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VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 28
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, JULY 15, 2017
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
State report faults Durham
County jail in teen’s suicide
(AP) - An investigation by North Carolina authorities shows that guards at a county
jail failed to properly check on a teen shortly before she hanged herself.
The News & Observer of Raleigh, citing the state Department of Health and Human
Services, reports that Durham County jail officers failed to check on Uniece Fennell,
17, regularly and did not report a tip from another inmate that the girl was a threat to
herself.
The girl was found hanged March 23. The Office of the Medical Examiner ruled
Fennell’s death a suicide. She had been in jail since last July on a murder charge in con
nection with a drive-by shooting.
New Durham jail director Col. Anthony Prignano said he has implemented new poli
cies to make sure officers are checking on inmates in accordance with state regulations.
The new policies also prohibit officers from deciding on their own whether an inmate
should be on suicide watch.
State regulations require that inmates be checked at least twice an hour. The report
by the state said a review of the day before her death shows that schedule was not fol
lowed.
The electronic record of checks during the 31 hours around her death show that dur
ing two of those hours, there were no checks at all while during four other hours, only
one check per hour was conducted.
Had the teen been on suicide watch, state regulations call for four checks per hour.
Prignano said disciplinary steps have been taken, but he would not provide details.
He said the discipline did not involve firing, suspensions or demotions, which would be
included in the public record.
Report: No
easy
alternative
for UNC
Center for
Civil Rights
By Martha Wag
goner
RALEIGH. (AP) - A
committee studying al
ternative paths for the
UNC Center for Civil
Rights has found no
options that would al
low the center to con
tinue the full breadth of
its work while also sat
isfying opponents.
A new report offers
five ways to revamp the
center, founded in 2001
by African-American
attorney Julius Cham
bers.
The report says only
the alternative of re
naming the center after
Chambers and defin
ing its educational role
more precisely allows
the center to continue
the work it does now.
The report notes that’s
not likely to satisfy
critics.
Critics don’t like
that a center associated
with the law school at
the University ofNorth
Carolina at Chapel Hill
sues other government
entities. A committee
of the UNC Board of
Governors is expected
to consider the center’s
future later this month.
Register
To Vote
Nerr a
Shaw President Tashni-Ann Dubroy
Tashni-Ann Dubroy,
Ph.D. resigns as
President, CEO of
Shaw University
RALEIGH - The Shaw University Board of Trustees has an
nounced that President Tashni-Ann Dubroy is resigning to assume
the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
at Howard University.
Shaw officials thanked Dr. Dubroy for her tireless service and po
sitioning of the university as one of Raleigh’s valuable resources for
higher learning and entrepreneurial development.
“We sincerely thank Dr. Dubroy for a remarkable tenure of ser
vice to Shaw University,” said Board Chairman Dr. Joe Bell. “We are
proud of her energetic, inclusive and refreshing leadership and the
manner in which she led our institution to surpass goals in student
enrollment, fundraising and cost control. We wish her all the best in
the next phase of her professional journey.”
Appointed in May 2015, Dr. Dubroy helped to revitalize campus
operations, budget performance and enrollment. She is credited with
the university’s first enrollment increase in six years, and the closing
of a $4 million fundraising gap, including $630,000 - the single larg
est total ever raised in an alumni event.
Dr. Dubroy’s emphasis on fiscal conservatism and process opti
mization helped the university to develop several key campus ini
tiatives, including the termination of the three-year salary reduction
program, investments in long-deferred facility projects, and the es
tablishment of recruitment bolstering initiatives.
She is also responsible for the university’s expanded presence in
downtown Raleigh and within the Research Triangle Park corporate
community. An accomplished entrepreneur, Dubroy spearheaded the
recent opening ofthe Shaw University Innovation and Entrepreneur-
ship Center in partnership with the Carolina Small Business Devel
opment Fund to expand small business development and economic
empowerment throughout Raleigh.
Walltown
Community
Holds
Annual
Reunion
See page 8 for pho
tos and story.
Emails show some support for
Louisiana’s Confederate statues
By R.J. RICO
Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - One by one, the four Confederate-era monuments came down in New
Orleans, removed because of outrage by those who saw reminders of slavery and white supremacy chis
eled in their stone faces. But at least one Louisiana lawmaker who argued earlier this year against pro
tecting such statues found her inbox flooded with emails overwhelmingly in support of the monuments
staying put.
More than 100 emails were obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request. They
showed that opposition to the removal of Louisiana’s statues ranged from short and cordial pleas to long,
angry messages about wiping away history. The messages were sent in April and May as New Orleans
removed monuments that long paid homage to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert E.
Lee and others.
Confederate statues, flags and plaques have faced new scrutiny since a white supremacist - who pre
viously brandished Confederate battle flags in photographs - killed nine African-Americans in a South
Carolina church in 2015. Around the South, authorities debate whether such symbols represent racism
or an honorable heritage.
State Rep. Patricia Smith, a black Baton Rouge Democrat, received 105 emails alone, almost all fa
voring a proposal by her Republican colleague Thomas Carmody that would have erected obstacles to
tearing down such monuments.
The AP agreed to receive a sampling of just one lawmaker’s inbox, Smith’s, after a House clerk’s
search of all representatives’ inboxes yielded more than 1 million potentially relevant messages on the
issue. Smith had spoken passionately about the emails on the House floor, arguing Carmody’s measure
had caused “the worm” of racism to emerge.
“Our history is our history and we should not allow elected officials to pick and choose what parts of
history get destroyed or get revered,” one email said. Another declared: “Cannibalizing cultural memory
is not progress.”
Many of the emails were sent to dozens of lawmakers; few just to Smith alone. None used profanity
or slurs, though Smith said she deleted some objectionable messages.
As for the rest, she read some, responded to a few, but largely ignored them.
“From last year, my mind was made up,” Smith said, referring to a similar bill she had voted against
in 2016. “I was never going to vote for that bill.”
Carmody’s bill would have banned removal of any monument or plaque on public property com
memorating a historic military figure or event - unless local voters approved its removal in an election.
Smith’s emails largely echoed arguments constituents made when Carmody’s measure died in a Senate
committee on a 4-2 vote against, two weeks after the House approved the bill 65-31. The House vote May
15 prompted every African-American representative to storm out of the chamber in protest.
Those who supported Carmody’s bill said ripping away monuments was akin to “erasing history.” The
proposal would not have applied retroactively to the New Orleans removals, but could have it difficult for
other Louisiana cities wishing to follow suit.
Smith, 71, said the bill’s proponents - rather than being protectors of history - were minimizing past
slavery and racism in the South.
“They feel like racism didn’t exist,” she said, recounting how one white woman told her in a hearing
to “get over” slavery.
Several email writers argued that out-of-state Marxists, anarchists and anti-Fascists were largely be
hind moves to remove New Orleans’ statues.
“If you do not vote to support our state’s historic landmarks then you are siding with these Neo Com
munist Anti American Anarchists against the will of 73 percent of the citizens of Louisiana,” said one
email blast to nearly every House lawmaker, citing a 2016 LSU Reilly Center for Media and Public Af
fairs poll.