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It was a sunny day in July 2014 when Eric Garner was killed. The 43-year-old African American man had been approached by New York City police officers on suspicion that hed been selling loose cigarettes. After a few words were exchanged, the officers attempted an arrest. When Garner pulled away, the officers tackled him. One white officer put the father of six in a chokehold. As he lay face down on the ground under a pile of grown men, Garner pleaded for air. I cant breathe, he warned a total of 11 times before losing consciousness.

An hour later, he was dead. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide and the autopsy implicated the police. When a video of the incident hit social media, it set off a firestorm. The killing became a watershed moment in the fight for racial justice and Garners final words a rallying cry. The impact was felt all across the country, including in the small Indiana city of South Bend, where 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was serving his first term as mayor. The moment would test the young politician and leave some in his community feeling as though hed come up short.

Today, even after his rise in the polls in some early primary states, Buttigieg boasts negligible support among black Democrats, a key demographic in the race for the Democratic nomination. At the same time, his presidential campaign has put his record in South Bend particularly on race relations under a microscope. His response to the reverberations of the Garner killing in South Bend, where he tried to chart a middle ground between calls for racial justice and denial of the problem, is another example of what critics say is his failure to understand and tackle systemic racism. Buttigiegs campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

On December 13, 2014, just five months after Garners death, during its televised warmup for its game against Michigan, the Notre Dame womens basketball team wore black T-shirts with the words I Cant Breathe emblazoned across the front in big white letters.

The ensuing, predictable controversy made it into the national news cycle. Following the game, Jason Barthel, a white police officer from the city of Mishawaka, began selling slogan tees of his own from his store, South Bend Uniform, which frequently did business with the city of South Bend, including a sale for $800 days before the basketball game. The shirts prominently featured a police badge over a thin blue line with the words Breathe Easy across the top and Dont Break the Law on the bottom.

The shirts sparked outrage within the community and on social media. In a post on its Facebook page, South Bend Uniform tried to defuse some of the anger, explaining that Breathe Easywas actually referring to knowing the police are there for you.

We are all one people and this is by no means is a slam on Eric Garner or his family, God rest his soul, the post read. Lets [sic] all band together as AMERICANS regardless of our feelings and know we can and will be better!

Barthel, meanwhile, told the media that he had wanted to inject the police perspective into the conversation that was sparked by the Notre Dame womens team.

Were here to protect the public, and we want you to breathe easy knowing that the police are here to be with you and for you and protect you, he told CBS affiliate WSBT22.

In other interviews, however, he was more explicit about the shirts meaning and implications.

When you break the law, unfortunately, theres going to be consequences, and some of them arent going to be pretty, Barthel explained to the South Bend Tribune. Unfortunately, thats the reality.

Three members of South Bends city council including the bodys only two serving African American men issued a statement with the president of the South Bend branch of the NAACP. The release condemned the shirts and requested that local vendors discontinue sales. It also had an ask for Buttigieg.

In the past, the City of South Bend has done business with one of these local vendors, it read, referring to South Bend Uniform. It is our hope that Mayor Buttigieg and Mayor Wood of Mishawaka will join us in unifying our communities and not support this dangerous message.

The first-term mayor, however, did not weigh in immediately, allowing the controversy to grow. When he did speak out during a local news interview, it was not the response the statements writers had hoped for.

Buttigieg asserted that the two sides of the controversy were really not that divided after all. Theyre being portrayed like theyre on two different sides, but theyre not even talking about the same thing, he explained. Were talking about two different things. And one of those is the way that race is playing a role in our criminal justice system. And the other is about the safety of police officers who go out there every day and risk their lives. And I fear that were being led down this path that you have to choose between being pro-minority/pro-equal rights and pro-police.

The mayors remarks on the controversy did not reassure his constituents who had wanted to see Buttigieg distance himself from Barthels message.

He refused to touch it, said councilmember-elect Henry Davis Jr., who was one of the drafters of the 2014 statement and launched an unsuccessful primary challenge against the mayor the following year. And when he touched it, he agreed with both sides. His 2015 run for mayor, he said, was partly motivated by Buttigiegs reaction to the shirts.

I just really thought that he was very insensitive, he continued. I was looking for somebody to have a heart. We knew that the guy had just died from being choked to death. It was on video and it was clear on what happened with the police.

Davis, who was re-elected to the city council this year, noted that the incident is a part of the mayors larger, problematic record on issues affecting the black community. He pointed out that during Buttigiegs tenure, two unarmed black men have died at the hands of law enforcement.

Thats too much, he said.

Demonstrators protest the shooting death of Eric Logan outside of the South Bend police station following his funeral on June 29, 2019, in South Bend, Ind.

Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Indeed, in 2012, shortly after Buttigieg entered office, Michael Deshawn Anderson died in police custody, prompting a wrongful death lawsuit, which Andersons family eventually dropped. In June of this year, 54-year-old Eric Logan was fatally shot by white officer Sgt. Ryan ONeill, whose body camera was turned off at the time and who had an alleged history of making racist comments. The killing received national attention this summer in light of Buttigiegs presidential run and even prompted the mayor to cancel campaign events to return home for a town hall where he was confronted by an outraged community.

Hes also come under scrutiny for his firing of South Bends first black police chief after it was revealed that he had improperly taped senior white officers making racist statements about him and other black officers. Buttigieg has since admitted that firing the police chief, Darryl Boykins, was a mistake, but hes thus far refused to release the tapes. And while Boykins was fired, the white officers who were on the tapes faced no disciplinary action.

On the presidential campaign trail, the mayors campaign appeared to chalk up Buttigiegs low levels of support among black voters to homophobia within the black community. The rollout of his Frederick Douglass Plan for Black America, meant to tackle systemic racism, was equally problematic, as the campaign claimed to have endorsements from 400 black South Carolinians, but subsequent investigation by The Intercept revealed that nearly half of the names were of white people. Moreover, some of the claimed endorsers had not actually signed on.

City Councilmember Oliver Davis, who also signed the 2014 statement, publicly rebuked Buttigieg late last month when he endorsed Joe Bidens presidential campaign. Speaking about the young mayors difficulty reaching black voters, Davis told Politico, For us, this has been a consistent issue that has not gone away.

In his 2015 State of the City address, even as Buttigieg attempted to assuage concerns about the race-related controversies plaguing his administration, he used the phrase all lives matter, widely understood as a rebuke of the Black Lives Matter movement. The blunder resulted in fierce pushback from progressives when the speech resurfaced earlier this year. Buttigieg said he stopped using the phrase after he understood its implications.

Stories like these have not helped Buttigieg win over black voters. In the aftermath of the Logan shooting, an exasperated Buttigieg was caught on tape telling a black woman whod asked how he expected black folks to support him, Im not asking for your vote.

You aint getting it either, the woman responded.

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Pete Buttigieg and South Bend's I Can't Breathe Controversy - The Intercept

In September 2018, President Donald Trump won an important First Amendment victory. By a 3-0 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled that neither Trump nor his campaign could be held liable for injuries suffered by protesters at the hands of Trump supporters during a March 2016 rally even though the then-candidate had yelled to get em out of here.

The courts reasoning was based on the straightforward application of free-speech principles: Trump had not advocated violence at the Kentucky rally (in fact, he had also said dont hurt em), and therefore he couldnt be successfully sued even though some people were roughed up.

The decision may have been a disappointment for those who thought Trump should be held accountable for his careless words. But under the First Amendment, political speech receives the highest level of protection except in the most extreme circumstances.

Now, though, those principles are in danger. Based on a similar set of facts, the 5th Circuit ruled recently that a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, can sue Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson for injuries he received at the hands of a rock-throwing protester even though, as The Washington Post reported, Mckesson did not throw the rock or tell anyone else to throw it.

Mckesson had organized the 2016 demonstration following the police killing of a black man named Alton Sterling. The police officer, whose identity has not been revealed, claims that Mckesson acted negligently by not foreseeing that the demonstration could become violent.

The goal of lawsuits like these is to prevent people from showing up at a protest out of the fear that they might be held responsible if anything happens, Mckesson said in a statement released by the ACLU, which earlier this month asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. If this precedent lasts, it could make organizers all across the country responsible for all types of things they have no control over, such as random people coming into a protest and causing problems. We cant let that happen.

The Supreme Court precedent that protected Trump and that, by all rights, should protect Mckesson is NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., a case decided in 1982. The NAACP in 1966 called for a boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi a nonviolent form of protest that nevertheless led to some acts of violence. In 1969, several of the business owners sued the NAACP and were successful in the state courts. But the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the NAACP could not be held liable for engaging in nonviolent free-speech activities regardless of actions taken by people not under the organizations control.

Although the cases against Trump and Mckesson, like the case against NAACP, were for alleged civil offenses, its also worth noting the high bar the Supreme Court has set for incitement to violence in criminal cases. In the landmark 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court threw out the conviction of Ku Klux Klan leader Clarence Brandenburg because the threats he made at a rally against African Americans and Jews were non-specific and would not result in imminent violence.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, the ACLUs lawyers argue that allowing the lawsuit against Mckesson to proceed would have a chilling effect on anyone who might wish to organize a nonviolent protest.

Given the regularity with which violence and First Amendment activity co-occur and the vagaries of state law liability rules, the lawyers wrote, only the most intrepid citizens would exercise their rights and risk ruinous liability if they could be held liable for the wrongful acts of others.

Ben Wizner, director of the ACLUs Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, put it this way in the Washington Post story: If this is allowed to stand, anybody can show up and throw a rock at a protest to bankrupt a movement they disagree with. People know when they step into the street that they might have to spend some hours in jail or pay a fine. But if they might have to pay a multi-million dollar civil judgment thats something theyre not prepared for, and cant possibly be expected to prepare for.

The case should prove to be a telling indicator of where the Supreme Court stands on free speech now that it has swung sharply to the right. Only four of the nine justices are needed take up the case.

Traditionally, even the courts more conservative members have proved to be staunch advocates of the First Amendment. But if Trumps justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were to break with that tradition, the case of DeRay Mckesson v. John Doe could prove to be a signal moment in our march to a less open, less free society.

WGBH News contributor Dan Kennedys blog, Media Nation, is online at dankennedy.net.

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Why A Lawsuit Against A Black Lives Matter Activist Could Deal A Staggering Blow To The First Amendment - wgbh.org

Before entering 2020, Detroit Todays Stephen Henderson closesout this year and the decade by taking a look back to reflect on some of the biggest news stories, cultural moments and the people who leftus.

The panel includesCrains Detroit Business Senior Editor Chad Livengood, journalist and editor Nancy Derringer and political and communications consultant Greg Bowens.

Derringer says Donald Trump is the person of the decade, meanwhile Bowens says its the creator of the Bird Scooter TravisVanderZanden.

Livengood says his general overarching rule is that this has been the decade ofdisruption.

He says the last ten years have been about disruptors, both in business and in politics and culture,pointingto the self-implosion of K-Mart, the rise of Trump and services like DoorDash, Lyft andUber.

Henderson also mentions the passing of several notable figures including: Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, John Conyers, John Dingell, Robin Williams, Nelson Mandela, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Gordie Howe, Muhammad Ali, Cokie Roberts, Maya Angelou, Damon Keith, Mike Ilitch, David DiChiera, Whitney Houston, L Brooks Patterson, Anthony Bourdain, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Tom Petty, Chuck Berry and Bill Milliken.

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The Decade of Disruption: Me Too, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump and More - WDET

In an era when movements like Black Lives Matter and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women are calling attention to the life-and-death issues facing communities of color, its easy to overlook the impact day-to-day interactions can have on police-community relations.

But experts on bias and policing say when a racial or ethnic group is over-policed, which can include being searched at a higher rate than other groups, it can breed a mutual disrespect and distrust that becomes the basis for bigger problems.

That kind of treatment expands that divide between you and law enforcement, who are people that are tasked to protect and serve you, said Katrina Johnson, a Seattle criminal-justice activist. Theyre causing trauma, because youre continually getting harassed or pulled over or whatever for nothing. Youre not doing anything. Who wouldnt get tired of getting in trouble without actually being in trouble?

An analysis of millions of traffic stops released this week by InvestigateWest found that Washington State Patrol troopers search Native Americans at a rate more than five times higher than white motorists. Black drivers were twice as likely to be searched as white drivers, and Latinos and Pacific Islanders were about 80 percent more likely to be searched. Yet white drivers were most likely to be found with drugs or other contraband. A similar analysis by Stanford University earlier this year that focused on black and Latino drivers found the same is true nationwide.

Nationwide, Native Americans are one of the groups most likely to be killed by police.

Theyre more likely to be victims of violent crime than any other race and theyre more likely to be the victims of a crime committed by another race.

Its no coincidence that Native people suffer from both the highest rate of police violence nationwide and over-policing in Washington State, Jesse Phelps, spokesman for the Lakota Peoples Law Project, wrote in an email. Its all too obvious that racial profiling is alive and well throughout the U.S.

Until we see more activism from the populace, better protections from elected officials and increased oversight from law enforcement authorities, people of color will no doubt continue to suffer disproportionately.

There are steps police departments can take to address overpolicing and one of its underlying causes, implicit bias. They include:

Johnson knows firsthand about the rift that over-policing can cause with communities of color. As a leader in the fight to prevent more deaths like that of her cousin Charleena Lyles, who was killed by Seattle police in 2017, Johnson still felt disconnected from and distrustful of the people who were supposed to be protecting and patrolling her neighborhood. Months after Lyless killing, when her own home was burglarized, Johnson said, she was afraid to call the police.

When Johnson in August 2018 started her work with the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, which refers low-level drug offenders to treatment instead of prosecution, she probably did not believe that there was a possibility that officers were good, she said.

As an activist, she traveled the country speaking with other activists and police leaders. But it wasnt until she began working for the LEAD program last year, Johnson said, that she got to know rank-and-file officers. The work has helped her realize that some prejudices are unconscious, but police officers need to be able to openly address their biases, she said. Being in personal contact with police changed her, too.

I just waved at a police officer. How weird was that? she said during an interview at her office. Theyre not all bad. So I want a greater understanding of whats happening during these interactions.

Bias and cultural competency training starts to humanize people, Johnson said. And it will make you think differently.

The State Patrol offers a 50-minute anti-bias class to cadets in training, and officials said bias is addressed in other parts of training, including refreshers. They also said new curriculum, mandated by the I-940 ballot initiative that was approved by Washington voters last year, should be in place when the March cadet class begins next year.

Activists say if police officers are more reflective of the communities they represent, and live in those communities, it can improve relations.

To know whether training is working, academics who study bias say, police agencies need to set goals and have a way to measure improvements. A State Patrol collaboration with Washington State University showed that there were disparities in how often some drivers were being searched and would have allowed officials to track improvements, but those studies ceased in 2007.

Clayton Mosher, one of the WSU professors involved in the studies, said he believes they could be restarted for about $50,000.

I think it is important, Mosher said. Of course, this seems to be the case nationally while there, of course, has been some focus post-Ferguson, etc., the kind of work we did with the (State Patrol) does not seem to be occurring, he said. Oregon has just released its first report of this kind and could prove a model for routine analysis of similar data.

There are more immediate policy changes agencies can make that take officers out of situations where their biases might play out.

Chris Burbank, who served as the chief of police for Salt Lake City from 2006 to 2015, said traffic stops and minor citations sometimes become a form of stop and frisk, the infamous New York City policy from the early 2000s that encouraged police to question and search people based on a low level of suspicion. Officers were found to have disproportionately targeted black and Latino men and a federal judge in New York eventually ruled that the city was violating the Constitution.

In Salt Lake City, Burbank said, officers were issuing jaywalking tickets almost exclusively near a homeless shelter and were using the citations as an excuse to conduct searches, or as he put it get in their pockets. To address the problem, Burbank simply put a moratorium on jaywalking citations. Using minor citations as pretexts for searches is shortcutting the police work and wastes resources on frivolous searches, he said.

In October, the Los Angeles Police Department announced it was dropping a controversial policy, derided as stop and frisk in a car, of using traffic stops to look for contraband in high-crime areas. The department ended the policy after a Los Angeles Times analysis found the unit was disproportionately stopping black drivers. Last month, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that questions unrelated to an officers reason for stopping someone violated the states constitution. Civil libertarians hailed the ruling, saying it would protect people of color who are disproportionately targeted for searches.

The Washington State Patrol regulations say troopers are required to get clear and explicit consent and give drivers a written explanation of their rights where practical.

Burbank suggested that police agencies can address racial disparities in searches by informing drivers of their rights before asking consent to search a vehicle or pat someone down or by eliminating those so-called consent searches altogether, and requiring troopers to have probable cause before searching a vehicle. Or, Burbank said, agencies could go so far as to reduce or eliminate traffic citations.

These are small steps you can take, and most of these can be done at the police department level by an administrator, Burbank said. Youre just holding the cops to a higher standard than what the law says.

For its part, the Washington State Patrol says its considering once again partnering with an organization like Washington State University to conduct analyses like InvestigateWests. The State Patrol agrees there is a disparity in the search rate among blacks, whites, Latinos and Native Americans and that is not acceptable, said spokesman Chris Loftis. The agency is expanding its recruitment for diversity and recently hired a tribal liaison, with plans to hire another, Loftis said. He said the agency is committed to addressing the disparity InvestigateWest found, but said it will take time. The change that comes from new training programs and diverse hires is more of a process than an event, he said.

This story was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

More here:
How can police minimize racial profiling of Native Americans, others? - InvestigateWest

Formed in 1992 in New York, Wu-Tang Clan have sold over 40 million records worldwide to become one of the most influential hip hop groups of all time.

Euronews spoke with them backstage in their dressing room moments before they hit the stage at Dubais Sole DXB Festival.

It was the bands first time in Dubai, and they were finding it a lot more relaxed than their usual turf, New York City's Staten Island.

Raekwon told Euronews they had received a friendly welcome. We've been running around going to the mall and just meeting people and they been extra humble and you know, that's what I love is that you could go somewhere and, like if I dropped my wallet, you get your wallet back. You get your wallet back. So to me when you see people like that, it's like, it's a blessing.

U-God felt he felt he could let his guard down in the emirate.

I like the fact there's no guns really, no gun violence, he said. The laws are different and a little bit more strict. Theres certain things that need to be done.

Looking back on their 28-year career, Cappadonna described themselves as pioneers.

We paved the way and made it, you know, more possible for the upcoming artist struggling to get in there, and be creative, and make their own way too. But you know, at the same time, it's like we are still the kings of this right here.

Raekwon said their success was proof that dreams come true.

You know, you work hard and people see your work ethic is good and they know that you come from a history of poverty. And we did a lot. And like you say, we opened the doors for a lot of these youngsters, you know, and they look at us, they look at us in a godly fashion. And that comes from us knowing our struggle, knowing where we came from. But also knowing where we are going? And the music has been that vessel.

The group would not be drawn on politics and the Black Lives Matter movement.

All lives matter, Cappadonna said, while Raekwon said he believed US politics was starting to become like comedy.

Despite their success, the group says they still find inspiration in their daily lives.

U-God said: Keeping it real for me is just paying my bills and taking care of my babies and staying out of trouble, harm's way.

I'm trying to live and write stuff I still go through, because Im still going through drama. The drama never stops.

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The beat goes on: Wu-Tang Clan reflect on rap, racism and keeping it real. - Euronews