Page 21 - Florida Sentinel 4-26-19

National
Teacher Charged With Hiring A Hitman To Kill A Child He Allegedly Molested
Chicago Police, FBI Investigate To Determine If There’s A Serial Killer Targeting Black Women
The Chicago Police De- partment is revisiting the un- solved killings of more than 50 women across the city since 2001, facing pressure from community activists who say the string of slayings suggest a serial murderer is on the loose.
The CPD investigation fol- lows a report by the Virginia- based Murder Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that analyzes information about homicides, which ar- gued that the 51 killings — in which most of the victims died by asphyxiation — bore the “characteristics of a serial murderer.”
According to the Murder Accountability Project’s re- port, many of the victims were found throughout Chicago’s South and West Sides, mostly in abandoned buildings, vacant lots and trash cans.
“If you look at these, at the nature of the cases, it’s clas- sic,” Thomas Hargrove, the project’s founder and co- chair, told the Chicago Sun- Times. “It couldn’t be more
serial-looking. It’s got every element for a classic pattern.” “It actually stretches credulity to imagine that these 51 women were killed by 51 separate men,” he added.
The report, released on March 6, noted that many of the victims were found in al- leyways, garbage cans, empty lots or abandoned buildings on Chicago’s South or West sides. Moreover, many of the women were African-Ameri- can.
Using a computer algo- rithm to investigate possible links between the killings, the
report suggested that many of the cases involved prosti- tution and were sexually-mo- tivated.
Gregg Greer of Chicago’s own Freedom First Interna- tional advocacy group men- tioned the Murder Accountability Project report during a Police Board meet- ing last Thursday, during which he voiced activists’ re- peated concerns that the Windy City could have a se- rial killer on its hands.
“Fifty cases is too much. We need accountability posthaste,” Greer said. “It’s gotta stop.”
A fifth-grade teacher in Missouri, already being held on charges he molested a child in his care three years ago, faces new charges that he hired a hit- man to kill the child.
Deonte Taylor, a 36- year-old fifth-grade teacher in the Ferguson-Florissant, Mo., school district, was already in jail, accused of having molested the boy three years ago, when authorities hit Taylor with the new charges.
Taylor was first arrested in November after DNA evidence linked him to a sexual assault three years before on a then 7- year-old boy who was in one of his classes, Newsweek re- ported.
While being held in jail awaiting trial on those charges, Taylor convinced his 66-year- old boyfriend, Michael John- son, to pay a man to kill the child and his family, prosecu-
DEONTAE TAYLOR
tors say.
Both Taylor and Johnson
have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to com- mit murder and attempting to tamper with a victim in a felony prosecution.
Taylor also faces charges of first-degree statutory sodomy, accused of taking the 7-year- old from class at the elemen- tary school where he worked and to another room where the boy performed oral sex on him, officials say.
TSA Agents Say They’re Not Discriminating Against Black Women, But Their Body Scanners Might Be
Dorian Wanzer travels fre- quently for work. And almost every time she steps out of an airport body scanner, security screeners pull her aside and run their fingers through her hair. It’s called a hair pat- down.
“It happens with my natural Afro, when I have braids or two-strand twists. Regardless,” said Wanzer, who lives in Washington, D. C. “At this point in my life I have come to expect it, but that doesn’t make it any less invasive and frus- trating.”
Wanzer, who had her hair patted down by Transportation Security Administration offi- cers two weeks ago while she flew home from Raleigh, North Carolina, said she feels singled out when she is asked to step aside.
“When you find yourself in that kind of situation, it makes you wonder,” Wanzer said. “Is this for security, or am I being profiled for my race?”
Black women have been rais- ing alarms for years about being forced to undergo intru- sive, degrading searches of their hair at airport security checkpoints. After a complaint five years ago, the TSA pledged to improve oversight and train-
Dorian Wanzer’s hair is fre- quently searched at the airport by TSA agents.
ing for its workers on hair pat- downs.
But it turns out there’s an issue beyond the screeners: the machines themselves.
The futuristic full-body scan- ners that have become stan- dard at airports across the United States are prone to false alarms for hairstyles popular among women of color.
In a request to vendors last summer, the TSA asked for ideas “to improve screening of headwear and hair in compli- ance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.” That law bars fed- erally funded agencies and pro- grams from discriminating — even unintentionally — on the basis of race, color or national origin.
Man Lands Job After Officer Gives Him A Ride To Interview Instead Of A Ticket
An Illinois man starts a new job Tuesday and he has a police officer to thank for getting him to his interview.
Ka'Shawn Baldwin, of East St. Louis, was pulled over Wednesday in Cahokia by officer Roger Gemoules for allegedly having expired license plates. Baldwin also did not have a valid driver's license.
"I was nervous. I was thinking, I was just going to get some more tickets and have some more fines that I really can't afford to pay," Baldwin told NBC News.
Gemoules, a high school resource officer with the Ca- hokia Police Department, was on patrol that day be- cause school was closed for spring break.
Baldwin, 22, said he knew his driver's license was suspended but he was un-
Ka'Shawn Baldwin and Cahokia Police Officer Roger Gemoules.
aware the license plates on the car he had borrowed from a friend were expired.
"The routine thing is to tow the car and take the per- son to jail who is driving the car," Baldwin said.
He told the officer that he did not have any other way to get to his interview at an area FedEx facility and that's why he was driving illegally.
Gemoules explained to Baldwin that the car could not be driven any further.
With no other option, Baldwin then asked the of- ficer if he would give him a ride to his interview.
To his surprise, Baldwin said Gemoules followed him home where he parked the car and took him to his interview.
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