Saturday, May 28, 2011

Downtown: Presenting the "People's Indictment".

This afternoon, four "counts" of criminal activity were ceremonially alleged against city police officers who in early 2010 were involved in an altercation with Homewood teenager Jordan Miles -- counts consisting of Racial Profiling, Assault and Battery, False Arrest and Perjury. We begin in this video at the presentment of the nonlegal Perjury indictment by event organizer Brandi Fisher:



For material related to that which Rev. Thornton alludes above regarding the role of the church, see also this essay by Tracy M. Jennings.

Here is East Allegheny's own Paradise Gray:



And at about 1:15 below comes pastor Fred Dukes, uncle of the alleged victim:



The remainder is being added to the blog's YouTube channel.

5 comments:

  1. Where is the peoples indictment of all the gang violence and drug trade in Homewood?

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  2. It can be found towards the end of Paradise's speech, and not at all infrequently at these types of gatherings. You just have to keep listening. The hearing on Burgess's public safety legislation held in Homewood was chock full of cultural self-flagellation.

    Anon 8:46, is it your contention that so long as gangs and drugs are a problem, more and more of these brutal misunderstandings which result in hospitalizations are inevitable, and without consequence?

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  3. I suspect it is Anon 8:46's contention that so long as Homewood residents caught up in gangs and drugs are killing and brutalizing their brothers by the score each month of each year without fail, exerting this much effort and attention to one incident of one beating of one young man seems disproportionate, if not downright absurd.

    One could counter, of course, that the young murderers and brutalizers in Homewood are not charged with the protection of their brothers, and that the police officer who are should therefore rightly be held to a higher standard. One could also counter that injustice is injustice, and that it should be protested and prosecuted wherever and whenever it occurs.

    It is most difficult to argue with this last point. But it is also equally difficult to argue with the first point: that the next time white police officers kill an innocent young black man in Homewood, it will be the first time in a very long time, but the next time a young black man kills another young black man in Homewood, it will be difficult to say what number occurrence it is, because it has occurred so damned regularly for so damned long.

    If these people's efforts against police violence are as effective as their efforts against other violence in their own community, the police have little about which to worry.

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  4. Anon 9:53, are you speaking only about these people in Homewood, or in this region, or in African-American neighborhoods across the country? Because I don't think the gang / drug problem you describe is uniquely a Pittsburgh phenomenon -- and if it isn't, there's probably something complicated about it that makes it much harder to just up and fix than someone on the outside looking in would assume.

    I wasn't there that night, I don't know what the result of this should be and therefore I didn't sign the "indictment". But I think (as you concede) you were on to something when you wrote, "injustice is injustice, and that it should be protested and prosecuted wherever and whenever it occurs." At least when it is discovered, yes. I do not think you will find many people in Homewood arguing that the real gang bangers in their midst ought to be let off the hook for example.

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  5. I suspect it is Anon 8:46's contention that so long as Homewood residents caught up in gangs and drugs are killing and brutalizing their brothers by the score each month of each year without fail, exerting this much effort and attention to one incident of one beating of one young man seems disproportionate, if not downright absurd.

    Absurd is a good word. Projection is another.

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