Page 24 - Florida Sentinel 11-8-19

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Staff Fired: Buffalo Wild Wings Asked A Black Group To Move
Former Georgia Cop Sentenced To 12 Years In Prison For Killing A Naked, Unarmed Black Man
A former Georgia police of- ficer was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday for the killing of a mentally ill, unarmed and naked black man in 2015.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge LaTisha Dear Jackson gave Robert "Chip" Olsen a 20-year term, with 12 years to be served in custody. Under the sentence, Olsen is prohib- ited from working in law en- forcement, possessing firearms or profiting from the case.
Dear Jackson praised what she said was the strength, fortitude and com- passion of the family of the victim, 26-year-old Afghanistan war veteran An- thony Hill. She said she had also watched the defendant closely during the trial.
"Many might have thought you were stoic and void of emotion," the judge told Olsen. "From the time open- ing statements started, I saw the tears that you've had. I saw how you replayed March 9, 2015, in your head."
The Vahls went out on a Sat- urday night near Chicago in search of dinner.
But the family and their party, a mostly African American group of parents and young kids celebrating a birthday, say they faced discrimination head-on instead when staff at a Buffalo Wild Wings repeatedly ordered them to leave their table — all because another customer did not want to sit next to black peo- ple.
Now, the incident has gone viral, the staff has been fired, and the restaurant chain is fac- ing backlash after yet another troubling example of public dis- crimination captured online.
“If you don’t want to sit next to certain people in a public restaurant then you should probably eat dinner in the com- fort of your own home,” Mary Vahl wrote on Facebook, in a post that has been shared more than 4,500 times as of early Monday.
On Oct. 26, following a birth- day party, the Vahls’ party showed up to a Buffalo Wild Wings in a strip mall in Naperville, Ill., a racially diverse suburb about 40 minutes south-
BUFFALO WILD WINGS
ROBERT "CHIP" OLSEN
Prosecutors had asked the court for a 25-year sentence with five years probation.
A jury last month acquitted Olsen of murder in the March 2015 death of Hill but found him guilty of aggravated as- sault, making a false state- ment and two counts of violation of oath.
Jurors deliberated for more than a week. Olsen had faced up to 35 years in prison.
west of Chicago. Mary’s hus- band, Justin, asked for a table for 15, but as a host began set- ting up their table, he quickly re- alized he had miscounted the size of the group and went up to correct his mistake.
Then, the host — a young African American man — asked a question that took him aback: “What race are you guys?”
“Why does it matter?” Justin Vahl asked the host.
Sitting nearby, the host said, was a regular customer who “doesn’t want black people sit- ting near him.” He labeled the man as racist.
The Vahls and their friends didn’t want to give that other customer any satisfaction, so they sat down at the table any-
way and began ordering drinks and appetizers. All the while, they started getting glares from the man — who appears to be white in a photo Mary posted to Facebook — and noticed him talking to waitstaff. That’s when a manager told them they’d have to get up for a new table.
Buffalo Wild Wings didn’t im- mediately return a message Sunday night, but a spokesper- son from the chain told the As- sociated Press that it had fired the employees involved after an internal investigation.
The company “values an in- clusive environment and has zero tolerance for discrimina- tion of any kind,” a spokesper- son said in a statement to WBBM.
Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed off on freeing the inmates last Friday, granting the historic commutations backed by vot- ers. Three years ago, Okla- homa voters approved two ballot measures, State Ques- tion 780 and 781. This action lowered low-level crimes, such as simple drug posses- sion and nonviolent property crimes under $1,000, to mis- demeanors instead of felonies. The rationale for doing this boils down to dol- lars and cents. The state fac- tored in all of the money it will save on incarceration, and how those dollars could be redirected to drug treat- ment and rehabilitation serv- ices, according to the Star Tribune.
In January, a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers voted to apply the 2016 laws retroactively, paving the way for today’s commutation.
At a Friday press confer- ence, Stitt announced that the Oklahoma Pardon and
Oklahoma is freeing 527 inmates who were incarcerated for minor drug and nonviolent offenses– the largest single day of commutation in U. S. history.
Parole Board had unani- mously recommended com- muting the sentences of the 527 inmates – and that he had signed off on it. Stitt, a first-term governor who cam- paigned on prison reform, said: “Today, we’re imple- menting the will of the peo- ple.”
“They’ve got a lot of pa- perwork to do,” Stitt said re- ferring to the Secretary of State’s office, according to the Star Tribune. “I’ve got to sign 450 of these this afternoon.”
Once the parole board makes a recommendation to com- mute a sentence, it then passes to the governor for final approval.
Oklahoma has the highest incarceration rate in the United States and has long engaged in tough sentencing for low-level offenders. But when voters passed the two ballot measures, it was a good indicator to the Republican- dominated legislature that residents wanted a less harsh approach.
Mexican Drug Cartels Distributing Deadly Fentanyl Pills Across North America: DEA
FENTANYL PILLS
Mexican drug cartels are manufacturing large doses of counterfeit prescription pills laced with fentanyl for distri- bution throughout North America, the Drug Enforce- ment Administration (DEA) said Monday.
The DEA said its findings were based on a sampling of counterfeit pills seized na- tionwide between January and March 2019. 27 percent of the pills contained “poten- tially lethal doses of fen- tanyl,” they said.
“Capitalizing on the opioid epidemic and prescription drug abuse in the United
States, drug trafficking or- ganizations are now sending counterfeit pills made with fentanyl in bulk to the United States for distribution,” said DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon. “Counter- feit pills that contain fentanyl and fentanyl-laced heroin are responsible for thousands of opioid-related deaths in the United States each year.”
The DEA did specify what pills were being laced with fentanyl. A photo released on its website showed counter- feit pills stamped with the letter “M” and the number “30.”
Oklahoma Frees 527 Inmates, Setting U. S. Single-Day Commutation Record
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