Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 8-22-17

National
Marine Vet Arrested For Killing Two Kissimmee Police Officers
Everett Glenn Miller allegedly ambushed Kissimmee officers Sam Howard and Matthew Baxter.
Comedian And Civil Rights Activist, Dick Gregory, 84, Dies
KISSIMMEE, FL — Two Kissimmee police officers are dead after being shot Friday night while responding to a suspicious person call in an area known for drug activity, according to Kissimmee Police Chief Jeff O’Dell.
Officer Matthew Baxter
was shot in the head and died at the scene, and Sgt. Sam Howard passed away Satur- day afternoon, officials said.
Everett Glenn Miller, 45, a former Marine with a mental health history, was appre- hended and taken to jail in Of- ficer Baxter’s handcuffs, where he was charged with first-degree murder in the ambush shootings.
Howard was a 10-year vet- eran of the police force, while Baxter was a three-year vet. Both were married with chil- dren.
On Facebook, Miller went by the name Malik Moham- mad Ali, a change he had made only recently. The page is
filled with recent anger over racism in the United States, slavery, and posts about Char- lottesville. He posted on the day of the shooting:
“When I said march I didn’t mean forever muthaf*ckas. Shoot back!” Ali wrote with the photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.“When them (N word racial slur) wake up. Its (sic) going to be some hell to answer for. You only canpokeatieupdogforso long. Once that chain breaks its over. Wake up America be- fore its too late.” Another post said “racist as* America. America is evil.” Only hours before the shooting, the page shared a post about white su- premacists infiltrating police departments.
According to a person who served in the military with Miller, he said he (Miller) served in Afghanistan and worked in military security. His cousin posted that he had PTSD.
WASHINGTON —- Come- dian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, who broke barriers in the 1960s and be- came one of the first African- Americans to perform at white clubs, died Saturday.
He was 84.
Gregory recently resched- uled an event in Atlanta be- cause he was hospitalized. He died in Washington, his son posted on social media without giving details.
Gregory satirized segrega- tion and racial injustice in his acts, and was arrested numer- ous times in the 1960s for join- ing civil rights rallies.
He was relatively unknown until 1961, when the presti- gious Playboy Club in Chicago, gave him his big break when he was asked to fill in for come- dian Irwin Corey one night.
Until that night, he said in a biography on his website, he had worked at small clubs filled with Black audiences.
Along with the equally sharp Godfrey Cambridge and the less political, Bill Cosby, Gregory opened the door for older black comics such as Nipsey Russell, Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx, as well as inspiring gen- erations of younger comedians.
Richard Claxton ‘Dick’ Gre- gory, 84, was a master of words and theories. He ap- plied it to his comedy and his activism. He was placed on the FBI list by Pres. Richard Nixon.
Born in St Louis, Missouri, Gregory was raised, with his five siblings, by his mother, Lucille. He began developing his comic skills to defuse bul- lies while working odd jobs to help his mother. A good stu- dent, he took up athletics be- cause of the hot showers offered after practice.
Active in civil rights protests, Gregory was jailed, beaten and shot. In 1967 Gre- gory, weighing 288 lb, staged a public fast to protest against the Vietnam war. That year, he ran as mayor of Chicago against Richard Daley, who would become the villain at the
1968 Democratic party presi- dential convention.
After that convention nomi- nated Hubert Humphrey, Gregory ran as a write-in can- didate (one whose name does not appear on the ballot paper but who may be named as their choice by voters) for the Free- dom and Peace party.
With the black activist El- dridge Cleaver representing the “official” Peace and Free- dom party, and the comedian Pat Paulsen’s mock cam- paign devaluing Gregory, he attracted only 47,000 votes, as Richard Nixon won a narrow victory over Humphrey.
Gregory’s candidacy was enough to put him on Nixon’s enemies list, and make him a target of FBI surveillance.
In 1971, he and Lane col- laborated on Code Name Zorro (retitled Murder in Memphis), accusing the authorities of a cover-up in the Martin Luther King assassination.
He gave up performing in clubs, and took his message to churches, rallies and institu- tions of higher learning.
His message had expanded to include vegetarianism, specifically to advocate eating only raw fruit and vegetables, and abstinence from drugs.
Former Prison Guards Affiliated With KKK Found Guilty Of Plot To Kill Black Inmate
Google Celebrates Hip Hop’s Birthday In A DJ Kool Way
LAKE CITY, FL —- Two for- mer prison guards in Florida, who were members of the Ku Klux Klan, have been convicted of plotting to kill a Black in- mate in retaliation for a scuffle with another guard who also belonged to the hate group.
A jury in Columbia County, Fla., found David Elliot Moran and Charles Thomas Newcomb guilty of conspiracy to commit first-de- gree murder after they were caught discussing their plans with an FBI informant, the state attorney general an- nounced last Tuesday.
At the time of their arrest in 2015, Moran was an officer at the Florida Department of Cor- rections Reception and Med- ical Center in Lake Butler. Newcomb was a former cor- rectional officer who had been fired in 2013 for failing to meet training requirements, accord- ing to department records.
The third guard, Thomas Jordan Driver, also worked at the facility, which processes new male inmates into the prison system and provides medical care for prisoners throughout the state. He pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was sentenced to four years in prison.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA —- Hip hop turned 44 this month, and Google celebrated the best way it knows how: a Google Doodle!
Designed by artist and Def Jam founder Cey Adams, the Doodle also let users try their hand at scratching and cross- fading through an interactive tutorial while telling the story of hip hop's invention.
On Aug. 11, 1973, Bronx disk jockey, Clive Campbell, bet- ter known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican American was playing music at a party when he decided to use two turntables, playing the same record, to extend the in- strumental breaks in songs.
This let the dance floor un- leash its craziest moves, and thus began the hip hop move- ment. The Doodle also pays homage to early hip hop inno- vators who are often over- looked, whether it's due to race
Former Florida prison guards, David Elliot Moran, Thomas Driver and Charles Newcomb were all convicted of plot to kill a Black inmate.
Clive Campbell aka DJ Kool Herc was the first DJ to use 2 turntables at a party, which is being called the beginning of hip hop.
or gender or because they've been sampled so many times it's hard to keep track.
All three men were mem- bers of a well-known Klan affil- iate called the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, prosecutors said.
A sentencing date has not been scheduled. The defen- dants face up to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the Florida prison guards’ plot to kill the Black inmate was hatched at a Ku Klux Klan meeting in the Jack- sonville area in late 2014.
Newcomb, Moran and Driver told an FBI informant who had infiltrated the group that Driver had gotten into a “physical altercation” with the inmate, according to a partially redacted affidavit re- leased to reporters at the time of their arrests.
Driver said the inmate had bitten him during the struggle, and he was worried about con- tracting a disease.
Newcomb, identified him- self as the “Exalted Cyclops” of the Klan chapter.
In early 2015, the FBI in- formant told the men he could contact a “professional” to kill the former inmate for them. “Sounds good,” Driver told him, according to the affidavit. At that point, FBI agents noti- fied the intended victim about the looming attempt on his life and put him in protective cus- tody.
Prosecutors said the FBI nabbed Newcomb, Moran and Driver by staging a homi- cide scene that made it look like the former inmate had been savagely murdered.
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