Page 18 - Florida Sentinel 4-2-19

National
Outrage As ‘Bullied’ Girl, 10, Dies
Man Out Of Prison For Nearly 13 Years May Have To Go Back Over Government Error
In Classroom ‘Fight’ Only For School
To Delete Facebook Page When
Parents Demanded Answers
In 2006, Demetrius An- derson walked out of a Con- necticut state prison a free man.
And then, last week, getting ready for work at New Haven’s parks department, he was con- fronted by eight U. S. marshals who showed up at his apart- ment door. Of course, the 43- year-old was confused.
“They pushed me on my re- frigerator, so now I’m cuffed in a robe, and ransacked my place,” Anderson said to WNPR. “They were saying they needed to go and make sure no one is here.”
Apparently, a U. S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (An- derson is originally from Philadelphia), signed a war- rant because he failed to serve a 16-month federal sentence, 13 years ago.
Anderson always thought his state sentence was concur- rent to his federal one, espe- cially because when he got out of prison, there were no federal
There has been outrage after a “bullied” girl, ten, died two days after suffering a serious head injury in a violent fight with another student.
And, to make matters worse, the school’s administrators have remained tight-lipped about details of the fatal brawl – and even deactivated a Face- book page on which it had ini- tially announced the student’s death.
Raniya Wright, a fifth- grader, died following a fight in which she was knocked uncon- scious at Forest Hills Elemen- tary School in Walterboro, a small rural town in South Car- olina.
After being taken to the school's nurse's station, the girl was airlifted "unresponsive" with serious injuries to the Medical University Hospital on Monday.
While being treated in the in- tensive care unit, her mum, Ashley Wright, posted a photo on Tuesday of her daughter lying unconscious with the message, "This is what bullying caused," writes the New York Post.
On Wednesday, she tragi- cally died.
The Charleston Post and Courier says that the commu- nity of Walterboro has been left "shocked and outraged" after her death.
Raniya Wright, who tragi- cally died after being knocked unconscious.
Both school and law en- forcement officials have de- clined to release the fight's motive, citing the ongoing in- vestigation, according to the paper.
But, parents and teachers in the area claim bullying was a factor in the incident.
Parent Paige Garris told The State: "People on social media are just saying the little girl had been bullied, the mom had been to the school and nothing had been done."
And a teacher in the district told news station WCIV that her own daughter had to switch schools because of the bullies.
She said: "It's making me want to leave, making me want to pack up my children and just move on."
Demetrius Anderson
officials to transfer him to an- other facility.
So what had happened? During an internal audit, re- ports CNN, federal marshals realized that Anderson never served prison time for his fed- eral charge on counterfeiting money, and so they asked a judge to issue a warrant for his
incarceration.
His lawyer, Michael
Dolan, thinks that this mis- take—nearly 13 years later—is the definition of “cruel and un-
usual punishment.”
“The department of correc-
tions will do a warrant check, a detainer check,” Dolan told CNN’s Don Lemon. “We pre- sume that that was done back in 2006.”
“I can’t speak to why they went back that far or why this wasn’t caught earlier,” he said.
Many criminal justice ad- vocates, including Van Jones, of the Reform Alliance, have spoken out on behalf of Anderson.
Uncle And Nephew Released
Abel and Ola Osun- dario all of a sudden are not talking. Nope, they now have nothing to say about the al- leged fake homophobic “at- tack” they supposedly helped stage against Jussie Smol- lett that he allegedly paid them to do.
Now that they’ve decided to go silent, their attorney has dropped them. The lawyer, Gloria Schmidt, says she urged the brothers to make a public statement, standing by their claim Jussie faked the “attack.” They refused, and Schmidt said bye bye, go find another legal rep.
When you think about it, the situation is not really adding up. Why are they stay- ing silent at this point ’cause Smollett basically pointed the finger back at them, say- ing he never lied and the “at- tack” was real? That is the question. On the other hand,
After Serving 42 Years In
Florida Prison For Murder
They Did Not Commit
The Osundario brothers and Jussie Smollett (Inset).
This week, Jacksonville in- mates Clifford Williams, Jr., 76, and his nephew Nathan Myers, 63, had their day in court after spending 42 years in prison for the 1976 murder of a local woman and shooting of her roommate. On Thursday, a judge found there was no sufficient evidence to keep the pair in prison and or- dered their release.
“Justice demands the grant- ing of these motions,” Circuit Judge Angela Cox said after it was announced their convic- tions were to be vacated.
According to News4JAX, a recently formed unit of the State Attorney’s Office, the Conviction Integrity Unit and the Innocence Project con- ducted an investigation one year ago after Myers wrote them a letter asking for their case to be re-examined. This is the first case the Integrity Unit has investigated that has led to a conviction.
CLIFFORD WILLIAMS AND NATHAN MYERS
Williams was 34 and Myers merely 18 when they were convicted after the two- day trial. Myers was offered a five-year prison sentence if he would testify against his uncle, but he refused. Williams was initially sentenced to death, but in 1980, the Florida State Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty and Williams’ sentence was amended to life- in-prison.
“My mom died while I was on death row,” Williams said. “I just wanted to get out and be with my kids. There wasn’t no- body but them.”
Chicago police, prosecutors and even the 2 brothers say they were the ones in the street with Jussie ... but everyone other than the actor says it was a hoax.
As TMZ writes, it’s un- clear if Jussie still has a re- lationship with Abel and Ola Osundario. Both had bit parts on “Empire” and Jussie had hired them both to train him. They had spent a significant amount of time together before the incident.
Jussie cut a $3,500 check to the brothers for the training, although Schmidt has said part of that money was for the “attack.”
This is one more reason this whole Jussie Smollett situation is beyond confus- ing. We, like most folks, don’t know what to believe. This leaves everybody involved entangled in a messy web that they might not ever be able to get out of, especially in the court of public opinion.
The Nigerian Brothers Who ‘Attacked’ Jussie Smollett Suddenly Have Nothing To Say
PAGE 18 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2019