6 • Tuesday, June 9, 2015 • Daily Corinthian
Deaths William Hall
BOONEVILLE — William Hall died Monday, June 8, 2015, at North Mississippi Medical Center. Patterson Memorial Chapel of Corinth will have the arrangements.
Officer on leave following footage The Associated Press
McKINNEY, Texas — A suburban Dallas police officer has been placed on administrative leave after a video was posted online showing him pushing a 14-year-old girl in a swimsuit to the ground and pointing his gun at other teens. McKinney Police Chief Greg Conley said at a news conference Sunday that the incident began when officers responded Friday night to a report of a disturbance involving a group of black youths at a neighborhood pool party. The police department said the youths do not live in the area and did not have permission to be at the pool. When officers arrived, residents and private security pointed out the juveniles who were “creating the disturbance, fighting and refusing to leave,” Conley said. As officers dispersed the crowd, the 14-yearold girl was “temporarily detained” by an officer, said Conley, who did not describe what led to her detainment. The video shows the apparently white officer pulling the bikini-clad black girl to the ground then seemingly using his knees to pin her down. He can also be seen pointing his gun at other teens and cursing. Conley did not identify the police officer or the girl seen in the video, or comment on the officer’s race or that of the young people involved. McKinney is an affluent, predominantly white city. Most of the kids seen in the video are black.
Officer who shot fleeing man indicted The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. — It didn’t take long for a grand jury in South Carolina to indict a white former city policeman for murder in the shooting death of a black man who tried to flee from a traffic stop. State investigators presented the case against former North Charleston officer Michael Slager to a Charleston County grand jury on Monday and prosecutor Scarlett Wilson announced the indictment a few hours later. A bystander’s cellphone video shows Slager firing eight times as 50-year-old Walter Scott tried to run away on April 4. The killing enflamed a national debate about how black people are treated by white police officers. But it caused no unrest in North Charleston,
where community leaders and Scott’s family praised the government’s swift response. Slager was charged with murder by state law enforcement agents and fired from the police force immediately after Scott’s family released the video. The indictment of Slager is the fourth in less than six months in which a grand jury in South Carolina has agreed that white officers should stand trial in the shootings of black men. The grand jury that reviewed the shooting of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, met weekly for three months, hearing from 60 witnesses. Saint Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch then spoke nearly 45 minutes, describing how jurors “poured their hearts and souls into this process”
before deciding not to indict anyone in Brown’s death. Angry protests and riots ensued. When riots in Baltimore followed the death in police custody of another young black man, Freddie Gray, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby charged six officers with crimes and then spent two weeks presenting evidence to a grand jury that affirmed nearly all the charges. “To the youth of this city, I will seek justice on your behalf. This is a moment. This is your moment,” Mosby said in a passionate speech. Wilson, by contrast, made no speeches. She called reporters to her office to announce the indictment, and made very few comments. Asked about the importance of the cellphone video of Scott’s death, she acknowledged that it’s helpful to have evidence
that “depicts the crime, and we aren’t having to rely just on people’s perceptions.” That said, “just because you have video in a case doesn’t mean it’s the be-all and endall and the case is over,” she said. “The jury will be able to make up their own mind after seeing the video and hearing the testimony.” Slager said he initially tried to stun Scott with his Taser when both men scuffled over the stun gun and he fired his handgun at Scott in selfdefense. The video shows the men briefly scuffling before Scott runs away and the officer fires at Scott’s back. Slager, 33, faces 30 years to life without parole if convicted. Wilson said the death penalty doesn’t apply because there are no aggravating circumstances such as
robbery or kidnapping. His defense lawyer, Andy Savage, said he won’t comment “until we have an opportunity to fully evaluate the state’s case and to compare it with our own investigation.” Walter Scott’s brother Rodney Scott said the family is “very happy and pleased” with the indictment. “This is just an example of if you keep the faith, even in the darkest times, you will see the light,” said Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Scott’s family who is preparing to file wrongful death civil suit against the city. “We are going to patiently wait for the criminal trial in this case and we are going to patiently wait to see if the city, the police department and the chief are going to take responsibility in the civil suit,” Stewart added.
Broader sex assault probes leave victims hanging The Associated Press
Olivia Ortiz was elated when the U.S. Department of Education contacted her in June of 2013 to tell her it was opening an investigation into her complaint that the University of Chicago had mishandled her sexual assault case. A junior at the time, she had run out of options on campus after a dean decided against an investigation and instead recommended an informal mediation between her and a student she said had assaulted her in the spring of her freshman year. Finally, Ortiz said, she felt someone was on her side. Two years later, Ortiz is still waiting. The reason: a burgeoning backlog at the education department that advocates say is leaving victims to languish longer without resolution, and could discourage others from coming forward at all. “I definitely appreciate the Department of Education taking their time,” said Ortiz, who has since left campus and moved back in with her parents in Arizona, citing anxi-
Are You an Addict? They were addicted to it, the whole family. I am sure their friends and extended family noticed the changes. There were signs. They were not the same people anymore. They seemed to change. The things they once enjoyed, they stopped altogether. All their thoughts and actions were consumed by their addiction. They withdrew themselves from their normal lifestyle. They did all they could to be around the people with the same addiction. They said that, “They were the only ones that understood what they were going through.” They were spending whatever extra money they had for this addiction. They were suffering for this addiction. Society looked down on them and hunted people with the same addiction. This is what the Bible said about this family, “I beseech you, brethren, ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Cor. 16:15, KJV). That is quite an addiction. This addiction changed their lives. They were no longer the same people. “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (Rom. 6:17-18). They could no longer hang out with the same people. “In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you” (1 Pet. 4:4). Their thoughts and actions were consumed by this addiction. “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:1-5). The addiction this family had was in service to the saints and to Christ, “‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me’” (Matt. 25:39-40). What would you look like if you were addicted to the work of the Lord? What would your family look like? Would people notice your addiction? Paul said of the house of Stephanas that they were helpers, laborers and refreshing both to himself and the Corinthians. True addicts of Christ and His example are a blessing to those around them. Paul did not want the brethren at Rome to imitate, or conform to, the world and its practices. He instructed them to daily reshape their minds.
Northside Church of Christ
3127 Harper Rd. • Corinth, Mississippi 38834 415-3558 • Minister - Lennis Nowell Sunday Worship ............ 9:45 am, 10:30 am, 5:00 pm Wednesday Worship .......................................7:00 pm
ety about continuing her studies in an environment where she felt unsafe. “But for me, I just wanted some immediate relief. I feel like sometimes there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.” College students who believe their schools mishandled their allegations of sexual assault have increasingly opted to use the federal gender discrimination statute known as Title IX to press the institutions for stronger action. Last May, the department made public a list of 59 schools under investigation for Title IX complaints. As of May 27, the agency had 123 open sexual assault cases at 113 schools across the country. Those complaints are not criminal cases, but if a university is found to be in violation of Title IX, it risks losing federal funding, a massive piece of most schools’ budgets. At the same time, the department has altered its approach to investigating such complaints. Instead of assessing them as isolated cases, the agency now sees each one as an opportunity for a broader assessment of a school’s overall compliance. Advocates praise the department’s commit-
ment to evaluating the culture of each college under investigation. But the spike in complaints and the broader scope of the responses have swamped the department’s investigators. Groups that support victims worry that the lengthy reviews, which may bring improvements to the universities in question, wind up stranding the people filing the complaints. The long wait for a resolution also extends the anguish for anyone wrongly accused. And it frustrates schools as they seek vindication of their efforts to make campuses safer. Even before the department adopted its more comprehensive approach, Title IX investigations could take years. Part of that lengthy timeline has to do with a lack of funding and, more specifically, staffing. In 2014, the education department received more than 10,000 complaints under Title IX, a broad law that bans gender-based discrimination in federally funded programs. Less than 10 percent of those complaints related to sexual assault, but the department’s Office of Civil Rights had to field all 10,000.
There is no special unit to handle sexual assault complaints despite their sensitive nature, and investigators juggle dozens of cases at once dealing with all aspects of gender discrimination. Today, the department is opening more sexual assault investigations than it is closing, with some still pending after four years. In his 2016 budget, President Barack Obama proposed a 31 percent increase for the Office of Civil Rights, which would allow it to add 210 fulltime staff members to its roster of 544. “Do we need more people? Absolutely,” Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary of the Office of Civil Rights, recently told The Associated Press. “My staff are carrying 20-25 cases a person on average at any given time, that’s a very, very burdensome caseload. I’d like to see more people to move these cases, because I think that’s what the scope of civil rights demands.” When she was appointed in 2013, Lhamon decided that instead of focusing on the specific incident that spurred a particular complaint, investigators should solicit as much information as possible from a school to
identify any patterns. “We are more systemic in the way we evaluate because I think that’s the way to get at civil rights compliance more effectively,” Lhamon said. “Sometimes a complaint says, ‘I went to my school, it didn’t handle it well, I think that’s a Title IX violation.’ We can tell what happened about that complaint, but it’s better to look at the school’s policies, and other case files, to see if what happened to that student is an aberration.” Some advocates say expanding the scope of investigations has serious ramifications for those waiting for their complaints to be resolved. “Now, OCR will look at everything, from soup to nuts. That’s a great thing, but it’s terrible for victims,” said Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel at Victim Rights Law Center, a nonprofit that offers services to sexual assault victims. “The problem with OCR right now is that it utterly fails to provide remedies to individual victims. If you can’t provide a remedy for a complaint, you’re going to lose complainants. Now it’s, ‘Thanks for the complaint, we’ll see you in four years while we do a compliance review.’”
Escaped killers may have had inside help The Associated Press
DANNEMORA, N.Y. — Investigators are looking into whether civilian employees or outside contractors helped two murderers obtain the power tools they used to break out of a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border, New York’s governor said Monday. As the manhunt continued for the third day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during a round of appearances on morning news shows that he would be shocked if a prison guard was involved in the escape from Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. Officials said David
Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, cut through steel walls at the back of their adjacent cells and sliced through steel pipes while making their “Shawshank Redemption”-style breakout, which guards discovered early Saturday. Investigators are questioning hundreds of civilian employees and the contractors who have been doing extensive renovations at the 170-yearold prison, Cuomo said. “We’re going through the civilian employees and private contractors first,” he said on NBC’s “Today” show. “I’d be shocked if a correction guard was involved in
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this, but they definitely had help. Otherwise, they couldn’t have done this on their own.” A $100,000 reward was posted over the weekend for information leading to men’s capture. Sweat was serving a sentence of life without parole for the 2002 killing of a sheriff’s deputy. Matt had been sentenced to 25 years to life for kidnapping, killing and dismembering his former boss in 1997. “These are killers. They are murderers,” the governor said. “They are now on the loose, and our first order of business is apprehending them.” Officials gave no details on how the men managed to avoid detection while cutting their way out. “They had to be heard,” Cuomo told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Sunday. Hundreds of law enforcement officers fanned out around the prison, following up on dozens of tips. Authorities set up roadblocks and brought in bloodhounds and helicopters. Dubbed “Little Siberia” by locals, the prison houses nearly 3,000 inmates, guarded by about 1,400 officers. Surrounded by
farmland and forests, the prison is about a 45-minute drive to Montreal. Cuomo said the inmates may have crossed into Canada, about 20 miles away, or headed to another state or Mexico, where Matt served time for killing a man in 1998. Prison officials found the inmates’ beds stuffed with clothes on Saturday morning in an apparent attempt to fool guards making their rounds. On a cut steam pipe, the prisoners left a taunting note containing a crude caricature of an Asian face and the words “Have a nice day.” Officials said the inmates cut through a steel wall, crawled down a catwalk, broke through a brick wall, cut their way into and out of a steam pipe, and then sliced through the chain and lock on a manhole cover outside the prison. Martin Horn, a former New York City correction commissioner and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the two inmates had to “obtain some fairly sophisticated tools,” either from the prison, which he said maintains an inventory of its tools, or from an outside contractor.