Page 13 - 8-18-15 Tuesday's Edition

National
Civil Rights Icon, Julian Bond Dies
Trial Against Officer That Killed Former FAMU Football Player Continues This Week
JONATHAN FERRELL
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - A white North Carolina police officer told jurors in his manslaughter trial on Thursday that he shot and killed an unarmed Black man in 2013, because he feared for his life.
Prosecutors say Randall Kerrick, 29, used unnecessary force when he shot and killed Jonathan Ferrell, 24, out- side Charlotte before dawn on Sept. 14, 2013.
Kerrick's defense attorney has told the court the shooting was justified.
Ferrell, a former Florida A&M football player who out- weighed the officer by roughly 60 pounds, never reached the gun, Kerrick told jurors.
From "an arm’s length" away, Kerrick fired at Ferrell 12 times. Ten of the shots hit, ac- cording to trial evidence.
Kerrick has been on unpaid leave from the Charlotte-Meck- lenburg Police Department since the shooting.
Ferrell had crashed his car after a night out with friends. Unable to retrieve his cell phone from the wreck, he walked to a nearby house and knocked on the door.
The woman who lived there called 911, fearing a home inva- sion. Kerrick was one of three officers who responded, but the only one who pulled his gun.
Kerrick testified that when he arrived at the woman’s home, he and another officer, Thornell Little, encountered Ferrell.
After Little missed with his Taser, Kerrick said, Ferrell ran toward him, ignoring or- ders to “Get on the ground!” three times.
He said Ferrell knocked him back into a drainage ditch and reached for his gun.
During opening statements in Superior Court in Charlotte last week, prosecutors described a grisly scene in which Kerrick fired a volley of shots, then an- other after Ferrell had fallen at his feet, and two more after Ferrell’s body moved a final time.
Stanford-Bound Teen Gets Outpouring Of Support To Bury His Mother
FORT WALTON BEACH, FL --- Pioneering U.S. civil rights activist Julian Bond, who once chaired the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo- ple (NAACP), has died. He was 75.
Bond died late Saturday in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement.
"The country has lost one of its most passionate and elo- quent voices for the cause of justice," said the Center, where Bond served as president from 1971 to 1979.
"He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every per- son subject to oppression and discrimination."
Bond died after a brief ill- ness.
Originally from Tennessee, Bond was at the forefront of America's civil rights move- ment, which demanded equal rights for African Americans.
Bond was a founding mem- ber of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and helped to organize protests at segregated facilities in the 1960s.
"Sit-ins" were being staged across the US South, inspired by four men who dared to sit at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960.
That movement ultimately triggered his involvement in the student movement in Georgia.
"When we had a critical mass, we said we were going to have a meeting at 'x' place this afternoon, and that was the beginning of the Atlanta stu- dent movement," he said in a 2013 interview with the Center for American Progress.
Looking back on the civil rights campaign of the 1960s and beyond, Bond said the movement was formed some- what "unthinkingly."
"We didn't plot it, we didn't plan it. We didn't say, 'Now let's work on this issue. Now let's work on that issue.' The issues seemed to come to us," he said.
"And we grappled with them and said, 'Here is the best way to go about this thing. Here's poverty. Here's hunger. Here's something else. Here's ab-
Julian Bond organized the student ‘sit-in’ movement in the 1960s.
sence of voting rights. Here's inability to sit at the lunch counter.'"
Bond's career in student ac- tivism eventually led him to politics. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representa- tives in 1965 and went on to serve for two decades in the Georgia legislature.
He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, and white members of the Georgia House of Representatives re- fused to seat him because of his opposition to the conflict, according to the NAACP.
The Supreme Court, in 1966, ruled that the House had de- nied Bond his freedom of speech and had to seat him.
In 1998, he became NAACP chairman and served for 11 years. He remained president emeritus of the Southern Poverty Law Center until his death.
Bond's activism may have been inspired by his father, Horace Mann Bond, who was the first Black president of Lincoln University.
In his later years, Bond turned to education and was a distinguished visiting profes- sor at American University in Washington, and also taught in the history department at the University of Virginia.
He published a book of es- says, "A Time to Speak, A Time to Act" in 1972, and also wrote poetry and articles for various publications.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela Horowitz, a former attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and his five children.
Dellarontay Readus spent his high school years working to make his mother proud. He earned a GPA of over 4.0 at Melrose High School in Mem- phis, Tenn., and was the vale- dictorian of his graduating class. In April, Readus was ac- cepted into all eight Ivy league schools.
Just one month before Readus was to attend Stanford University on a full scholarship, the 18-year-old lost his mother, who battled heart and stomach issues for years.
"It's just that it hurts so much, I can't do anything else but cry," Readus told a news station. "It feels terrible, man, because my mama was honestly my reason for everything I've ever done."
Readus' older brother Eu- gene Hampton created a Go- FundMe page just to get enough money to bury their mother. The family only asked for $2,000.
Readus told the news site that he is willing to use some money he saved up for college to help offset the funeral cost.
Dellarontay Readus is headed to Stanford, however his mother Lynn, died recently and the family did not have money to bury her.
"Basically, it all comes down to the fact that we're poor, and we don't have anything," Readus told the news site. "We didn't have anything our whole lives, and we still don't have anything right now.
In two days, since the crowd- funding page went live, the family has raised over $25,000. The family has vowed to use the extra money for a headstone and want to include the phrase "loved and supported by many" as a nod to all those who con- tributed.
Former Cop Is Suspect In Death Of Lover And Unborn Baby
AUSTIN, TX --- A former Austin, Texas, police officer has been named a suspect in the death of his pregnant lover. He allegedly sought out a hit man to kill the woman so that he wouldn't have to pay child sup- port.
The nightmare began Feb. 4 when Samantha Dean, a pregnant, 29-year-old crimes- victim counselor for the Kyle, Texas, Police Department, was found shot to death behind a Texas mall. A preliminary in- vestigation revealed that Dean had had an on-and-off relation- ship with Austin Police Offi- cer VonTrey Clark. According to the Austin Chron- icle, Clark, 32, told police that although he had a wife, he had been in a sexual relationship with Dean for some six years and believed he was the father of Dean's unborn baby.
Clark, who had been on the force since 2012, was initially not deemed a suspect but was
VonTrey Clark is being held in Indonesia for the murder of Samantha Dean.
notified that he needed to be available for further question- ing should investigators need him. Then Clark was fired from the Austin police force after he missed a meeting with internal affairs regarding Dean's death. The department would later learn that Clark didn't just miss the meeting but violated protocol by leaving the country, flying to "Tokyo from Dallas before jumping another flight to Jakarta, Indonesia," a country with no extradition laws. The FBI has arrested Clark and he is being held.
Tenn. School District Claims They Can’t Stop Confederate Display On Campuses
SMYRNA, TN -- A Tennessee mother is questioning the free- dom students have to openly display the Confederate flag while on a high school campus.
The mother, who is Black, contacted the news station be- cause she was concerned about her son’s safety at Stewarts Creek High School in Smyrna, Tenn.
According to the report, the 14-year-old boy approached his mother and said that children were wearing battle flag T- shirts to class. Later in the week, the mother witnessed the open display herself as she dropped her son off at school. Students were flying the battle flag from the backs of their trucks.
The mother contacted the school district, but officials said there was nothing to be done.
“As a school district, we can’t
This is a confederate flag dis- played in the back of a truck at a Tenn. High School.
prohibit such items unless it is causing a disturbance at school,” Rutherford County Schools spokesman James Evans said, adding that stu- dents have a right to express their beliefs under the First Amendment.
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