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Police reform needed now
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” – Charles de Montesquieu, “The Spirit of the Laws,” 1748 A tragic déjà vu is playing out in communities all across America, particularly in the growingly skeptical streets of black and brown neighborhoods.
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The criminalization of poverty
The recent U.S. Department of Justice report on police and court practices in Ferguson, Mo., put a much needed spotlight on how a predatory system of enforcement of minor misdemeanors and compounding fines can trap low-income people in a never-ending cycle of debt, poverty and jail. This included outrageous fines for minor infractions, such as failing to show proof of insurance and letting grass and weeds in a yard get too high. In one case, a woman who parked her car illegally in 2007 and couldn’t pay the initial $151 fee has since been arrested twice, spent six days in jail, paid $550 to a city court and, as of 2014, still owed the city $541 in fines, all as a result of the unpaid parking ticket. The Department of Justice found each year Ferguson set targets for the police and courts to generate more and more money from municipal fines. And Ferguson isn’t alone. The criminalization of poverty is a growing trend in states and localities across the country.
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Athletes, dollars and progress
As the University of Alabama football team prepares to line up against Clemson University on Jan. 11 in Glendale, Ariz., to decide the national collegiate football championship, it’s worth noting that the Crimson Tide wouldn’t be “rolling” in success and the money that accompanies it without its African-American players led by 2015 Heisman Trophy Winner Derrick Henry.
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Freedom Classic comes to Coliseum Sunday
It’s fitting that someone from historic Yorktown has helped spark a basketball revolution at Virginia State University. The reasons are numerous why VSU has vaulted from the bottom to the top of the CIAA standings. You can start the list with versatile 6-foot-8 junior Elijah R. Moore, aka “ERM,” from Yorktown’s Grafton High School.
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New leaf in the new year
In two weeks, we will celebrate a new year. In four weeks, the Virginia General Assembly will start its 2016 legislative session. Their actions will determine whether the state springs forward with progress and uplift for all, or will be mired in a bog of callous self-interests and regressive politics.
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Herring: Training key to curb police bias, killings in the state
Better training. That’s the way to begin improving relationships between police officers and the residents they serve, particularly people of color, according to Attorney General Mark R. Herring. At a time when officer actions resulting in African-American deaths and injuries regularly make headlines, Mr. Herring announced he is taking action to upgrade training to head off such incidents in Virginia.
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VUU runs over J.C. Smith 31-3
Virginia Union University is about to make the first of what it hopes will be two trips this fall to Durham County Memorial Stadium in North Carolina. The Panthers, now 3-1 following a 31-3 rout of Johnson C. Smith University last Saturday at Hovey Field, face CIAA foe Shaw University this Saturday in Durham, N.C.
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Bike hype
We’re now learning whether the international bike races are a winner for Richmond. Opinion is mixed. One thing is clear: Anyone who expected 450,000 people to flood into town to view 1,000 of the world’s top cyclists compete for medals misunderstood the size of this event from the get-go.
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Mobile home residents file lawsuit against Richmond
Current and former residents of two South Side mobile home parks have accused the City of Richmond of waging a deliberate campaign to force them from their homes through an aggressive code enforcement campaign. Now they are fighting back.
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The Donald’s trump card
The fate of the Republican Party’s presidential sweepstakes at the moment is being controlled by two political Frankensteins – both of them of the GOP’s own creation.
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Post-Ferguson progress, issues
One year ago, on Aug. 9, 2014, a white Ferguson, Mo., police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The shooting and law enforcement response, including the deployment of military equipment against largely peaceful protesters and a blue wall of silence around the details of the shooting itself, left the world wondering whether they were watching events unfold in America or under some authoritarian regime.
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More than ‘Cecil’ hunted
For more than a century, African tour operators (usually white people) have helped their European and American clients bag what they term “The Big Five.” This refers to the five most dangerous and difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot — the African elephant, black rhinoceros, Cape buffalo, lion and leopard. But history reveals there was a sixth prey not mentioned in the literature and the folklore of the Great White Hunters. That dangerous inhabitant of the African continent was the African himself.
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Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, 85, dies
Ornette Coleman, a self-taught alto saxophone player who polarized the jazz world with his unconventional “free jazz” before coming to be regarded as an avant garde genius, died Thursday, June 11, 2015, in New York, according to his publicist. He was 85.
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Average-sized players make big splash in NBA
History tells us that big men rule the NBA. But that history book may be in the process of being rewritten. The Golden State Warriors dominated the world’s toughest league this season with a different recipe than many other teams.
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Prosperity preachers to pray at Trump inaugural
Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, who hosted President-elect Donald Trump with his Detroit congregation in September, is among the religious leaders chosen to offer prayers at the new president’s swearing-in next week in Washington. The inaugural committee announced that prosperity gospel preachers Bishop Jackson, who leads Great Faith Ministries International, and Pastor Paula White, a friend of the president-elect, will join four others selected to participate in the inauguration on Friday, Jan. 20.
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Receptions, other events mark Mayor Stoney’s public inauguration
Congratulations and handshakes were the hallmarks of Richmond Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s ceremonial public installation into the city’s chief executive post.
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Officer acquitted in shooting
Henrico Police Officer Joel D. Greenway did nothing wrong when he shot up a car he was trying to stop from leaving a gas station’s parking lot on Nine Mile Road, gravely wounding a female passenger in unleashing seven bullets at the unarmed occupants.
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VCU to take on ODU Saturday in Norfolk
Football has come between Virginia Commonwealth University and Old Dominion University, except for one night a year. In one of the state’s oldest basketball rivalries dating to 1948, the VCU Rams will travel by bus to Norfolk on Saturday, Dec. 10, to meet the ODU Monarchs at the Ted Constant Convocation Center.
