Page 29 - 6-19-15 Friday's Edition

National
NAACP President Who Was Outed By Parents Resigns
SPOKANE, WA - Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights advocate who became embroiled in national controversy over her racial iden- tity, announced her resignation on Monday as leader of a local branch of the NAACP in Washington state.
Dolezal, 37, who served as president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the country's oldest and largest civil rights organization, said the controversy over her race had shifted dialogue away from key so- cial and political issues.
"It is with complete allegiance to the cause of racial and social justice and the NAACP that I step aside from the presidency and pass the baton to my vice presi- dent, Naima Quarles-Burn- ley," Dolezal said in a statement on the NAACP Spokane chapter's Facebook page.
Dolezal came under intense scrutiny last week after questions
Rachel Dolezal’s has posed as a Black woman. However, her mother disclosed that she is white.
emerged about her racial back- ground and a white couple who identified themselves as her bio- logical parents came forward to say she had misrepresented her ethnic background.
Dolezal, who also holds a post in Spokane's city government, identified herself as white, African-American and Native American on her application, City Council President Ben Stuckart said.
He said the city had opened an
investigation of the veracity of her application. Stuckart said Dolezal had filed police com- plaints of racial discrimination, most recently that she received hate mail.
In announcing her resignation from the NAACP, Dolezal said she had remained quiet through the controversy out of respect for the work of the civil rights group. She did not directly address whether she had misrepresented her race.
Mentally Ill Woman Sentenced To 23 Years For Killing Her Friend
Tewana Sullivan sobs at her preliminary hearing in Febru- ary.
DETROIT, MI -- A mentally ill, Detroit woman who was drunk when she killed a friend with a slow cooker during an ar- gument over presidential poli- tics was sentenced Monday to at least 23 years in prison.
A judge followed the recom- mended sentence in a plea deal
between prosecutors and Tewana Sullivan, who has a history of bipolar disorder but was declared competent to go to trial.
Sullivan, 51, beat Cheryl Livy, 66, with a slow cooker at the victim's Livonia apartment in October. At the time, Sulli- van's blood-alcohol level was 0.41 — five times the level for drunken driving in Michigan, defense attorney John McWilliams said.
McWilliams said the two were arguing about the 2016 race for president.
In May, facing a first-degree murder charge, Sullivan pleaded guilty but mentally ill to second-degree murder. She will be eligible for parole after 23 years and will get mental health care in prison. Her maximum sentence is 50 years.
Baltimore Liquor Stores Won’t Get City Funds To Rebuild After Riots
Former Ole Miss Student Pleads Guilty To Placing Noose On Statute
A man charged with hanging a noose around a college statue de- dicated to integration and diver- sity is going to plead guilty.
Federal court filings show for- mer University of Mississippi stu- dent Graeme Phillip Harris will plead guilty to a charge of using a threat of force to intimi- date African-American students and employees at the university. U.S. District Judge Michael Mills is scheduled to take the plea in Oxford.
The noose and a former Geor- gia state flag that prominently fea- tured the Confederate battle emblem were placed on the
The statute of James Mered- ith, the first Black student at Ole Miss, who had to be escorted by federal agents to enroll, was de- faced by Graeme Phillip Harris of Alpharetta, Georgia.
James Meredith statue on the
Ole Miss campus in Oxford in February 2014. In 1962, anti-inte- gration protests erupted into vio- lence and Meredith had to be escorted by armed federal agents as he enrolled under court order as the first black student at the university.
Harris, of Alpharetta, Geor- gia, faces up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Pleading guilty to the charge means he likely won't be prose- cuted for a second charge listed in his March indictment — conspir- acy to violate civil rights — which carries up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
BALTIMORE, MD --- Liquor stores damaged during the riot- ing over the death of Freddie Gray are likely to be excluded from city recovery help, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said on Monday.
Long-standing concerns about zoning and community complaints about liquor stores in poor neighborhoods mean they could be barred from loans and other financial aid, she said.
Many of the stores do not meet zoning laws and Baltimore needs alternatives, such as gro- cery stores to improve impover- ished neighborhoods, Rawlings-Blake said.
"I do not believe it is appro- priate for the city to provide money for these non-conform- ing liquor stores to rebuild as liquor stores in these locations,” she said at a news conference in the Park Heights neighborhood, which city officials say has the highest concentration of liquor stores in Maryland.
Nearly 400 businesses across Baltimore, about 40 of them liquor stores, were damaged or destroyed in rioting after the April 27 funeral of Gray, a 25- year-old Black man. He died of spinal cord injuries allegedly suffered while in police custody.
Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore's health commissioner, said the African-American majority city of 620,000 people had twice the per-capita number of liquor stores for other cities of the same size.
Liquor stores in Park Heights, a largely black area near the neighborhood where Gray lived and died, have long drawn criti- cism from neighborhood ac- tivists who say they are a haven for drug dealing and other illegal activity.
A large number of businesses damaged in the April unrest were owned by Koreans, who operate many family-run stores and liquor outlets.
Prison Employee Who Helped Inmates Escape Faces Judge
NEW YORK STATE --- The two murderers who escaped from a U.S. jail used hacksaw blades sup- plied by an enamored prison worker and equipment stolen from a toolbox left by construction workers, officials said Monday.
Richard Matt, 49, and David Sweat, 35, escaped 10 days ago from a maximum security jail in New York state, in a carefully re- hearsed prison break that officials are still piecing together.
Some 800 officers are chasing more than 1,000 leads but there have been no confirmed sightings of the pair and state Governor Andrew Cuomo has admitted that they could be "in Mexico by now."
Joyce Mitchell, 51, who worked at a tailoring shop at the Clinton Correctional Facility, has pleaded not guilty to charges of "promoting prison contraband" and "criminal facilitation."
The married woman looked scared and nervous as she stood before a judge at a brief hearing to
Joyce Mitchell is led away in prison garb and chains. It is al- leged that she plotted to have her husband, also a prison em- ployee, killed.
formally transfer the case to a county court.
She was made to feel "special" by Matt, who was convicted of dismembering his 76-year-old for- mer boss, and Sweat, who fatally shot a sheriff's deputy, officials say.
She confessed to giving them
hacksaw blades and other contra- band, and planning to bring a get- away car to drive them seven hours away, Clinton County Dis- trict Attorney Andrew Wylie said. But at the last minute, she changed her mind and checked into a hospital on June 5, suffering from a panic attack.
He refused to comment on re- ports that the inmates and Mitchell possibly plotted to kill her husband.
She said she loved her husband and did not want to throw her life away, Wylie said.
Instead, Matt and Sweat dis- appeared into thick woodland on foot after emerging through a manhole in the village of Dan- nemora during the night of June 5 to 6.
There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to the mur- derers' arrest, and the public has been warned not to approach ei- ther man and to call police imme- diately if they spot anything suspicious.
Boko Haram Blamed For Suicide Bombing In Chad
N'DJAMENA, CHAD - Twenty-three people were killed and over 100 injured in twin suicide bombings target- ing police in the Chadian capital Monday, with the government blaming Boko Haram militants for the bloodshed.
They were the first such at- tacks in the capital of the cen- tral African nation, which has been on the frontline of the re- gional fight against the Niger- ian Islamist group.
"Boko Haram chose the wrong target. These lawless and faithless terrorists will be
flushed out and neutralized wherever they are," the govern- ment said in a statement.
It said 23 people were killed and another 101 wounded in the simultaneous bombings outside the police headquarters and police academy in N'Dja- mena.
It said four "terrorists" were also killed, but did not give de- tails. Earlier, a police official had told AFP that two suicide bombers carried out the at- tacks, which came as police cadets were attending a training course at the academy.
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