culture
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Woman Files Complaint Against Federal Agent Who Disguised Himself as Her on Facebook
It sounds like a scene from The Wire. Timothy Sinnigen, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, was hell-bent on bringing down a drug distribution ring in New York, so he created a fake Facebook account pretending to be Sondra Arquiett, a woman accused of being affiliated with the drug ring, in order to solicit information from…
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In St. Louis, ‘We Want People to Stop Killing Our Children’
St. Louis, Thurs., Oct. 9: Late Thursday night, interactions between police officers and protesters in St. Louis’ Shaw neighborhood escalated, hours after more than 100 people gathered to attend a prayer vigil for Vonderitt Myers Jr., the 18-year-old who was shot and killed Wednesday night by an off-duty police officer who was working as a…
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Scandal Recap: The Truth Hurts
“Honesty is the best policy” must have been the theme of Thursday night’s episode of Scandal because everyone was committed to telling the truth, even if it hurt. Here are eight times when someone kept it real—and sometimes a little raw. 1. “You are not my girlfriend. … Call me later if you want me…
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There’s No Way a Seat Belt Stop Should End With Cops Using a Taser on a Man
By now you’ve seen the video of police in Hammond, Ind., smashing a car window and using a Taser on Jamal Jones in the car while children were in the backseat, screaming with fear. It was frightening. And there are probably some people out there who looked at that video and thought Jones must have been…
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Nonwhite South Africans Want Land Back Taken During Apartheid
The nonwhite families that were kicked off their land during apartheid say the process to reclaim their land has been too slow, the BBC reports. The policy was called the Group Areas Act, and it reinforced the regional separation of the races. “Among other things, it led to the removal of nonwhites from real estate…
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Parents Claim No Choice, No Voice, in Children’s Education
The key to success in any industry is innovation. That is at the heart of the reform movement that has overtaken public education over the last few years and shuttered public schools that were labeled failing or underresourced. Many of the reformers likely had the children’s best interests in mind, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg,…
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Lawyer for Eric Garner’s Family Accused of Rape
Eric Garner’s family will still get their day in court, but it won’t be with the same lawyer. That’s because the Associated Press is reporting that attorney Sanford Rubenstein has been accused of raping a woman he met at a 60th-birthday party for the Rev. Al Sharpton last week. According to reports, the alleged incident took…
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Watch: NYPD Officer Allegedly Knocks Out Cigarette-Smoking Teen
A Brooklyn teenager was allegedly knocked out by a New York City police officer for smoking a cigarette, the Brooklyn Paper reports. Video footage captured on a cellphone shows the plainclothes officer punching Marcel Hammer, even as he lay on the ground in a gutter trying to protect his face, saying, “It’s just a…
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Watch: NYPD Officer Allegedly Takes $1,000-Plus From Construction Worker
A New York City Police Department officer is being accused of snatching more than $1,000 from a construction worker’s pocket during a stop-and-frisk search in the borough of Brooklyn, the New York Daily News reports. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is investigating the incident, which was captured in cellphone video footage and turned over to…
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Ala. Pastor Tells Congregation That He Has AIDS and Slept With Church Members
A few Sundays ago, a now-former Montgomery, Ala., pastor, Juan Demetrius McFarland, who had led his church for 23 years, walked up to the pulpit and told his congregation that he has full-blown AIDS and that he had slept with church members who never knew his health status. “He confessed to the entire membership and…