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By HERB BOYD

Special to the AmNews

The House Jan. 6 committee concluded its more than a year and a half long investigation Monday on a high note, urging the DOJ to bring criminal charges against Trump for his role in the insurrection at the Capitol Building. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the nine bipartisan panel, summed up the hearings, stating that he believed “nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning. If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”

Republican Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chairwoman, concurred and placed Trump in a singularly ignominious position as the only president to ever violate an orderly transition of power. He is also the only former president to be indicted and faced with criminal charges.

At the heart of the panel’s 154page summary, they found that Trump had engaged in a “multipart conspiracy” to overturn the election. The findings add another stain on Trump, to go along with a couple impeachment attempts. Since the panel has no power to convict and bring Trump before the bar of justice, the charges are merely symbolic, and now the nation waits to see how Attorney General Merrick Garland will respond to the referral.

Trump’s response, as expected, was gruff and shrugged off the charges. “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me,” he wrote in a statement posted on his Truth Social account. “It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

He claimed to have deployed 20,000 troops to prevent the violence and then went on television to disband them. “The people understand that the Democratic Bureau of Investigation, the DBI, are out to keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win and that this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was—a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party,” he concluded.

If recent polls have any validation, his claim that he is being prevented from seeking the Oval Office will be academic since the polls have him trailing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

Trump won’t have to worry much longer about the Jan. 6 panel, which will soon dissolve as the Republicans take charge of the House. Despite the length of the investigation the public gave it more than a passing nod, particularly when many of the Republicans were subpoenaed and testified. New Yorkers will be interested to see what happens with Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, who could be debarred for his role in the uprising. Curiously, the panel did not approve bringing charges of seditious conspiracy that the DOJ used to convict members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Political prisoner-of-war Mutulu Shakur comes home

By MAL’AKIY 17 ALLAH Special to the AmNews

Family and friends of ailing Black Liberation Army activist Dr. Mutulu Shakur were elated upon reports that he had been released from the “belly of the beast” on Friday, Dec. 16. After being denied parole nine times and diagnosed with terminal bone marrow cancer, he was granted compassionate release last month after doctors said he only had six months to live.

“Mutulu is deeply grateful for the broad expression of trust and support, and thanks everyone who has helped him over the years,” said a statement on mutulushakur.com. “We ask that he have the space and time to be with his family and to continue receiving medical treatment. The continued incarceration of this terminally ill senior citizen serves no useful purpose as Mr. Shakur represents absolutely no threat to public safety.”

His supporters also released a statement: “Today, the morning of December 16th, 2022, Dr. Mutulu Shakur was released from prison on parole! The decision to grant parole is based on federal law guidelines for ‘old law’ prisoners, finding that Dr. Shakur poses no threat to the community, taking into consideration his exemplary conduct in prison, his medical condition and how much time he has served. Mutulu is now with his family. This victory was secured by the steadfast support of his legal team, family and community comprised of all of you.”

Dequi Kioni-Sadiki, U.S. held Political Prisoners’ organizer, added: “Welcome home. We want to give him time to enjoy his relative freedom. We want to continue raising funds because he came home with decades of malnutrition, medical neglect, abuse and torture which has left him with cancer and survivor of COVID. So he needs funds. He’s a healer in need of healing.”

She reminded people not to forget “the rest of our political prisoners.”

Shakur’s recent statement reads: “This country is not the same country it was at the time of my conviction, and I have lived long enough to understand the changes the country and I have undergone. I will always care about freedom and equality for Black Americans, marginalized people and the lower classes in this country and abroad. The struggle was never about me, but for the will of the people.

“I cannot undo the violence and tragedy that took place more than 30 years ago. But for several decades while incarcerated I have dedicated myself to being a healer, spreading a message of reconciliation and justice, and playing a positive role in the lives of those I come into contact with, in and out of prison.”

Shakur was convicted for allegedly participating in a 1981 Brinks armored truck heist that fetched $1.6 million and resulted in the deaths of two Nyack cops and a security guard. He was also convicted for assisting Assata Shakur’s 1979 exodus from a New Jersey prison. He was sentenced to 60 years, becoming eligible for parole in 2016, with a 2024 mandatory release date.

For more information about Mutulu Shakur’s medical needs, go to: Mutulushakur. com/support

Booker leads colleagues in urging DHS, ICE and CBP to review inhumane treatment of Black migrants

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER

Amsterdam News Staff

New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to conduct a review of incidents of mistreatment of Black migrants within the U.S. immigration system, especially incidents related to the shackling of people who are pregnant and postpartum.

“Black migrants suffer from disparate treatment, discrimination, and racism at every phase of the immigration system—including when they are being deported to their country of origin, most times without being given the chance to seek asylum,” wrote Senator Booker in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson and Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller. “A September 2022 Amnesty International Report found that Haitians removed under Title 42 were detained in ways that “amount to ill-treatment and in some cases torture, either to coerce them to give up their claims or to deter other asylum seekers.”

One psychologist estimated that two-thirds of families removed to Haiti were shackled or chained at some point during the removal process. Multiple Haitian migrants interviewed for the report said they were shackled either while they were pregnant or breastfeeding. One woman who was nine months pregnant was shackled by CBP agents and carried onto a plane to be removed. The treatment described in these reports is disturbing, horrific and un-American.

Booker also pointed out these inhumane treatments of migrants by CBP and ICE personnel are contrary to the agencies’ guidelines.

“It also appears to conflict with CBP and ICE’s own guidelines on shackling and the use of chains during deportation. CBP’s standards require that restraints during detention are used “in a manner that is safe, secure, humane, and professional.” Booker added, “Additionally, restraints cannot be used ‘in a punitive manner or in a manner that causes detainees undue pain.’”

According to ICE’s National Detainee Handbook, officers may only use force “after all reasonable efforts to otherwise resolve a situation have failed” and “physical force or restraining devices will not be used as punishment. International law is clear that countries may not shackle or handcuff pregnant people or people immediately after childbirth. …We continue to believe that a holistic review of the disparate treatment of Black migrants throughout our immigration system is both necessary and urgent,” continued Senator Booker.

Booker and his colleagues also requested DHS, ICE, and CBP clarify their existing practices regarding shackling of migrants, and particularly pregnant migrants, in detention.

‘Concealed Carry’ gun safety bill approved by NJ Senate, sent to governor

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER

Amsterdam News Staff

The New Jersey Senate approved a bill that would set common-sense gun safety standards for carrying concealed firearms in New Jersey. The bill, S-3214/A-4769, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari and Sen. Linda Greenstein, was approved with a vote of 21-16 and sent to the governor.

“New Jersey continues to be a leader on gun safety with laws that help keep our communities safe,” said Scutari. “This bill will help prevent gun violence with commonsense standards to require training, promote gun safety and prevent firearms from being carried into sensitive locations. Finally, this new law will help provide a tool for law-enforcement in our fight against illegal gun trafficking.”

The legislation would build on the effective gun laws already in place. It would prevent guns from ending up in the hands of the wrong people by requiring more comprehensive background checks, setting training standards, prohibiting permit holders from carrying handguns in sensitive public areas, and requiring insurance coverage to protect and compensate victims, among other measures.

The bill has received support from the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the State Troopers Fraternal Association of New Jersey, the Association of Former New Jersey State Troopers and the New Jersey State Troopers Non-Commissioned Officers Association.

Former NFL quarterback Bruce Eugene finds end zone through coaching NYC youngsters

By TANDY LAU

Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Long before HBCU football stars left for Colorado University, Bruce Eugene was something out of an urban legend. The exGrambling State quarterback stood just six feet tall in shoes, but weighed over 260 pounds, boasting a laser-accurate arm and a penchant for employing it. In 2005, Eugene broke the single-season record for passing touchdowns in Division I (both FBS and FCS) college football, before Hawaii’s Colt Brennan surpassed him a year later, albeit with more games but stronger competition.

Reporters called him the “Round Mound of Touchdown,” a nod to Charles Barkley. His coach called him “Fat Back.” But he was as bright as he was big. After putting up video game numbers and setting all-time records, Eugene worked out for the NFL draft and registered a 41 on the Wonderlic, one of the highest scores all-time by any NFL prospect on the aptitude test often criticized for racial biases leading to disparately lower average scores by Black quarterbacks. Unfortunately, Twitter and Instagram weren’t around back in 2005.

“Oh, if I had social media back then—it was crazy—I wouldn’t be here right now today,” said Eugene. “What I was doing and the numbers I was putting up, nobody was doing what I was doing back then.”

But thankfully for aspiring gridiron stars across the five boroughs, he never went viral. Eugene bounced around the professional football world, starting with his hometown New Orleans Saints and finding his way to Canada on the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders and Germany on NFL Europe’s Berlin Thunder. It wasn’t the Jets or Giants that brought him to the “Big Apple,” but rather a woman—his daughter’s mother. But Eugene always knew coaching was in the cards for him and soon started working in New York City’s Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL), while also doubling as a substitute teacher for the DOE.

By 2015, he was the league’s first Black head coach to win a championship, leading Williamsburg’s Grand Street High School to a 28-26 victory over Eramus Hall under the bright lights of Yankee Stadium. But his meteoric rise came to a screeching halt thanks to an enrollment scandal and internal politics— after winning the big game, Eugene soon found himself out of a job.

He says the issue stems from bitter conflict with the school’s principal. On paper, Eugene was let go for enrolling a Long Island-based player under his Brooklyn home address so he could play for Grand Street without paying a non-city resident fee. He listed the at-risk youngster as his nephew, hoping to whisk him away from his gang-heavy surroundings. It wasn’t too far from the truth. After all, for Black coaches like Eugene, play calling is just the first of many responsibilities.

“Are you wearing the many hats that we wear?” he said. “Black coaches, we have to be uncle, we have to be brother, we have to be daddy. We have to be whatever we need to be to reach them. The white coach, are you doing the same thing? Are you stepping into that role to try to reach them like we do? I don’t think many of them are doing that.

“Are you making sure [they] eat? Can they call you 24/7, 365? All that plays a part in our kids’ development. Football is a tool that we use. It gets to a point but you still need coaching—people that you can trust to help them matriculate through this thing called life.”

After leaving Grand Street, Eugene plied his coaching craft around the greater Tri-State area as an offensive coordinator. After all, the “Round Mound of Touchdown” was never an easy man to bring down. Recently, he resurfaced in New York City at Canarsie as an assistant coach. But the drama of 2015 continues to follow him and Eugene is now banned from the sidelines and forced to call plays from the stands. So why does he insist on coaching New York City youngsters despite all the obstacles? Eugene admits he’s strongly considered walking away many times. But he remains paying it forward, long past the end zone.

“I’ve helped so many kids in the city, not just kids that go to school and play something— I’ve helped the number of kids that other schools get to college,” said Eugene. “Because [of] my HBCU roots, I’ve helped a lot of kids get to the HBCUs. Because somebody helped me when I was coming up, my father wasn’t around.

“All of my coaches took a role in my life and helped me become the man I am today. So for me, that’s how I’m dealing with my kids.”

Black

New Yorker

Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member and writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://bit.ly/amnews1

By David R. Jones, Esq

Painful Budget Cuts Should Spare Services for New Yorkers Who Need Them Most

Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council are in a classic battle of political wills over the best way to cut the budget and close a projected multibillion-dollar funding gap, without hurting poor and low-income families.

While budget battles are an annual rite in big city government, the fight in New York is different this time. The City Council comes to the table with an outer borough mandate at the same time New York faces a stubborn downturn in employment, tourism and tax revenue.

The same coalition that brought Eric Adams to power – voters from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, outside the traditional city power centers – also elected a City Council for the first time that looks like our racially and ethnically diverse boroughs.

Under Speaker Adrienne Adams, expect the City Council to be a bulwark against budget cuts that unfairly fall on the backs of New Yorkers most battered by inflation and dependent on city services. Indeed, earlier this year the City Council called on the mayor to reverse $215 million in school cuts to reflect lower enrollment. Look for a similar response to across-the-board budget cuts that likely will be on the table as the Adams administration confronts a projected $3 billion budget shortfall next year, particularly any cuts in building and health inspections.

Another reason to resist arbitrary, across the board budget cuts is the disproportionate impact they have on poor communities while typically sparing police and fire departments. The Council should also resist reductions in low-income housing, which would be counterproductive in the face of the city’s housing affordability crisis.

Pink slips define the front line of the battle between the City Council and Adams’ administration. The budget’s bottom line largely plays out in the number of job vacancies the mayor keeps on the books but has no plans to fill, and how many openings are eliminated outright. Service delivery, equity and fairness often turn on how many city workers are dispatched to the neighborhoods where the majority of New Yorkers live.

A recent report by the State Comptroller illustrates how head count matters. Before the Covid pandemic, the city’s work force peaked at 300,400 full-time employees. That number has since dropped 6.4 percent to 281,333 through August 2022. That recent decline is larger than the 4.7 percent loss of workers between fiscal years 2008 and 2012 following the Great Recession.

The municipal work force is already depleted, and the loss of the last two years isn’t equally distributed across city government. Of the city’s 37 largest agencies, each employing more than 250 workers, 11 agencies saw a decline that was twice the citywide average of 6.4 percent, and even higher in some cases, the comptroller’s report said.

The tension over how best to slice the economic pie does not mean condemning or demonizing the mayor. Quite the contrary – the City Council’s role is democracy at work, and for the first time, voters from New York City’s outer boroughs played an oversized role in electing both the executive and legislative branches.

That new accountability to voters of color promises to expose a fundamental truism of New York City governance: Politics often forces elected leaders to choose between doing the right thing and doing the expedient thing for the right reasons. The demands of the office can co-opt core beliefs to damaging effect.

During the Koch and Giuliani administrations, when budget cuts disproportionately fell on the poor and minority neighborhoods, the service cuts generated a muted objection from the City Council. In the end, the voters were forgotten as politics and partisan loyalties overruled moral principle.

The cycle reached a breaking point when Bill de Blasio ran for mayor on the promise of addressing soaring income inequality, an increasingly unaffordable cost of living and the largest homeless population since the Great Depression. De Blasio’s landslide election with support from Black and Latinx majorities, in many ways, represented a backlash against the failures of the “permanent government” of real estate developers and Wall Street titans.

De Blasio’s broken promises played a part in the elections of the current City Council and Eric Adams, whose appointees include a historic number of women and people of color. Voters seemed to be calling for City Hall to move beyond past symbolic gestures and to get to work on improving the quality of life in the boroughs that were previously taken for granted.

Adams, who came to office as arguably the most powerful New York City chief executive in years, now has an ascendant equal partner in the City Council. Together, they are well equipped to address the ongoing housing, jobs and public safety crisis.