Page 19 - Florida Sentinel 9-15-15 Edition

National
Baltimore’s Mayor,
Black Lives Matter’s Founder To Teach At Yale
DERAY MCKESSON
One Of The Newest Teachers At Yale University Burnished His Ivy League Resume In The Black Lives Matter.
DeRay McKesson will be teaching a one-credit course this fall as a guest lecturer at Yale Di- vinity School.
The outspoken activist will be joining U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and the Rev. Nancy Taylor, whose Old South Church in Boston is lo- cated near the site of the 2013 marathon bombing, to teach a special three-section course as part of a new leadership pro- gram. The young activist will teach the first section of the course, entitled "Transforma- tional Leadership in the #Black- LivesMatter Movement.” McKesson is the only guest lecturer who is not an alumnus of Yale Divinity School. A syl- labus for the course describes the credentials of McKesson,
30.“A young leader of the Black Lives Matter Movement, DeRay McKesson will pres- ent case studies about the work of organizing, public advocacy, civil disobedience, and social change, through both Leader- ship of Presence, and Leader- ship in the Social Media.”
Murder At Florida Job Corps Facility And Other Crimes Overshadow Good Of The Program
Job Corps students Kaheem Arbelo, Desiray Strickland, Jonathan Lucas and Christian Colon have been arrested and charged in the death of classmate Jose Amaya Guardado. They are accused of attacking Guardado with a machete, throwing his body in a shallow grave and setting it on fire.
Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
Won’t Seek Re-Election
Next year will be the last in office for Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings- Blake, who announced Friday that she would not be seeking re-election.
Rawlings-Blake has been in the headlines in recent months following the death of Freddie Gray. Her handling of the riots that came in the af- termath of the 25-year-old's death garnered criticism, with many saying that her response to the unrest was delayed, but she says that her critics and challengers didn't influence her decision. At a press confer- ence this Friday morning, she said that she wanted to spend the final year of her term mov- ing the city forward rather than prepping her re-election campaign.
"It was a very difficult deci- sion, but I knew I needed to spend time—the remaining 15 months of my term—focused on the city's future and not my own," she said at the news conference. "I knew this would be a very hotly contested cam- paign, and I haven't lost a campaign since middle school. It's not that I didn't think I could win. I just had to ask myself the question: At what cost?"
Baltimore’s Mayor, Ste- phanie Rawlings-
elected as mayor in 2010 after the resignation of former Mayor Sheila Dixon, has spent the last 20 years in pub- lic office. Though she doesn't plan to seek another position following her mayoral tenure, she will retain her positions as both president of the U.S. Con- ference of Mayors and as sec- retary for the Democratic National Convention.
During her time in office, Rawlings-Blake played a role in adding 12,000 jobs to the city of Baltimore and low- ering the unemployment rate from 12.1 percent to 8.1 per- cent. She was also instrumen- tal in funding school construction as well as a local recreation center.
Seventeen-year-old, Jose Santos Amaya Guardado was lured into the woods by three of his classmates at the federally funded Homestead Job Corps in Miami, Florida. Outside the live-in vocational school, the students pulled out a machete, police say, and began to hack away at him. As helayinapoolofhisown blood, the attackers threw him in a shallow grave and set him on fire, authorities say. Ac- cused ringleader Kaheem Ar- belo, 20, allegedly marked the moment by having sex in the woods with student Desiray Strickland, 18.
The Labor Department, which runs the national pro- gram, quickly came out after the June murder and said it was "deeply concerned about the tragic death at the Home- stead center.”
But critics say conditions at the live-in learning centers have been deteriorating for decades. And they say Guardado’s brutal murder -- which is renewing scrutiny of those conditions -- could have been prevented.
Government watchdogs have issued multiple warnings for years about the escalation in vi- olent crime at Job Corps -- the $1.6 billion antipoverty pro- gram. The program, which was once seen as a safe harbor for teens in high-risk areas, has seen a disturbing spike in doc- umented cases of violence as well as reports that those in charge looked the other way as dangerous conditions devel- oped.
In the latest case, Arbelo, who was arrested in August for the machete murder, was a sus- pected drug dealer at the school with a long rap sheet.
Jonathan Lucas, 18; Chris- tian Colon, 19; and Strick- land also were arrested and charged.
Judicial Watch said the mur- der and other recent crimes are part of a "much broader prob- lem" and alleged the program has become a "mismanaged hotbed of violence."
Job Corps serves 50,000 students, ages 16-24, at 126 centers nationwide. It is run by the U.S. Department of Labor and funded by Congress.
According to preliminary data for the most recent fiscal year, which ended in July, 79 percent of program graduates have gone on to have a career, enter the military or enroll in higher education.
But cases like his are over- shadowed by cases like this: In April, prosecutors in St. Louis charged Matthew Carlock, 20, with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Matthew Anderson, 21. Both men were part of the training program and the inci- dent took place on Job Corps’ campus.
Now, with national attention on the latest Florida murder, officials say they're making changes.
Department of Labor spokesman said that program officials are working with safety experts to prevent future at- tacks.
Job Corps Center students are taking action too by partic- ipating in the All Love, NOH8 campaign to stand against vio- lence and aggression in their communities. The new Y2Y campaign will be rolled out na- tionally mid-September in part as an effort to curb violence on Job Corp centers across the country.
Rawlings-Blake, who was
Judge Delays Bond Decision
For Former S.C. Officer That Killed Black Man
Former S.C. police officer Michael Slager has been in jail since shooting Walter Scott on April 4th.
Trinidadian Family Sentenced To 418 Years
A South Carolina judge has requested more time before deciding whether to grant bond to Michael Slager, the former police officer who has been charged with the fatal April shooting of Walter Scott.
On the morning of April 4, Slager pulled Scott over for a broken taillight. Scott, a 50- year-old father of four, handed over his identification, but al- legedly lacked the proper reg- istration, telling Slager that he had recently purchased the car. When Slager returned to his police car to run Scott's license, Scott attempted to flee into a grassy lot nearby— family members presume that
he was running because he owed back child support.
Witness video shows Slager pursuing a running Scott before drawing his gun and firing eight shots, five of which struck Scott in the back. After Scott collapsed, Slager approached him and handcuffed him, failing to ad- minister medical attention. Slager claims that preceding the shooting, Scott, who was unarmed, had attempted to reach for his taser
Slager, who faces 30 years to life in prison, was fired from his post just days after the shooting, and in June, a Charleston grand jury charged him with first-degree murder.
Shane Ramsundar his daugh- ter Shantal and wife Gomatee were sentence last Wednes- day.
Accused of bilking about 19 Caribbean immigrants out of $1.8 million in their life savings to avoid deportation, a New York City judge on Wednesday sentenced a Trinidadian family to a combined 418-year prison sentence, reports the New York Daily News.
Calling them "the most despi- cable gang of criminal to ever sit in front of me," Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder in Queens, N.Y., sentenced Shane Ramsundar, 52, to a maxi- mum 235-year sentence. His wife, Gomatee, 48, received 153 years and the couple's daughter, Shantal, 23, received 30 years. They each were found guilty of grand larceny and re- lated charges in November, charged with spending the money on cars and shopping sprees.
In Prison For Scam
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