90-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor, Hedy Epstein, Arrested in Ferguson Protest

90-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor, Hedy Epstein, Arrested in Ferguson Protest

by David Harris Gershon

Daily Kos 

Originally published in Tikkun Daily
Aug 18, 2014  
 
Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor and long-time human rights activist, was arrested today in front of Governor Jay Nixon's downtown office along with eight others.

Epstein, charged with failure to disperse, was protesting Nixon's actions in Ferguson, and said after her detainment, "I've been doing this since I was a teenager. I didn't think I would have to do it when I was 90. We need to stand up today so that people won't have to do this when they're 90."...

Man seeking help after North Carolina car crash shot by police

Is there sadness or remorse in police officer Randall Kerrick's expression after killing an unarmed man who was seeking help? This case is reminiscent of the Trayvon Martin case: a young, unarmed black man in a white neighborhood arouses deadly suspicion.
College student Jonathan Ferrell before his car accident and being shot dead by Randall Kerrick.

N.C. police shoot unarmed man who survived car accident
Reuters
September 15, 2013

(Reuters) - Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, shot dead an unarmed man who was running toward police officers and may have been just trying to get help after crashing his car, authorities said.

A police officer has been charged with voluntary manslaughter for Saturday's shooting, and an attorney for the victim's family said on Sunday he believed race played a role in the death of Jonathan Ferrell, 24, who was black.

"If Mr. Farrell was not black or brown, wouldn't they have asked him a few questions before showering him with bullets?" said attorney Chris Chestnut, who said he would request all police evidence from the shooting.

Farrell, seeking help after the accident, knocked on a door in a predominantly white neighborhood, Chestnut said.

A woman called the 911 emergency operator after Ferrell began knocking insistently on her front door about 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said.

The woman, who immediately closed the door on Ferrell after seeing it was not her husband, was likely unaware he had just crawled out of his wrecked car in nearby woods, police said.

Three police officers arrived, finding Ferrell a short distance from the woman's house. As soon as the officers got out of their vehicles, Ferrell started running toward them, police said.

One officer unsuccessfully fired a Taser at Ferrell, and he kept running. Randall Kerrick, another officer, then shot Ferrell several times with his service weapon, killing him, police said.

Police found Ferrell's wrecked car later in the morning.

The police department has placed all three officers on administrative leave while they investigate the shooting. Detectives charged Kerrick with voluntary manslaughter on Saturday.

"Our investigation has shown that Officer Kerrick did not have a lawful right to discharge his weapon during this encounter," the police department said in a statement.

Ferrell was a former football player for Florida A&M University in Tallahassee who had recently moved to Charlotte with his fiancee to continue his studies at Johnson C. Smith University, Chestnut said.

Ferrell was on the Florida A&M roster in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, playing safety, the university said in a statement.

Chestnut, based in Atlanta, represents the family of Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion, who was killed in a hazing incident in 2011. Twelve former band members have been charged with manslaughter, and the family is suing the university for wrongful death.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jackie Frank)

(Reporting By Jonathan Allen; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

72-year-old man convicted of 1957 killing

Has anybody checked to see if there were any missing girls in Washington where this man was a police officer? Did he receive complaints about brutality?

72-year-old man convicted of 1957 killing
Herald and News
September 15, 2012
(AP)

For most of five decades, it seemed no one would ever be held accountable for the murder of a 7-year-old Illinois girl snatched off a small-town street corner as she played.

Now, someone has.

Fifty-five years after Maria Ridulph vanished, her friends and family let out a deafening cheer in court Friday as a judge pronounced a former neighborhood teen — now a 72-year-old man — guilty of the kidnapping and murder. It was one of the oldest unsolved crimes in the U.S. to make it to trial.

The roar of approval soon gave way to loud sobs from those who knew the little girl whose body was found after a five-month search that drew national media attention and haunted people across the country. Jack McCullough, who was 17-year-old John Tessier at the time, showed no hint of emotion.

“A weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” said Kathy Chapman, 63, who was playing with Maria in the snow on the night of Dec. 3, 1957, before she vanished. “Maria finally has the justice she deserves.”

A brutal killing

McCullough approached the girls as they played and won Maria’s trust by talking about dolls and giving her piggyback rides. At some point after Chapman ran home to grab mittens, authorities say McCullough dragged Maria into an alley, choked her with a wire, then stabbed her in her throat and chest.

The motive? Prosecutors say McCullough was sexually attracted to the second-grader. Even in a police interview in 2011, he recalled seeing Maria around the neighborhood, saying she was as pretty as a “Barbie doll.” He wasn’t charged with molesting her, however.

McCullough was briefly a suspect, like more than 100 others, in the 1950s, but he had an alibi. He told investigators he had been traveling to Chicago to get a medical exam before joining the Air Force. He settled in Seattle, working as a Washington state police officer...