Is Highway Robbery Still An Issue? Texas Police Have Been Doing Illegal Search & Seizures On Black Motorists!

When people were using horses & carriages as transportation,highway robbery was a huge issue.But,that's not something modern day folk have to concern themselves with,right? Well,it is if you are driving while black in Texas.Most of us already know about racial profiling.I've included a CNN report on Bobby Tolan's story.It is an obvious case of racial profiling that the police tried to deny instead of rectify.

Now,we find that racial targeting is an issue that is coming to the forefront in Texas.The police are acting like the lawless bandits & outlaws of the Wild West.Non-whites have been victims of illegal searches that have resulted in their material goods being confiscated.Since the police are basically robbing these folks,it is being called highway robbery.Here's more on that from The L.A. Times:

"You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana border if you're African-American, but you might not be able to drive out of it—at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables.

That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with any crime.

Officials in Tenaha, situated along a heavily traveled highway connecting Houston with popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking and call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state's asset-forfeiture law. That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets.

"We try to enforce the law here," said George Bowers, mayor of the town of 1,046 residents, where boarded-up businesses outnumber open ones and City Hall sports a broken window. "We're not doing this to raise money. That's all I'm going to say at this point."

But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha's practice something else: highway robbery. The attorneys have filed a federal class-action lawsuit to stop what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law's intent, aimed primarily at blacks who have done nothing wrong.

Tenaha officials "have developed an illegal 'stop and seize' practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching and often seizing property from apparently non-white citizens and those traveling with non-white citizens," asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The property seizures are not just happening in Tenaha. In southern parts of Texas near the Mexican border, for example, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out.

According to a prominent state legislator, police agencies across Texas are wielding the asset-forfeiture law more aggressively to supplement their shrinking operating budgets.

"If used properly, it's a good law-enforcement tool to see that crime doesn't pay," said state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. "But in this instance, where people are being pulled over and their property is taken with no charges filed and no convictions, I think that's theft."

David Guillory, an attorney in Nacogdoches who filed the federal lawsuit, said he combed through Shelby County court records from 2006 to 2008 and discovered nearly 200 cases in which Tenaha police seized cash and property from motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession.

But in 147 others, Guillory said the court records showed, police seized cash, jewelry, cell phones and sometimes even automobiles from motorists but never found any contraband or charged them with any crime. Of those, Guillory said he managed to contact 40 of the motorists directly—and discovered all but one of them were black.

"The whole thing is disproportionately targeted toward minorities, particularly African-Americans," Guillory said. "None of these people have been charged with a crime, none were engaged in anything that looked criminal. The sole factor is that they had something that looked valuable."

In some cases, police used the fact that motorists were carrying large amounts of cash as evidence that they must have been involved in laundering drug money, even though Guillory said each of the drivers he contacted could account for where the money had come from and why they were carrying it—such as for a gambling trip to Shreveport, La., or to purchase a used car from a private seller.

Once the motorists were detained, the police and the local Shelby County district attorney quickly drew up legal papers presenting them with an option: waive their rights to their cash and property or face felony charges for crimes such as money laundering—and the prospect of having to hire a lawyer and return to Shelby County multiple times to attend court sessions to contest the charges.

The process apparently is so routine in Tenaha that Guillory discovered pre-signed and pre-notarized police affidavits with blank spaces left for an officer to describe the property being seized."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

Chris Brown Wants The World To Know That Rihanna Hit Him First!

Who cares who threw the first punch? I didn't see one damn mark on Chris Brown & I never have for that matter! While Rihanna has had an eye patch over her eye & mysterious bruises in the past,we're learning that she may have hit him first.Well,I've got a question for Chris Brown.Why did she get pummeled & not you?That was overkill,buddy!You can't justify that by saying she hit you first.Rihanna has said that this was not the first time,just the worst time!Did she provoke you in those instances,too? Own up to what you did & stop trying to place the blame elsewhere!And Rihanna,take Oprah's advice."Love doesn't hurt!"

Here's more from The Gawker:

"As Chris Brown negotiates a plea deal, the R&B singer is making it known Rihanna struck him first that infamous night in Los Angeles. Why does he think it matters?

Because he's negotiating a plea deal, according to TMZ, and has been charged with two felonies for allegedly beating his girlfriend Rihanna. If she hit him first, his lawyers believe, it's not a felony:

Sources say Rihanna was the first one to strike — slapping and striking Brown "numerous times" while he was driving, after seeing the text message from another woman.

Supposedly, this version of events is reflected in the official police report. Floating the story publicly fits perfectly into Brown's dual PR strategy of appearing remorseful even while shifting some blame for the beating to Rihanna.

But Brown needs a swift resolution. As this story drags out in the press, the singer's onetime fans are just growing more disgusted. After seeing Rihanna's police photo, or knowing what it shows, no one really cares what she did to Brown, who emerged physically unblemished."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

It's The 40th Anniversary of Africa's Oldest Film Festival,FESPACO!

FESPACO is known as the African version of the Oscars.It is the oldest Pan-African festival which has been around for 40 yrs.now!Here's a clip from a documentary called "FESPACO".It talks about African-American filmmaker's entries into this festival.Here's more about FESPACO from artmatters.info:

"The bi-annual Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO) runs February 28-March 7, 2009 for the 40th time since its inception in 1969 as a shop window for African cinema. It is hoped that the 40th FESPACO will cease being viewed merely as “a place for FESPACO civil service organisers to invite government ministers with their women to socialise at the expense of filmmakers”, to use Moroccan film director Nabil Ayouch’s words. OGOVA ONDEGO reports in retrospective on his way to Ouagadougou.

Over the four decades of its existence, FESPACO has been plagued with various ‘political’, ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘organisational’ challenges. Many players in the African audiovisual media sector, for whom the festival is meant, have over the years appeared to be getting more and more disillusioned with this festival that is billed as Africa’s largest film festival. Many of them have chosen to keep their distance from where they have thrown barbs at the festival organisers, accusing them of not just ineptitude but also of lack of respect for filmmakers.

Though having won FESPACO’s highest prize—the Yennenga Stallion—in 2001, Moroccan Nabil Ayouch kept away from the festival in 2003 as a form of protest.

Saying FESPACO was ‘disorganised’, he accused its organisers of ‘lack of respect for filmmakers’.

He was angry, he told BBC, about the treatment given to film directors by the organisers, drawn from the governnment.

He said organisers show films late—even for as late as three hours—and change screening venues without informing film directors who are expected to present their films. He said civil servant bureaucracy was spoiling FESPACO.

He had failed to collect the Yennenga Stallion for his film, ALI ZOUA, in 2001 as FESPACO failed to send him a flight ticket though having selected and put his film in competition. The organisers only realised their gaffe when Ayouch failed to collect his award.
He refused to excuse FESPACO organisers on what he termed inefficiency saying the festival was a great event 20 years earlier as “a shop window for African and Arabic cinema.”

Sometime back, I listened to various criticism of FESPACO from filmmakers drawn from across Africa and the world. They included Mahmood Ali-Balogun of Nigeria, Judy Kibinge of Kenya, Rahamatou Keita of Niger and Frances Ann Solomon of Canada.

“FESPACO organisers behave as if we don’t count,” Ali-Balogun commented. “We go to a conference and they conduct it in French while fully aware we don’t speak French. They should take cognisance of the fact that we use our own money to come here .They should translate proceedings of meetings in English besides sub-titling films in English.”

Ali-Balogun, on his third attendance at FESPACO, said the number of participants was declining instead of growing due to what he termed as ‘disorganisation’.

“FESPACO does not seem to be doing any assessment of what happens at their festivals in order to improve subsequent events. All they seem to be concerned with is that they host a festival and then go to sleep until the next one,” Ali-Balogun said.

Solomon, on her part, was disappointed that FESPACO does not readily avail information on events to festival-goers. She also expressed concern that FESPACO appears to be a mere cultural festival and not a market for selling and buying films: “Of the more than 5000 participants at FESPACO, only 23 were distributors of films,” she observed in 2003."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.