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National
New York City To Pay $3.3 Million To Kalief Browder Estate
Nathan Sutherland, Nurse Who
Impregnanted Incapacitated
Woman Used To Be Gospel Rapper
New York City has agreed to pay the estate of Kalief Browder $3.3 million for its involvement in the 2015 sui- cide of the 22-year-old Bronx native.
Browder was imprisoned at just 16 for allegedly stealing a backpack. He was never charged with a crime or found guilty of the robbery but spent three years on Riker’s Island awaiting trial after being un- able to come up with bail. For nearly two of those years he was held in solitary confine- ment. Three years after his re- lease — and a concerted effort to reacclimate to life on the outside — Browder hanged himself in his childhood home.
According to the New York Times, the settlement was cited in court documents and confirmed by the city. In a statement, The New York City Law Department said, “Kalief Browder’s story
Nathan Sutherland, 36, the registered nurse who al- legedly raped and impregnated a health care patient in a vege- tative state, was a local gospel rapper whose group released a Christian rap album in 2008.
“We believe we are unique soldiers for Christ. We under- stand we live in a dark per- verted world, but we can be a powerful light to bring hope to a lost and dying world,” the rap group wrote on their CD Baby page.
The Metro reports that the group’s bio page says Suther- land and his musical partner ‘T’ were “adopted by 2 US citi- zens from a Haitian Orphanage in 1989 at the ages of 7 (Nate) and 4 (T). They had to learn the English language within 3 months so that they would not be too far behind others their own ages in school.”
The rap group’s posters fea- ture the Bible verse: Ephesians verse 10 – 18, which reads: “Fi- nally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our strug- gle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against
NATHAN SUTHERLAND
the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms...”
They once performed at a fa- ther’s day luncheon at a Hilton Garden Inn Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona in 2010.
Sutherland was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly sexually assaulting the un- named 29-year-old at Ha- cienda HealthCare in Phoenix, Arizona. On Thursday, he was charged with raping the coma- tose woman after police matched his DNA to the baby boy the victim gave birth to on December 29. Staff at the cen- ter were unaware she was preg- nant until she went into labor.
Kalief Browder became a victim of the criminal justice system at 16. Nearly four years after his death, his family has reached a settlement.
helped inspire numerous re- forms to the justice system to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again, including an end to punitive segregation for young people on Rikers Is- land.”
Browder’s story has been credited with making signifi- cant reforms to the criminal justice system. Since his story first appeared in the New Yorker, the use of solitary
confinement for juveniles has been banned by federal pris- ons, New York’s “Raise The Age” policy went into effect making it unlawful for young people under the age of 18 to be tried as an adult. And the #CloseRikers movement scored a huge win when in June of 2017, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio pledged to close Rikers Island for good.
Comedian Kevin Barnett Dies In Mexico At 32
Kevin Barnett, the co- median behind Fox comedy series "Rel," has died while on vacation in Mexico of un- known causes. He was 32.
Barnett's New York City- based comedy career was just taking off at the time of his death, having recently execu- tive produced and co-created the Fox TV series "Rel" along- side comedians Lil Rel Howery and Josh Rabi- nowitz.
Barnett and Rabinowitz had previously been head writers and appeared in
KEVIN BARNETT
TruTV's "Friends of the Peo- ple," and as writer-producers on "The Carmichael Show."
The up-and-coming come- dian served as writer on the "House-sitting" episode of "Broad City." He also ap- peared on HBO's "Funny as Hell" and in Chris Rock's "Top Five."
He co-hosted podcast "Round Table of Gentlemen" with Ben Kissel for Last Podcast Network, which tweeted, "It's with a heavy heart we inform you of the passing of Kevin Barnett."
Oracle Accused Of Withholding $400M In Wages From Minority Employees
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Con- tract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has filed a com- plaint today alleging that soft- ware company Oracle has routinely underpaid its Black, Asian and women workers. OFCCP alleges that Oracle’s practices created a total loss of $400 million for minority employees.
The agency said in its amended complaint that Ora- cle relied on prior salaries in setting employees’ pay and put minority workers in lower paying positions throughout the company. OFCCP said the company had been using dis- criminatory pay practices since at least 2013.
OFCCP’s original lawsuit against Oracle was filed in January 2017. The agency has since updated the lawsuit to show more analysis of the company’s compensation practices.
The amended suit claims that Oracle “strongly pre- ferred Asian recent college and university graduates than to all others” and it gave pref-
ORACLE
erence to visa-holding Asian graduates who depended on the company for authoriza- tion to work in the US. The OFCCP says this directly re- lates to the wage gap at the company.
According to the suit, 90 percent of Oracles recent graduate hires from 2013 to 2016 were Asian. It also re- vealed that there were several years where the company did not hire any African Ameri- can or Latino recent gradu- ates.
“It even has a program to hire a set number of recent graduates from Indian schools each year,” the law- suit said. “This preference for a workforce that is dependent on Oracle for authorization to work in the United States lends itself to suppression of the workforce’s wages.”
White Supremacist Who Sought ‘Race War’ Pleads Guilty To NYC Sword Killing
A white supremacist pled guilty Wednesday to killing a black man with a sword as part of an attack that author- ities said was intended to in- cite a race war in the United States.
James Jackson admitted to fatally stabbing 66-year- old Timothy Caughman in March 2017 after stalking a number of black men in New York City.
Jackson, who is white, told police he traveled from Baltimore to carry out the at- tack because New York is the media capital of the world. He said the slaying was in-
James Jackson in court for the murder of Timothy Caughman.
tended to be practice for fur- ther assaults on black people. Jackson, 30, faces life in prison without parole when
he is sentenced Feb. 13 after pleading guilty to six counts, including murder and a hate crime charge.
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