Texas Authorities Postpone Their Scheduled Murder of Andre Thomas to Allow for Mental Competency Consideration. More than 100 religious leaders Asked Gov. Greg Abbott to Stop Black Man's Execution

From [HERE] A Grayson County, Texas court has withdrawn the April 5, 2023 execution date for Andre Thomas (pictured), a seriously mentally ill prisoner whose legal team requested more time to demonstrate that Thomas is incompetent to be executed. While incarcerated, Thomas gouged out his own eyes and claimed divine direction for his crimes. More than 100 religious leaders, along with other experts, had asked Gov. Greg Abbott to halt Thomas’ execution.

“The Court was right to follow the Constitution by withdrawing Andre Thomas’s execution date,” said Maurie Levin, an attorney for Thomas. “The Constitution and Texas law forbid the execution of people who are insane. Mr. Thomas is such a person, as he is not competent to be executed, lacking a rational understanding of the State’s reason for his execution…Mr. Thomas is one of the most mentally ill prisoners in Texas history, having gouged out both of his eyes and eaten one of them. He has endured a profound and lifelong mental illness … Guiding this blind psychotic man to the gurney for execution offends our sense of humanity and serves no legitimate purpose.”

On March 7, 2023, the same day that Thomas’s execution date was withdrawn, Texas executed Gary Green. Green’s attorneys had argued that he was intellectually disabled and that he had schizoaffective disorder. Arthur Brown, Jr., who is scheduled to be executed in Texas on March 9, has also raised intellectual disability claims. Brown maintains his innocence and is seeking DNA testing of evidence. Texas is considering legislation that would bar the execution of those with severe mental illness.

‘It’s Like a Graveyard’: Record Numbers of Non-White Migrants Are Dying at the U.S. Border

From [HERE] A spike in deaths along the most dangerous stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border reflects the escalating number of migrants seeking to cross into the U.S. from troubled home countries. At the same time, U.S. immigration policies are allowing fewer of them legal entry. Many migrants have turned to human smugglers and WhatsApp messages to help them navigate more lightly patrolled—and treacherous—sections of the border to enter illegally, U.S. officials said. 

The bodies of more than 890 migrants, a record number, were recovered by U.S. authorities along the border in the 2022 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the Biden administration, a 58% increase over 2021. They drowned in fast-moving sections of the Rio Grande or, after successfully crossing, died falling from cliffs along mountain passes or from dehydration while lost, said U.S. border agents and police who recover the bodies. Hundreds more were reported missing. In July, 53 migrants were found dead inside the back of a sweltering tractor trailer found parked in San Antonio. U.S. and Mexican authorities estimate that dozens also died last year on the Mexico side of the border or were lost at sea. [MORE]

In Recent Case Concerning the Right to Carry Guns Clarence Thomas Discussed the Historical Need for Blacks to Vigorously Defend Themselves in Case of Public Confrontation in a Violent, Racist Society

Justice Clarence Thomas destroyed the emotional clogic of freedumb/slavery advocates when he wrote the Court’s opinion in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. He also dropped a few “revelation sandwich” reminders for serious, responsible Black individuals to consider in light of the facts that the quality of Black citizenship is so low that; no matter what the law says, Blacks are prohibited from possessing guns, Blacks are subject to omnipresent interference by cops with their freedom of movement and their right to be left the fuck alone, Black people are 3 times more likely than whites to be murdered by cops and the police have no legal duty to protect any particular citizen from harm unless they are in custody (“the public duty doctrine”). Said factors exist in a legal context in which law enforcement is uncontrollable by citizens, generally unaccountable to them, can’t be hired or fired by citizens and has irresponsible, limitless power over people to take life on the street as they see fit while providing a compulsory “service” that citizens have no “right” to decline. While discussing the existence of the right to carry weapons for self-defense against public confrontation during Reconstruction, Justice Thomas discussed the historical need for Blacks to vigorously defend themselves in a violent, racist society:

In the years before the 39th Congress proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau regularly kept it abreast of the dangers to blacks and Union men in the postbellum South. The reports described how blacks used publicly carried weapons to defend themselves and their communities. For example, the Bureau reported that a teacher from a Freedmen’s school in Maryland had written to say that, because of attacks on the school, “[b]oth the mayor and sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do,)” and that the “[t]he super- intendent of schools came down and brought [the teacher] a revolver” for his protection. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 658 (1866); see also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 68, 39th Cong., 2d Sess., 91 (1867) (noting how, during the New Or- leans riots, blacks under attack “defended themselves . . . with such pistols as they had”).

Witnesses before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction also described the depredations visited on Southern blacks, and the efforts they made to defend themselves. One Virginia music professor related that when “[t]wo Union men were attacked . . . they drew their revolvers and held their assailants at bay.” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, p. 110 (1866). An assistant commissioner to the Bureau from Alabama similarly reported that men were “rob- bing and disarming negroes upon the highway,” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 70, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 297 (1866), indicating that blacks indeed carried arms publicly for their self- protection, even if not always with success. See also H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 41 (1868) (describ- ing a Ku Klux Klan outfit that rode “through the country . . . robbing every one they come across of money, pistols, papers, &c.”); id., at 36 (noting how a black man in Tennes- see had been murdered on his way to get book subscriptions, with the murderer taking, among other things, the man’s pistol).

Blacks had “procured great numbers of old army muskets and revolvers, particularly in Texas,” and “employed them to protect themselves” with “vigor and audacity.” S. Exec. Doc. No. 43, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., at 8. Seeing that government was inadequately protecting them, “there [was] the strongest desire on the part of the freedmen to secure arms, revolvers particularly.” H. R. Rep. No. 30, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, at 102.

On July 6, 1868, Congress extended the 1866 Freedmen’s Bureau Act, see 15 Stat. 83, and reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security . . . including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” §14, 14 Stat. 176 (1866) (emphasis added). That same day, a Bureau official reported that freedmen in Kentucky and Tennessee were still constantly under threat: “No Union man or negro who attempts to take any active part in politics, or the improvement of his race, is safe a single day; and nearly all sleep upon their arms at night, and carry concealed weapons during the day.” H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 329, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., at 40.

Similarly today, any protection from police is incidental and random - keeping us safe is not their goal. Cops exist primarily to manage the behavior of Blacks & Latinos within a free-range prison. Their goal is to place you in greater confinement. As Dr. Blynd observes, "people who are awake see cops as mercenary guards that remind us daily through acts of force, that we are simultaneously both enemies and slaves of the Corporate State - colonized, surveilled and patrolled by the desensitized and lobotomized drones of the colonizers." Black people need to once again protect themselves, family members and their communities with “vigor and audacity,“ grow up and stop looking for authority to solve the many problems It actually creates and maintains. FUNKTIONARY explains, “only a slave waits for someone else to free him.

Observant Black folks know that propaghandi is not just after Clarence Thomas, its actually also after them and all Black folks. Funky ass white liberals, friendly looking, grimacing racist suspect puppeticians seek an inversion of life. They are a white party also. Their agenda is also not a Black agenda, it is based entirely in fear, obedience to granfalloons and law over humanity. How could being unarmed in dirty ass NYC make you more safe? And for what reason would you want to rely on other people, particularly authoritarians or racists, to protect you or provide for your well being in any area of people activity?

FUNKTIONARY sets forth the following,

UNCLE TOM – Undermining New Consciousness Laminates Enslavement To Omnipresent Matrix. Remember, Uncle Tom was killed for withholding information and emancipating others. Sambo is the hanky-head $nigger on which we should look to pull the trigger and drop. In each documented ‘slave revolt’ on record, there was an enslaved Sambo who exposed the plot and sided with the oppressor. SNAGs and $niggers get dealt with!! (See: Sambo, $niggers, Black-Flask Brigade, The Matrix, Piece-Activist, The OCTOCON, SNAGs, Niggadeemus, Astro Black Futurism, Niggerosity & Coin-Operated)

Endependence – the open declaration of the beginning of self-determination, self-reliance and Self-realization that spells the end to dependence on objective truth, abstractions, reification, granfalloons, father figures and organized religion.

PropaGandhi – passive social non-resistance propaganda. 2) obedience-based servitude to the enforcers of granfalloons uncommonly known as Corporate States and any other group-entities. Mahatma Gandhi mostly walked barefoot which produced calluses on his feet. He also had a very weird diet sprinkled with bouts of fasting which made him rather frail and suffer intermittently from halitosis—this made him… “A super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.” (See: Poser, Class, Mass, Racism White Supremacy, Gun Control & Caste)

freedumb – the state of unrecognized psychological captivity (brain hemispheric hostage) that sheeple remain in because they don’t speak the language of reality nor constantly edit truth from perfecting heart to perfecting power—and when truth is spoken around them, refrain from being open, or impervious to it thus being forever chained to its distortions and limitations. 2) the mindset that proposes “since we are liberated, we are also free.” 3) the mindset that operates upon the notion that you can have individuality without accountability or responsibility. 4) the pretense that reality is truth and viceversa. People cherish unwarranted assumptions and relish their freedumb because they have been socialized into selfcensorship along with misidentification with the ego-mind—the absence of knowledge of Self. (See: Phfreedom, Truth, Unfreedom, Dumbelievers, Self, Belief Systems, Objective Truth, Individuality, Objective Reality, True Self & Reality)

Placebo Syndrome – mindless obedience, commercialism, sinsationalism and servitude to the disco-sadistic purveyors of the spanktronic Death-Force, e.g., CrimethInc., Religious Dogma, and the Corporate State (creating and operating within the zone of zero-funkativity—a metaphor for life-negating impulses, memes and actions). 2) the faceless dull sameness generated by belief, conformity, belonging and fear. The Placebo Syndrome allows / affords one theopportunity to feel the hypocrisy of being someone other than yourself, living another’s script not your own. (See: Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk)

Biden Issues Irrational Order for Background Checks Based on the Unsupported Factual Basis that Criminals 1) Purchase Guns Lawfully and 2) Then Leave Registered Guns at Crime Scenes for Cops to Trace

KEEPING TRACK OF WHO BUYS GUNS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR SAFETY. From [HERE] President Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order that he said was aimed at reducing gun violence, including changes that could increase the number of gun buyers subjected to background checks, while visiting the area of a January mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif.

Mr. Biden said his executive actions are designed to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without the passage of legislation in Congress, where partisan divides have left most gun-safety legislation stalled.

The president, in his Tuesday remarks, said his executive order isn’t a substitute for congressional action. “Enough,” Mr. Biden said, directing his remarks to lawmakers. “Do something. Do something big.”

Under the new order, Mr. Biden directed the Justice Department to clarify the definition of being “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. Currently, a federal background check isn’t required for private sales of firearms between individuals. The change could result in more individuals being classified as firearms dealers who are required to conduct background checks for all sales. [MORE]

Contrary to Media Propaganda New Report Says “Crime rates remain at near historic lows.” Nevertheless Prison Populations are Increasing as the COVID Slowdown Subsides. 1.9M in Prison Most are NonWhite

From [HERE] Last week The Prison Policy Initiative released Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie(link is external). This report provides a comprehensive view of how many people are locked up in the U.S., in what kinds of facilities, and why. It pieces together the most recent national data on state prisons, federal prisons, local jails, and other systems of confinement to provide a snapshot of mass incarceration in the U.S.

Highlights from the report include:

• Prison populations are starting to rebound. Although prison populations are still lower than they've been in decades, prison populations are beginning to increase as pandemic-related slowdowns in the criminal legal system are no longer driving down prison admissions. Additionally, officials continue to release fewer people from prison than before the pandemic.

• Recent claims about increasing crime are not supported by data. Crime rates remain at near historic lows. However, some in law enforcement and on the right have sought to blame changes to the criminal legal system -- such as bail reform, changes to police budgets, or electing "progressive" prosecutors -- for increases in some crime rates since the start of the pandemic. However, these claims are not supported by the evidence: murder rates were an average of 40% higher in "red" states compared to blue states in 2020, police budgets have recently increased in the vast majority of cities and counties in the country, and places that did not implement any of these reforms also saw increases in crime rates.

• In total, roughly 1.9 million people are incarcerated in the United States, 803,000 people are on parole, and a staggering 2.9 million people are on probation.

[A Major Goal of Racism White Supremacy is to Put Non-White People in Greater Confinement] The US Leads the World in Incarceration with 2.2 million people in prisons & jails; 67% are Non-White

DECARCERATION IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH WHITE SUPREMACY’S GOAL OF PLACING LARGE NUMBERS OF NON-WHITE PEOPLE INTO GREATER CONFINEMENT.

Study Shows Black Youth are More than 4X as Likely to be Detained as White Youth. 41% of All Youths Locked Up are Black [a major goal of racism white supremacy is to put blacks in greater confinement]

RWS REQUIRES THE GREATER CONFINEMENT OF SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS OF NON-WHITE PEOPLE. UNDECEIVER NEELY FULLER MAKES IT PLAIN THAT “THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS KNOW THAT A WORLD SYSTEM BASED ON RACISM WHITE SUPREMACY REQUIRES THAT SUBSTANTIAL NUMBERS OF NON-WHITE PEOPLE BE GREATLY RESTRICTED IN THEIR MOVEMENTS FROM PLACE TO PLACE. THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS RESTRICT THE MOVEMENTS AND ACTIVITIES OF NON-WHITE PEOPLE SO AS TO KEEP THEM IDLE, AND/OR KEEP THEM FROM BECOMING CONSTRUCTIVELY SUFFICIENT.

THE RACISTS MAKE CERTAIN THAT LARGE NUMBERS OF NON-WHITE PEOPLE EXIST UNDER CONDITIONS THAT WILL MOST LIKELY CAUSE THEM TO DO THINGS THAT WILL GIVE RACISTS AN “EXCUSE” TO PUT THEM IN GREATER CONFINEMENT.” [MORE]

PUTTING YOU IN GREATER CONFINEMENT. Racists are obsessed with crime statistics in Black communities. According to the Sentencing Project, “Researchers have shown that crime reporting exaggerates crime rates and exhibits both quantitative and qualitative racial biases. This includes a tendency . . to exaggerate rates of black offending and white victimization and to depict black suspects in a less favorable light than whites.“ Under the pretense of being concerned about the well-being of Black people, the liberal white media in urban areas in particular, sensationalize crime with overblown coverage and hyper alertness. To be explicitly clear, it is a guise because we live in a system of racism/white supremacy in which most white people (or the most powerful white people) seek to dominate or seek cooperative control of non-white people with master-servant relations in all areas of people activity and project and maintain unequal power and conditions in a white over Black system. Racists, either self-described as liberal or conservative, have no intention of changing this arrangement because they are the permanent enemies of non-white people. Belief in the fantasy of “race” and hence their superiority necessitates such a result. White liberals and conservatives spare no cost when it comes to placing Black people in greater confinement. Dr. Amos Wilson states,

"Given the historical and contemporary virulence of White racism in America and the injustice toward Blacks that such racism engenders, the number of arrests, incarcerations, and in many instances, convictions of Black males should be viewed with a jaundiced eye. The willingness of White Americans to heavily tax themselves in order to finance accelerated and increased prison construction, rapidly expanding police forces and so-called criminal justice system personnel, burgeoning private police and security establishments; their willingness to finance the incarcera­tion of a Black male prisoner upwards of $30,000 to $40,000 per year, in sharp contrast to their unwillingness to tax themselves to provide for the appropriate funding of the education of Black children and to commit themselves to the ending of racist employment practices; to provide adequate housing medical care, food and clothing; clearly implies that alleged Black male criminality plays a very important role in defining the collective White American ego and personality.” [MORE]

[ReLIARability=Expect Most Cops to Lie About Details] When a Paterson Cop Told Najee Seabrooks, 'Everybody’s walking out of here Alive, including you,' He Was Lying. Cops Try to Justify Fatal Shooting

From [HERE] and [HERE] For hours, the Paterson police pleaded with Najee Seabrooks to come out of a locked bathroom where he was threatening to kill himself.

“Everybody’s walking out of here, including you,” one of the officers told him, according to video from police body cameras released by the New Jersey attorney general’s office this week.

“I’m dying in this bathroom,” said Mr. Seabrooks, a 31-year-old mentor at an anti-violence organization in Paterson, a city of 158,000 people in northern New Jersey.

“That’s not happening, Najee,” the officer replied. “Not on my watch. Come on. You’re going to live a long time. This ain’t how it ends for you.”

Najee Seabrooks had been feeling the stress of his job, relatives said.

But at 12:51 p.m. on March 3, about five hours after someone called 911 to report a man in distress, Mr. Seabrooks was declared dead. He had been shot by two officers, who fired at him after Mr. Seabrooks came out of the bathroom and “lunged toward the officers with a knife in his hand,” according to a statement by the attorney general’s office, which is investigating the shooting.

The attorney general’s office identified the two officers who fired their weapons as Anzore Tsay and Jose Hernandez, both of whom are members of the department’s emergency response team.

The case has roiled the city, where Mr. Seabrooks’s colleagues and family have demanded to know why mental health specialists were not allowed into the apartment so they could help. Protesters have marched to decry the shooting and to call for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate. One week after Mr. Seabrooks was shot, several dozen people gathered at a restaurant owned by one of the officers involved in the shooting and banged and kicked at the security gate.

A coalition of community organizations is calling for federal authorities to investigate the police department in Paterson, New Jersey, after the fatal police shooting of anti-violence advocate Najee Seabrooks.  

Led by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, the groups sent the U.S. Attorney General’s Office a letter Monday asking for a federal probe, citing an FBI investigation that resulted in eight convictions of city cops as well as pending criminal cases and civil lawsuits accusing Paterson police officers of misconduct.

“Mr. Seabrooks desperately needed and deserved treatment, which was available to him, not a death sentence imposed upon him by PPD,” the letter said.

Seabrooks, a member of a violence intervention group, was fatally shot by a city police officer on March 3 after a five-hour standoff while an emotionally disturbed Seabrooks was barricaded inside his home. A union leader said officers fired their guns after Seabrooks brandished a knife and moved toward police.

The institute’s letter cited dozens of news stories, government reports and a police department audit conducted by city consultants as examples of why a federal probe is needed.

“Residents of Paterson have lived for years under a police department with a history of excessive force and other abuse, all felt disproportionately by Black and Brown residents in one of the most diverse cities in the country,” said the group’s letter.

Hospital asks why crisis team wasn't called

Meanwhile, the top official at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center is questioning the way authorities responded to the 911 call that resulted in the fatal police shooting.

St. Joseph’s President and CEO Kevin Slavin said the hospital has a “highly skilled and trained” intervention team composed of behavioral health professionals to respond to “individuals in crisis.” But Slavin said that group was never contacted during the Seabrooks police standoff.

“We must ask the question – why were we not called?” Slavin said in comments first reported on nj.com. “And, demand that this valuable community resource be used in the future for other individuals in psychiatric crises.”

Attorney General remains mum

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has revealed few details about the incident and released nothing new in the past five days.

The office said the 911 call that brought the Paterson Police Department’s emergency response team to Seabrooks’ home on March 3 involved “an individual in distress” who barricaded himself inside a bathroom and eventually was shot and killed by officers.

Amid the lack of official information, there has been widespread speculation about what took place. Seabrooks’ death has ignited community outrage, resulting in multiple near-miss confrontations between protesters and police in Paterson last week, including a tense standoff in the rain Friday night outside a restaurant owned by the family of one of the officers involved in the incident.

'Many of us continue to struggle'

Paterson law enforcement officials declined to comment about the concerns raised by the hospital president and the Newark-based social justice group, saying the investigation into Seabrooks’ shooting death is being handled by the Attorney General’s Office.

“As we search for answers on the tragic death of Najee Seabrooks, many of us continue to struggle with what more we could have done so this would not have happened,” said Slavin, the hospital president.

Since 2020, St. Joseph’s has had a partnership with the Paterson Healing Collective, the violence intervention group where Seabrooks worked. Seabrooks initially became involved with the Healing Collective when he was shot in 2021, officials said.

Healing Collective members have said Seabrooks called and texted them during the early stages of the police encounter earlier this month, asking them to help him. The group contends Seabrooks would still be alive if its members had been allowed to intervene.

Paterson Superior Officers police union, Mason Maher, said Seabrooks was wielding at least one knife when he came at them. The Attorney General’s Office has said three knives were recovered at the scene.

Hospital says police know about crisis teams

Slavin’s comments point to what could have been a different type of intervention, one by a hospital crisis outreach team that was deployed 379 times in 2022, according to St. Joseph’s. Hospital officials said they do not keep statistics that would show how many of those cases took place in Paterson or how many times the teams worked with Paterson police officers.

“They’re aware of us, they train with us, they work with us all the time,” St. Joseph’s spokesman Tom Casey said about the Paterson police. “It’s a familiar relationship on both sides.”

Casey said the crisis team has responded to cases in which people in distress had weapons. But those calls are handled in conjunction with local police, he said.

The hospital and Paterson are planning to launch a program later this year that would sent counselors with cops to crisis scenes.

Prosecutor Charges Hawaii Cops w/Intentionally Causing a Car to Crash at High Speed and Refusing to Render Aid to Seriously Injured People. Cops Didn't' Use Lights or Sirens and Conspired in Cover Up

From [HERE] Four Hawaii Police Department Officers have been charged for their involvement — or rather their lack of involvement — in a September 2021 car crash on Oahu that injured six people, two of them severely.

The Department of the Prosecuting Attorney filed felony charges against the officers on Thursday, 19 months after the incident. Prosecutors say the officers chased down a vehicle without using their police cars' lights or sirens, and then leaving the injured behind without helping.

Officer Joshua Nahulu. who prosecutors say was the nearest to the vehicle when it crashed, faces the harshest charge — causing a collision involving death or serious injury, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Officers Erik Smith, Jake Ryan Bartolome and Robert Gus Lewis III face a charge of hindering prosecution, a Class C felony, and misdemeanor conspiracy to hinder prosecution.

According to charging documents, the four officers responded to a noise complaint at a beach park in West Oahu around 3:30 a.m. The officers followed a white sedan out from the park onto Farrington Highway, where they pursued the car at high speeds without employing either sirens or blue lights at any time during the pursuit as required.

The vehicle later crashed on the side of road and five out of six passengers were ejected. All six sustained some level of injury, with the driver suffering a traumatic brain injury. A 14-year-old passenger was initially paralyzed from the waist down.

Prosecutors say the officers then left the scene without rendering aid, and instead met at a nearby school parking lot where they conspired to fake reports that portrayed the crash as a single car incident. The officers later returned to the crash site after dispatch notified them there had been a massive car collision. According to court documents, they then “comported [themselves] as if [they] had no prior knowledge of the facts that gave rise to the collision.”

Prosecutors also say Smith, Bartolome and Lewis later submitted police reports about the incident that merely indicated that they had responded to the event, without acknowledging their presence during the crash.

An investigation, including video from security cameras that captured the chase, and news reports of the crash eventually revealed that the extent of the four officers' involvement.

“Three of the officers had their police powers removed following the crash, and the fourth officer’s police powers will also be restricted. Along with the collision investigation, an internal administrative investigation was initiated and remains open," acting Hawaii Police Chief Keith Horikawa said in a statement.

Thursday’s charges only revolve around injuries to the driver of the sedan, who sued the officers in April 2022. The charges do not address the 14-year-old boy who had been partially paralyzed by the crash, who sued the officers a week after the crash.

‘At Least 10 People Were On Top of Him:’ VA Prosecutor says Unreleased Video Shows 7 Deputies, Along w/Hospital Workers Smother a Handcuffed Black Man to Death as he Was Restrained with Leg Irons’

From [HERE] Three of the 10 people facing murder charges in the death last week of a 28-year-old Black man at a Virginia mental health facility were security guards at the hospital who watched and then participated in the fatal smothering, the prosecutor told CNN Friday.

The victim’s family wants answers as to how a promising musician having what they called a mental health crisis ended with him dying – and why no one stood up for him and kept him from being killed.

The county prosecutor said seven law enforcement deputies, joined by the hospital workers, “smothered him to death” while restraining him.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said, referring to unreleased video that shows the man’s death.

Baskervill said the hospital security guards passively watched the alleged smothering but eventually joined in and piled on top of the victim along with the deputies.

The local law enforcement officers’ union says they “stand behind” the deputies while an attorney for one of the deputies charged said he looked forward to the full truth being shared in court.

Irvo (pronounced EYE-voh) Otieno was 28. On March 3, Otieno was arrested by Henrico County police who were responding to a report of a possible burglary, according to a police news release. The officers, accompanied by members of the county’s crisis intervention team, placed him under an emergency custody order.

The officers transported him to a hospital where authorities say he assaulted three officers. Police took him to county jail and he was booked.

On March 6, Otieno was taken to a state mental health facility in Dinwiddie County and died during the intake process, according to Baskervill.

“They smothered him to death,” the prosecutor said.

A preliminary report from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond identified asphyxiation as a cause of death, the commonwealth attorney’s office said in a statement.

Otieno was held on the ground in handcuffs and leg irons for 12 minutes by seven deputies, Baskervill said.

Baskervill said Friday that video of the apparent smothering shows there were hands over Otieno’s mouth, hands on his head and hands holding his braids back.

At the Henrico County jail, just before Otieno’s transfer to Central State Hospital on March 6, he was naked in his cell, with feces all over, according to Baskervill.

She told CNN the video from his cell, which she viewed, shows Otieno was clearly agitated and in distress. CNN has not seen the video.

Otieno was pepper sprayed before five or six Henrico jail deputies entered the cell and tackled him, Baskervill said.

“He’s on the ground underneath them for several minutes there,” she said. “And blows are sustained at the Henrico county jail.”

Asked if Otieno appeared combative, Baskervill said, “I would really characterize his behavior as being distressed, rather than assaultive, combative.”

Later, at Central State Hospital, Otieno was on the ground at one point with at least 10 people on top of him, Baskervill said.

“They’re putting their back into it, leaning down. And this is from head to toe, from his braids at the top of his head, unfortunately, to his toes,” she said.

Baskervill said Otieno was eventually put on his stomach, with the pressure on him continuing, and he died in that position.

Baskervill believes Otieno was dead before a 911 call was even made. Paramedics left and State Police were not called until 7:28 pm, according to Baskervill.

“The delay in contacting proper authorities is inexplicable. Truly inexplicable,” she said.

Who are the people charged in the case?

The seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers have been charged with second-degree murder.

The seven deputies who were charged were identified in Baskervill’s release Tuesday as Randy Joseph Boyer, 57, of Henrico; Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37, of Sandston; Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45, of Henrico; Bradley Thomas Disse, 43, of Henrico; Tabitha Renee Levere, 50, of Henrico; Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48, of Henrico; and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30, of North Chesterfield.

The Henrico Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4, the local law enforcement officers’ union, issued a statement Tuesday saying they “stand behind” the deputies.

“Policing in America today is difficult, made even more so by the possibility of being criminally charged while performing their duty,” the group said. “The death of Mr. Otieno was tragic, and we express our condolences to his family. We also stand behind the seven accused deputies now charged with murder by the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Baskervill.”

The hospital workers arrested Thursday were identified as Darian M. Blackwell, 23, of Petersburg; Wavie L. Jones, 34, of Chesterfield; and Sadarius D. Williams, 27, of North Dinwiddie.

There is video footage but it will not be released to the public. CNN requested the footage but was told the material is not subject to mandatory disclosure because the investigation is ongoing.

Otieno’s family has viewed the video provided by prosecutors Thursday and his mother says Otieno was tortured.

“My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog,” she screamed, angry that no one stopped what led to her son’s death. “We have to do better.”

His older brother, Leon Ochieng, said people should be confident in calling for help when their loved ones are in crisis. He did not believe the people he saw on the video cared about preserving a life.

“What I saw was a lifeless human being without any representation,” Ochieng said, adding that his family is now broken and is calling for more awareness on how to treat those with mental illnesses.

“Can someone explain to me why my brother is not here, right now?” Ochieng said.

Family attorneys say Otieno posed no threat to the deputies.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is working on behalf of the family, said Otieno was not violent or aggressive with the deputies.

“You see in the video he is restrained with handcuffs, he has leg irons on, and you see in the majority of the video that he seems to be in between lifelessness and unconsciousness, but yet you see him being restrained so brutally with a knee on his neck,” Crump said Thursday.

Crump said the video is a “commentary on how inhumane law enforcement officials treat people who are having a mental health crisis as criminals rather than treating them as people who are in need of help.”

Much like the arrest and death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Otieno was face down and restrained, Crump said.

“Why would anybody not have enough common sense to say we’ve seen this movie before?” he said.

Family attorney Mark Krudys said the deputies had engaged in excessive force.

“His mother was basically crying out for help for her son in a mental health situation. Instead, he was thrust into the criminal justice system, and aggressively treated and treated poorly at the jail,” he said.

The video from the mental health facility shows the charges are appropriate, Krudys said.

“When you see that video … you’re just going to ask yourself, ‘Why?’” he said.

The 10 defendants will appear in court Tuesday before a grand jury, according to online court records. If the case goes to trial and any of them are convicted, the prison sentence for second-degree murder in Virginia is a minimum of five years with a maximum of 40 years.

Crump has called for the US Department of Justice to take part in the investigation.

Memphis Judge Delays Release of Additional Footage of Gang of Cops Beating Tyre Nichols to Death

From [HERE] Additional footage showing police officers as they brutally beat Tyre Nichols to death is forthcoming. Twenty more hours of video and several internal documents related to the Jan. 7 incident were expected to be released last week; however, Shelby County Criminal Court Judge James Jones Jr. issued a court order temporarily blocking the release.

“The court orders that the release of videos, audio, reports, and personnel files of City of Memphis employees related to this indictment and investigation (to include administrative hearings, records, and related files) shall be delayed until such time as the state and the defendants have reviewed this information. The release of this information shall be subject to further orders of this court and, in the public interest, will be ordered as soon as possible,” stated the order that was obtained by CNN on Wednesday (March 8).

As previously reported, protests against police brutality broke out across the country when the Memphis Police Department shared bodycam and surveillance recordings on Jan. 27. The grisly images of the father as he was repeatedly struck drew comparisons to the infamous cop beating of Rodney King and was likened to a modern-day public lynching. The additional video footage will include revealing audio from after the 29-year-old was battered and transported by EMTs to a hospital. Regarding the documents, they include portions of the city’s investigation and the personnel records of 13 officers and four members of the Memphis Fire Department.

Initially, the five disgraced officers — identified as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr.— who attacked Nichols were fired, but terminations have since included two additional members of the force. Bean, Haley, Smith, Martin and Mills have each been charged in connection with the assault that ultimately led to the 29-year-old’s death. Last month, during their first court appearance on Feb. 17, they pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges, which included second-degree murder. The men are due back in court on May 1.

[no Rational person could argue that Constitutional Rights Protect black people from cops or Are anything but Myths] Report Finds Black Drivers in Chicago are 6X More Likely to be Stopped than Whites

legal truths must give way to reality. Brazen cops so frequently abuse their power that no Black shopper, pedestrian, motorist, juvenile, adult or Black professional of any kind—could make a compelling argument that so-called constitutional rights provide Black people any real protection from cops or the government in general.

The only thing upholding the 4th Amendment is your belief in it. You only have rights if an authority says that you do. Your possession of "rights” given to you by a magical government, which functions as your master, is cult belief. Rights are myths. As stated by Dr. Blynd, “There is no freedom in the presence of so-called authority.” The belief in “authority,” which includes all belief in “government,” is irrational and self-contradictory; it is contrary to civilization and morality, and constitutes the most dangerous, destructive superstition that has ever existed. Rather than being a force for order and justice, the belief in “authority” is the arch-enemy of humanity.” [MORE] AND [MORE]

FUNKTIONARY explains,

adherent rights – privileges disguised as so-called “rights” created by men via deceptive word-manipulation in written form called “symbolaeography,” and legal documents. 2) privileges granted by an apparent or putative authority at the expense of one's inherent or unalienable ‘rights.’ (See: Inherent Rights & Rights)

inherent rights – unalienable and unassailable rights. Inherent rights have never been codified into law, so if you’re from a phfree family, you’ll know how to assert and defend them), and if not, you won’t. (See: Adherent Rights)

'“4TH AMENDMENT RIGHTS TURNED ON AND OFF LIGHT A LIKE SWITCH.” From [HERE] As the Chicago mayoral election puts a spotlight on public safety and police-community relations, a new report on police traffic stops in the city offers insight into racial inequities that persist.

A report by BPI and the Free2Move Coalition found that from 2015 to 2021, the average Black Chicago driver was six times more likely to be stopped than the average White driver. Latino drivers were twice as likely to be stopped than White drivers.

José Manuel Almanza Jr., director of advocacy and movement building at Equiticity and coordinator for the Free2Move Coalition, said he was pulled over several times as a teenager and through his adult life.

“I get nervous, I get sweaty, my heart starts racing, I start stuttering and I ask myself, ‘Am I looking suspicious?,’” Almanza said. “This is conversations that I hear from folks all over the West Side and South Side of Chicago.”

The report also found that the Chicago Police Department has increasingly been doing more traffic stops over the past few years.

Traffic stops have increased almost seven times from 2015 to 2019, jumping from nearly 85,965 traffic stops in 2015 to 598,515 traffic stops in 2019, according to the report. The number dipped in 2020, which the report said is likely due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders at the start of the pandemic. Traffic stops ticked back up in 2021.

Loren Jones, staff attorney at Business and Professional People for the Public Interest and member of the Free2Move Coalition, said the impact from stops such as arrest and citation disproportionately harm Black and Latino people.

“The stops that we looked at for this report are based entirely on the stops that they’re (police are) making because they saw a traffic violation and then decided to continue to investigate for signs of criminal activity,” Jones said. “This needle-in-a-haystack approach is leading to immense harm in communities around Chicago.”

Although the Supreme Ct Made it Plain that People Have the Right ‘to Wear, Bear, or Carry Arms for Self Defense’ White Liberals Make It Impossible to Do So in Crime Ridden Places Like San Francisco

The sheriff’s office and the police department in San Francisco have collectively approved just one gun permit since the Supreme Court ruling last June. WSJ reports, “The San Franciscans who want to carry guns include software engineers, accountants, middle managers and firearms instructors. They fall along the entire political spectrum, but many have at least one thing in common: They don’t want to be identified because they are worried about judgment from their neighbors or employers.

Their names are discoverable under public records law with some exceptions, according to legal experts. 

Cities such as San Francisco that routinely denied such permits have received a flood of applications since the Supreme Court ruled for the first time last summer that the Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to carry guns outside the home for self-defense. In the past, authorities here said they received fewer than 20 applications a year. 

Democratic leaders in states such as New York and California have sought to pass measures to blunt the effects of the ruling by imposing more thorough background investigations or training requirements for those seeking to carry concealed weapons in public. But a judge put most of the New York law on hold in October, and California’s failed to pass the state legislature. [MORE]

Another App Court Tosses a Claim that Cops Failed to Protect People During a Mass Shooting. Cops have No Legal Duty to Protect Anyone from Violence by Private Parties per the Public Duty Doctrine

According to the Supreme Court police have no legal duty to protect any victim from violence by other private parties unless the victim was in police custody. [MORE] and [MORE] This means that police cannot be sued for any federal constitutional claim for a failure to protect citizens. Unless a state negligence law exists allowing such a lawsuit, victims cannot hold police liable for a failure to protect from harm from private parties. [MORE]

From [HERE] The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of mass shooting survivors’ lawsuit against police officers who allegedly withheld law enforcement services from the scene, where five people were killed and 18 were injured. The survivors failed to state a claim for violation of their due process, equal protection and municipal liability claims.

Opinion is [HERE]

Restrictions in Free Range Prisons Tighten: Report Says Western Governments are Accelerating the Use of Non-Consensual Persuasion to Ensure Citizens Act and Speak in Ways Compatible w/Govt Narratives

From [HERE] Since the advent of the covid era in early 2020, Western liberal democracies have witnessed a marked acceleration in the systematic deployment of methods of non-consensual persuasion aimed at ensuring that people act and speak in ways that correspond to the dominant state-determined narrative. Throughout this period, everyone – politicians, academics, journalists, scientists and ordinary citizens – have been exposed to some combination of psychological manipulation, censorship, smearing and coercion (seehere for an overview). Disturbingly, two recent events suggest that the methods used by our government and other powerful actors to crush dissent are becoming more flagrant.

Last month, the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch published a document titled Ministry of Truth: the secret government unit spying on our speech. The report confirmed what many of us had long suspected: some of our day-to-day talk and behaviour is being covertly monitored by our own Government for any signs of deviation from their version of the ‘truth’. If the confirmation of such Orwellian activities was not alarming enough, what was arguably more striking was the scale of this state-funded enterprise. Dedicated clandestine units are embedded within a range of government departments, including: the Cabinet Office (‘Rapid Response Unit’); Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (‘Counter Disinformation Unit’); Foreign Office (‘Government Information Cell’); Home Office(‘Research, Intelligence & Communications Unit); and the Ministry of Defence (‘77th Brigade). Clearly, law-abiding citizens that say or do something that deviates from the official government line (on covid, climate change, or the war in Ukraine) risk being clocked and silenced.

Within this state-funded infrastructure to crush free speech, the activities of the ‘Counter Disinformation Unit’ (CDU) evoke particular concerns. Despite being based in the government department responsible for the processing of Freedom of Information requests, the CDU was, paradoxically, the least forthcoming with answers to transparency questions posed by Big Brother Watch. The primary aim of the CDU is to ‘monitor covid disinformation’ and to signal potentially problematic material to social media companies. The Government, via the CDU, holds “Trusted Flagger” status with social media companies while — somewhat disingenuously — claiming not to mandate platforms to remove content. This special relationship results in government concerns being more visible to platforms such as YouTube and therefore more likely to be actioned; an arm’s length mechanism for habitual state censorship.

The Big Brother Watch investigation found that the Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport had spent over £1 million pounds on outsourcing private companies to conduct this monitoring of social media outlets. Indeed, as described in a previous article, in summer 2021 HART itself was the victim of this dubious practice when – following an illegal hack – a commercial enterprise called ‘Logically AI’ attempted to undermine us by publicising out-of-context quotes from our informal chat logs. It was galling to discover that the UK Government was spending swathes of taxpayers’ money to monitor and smear a group of academics who were giving their time voluntarily to engage in the perfectly lawful activity of challenging some aspects of covid policy and questioning the dominant covid narrative.  

The second recent event that suggests that government methods for silencing dissent are becoming increasingly dictatorial concerns an interview Andrew Bridgen MP did with Dominique Samuels (a political commentator). The backbench Conservative, the only parliamentarian to openly express concerns about the safety of the covid vaccines, had already been suspended from the party andsmeared as being ‘antisemitic’ and part of an ‘anti-vax conspiracy’ for stating that a Jewish consultant cardiologist had told him that the vaccine rollout had been ‘the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust’. In the interview with Samuels, Bridgen reveals a couple of other consequences he has endured for daring to criticise the dominant narrative.

Bridgen – the democratically elected MP for North West Leicestershire – describes how he was contacted by the ‘welfare’ office at the Houses of Parliament and told that ‘a number of people had come to us to say that you were suicidal, Andrew’. He reassures Samuels that there is absolutely no basis to these concerns. Later in the interview Bridgen also discloses that, around January 2022 (in the aftermath of him submitting a letter of ‘no confidence’ in the serving Prime Minister, Boris Johnson), an advisor from number 10 messaged him to say ‘what do you want … back off and you can have anything you want’. Bridgen says he has taken screenshots of the pertinent messages to support his conclusion that ‘they tried to buy me’. [MORE]

Trump's CDC Director Redfield Flip Flops: ‘We Need A Moratorium On Gain-of-Function Research, Which Probably Caused COVID’

Poof! Pfizer Makes Undercover Reporter James OKeefe Disappear after GOINTELBRO Admitted on Video that Pfizer is Making COVID “Variants” to Infect People (gain of function research) to Sell COVID Shots

Court Rules a Policy Allowing Only “Respectful and Courteous” Comments at Town Meetings Violates Mass Constitution; Laws Allowing Lavish Praise but Disallowing Harsh Criticism of Government Unlawful

From [HERE] A policy allowing only “respectful and courteous” public comments at town meetings violates the state constitution, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled.

The Massachusetts town of Southborough’s comment policy violated protections for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the top state court ruled March 7.

The policy at issue partly reads: “All remarks and dialogue in public meetings must be respectful and courteous, free of rude, personal or slanderous remarks. Inappropriate language and/or shouting will not be tolerated.”

Justice Scott L. Kafker wrote the opinion striking down the policy.

“Although civility, of course, is to be encouraged, it cannot be required regarding the content of what may be said in a public comment session of a governmental meeting,” wrote Kafker for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

“What can be required is that the public comment session be conducted in an ‘orderly and peaceable’ manner, including designating when public comment shall be allowed in the governmental meeting, the time limits for each person speaking, and rules preventing speakers from disrupting others and removing those speakers if they do.”

The plaintiff in the case, Louise Barron, was accused of violating the civility policy during a town meeting and threatened with physical removal. In her remarks, she said the town was “spending like drunken sailors” and said the town board had violated the state’s open meetings law.

Even though board members are volunteers, “breaking the law is breaking the law,” Barron said.

A town official interjected, telling Barron that if she wanted to slander town officials, the public comment session would be stopped.

“Look, you need to stop being a Hitler.” Barron said. “You’re a Hitler. I can say what I want.”

The board member called a recess. After turning off his microphone, the board member pointed in Barron’s direction. He allegedly yelled, “You’re disgusting,” and said Barron would be escorted from the meeting if she didn’t leave. Barron left.

The state constitutional provision regarding the right to assembly was drafted by John Adams, with some help from his cousin Samuel Adams, Kafker said. It provides for the right to assemble, the right to give instructions to representatives and the right to seek redress of wrongs.

The provision, Kafker said, “expressly envisions a politically active and engaged, even aggrieved and angry, populace.” It also “reflects the lessons and the spirit of the American Revolution.”

Turning to the free speech issue, Kafker said the town’s civility code is directed at government speech, and it is content based, requiring strict scrutiny of restrictions. The policy also appears to be viewpoint based, Kafker said, because it allows “lavish praise” while “disallowing harsh criticism of government officials.”

“In this country, we have never concluded that there is a compelling need to mandate that political discourse with those with whom we strongly disagree be courteous and respectful,” Kafker said.

Hat tip to Law360 and MySouthborough.com, which had coverage, and the Volokh Conspiracy, which had opinion highlights. [MORE]

Media Attacks Tucker Carlson Over Honkey Kong Jan 6th Revelations. Claim 39,000 Hours of Footage Showing Neuropeon Cops and Protesters Calmly Interacting w/Each Other Inside Capitol is Disinformation

THE DEPENDENT MEDIA CONCEALS REALITY. How many neuropeons were armed?? Nearly all DEFENDANTS were charged with misdemeanors, such as trespass or disorderly. [MORE] One person died inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt. Despite being unarmed and presenting no physical threat to anyone, she was shot dead by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd. Fake news reports claimed that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by rioters wielding a fire extinguisher. However, as George Parry reported at TheAmerican Spectator, Sicknick died on Jan. 7 of a stroke. The medical examiner found no evidence of physical trauma. Kevin Greeson, Benjamin Phillips, and Roseanne Boyland were all protesters who died outside of the Capitol building pursuant to ongoing health issues. [MORE]

Videos Show Polite, White Cops Accompany and Open Doors for QAnon Shaman. Other Cops Tour w/Their Neuropeon Brothers and Sisters During J6 Unarmed "Insurrection" Where Vast Majority were Non-Violent

“Virtually every moment of  Jacob Chansley’s time inside the Capitol was caught on tape,” says Carlson, who was granted exclusive access by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from that day inside and around the Capitol, which has never been seen before by the public.

“The tapes show the Capitol Police never stopped Jacob Chansley. They helped him. They acted as his tour guides.” [MORE]