news
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Watch: Handcuffed Man Punched by Md. Cop
A four-part video posted on Twitter Saturday appears to show a Prince George’s County, Md., police officer punching a handcuffed man. In the first installment of the video, the man can be seen on the ground with the officer on top of him. The officer appears to punch the man in the face. In the…
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Boston Man Who Posed as Uber Driver and Raped Passenger Is Sentenced
A Boston man who posed as an Uber driver and raped a passenger has been sentenced to 10-12 years in prison. According to the New York Daily News, Alejandro Done, 47, “pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of aggravated rape, kidnapping and assault and battery.” In December, Done convinced his victim that he was the…
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Civil Rights Groups Oppose Plan to Erect MLK Monument at Confederacy Site
A proposal to place a monument to Martin Luther King Jr. on Stone Mountain in Georgia is coming under attack—from civil rights leaders and Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Atlanta and DeKalb County branches of the NAACP and the national office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference want to halt the plan because the site…
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White Man Who Targeted Elderly Black Man for ‘Knockout’ Gets Federal Prison Sentence
A federal judge sentenced Conrad Alvin Barrett on Friday to 71 months in prison for randomly attacking an elderly black man in Texas, breaking the victim’s jaw with a single punch, in what is dubbed the “knockout game,” the Huffington Post reports. Barrett, 29, pleaded guilty last June to a federal hate crime charge for…
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Lost Malcolm X Letter Found in Storage Locker on Sale for $1,250,000
Lending more credence to the adage that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” a letter written by civil rights activist Malcolm X in 1964 has been discovered in a California storage locker among items that were headed for the trash. It is now on sale for $1.25 million, reports the New York Post. The…
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Under Pressure, City Council in La. Rejects Plan to Create Misdemeanor Jail
In a 5-4 vote Oct. 14, the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council in Louisiana rejected a proposal to open a temporary misdemeanor jail. There were widespread concerns that authorities would target poor black, nonviolent offenders, The Advocate reports. “We incarcerate more people than Cuba, Iran and North Korea combined, and our solution here is…
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Tamir Rice’s Mother Demands a Special Prosecutor
Samaria Rice, whose 12-year-old son, Tamir Rice, was fatally shot last year by a Cleveland police officer, said she wants a different prosecutor to handle the case, CBS News reports. “Since the senseless shooting of my son Tamir, I have had many sleepless nights and days—almost a year, no justice, no peace,” she said at…
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Chicago Mayor Blames Rising Murder Numbers on Viral Videos of Cop Violence
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is blaming his city’s murder rate on what he calls “the chilling effects of high-profile protests against police brutality and officers’ fear of cell phone videos of their actions going viral,” according to CNN. “We have allowed our police department to get fetal and it is having a direct consequence,” Emanuel said…
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Conservative Website Posts Photo of Malia Obama at Brown University Near Beer Pong Game
First daughter Malia Obama whipped social media into a frenzy last weekend when she visited Brown University in Providence, R.I., for a tour of its campus, according to BuzzFeed. While the visit was worthy of social media posts, it was a Snapchat photo that sent fingers flying across keyboards about the high school senior, who…
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NYC Mom Accused of Tossing Infant Out of 6th-Floor Window
A 27-year-old Bronx, N.Y., mother who was once licensed to operate a home day care center has been charged with murder after allegedly tossing her infant daughter from a sixth-floor apartment window, according to NBC 4 New York. Tenisha Fearon is accused of dangling her 6-month-old daughter, Janillah Lawrence, from the window of their home…