Here’s some news we think you should be aware of for today, May 3, 2012:
- 13 Charged In FAMU Hazing Death
- DEA Left Man In Holding Cell For 5 Days Without Food Or Water
- NeoNazi Sheriff Candidate Murders Girlfriend And Her Family
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Read about it below!
13 Charged In FAMU Hazing Death
Florida prosecutors have taken on one of the largest hazing prosecutions ever, with 13 people charged yesterday in connection with the death of Florida A&M University drum major Robert Champion.
According to State Attorney Lawson Lamar, 11 people are charged with hazing resulting in death, a third-degree felony punishable by up to six years in prison for defendants who have no criminal records. The other two defendants received misdemeanor charges in connection with Champion’s death.
Yesterday on Anderson Cooper 360, Champion’s mother expressed disappointment that manslaughter or murder charges weren’t filed against those accused of killing her son.
However, prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to lodge more serious charges such as manslaughter or second-degree murder. “The testimony obtained to date does not support a charge of murder,” Lamar said. “We can prove participation in hazing and a death. We do not have a blow or a shot or a knife thrust that killed Mr. Champion. It is an aggregation of things which exactly fit the Florida statute as written by the Legislature.”
Champion, 26, was severely beaten by band members during a hazing ritual on a chartered bus outside a hotel in Orlando, where the band had just performed. Witnesses said he had been vomiting before he was found unresponsive on the bus. His death was “attributed to multiple blows” on his chest, arms and shoulders, Lamar said.
Source: USA Today
The mainstream media is playing up the fact that one of the accused was on probation for felony battery. They are trying to make a connection between this incident and the previous incident in order to make people question whether felons should be allowed to intermingle with the public, in places such as colleges.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Tallahassee man arrested in the beating death of a Florida A&M University drum major has a criminal record.
State and local records show that Caleb Jackson was serving probation for a felony battery charge. His probation was scheduled to end October 2013.[…]
Leon County jail records show that Jackson has been previously arrested in 2009 by Tallahassee Community College police for battery and resisting without violence. He was arrested again by Tallahassee police in 2010.
Source: Miami Herald
This is one of the larges hazing cases in U.S. history, and we’re left with a number of questions about how the case is being handled and the message being sent to the public. The bottom line is that Robert Champion should never have died in such a way–essentially being beaten to death voluntarily during the process of induction into a social group. Sadly, this happens far too often as people are hurt, or even killed, in the process of pledging fraternities and sororities (and other social groups). But why has the Florida state’s attorney decided to make an example of the people involved in the FAMU case? Are Blacks the only ones who have participated in hazing? Should there be any personal responsibility on the part of Robert Champion, who was 26 years old and submitted to the hazing process?
The state of Florida has decided to prosecute individuals in a case where the culture was he apparent problem.
DEA Left Man In Holding Cell For 5 Days Without Food Or Water
While state government in Florida was busy preparing the case against those involved in the FAMU hazing death, the federal government left a man for dead in a DEA holding cell–no food, no water for five days. He had to drink his own urine to stay alive.
Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student who was left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for nearly five days, has filed a claim asking for $20 million following the incident he called “life-altering.”
The 23-year-old spoke with NBCSanDiego and said he was increasingly worried throughout the days he spent in a 5 ft. by 10 ft. cell, where he could not spread his arms out wide.
“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”
Source: NBC San Diego
How does this happen? How do they just not enter a room in their facility for five days? How did nobody hear him?
The DEA will go around snatching people up for suspicion of various “crimes,” yet they don’t even bother to have a way to track those who they’ve brought in–oor if they do, they’re not following their own protocol.
They KNEW he was in that cell, but they chose to ignore him and didn’t bother to go and see about him. According to Chong, the cells are fashioned in a circle around the area where agents are present.
NeoNazi Sheriff Candidate Murders Girlfriend And Her Family
Jason J.T. Ready, gunned down his girlfriend and other members of her family yesterday afternoon. The thing about this case is that he was a candidate for sheriff and is also an ex-marine.
A well known neo-Nazi who was campaigning to be a county sheriff has been named as the man who killed four members of a family, including a toddler, in Gilbert, Arizona today.
Law enforcement sources have said that Jason ‘J.T.’ Ready, a former member of the National Socialist Movement, was responsible for the deaths at a property in the affluent suburb.
Source: The Daily Mail
Imagine what if this guy actually HAD become a sheriff! What we have here is a wanna-be sheriff who obviously felt like he needed to “protect” himself and his country. We can blame this–at least in part–on the culture of hatred and violence that is perpetuated in Arizona and in other places with a similar mindset. We’ve seen how illegal immigrants are despised there, so much so that the state has enacted controversial laws to keep them at bay.
Those who created the Arizona laws did so by design. They want an atmosphere of hatred and fear so that illegal immigrants won’t settle there. At the same time, they can use cases like this to justify the need for more gun control.
Nevertheless, if having to drink your own urine to stay alive, when people who could help you are within earshot, isn’t torture, then we don’t know what is.
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