Parents, police target gangs at Mt. Vernon forum

Detective Anthony Mitchell Westchester NBPA Doing

PowerPoint Presentation on Gang information

MOUNT VERNON - Students, parents and law enforcement officers attended a forum to address rising gang activity in the city at Thornton High School yesterday.

The Westchester chapter of the National Black Police Association kicked off its celebration of Police Week with the presentation, titled "Identifying and Addressing Gang Problems in Mount Vernon."

"We are out of touch with our young people," Mount Vernon Detective Anthony Mitchell said. "As parents, we have to get out and do these types of things. We have to express our concerns about what the community is not getting."

Mitchell led the presentation about the signs of gang activity, prevention and how to talk with teens about the issue.

The 10-year veteran detective said youths often join gangs to gain a sense of belonging and protection.

He advised parents to acknowledge any suspicion and become positive role models for their children. Mitchell also advised parents to get to know their child's friends and their parents.
Residents can promote a gang-free neighborhood by getting to know one another and reporting any criminal activity, he said.

"Police don't solve crimes by themselves," Mitchell said.
Freshman Kayla Ortiz, who attended the seminar with her mother, said she learned more about the different types of gang paraphernalia and tactics used to discourage members from leaving a gang.

Ortiz also liked that Mitchell told parents to praise their children for their good deeds.
"It was informing and encouraging," Ortiz said.

Yvonne Johnson, whose daughter attends the high school, said she wanted more informative programs and activities for the youth in Mount Vernon.

"You have to find places for them to go and be involved," she said.
Johnson said the forum helped her learn more about resources in the city and gave her a chance to meet with a representative for the mayor's office.

Tamara Berthaud, a clinical social worker at Thornton and Mount Vernon High, helped coordinate the seminar after polling students on the issues that affect them the most.

"It's important to address the topics and let parents know what's going on," Berthaud said. "There are a lot of issues, and we want that communication between parents and children. They need a lot of support."

Principal Sharon Bradley said the seminar gave parents a chance to share concerns, survey the issues and realize a solution with each other.

"So often, parents are looking for solutions, and they have them but don't even know it," Bradley said. "The more educated we are, the better we can service our children."

The forum about local gang activity was part of a daylong seminar held at Thornton, which included discussions on parent and child communication, teen sex and pregnancy.
Bradley said the school will continue to host programs to focus on the challenging issues teens face.

Plainclothes officers in trouble - didn't recognize off-duty chief

Three-star NYPD Chief Douglas Zeigler

At least one cop has been disciplined for ordering the NYPD's highest-ranking uniformed black officer out of his auto while the three-star chief was off-duty and parked in Queens, the Daily News has learned.

"How you can not know or recognize a chief in a department SUV with ID around his neck, I don't know," a police source said.

Chief Douglas Zeigler, 60, head of the Community Affairs Bureau, was in his NYPD-issued vehicle near a fire hydrant when two plainclothes cops approached on May 2, sources said.
One officer walked up on each side of the SUV at 57th Ave. and Xenia St. in Corona about 7 p.m. and told the driver to roll down the heavily tinted windows, sources said.
What happened next is in dispute.

In his briefing to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Zeigler said the two cops, who are white, had no legitimate reason to approach his SUV, ranking sources said.
After they ordered him to get out, one officer did not believe the NYPD identification Zeigler gave him.

The cops gave a different account:
When one officer spotted Zeigler's service weapon through the rolled-down window, he yelled "Gun!" according to sources who have spoken with the officers.

Both cops raised their weapons and ordered the driver out of the car, sources said.
Instead of saying he was an armed member of the NYPD, Zeigler shouted, "Don't you know who I am?" the sources said.

When one cop reached over to check the identification badge around Zeigler's neck, the chief pushed him away, sources said.

Only then did Zeigler tell the two officers his name and rank, those sources said.

Zeigler, in his discussions with Kelly, said the officers never yelled "Gun!" sources said.

One cop got into a heated argument with the chief even after seeing the ID, sources said.
That cop was stripped of his gun and badge and placed on modified duty last night, sources said. The status of the second officer was unclear.

The incident occurred as the NYPD is under fire for record numbers of pedestrians being stopped and frisked, the majority of them black or Hispanic. Some 145,098 people were stopped by the NYPD in the first quarter of this year.

Zeigler has headed the Community Affairs Bureau since January 2006. His wife, Neldra Zeigler, is NYPD deputy commissioner for equal employment opportunity.

By ALISON GENDAR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

What Rev. Jeremiah Wright Really Said

Rev. Jeremiah Wright






The Chicago Tribune recently transcribed some controversial sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor. As can be seen below, many of his remarks were taken out of context.





SEPT. 16, 2001 Sound bite: “We’ve bombed Hiroshima, we’ve bombed Nagasaki, we’ve nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. . . . We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”





Wright in context:
“I heard Ambassador (Edward) Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News. This is a White man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. Did you see him, John? A White man. He pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true, that America’s chickens are coming home to roost.


“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Iroquois, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism. We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel; we bombed the Black civilian community of Panama, with Stealth bombers, and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We’ve bombed (Muammar) Gadhafi’s home and killed his child.
“Blessed are they who bash your children’s heads against the rocks. We bombed Iraq; we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back an attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home.


“We’ve bombed Hiroshima, we’ve bombed Nagasaki, we’ve nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.


“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.


“America’s chickens are coming home to roost. Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White ambassador said that, y’all, not a Black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism.



JULY 2003 Sound bite: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America?’ No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America,’ ‘God Damn America.’”





Wright in context:
“The United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on the reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating the citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of the racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America?’


“No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America,’ ‘God Damn America.’ That’s in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human, God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.”



JAN. 13, 2008 Sound bite: “Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain’t. Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinski. He was riding dirty.



Wright in context:
“There is a man here who can take this country in a new direction. ‘But he’s a Black man.’ There is a man here who is empowered by hope to usher in an era of change in a country that is in desperate need of a change. ‘But he ain’t Black enough.’ There is a man here who can get Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and persons of no faith to sit down at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood and talk about our common humanity and our common future. ‘But I ain’t gonna vote for him ’cause I don’t want to waste my vote.’ ‘But Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us.’ No he ain’t. Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. This commentary was distributed by NNPA.

REMEMBERING OUR KING

Nearly 40 years after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., some say his legacy is being frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message.

"Everyone knows -- even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King -- can say his most famous moment was that 'I have a dream' speech," said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo. "No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don't know what that dream was."

King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.

King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as "the moral leader of our nation" -- and when he pronounced "I have a dream" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire who has written a recently published book on King.

"He was considered by many to be a pariah," Sitkoff said.

But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital "to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood but equality in fact," Sitkoff said.
Scholarly study of King hasn't translated into the popular perception of him and the civil rights movement, said Richard Greenwald, professor of history at Drew University.

"We're living increasingly in a culture of top 10 lists, of celebrity biopics which simplify the past as entertainment or mythology," he said. "We lose a view on what real leadership is by compressing him down to one window."

That does a disservice to both King and society, said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University.

By freezing him at that point, by putting him on a pedestal of perfection that doesn't acknowledge his complex views, "it makes it impossible both for us to find new leaders and for us to aspire to leadership," Harris-Lacewell said.

She believes it's important for Americans in 2008 to remember how disliked King was before his death in April 1968.

"If we forget that, then it seems like the only people we can get behind must be popular," Harris-Lacewell said. "Following King meant following the unpopular road, not the popular one."

In becoming an icon, King's legacy has been used by people all over the political spectrum, said Glenn McNair, associate professor of history at Kenyon College.

He's been part of the 2008 presidential race, in which Barack Obama could be the country's first black president. Obama has invoked King, and Sen. John Kerry endorsed Obama by saying "Martin Luther King said that the time is always right to do what is right."

Not all the references have been received well. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton came under fire when she was quoted as saying King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King has "slipped into the realm of symbol that people use and manipulate for their own purposes," McNair said.

Harris-Lacewell said that is something people need to push back against.

"It's not OK to slip into flat memory of who Dr. King was, it does no justice to us and makes him to easy to appropriate," she said. "Every time he gets appropriated, we have to come out and say that's not OK. We do have the ability to speak back."

Listen to the candidates, not their associates

(CNN) -- Its been an interesting week watching folks analyze the outcry over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial comments, especially when they try to link them to Sen. Barack Obama.
Roland S. Martin says all the presidential candidates have supporters with controversial views.
Obama's supporters say it's wrong to associate his views with those of his pastor at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

His opponents say that surely his views are linked with Wright's, including the pastor's praise of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Conservative talker Sean Hannity -- who incidentally many have accused of associations with white supremacist Hal Turner, which he denies -- was foaming at the mouth. He called Wright a racist and an anti-Semite, and then said we all should assume Obama is also a racist and an anti-Semite.

Talk about a stretch.

Frankly, it's just not plausible to suggest that you always share the same feelings or views as someone you know.

In remarks to a Pittsburgh newspaper, Sen. Hillary Clinton responded to a question about the Wright controversy by saying: "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

True. Very true. But there's also some reality that politicians pick and choose who they want to be associated with.

Clinton pressed Obama during a debate this year to repudiate and denounce Farrakhan's unsolicited praise of him at an event the Nation of Islam leader organized for his group in Chicago.

The moderator, NBC's Tim Russert, brought up comments made by Farrakhan 24 years ago in his question to Obama.

Fine, so what do we make of then-President Bill Clinton publicly endorsing the 1995 Million Man March? Who called for that march? Louis Farrakhan. Who was the lead organizer? Louis Farrakhan. Who was the keynote speaker? Louis Farrakhan.

After he was out of the White House, President Clinton also endorsed the Million Man March. Who called for that march? Louis Farrakhan. Who was the lead organizer? Louis Farrakhan. Who was the keynote speaker? Louis Farrakhan.

Did Sen. Clinton privately or publicly rebuke her husband for supporting a man whom she has determined to be hateful and divisive?

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who is national co-chair of Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign, once stood on stage with Farrakhan in 1997 -- at an event the Times said was "called to promote racial reconciliation after several recent high-profile crimes" -- and praised him for his commitment to ending violence in the black community. Rendell was the mayor of Philadelphia at the time.

According to the April 15, 1997, story in The New York Times, Farrakhan praised Rendell before 3,000 people at the anti-violence rally for ''his courage and strength to rise above emotion and differences that might be between us or our communities.'' Roland Martin argues that Obama is not alone in his controversial associations »

According to the Times, Rendell, who is Jewish, commended the Nation of Islam for its emphasis on family values and self-sufficiency.

Must Clinton repudiate and denounce Rendell's past comments and association with Farrakhan?
Former Republican Rep. Jack Kemp is a huge supporter of Sen. John McCain, and he also has a Farrakhan story.

In 1996, when Kemp was the vice presidential running mate of Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, he told reporters that he wanted to meet with Farrakhan and praised his organization's focus on economic empowerment, family values and its pull-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstrap message -- right in line with the GOP talking points. Kemp said he wanted to speak at the Million Man March.

Boy, was he torn apart by Jewish critics, and many in his own party.

Kemp summarily criticized Farrakhan's comments about Jews and whites, but he didn't take his words back. By the way, Hannity pressed every African-American supporter about Farrakhan, but he never got in Kemp's face about his comments. I wonder why?

Must McCain repudiate and denounce Kemp's past comments and association with Farrakhan?
When it comes to homosexuality, no Clinton or Obama supporter should think of criticizing the other campaign's black ministerial supporters because that means most of their own would have to be disassociated from their campaigns.

On CNN's "The Situation Room," Paul Begala mentioned "hateful" things said about gays by the Rev. James Meeks, founder and senior pastor of Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, and an Obama supporter. Meeks has made no bones about his firm opposition to homosexuality (and abortion), which is one of the reasons he's very close to many of the nation's white conservative pastors. (I know him well; I'm a member of Salem).

And then there was the hoopla over gospel singer Donnie McClurkin when the Obama campaign recruited him to take part in a gospel concert tour around South Carolina. McClurkin has preached that homosexuals can be converted to heterosexuals. That set off a firestorm.
But Clinton also has her own issues with anti-gay pastoral supporters.

The Rev. Harold Mayberry, pastor of the First African Methodist Church in Oakland, has voiced for years his opposition to homosexuality. In fact, some have said he has compared homosexuality to thievery.

When Mayberry came out in support of Clinton, her campaign touted his endorsement, sans any mention of his anti-gay rants.

She has also received a $1,000 contribution from Bishop Eddie L. Long of the mega-church New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, who previously led an anti-gay marriage march in Atlanta.

Of course, when it comes to McCain, it wouldn't be a story if his ministerial supporters are anti-gay. It would be news if any of them actually supported homosexuality.

The bottom line: Everyone has an association that is open for scrutiny. Our real focus should be on the candidates and their views on the issues, because one of them will stand before the nation and take the oath of office and swear to uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States.

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning journalist and CNN contributor. Martin is studying to receive his master's degree in Christian communications at Louisiana Baptist University. You can read more of his columns at http://www.rolandsmartin.com/.

Quick, Let Me Search Your Home For Guns Before The Supreme Court Tells Me They Are Legal Anyway!!!!!

The hounds of deliverance are upon us!The Washington D.C. Examiner offers editorial comment upon the current door-to-door D.C. visit by police seeking guns!"WASHINGTON (Map, News) - If the U.S. Supreme Court seemed on the verge of finding the D.C. government guilty of violating its citizens’ First Amendment rights, would the D.C. police be going door to door looking for printing presses to confiscate? Of course not. It would be unthinkable. Civil libertarians would be — to use an apt phrase (figuratively speaking) — up in arms. But when the civil liberty at issue is the right to bear those arms, as protected by the Second Amendment rather than the First, District officials seem determined to leave no gun unturned in.

Mayor Adrian Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier may have all the best intentions, but their “Safe Homes Initiative” is constitutionally and otherwise objectionable on several levels. The initiative involves door-to-door visits with police asking residents for permission to search their homes for guns. Any firearms found will be confiscated, but owners won’t be prosecuted unless the guns are determined to be linked to specific crimes.

The program has drawn criticism not just from gun-rights lobbies such as the National Rifle Association but also from the National Black Police Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. No matter how much respect and support police officers deserve, there is still an intimidation factor involved any time an officer is on one’s doorstep, such that the “permission” may not seem as voluntary as police mean it to be. So where does this end? How long before Lanier sends police into selected neighborhoods — selected by whom and on what basis? — asking to search homes for marijuana, terrorist literature, evidence of intent to commit a crime, fireworks or Cuban cigars? Lanier is establishing a precedent that would have horrified the founders of this republic.

What is clearly at work here is the District’s determination to enforce its broad gun ban while it still has nominal power to do so. Never mind that a federal appeals court has ruled the ban unconstitutional, or that most observers of last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the issue reported that a majority of justices seem inclined to throw the law out. Never mind that the fundamental constitutional right of gun ownership is at issue. District officials appear to believe their own antipathy to guns outweighs all those pesky concerns about whether the Constitution empowers their confiscations. But the guns they take away today may turn out to be perfectly legal under the Constitution. It would be far better to wait for the high court’s direction than to rush, half-cocked, into this kind of a crackdown."

Next up, "voluntary" searches for marijuana, illegal drugs, illicit sex, and other tragedies of our society!

Way to go D.C., you have once again proven yourselves incompetent to run your own city. Time for the Congress Fairy to take control and let the locals from a nearby state take charge! Do you suppose Marion Berry would apply for the job as Commissar?

What a crock D.C. is.....how shameful that the "seat of government" is allowed to be so completely bereft of any form of control with logic!

RALLY FOR JUSTICE MISUNDERSTOOD BY SOME

The press conferences, news interviews and now a rally have not been an indictment of the Four County Police Officers on behalf of concerned supporters of the family of Detective Christopher Ridley. No one wants to see anyone go to jail for a glitch in the institutional system of policing.

This has been a clear plea to Politicians and Policy Makers in that they have a chance to put a little faith in the process of justice in the black community. Due to what appears to be inadequacies, there are now questions about the entire process of justice in reference to the investigation of the shooting of our brother Detective Ridley. Was there a full representation of the facts?

What will be the steps to lay the ground work to make sure this will never happen again? The request by the family of an outside agency like the Attorney General’s Office or the Department of Justice to investigate. Whether this investigation will give merit or demerit to the facts of Westchester’s investigation is a fair and impartial request from the family of Detective Ridley. That is the process of Justice.

County Public Safety Commissioner Belfiore, the Public Safety Commission and Politicians need to admit the system is flawed. More adequate accredited training is needed for all Law Enforcement Officers that carry off-duty. A true Off-Duty training course should also be implemented along with Racial Sensitivity classes. These types of classes should not just be for the academy but yearly refresher courses as well. A Fraternal Day should be implemented for cadets of all law enforcement academies in Westchester where Law Enforcement Fraternities of all races can come and talk to the cadets.

Now that it has come to light that the only black County Police Officer did not fire his weapon, shouldn't we question the reason why he was pointed out to be the lone gunman from first accounts from authorities? Does this coincide with the studies, data and facts that the Westchester NBPA has said all along about the perceptions of black males within institutions of law enforcement? How these types of unfortunate occurrences mainly happen to officers of a darker blue when they are off duty or in plain clothes.

This intentional or unintentional leak of our brother’s name has caused a lot of emotions in the law enforcement community and a deep wound in the black law enforcement community as well. The black law enforcement community in time should begin the process of healing. We should agree to disagree and begin the work of the common goal protecting, educating and uplifting our communities. The communities and the black communities at large are in our critical care.

It is far from indicting anyone when you ask for a more clear and concise representation of the facts. We need to make sure we will not loose another officer.

Whatever point we make or opinion we have, we should always be in one voice saying never, ever, again should a mother and father loose their son in a situation like this