Police Taser Blackman With His Mother in Austin

Drums continue to beat about these taser incidents. You know how it seems that everyone on the road owns your same make, model and color of car when you get a new car? Maybe it is that way with these taser incidents. Perhaps, we are simply noticing them more. One AfroSpear blogger created an entire blog dedicated to this issue.

It turns out that Black people have been getting tased without good reason for over a year. Did you see this incident down in Austin, TX?

Police officer Thomas O'Connor pulls over a Blackman, Eugene Snelling, and his mother on Thanksgiving Day for driving 5-MPH over the speed limit. He asks the brother for his driver's license and registration. Without giving the driver a chance to get it, Officer O'Connor opens the door; directs the driver at gunpoint to the back of the car ... AND USES HIS TASER!

You be the judge. Check out the dashboard police camera showing the use of police taser on innocent Blackman.



Officer O'Connor gave his side of the story during internal affairs investigation. He was suspended by the Austin Police Department for three days. I wonder if Bro. Snelling had to pay the speeding ticket?

Barack Obama is Winning in Iowa

The winds of change continue to blow in favor of Sen. Barack Obama. The Des Moines Register is a leading newspaper in Iowa, where the first votes of the US presidential race will be cast on January 3. This poll shows:

1. Barack Obama leading the race with support from 28 percent of likely voters (up from 22% in October).
2. Hillary Clinton was in 2nd place with likely Iowa voters at 25% (down from 29% last month).
3. John Edwards stayed steady at 23% of the vote.

Even more significant in some respects is the fact that Obama leads with support from 31 percent of women likely attend the caucuses, compared to 26 percent for Clinton. In October, Clinton was the preferred candidate of 34 percent of women caucusgoers, compared to 21 percent for Obama. In other words, there has been a switch of 18% among likely women voters in this state towards Obama.

Iowa City Democrat Katharyn Browne said she abandoned her support for Clinton in the past month and now supports Obama in light of the Iran issue. Clinton supported a measure that allowed President Bush to declare the Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, a move Obama said was a step toward war. Clinton said the measure enhanced U.S. negotiating strength with Iran.

Browne said she feels Obama is a more inspirational candidate than Clinton, despite the intensifying crossfire between them. "I just think that Obama is more of a positive candidate overall," she said. "Aside from the Clinton-Obama interaction lately, it's nice to hear a candidate with a positive outlook. I think our country needs that right now."

Browne, who supported Clinton early partly out of gender loyalty, represents a shift among some women caucusgoers from Clinton to Obama.

Hopefully this is a trend that will impact on Black women around the country. I've noticed some caustic remarks by Black women bloggers and blog readers on Barack Obama. It appears that Iowa women (few of whom are Black) are realizing that Barack and Michelle Obama is better for their future than Billary.

On the Republican side I see that Gov. Mike Huckabee also overtook the frontrunner. Huckabee's rise is a direct result of his outstanding performance in recent televised debates. I think it is critical that Barack Obama wins a few of the upcoming televised debates this month. He has the character, positions and skills to be a remarkable POTUS.

He needs to apply the knock-out punch to Clinton in the next 30 days.

Villagers, the first votes will be cast one month from today. How are you leaning now? If you had a chance to vote today in the Democratic primary ... who would you cast your vote for?

Jena 6 Odd Couple: Mychal Bell and Reed Walters Agree to Plea Deal

12/4/07 UPDATE: AfroSpear Media Release on Jena Six Case

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Drumbeats from Howard Witt with some great news on the Jena Six case. It appears that the endgame is coming to Jena, LA. Mychal Bell, 17, agreed to a plea bargain with LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters that sharply reduced the charges against him. Walters was the foolish law enforcement official who made the original decision to charge the Jena 6 with attempted murder for beating a white youth.

Walters accepted guilty plea to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery, with a sentence of 18 months and credit for time he has served in jail over the last year.

District Judge J.P. Mauffray approved the plea agreement Monday afternoon, just three days before Bell's trial in juvenile court was to have begun. It appears that both the Jena legal system and the other Jena Six families are in plea negotiations that could bring a conclusion to a controversial case that drew more than 20,000 civil rights protesters to Jena in September and earned the town a portrayal in the national media as a racist backwater.

Villagers have been following this story well before the mainstream media learned about it. It was national pressure from groups like The AfroSpear and others last spring that caused Walters to back away from attempted murder charges. Walter was hard-headed when he tried Bell on those charges as an adult in June and won a conviction, but a state appeals court reversed the verdict in September, ruling that Bell should have been prosecuted as a juvenile.

Since then, Walters has come under growing political pressure to conclude the Jena 6 cases. Local leaders had been dreading a drawn-out series of criminal trials that would have kept Jena in the spotlight throughout 2008. And Louisiana's outgoing governor, Kathleen Blanco, directly pressed Walters in September not to pursue an appeal of the decision that struck down Bell's adult conviction.

Walters said in a statement Monday that he hopes to have the remaining Jena 6 cases resolved "early next year."

"A trial would be very bad for the town, very bad for Reed Walters, very bad for anybody in Jena associated with the process, and it could turn out very bad for the defendants as well," said Alan Bean, head of a small civil rights group called Friends of Justice who was the first activist to call attention to the Jena case. "It had the potential for being a perfect storm in which everybody lost."

Parents on both sides of the case agreed.

"If the district attorney makes an offer to us and my son doesn't have to do any jail time, that would be fine," said Tina Jones, who insists that her son, Jena 6 defendant Bryant Purvis, was not involved in the school attack. "I'm ready to get this all over with."

Plea bargains "would be the best solution, as long as they don't get away with no punishment at all," said David Barker, father of Justin Barker, the school beating victim. "This case has taken its toll on everybody. Justin has ulcers now. Letting it drag on for years would just be additional stress for him."

Bell's attorneys said they agreed to the plea bargain to spare the former high school football star the danger of being convicted of more serious charges and also to win early release from juvenile custody. Mychal Bell will get credit for the nine months he spent in jail while awaiting trial. His attorneys said he could be released by June.

When this is over I hope that the Jena Six young people take a lesson from the sad story of Rodney King.