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A violent social media threat against black students at a Killeen, Texas, high school on Friday prompted parents to keep their kids home from school, reports the New York Daily News. The move came in response to since-deleted Instagram posts on Thursday by user “jakedajesus254,” including a picture of a man holding a gun and…

While investigators are still trying to piece together a motive in the execution-style shooting death of a Texas deputy at a gas station, a county sheriff on Saturday said that the probe would look at the powerful Black Lives Matter movement as a possible impetus for the shooting. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman, who called…

Actress Daniele Watts, who appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, is back in hot water. This year, she and her boyfriend, Brian Lucas, a chef, pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace and were ordered to write an apology letter to the officers involved in their high-profile detention. In exchange for the plea, charges of lewd…

A man was being held Saturday by law-enforcement authorities in Houston after he allegedly shot and killed a Harris County sheriff’s deputy as the officer refueled his police cruiser at a gas station Friday night, according to CNN. Deputy Darren Goforth, who had 10 years’ service with the sheriff’s office, was shot multiple times from…

A 24-year-old black man was found dead in a Virginia jail cell after he was held without bail for four months over an alleged theft of $5 worth of groceries, reports The Guardian. Jamycheal Mitchell, who reportedly suffered from mental illness and may have starved himself to death, was discovered in his cell last week…

North Carolina state prosecutors said Friday that they will not retry a white police officer who shot and killed unarmed Jonathan Ferrell. Prosecutors made the decision after talking with jurors following a mistrial, saying they would not be able to win a conviction, according to the New York Daily News. A jury deadlocked 8-4 last…

Looks like there’s another item that can be added to The Root’s ongoing list of things you can’t do while black: making direct, uninterrupted eye contact with a police officer. An Ohio police officer admitted on camera that he stopped John Felton, a black man, “because you made direct eye contact with me, and you…

Students and faculty at Savannah State University are saddened and stunned after a Thursday-night campus shooting in Georgia left one student dead. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, junior Christopher Starks, 22, was shot during an altercation inside the school’s Student Union building. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The…