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CELEBRATING OUR 10TH YEAR STATEWIDE!
Florida Courier staffers salute their moms See page B1 www.flcourier.com
MAY 6 – MAY 12, 2016
VOLUME 24 NO. 19
TO FLINT – FINALLY President Obama visits Flint, Mich. after bypassing the city earlier this year. But will his presence matter?
BY PAUL EGAN AND KATREASE STAFFORD DETROIT FREE PRESS / TNS
FLINT, MICH. – President Barack Obama had a straightforward message Wednesday for Flint residents: “I’ve got your back.” The president delivered that message to a crowd of about 1,000 people – many of them high school students – at Northwestern High School. “A lot of you are scared; all of you feel let down,” Obama said.
Prince died seeking drug addiction treatment
Wednesday’s visit was the president’s first to Flint since the water crisis began. Lead began leaching into the city’s drinking water in April of 2014 be-
he filled with a case of bottled water to flush his toilet at his home.
FLORIDA COURIER / 10TH STATEWIDE ANNIVERSARY
A ‘godfather’ dies, and the state plays games FC
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MAY 18 - MAY 24, 2012
VOLUME 20 NO. 20
DUELING DONATIONS
Here’s an update of events surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin as of the Florida Courier’s press time on Wednesday night. Check www.flcourier.com for the latest news. Both sides get help Trayvon Martin’s mother will be able to take about eight months of paid leave from her county job, thanks to the generosity of county employees. Sybrina Fulton, who has worked at the Miami-Dade County housing authority for WALTER MICHOT/MIAMI HERALD/MCT 23 years, collected $40,825 Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, and her son Jahvaris Fulton were intro- worth of donated vacation duced to the Miami-Dade County Commission Tuesday to thank commissioners time, county records show. and county employees for donating vacation time to her and to Trayvon’s aunt. The paid time off is in addi-
Rattlers strike Marching ‘100’ FAMU band suspended for at least one year
tion to the nearly $100,000 the family raised on wepay. com and at rallies, which will be used to launch a criminal justice advocacy foundation in Trayvon’s name. The donated days are the latest in increasing contributions that have amassed on both sides of the case. With websites dedicated to Trayvon’s grieving parents as well as for the man who killed him, and now even
his attorney, funds gathered in the wake of the Feb. 26 tragedy promise to reach $500,000. Donors continue to reach into their pockets, even as each side criticizes the other’s purpose and intent in seeking donations.
Not profiting “They are using the money to continue the legacy See TRAYVON, Page A2
CHUCK BROWN / 1936-2012
‘Godfather of Go-Go’ gone at 75
BY DEMORRIS A. LEE SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER
Meeting set Andrew Kornfeld was expected to meet with Prince early Thursday after taking a red-eye flight from San Francisco the night Prince’s representatives called, Mauzy said. When Andrew Kornfeld arrived at Paisley Park at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Prince’s representatives could not find him, Mauzy said. Andrew Kornfeld was one of three people at Paisley Park when the musician’s body was found in an elevator a few minutes later – See PRINCE, Page A2
SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3
It will be all about football this fall at Florida A&M University. President James Ammons told board members Monday during a 30-minute meeting that there will be no Marching “100” until 2013. The Marching “100’’ has been suspended since the November 2011 hazing death of Robert Champion, one of the band’s drum majors. Authorities ruled Champion’s death a homicide, resulting in 11 band members being charged with felony hazing charges. Misdemeanor charges also were leveled against two other band members in connection with Champion’s death. “We are going to work now with the students, the student leadership as well as the leadership team, the board and the external committees to examine best practices to implement some of the recommendations and suggestions that came from the internal university community,” Ammons said. “We will work to put those in place and once I feel that the issues are resolved, and then we will look at the reimplementation of the band.” The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) also is conducting an investigation of practices in the band. On Monday, a spokesperson declined to discuss when that investigation would be completed, but said that it was ongoing.
Family pleased and disappointed
CHARLES W. CHERRY II / FLORIDA COURIER
The Champion family has said they plan to sue for the death of their son See BAND, Page A2
SNAPSHOTS
Rumors swirl about Scott as Trump’s VP
CULTURE | B5
Malia Obama picks Harvard
FLORIDA | A3
OBITUARY | B2
National Geographic honors Black pilot
NATION | A6
Will Blacks abandon Obama over gay marriage?
Musician Chuck Brown, shown here performing on the 2009 Tom Joyner Cruise, was the originator of the “go-go” sound that is an artistic trademark of Washington, D.C. See a related “No Chaser” column on Page A4.
State may remove 180,000 voters from the 2012 rolls BY DAVID ROYSE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
Extremist groups continue to mobilize
NATION | A6
FINEST | B3
Meet Patricia from the Joyner cruise
The full universe of potentially ineligible voters that state elections officials plan to check for possible removal from the rolls is about 180,000, a spokesman for the Division of Elections said last week. Elections spokesman Chris Cate told the News Service that when matching voter rolls against newly available citizenship data from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, officials found a number of possible matches, and began fur-
ther investigating each one to see if they were likely to be wrongly registered to vote. Officials reported earlier this week that they had forwarded the first batch of those names – about 2,600 – to local supervisors of elections for further review and for each voter to be notified that they were on a list of people suspected of being illegally registered. “Everyone of those individuals would be contacted by supervisors,” Cate said.
Will take time This week, it isn’t clear how many more names might
eventually be checked. Cate said the larger number was the total identified so far, but that it will take some time to further cull through that list to determine which names are most likely accurately identified as non-citizens. “We’re still in the early stages of combing through that 180,000,” Cate told the News Service. “We have to respect every voter,” and err on the side of not purging them from the rolls if they’re legitimately registered, he said. Some additional portion of the full list of possible non-citizens will eventually be identified as likely to be wrongly
registered and sent to local supervisors for possible purging. Whether all of them will be vetted before this year’s election remains unclear. “There’s not a timeline, we are moving as promptly as we can while still being thorough,” Cate said.
Looking for cover? Some Democrats and voting rights groups have criticized the new effort to find suspected ineligible voters. An ACLU official said this week that state officials were looking for cover while trying to disenSee VOTES, Page A2
ALSO COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 INSIDE COMMENTARY: WILLIAM REED: TIME TO DUMP THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM | A4
Tupac Shakur’s mom dies HEALTH | B3
Reducing risk of colon cancer
ALSO INSIDE
See FLINT, Page A2
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MINNEAPOLIS – Prince was found dead one day before he was scheduled to meet with a California doctor in an attempt to kick an addiction to painkillers, an attorney with knowledge of the death investigation said Tuesday. Dr. Howard Kornfeld, a national authority on opioid addiction treatment, was called by Prince representatives the night of April 20 because Prince “was dealing with a grave medical emergency,” said William Mauzy, a Minneapolis attorney working with the Kornfeld family. Kornfeld, who runs Recovery Without Walls in Mill Valley, Calif., could not clear his schedule to meet with Prince the next day, April 21, but he planned to fly out the following day. He sent his son, Andrew Kornfeld, who works with him, to Minnesota to Paisley Park to explain how the confidential treatment would work, Mauzy said. Several other sources with direct knowledge of the investigation confirmed Mauzy’s account.
First visit
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BY DAVID CHANEN STAR TRIBUNE (MINNEAPOLIS) / TNS
“I am confident that Flint will come back,” he said. And, “I will not rest … until every drop of water that flows to your home is safe to drink, and safe to cook with, and safe to bathe in, because that’s part of the basic responsibilities of a government in the United States of America.”
cause of mistakes made when the city switched its drinking water source to the Flint River from Lake Huron while Flint was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager. The state acknowledged a lead poisoning problem around Oct. 1, after months of denials. Since then, the Legislature has appropriated tens of millions of dollars and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has requested more than $100 million more to address the infrastructure and the long- and short-term health problems. Obama ran through a brief history of the water crisis and said poor decisions were made RYAN GARZA/DETROIT FREE PRESS/TNS after the state appointed a Flint In February, Flint resident Darryl Wilson carried three gallon jugs
Four years ago, the Florida Courier noted the death of Chuck Brown, the “Godfather” of the Washington, D.C.-based “go-go” music, as well as the state’s efforts to remove thousands of allegedly ineligible voters from the 2012 voting rolls.
‘We can’t handle it’ Foster kids in legal trouble left adrift BY MARGIE MENZEL THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
TALLAHASSEE – Thousands of youths in Florida’s child-welfare system have gotten in trouble with the law. When they do, their caregivers often refuse to take them back. Now policymakers are trying to improve services to the teens, saying those children had already been abused or neglected when they began acting out in foster care. A work group of the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet has been developing policy recommendations for so-called “crossover youth,” and a meeting on the subject is expected to take place in June.
Highly at risk The policymakers say these young people are among the most challenging in any state system – and the most at risk to spend their lives behind bars or on public assistance. “We’ve got to get past the rhetoric and sit down and figure out what’s best for these youths, because if we don’t get it right, they’re going to be in our adult prison system when they’re 20 years old,” said Mark Jones, chief executive officer of the Community Partnership for Children, the private agency in charge of placing foster children in Volusia, Flagler and Putnam counties. According to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, 3.4 percent of the 42,211 youths arrested during fiscal year 2014-15 were living with foster families, other caregivers or in group homes at the time of their offense. That’s 1,428 kids, who averaged 2.4 arrests apiece over 12 months. “The population isn’t great (in size),” DJJ Secretary Christy Daly said. “It’s just that this population is very, very high-need – and very challenging.” Many caregivers simply can’t cope with troubled teens after a certain point, said Christina Spudeas, executive director of the advocacy group Florida’s Children First. “I’ve seen them tell the judge, ‘I’ve got six other kids. I can’t keep missing work. I’m going to lose my job, I’m going to lose my home – because of him,’ “ Spudeas said. “Then they call (the Department of Children and Families).”
Teens locked out Fed-up foster parents may refuse to care for the youth any longer. Sometimes the caregiver is willing to retrieve the youth following an arrest, but the judge has imposed a no-contact order due to the youth’s previous battery of the caregiver. These teens are known as “lockouts.” A second category of crossover youth has no caregiver available due to a death, hospitalization or incarceration. See FOSTER, Page A2
COMMENTARY: MARGARET KIMBERLEY: HARRIET TUBMAN’S FACE ON CURRENCY IS NO HONOR | A5 HEALTH: LIVING OUTSIDE DURING SPRING AND SUMMER ALSO UNHEALTHY FOR HOMELESS | B3