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Black Lives Matter Minneapolis apologized on Tuesday after it sparked rumors by sharing horrific photos that suggested a black man had been lynched -- even when police clarified the picture was of a white man who had hanged himself in a city park.

The group issued the apology on its Facebook page Tuesday night, sending condolences to the family of Michael Bringle, the man who committed suicide, and saying it retracted its earlier statements.

"As more information came out and Mr. Bringle's family came forward, it became clear that this was an unfortunate incident caused by mental illness," the group said.

It added: "We are sorry if our post offended anyone and hope that folks see we were simply echoing the questions and concerns that community members had."

Organizers said they had taken down the Facebook post, but it was widely spread during the hours it was up. Bringle, 50, was found hanging from a tree in Indiana Mounds Park in St. Paul. A passerby found the body just before 6 a.m. Tuesday and posted three photos of the scene on Facebook, suggesting that the man was a victim of a hate crime.

LOUISIANA COP SUES BLACK LIVES MATTER AFTER BEING WOUNDED IN DEADLY AMBUSH

"This is just a few blocks from where my auntie live I was just at this damn park two nights ago! This so damn foul!! I'm so fed up with this s***! They still killing us and we still killing each other!#MakeGoViral," the man wrote in the caption, leading to speculation the body in the photos was of a black man who had been lynched.

The user posted three photos of the incident on Facebook, garnering thousands of shares, comments and reactions. (Facebook)

The post generated thousands of reactions, comments and shares. It soon caught Black Lives Matter Minneapolis' attention and organizers shared the photos on the group's Facebook page, claiming the man had been "lynched" and vowing they wouldn't let the incident "go under the rug." The post remained up for several hours before it was replaced by the apology.

The Ramsey County medical examiner concluded there's no evidence the death was anything other than a suicide and police urged people to stop and remove the photos from social media out of respect for the family.

MINNEAPOLIS NEIGHBORHOOD REELING, CALLS FOR POLICE REFORM AFTER COP KILLS AUSTRALIAN WOMAN

"To me, hearing about it on Facebook was so devastating, Bringle's sister, Kelly Brown-Rozowski, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "This isnt something to be shared in such a tragic way; he should be remembered for what a great man he was."

St. Paul Police Sgt. Mike Ernster called the post "disgusting."

But as of Wednesday morning, the original post of the incident has not been taken down. It has been shared more than 12,600 times.

More here:
Black Lives Matter Minneapolis apologizes about photo of 'lynched' man - Fox News

Don't let the funky theme song or the '70s origins fool you.

While technically a remake of both the original series and the subsequent 2003 film based on it CBS' upcoming cop drama"S.W.A.T."is very plugged into the current moment, according to its cast and creators.

In the series,former "Criminal Minds" starShemar Moore plays a native Angeleno whoruns atactical unit for the LAPDand finds his loyalty torn between his fellow officers and the community in which he was raised.

As co-creator Aaron Rahsaan Thomas told reporters Tuesday at the Television Critics Assn. press tour, the series was inspired by his experiences growing up in Kansas City, which have helped him understand both sides of the raging debate over police violence.

"I grew up in a neighborhood that had a very complicated view towards police officers," said Thomas, who created the series with veteran showrunnerShawn Ryan. "On one hand, a 12-year-old kid who was a neighbor of mine was shot and killed by a police officer. On the other hand, another neighbor of mine was an actual police officer."

Moore, best known for his long run on the CBS procedural "Criminal Minds," noted the diversity of the cast and creative teamandadded that, while the show is primarily designed to entertain, it will also resonate politically.

"Were taking on the Trump years," he said. "I dont care who you voted for. Its just whats happening today. Its Black Lives Matter. As much as some people dont want to hear it, its All Lives Matter. Its not just black versus blue or black versus white. Its every ethnicity. Its fear. Its racism. Its terrorism. Its subject matter of today."

Ryan, who created the groundbreaking drama"The Shield," aboutcorrupt Los Angeles police officers, said he was excited about the chance to examine theoften charged relationship between law enforcement and the communitiesthey serve.

"Los Angeles is such a diverse, amazing community, and seeing an officer who kind of lives in the city and sort of sees the people that are being policed as humans and as neighbors and as friends was really important to me."

Continued here:
CBS' 'SWAT' reboot 'will take on the Trump years,' #BlackLivesMatter, says Shemar Moore - Los Angeles Times

Pennsylvania Black Lives Matter protesters crashed a childrens event Monday to voice their anger over the police shooting of a black man.

Activists interrupted a speech former Democratic Gov.Ed Rendell was giving to commemorate the 11thanniversary of a Philadelphia parks founding, reports 6ABC. The protesters, angry over the fatal police shooting ofDavid Jones, accused Rendell of having blood on his hands at the Franklin Square event.

And now you have the ultimate politician who is anti-black, the activist said, turning towards Rendell. There is nothing but blood on his hands.

North Philadelphia police officers shot Jones, a black man, in the back after a June traffic stop. The officer, James Pownall, stopped Jones because he was driving recklessly. Pownall gave James a pat-down, during which he felt a gun in the mans waistband, according to the police account. James escaped as the two fought each other, prompting Pownall to pull out a gun and shoot James in the back as he ran away.

A white woman tried to interrupt the activist with the microphone, but he told her to back up off me.

Back up off of me. Back up off of me, the activist told the woman. Because a black man was shot, I know you dont give a damn about that. You and your white privilege.

Parents and children eventually had to be led to a different location due to the protest.

And were saying now that no politician will be safe, no event, no press conference, we dont care what we have to do. Were saying as far as thats concerned, we want justice for David Jones immediately, said Asa Khalif, an activist with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Rendell defended the protesters but pointed out that they probably shouldnt have interrupted a childrens event.

They have the right to say what they want to say. I wouldnt have disrupted a ceremony that was basically for children, but thats their call. But look, if they want to disrupt ceremonies as long as theyre in public places, they have the right to do that, Rendell said.

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Black Lives Matter Crashes Children's Event To Protest Police Shooting - The Daily Caller

khalid kamau is no stranger to firsts.

He claims to be the first Black Lives Matter organizer elected to public office, and in his new position, he sits on the first city council of South Fulton, Ga., a brand new municipality on the outskirts of Atlanta. Now, he wants his city to be one of the first in the nation to make Election Day a holiday.

kamau (who prefers the lower-case spelling of his name, in keeping with Yoruban African tradition) is a Democratic socialist and former national convention delegate for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. He campaigned heavily for the incorporation of South Fulton, which has a population of 100,000 and became a city just last November. A few months later, voters repaid him with a spot on their new city's council.

Now he's on a crusade to turn his home into the "largestprogressive city in the South."

His first big order of business? Making it easier for people to vote.

kamau proposed legislation to make Election Day a city holiday, which he hopes will increase voter turnout and political participation. The ordinance passed the seven-member council with four votes last month, but it was vetoed by the mayor the following day. Councilmembers will have the chance to override that veto -- which would be another first for South Fulton -- on August 8, but they need five votes to do it.

Governing caught up with kamau to discuss his Election Day proposal, his vision for South Fulton and his experience as an activist-turned-politician.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Walk me through the process of getting this Election Day resolution before city council. What obstacles have you faced?

I introduced the bill in two iterations. Option A was to just add a new holiday to the calendar. That didn't move forward in council because there would be an economic impact to the city by creating a new holiday. Option B, which passed, was to swap the Election Day holiday with Columbus Day, so it would be revenue-neutral for the city.

At the meeting, the mayor said, Whatever the council decides, I will go along with. The very next day, the mayor vetoed the bill. I would say there is about a 50/50 chance it passes next week. We need one more vote to override, and one councilperson is on the fence.

Why make Election Day a holiday?

To increase voter turnout and create a day of political education for the community.

Im planning a day of classes that will teach residents a variety of things: How do you get a stoplight or a stop sign in your neighborhood? How does the school board work? What does your state senator do? If the bill passes, those classes will be held on Election Day. If it does not pass, they will be held on the Saturday before Election Day.

As far as I know, we would be the second city, after Newark, N.J., to do this. [Several states have some form of a holiday on Election Day]. In Puerto Rico, Election Day is a holiday, and they have 50 percent turnout. That hasnt been the case in Newark, and in my eyes, the difference is that in Puerto Rico, it isnt just another day off -- its a cultural holiday. There's a whole set of traditions around voting. So just giving people the day off doesn't necessarily increase turnout.

So you plan to foster those same types of traditions with the holiday?

Yes. I want to encourage a culture of voting, which we do not currently have. I want kids and parents to be off at the same time on Election Day, so kids can watch their parents vote and take part in these classes well offer.

I represent the most densely populated and poorest district in the city. Many people in my district will tell you that no one has ever knocked on their door and asked for their vote. When I was knocking on doors during my election, three out of four people did not know that we were becoming a city.

So after that, I came to believe that the key to increasing turnout is having more political education. My volunteers went out with a laminated map of the city and our district, and gave out FAQ sheets with very basic questions and answers about city services. People don't know what an alderman does or what the county commissioner is. They don't know what those positions do, let alone who is running for them. So the biggest thing we can do is give everybody the day off so they have time to go through all this information.

There are some criticisms of bills like this, mainly that only government employees would get the day off. Some people say it would actually make it harder for retail employees to take the time to vote because their stores and businesses would be flooded with extra customers who aren't working. What is your response to that?

No matter what we do in this situation, working-class folks will unfortunately get short shrift. If we moved Election Day to a Saturday, it would still be working-class folks having to work that day.

But many businesses set their calendar by the citys calendar. I wish we could just mandate that, but in Georgia, we cant because of state preemption laws. But if the city and the school system both secure this holiday, more businesses will secure it as well -- and that's how a holiday grows.

Can you talk to me about the whole process of making South Fulton a city?

There has been a movement in the South, in conservative states especially, for wealthy areas to incorporate to get more local control over their governments and their tax dollars. Theres state legislation that mandates that income collected within city limits has to be spent within city limits.

In Fulton County, that has really accelerated over the last 10 to 15 years so that by 2007, every square mile had become incorporated except for this 140 square miles on the south side of town. Other cities began to annex the most valuable parts of unincorporated South Fulton, like areas with lots of corporate headquarters that contribute a lot in taxes but don't demand services.

So South Fulton was left with less and less of a tax base, so we ultimately had to incorporate just to stay financially viable. What the rest of the county likely didnt expect is that we became the third-largest city in the county.

Why did you decide to run for city council?

I went to elementary and middle school in the district that Im representing. My mom got sick so I moved home to take care of her, and I was living in the house I grew up in. That's where my slogan, "From Here, For Here" came from. [kamaus mother passed away a few weeks after his city council inauguration.]

This place also really excited me politically. South Fulton is 89 percent African-American with a median income $10,000 less than the median income in Atlanta. We are also really large, nearly the physical size of Atlanta. So there's this huge majority-black city that has the potential to become the largest progressive city in the South.

All this progressive stuff is happening in places like Seattle and California. I really saw this as a chance to show folks that a working-class black city could be progressive, that you don't need to be wealthy and white for these ideas to work. That's a criticism a lot of people have of leftist ideas: that they're not practical. We have to show that these ideas are economically viable and politically effective. I want to show the world and our neighbors that we can have our Election Day holiday and our higher minimum wage, and we can invest more in youth than in prisons.

Your bio says you're the first Black Lives Matter organizer elected to public office. How has your activism carried over to your current role in public office?

A lot of what I have learned about political education and progressive policies for working-class black folks, I learned at Black Lives Matter. I was an organizer for the Atlanta chapter. I'm still involved actually, just not as involved as I used to be.

In general, BLM and the millennial left is still trying to figure out whether they believe in electoral politics at all. There is a set of us that want to dismantle the entire system of government that we have now. I'm not there. My life's work in electoral politics is to make the argument that this system is redeemable and it is up to us, as millennials, to redeem it.

Read this article:
Black Lives Matter Activist-Turned-Politician Wants You to Rethink the South - Governing

In August 2014, on a hot Saturday afternoon in Missouri, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department shot and killed Michael Brown. America was transfixed for months by the protests, the riots, the never-ending news cycle. What was considered a noble, even heroic callingpolice workcame to be perceived as the source of Americas woes practically overnight. The name of Ferguson became shorthand for institutional racism and police brutality.

I was the chief of police for Ferguson. The incident that resulted in the death of Michael Brown, and the terrible aftermath that all but destroyed the town, happened on my watch.

I spent months on the hot seat, the primary focus of a nations outrage. It was probably more important to me than to anyone else to understand where that anger came from, to realistically assess how much of it was justified, and how much resulted from people jumping to conclusions based on a dangerous cocktail of provocative media reports and inflammatory pronouncements by politicians and activists, amplifying misperceptions that had spread on the internet faster than any investigation could possibly proceed.

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Since resigning my post, in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justices scathing report, Ive had the time and motivation to examine all the things said about Ferguson. Even if there werent lawsuits that required me to be clear about the facts, I needed to know for my own peace of mind where people came up with the claims they made about my force and our town. As a professional, I wanted to know what we were doing wrong and how to fix what could be fixed, even if my days as chief in Ferguson were over. This book is a product of that examination.

I cannot begin without first addressing two things: the Department of Justice report on Ferguson and the fact that there was so much coverage of events in Ferguson that people say, I know what I saw. You cant deny it.

You know what you saw. Theres a difference between, I know what I saw, and I know what I was shown. Even if you came to Ferguson to see with your own eyes, there were places you couldnt have gone, meetings you couldnt have attended. All I ask is that you give me a chance to show you what wasnt shown, to take you where you couldnt have gone.

Related: The fallout from the Michael Brown shooting

Ferguson Police Sergeant Dominica Fuller listens to protesters yelling at her outside the police station on August 8. Rick Wilking/Reuters

The DOJ report, though, needs to be discussed right here. Attorney General Eric Holder of the Department of Justice first arrived in Ferguson eleven days after the shooting. He spoke with Michael Browns mother. He talked of his own experiences with prejudice. He stated publicly that his pledge included, as opposed to simple justice, robust action, and he stated that long after the events of August 9 have receded from the headlines, the Justice Department will continue to stand with this community. The things he said and did added up to a tacit confirmation of the public fear that wrong had been done, the shooting had been bad, and that prejudice was a factor. And it was all broadcast live. It not only cemented the Department of Justices biased stance in the upcoming investigation but also turned up the heat of public anger. He made the job of law enforcement even harder than it already was, putting the public and police both at greater risk.

Attorney General Holder did all of this more than three months before the investigation into the shooting concluded. Three months before the facts were in. His mind was made up before he arrived in town. Following his August 20 pledge and his September resignation, Holder appeared at the Washington Ideas Forum on October 29, where he declared, I think its pretty clear that the need for wholesale change in that department [Ferguson] is appropriate. The Los Angeles Times later quoted sources in the Justice Department saying, The more he gets out in front publicly, the more he will be expected to deliver criminal charges...the situation could reach a tipping point where federal criminal charges would be the only way to vindicate Holders public comments.

Then the investigations into the shooting concluded and the forensics showed that the narrative that had gained such traction with the public didnt fit the evidence. The officers version of events did. To those who right here would immediately jump to thinking staged scene, cover-up, I have included in my new book, Policing Ferguson, Policing America, an appendix so you can read the findings yourself.

Mind you, what Ive included is not from an internal police investigationits from a federal investigation, because the FBI (a division of the DOJ) was sent to look into this at the same time that Holder was. The FBI came, stayed off camera, and did their jobs. They actually investigated before reaching their conclusions. They brought in the evidence, and it supported the police officer whom Holder had tacitly condemned.

Its one thing for a shopkeeper to say, I might have made an unfair rush to judgment here, and quite another for the attorney general of the United States to say, Oops. What are the odds of a fair and unbiased investigation if the person directing it is thoroughly invested in finding something that will vindicate him rather than in finding the truth? The DOJ investigation started with the premise that Ferguson was a swamp of injustice, then sought out and published anything that looked like it supported that position.

I dont want to imply the department I led was immaculate, that no Ferguson officer ever engaged in questionable behavior, and I dont deny that there are systemic problems or that the criminal justice system is in need of lasting reform. But the Ferguson portrayed in that report was an invention, a backwards, angry place that the Justice Department created to make a show of tearing it down.

Seven months after the shooting and three months after the grand jury had ruled that there were no grounds to indict the officer involved, I was summoned to meet with representatives of the DOJ prior to the reports release. As the citys manager, attorney, mayor, and I went into the meeting, we were required to surrender our cell phones and recording devices, as if they didnt want anybody to know what they were about to say.

We listened in horror as the DOJ lead investigator outlined the essential findings in the report. A stunned Stephanie Karr, our city attorney, protested, You cant say those things. Thats not true. It wont hold up in litigation.

The DOJ investigator replied coldly, Well, we arent litigating, are we?

In the court of public opinion, there is no standard of proof, much less a defense team. We knew their report was a distorted misrepresentation, but they counted on the public not to question it. By the time sources like The Wall Street Journal condemned them for the meaningless way they used statistics, for example, it was too late. The damage was done.

I still shake my head over how easily they could publish a report filled with so much that met no evidentiary standards simply by playing to what everybody knew.

Everybody knew. How quickly a few social media reports grew into everybody knows.

It was like a chain reaction that got out of control. Social media sources and traditional media sources were feeding off each other. The crowds were responding to what the police were doing. The more it escalated, the more people showed up, and the more people showed up, the more it escalated. It was a toxic feedback loop.

My grim observation in Ferguson was that media representatives and politicians lost objectivity. They did not wait for the facts. True justice stands upon the facts, no matter how much they fly in the face of popular perception. True justice is impartial, and for everyone.

Thomas Jackson is the former police chief of Ferguson, Missouri. This story has been adapted from his new book "Policing Ferguson, Policing America." Skyhorse Publishing, Inc

Go here to see the original:
Book Excerpt: Ex-Ferguson Police Chief Defends Michael Brown Shooting, Calls Justice Department Report An ... - Newsweek