Volume Volume 123 123 No. No. 44 20–22
A1 $1.00 $1.00
June 6, 2015 - June 6, 2015, The Afro-American
www.afro.com
Inside: Graduation Edition Featuring Area HBCUs JUNE 6, 2015 - JUNE 12, 2015
Council to Fast Track Cop Body Cams
A Promising Journalist’s Life Cut Short
By Kamau High Special to the AFRO
By Linda Poulson Special to the AFRO
The local D.C. community paused D.C. to reflect on the life of Charnice Milton after a fatal event, still being investigated by the Metropolitan police, left the young journalist lifeless at only 27-years-old. “Charnice was a talented reporter with an engaging manner that endeared her to her sources,” said Andrew Lightman, managing editor at East of the River magazine. “She was a valued member of the CCN news team completing several assignments a month. The organization will miss her contributions as will the communities of Wards 6, 7 and 8.” Milton was killed after attending a monthly Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee meeting on the evening of May 27. On the District’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) website it stated “Officers
Join the more than 448, 000 Facebook fans who follow the AFRO, the Black newspaper with the largest digital reach in the country. Listen to “First Edition” Join Host Sean Yoes Monday-Friday 5-7 p.m. on 88.9 WEAA FM, the Voice of the Community.
Facebook Photo
Charnice Milton was a talented young reporter. investigating the sound of gunshots in the area of Good Hope and Naylor Roads, Southeast, located an adult female suffering from an apparent gunshot wound in the 2700 block of Good Hope Road, Southeast.” According to Police Chief Cathy Lanier, one person has been identified as a suspect in the homicide. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser commented on the young reporter’s life as well. “One of us…our residents was gunned down. Charnice Milton was a very active resident in the District of Columbia, a reporter, she lived East of the River, she concentrated on issues that focused East of the River,” she said. ANC 6C Commissioners and Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette M. Alexander (D) also Continued on A3
baltimorecitycouncil.com
City Councilman Nick Mosby, District 7, introduced a bill seeking to speed up the use of body cameras by police.
By Kamau High Special to the AFRO
The Associated Press Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday reassigned the leader of the Transportation Security Administration and directed the agency to revise airport security procedures, retrain officers tsa.gov and retest screening equipment in airports across the country. The TSA’s acting administrator, Melvin Carraway, is being reassigned to a different job in the Department of Homeland Security. Acting Deputy Director Mark Hatfield will lead the agency until a new administrator is appointed. The directives come after the agency’s inspector general briefed Johnson on a report
Your History • Your Community • Your News
afro.com
47105 21847
A growing movement to ban the sale of flavored tobacco near schools has now come to Baltimore. Representatives from Baltimore’s schools, Baltimore’s Health Department and the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council held an event, May 28, at Edmondson-Westside High School on how to keep young people from picking up the habit of smoking. The event was the first in a series, including ones at Bethel AME and the Empowerment Temple, leading up to the June 1 introduction of a bill to outlaw the distribution of flavored tobacco within 500 feet of a school by City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton, District 8. “It would be much more difficult for our children to be lured Continued on A3
Camp Moss Hollow Takes District Kids to New World
By LaTrina Antoine Washington D.C. Editor
06
7
Continued on A3
Anti-tobacco Movement Comes to Baltimore
Homeland to Revise Airport Screening, TSA Head Reassigned
Continued on A4
Hear the AFRO on The Daily Drum, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
In May, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie RawlingsBlake said the police would have body cameras by the end of the year. On June 1 City Councilman Nick Mosby, District 7, introduced a bill seeking to speed up that process. Rawlings-Blake statement on body cameras came after the riots in April following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. The issue of body cameras came up before the death of Freddie Gray when the City Council introduced legislation requiring them last December. Rawlings-Blake vetoed that measure saying there were privacy concerns. Some of those concerns were alleviated when Gov. Larry Hogan signed legislation exempting police from the law in Maryland that outlaws recording someone without their consent. Councilman Mosby’s bill calls for using funds seized in crimes to pay for the body cameras. In addition to funding body cameras, the money would be used to pay for cameras in police vans. A study in 2014 by Vocativ.com found that of the 100 of the most populous cities in the U.S. 41 use body cameras, 25 plan to use them and 30 have no plans to use them. In an interview with the AFRO, Mosby said the time is now
Baltimore
2
Join the AFRO on Twitter and Facebook
Every summer, Family Matters, a social service organization in the metropolitan area, holds a summer camp in Markham, Virginia for children to get away from the noises of the city and learn outdoor survival skills, but also skills to help them become more refined individuals. The camp was created to give at-risk youth the opportunity to get in touch with nature and take part in a positive youth development experience that includes a curriculum involving education, arts, sports, and outdoor activities. The camp has been serving D.C. youth since 1966. However, in addition to learning how to survive the outdoors and hold oneself with proper posture, Camp Counselor, James James “Butch” “Butch” Goodwin, Goodwin and who also attended the young campers camp as a child, told at Family Matters the AFRO the camp’s Camp Courtesy Photo Continued on A4
Police tape is one of the few resources McElderry Park receives regularly from the city, which the East Baltimore neighborhood has found a less than willing partner in its efforts to improve the lot of its residents.
Photo by Roberto Alejandro
Lack of Resources Pushes Young Men to the Streets in McElderry Park By Roberto Alejandro Special to the AFRO Crossing signals disappear from intersections as one approaches the East Baltimore
Baltimore
neighborhood of McElderry Park, whether from the direction of Patterson Park to the south or the pristine campus of the Johns Hopkins Hospital just a few blocks to the west. It is a reminder of
Copyright © 2015 by the Afro-American Company
the lack of investment, to say nothing of the resources that have been allowed to decay and disappear, in this heavily impoverished community, where young men populate Continued on A3