Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 4-30-19

National
Suspects Arrested By Killer
Mother Says 3 Children Shot By Oklahoma Police Suffered Face And Head Injuries
Cop Amber Guyger Are
Seeing Charges Dropped
Three children were in- jured Friday when Oklahoma police shot at a robbery sus- pect who was in the same car with them, according to state investigators. The mother of the three children, Olivia Hill, said her four-year-old daughter was shot in the head, her one-year-old daughter was hit in the face, and her five-year-old has a skull frac- ture. Another child, two- years-old, was uninjured, according to Hill.
Officers were firing at William Devaughn Smith, 21, who is suspected of rob- bing a restaurant earlier in the month. A spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said gunfire
Amber Guyger, the now former Dallas cop who killed an unarmed black man in his own home, is still awaiting trial in the case. But since her arrest and indictment, prosecutors have been dismissing charges against folks she hemmed up on drug and other crimes.
It’s the latest development in the case surrounding the death of Botham Jean, who was shot and killed by Guyger in September. Guyger, who was off-duty but in uniform at the time, told investigators she thought she was entering her own apartment when she en- tered Jean’s and shot Jean dead, thinking he was a bur-
glarT. he Dallas Police Depart- ment fired her weeks after the shooting, and a grand jury in November indicted Guyger
Police were searching for William Devaughn Smith, 21, of Hugo, Okla., in connection with the alleged robbery of a Pizza Hut when they opened fire on a vehicle he was driving with four kids inside on Friday, April 26, 2019.
AMBER GUYGER
on charges of murder.
And since the fatal shooting,
prosecutors have dismissed at least nine drug cases that Guyger investigated while she was still an officer.
broke out when detectives were trying to approach the suspect, but did not know what prompted the escalation.
Police Chief Bob Hundle said his officers took Smith into custody on a warrant for aggravated robbery.
Mellody Hobson And George Lucas Vie For Control Of Ebony Photo Archives
GEORGE LUCAS AND MELLODY HOBSON
Black 22-Year-Old Software Engineer Murdered By White Neighbor Months After Court Denied Request For Protective Order
Financier Mellody Hobson and her husband, Star Wars movie mogul George Lucas, are taking steps to take control of Ebony and Jet’s massive archive of historic photos, chronicling African-American life over the last seven decades.
The archive is uninsured and at risk, as it was used as collat- eral to secure a $12 million loan to the magazines’ former owner—the now-bankrupt Johnson Publishing—from Cap- ital Holdings V, a company Hobson and Lucas control.
In bankruptcy court filings Wednesday in Chicago, Capital Holdings sought to foreclose on the archive, saying it feared damage to the archive and not being repaid by Johnson Pub-
lishing.
“The Johnson Publishing
archives are an essential part of American history and have been critical in telling the extraordi- nary stories of African American culture for decades,” the com- pany said in a statement Thurs- day, according to the Chicago Tribune. “We want to be sure the archives are protected for generations to come.”
Johnson Publishing, which sold its magazines three years ago, has been trying unsuccess- fully to sell its photo archives for more than four years. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy earlier this month.
However, Johnson Publish- ing may not give up its archives without a fight.
A 22-year-old Baltimore resident was gunned down by his 53-year-old white neigh- bor just months after trying to obtain a protective order against the man.
According to ABC 11, Tyrique Hudson was fatally shot in the stairwell of his apartment complex while he was leaving for work on April 15.
After neighbors heard the gunfire, they looked outside and saw James Verombeck standing over the victim’s body.
Hudson just moved to the area to start a job as a soft- ware engineer at Northrop Grumman. Before that, Hud- son completed a five-year early college program in only four years while in high school and then earned a computer science degree at North Car- olina A&T University in under three years.
His mother said the 22- year-old was headed for great success.
"He's never had any con- frontations or any fights," Hudson's mother, Tonya Burch, told ABC 11. "Nobody has ever had to come say, 'Oh your son did this to me or your son did that to me.' He
TYRIQUE HUDSON
was just overall a very gifted, unique child."
After the shooting, Verombeck locked himself inside his apartment for 10 hours until a SWAT team broke down the door and de- tained him, reported the Cap- ital Gazette.
Verombeck, who faces charges of first-degree mur- der, reportedly suffers from schizophrenia, officials re- vealed during a preliminary hearing.
Earlier this year, Hudson went to court to obtain a pro- tective order against the sus-
pect. During one interaction on February 16, Hudson was confronted by Verombeck while he was taking out trash. Verombeck allegedly told him "you knew this day was coming," while making a throat-cutting "death gesture" Burch told ABC 11.
"He was getting his mind set to move because he was fearful," said Burch.
When Hudson attempted to get a court order barring Verombeck from making physical or verbal contact, District Court Judge Devy Patterson Russell denied the motion, citing a lack of ev- idence.
Judge Russell has since been temporarily reassigned pending a verdict from the Court of Appeals, which is considering suspending the judge for her behavior in Bal- timore courts, the Capital Gazette notes.
Hudson’s family is now preparing for his funeral, which was held on April 27. "It's going to be very hard, very hard in the days ahead," Burch told ABC 11. "I know my faith will guide me. I be- lieve in God and I trust in God to give me supernatural strength to get through it."
PAGE 20 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2019