Vol. 50 No. 9
June 20, 2019 - June 26, 2019
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or words or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
Thousands of Police Officers Outed in Slew of Racist Facebook Posts By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Correspondent @StacyBrownMedia
Far too many law enforcement officers – from rookies to the highest ranking – view African Americans as “dogs,” and some punch in believing that, “it’s a good day for a chokehold.” Others believe women in hijabs are tantamount to “trash bags.” Those of just some of the alarming public posts on Facebook written by police officers in departments across the country – they were identified by the Philadelphia-based Plain View Project, a database that chronicles police use of social media. Already, authorities in Philadelphia and St. Louis said they’ve opened an Internal Affairs investigation into the posts, which number exceeds 3,000, according to the Plain View Project.
The departments thus far implicated are Dallas, Tex; Denison, Tex.; Lake County, Fla.; Philadelphia, Penn; Phoenix; St. Louis, Mo; Twin Falls, Idaho; and York, Penn. The Plain View Project, headed by Philadelphia-based attorney Emily Baker-White, said its analysis determined that at least 328 active-duty police officers posted content that championed violence against Muslims, immigrants and African Americans. “We found a very high and concerning number of posts that appear to endorse, celebrate or glorify violence and vigilantism,” Baker-White said in a televised interview with ABC News. “We included posts that we thought could affect public trust
and policing,” she said. “We also included posts that seemed to emit some sort of bias against a group of people – whether if that’s a minority faith, a minority race, ethnicity, immigration status, whatever it is. We saw a number of posts that appeared to denigrate those groups of people,” Baker-White said. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross confirmed that an investigation is underway in that city. “We have reviewed the social media transcriptions you provided and find many of them to be not only incongruent with our standards and policies, but also troubling on a human level,” Ross said in a statement. While some of the Facebook
posts, which also included images of the Confederate flag, have been deleted, the Plain View Project provided screenshots of the posts in their public online database. Since its establishment in 2017, the group has compiled more than 5,000 posts from current and former officers, both in big cities such as Dallas and in smaller jurisdictions like Lake County, Florida. The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association said it has contacted the Council on American Islamic Relations to set up a meeting but declined further comment. “We strongly condemn violence and racism in any form. The overwhelming majority of our 7(continued on page 8)
SBVC Graduates One of Largest Classes in College's History Community Education News
Publisher’s Corner Email: sbamericannews@gmail.com Clifton Harris Editor in Chief Publisher of The San Bernardino AMERICAN News
Police courts in the Inland Empire often spawned some colorful excuses By Joe Blackstock Inland Valley Daily Bulletin Many years ago, every city had a police court judge handling mostly mundane things like speeding tickets and minor crimes. Sometimes, cases got a little odd. For one turbulent day in 1915, Harry Heap, the police judge in San Bernardino was forced to deal with the Zink-Falkenstein feud. Admittedly this hardly reached the level of the fight between the Hatfields and the McCoys, but these next-door neighbors on Carter Avenue just couldn’t get along. The San Bernardino Sun on Oct. 16 said they had been at “swords’ points” for more than a year, saying and doing all sorts of unneighborly things across their fence. This battle reached a climax a few days earlier when May Falkenstein fired a volley across the fence — drenching Mrs. Zink with her hose. This attack “resulting in a cold which put his wife in bed,” Frank Zink told Heap. Members of each family poured out to Heap all the details of wrong-doing by the other, but the court session didn’t exactly turn out to be Perry Mason TV material. Mrs. Falkenstein pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace with her hose and was fined $10. No word was available if Mrs. Zink’s cold ever cleared up. OK, maybe police court was rarely the most exciting of places, but it did attract all levels of society. Dr. J.W. Callnon, a respected Chino doctor and a future superintendent of the San Bernardino County Hospital, found he couldn’t get away with a little white lie. He was stopped Sept. 8, 1913 by Ontario Officer J.P. Brogan for driving 35 mph, well over the speed limit, reported the Sun on Sept. 9. Callnon told the officer that he had to get to a sick patient and shouldn’t be delayed. Brogan, being a responsible officer, allowed him to leave. But Brogan was also a bit of a suspicious officer. He followed the good doctor and discovered Callnon was actually on his way to the Pacific Electric train station in Upland to pick up his wife and two children. Brogan caught up with the doctor at the station and escorted him to police court to discuss his “sick patient” and pay a fine. Sometimes things were pretty quiet between cases in the police court in San Bernardino. It gave Clinton Harper a peaceful place to sleep off the effects of heavy drinking, the Sun reported May 5, 1936. Officer Mark Black later woke up Harper and told him he had to leave his courtroom bench. “The indignant Harper said he was going to stay where he was,”
said the paper. He was immediately escorted from the court to a slightly more comfortable bunk in city jail. Sometimes creative excuses actually helped. A Los Angeles motorist was stopped for doing 29 mph in downtown Pomona in 1920. He explained his passenger had fainted due to a painful ankle injury so he stopped for some water. That didn’t help much so he figured he should hurry on to Los Angeles for immediate medical attention. Judge Harry H. Mason found the driver guilty but reduced the fine from $15 to $1 because he thought his excuse was rather novel, reported the Los Angeles Times of May 2, 1920. The Sun on Feb. 13, 1968 carried a story about a 19-year-old man in Cincinnati arrested for driving without a license. “He told the judge he didn’t have one because he didn’t know how to drive. He said he was practicing — so he could get a license.” In 1940, C.E. Williams of Los Angeles testified in Upland police court he was not a drinking man. He had been feeling fairly ill one day and tried a new remedy. “He had listened to the advice of an acquaintance who told him a good slug of whiskey would be the best thing he could take for a severe cold from which he was suffering,” wrote the Sun on Jan. 7, 1940. Judge Mildred Puckett added to his suffering, fining him $100 for drunken driving. Of course, most motorists suspect that they were caught in a speed trap when they are cited for speeding. One actually did exist in Claremont in 1911. The city had enacted its first speed limit (10 mph) and stationed an officer on Foothill Boulevard to nab dozens of speeders, sending violators to pay fines at police court. “Now the speeding fines tinkle merrily in the city treasury,” crowed the Claremont Courier in April 1911, “and if the speeders continue to come in such droves our city officials anticipate a reduction in city taxes.” Taxes in Claremont, of course, never did decline, but things soon got out of hand when the Times and other newspapers reported that Foothill in Claremont had become a speed trap. The articles warned motorists to avoid the city, which soon (continued on page 3)
Our Values, Mission, & Vision Statement
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - On May 24, San Bernardino Valley College ushered in its newest class of graduating students, and reflected on the many milestones that were achieved by the college's students, staff, and faculty in the past academic year. Clad in black gowns and a variety of colorful stoles and tassels, the students were led onto
Henley Field by President Diana Z. Rodriguez. She welcomed the thousands of students and family members that filled the stadium, acknowledging the graduate's achievements and congratulating them on years of dedication and hard work. The class of 2019 had 244 students graduating with Highest
Honors, or a 3.9-4.0 grade point average (GPA), and 174 students graduating with Honors, or a 3.73.89 GPA. The graduating class included 685 graduates from Liberal Arts, 260 from Biology, and 177 from Business Administration. There were also 81 Nursing, 59 Psychiatric Technology, and 10 Middle
College High School graduates. In total, 1,672 students received 2,284 degrees and certificates, resulting in one of the largest graduating classes in the college's 92year history. Congratulation, Wolverines! To learn more about San Bernardino Valley College, visit valleycollege.edu.
Our Values: Treat all people with care, respect, honor, and dignity. Tell it as it is with love, truth and integrity. Promote the interests of advertisers and sponsors along their strategic interest for the betterment of the community and beyond. Speak truth to power. Our Mission: To continuously improve communication between all people of the world. Our Vision: To be the best community newspaper in our region and the nation. Provider of: A voice for the poor, the underserved, those that are marginalized, Positive and edifying news about people, places and businesses. Keep San Bernardino, Riverside, and Los Angeles Counties informed about global trends while retaining the consciousness of local events and processes. Memberships and Associations: The San Bernardino American Newspaper is a member of the California Newspaper Publishers Association, National Newspaper Association and addociated with California Black Media.