Former KKK Member Convicted of Murder Up for Parole: One of the three men responsible for killing four black girls in a church bomb blast during the civil rights movement in Alabama is up for parole this week. Jay Reeves of the AP reports that as a young Ku Klux Klansman in 1963, Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., now 78, planted a dynamite bomb that exploded outside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing an 11-year-old and three 14-year-old black girls. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in 2001 after the FBI reopened its investigation and obtained recorded evidence by planting FBI bugs in Blanton's home and in the car of a former Klansman turned informant. Two other men were convicted in the bombing, Robert Chambliss in 1977 and Bobby Frank Cherry in 2002, who both died in prison. The three-person parole board has scheduled Blanton's hearing on Wednesday. Blanton will not be permitted to attend, but several opponents of his release are expected to be there to address the board. The former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, Doug Jones, says Blanton neither accepted responsibility for the crime nor showed any remorse and should not be released. Update: The parole board denied the release of Blanton on Wednesday.
IL Officer Shot, Seriously Wounded: A Carbondale, Ill., police officer was shot and seriously injured late Sunday during a police chase. Kim Bell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Carbondale officers drove toward the sound of gunfire at 11:38 p.m. and, after spotting a vehicle speeding off, a chase ensued. The fleeing vehicle refused to pull over and someone in the vehicle then fired several shots at the officers, hitting one police car and striking the officer. Police did not return fire. The officer, whose name has not yet been released, remained in serious condition Monday morning. The gunman is still at large.
Black Lives Matter Release List of Demands: For the first time since its emergence, the Black Lives Matter organization released its policy agenda Monday, outlining six demands and 40 recommendations on how to address them. Errin Haines Whack of the AP reports that in seeking "radical transformation," BLM organizers stipulated that there be an end to militarized police presence at protests; that drug, sex work-related and youth offenses be retroactively decriminalized and all people convicted of those offenses be released immediately; and that federal legislation be passed creating a commission to study reparations for descendants of slaves. The BLM movements spawned in 2012, but exploded in 2014 following the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who was later found to have rightly defended himself against an aggressive Brown. Since then, BLM has been heavily criticized by groups who say the organization is "unfairly critical of -- an even endangers -- law enforcement."
IL Officer Shot, Seriously Wounded: A Carbondale, Ill., police officer was shot and seriously injured late Sunday during a police chase. Kim Bell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Carbondale officers drove toward the sound of gunfire at 11:38 p.m. and, after spotting a vehicle speeding off, a chase ensued. The fleeing vehicle refused to pull over and someone in the vehicle then fired several shots at the officers, hitting one police car and striking the officer. Police did not return fire. The officer, whose name has not yet been released, remained in serious condition Monday morning. The gunman is still at large.
Black Lives Matter Release List of Demands: For the first time since its emergence, the Black Lives Matter organization released its policy agenda Monday, outlining six demands and 40 recommendations on how to address them. Errin Haines Whack of the AP reports that in seeking "radical transformation," BLM organizers stipulated that there be an end to militarized police presence at protests; that drug, sex work-related and youth offenses be retroactively decriminalized and all people convicted of those offenses be released immediately; and that federal legislation be passed creating a commission to study reparations for descendants of slaves. The BLM movements spawned in 2012, but exploded in 2014 following the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who was later found to have rightly defended himself against an aggressive Brown. Since then, BLM has been heavily criticized by groups who say the organization is "unfairly critical of -- an even endangers -- law enforcement."
Leave a comment