Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 1-22-19

National
Black Workers At GM Plant Where
Chicago Police Officers Found Not Guilty For Covering Up Fatal Laquan McDonald Shooting
Nooses Were Found Allege Racial
Harassment Is Ongoing
Officer Thomas Gaff- ney, former Officer Joseph Walsh, and former Detec- tive David March were just found not guilty for covering up the fatal shooting of Laquan Mc- Donald.
Each were charged with conspiracy, obstruction of jus- tice, and official misconduct for allegedly exaggerating the threat that 17-year-old Mc- Donald posed to officers.
Prosecutors claimed the police reports filed by those officers were part of a conspir- acy to cover up for Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times on Oct. 20, 2014.
Officials said the officers’ statements did not match up with the dashcam recording of the shooting.
Last October, Van Dyke was found guilty for the 2014
A lawyer for black workers suing General Motors over al- leged racial bullying at an Ohio plant where nooses were found two years ago claims the ha- rassment there is ongoing.
"The hostile environment has continued and reached a retaliatory level," said Michelle Vocht, a lawyer representing a group of black current and former workers at the Toledo plant who sued the automaker in April 2018.
The suit alleged the com- pany failed to take prompt cor- rective action after black employees at the GM Power- train and Fabrications plant re- ported acts of racism, such as the hanging of nooses and "whites only" bathroom signs.
Now Vocht said she is preparing to amend the com- plaint because the alleged racial harassment is still hap- pening.
The most recent alleged incident was Wednesday, when
Noose found hanging at GM plant.
one worker at the plant found a monkey doll and a racist draw- ing near his work station, Vocht said.
"If somebody was stealing parts, they would clamp down on that," Vocht said of GM. "But here they are, stealing my clients' civil rights and they don’t take that as seriously."
Derrick Brooks, 48, said he worked at the Toledo plant for about two years. In March of 2017, Brooks said he found a noose hanging in his depart- ment.
In this Oct. 30, 2018 file photo, from left, former Detective David March, Chicago Police Officer Thomas Gaffney and former officer Joseph Walsh appear at a pre-trial hearing at Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago.
shooting death of Laquan Mcdonald. Van Dyke shot the 17-year-old 16 times and continued to fire his weapon even as the teenager was on the ground.
None of the other officers on the scene opened fire.
Van Dyke is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow. Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan‘s sentence could range from probation to what
amounts to life in prison.
The jury found Van Dyke guilty of second-degree mur- der and 16 counts of aggra- vated battery. Van Dyke was found not guilty of official misconduct. This came after Van Dyke took to the stand in his own defense, giving a version of the fateful en- counter that did not correlate with the video evidence prose-
cutors presented.
Atlanta Cops Search For Clues In Death Of College Student, 18, Found In Burning Car
Miami Hilton Hotel Dishwasher Awarded $21.5M For Being Forced To Work On Sundays
According to NBC Miami, missionary Jean Marie Pierre, worked as a dish- washer at the Hilton’s Miami Conrad property for almost a decade, and for the majority of that time her religious needs were accommodated. How- ever, after the 60-year old Pierre missed six scheduled Sundays of work in order to at- tend religious services at the Bethel Baptist Church in north- eastern Miami-Dade County, she says management decided to fire her.
“They accommodated her for seven years, and they easily could’ve accommodated her, but instead of doing that, they set her up for absenteeism and threw her out,” explained Pierre’s lawyer, Marc Brumer. “She’s a soldier of Christ. She was doing this for all the other people, all the other workers who are being discriminated against.”
Pierre says she informed her superiors at the Hilton’s Miami Conrad that Sundays were off limits for her due to her religious beliefs back in 2006 when she first took the job, so they knew what they were dealing with from the be- ginning.
When the hotel tried to start scheduling her to work Sun- days in 2009, she told the com- pany she would have to leave because she was not budging on her stance. In response, the hotel backed off and continued to respect her holy day until 2015.
“I love God,” said the Haiti-
JEAN MARIE PIERRE
born, mother of six. “No, I can’t do Sundays, because Sunday I honor God.”
When the Conrad again started scheduling her to work on Sundays in late 2015, Pierre once again reminded them of her scheduling limita- tions. However, this time the company was decidedly less understanding and after a few months, she was fired for al- leged misconduct, negligence and “unexcused absences,” ac- cording to the lawsuit.
During the trial, lawyers rep- resenting the Virginia-based Park Hotels & Resorts (for- mally the Hilton Worldwide) argued the company had no knowledge that the longtime employee is a member of a Catholic missionary group that helps the poor, and therefore, were in the dark about why she refused to work Sundays.
The award was filed on Tues- day with the U. S. District Court in Miami. The jury also found she was due $35,000 in back wages and $500,000 for emotional pain and mental an- guish and that the Hilton was in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans em- ployment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Investigators have a lead and are looking for a man who was caught on surveil- lance video using the debit card of Talya Torres, the woman found on Jan. 9 in her burning car in the East Point suburb of Atlanta.
Video shows the man being dropped off at a BB&T bank in the Camp Creek Market- place. He used the bank’s ATM to withdraw funds from the deceased woman’s ac- count. Police are relying on the public to identify the sus- pect.
“It’s ridiculous because they didn’t have to do this,”
Atlanta-area police are in- vestigating the murder of an 18-year-old college student who was found in a burning car earlier this year.
the victim’s mother, Pearlie Haynes, told the news out-
to learn how daughter was found in the burning vehicle. “And just knowing that mybabywasinit...shewas in there,” Haynes said. “I just want her to say,
‘Mommy.'”
Haynes is confident the
video will help in the capture of the alleged killer.
“The car went up at 1 a.m. and the card was used at 4 a.m.,” Haynes said. “Some- body’s gonna know those shoes. Somebody knows that person.”
“It’s taken a piece of my heart. It’s taken my only daughter,” Haynes said.
let.
Haynes was devastated
Family Of Murdered Florida Woman Awarded $500 Million In Civil Suit
Eighteen years after the death of Kalil McCoy, her surviving family has been awarded $500 million in damages.
In 2001, McCoy, 20, was shot in the head by Freder- ick Lee Wade, 19, after an argument over opening a window inside a vehicle. Ac- cording to reports, Wade and two other men in the car at the time discarded McCoy's body and con- cocted a story about what happened. Her body was found two days later.
Lynette Roebuck, McCoy's mother blamed
KALIL MCCOY
Wade for her daughter's death. He was originally sen- tenced to life in prison, but after winning a retrial, is now serving a reduced 45-year- prison sentence.
"Wade will still have a lit- tle bit of life left. But this will always be over your head. If
you get a dime, it is not going to be your dime. It will be Kalil's dime," Roebuck said.
"He still gets an opportu- nity to get out of prison and live. He could be 70 on a cane walking around to a park or movies. But my daughter can't do any of that. This will make a statement and let people know,"
The other men involved, Kennard Deshun Ma- hone and Jonathon Marichal Brooks, served one year in county jail with 12 years probation. They were also named in the civil suit.
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