VOLUME 95-NUMBER 10 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 2016 TELEPHONE (919)682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
A Voteless People Is A Hopeless People - L.E. Austin
NCCU EAGLES VOTE - Rev. William Barber, president of the North Caro
lina NAACP spoke to students at North Carolina Central University on Monday,
March 7. The event recognized the 51st Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the Voting
Rights March in Selma, Alabama in 1965. The march led by Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. and now Cong. John Lewis was met with viscous police brutality and
attack to stop the march from proceeding. That failed and the Voting Rights Act
was passed. Rev. Barber urged students to vote and continue the fight for vot
ing equality. Students marched to vote on the campus. Rev. Barber center and Dr.
Jarvis Hall, NCCU professor, were on hand to speak to seudents.
Flint Water Crisis is Major Campaign Issue for Dems
By Ed White and
Emily Swanson
DETROIT (AP) - When it
comes to water, only about half
of Americans are very confident
in the safety of What’s flow
ing from their tap, according to
an Associated Press-GfK poll,
which found that trust is even
weaker among minorities and
people with lower incomes. •
The lead-contaminated wa
ter in Flint, Michigan, has been
in the headlines for months, and
more than half of Americans be
lieve it’s a sign of widespread
problems in the U.S. About
seven in 10 drink tap water, but
about half of them first run it
through a filter.
“Of all the water systems in
the nation, Flint can’t be the only
one that’s faulty,” said Elsbeth
Jayne, 28, of Christiansburg,
Virginia, who’s very comfort
able with her own tap water.
Joseph Johnson, 46, of
Brooklyn, New York, said he
only drinks bottled water, spend
ing about $8 a month on two
cases. He’s among the 30 percent
of Americans choosing water off
the shelf.
“I’ve always been under the
assumption that water wasn’t
100 percent clean. The Flint situ
ation brought more of the story
to the surface,” he said March 4.
Flint, with a population of
about 100,000, was drawing wa
ter from the Flint River for 18
months as a way to save money
until a new pipeline to Lake
Huron was ready. But the cor
rosive water leached lead from
the city’s old plumbing because
certain treatments weren’t add
ed. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder,
whose administration repeatedly
downplayed the lead threat, now
calls it a “disaster.”
No level of lead in the human
body is considered safe, espe
cially in children. The river wa
ter also may have been a source
of Legionnaires' disease, which
killed at least nine people in the
region.
The poll found only 47 per
cent ofAmericans say they’re
ater, spending about $8 a month
oh two cases. He’s among the 30
percent of Americans choosing
water off the shelf.
“I’ve always been under the
assumption that water wasn’t
100 percent clean. The Flint situ
ation brought more of the story
Ferguson mayor: With costs clarified, DOJ agreement near
By Jim Salter
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Ferguson city leaders could end a potentially costly lawsuit from
the U.S. Department of Justice as early as this month, now that the federal agency has
assured them its plan to overhaul the city’s embattled police and court system won’t
create an unmanageable financial burden, the mayor said March 7.
City council members were concerned Ferguson might go bankrupt trying to imple
ment changes outlined in the agreement, which stemmed from a scathing DOJ review
of city operations that included allegations of routine civil rights violations against
black residents. The investigation came after the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old
Michael Brown, whose death helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement.
In a letter to city leaders dated April 26, Vanita Gupta, head of Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division, clarified financial details of the plan - including that the city
wouldn’t be required to provide pay raises to its police officers, a provision that could
have cost nearly $1 million. Gupta also said Ferguson could avoid litigation by sign
ing the original agreement and notes the possibility of technical assistance and grant
money for Ferguson.
“We feel like we’re going to be in that cost range that we can afford,” Mayor James
Knowles III said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We now have in writing
from the DOJ that they will take very seriously these cost issues with us.”
Knowles said the City Council met March 1 to tentatively approve the agreement. A
final vote is expected March 22. The DOJ declined to comment.
The Ferguson City Council rejected the agreement after a city analysis indicated the
cost could reach nearly $4 million in the first year alone. Instead, the council approved
an amended agreement that included seven provisions aimed mostly at keeping costs in
check. Attorney General Loretta Lynch filed suit a day later, saying the vote amounted
to a rejection of a settlement that had been negotiated for months with a team from
Ferguson.
The agency began investigating Ferguson amid the fallout after Brown, who was
black and unarmed, was fatally shot by a white Ferguson police officer in August 2014.
The officer, Darren Wilson, was cleared of wrongdoing and resigned in November
2014. The Justice Department issued its report four months later, and within days the
city’s police chief, municipal judge and city manager had resigned. (Continued On
Page 3)
In Boston, an incomplete picture of police searches, frisks
By Philip Marcelo
BOSTON (AP) - Boston po
lice say they’re narrowing the
gap between how often black
residents are subjected to stops,
searches and frisks as compared
with whites and other ethnic
groups. But an Associated Press
review of recently released po
lice data suggests the improve
ment is more modest than the
department claims.
Information that could shed
light on whether the stops were
appropriate in the first place also
hasn’t been made public, nearly
two months after the initial re
lease of nearly 150,000 “Field
Interrogation, Observation, Frisk
and/or Search” reports..
More information is forth
coming, and the department
stands by its initial assessment of
the numbers, said police spokes
man Lt. Michael McCarthy.
“We’re trying to make the
Flint, with a population of
about 100,000, was drawing wa
ter from the Flint River for 18
months as a way to save money
until a new pipeline to Lake Hu
ron was ready. But the corrosive
water leached lead from the
city’s old plumbing because
best interpretation of the data
that’s available,” he said.
Researchers from Colum
bia and Rutgers universities are
working on a deeper study of the
raw data that will factor things
police haven’t provided in the
information so far made pub
lic, such as neighborhood crime
statistics and a subject’s prior
arrests and gang affiliations, Mc
Carthy added.
Darnell Williams, CEO ofthe
Urban League of Eastern Mas
sachusetts, said he has concerns
and will wait to see what else the
department provides.
“I want the stats and the
rhetoric to match up,” he says.
“I believe police are open and
listening to our concerns, but the
stats haven’t caught up to where
their intentions are. And that’s
not a criticism. That’s an obser
vation.”
When Boston police posted
certain treatments weren’t add
ed. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder,
whose administration repeatedly
downplayed the lead threat, now
calls it a “disaster.”
No level of lead in the human
body is considered safe, espe
cially in children. The river
the raw data on police-civilian
encounters in January, it touted
the release as a major victory for
transparency and accountabil
ity - and as proof it was making
progress on racial disparities in
the stops.
According to the depart
ment’s initial analysis, blacks ac
counted for about 58.5 percent of
all stops that did not result in an
arrest from 2011 to 2015, down
from about 63 percent in the
period covering 2007 to 2010,
which had been the subject of a
previous study commissioned by
police.
But when looked at year by
year, the numbers show the rate
at which blacks were stopped be
tween 2011 and 2015 held fairly
steady at nearly 60 percent annu
ally, the AP’s review found.
Whites, by way of compari
son, accounted for roughly 22
percent and Hispanics about 13
water also may have been a
source of Legionnaires’ disease,
which killed at least nine people
in the region.
The poll found only 47 per
cent of Americans say they’re
extremely or very confident
about the safety of their
percent of police-civilian en
counters during those years.
And the racial disparity could
be higher. Of the nearly 150,000
incidents, close to 7,000 don’t
contain any information about
race.
“The percentages speak for
themselves,” says Shea Cronin,
an assistant professor of criminal
justice at Boston University. “It’s
gone down a little and it seems to
be moving in the right direction,
but I wouldn’t describe that as a
major change in the demograph
ics.”
Jack McDevitt, director of
Northeastern University’s Insti
tute on Race and Justice, said
further data analysis control
ling for gang behavior and other
factors is a critical piece of the
puzzle because Boston police
are using field interrogations,
observations, frisks and searches
largely to crack down on gang
drinking water, while 33 percent
say they’re moderately confident
and 18 percent are not very con
fident or not at all.
Forty percent of African-
Americans polled and 28 percent
of Hispanics were less likely
(Continued On Page 3)
activity.
“The goal would be to see
whether that number of stops
that aren’t explained by gang ac
tivity has gone down,” McDevitt
said.
The AP’s review also found
that, in a majority of cases, there
is little to no detail provided
about why police engaged with
civilians in the first place, why
a person was subsequently sub
jected to a search or frisk, and
what the outcome of the encoun
ters was.
In over 32 percent of all
stops, for example, no reason ap
pears to have been provided; in
another 32 percent of incidents,
officers simply marked down
“investigative.”
Among the search and frisks
incidents, 77 percent don’t men
tion a basis for the police action.
Over 14- percent cite probable
cause, and other 8 percent cite
reasonable suspicion.