Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 6-4-19

National
'American Gangster' Drug Lord Frank Lucas Dead At 88
Bond Granted For White Woman
One of America’s most noto- rious drug lords, Frank Lucas, has reportedly passed away from natural causes. TMZ reports Lucas was en route to a New Jersey hospital to be treated for an unknown condition but died before he could get there. He was 88.
Lucas has been a part of pop culture for decades. Denzel Washington played the infa- mous heroin dealer in the 2007 movie, American Gangster, while JAY-Z’s American Gangster album was inspired by the same film about Lucas’ life.
The former Harlem resident is heralded as the puppet mas- ter behind the “Golden Trian- gle” gambit of the early 70s. The “Golden Triangle” was coined by the CIA and refers to the area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers, one of the most extensive opium- producing areas of Asia.
Lucas claimed to have im- ported the heroin — which he often called “Blue Magic” — from Southeast Asia in the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
“Who the hell is gonna look in a dead soldier’s coffin,” Lucas told New York Maga-
Who Fatally Shot A 62-Year-Old
The IRS Now Audits Poor
received is that she was trying to get him to return to the scene," he said.
According to several wit- nesses, they told Detective Keon Hayward of Clayton County Police that gun-toting Payne got out her car and demanded that Herring re- turn to the scene. When Her- ring did not comply, she struck him several times as he sat in the driver’s seat of the car. On the 911 call, she can reportedly be heard say- ing, “Get out of the f***ing
car... I’m going to shoot you.” Disturbingly, on Friday (May 31), Hannah Payne was granted bond by Judge West as she awaits a murder trial. A preliminary hearing determined earlier this week there was probable cause to proceed with her prosecu- tion. Conditions of her bond include not carrying a gun, wearing an ankle monitor, and staying away from other principles involved in the case. Her bond is set at
$100,000.
Americans At About The Same Rate As The Top 1%
Accused Virginia Beach Shooter
FRANK LUCAS
zine in 2000. “We had him make up 28 copies of the gov- ernment coffins . . . except we fixed them up with false bot- toms, big enough to load up with six, maybe eight kilos.”
Lucas was arrested by the mid-70s. When the DEA raided his Jersey home in 1975, they discovered over $584,000 in cash. He was ultimately con- victed of federal and state drug violations and sentenced to 70 years behind bars. However, Lucas cooperated with the feds and became an informant. He and his family entered a witness protection program.
Following five years in prison, Lucas’ sentence was reduced to time served plus lifetime parole. But old habits die hard. He was later busted for drug dealing again and served another seven years. He was released in 1991.
Lucas leaves behind seven children.
On May 7, 62-year-old Kenneth Herring was shot and killed on Riverdale Road and Forest Parkway in Clay- ton County, Georgia by 21- year-old Hannah Payne who wanted to arrest Her- ring for fleeing a hit and run. However, Payne is not a cop.
Kenneth Herring was in- volved in a crash Clark How- ell Highway at Highway 85. Payne, a white woman, was a witness to the accident. Law enforcement stated that no one was hurt during the crash and there wasn’t any exten- sive damage.
Kenneth Herring left the scene of the accident in the midst of an apparent medical emergency that another wit- ness described as “probably like diabetic shock.”
“When Mr. Herring left the scene, Ms. Payne fol- lowed him to the corner of Riverdale Road and Forest Parkway in which time she cut his vehicle off making his vehicle stop," said Major Anthony Thuman of the Clayton County Police De- partment. “The information I
HANNAH PAYNE AND KENNETH HERRING
Black Man After A Hit-And-Run
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom based in New York. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive sto- ries like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published. Every year, the IRS, starved of funds after years of budget cuts, loses hundreds more agents to retirement. And every year, the news gets better for the rich — especially those prone to go bold on their taxes. According to data released by the IRS last week, millionaires in 2018 were about 80% less likely to be audited than they were in 2011.
But poor taxpayers continue to bear the brunt of the IRS’ re- maining force. As we reported last year, Americans who re- ceive the earned income tax credit, one of the country’s largest anti-poverty programs, are audited at a higher rate than all but the richest taxpay- ers. The new data shows that the trend has only grown stronger.
Audits of the rich continue to plunge while those of the poor hold steady, and the two audit rates are converging. Last year, the top 1% of taxpayers by income were audited at a rate of 1.56%. EITC recipients, who
Wished Co-Worker A ‘Good Day’
An IRS employee exits the building in Washington, D.C.
typically have annual income under $20,000, were audited at 1.41%.
Part of the reason is ease. Audits of EITC recipients are largely automated and far less complicated.
“While the wealthy now have an open invitation to cheat, low-income taxpayers are re- ceiving heightened scrutiny be- cause they can be audited far more easily. All it takes is a let- ter instead of a team of investi- gators and lawyers,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.
“We have two tax systems in this country,” he said, “and nothing illustrates that better than the IRS ignoring wealthy tax cheats while penalizing low-income workers over small mistakes.”
While police have vowed to utter the name of the sus- pected Virginia Beach shooter only once out of re- spect to the victims, many of those who’ve had personal interactions with long-time city worker DeWayne Craddock will likely have a harder time forgetting it—es- pecially since they say he gave no signs of the impend- ing carnage that would leave 12 of his coworkers dead.
Even moments before the shooting broke out just after 4 p.m. on Friday, Craddock wished a co-worker a good day during a chance en- counter in the bathroom.
“I said, ‘How are you doing?’ He said he was doing OK,” Craddock’s former co- worker Joseph Scott told CNN. “I asked, ‘Any plans for the weekend?’ And he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well, have a good day.’ And he said the same to me.” Scott said he left the of-
The scene after the shooting and DeWayne Craddock (inset).
Before The Rampage
fice for the day following the conversation.
It was after that conversa- tion that police say Crad- dock opened fire “indiscriminately” on multi- ple floors of the building, stopping only when police fired back, killing him, after he allegedly shot an officer.
Why Craddock, a civil engineer who had been with the coastal city’s Department
of Public Utilities for almost 15 years, allegedly gunned down his co-workers is still unknown. While some re- ports have described him as a “disgruntled” employee, Po- lice Chief James Cervera on Saturday disputed claims that Craddock had been fired before the shooting, stressing that he was still em- ployed at the time of the at- tack.
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