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VOLUME 98 - NUMBER 51 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA -SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2019 TELEPHONE 919-682-2913 PRICE 50 CENTS
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Judge upholds firing
of police officer who
killed Tamir Rice
By Mark Gillispie
CLEVELAND (AP) - An arbitrator correctly decided that
the white Cleveland police officer who shot and killed Tamir
Rice, a 12-year-old black child, should have been fired by the
city for omissions on his city job application, a judge in Cleve
land ruled.
Cuyahoga County Judge Joseph Russo upheld the May
2017 firing of Timothy Loehmann in a ruling posted Dec. 20.
Loehmann was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the death of
Tamir in November 2014. He was killed as he played with a
pellet gun outside a Cleveland recreation center.
Loehmann, a rookie, shot Tamir within seconds of a cruiser
skidding to a stop just a few feet away. The shooting was re
corded in a grainy surveillance video that drew international
attention and led to Tamir’s becoming a symbol for the Black
Lives Matter protest movement over police treatment of blacks
and minorities.
Loehmann said after the shooting that he feared for his life.
The city said it fired Loehmann in May 2017 for failing to
disclose on his job application with Cleveland that he had pre
viously been forced out by a suburban Cleveland police de
partment. The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association ap
pealed, and an arbitrator ruled in December 2018 that the city
had “demonstrated just cause” for the dismissal.
CPPA President Jeff Follmer on DFriday Dec. 13 the deci
sion disappointing.
“We think it’s clear cut he didn’t lie on his application and
this is another political decision,” Follmer said.
The CPPA and Loehmann will consider whether to appeal
the judge’s decision, union attorney Henry Hilow said.
Cleveland issued a statement Dec. 13 saying it was pleased
with the decision.
“The city has consistently maintained throughout the pro
cess that Loehmann’s termination was justified,” the statement
said.
Loehmann was offered a part-time position with a police
department in the southeast Ohio village of Bellaire in Octo
ber 2018, but withdrew his application days later after Tamir’s
mother, Samaria, and others criticized the hiring.
Chief: City employee
targeted co-worker in
deadly shooting
By Tom Foreman Jr.
WINSTON-SALEM (AP) - A deadly shooting at a city building in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina was an act of “workplace violence”
by one city employee who targeted a co-worker he’d disliked for a
long time, police said Dec. 20.
Winston-Salem Police Chief Catrina Thompson told news report
ers the gunman at a city building was killed during a gunfight with
police officers who responded to the scene. One officer was wound
ed. She said the gunman was 61-year-old Steven Dewayne Haizlip,
who shot and killed another employee, Terry Lee Cobb Jr., whom he
had targeted.
Another city employee and a police officer were also wounded but
are expected to survive.
Police Capt. Steven Tollie said the slain employee and the gunman
had a “longstanding dislike for each other,” but he couldn’t elaborate
on the source of their disagreements. Tollie said the two men had
been involved in a physical altercation Dec. 19 that wasn’t reported
at the time to their superiors. Another city employee who was wound
ed wasn’t targeted and was “collateral damage,” Tollie said. Tollie
said the gunman brought multiple firearms to the shooting Dec. 20.
The shooting drew numerous police cars at the municipal complex
east of downtown that houses sanitation and engineering departments
for the city of about 245,000 in the central part ofthe state.
City workers described a frantic scene as many people scattered
and sought cover outside.
Sanitation worker Dwight Black, 66, was running five minutes
late when he parked his car at the facility. He said he was about to
swipe his card to enter the building when people ran past him.
“They’re shooting. Run!’ Black said of the people leaving the
building. “Fight or flight. I just followed suit.”
Black ran back to his car and said others did the same and drove
off. He said he just stood back and watched until police arrived.
Black said he was “kind of numb” after the shooting. “Everybody
was devastated,” he said. “Tough day.”
The police chief said that officers arrived at the scene around 6:41
a.m., four minutes after they began receiving multiple 911 calls from
city employees about the shooting. Officers heard gunshots as they
arrived and moved toward the threat, she said. They encountered Hai
zlip outside the building and killed him in a short gunfight, she said.
8 60002 71800
Some of the Graduate and Professional School graduates. Related pictures on page 3. (NCCU Photo)
The late Dr. John Hope Franklin was a victim of the
Tulsa Massacre. Duke university Photo
Mayor, cemetery at odds in
search for Tulsa
massacre victims
TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Officials say their efforts to find human re
mains of Tulsa Race Massacre victims are being blocked by a pri
vately-owned cemetery.
But an attorney for the cemetery says his client submitted a pro
posal in November that would allow the city to search under certain
conditions.
The Tulsa World reports Mayor G.T. Bynum says the city has been
unable to investigate whether Rolling Oaks Cemetery in south Tulsa
contains unmarked graves.
However, Timothy Studebaker, a Tulsa attorney representing Roll
ing Oaks, said the cemetery is not opposed to scanning its grounds.
Bynum said the city will look at possible legal action if an agree
ment can’t be reached.
The violence in 1921 left as many as 300 dead on Tulsa’s Black
Wall Street, two years after the summer of 1919 when hundreds of
African Americans across the country were slain at the hands of
white mob violence during the “Red Summer.” It was branded “Red
Summer” because of the bloodshed and amounted to some ofthe na
tion’s worst white-on-black violence.
At a meeting Dec. 16, the 1921 Race Massacre Graves Investi
gation Public Oversight Committee learned scientists have found
pits holding possible remains at a different cemetery and a homeless
camp in north Tulsa.
This is the last issue
of 2019. The next
issue will be January
11, 2020.
Trump ally Meadows won’t run
again, may join White House
By Gary D. Robertson and Alan Fram
RALEIGH (AP) - Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North
Carolina, a top conservative ally of President Donald Trump, said
Dec. 19 he won’t seek reelection next year. He is expected to join the
Trump administration in a yet-to-be-finalized role.
Now in his seventh year in the House, Meadows has been a leader
of hard-right conservatives who repeatedly defied and bedeviled two
GOP House speakers. His disruptive tactics seemed to make him a
kindred spirit with Trump, and the two men meet and confer often.
Meadows’ name has been floated inside the White House at times
as a possible replacement for Acting White House Chief of Staff
Mick Mulvaney. But Meadows is instead currently expected to join
the White House in a yet-to-be-finalized senior adviser or strategist
role, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke
on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
While Meadows had openly expressed his desire to serve as
Trump’s chief of staff in the past, he is not expected to replace anyone
currently working at the White House.
And one of those people said they expected the role to be tempo
rary, with Meadows eventually returning to the private sector.
Meadows told reporters Dec. 19 that joining Trump’s White
House staff or presidential campaign “are certainly options,” but re
mained vague.
The 60-year-old lawmaker declined to rule out taking a new post
and leaving Congress before his two-year term expires.
“I plan to continue to help the president and the administration,
and how we do that and in what capacity has yet to be defined,” he
told reporters.
He said he might seek elective office in the future. But he said he
would not run for the Senate in 2020, when GOP Sen. Thom Tillis
is up for reelection, or in 2022, when his North Carolina colleague,
Republican Sen. Richard Burr, has said he will retire.
Meadows’ announcement comes just a day after the House voted
to impeach Trump on charges that he abused his power and obstruct
ed Congress.
Meadows became the 25th Republican to say they won’t seek re-
election next year, plus another four who have already resigned or
will leave Congress shortly. While Meadows’ seat is viewed as safely
Republican, some of the districts being vacated are not, further com
plicating the GOP’s unlikely prospects of winning the House major
ity in next November’s elections.
In a written statement, Meadows said he struggled with the deci
sion and came to it after discussion with his family.
“My work with President Trump and his administration is only
beginning. This President has accomplished incredible results for the
country in just three years, and I’m folly committed to staying in the
fight with him and his team to build on those successes and deliver on
his promises for the years to come,” Meadows said in the statement.
“I’ve always said Congress is a temporary job, but the fight to return
Washington, D.C. to its rightful owner, We The People, has only just
begun.”
In 2015, Meadows stunned his Republican colleagues by filing a
motion to oust House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, which eventu
ally led to Boehner’s resignation. The House Freedom Caucus, which
he led, also sometimes made life difficult for Boehner’s successor,
former Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.