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No charges for Chicago cop in Ronald Johnson shooting death CHICAGO — Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s decision not to charge a Chicago police officer who fatally shot Ronald Johnson III was made after virtually no independent investigation by her office and despite a police dashboardcamera video that shows Johnson being shot in the back while running from police, the lawyer for Johnson’s family said Monday. “This is a joke,” attorney Michael Oppenheimer told reporters about an hour after Alvarez laid out her reasons for not charging Officer George Hernandez. “It is the blind leading the blind.” Alvarez decided against criminal charges because the dash-cam video of the shooting shows Johnson wielding what prosecutors say appears to be a gun. At a 75-minute news conference, Alvarez tried to support her decision by playing the video, a sample of 911 calls of residents reporting shots fired and recordings of
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez speaks at a news conference Dec. 7, 2015, in Chicago where she announced that Chicago police Officer George Hernandez will not be charged in the shooting death of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson.
officers calling in updates on police radios of man with a gun. But Oppenheimer, who in October 2014 filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of Johnson’s family, said Alvarez appeared to have relied solely on the flawed investigation done by the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police shootings, and never seriously considered charges against the officer. To bolster that claim, Oppenheimer played a portion of Hernandez’s video-recorded deposition taken a month ago as part of the lawsuit in which the officer says he had never been contacted by Alvarez’s office. The fact that Hernandez freely answered questions under oath for more than six hours indicates he knew he was free of any criminal probe, Oppenheimer said. “How in the world does he know he’s not going to be indicted unless someone in Alvarez’s office told him?” the attorney said.
What kind of bartender are you? “Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [against God] and questioning and doubting [among yourselves]”, 2:14 (Amplified Bible) By Bobby R. Henry, Sr. As I prepared to write today, I’m reminded of the scripture from Philippians 2:14. Our pastor preached on this particular verse in the past, and he titled it, “Stop complaining”. This topic has allowed me to rethink what I thought was meant; don’t complain to people, but complain to God. I was wrong in my thoughts, because God does not want us to complain at all. Pastor Davidson made use of several scriptures to call attention to the message of, “stop complaining.” As he pointed out in 1Corinthians 10:10 which says, “Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. (New American Standard Bible) (Cont'd on Page 6)
Broward Schools’ Runcie named Superintendent Of The Year
(Cont'd on Page 6)
What the world is saying about Donald T rump’s Trump’s comments about Muslims Much of the reaction to the Republican presidential candidate’s call has been critical By Krishnadev Calamur Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, doubled down Tuesday on his remarks calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, Trump compared his plan to the Japanese internment camps used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II. “This is a president highly respected by all, he did the same thing,” Trump said. “If you look at what he was doing, it was far worse. I mean, he was talking about the Germans because we’re at war. “We are now at war. We have a president that doesn’t want to say that, but we are now at war.” But Trump rejected the idea that he was advocating the internment of Muslim Americans: “No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not,” he said. Trump’s remarks Monday were in apparent response to the massacre in San Bernardino, in which an Illinoisborn man and his Pakistanborn wife killed 14 people and wounded 21 others. The FBI said the couple was radicalized. Trump’s comments were nearly universally condemned—both in the U.S. and
“For some Jews, the sight of thousands of supporters waving their fists in anger as Trump incited against Muslims and urged a blanket ban on their entry to the United States could have evoked associations with beer halls in Munich a century ago,” he wrote. (Cont'd on Page 13)
RUNCIE By Staff Writer At a meeting in Tampa Wednesday that included the Florida School Boards Associatio, Broward County’s Robert Runcie was named 2016 Florida’s Superintendent of the Year. Runcie, who has been the superintendent since 2011, was awarded the honor by the Flori-
da Association of Districts Superintendents. In spite of a recent diversity study that did not favor the Broward County School Board, Superintendent, Runcie has sustained his position as an effective leader with respect to most Broward School Board members. (Cont'd on Page 9)
Data provides insight to improve adolescents’ health Trump calls for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” around the world. Here’s a roundup of global reaction: U.K. A spokeswoman for British Prime Minister David Cameron called the remarks “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.” “The prime minister has been very clear that as we look at how we tackle extremism and this poisonous ideology, what politicians need to do is look at ways they can bring communities together and make clear that these terrorists are not representative of Islam and indeed what they are doing is a perversion of Islam,” she said. Egypt A statement from Dar alIfta, the country’s official re-
Pleading Our Own Cause
ligious body, called Trump’s remarks “hate rhetoric.” “Such hostile attitudes towards Islam and Muslims will increase tensions within the American society of which Muslims represent around 8 million peaceful and loyal American citizens,” the organization said. France That tweet by the French prime minister translates to: “Mr. Trump, like others, stokes hatred: our ONLY enemy is radical Islamism.” Global Media Writing in Haaretz, the leftleaning Israeli newspaper, columnist Chemi Shalev said Trump’s remarks “must have delighted the Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the leader of ISIS.
WWW.
By Jonathan Mermin, M.D., M.P.H., Director, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Cross-posted from Huffington Post - Blog From AIDS.gov Young adults face the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States. Here are the eyeopening facts: · Young adults aged 15 to 24 account for half of the 20 million new STDs that occur in the U.S. each year. · As compared to other groups, women aged 15 to 24 experience a disproportionate number of chlamydia and gonorrhea infections – many of which go undiagnosed. Left untreated, these infections can lead to serious consequences, including infertility. Every year more than 24,000 women in the US become infertile because
of an STD many did not know they had. · One in four new HIV infections are in people aged 13 to 24. Yet, only 22 percent of
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