's start with "All American" looking Christy Sheats. All she did was....well here, I will just to a cut and paste job and let the article speak for itself.

" On Friday,  police in Texas responded to a home in the small town of Katy, where they found the bodies of two young women lying in the street.

According to investigators, the two victims – Taylor Sheats, 22, and Madison Sheats, 17 – were killed by their own mother, 42-year-old Christy Sheats, who was fatally shot by a responding officer.

Authorities allege Sheats started shooting her daughters inside the home, and continued firing bullets at them as they fled. Sheats was killed by police after refusing to drop her weapon during a brief standoff. Investigators have not released a motive, but they say the violence was preceded by a verbal argument between the three.

Here are five things to know about Friday’s fatal shooting in Katy, Texas:

Police tell PEOPLE they had been called to the Sheats home prior to Friday’s violence, and that the killer mother allegedly had a history of mental illness.

The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office had been to Sheats’s home “for previous altercations” involving her “mental crisis,” a sheriff’s spokeswoman tells PEOPLE, declining to elaborate on those incidents. " [Source]

There it is: "mental crisis", because someone like Christy Sheats couldn't just be a vicious depraved killer. (Kind of reminds me of another Texas woman who killed five of her children by drowning them one by one and was found to be insane by a jury of her peers.) That's for poor people living in inner city, America. Unfortunately they don't have the luxury of being able to go to therapy and be clinically diagnosed as mentally ill. They don't get prescribed drugs to treat whatever type of mental issues they may be suffering from.

We will soon be hearing that Grayden Denham has mental issues as well, and that what he did was not really his fault.

"PLATTE CITY, Mo.— A 25-year-old Missouri man was charged Monday with four counts of first-degree murder in the February deaths of four family members whose bodies were found outside a home he shared with them, including a 3-month-old nephew.

The charges against Grayden Denham were the result of a grand jury indictment handed down Friday, Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said at a news conference. Denham is also charged with four counts of armed criminal action, and one count each of animal abuse, second-degree arson, tampering with evidence and stealing a motor vehicle. He is being held on $4 million cash-only bond.

Denham was found walking naked in northern Arizona on Feb. 21, two days after the bodies of his grandparents, sister and her infant son were found near Edgerton, 30 miles north of Kansas City. Denham was returned to Missouri earlier this month after being held in Arizona on suspicion of theft and displaying a fictitious license plate.

Zahnd said it would be at least a month before he decides whether to seek the death penalty against Denham.

"This is a devastating thing to happen to a family and happen to a community. Our goal has been and will continue to be to do justice for everyone involved in this case," he said.

Missouri investigators had considered him a "person of interest" in the quadruple homicide but had been held only on a theft charge accusing him of stealing his grandparents' car to drive to Arizona.
Denham's attorney, John P. O'Connor, declined to comment Monday other than to say his client would plead not guilty.

Authorities found the body of Russell Denham, 82, was found near a small shed, while the bodies of Shirley Denham, 81; Heather Ager, 31; and her son, Mason Schiavoni, were found near the home, which also had been set on fire. A dog also was killed and burned. All four victims had been shot in the head, and a gas container was found near a body." [Source]

He was found "walking naked".

Let the insanity talk begin.   





 



   



   

This is not a happy anniversary.

The Field Negro education series continues.

On the one year anniversary of the shooting of an unarmed young man of color in Ferguson, Missouri, another story has some of us folks scratching our collective heads.

"Arlington, Texas, police fatally shot a 19-year-old college student they claim broke into a car dealership early Friday morning, but some members of the dead man's family find the police version of the story hard to believe.

According to the Star-Telegram, around 1 a.m. Friday, police were notified of a burglary in progress at a GMC Classic Buick dealership. Police say a security company called for emergency help after company employees witnessed a man using his car to crash through the dealership's showroom window.

"The officers went and confronted him. There was an altercation. An officer discharged his weapon and struck the suspect," Sgt. Paul Rodriguez, a police spokesman, told the Star-Telegram.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office identified the dead man Friday afternoon as 19-year-old Christian Taylor. Taylor was a sophomore at Angelo State University and a member of the football team. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
 

Rodriguez added that Taylor was unarmed when he was shot.
 

Police identified the officer involved in the shooting as 49-year-old Brad Miller, a recent graduate of the academy, who was working under the supervision of a training officer at the time of  the shooting. Miller has been placed on administrative leave.

"We're having two independent investigations—a criminal and administrative," Rodriguez said. "As an agency, we take the loss of any human life as serious, but we owe it to our community to conduct a clear and transparent investigation to determine what exactly took place."
 

Clyde Fuller, Taylor's great-uncle, told the Star-Telegram that the story that is being described doesn't add up. He said his great-nephew was set to return to college and that he excelled at football.

"He was a good kid. I don't see him stealing no car or nothing like that," Fuller said.

"I think something is going on that somebody is lying about," Fuller told the Star-Telegram. "... They say he's burglarizing the place by running up in there? Nuh-uh. Something doesn't sound right."

Rodriguez told the newspaper that the officers are in the process of receiving body cameras, but don't have them yet, and as such, Officer Miller was not wearing one during the shooting.

He added that there are several security cameras in the dealership, but said police haven't found footage that shows the incident clearly." [Story]

I know my white brethren, you are tired of all these stories about police brutality and young men. Just remember, though, your child could be next.

Wait.......

"You think you've heard this story before. A young, unarmed man is gunned down by police, black activists are outraged -- the only difference with this scenario is that the young man is not black, he's white.

Nineteen-year-old Zachary Hammond was on a date July 26 when he was fatally shot twice by a police officer while at the back parking lot of a Hardee's fast food restaurant in Seneca, a city 40 miles from Greenville, near the North Carolina border, according to Eric Bland, the attorney representing the teen's family.

 

The Seneca Police Department said the officer was conducting a drug investigation and shot Hammond in self-defense.

 

"He was a uniformed officer, he was in a marked vehicle, was out of his vehicle on foot approaching the suspect vehicle -- weapon drawn given it was a narcotics type violation," Seneca Police Chief John Covington said to CNN affiliate WHNS.

 

A small amount of marijuana was found in the front passenger's compartment in Hammond's car.

"He was a 19-year-old, 121-pound kid killed basically for a joint," Bland said. " [Story]

 

Let it not be said that the Field Negro is not as equally outraged when he sees a potential state killing of a young man from the majority population.

 

This situation,  like the one above in Arlington, Texas, should be vigorously investigated. And if it is found that the killings of these young men were unjustified, the officers involved should be held accountable in a court of law. 

 

*Picture from twitter via theroot.com

 

 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere".

"WASHINGTON (AP) — A Justice Department investigation found sweeping patterns of racial bias within the Ferguson, Missouri, police department, with officers routinely discriminating against blacks by using excessive force, issuing petty citations and making baseless traffic stops, according to law enforcement officials familiar with its findings.

The report, which Ferguson city officials said would be released Wednesday, marks the culmination of a months-long investigation into a police department that federal officials have described as troubled and that commanded national attention after one of its officers shot and killed an unarmed black man, 18-year-old Michael Brown, last summer.

 

It chronicles discriminatory practices across the city's criminal justice system, detailing problems from initial encounters with patrol officers to treatment in the municipal court and jail. Federal law enforcement officials described its contents on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before the report is released.

The full report could serve as a roadmap for significant changes by the department, if city officials accept its findings. Past federal investigations of local police departments have encouraged overhauls of fundamental police procedures such as traffic stops and the use of service weapons. The Justice Department maintains the right to sue police departments that resist making changes.

The city of Ferguson released a statement acknowledging that Justice Department officials supplied a copy of the report to the mayor, city manager, police chief and city attorney during a private meeting Tuesday in downtown St. Louis. The statement offered no details about the report, which the city said it was reviewing and would discuss Wednesday after the Justice Department makes it public.

The investigation, which began weeks after Brown's killing last August, is being released as Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to leave his job following a six-year tenure that focused largely on civil rights. The findings are based on interviews with police leaders and residents, a review of more than 35,000 pages of police records and analysis of data on stops, searches and arrests.

                    

Federal officials found that black motorists from 2012 to 2014 were more than twice as likely as whites to be searched during traffic stops, even though they were 26 percent less likely to be found carrying contraband, according to a summary of the findings.

The review also found that blacks were 68 percent less likely than others to have their cases dismissed by a municipal court judge. And from April to September of last year, 95 percent of people kept at the city jail for more than two days were black, it found.

Of the cases in which the police department documented the use of force, 88 percent involved blacks, and of the 14 dog bites for which racial information is available, all 14 victims were black.

Overall, African-Americans make up 67 percent of the population of Ferguson, about 10 miles north of downtown St. Louis. The police department has been criticized as racially imbalanced and not reflective of the community's demographic makeup. At the time of the shooting, just three of 53 officers were black, though the mayor has said he's trying to create a more diverse police force."

Is the injustice outlined in this Justice Department report limited to Ferguson, Missouri?

For America's sake I hope so.

Some Love for the GOP, and 15 more seconds of Darren Wilson.

I would like to join Juan Williams in congratulating some newly elected African Americans who happen to be members of the grand old party.




The election of these individuals was historic in significance and should not be ignored.

I, too, like Mr. Williams,  hope that these Negroes will not be just "window dressing" and tokens who lend cover for the racists in their party.

Tim Scott has been a senator for a while, and he does not have the greatest track record, but I will give Mia Love and Will Hurd a chance to prove my suspicions wrong.

Hopefully, two years from now, I will be writing about all the positive aspects of their ascendancy to congress, and not how, like Clarence Thomas and those of his ilk, they are doing more to hurt people of color than to help them.

 

"Scott is positioned to become Congress’s leading advocate for reform of a broken public education system that is failing too many children. With nearly half of black students dropping out of high school, there is a desperate need for new ideas in the Senate on education.

Similarly, Love, as mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, focused on bringing more jobs to town. With black unemployment nationally over 11 percent, Love’s voice and her ideas for economic development create new opportunities for black Democrats to do business with Republicans.

Hurd’s CIA experience as an undercover officer in the Middle East brings a black man’s perspective to debates on dealing with Muslim extremists.


To be clear, it is up to Scott, Love and Hurd to be more than window dressing for a GOP with a major problem as a party defined by the anger of older, white, conservative men.
But they’ve beaten the odds so far. I’m rooting for them to do it again."

Nothing wrong with "rooting for them", Juan. Just don't be too disappointed if they drop the ball.


Remember, there are some other folks "rooting for them" as well.




Finally, the state of Missouri has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the grand jury verdict in Ferguson.

Michael Brown's family attorney says that the governor of that state is "preparing for war" and he is concerned that the governor's actions will incite what is sure to be an already angry crowd if the grand jury does not indict Officer Darren Wilson.

My money says there will be no indictment, but we will see.

And speaking of Officer Wilson, forget the Michael Brown incident for a minute, apparently this guy is just  not a very good police officer.

"The Ferguson, Missouri officer who killed an unarmed 18-year-old is featured in an online video taken by a man who said Darren Wilson unlawfully arrested him and violated his rights.


The 15-second video shows an officer alleged to be Wilson in uniform in the middle of a conversation with resident Mike Arman, who made the brief recording.


Resident Mike The video begins with Arman asking the officer his name, and Wilson replies, "If you wanna take a picture of me one more time, I'm going to lock your a-- up."
Arman replies he is not taking a picture but recording the incident, then Wilson walks several feet toward him.


Arman asks Wilson if he has the right to record the incident and Wilson replies "no" and says "come on" as the video comes to a shaky end.


The video shows only a small glimpse of the encounter but Arman writes in the description of the video posted Friday that Wilson violated his First Amendment rights, arrested him unlawfully and lied on the police report." [Source]




Mr. Arman, at least you are alive to tell your story. Consider yourself lucky.

When being the "Magic Negro" is not enough.

"..Obama expressed sympathy for the "passions and anger" sparked by the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, but said giving in to that anger through looting and attacks on police only stirs tensions and leads to further chaos. He said overcoming the mistrust endemic between many communities and their local police would require Americans to "listen and not just shout."


Sorry Mr. President, but with all due respect, when they do "listen" all they hear is just more of the same kind of things you have been saying.




And I get it, you are the president of all Americans, you can't seem to be favoring those Negroes over all others. It's how you got elected in the first place: The "Magic Negro", the "uniter", who speaks well and seems so non-threatening. The Negro who views himself as an American first and who only sees "one America."




If you had been any other kind of Negro you would not have been elected.



But I also understand the angst and criticism that you are getting from folks like my homeboy, Marc Lamont Hill.




 "In an official White House statement on Wednesday and a brief speech from Martha's Vineyard on Thursday, the President played his usual role of "the uniter," preaching calm and healing to the American public.

I wish he'd just said nothing.

To be clear, I didn't have any unrealistic expectations for Obama. I didn't expect him to pump a black fist in solidarity or scream "fight the power" from the makeshift press room. I didn't even need him to take a clear side on the issue. I did, however, expect him to tell the truth. Instead, the President delivered a polite but ultimately dangerous message to the American public.

Noticeably absent from President Obama's remarks was the issue of race. Despite Ferguson being 68% black, Ferguson's police force is nearly all white. Blacks in the town comprise 86% of all vehicle stops and 85% of all arrests. Over the past week, black residents of the town have complained of racial harassment from law enforcement. That, combined with the trend of unarmed black men being the victims of extrajudicial killings, makes the racial implications of Brown's death quite strong.

Even if one were to believe that Michael Brown's killing had nothing to do with race -- a naïve position at best -- the wave of protests and debates that emerged after it happened have been undeniably racial. By not mentioning this racial dimension, the President reinforced the immature notion that racism can be defeated simply by pretending it doesn't exist." [Source]

The thing is, Marc, in the minds of most Americans it doesn't exist. And that black person speaking from the podium with the Presidential seal on it, in their minds, proves it.

One of the bitter ironies of all of this is that in spite of Barack Obama going out of his way to be the president of all Americans and not show favoritism to his father's ancestors, he is still viewed by those on the right to be the most divisive president ever.

They are decrying the fact that racial tensions have increased and not decreased  during his presidency. Failing to realize, of course, that the anger and hate have come primarily from their ideological soul-mates in the majority population, who resent the fact that a black man such as Obama could have been elected to lead them. (Twice!)

So yes, racial tensions have increased, but it's not because of the way that the very non-racial Barack Obama acted in office; it's because he is in that office in the first place.

"There are young black men that commit crime. We can argue about why that happened — because the poverty they were born into or the school systems that failed them or what have you— but if they commit a crime, then they need to be prosecuted," Obama said. "Because every community has an interest in public safety."

Yes they do "need to be prosecuted," and so do the police officers who are charged with keeping the public safe and not breaking the very law that they are charged to uphold. 

*Pic from Scott Olsen-Getty Images.

 

 

What will they say about Dante Parker?

We are being shown the tape over and over again. The one where the now deceased teenager is allegedly robbing a convenience store.


It was released by the Ferguson, Missouri police department to make the victim in the Michael Brown case unsympathetic to the rest of us. It is a playbook that we have seen before, and the last time that it was used it worked to perfection.


Now, though, the people have gotten smarter, and they understand the tactic that is being used. It will be interesting to see if it works again.


Let's keep something in mind: The police officer who shot Michael Brown did not know that he was a suspect in a "robbery". (DID NOT KNOW.) Not that it would have made any difference if he did. You don't get to act as judge, jury, and executioner as a police officer. And, the last time I checked, there is no death penalty in the United States for a crime against someone's property.


"The manner in which Ferguson officials disclosed the information Friday, which included a police report on the robbery but no new details about last Saturday’s shooting, set off renewed anger among residents and quickly overshadowed the release of the officer’s name."  


A "release" that was too long in coming.


Anyway, I wonder what the police in San Bernardino County are going to say about Dante Parker. *In Pic*


"A married father of five in Southern California died after he was tased multiple times by police trying to arrest him for attempted burglary.


Dante Parker, 36, was riding a bicycle in Victorville on Tuesday afternoon when a deputy stopped and questioned him about an attempted break-in at a nearby home, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office said.


The person who reported the suspicious activity on Bucknell Court said the suspect rode away on a bike. When the deputy found Parker, he appeared "to possibly be under the influence of an unknown substance," the sheriff's office said.


Cops said Parker became belligerent and fought with the female deputy, who shot him with a stun gun several times and called for backup.


Parker's co-workers at the local Daily Press newspaper, where he was a pressman in the printing department, said that didn't sound like the hard-working gentle giant they saw every day.


"He was a big teddy bear," Press publisher Al Frattura told the Daily News. "He worked in our production department for 12 years...he was part of our family." 
"He's a family man, he loves music....it's just so unfortunate," Frattura said. 
Richard Loredo, Parker's former co-worker, told the newspaper the police version of the story was "totally wrong; that's just not Dante."' [Source] 


Sounds like he was a hard working family man.


Now let's see if the cops in San Bernardino are as good at spinning as the cops in Missouri.

"Don't shoot"! But they will if you don't vote.

The people of Ferguson, Missouri are still in the streets, and they are still angry over the killing of one of the young men from their community.


Now that the protests have made national news, the politricksters and the rest of the usual suspects have descended on the North St Louis suburb to put their two cents into the mix. And this is no longer a local story. Protests are now breaking out all over the country.


The governor says that it looks like a "war zone and that's unacceptable".


 "This is a place where people work, go to school, raise families, go to church. A diverse community. A Missouri community. But lately it’s looked a little bit more like a war zone and that’s unacceptable.”


Well, actually, there is no diversity in the power structure of Ferguson, Missouri. The Mayor is white, the city council is mostly white, and the police department is almost all white. Yet, the city itself is 60% black.


So I blame the black folks in Ferguson as well. You have to become engaged politically and take charge of your community. If you do not do that you will have a lot more Michael Browns in the future.


The governor is a democrat, but that doesn't matter. He is a politician, and his main focus is to get elected to office. He is going to take you Negroes for granted because either you don't vote, or because, as a democrat, he thinks that your vote is in the bag.


The truth is, the politician I am feeling the most these days when it comes to speaking out against the injustice that permeates throughout the American justice system, not to mention the out of control militaristic tactics being used by members of law enforcement, is Rand Paul. Yes, that Rand Paul.


It's not enough to tweet "F*ck You" to the governor, you have to be able to look him in the eye and tell him that the power he holds in his office is in jeopardy if he doesn't pay attention to you.


Sticking a few tokens from the police department to march with you shouldn't be enough to make you stop demanding justice. (I see you Capt. Ron Johnson) It's a tactic that that's used time and time again by the politicians to shut you up until the next time.


Let's hope it doesn't work again.