Stones, Bombs, and Planes: A Tale of Two Barbarisms

I generally avoid posting images of black/African people that might reinforce racist stereotypes. Occasionally I make an exception to offer some push back.

BE ADVISED: SOME OF THE PICTURES THAT FOLLOW ARE GRAPHIC.

I have always had a difficult time getting my head around the concept of stoning someone to death when we have techniques like "lethal injection" that far more civilized. (Although westerners now associate stoning with Muslims, very few Islamic nations sanction stoning.) But really, how "civilized" is that? Imagine having someone eat their "last meal." Imagine that you have now restrained that person and he is watching you trying stick something in his arm that is going kill him. Now imagine that you are sweating profusely because you really want to do your job, you want to kill him, but after searching his arms for hours you request that the execution be postponed because you could not find a "usable vein"...

So back to stoning...

I came across these ghastly pics over at the Huffington Post.

HP led off the story saying: "On Sunday, Islamic militants stoned a man to death for adultery in front of hundreds of local residents in Somalia." 


Here's how the same event was described over at the New York Post : "In a scene straight out of the Dark Ages, this Somali man accused of adultery was stoned to death by Islamic thugs while horrified villagers were forced to watch."

The Huffington Post deserves credit here for objective balanced reporting that does not invite  stereotypes about Africans or Muslims or "darkness." The problem, of course, is that the New York Post version is closer to American public opinion about Somalis in particular and Africans and Muslims in general.

Americans don't typically consider human bodies obliterated or deformed by "modern" weaponry such as--depleted uranium, M16s, MOABs (see second to last picture below), remote controlled drones, atomic bombs, napalm, just to name a few--as barbaric. And because Americans have low attention spans, we have already forgotten about those 300-500 Somali men, women, and children, massacred by our troops. (But we might remember the movie Black Hawk Down, the mythical version of that tragedy.)

Mass death by modern weaponry is overrated.

So yes, I am vehemently opposed killing people with large stones. But I am equally opposed to killing people with massive projectiles dropped from planes and other "modern" weapons of mass destruction.

Somalia

Afghanistan

Afghans dig graves for victims after an alleged air strike by U.S forces in Gozara district of Herat province west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Feb. 17. A U.S. general traveled to western Afghanistan on Feb. 18 to investigate claims that six women and two children were killed, officials said.

USA

 "The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb produced in the United States is the second most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the world." Source: Wikipedia

Assorted US military weapons of mass destruction (Source: Wikipedia)

tags: afghanistan, barbarism, Black Hawk Down, crime, death penalty, islam, MOAB, Somalia, stoning, war on terror, weapons of mass destruction

More madness for Death Row. John Thompson freed after 14 years and six execution dates

More madness from Death Row. John Thompson freed after 14 years and six execution dates at the Angola State Penitentiary, Louisiana. Listen to John Thompson interview at end of post. 

Adjusting to life after death row

John Thompson was on death row for 14 years By Dave Lee  BBC World Service John Thompson spent 14 years on death row for crimes he did not commit. Convicted of killing New Orleans hotel executive Ray Liuzza, and for a carjacking weeks later, he was preparing to be sent to his death at the notorious Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana - the largest maximum security prison in the United States. After six execution dates, John had exhausted all his appeals. His seventh date - 22 May 1999 - was to be his last. In one final twist, a new investigator uncovered some previously lost evidence. After a retrial, John was freed in 2003. It was the start of another struggle - surviving in the outside world. It was a struggle which has led John to found a new charity helping former death row inmates: Resurrection After Exoneration. He told BBC World Service's Outlook programme his story. READ ENTIRE STORY HERE. @@@@ Home   About   Programs   Resources   Events   Press   How You Can Help   Contact Us SOURCE: RESURRECTION AFTER EXONERATION

CNN London, October 22 2009:

Becky Anderson Interviews John Thompson

WHAT HAPPENS TO INNOCENCE AFTER INCARCERATION? 

Each year, we hear about more innocent people being released from prison in the United States.

Today, there are over 400 exonerated men and women who have been wrongly convicted and victimized by our criminal justice system.

On average, each has served more than 10 years in prison before being released. 

Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE) was founded in 2007 by exonerees to promote and sustain a network of support among formerly wrongfully incarcerated individuals in the South. RAE works to reconnect exonerees to their communities and provide access to those opportunities of which they were robbed.

RAE is an offspring of the non-profit law office, Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) .

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED?

 

LEARN MORE              SHARE OUR STORIES            DONATE NOW

tags: angola state penitentiary, death penalty, louisiana, prison industrial complex

My God...this is a shame--in fact its criminal. Exonerated after 35 years in prison...(repost @ Kalimah)

This story broke a few days back: James Bain sets record for being exonerated after the longest stint in prison--35 years! OUTFREAKINRAGEOUS!! 

Bain was convicted as a teenager based on very shoddy evidence--a photograph id by a 9 year old child orchestrated by the police department. The article makes no mention of punishing the racist police and DAs responsible for this grave injustice. And God knows how many other innocent black men and women are currently on lockdown. 


Understandably Mr. Bain is just happy to be released.

But another Black man was victimized by an equally damning record that somehow passed under the media radar. Timothy Cole became the first case in Texas of someone being exonerated posthumously. Yes, you read correctly. Cole died in prison. 


Why are these cases not being covered more robustly? Shouldn't there be moratorium on the death penalty until it can be proven that "our" racist criminal justice system actually works? An obvious start to some sort of resolution of this mess is to ban the death penalty permanently. 

You can read Timothy Cole's story at the bottom of this post. kzs

Man exonerated, freed from prison after 35 years

Source: CNN


Bartow, Florida (CNN) -- After more than three decades in prison, a Florida man was set free Thursday after a DNA test showed he did not kidnap and rape a 9-year-old boy in 1974.

"I'm not angry," James Bain, 54, told reporters after a brief hearing in Bartow, Florida.

Bain was 19 when he was convicted on charges of kidnapping, burglary and strong-arm rape. He received a life sentence. He's going home for the first time in 35 years.

"I got God in my head," said Bain, surrounded by supporters and wearing a T-shirt with "Not Guilty" across the front. "I knew one day he will reveal me."

Of the 245 people in the United States whom DNA testing has exonerated, none has spent more time behind bars than Bain, according to the Innocence Project, a national organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through such testing.

In 2001, Florida passed a statute allowing cases to be reopened for DNA testing. Bain submitted handwritten motions four times seeking such testing but was denied each time. His fifth attempt was successful after an appeals court ruled he was entitled to a hearing.

Bain initially was expected to be freed with some conditions as the state wanted a further review of DNA test results. But the review was completed ahead of Thursday's hearing.

Polk County State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge that DNA testing had excluded Bain from the crime.

"He's just not connected with this particular incident," Hill said.

"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order, sir," the judge said, referring to an order vacating the judgment and sentence.

"You are a free man. Congratulations," he said, and the courtroom erupted into applause.

In 1974, the 9-year-old Lake Wales, Florida, victim had told police that his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. After being shown five photos of potential suspects, the victim picked out one of Bain, the police report said.

The victim, now 44, lives in Florida and was made aware of Bain's situation, according to multiple sources.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Bain said he was going home with family. "I'm going to see my mom," he said.

His mother, Sarah Reed, has been in and out of hospitals in recent years. She said she is putting her house and her car in her son's name. "I want him to have something by himself. He's suffered enough," she said.

Asked about prison, Bain said, "So many things can happen to you at any time." But now, "I guess I kind of feel like when they first landed on the moon. We have touchdown," he said, laughing.

CNN's Rich Phillips contributed to this report.


@@@@@

Innocence Project of Tx Secures First Posthumous DNA Exoneration in Texas for Timothy Cole
by The Innocence Project of Texas Saturday, Feb. 07, 2009 at 3:04 PM

The Innocence Project of Texas is pleased to announce that yesterday afternoon Judge Charlie Baird formally cleared Timothy Cole's name and exonerated him of a sexual assault he was convicted of committing back in 1986.

timcole.jpg, image/jpeg, 300x461

This event marks the first posthumous DNA exoneration in Texas history, as Timothy Cole passed away in 1999 while incarcerated for the crime.


Our organization is honored to have represented the Cole family in their quest to reclaim the name of their eldest son and brother. Timothy Cole, who served as a role model for his entire family, was a man of extraordinary integrity. And yesterday, just a few minutes after 5:00pm, Judge Baird recognized that "his reputation must be restored." The Judge also elaborated by stating that this is the saddest case he has ever seen during his 30 years of experience.

Source: Indy Media Houston 

tags: crime, death penalty, prison industrial complex, racial_profiling, racism

The execution of John Muhammad or When Savages Run Nation States

America is a savage nation.

For what else can you call a nation that was founded on the annihilation of the indigenous people of the land and the enslavement Africans who were inventoried with furniture and animals? What but savage can you call nation that has overthrown democracies and undermined freedom movements all over the world? A nation causing chaos from Congo to Iraq to satisfy our gluttonous need for other peoples' resources? 

Tellingly, our savage nation still mandates state sponsored murder. 


Think about it. This is a nation were black people were up until the 1950s routinely lynched: sometimes hung from trees, sometimes burned alive, sometimes mutilated beyond recognition and frequently all of the above, in front of large audiences of white onlookers, including children. Alongside this open brutality was an equally brutal practice that was less known. 


Immediately following Reconstruction, the slavery-plantation agricultural complex was replaced by the prison industrial complex. Black men (and some black women) by the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, were arrested on bogus charges of "vagrancy." They were then imprisoned indefinitely and their labor was illegally sold to the highest industrial bidder--"slavery by another name" as Blakmon rightly named it. Put differently black criminality is an invention of state-sanctioned white supremacy. Our oppressors, the savages, control the prison industrial complex, make, enforce and adjudicate the laws, and so forth. To this day the inequities in the American criminal (in)justice system remain staggering--a direct outcome of slavery and Jim Crow.


Which brings me to one of the latest acts of barbarity: the state-execution of John Muhammad. Mr. Muhammad was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for ten murders in around the Washington D.C. area. 

Muhammad's two former spouses appeared on the Larry King show the day before Muhammad's execution. His second wife, Mildred Muhammad, repeated several points that had been previously covered by the press: she said that Mr. Muhammad had been abusive, that he had threatened to kill her and that she believed Mr. Muhammad was in D.C. to carry out that threat. She also made it clear that she had made an emotional break with Mr. Muhammad. (interestingly, the first wife who has since remarried renewed ties w/Muhammad while he was in prison. the obvious bad blood between them was fascinating--but i will leave that for the tabloids.) 

"I had emotionally detached from John when I asked him for a divorce," she told CNN. "And my emotions were severed when he said that you have become my enemy and as my enemy, I will kill you."

All of this is crucial information because it establishes that she had absolutely no reason to lie about her ex-husband's behavior. According to Mildred Muhammad, her former husband's personality had changed radically after returning from the Gulf War.  

She has asserted that she was her ex-husband's target, and she blamed the first Gulf War for changing his personality.

"He went from someone who was always happy, that knew what direction he was going in, and was focused, to a person that was totally confused, depressed all the time, and didn't know how to do or get to where he wanted to be."

She said he never received counseling after his return to the United States.

But lawyer Gordon disputed her account, saying that Muhammad "was absolutely not affected by his time in the Gulf War. We did discuss that."

Its an open secret that our troops are returning from war zones and not receiving proper medical attention and Ms. Muhammad's observation strikes me as a credible. And what is up with John Muhammad's attorney? How could he possibly know with certainty that Mr. Muhammad "was absolutely not affected by his time in the Gulf War"?  


I reject the death penalty because our criminal justice system is fundamentally racist. I also reject it on principle (in most instances)--the state should not be in the business of taking lives. Mr. Muhammad certainly deserved to be punished for his crimes, but he did not deserve the death penalty. No human being (or very few) deserves to die by state execution. 


I am also opposed to war, but if we can send our troops to hostile theaters to risk their lives then we owe them the best possible medical care while on active duty and after discharge. Our government let Mr. Muhammad down and bears at least some responsibility for those ten lost lives. 


Read entire CNN article here.

John Muhammad's former wives interviewed on Larry King.



tags: crime, death penalty, gulf war, PTSD

i don't generally advocate the death penalty but they might wanna go ahead and put this one out of his misery.

Update. The body count is now up to 10 11.





Coroner says 6 women whose bodies were found at home died violently

(CNN) -- Six women found dead at a Cleveland, Ohio, home appeared to have been strangled, and their decomposing bodies could have been lying there for "weeks, if not months or years," a coroner told CNN on Saturday.


Police discovered the bodies at the home of Anthony Sowell, a 50-year-old convicted rapist, after they tried to serve an arrest and search warrant for him related to a sexual assault investigation.

On Thursday, detectives from the department's sex-crimes unit and members of its SWAT team went to Sowell's home to execute the warrant and to arrest the suspect, but he was nowhere to be found, Cleveland Police spokesman Lt. Thomas Stacho said.

Five female victims were found inside the home, and another female body was discovered outside the home, said Cuyahoga County Coroner Frank Miller III.

Miller's office had yet to identify the victims, who all died of "homicidal violence," he said.

"They were mostly strangled, it appears," he said.

Stacho said a tipster told officers of Sowell's whereabouts and police arrested him Saturday afternoon as he walked on a street near the 4th District Police Headquarters.

About a month ago, a woman accused Sowell of rape and felonious assault, Stacho said Friday.

"Once we were able to get the cooperation of the victim, we secured an arrest warrant for Mr. Sowell and subsequently a search warrant for his premises," Stacho said.

Officers serving the warrants Thursday discovered two badly decomposed bodies on the third floor of the house, Stacho said. A subsequent search revealed what appeared to be a freshly dug grave under the stairs in the basement, he said.

On Friday, investigators returned to the house, dug up the grave and found a third body, he said.

A further search of the house and property found two more bodies in a crawl space, and a sixth body was found in a shallow grave outside the home, Stacho said.

Read local coverage on CNN affiliate WJW

Five different burial methods were used on the victims, and the bodies were in varying states of decomposition, Miller said, making it difficult to determine the ages of the victims. He added that the states of the bodies made it hard to tell how long they had lain in the makeshift graves.

"It's really very difficult to tell," Miller said. "It's been some time, I would say probably at least weeks, if not months or years."

Stacho said Sowell makes his living as a "scrapper."

"He walks around and picks up scrap metal and takes it to junkyards to make a few pennies."

Sowell was convicted for a 1989 rape for which he was imprisoned from 1990 to 2005, Stacho said.

CNN's John Branch and Barbara Hall contributed to this report.

                                                 Crime Scene. 12205 Imperial Ave., Cleveland, Ohio

Some residents mistakenly thought the stench was coming from the adjacent meat plant, Ray's Sausage. The owner of the plant spent thousands of dollars addressing a problem that turned out to be decaying bodies in the adjacent house.