Baltimore police hand report on Gray death to prosecutor

Story by AP

BALTIMORE — Police completed their investigation into the death of Freddie Gray a day earlier than planned Thursday and delivered it to the chief prosecutor in Baltimore, who pleaded for patience and peace while she decides whether to bring charges.

The deputy commissioner also revealed a new detail that raises still more questions about what the officers involved have told investigators: The van carrying Gray to the police station made a previously undisclosed stop that was captured on a "privately owned camera."

State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby must review the evidence, consider charges and decide how to move forward in the death of Gray, who suffered severe spinal injuries at some point after he tried to run from police on April 12, and died a week later.

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts took no questions and provided no details about the report, which he said represents the work of more than 30 investigators.

"I understand the frustration; I understand the sense of urgency," Batts said. "That is why we have finished it a day ahead of time."

Batts said police would keep probing at the direction of the state's attorney, while Mosby stressed that her office is doing its own investigation.

"We are not relying solely on their findings but rather the facts that we have gathered and verified. We ask for the public to remain patient and peaceful and to trust the process of the justice system," her statement said.

Batts left it to Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis to release yet another official timeline of what happened to Gray after his arrest nearly three weeks ago.

In all, the previously undisclosed stop now makes four stops between the time officers arrested Gray and his arrival at a police station, where he was found unresponsive. He was hospitalized in critical condition and died a week later.

Batts and Davis said nothing more about when or how investigators obtained the previously undisclosed video or learned about the additional stop. However, five of the six officers gave statements to investigators the day Gray was injured, and as recently as a week ago, the stop was not part of the official timeline, suggesting investigators learned of it later.

Gray was arrested after he made eye contact with an officer and ran. Officers chased him down and handcuffed him behind his back. Bystander videos recorded police loading him, dragging his legs, into one of two metal compartments in the back of the van.

Police earlier said the van stopped once so that officers could put Gray in "leg irons" because he had become "irate;" stopped again because the driver asked for an additional unit to check on Gray's condition, and then again to put an additional prisoner in the van's other compartment before arriving at the station.

Now police are saying an additional stop was made before the driver asked officers to check on his condition. They said nothing about this stop other than its location — at what appears to be a desolate intersection with three vacant lots and a corner store. Last week, Batts had said the second prisoner told investigators the driver did not speed, make sudden stops or "drive erratically" during the trip, and that Gray was "was still moving around, that he was kicking and making noises" up until the van arrived at the police station.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake sought to dispel any notion that the police report would bring a swift and public conclusion to the case. "Whatever time the state's attorney's office needs to make that determination, the family wants to get it right," she said Wednesday after meeting with Gray's family and legal team.

"This family wants justice and they want justice that comes at the right time and not too soon," said Hassan Murphy, one of the family's lawyers.

Meanwhile, protests over Gray's death spread Wednesday night to other cities including Boston, New York and Washington, making it clear that tensions over the case are far from subsiding. The demonstrations were mostly peaceful, but police made many arrests, including at least 60 in New York.

Gray's death was only the latest high-profile case of a black man dying as the result of a police encounter. Similar protests erupted over the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Eric Garner in New York last year, and Walter Scott in South Carolina. Scott was shot in the back by a white officer who has since been charged with murder.
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Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols, Juliet Linderman, Matthew Barakat, Tom Foreman Jr., Jessica Gresko, Brian Witte and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this report.

Now It Is Baltimore - Commentary by Rev. Jesse Jackxon

Nina Simone - Oh Baltimore

COMMENTARY BY JESSE JACKSON

Now it is Baltimore. There Freddie Gray, a black man, was stopped on the street, pinned to the ground, dragged to the back of a police wagon, and died in police custody. Six officers were suspended. The Mayor promised justice. But the city erupted in non-violent demonstrations that turned ugly, despite Gray’s family pleading for peace. Over three dozen were arrested. “Oh, Baltimore,” sang Nina Simone in 1978, “Ain’t it hard just to live.”

Baltimore is a tale of two cities. The Inner Harbor now glimmers with new restaurants, new condominiums, the stadiums that house the Ravens and the Orioles. West Baltimore in contrast is marked by boarded up stores, abandoned homes, and too many people with no hope. The jobs are gone; the schools crowded, the streets harsh. Here the police – many of whom live in the suburbs – are tasked with waging a war on drugs and enforcing order. The inevitable result is a tinderbox, a spark away from bursting into flame. One incident of police misbehavior from eruption.

We’ve been here before; Baltimore is not unique. We’ve seen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in Staten Island New York, Trayvon Martin in Sanford Florida. Now that demonstrations have put the question of police violence on the front pages, each week brings another horror, another victim, another injustice.

Much focus has been put on cameras as a technical fix, but we need a change of culture, of character, of circumstance. Police need new training, and a new relationship with the communities they patrol. But at the end of the day, police are not the answer. They are the occupying force, but they are not the cause of the underlying distress.

We’ve been here before too. In 1968, after race riots had erupted in Watts, Chicago, Detroit and Newark, Lyndon Johnson convened the Kerner Commission to investigate the causes of the riots. The Kerner Report described a nation “moving towards two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.” It called for better training for the police, but also for new jobs, new housing, an end to de factor segregation. Police misbehavior was often the match that sparked the eruption, but there would be no answer without fundamental change.

Baltimore and America have changed, but for too many in our ghettos and barrios, the reality is the same. The New York Times reports on 1.5 million “missing black men,” one of every six aged 24 to 54 who have disappeared from civic life. They are either dead or locked away. Jobs have dried up as manufacturing plants closed and where shipped abroad. Mass incarceration – with African Americans still suffering from racial profiling and injustice – destroys possibility. The official black unemployment rate is twice that of whites, but that does not even count those who want a job but have given up trying to find one.

The stigmatization of African Americans continues. African American children are more likely to be suspended for the same misbehavior than whites. African American men are more likely to be stopped, more likely to be arrested if stopped, more likely to convicted if arrested. The result hurts African Americans generally. The Harvard sociologist Devah Pager has found that a white with a criminal record has a better chance getting hired than black with no record whatsoever. Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job,” she concludes.

We need a serious plan for urban redevelopment. We need a plan to put people to work, a public works project that hires and trains and employs people in work that needs to be done. We could provide guarantees to pension funds to invest in rebuilding the boarded up homes. We could train young people to retrofit buildings with solar and energy efficient insulation and windows. We could insure that transportation exists to take workers to where the jobs are.

Baltimore has put us on notice once more. Our cities are at a breaking point. There are more horrors to come, more explosions to follow. 50 years after the Kerner Commission, we ignore its teachings at our peril.

Baltimore, Maryland USA reeling after night of violent unrest

Story by NBC News
Written by Trymaine Lee and Anna Brand

Thousands of city police and National Guard troops maintained an uneasy peace across Baltimore on Tuesday as reinforcements were deployed across the city following a night of violent unrest that led Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to declare a state of emergency.

Thousands of schoolkids weren’t in public school as officers spread over the 80-square-mile area here, with many concerned about a repeat of Monday evening’s violence as a 10 p.m. city curfew loomed.

Peaceful protests honoring Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of a severed spine that allegedly occurred while in police custody, went on for days before turning dangerous over the weekend – and then on Monday, when demonstrations became extremely violent.

There were more than 200 arrests, throughout a night filled with looting, destruction on the streets, and fires set to 144 vehicles and 15 buildings. Despite earlier reports, Baltimore PD spokesman Eric Kowalczyk said Tuesday that 20 officers were injured in the clashes, though he said he expects that number to rise. Police made 12 arrests – five juveniles and seven adults – Tuesday morning, according to Kowalczyk. Baltimore police are expected to hold hourly briefings into the evening.

The Baltimore Fire Department was responding to reports of a new fire Wednesday afternoon at a CVS pharmacy that was looted and set on fire a day earlier, according to NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez.

The Baltimore Orioles, whose Monday night game against the White Sox was canceled due to the unrest, announced that the team would face off against Chicago at 2:05 p.m. Wednesday in a game that would be closed to the public.

“It shocked a lot of people,” Gov. Hogan said of Monday’s violence at a news conference early Tuesday. “What started out as peaceful protests – and 95% of the people were peaceful and simply expressing their frustrations – shifted yesterday afternoon and evening to roving gangs of thugs whose only intent was to bring violence and destruction to the city.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/baltimore-night-violent-freddie-gray-protests

The Row Houses of Baltimore, Maryland USA

Baltimore families living amongst abandon row houses.

Story and Photos by David Schalliol

As someone who primarily grew up in the Midwest and has called Chicago home for several years, cities dominated by row houses seem alien. Among those row house cities, Baltimore stands apart for the relative wholeness of these districts — even of those in tremendous disrepair.


Miles and miles of unattended, abandon row houses.

Certainly, many portions of the city have been dramatically altered by demolition and redevelopment projects, but the ability to walk down a formerly residential street flanked by uninterrupted derelict row houses is unique to me.

In a city like Philadelphia, there would be more pockmarks. Elsewhere, like Camden, NJ, those pockmarks may even dominate the landscape.


Familiar scenario for years and years in Baltimore with people living in areas in need of rebuilding or demolition. Many of the Baltimore communities have been left abandon since the April 1968 riots following the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Such Baltimore blocks demonstrate that the city has clearly resisted quite a bit of demolition. The photo images in this article are of a block that will soon endure the demolition of 67 of its' buildings.

Given the current economic climate and the condition of the neighborhood, I would be surprised if anything fills these slots for years and years to come.

The Economic Devastation Fueling The Anger In Baltimore, Md. USA

Story by ThinkProgress
Written by Bryce Covert

Last night, peaceful protests after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man killed in police custody, turned into more violent unrest when protesters were met with phalanxes of police.

The protesters’ anger was fueled, at least in large part, by the Baltimore police department’s long history of ugly violence against the city’s residents and a pattern of officers facing few, if any, repercussions. But the protests also take place in the context of a city that has been ravaged economically, most recently by the foreclosure crisis and predatory lending.

Freddie Gray grew up in a neighborhood particularly plagued by the problems that have long faced the city of Baltimore. In Sandtown-Winchester, more than half of the people between the ages of 16 and 64 are out of work and the unemployment rate is double that for the city at one in five. Median income is just $24,000, below the poverty line for a family of four, and nearly a third of families live in poverty. Meanwhile, somewhere between a quarter to a third of the buildings are vacant, compared to 5 percent in the city as a whole.

Each of these conditions — high unemployment, low incomes, and widespread foreclosure — has a long history in the city of Baltimore. It was once a thriving economy built on the steel industry. Bethlehem Steel set up shop in the early 1900s with the Sparrow Point mill, and the industry boomed during World War II, employing 35,000 workers at its peak in 1959, according to a 2004 report from the 1199E-DC union. But American manufacturing began its precipitous decline in the 1970s, and Sparrows Point laid off 3,000 workers in 1971, then another 7,000 in 1975. Just 8,000 people were employed at the mill by the 1980s. Overall, the city lost more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs between 1950 and 1995.

The city never really recovered from that loss and the effects can still be seen today. The country’s unemployment rate stood at 5.8 percent in February, down from 7 percent a year earlier, and the rate for the greater Baltimore area was the same. Yet in the city itself, the rate was 8.4 percent, just one percentage point lower than the 8.9 percent rate it had experienced a year earlier.

Those rates also mask huge racial differences. As of 2012, just 5.6 percent of white people living in the state of Maryland were out of work and looking for a job; the unemployment rate was in the double digits for the state’s black residents. In the city of Baltimore itself, the share of employed black men between the ages of 16 and 64 dropped more than 15 percent from about three-quarters in 1970 to just 57.5 percent by 2010. Yet more than three-quarters of white men of in the city were employed by 2010. That racial gap has grown steadily since the 1970s, from a 10 percentage point difference in how many men had work to a 20 percentage point one.

As with other cities that have experienced unrest, like Ferguson, economic decline was paired with white flight. The city’s black population nearly doubled between 1950 and 1970 but whites began moving away: Almost a third of the city’s population left the city between 1950 and 2000. The city’s population peaked at 949,708 in 1950 but began dropping quickly after 1970, falling 118,984, or 13 percent, between 1970 and 1980.

Aiding that flight were real estate agents who would play up racial fears and worries about falling property values, getting white residents near expanding black neighborhoods to sell their houses and then turning around and selling them to black families at a much higher price. A fair housing coalition discovered in 1969 that the Morris Goldeker Company, a developer, had bought homes for an average of $7,320 and sold them for $12,387 to black families, a 69 percent markup. Today, more than half of black men between the ages of 16 and 64 in the Baltimore area live in the city; just 11.5 percent of white men do. Black people make up less than a third of the state’s population but two-thirds of Baltimore residents.

Housing discrimination came in another form just before the financial crisis: predatory lenders. In 2012, a former loan officer with Wells Fargo testified that she and the other officers targeted majority black communities in Baltimore and nearby areas, forging relationships with churches and community groups. They pushed homeowners with perfect credit into loans that had higher interest rates than they should have been paying and also gave mortgages to people with low incomes who couldn’t afford them without any income paperwork or down payments. Bank employees called their clients “mud people” and called the subprime mortgages “ghetto loans.” The Department of Justice eventually found out that 4,500 homeowners in Baltimore and Washington, DC had been affected by these practices.

When the housing market crashed, many of these borrowers with adjustable rates or mortgages they simply couldn’t afford ended up facing foreclosure. Maryland foreclosures surged 280 percent between the end of 2012 and 2013, likely delayed some years by the state’s requirement that foreclosed homes be processed through the judicial system. More than half of Baltimore properties subject to foreclosure on a Wells Fargo loan between 2005 and 2008 are vacant, 71 percent of them in predominantly black neighborhoods. Baltimore still had the ninth-largest number of foreclosures in the country last year at 5,200.

The foreclosure crisis devastated black wealth across the country. Today, black families in the area have much less money than white ones. While white income fell 6.5 percent between 1999 and 2013, from $72,860 to $68,112, black income started lower — at $62,639 — and fell faster, 7.2 percent. Income is also lower in Baltimore — about $39,000 — than in the surrounding county, which makes about $62,400 on average. The city also grapples with an incredibly high poverty rate — 24 percent of households live below the official poverty line.

Baltimore's dual identity explains unrest - BBC News

Story by BBC News, Washington DC
Written by Tim Swift

Why Baltimore?

That's the question being asked after the city erupted into riots and looting on Monday. Since Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer last year in Ferguson, Missouri, dozens of incidents questioning the use of force by police have emerged in cities and towns across the US.

But only Baltimore has seen unrest like Ferguson.

Baltimore is a thriving major city with black leadership. The thinking goes: This shouldn't be happening here.

To understand why you have to understand that Baltimore is actually two cities: One is a city mired in decline and poverty, made famous by the TV show The Wire. Another is a city on the rise with a shiny waterfront and increasing numbers of young affluent residents.

To keep the affluent Baltimore viable, city officials have pursued a laser-like focus on crime, ensuring its new up-and-coming neighbourhoods stay safe. Meanwhile, in sprawling low-income areas on the city's east and west sides, the police have been omnipresent. Sometimes their methods have bordered on draconian.

The success of the new Baltimore has never touched many parts of the city, most prominently the west side where this week's violence began. Take away the towering downtown, the waterfront and other affluent enclaves and Baltimore suddenly looks a lot like Ferguson - poor, harassed and angry.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Baltimore was haemorrhaging residents because of its high-crime rate, partly brought on by the city's massive heroin trade. David Simon, the creator of The Wire, worked then as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun, making him an expert on the city's high-crime areas. Those experiences would later inform The Wire.

In the late 1990s, Martin O'Malley, the city's first white mayor after years of black leadership, adopted a get tough approach on crime. Mr O'Malley invested heavily in city police to turn around the fortunes of the once thriving city. He launched CitiStat, a statistics-based approach to crime fighting, sending police resources to exactly where the crime was.

His successors, Sheila Dixon and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, both black women, maintained strong support for the police department.

For a time, the get-tough approach worked: the number of murders finally plunged below 200 in 2011. It had been over 300 several times during the 1980s and 1990s.

When budget cuts were required, police were spared while other parts of the city like the parks and recreation department felt the axe. While other cities stressed community outreach and gentler methods, Baltimore stayed the course with tough policing techniques.

But in recent years, crime has been inching back despite more and more effort from the police department. The Baltimore Sun published a special report last year showing the city paid nearly $6m (£3.95m) in recent years to victims of police beatings. The Justice Department has launched an investigation into those claims.

The civic pride that courses through Baltimore's new affluent areas is absent in west Baltimore. What remains is suspicion, unemployment, poverty and frustration.

Late on Monday, on social media, young residents of the new Baltimore posted messages like "this is not the city I fell in love with".

And in a way they were right.

_____________________________

Tim Swift worked as an editor at The Baltimore Sun from 2001 to 2014. He is now a news editor for The BBC in Washington

Riots Erupt Across West and Downtown Baltimore, MD. USA

Story by Baltimore Sun
Written by Scott Dance

Violence and looting overtook much of West Baltimore on Monday, injuring more than a dozen police officers and leaving buildings and vehicles in flames.

As night fell, looters took to Mondawmin Mall and a Save-A-Lot and Rite Aid in Bolton Hill, loading up cars with stolen goods. About 10 fire crews battled a three-alarm fire at a large senior center under construction at Chester and Gay streets, as police officers stood guard with long guns.

About 10 p.m., police confirmed shots were fired at an officer in the area of Virginia Avenue and Reisterstown Road in Northwest Baltimore. The officer was not hit and the suspect fled.

Fifteen police officers were injured in a clash with school-age children that began around 3 p.m., and two remain hospitalized, police Col. Darryl DeSousa said in a press conference Monday night. Earlier, police spokesman Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said one officer was unresponsive and others suffered broken bones.

Police arrested 27 people, DeSousa said.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake declared a curfew across the city starting Tuesday and for the next week, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for adults and 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. for children aged 14 and younger. She drew a distinction between peaceful protesters and “thugs” she said engaged in rioting Monday intend on “destroying our city.”

“It’s idiotic to think that by destroying your city, you’re going to make life better for anybody,” Rawlings-Blake said.

At Rawlings-Blake's request, Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency and activating the Maryland National Guard. The order does not affect citizens' rights, but is required to activate the Guard and authorize federal assistance, Hogan spokeswoman Erin Montgomery said. It is not "martial law," Maryland National Guard Adjutant General Linda Singh said.

The governor is sending 500 state troopers to Baltimore and requesting as many as 5,000 officers from neighboring states, he said in a press conference.

"I have not made this decision lightly," Hogan said. "The National Guard represents a last resort."

The incident stemmed from a flier that circulated widely among city school students via social media about a “purge” to take place at 3 p.m., starting at Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown. Such memes have been known to circulate regularly among city school students, based on the film "The Purge," about what would happen if all laws were suspended.

The flier included an image of protesters smashing the windshield of a police car Saturday during a march spurred by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury earlier this month after being arrested by city police.

Kowalczyk would not speculate on whether the incident was related to Gray’s death.

The confrontation near Mondawmin escalated quickly. Smoke filled the air as police responded with shields and a tactical vehicle. Demonstrators pelted officers with rocks, bricks and bottles and assaulted a photojournalist, and officers fired back with tear gas and pepper balls.

Demonstrators set a police vehicle ablaze at North and Pennsylvania avenues. Nearby, they looted a CVS drug store, which store officials said had already closed, before it caught fire. Rioters cut the fire hose as firefighters battled the blaze.

Looting spread along Howard and Centre streets as afternoon turned to evening. Another group of people was destroying property around North and Fulton avenues, police said, and a car was set on fire at North Avenue and Pulaski Street.

Kowalczyk called the demonstrators “lawless individuals with no regard for the safety of people that live in that community” and said they would be identified and arrested. Police said via Twitter many of the rioters were juveniles and urged parents to bring their children home.

While officials had expected additional protests on the same day Gray was mourned and buried, the scale of the unrest took them by surprise, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings told CNN.

"We never expected anything like this," he said.

Rawlings-Blake activated the city's emergency operation center just before 6 p.m. to coordinate response to the riots.

Police were preparing for rioting to make its way downtown, with officers in helmets and carrying shields stationed at Lexington Market and the Inner Harbor. Maryland State Police sent 40 troopers to the city, said Keiffer Mitchell, a top aide to Gov. Larry Hogan. Several other jurisdictions, including Baltimore and Howard counties, sent officers to assist.

All but one gate to Oriole Park at Camden Yards was closed, with a game set to begin at 7:05 p.m. But team officials postponed the game less than an hour before first pitch was scheduled.

About five stores in the 600 block of Eutaw Street had busted windows and were looted after rioters came through about 4 p.m. Joe Lewis, 41, of Cherry Hill, said he and his brother tried to stop the rioters and urged them to move on.

“If [police] don’t stop what they’re doing, I wouldn’t care if they called Jesus or the law down here,” he said. “They’re going to see a side of them they wish they never brought out.”

Boubacar Sall said looters destroyed his sister’s store, Benita’s. They stole hair extensions, a television set and boxes of hair products.

Rishan George, who lives on the block, said, “you call 911 and nobody answers.”

Looters were loading up cars behind a Rite-Aid, Save-A-Lot and hardware store on McMechen Street in Bolton Hill. Neighbors shouted at them and photographed their license plates.

Janice McCulley, the hardware store's owner, said she was "devastated" but added, "It's just damage."

Earlier Monday afternoon, the threat of protests prompted police to urge downtown businesses and institutions to close, including the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Lexington Market, a city courthouse and businesses including T. Rowe Price and Venable LLP.

Two city recreation centers in West Baltimore, the Robert C. Marshall Recreation Center in Upton and Lillian Jones Recreation Center in Sandtown-Winchester, closed early. All Pratt Library branches closed early.

Public officials condemned the riots.

“For us to come out of the burial and into this, it’s absolutely inexcusable,” said the Rev. Jamal H. Bryant, who hours earlier delivered Gray's eulogy. “Violence is not the answer for justice.”

City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young took to video streaming app Periscope to urge the rioters to stop.

“I am asking all of you out there looting to stop it. Please stop it. It’s hurting the city of Baltimore in more ways than one. We you loot the CVS store that means that your relatives who work in those stores can’t go to work, so they can’t get paid. There’s a ripple effect. This has gone from being a protest to rioting. This is not the protesters. These are people rioting and destroying property and looting. We have to put an end to it.”

Former Gov. Martin O'Malley urged the city to come together and said he would return early from a trip to Ireland.

"I'm saddened that the City I love is in such pain this night. "All of us share a profound feeling of grief for Freddie Gray and his family," he said in a statement. "We must come together as one City to transform this moment of loss and pain into a safer and more just future for all of Baltimore's people."

But civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson said ending the riots in Baltimore isn’t the remedy to fix what ails the city and it’s people.

"It’s regrettable, what’s happening now," Jackson said. "What you’re looking at is the end result of mutual distrust between the people the police, and something needs to happen to contain and stop the rioting ... You’re looking at the actions of cynicism and hopelessness."

City schools officials said staff would make grief counselors available for students. They canceled classes for Tuesday.

“We are deeply concerned about our students and community, and we hope to treat this situation not only as a teachable moment but also a time for thoughtful reflection on how we can reduce conflict and violence in our society,” schools officials said in a statement.

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Baltimore Sun reporters Erica L. Green, Kevin Rector, Ian Duncan, Yvonne Wenger, Jessica Anderson, Eduardo A. Encina, Luke Broadwater, Carrie Wells, Colin Campbell, Liz Bowie, John Fritze, Michael Dresser and Justin Fenton contributed to this story.

sdance@baltsun.com

twitter.com/ssdance

Baltimore, MD. USA is the First Big Test for Attorney General Lynch - Commentary by Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Story by The Hutchinson Report News
Commentary by Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson

In the days immediately before Loretta Lynch’s confirmation as Attorney General, one of her advisors noted that she felt that law enforcement is good for minority communities. He went further and said that she feels strongly that police and minority communities have much more in common than differences. This is probably an accurate read on Lynch’s feeling about police-minority community relations. Now her feeling and believe is going to be sorely tested with the Baltimore turmoil.

It began the instant that an unarmed, non-resisting Freddy Gray died after a fatal spinal cord injury sustained during his arrest by Baltimore police. This touched off days of protests, some violence, and frantic efforts by Baltimore’s hard pressed black police commission and mayor to get a handle on the turmoil. It didn’t take long for civil rights leaders to make the now inevitable call for a full Justice Department probe into Gray’s death. It agreed. This shoved the ball into Lynch’s court. The likelihood is that it won’t leave there particularly if Baltimore city officials decline to bring charges against any of the officer’s involved in Gray’s death.

But even if they do, it still won’t address the bigger question that Lynch almost certainly will have to deal with if not in Baltimore sooner than later somewhere else. That’s the overuse of excessive force and what the feds should do about it.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder took much heat on this from conservatives who screamed that he should keep hands off all police abuse issues. This was a matter solely for local authorities. Holder also took much heat from some civil rights activists who screamed that the Justice Department should step in hard with probes and indictments in police abuse cases. Both sides were even more troubled when Holder’s Justice Department issued a scathing report on the blatant corruption and serial misconduct of the Ferguson police department in the aftermath of the slaying by former Ferguson officer Darren Wilson of Michael Brown. But the department let Wilson off the hook by finding there was no grounds to indict him on civil rights charges. The issue of just how far the Justice Department could and should go in these cases was left dangling when Holder left.

So what will Lynch do in Baltimore and beyond? She’ll have to look at the Baltimore case and decide that if the locals take no action against the officers in the Gray case whether there’s any "compelling federal interest" in a prosecution of them, namely that the government believes that the officer’s conduct constitutes a federal offense, and that there is enough evidence that the government can obtain a conviction.

There’s the strong suspicion that Gray’s death was caused by his physical manhandling by police during the arrest. And while there was no apparent racial motive in their confronting and arresting Gray that is not a hard and fast requirement for a civil right prosecution. The issue is whether a civilian or a suspect’s rights were violated. The safeguard of that right must be a fundamental concern of federal prosecutors.

The Gray case, as in other cases involving police use of deadly force against mostly unarmed blacks, again raises the deeply troubling question about the power of the law to protect citizen from his or her unimpeded right to life and safety. Federal prosecutors play a major role in insuring that where there's the suspicion that an individual's rights might have been violated because of their race and gender that the power of federal law is brought to bear to insure that right is protected.

This was the rationale that federal prosecutors used in the Rodney King beating case to bring civil rights charge against the four LAPD officers that beat King. The linchpin was that they acted in an official capacity when they violated King's rights.

The Justice Department scrupulously tries to avoid the prosecution of a police officer. It goes to great lengths to shield itself from the charge that it's bowing to media or public pressure to prosecute. This is why the percentage of civil rights prosecutions it authorizes is infinitesimally low. Yet in Gray’s death there may well be crucial federal interests in insuring the rights of individuals to be free from undue harm because of their color, or being in a public area merely because someone perceives they shouldn't be in and then acts on that perception with no cause other than that belief or perception.
The other option is for Lynch to follow Holder’s lead and aggressively institute a pattern and practice action against Baltimore. That means aggressively monitoring the policies and practices of the department in relation to policing in minority communities. Holder also took heat for this from the right.

But it had to be done. Baltimore has given Lynch her first chance to weigh in handily on the nation’s most intractable and deadly issue. That’s the wanton police slaying of unarmed blacks.

Baltimore then is her first big test.
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Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.

Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Floyd Mayweather paid $750,000 to get out of his contract in 2006, and it made him hundreds of millions

Story by Business Insider
Written by Tony Manfred
Photo by Getty Images

Floyd Mayweather Jr. stands to make well over $100 million in his fight with Manny Pacquiao.

To put that in perspective, Mayweather was the highest-paid athlete in the world in 2014 at $105 million. He's going to surpass that in a single night.

The reason Mayweather is far and away the highest-paid athlete on earth goes back to a decision he made in 2006.

For the first 10 years of his professional career Mayweather was a part of Bob Arum's stable of fighters at Top Rank promotion company. During that time he became the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

But in April of 2006 Mayweather turned down the highest purse of his career, $8 million to fight Antonio Margarito, and exercised a provision in his contract that let him become a free agent if he paid Top Rank $750,000.

Arum told ESPN's Dan Rafael at the time that before he left Mayweather had asked, among other things, for a $20 million guaranteed purse to fight Oscar De La Hoya.

"He wants $20 million for the De La Hoya fight? It's not there. Sometimes, my man, you gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. We'll talk about things down the road," Arum said.

A year later, Mayweather made $25 million in a fight against De La Hoya that still holds the record for total pay per view buys.

After buying himself out of his Top Rank contract, Mayweather took unprecedented control over his career. Rather than getting paid a large guaranteed fee up front by a promotor like Top Rank — as is the norm across the sport — Mayweather stages his fights himself and takes a cut of the total revenue on the back end.

Greg Bishop described it like this for the New York Times in 2011:

"He earns a percentage of every ticket purchased, every pretzel consumed, every poster sold. He will earn from countries that paid for broadcasting rights and the theaters where the fight is shown.

"Mayweather, regarded as one of the best boxers in history, fights under a highly unusual financial structure, exchanging upfront risk for back-end profit while retaining total control."

After distributors and networks get their cut, Mayweather gets a bigger piece of the remaining revenue than anyone else in the sport.

Mayweather fought De La Hoya in 2007 and made $25 million. His earnings only grew from there, culminating in an $80 million payday for 2013's fight against Canelo Alvarez, which set the record for PPV revenue at $150 million. In that fight he made $41.5 million pursue, and then almost doubled that amount once PPV receipts came in.

Every move is designed to give him a larger piece of the pie. He left HBO and signed a more lucrative deal with Showtime in 2013. He got a Nevada promoter's license for his Mayweather Promotions company so he could stop co-promoting fights with Golden Boy in 2014.

Since Mayweather went pro in 1996 he has made over $400 million in career earnings, and the vast majority of it has come after he spent $750,000 to leave Top Rank in 2006.

Mayweather doesn't have a single endorsement, but he has been able to capitalize on his value to his sport more than any other athlete alive

Everest Avalanche Death Toll Climbs as Climbers Stranded

Footage of the Avalanche

Story by Bloomberg

At least 19 people including a Google Inc. executive died and more than 60 others were injured after Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal triggered avalanches on the Mt. Everest. Scores of climbers are still waiting to be evacuated after fresh aftershocks hampered rescue efforts.

Nineteen bodies have been recovered from the base camp at the Everest, Sitanshu Kar, a spokesman for India’s Defense Ministry said on Twitter. With communication networks badly damaged and access to Everest camps hampered by the avalanches, information was sketchy with the Press Trust of India putting the toll at 22, including five deaths below the base camp.

The injured and survivors are being airlifted to Kathmandu, according to Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. A lot of climbers were still stranded in two camps above the base camp, said Zimba Zangbu Sherpa, who is a former president of the association.

“In my memory this is the worst tragedy at base camp caused by avalanches following an earthquake,” he said.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-25/many-everest-climbers-feared-dead-as-quake-triggers-avalanches

Radio One, Inc. Announces Closing Of Private Offering

Radio One, Inc. Announces Closing Of Private Offering Of $350 Million Of Senior Secured Notes, New $350 Million Credit Facility And Purchase Of Membership Interests In TV One

Story by Yahoo Finance

Radio One, Inc. has announced that it has closed its previously announced private offering of $350.0 million aggregate principal amount of 7.375% senior secured notes due 2022 (the “Notes”). The Notes were offered at an original issue price of 100.0% plus accrued interest from April 17, 2015 and will mature on April 15, 2022. Interest on the Notes accrues at the rate of 7.375% per annum and is payable semiannually in arrears on April 15 and October 15, commencing on October 15, 2015. The Notes are guaranteed, jointly and severally, on a senior secured basis by the Company’s existing and future domestic subsidiaries, including TV One, LLC (“TV One”), that guarantee any of its new $350 million senior secured credit facility entered into concurrently with the closing of the Notes (the “New Credit Facility”), other syndicated bank indebtedness or capital markets securities. The New Credit Facility matures on December 31, 2018.

The Company used the net proceeds from the private offering, along with term loan borrowings under the New Credit Facility, to refinance its existing senior secured credit facility, refinance $119.0 million in outstanding indebtedness of TV One and TV One Capital Corp., finance the previously announced purchase of the membership interests of an affiliate of Comcast Corporation (“Comcast”) in TV One and pay the related accrued interest, premiums, fees and expenses associated therewith.

As a result of the Company’s acquisition of Comcast’s membership interests in TV One, the Company now owns a 99.6% interest in TV One.

United States Senate votes 56-43 to confirm Attorney Loretta Lynch as US Attorney General

The US Senate on Thursday confirmed Loretta Lynch for United States Attorney General, making her the first African American woman to ever serve as the nation's chief law enforcement official.

Story by The Hill
Written by By Jordain Carney

Senators voted 56-43 to confirm Lynch, more than 160 days after she was first nominated for the position by President Obama.

Ten Republican Senators broke ranks and sided with Democrats to get Attorney Loretta Lynch over the 50-vote threshold.

Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Rob Portman (Ohio) Thad Cochran (Miss.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) all voted for Lynch.

Ayotte, Kirk, Portman and Johnson are up for reelection in 2016.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Republican presidential candidate who said he would oppose Lynch, didn't vote.

Lynch’s vote was one of the closest recent votes for the nation’s top law enforcement post, and the first time senators have included a cloture vote on an attorney general nominee.

Senators were first expected to vote on Lynch’s nomination in mid-March, but it was thrown into limbo as senators got bogged down in a fight over abortion restrictions in an unrelated bill to curb human trafficking.

Senators passed that legislation Wednesday, paving the way for Lynch’s nomination to come up for a vote.

Lynch’s confirmation vote places her squarely in the middle of President Obama’s ongoing immigration battle. Conservative Republicans remained vehemently opposed to her nomination because of that, as well as her broader ties to Obama.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said ahead of the votes that while “no one disputes that she has an impressive legal background,” he added that the “ question for me from the start has been whether Ms. Lynch will make a clean break from his policies and take the department in a new direction.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) added that senators should confirm someone who has “publicly committed to denigrating Congress [and] violating the laws of Congress.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has repeatedly said that he believes Lynch deserves a vote, and voted to move forward with her nomination earlier Thursday.

Cruz slammed McConnell and Senate leaders for allowing for a vote.

“The Republican majority, if it so chose, could defeat this nomination,” the Texas Republican and a 2016 presidential candidate, said. “I would note there are a few voters back home that are asking what exactly is the difference between a Democratic and Republican majority.”

He added that he has asked leadership to block all of Obama’s executive and judicial nominees “unless and until the president rescinds his lawless amnesty.”

But Democrats and a growing number of outside groups heavily criticized McConnell’s tactics on Lynch, who he would not allow to come up for a vote until after the trafficking legislation.

A group of supporters launched a hunger strike earlier this month to try to add pressure to bring up Lynch’s nomination and The Washington Post slammed McConnell in an editorial.

Democrats praised Lynch's confirmation ahead of the vote.

“This is a great historic moment,” Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) said. “I only hope that senate Republicans will only show her more respect as attorney general as the United States than she has received as nominee.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), likely the next Democratic leader, said that “there is one cloud on this sunny day and that is the long time it took to confirm her.”

The debate over the Lynch’s nomination has grown unusually heated, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Republicans were making her “sit in the back of the bus.”

Republicans quickly criticized the Illinois Democrat’s remarks, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to the Senate floor demanding an apology.

In addition to immigration, Lynch will likely have to weigh in on a wide array of issues including national security.

“The Department of Justice will continue to play a prominent role in dealing with high-profile issues, including national security, police-community relations and financial fraud,” said Hunton & Williams partner Timothy Heaphy. “Loretta Lynch will be at the forefront.”

Heaphy, a former U.S. Attorney worked with Lynch during his two-year term on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.

It’s unclear when Lynch will step into the attorney general position and replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder.

U.S.A.'s National Football League's due diligence on All-Pro Greg Hardy shows what the Dallas Cowboys lacked

Story by Yahoo Sports
Written by Eric Adelson

Jason Garrett said the Dallas Cowboys did their due diligence on Greg Hardy.

Lisa Friel's due diligence was far better.

The NFL made a necessary statement on Wednesday, suspending Hardy for 10 games in the wake of a domestic violence incident involving the Dallas defensive lineman. It was Friel, the former Manhattan prosecutor, who led the league's investigation. She is clearly unafraid of aggressive fact-finding in her new role. She's also unafraid of waiting on a conviction to act.

"The NFL's investigation concluded that Hardy violated the Personal Conduct Policy by using physical force against Nicole Holder in at least four instances," the league's release states.

Four separate instances.

"First, he used physical force against her which caused her to land in a bathtub," the league's statement detailed.

"Second, he used physical force against her, which caused her to land on a futon that was covered with at least four semi-automatic rifles.

Third, he used physical force against her by placing his hands around Ms. Holder's neck and applying enough pressure to leave visible marks.

And fourth, he used physical force to shove Ms. Holder against a wall in his apartment's entry hallway."
_______________________________________

The listing of each of these horrifying examples is important. The attacks are not gathered into one "mistake." Each of these assaults could have done irreparable harm and therefore go beyond even Ray Rice's assault on his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer.

Also important: Friel didn't need to rely on the input of Holder, who couldn't be tracked down for an interview. This is a crucial departure from the way the Rice affair was handled, where Palmer's perspective was considered in a way that likely caused leniency against Rice.

Often, an assault victim is too afraid to come forward and testify against her assailant. That victim understandably fears retribution for snitching, and puts her (or him) in an unfair situation.

Friel, having done her own due diligence, felt she had plenty of evidence without speaking with the victim. She also had plenty of evidence even though the case was settled out of court after authorities couldn't locate Holder. Just because Hardy was found guilty at the initial stage by a North Carolina judge only to have the charges dismissed prior to appeal because Holder couldn't be found to testify doesn't mean he did nothing to hurt Holder or the reputation of the league.

"The NFL's investigation involved numerous interviews with witnesses and experts," the league statement reads, "a review of hundreds of pages of court records, documents and exhibits, photographs, police reports, medical records, and reports and opinions of medical experts retained by Hardy's attorneys and by the NFL office.”

In other words, this went far beyond the Cowboys' canvassing of mostly favorable voices when investigating Hardy – an "exhaustive amount of research," Garrett called it – prior to signing him. Rather than looking for a way out of an uncomfortable conclusion, which is what the Rice investigation reeked of, Friel was looking for the full truth of what happened.

What Friel found was that Hardy did not disclose the full truth of what happened.

"The NFL's investigation also concluded that Hardy failed to provide complete and accurate information to NFL investigators and members of the NFL staff," the league reports.

The league is trying to stamp out the almost ubiquitous suppression of details in these cases. Obfuscation is a part of the stain of domestic violence, because it puts the victim on the defensive. An assailant, by fudging or omitting details, creates the he-said, she-said impasse that often leads to blaming the person who has been hurt most. And that assailant often has help not only from team personnel, but also from local law enforcement. Friel is right to send a message that story shaping and whitewashing won't be tolerated.

Both Friel and commissioner Roger Goodell are rightfully aware that Hardy's future is in peril as well – and not just on the field – so they've prioritized his rehabilitation.

"Commissioner Goodell directed Hardy to obtain a clinical evaluation to be conducted by a qualified professional of his choosing," the NFL stated. "Should counseling or treatment be recommended, Hardy will be expected to comply with those recommendations and provide appropriate releases to allow the NFL office to monitor his compliance with the evaluation and any follow-up care."

In other words, they don't just want to punish him, but they want to make sure he's right before they let him back on the field. That's not just good for them, but for him, too, because the NFL and the Cowboys aren't the only ones who need Hardy to be a better citizen.

As such, the league's statement to Hardy ends on an appropriate note, warning the lineman, "another violation of this nature may result in your banishment from the NFL."

This is really how it should have been for years. There are always two sides to every story, so it's not likely (or appropriate) that allegations will always lead to suspensions. But finally the NFL is following through on its mission to keep to standards above and beyond toeing the legal line. There is due process, and there is the process due someone who has been harmed by a member of the NFL. It seems Lisa Friel is someone who can be trusted to understand both.

NBA's Atlanta Hawks sold

Story by Bloomberg

A group led by Ares Management LP’s billionaire co-founder Tony Ressler won the bidding for the National Basketball Association’s Atlanta Hawks, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The sale price was $730 million, the second-most ever paid for an NBA team behind Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers.

The person requested anonymity because the sale process is private.

Bill Mendel, a spokesman for Ressler at Mendel Communications, declined immediate comment. Hawks spokesman Garin Narain declined to comment.

Forbes in January said the Hawks were worth $825 million, 22nd out of the league’s 30 clubs.

Ressler’s group includes former NBA player Grant Hill, as well as BTIG LLC’s Steven Starker and Marquis Jet co-founder Jesse Itzler. Ressler would be investing personally in the Hawks.

The sale brings to an end the ownership of a group led by Bruce Levenson, who said he was selling the club after the disclosure of a 2012 e-mail he wrote that he called “offensive,” “inappropriate” and racially insensitive.

Other bidders included a group led by Oaktree Capital Management LP co-founder and Memphis Grizzlies part-owner Steve Kaplan.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Inner Circle Sports advised the Hawks on the sale...

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/ares-s-ressler-said-to-buy-nba-s-atlanta-hawks-for-730-million

Rising Toll on Migrants Leaves Europe in Crisis; 900 Libyans May Be Dead at Sea

Migrants grasped the hull of a boat that ran aground near the Greek island of Rhodes on Monday. So far in 2015, about 1,500 people have died aboard smuggling ships bound for Europe. Loukas Mastis/European Pressphoto Agency

Story by NY Times
Written by Jim Yardley

ROME — European leaders were confronted on Monday with a humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean, as estimates that as many as 900 migrants may have died off the Libyan coast this weekend prompted calls for a new approach to the surging number of refugees crossing from Africa and the Middle East.

Even as efforts continued to collect the bodies from the sinking off Libya late Saturday and early Sunday — only 28 survivors have been found — Italian rescue ships responded to new distress calls from other vessels. A second migrant ship crashed near the Greek island of Rhodes, underscoring the relentless flow of people fleeing poverty, persecution and war.

European foreign ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss how to respond. Those governments are trying to balance humanitarian responsibilities against budget constraints and widespread public sentiment against immigration. Italy’s representative pushed for Europe to make “major commitments” to confront the crisis, and European heads of government scheduled an emergency session for Thursday.


Migrants are rescued by Greece's coast guard after their wooden sailboat ran aground near Rhodes on Monday. Credit Argiris Mantikos/Eurokinissi, via Reuters

The disaster also underscored how Libya, reeling from violence and political turmoil, has become a haven for human smuggling rings along the African coastline. In Rome, the prime ministers of Italy and Malta on Monday called for targeted, nonmilitary intervention against Libya’s human traffickers.

This year’s death toll in the Mediterranean Sea is thought to have already surpassed 1,500 victims — a drastic spike from the same period last year. With the arrival of warmer weather, the number of migrants on smuggling boats has risen sharply, with more than 11,000 people being rescued during the first 17 days of April. Migrants also now seem to be coming from a larger geographic area — from Bangladesh and Afghanistan in Asia; Syria and Iraq in the Middle East; and African nations such as Gambia, Somalia, Mali and Eritrea.

“What happened on Sunday was a game changer,” Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta said at a news conference with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. “There is a new realization that if Europe doesn’t act as a team, history will judge it very harshly, as it did when it closed its eyes to stories of genocide — horrible stories — not long ago.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world/europe/european-union-immigration-migrant-ship-capsizes.html?_r=0

1.5 Million Missing Black Men in the United States

Story by NY Times
Written by Justin Wolfers, David Leonhardt, and Kevin Quealy

For every 100 Black women not in jail, there are only 83 Black men. The remaining men – 1.5 million of them – are, in a sense, MISSING.

17 missing Black men for every 100 Black women

Among cities with sizable Black populations, the largest single gap is in Ferguson, Mo.
40 missing Black men for every 100 Black women

North Charleston, S.C., has a gap larger than 75 percent of cities.
25 missing Black men for every 100 black women
__________________________

This gap – driven mostly by incarceration and early deaths – barely exists among whites.
1 missing White man for every 100 White women

Figures are for non-incarcerated adults who are 25 to 54.

In New York, almost 120,000 Black men between the ages of 25 and 54 are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than 30,000 are missing in Philadelphia.

Across the South, from North Charleston, S.C. through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into Ferguson, Mo., hundreds of thousands more are missing.
__________________________

Remarkably, Black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber Black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/upshot/the-methodology-1-5-million-missing-black-men.html?src=twr

For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 Black men.

Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.

African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict Black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.

Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six Black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.

“The numbers are staggering,” said Becky Pettit, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas.

And what is the city with at least 10,000 black residents that has the single largest proportion of missing black men? Ferguson, Mo., where a fatal police shooting last year led to nationwide protests and a Justice Department investigation that found widespread discrimination against black residents.

Ferguson has 60 men for every 100 black women in the age group, Stephen Bronars, an economist, has noted.

The distributions of Whites and Blacks

Most Blacks live in places with a significant shortage of Black men.
But most Whites live in places with rough parity between White men and women.

Histogram, With Ferguson noted

The gap in North Charleston, site of a police shooting this month, is also considerably more severe than the nationwide average, as is the gap in neighboring Charleston. Nationwide, the largest proportions of missing men generally can be found in the South, although there are also many similar areas across the Midwest and in many big Northeastern cities. The gaps tend to be smallest in the West.

Incarceration and early deaths are the overwhelming drivers of the gap. Of the 1.5 million missing black men from 25 to 54 — which demographers call the prime-age years — higher imprisonment rates account for almost 600,000. Almost 1 in 12 black men in this age group are behind bars, compared with 1 in 60 non-Black men in the age group, 1 in 200 black women and 1 in 500 nonblack women.

Higher mortality is the other main cause. About 900,000 fewer prime-age black men than women live in the United States, according to the census. It’s impossible to know precisely how much of the difference is the result of mortality, but it appears to account for a big part. Homicide, the leading cause of death for young African-American men, plays a large role, and they also die from heart disease, respiratory disease and accidents more often than other demographic groups, including black women.

Map

Several other factors — including military deployment overseas and the gender breakdown of black immigrants — each play only a minor role, census data indicates.

The gender gap does not exist in childhood: There are roughly as many African-American boys as girls. But an imbalance begins to appear among teenagers, continues to widen through the 20s and peaks in the 30s. It persists through adulthood.
Rates by age group

Age

The disappearance of these men has far-reaching implications. Their absence disrupts family formation, leading both to lower marriage rates and higher rates of childbirth outside marriage, as research by Kerwin Charles, an economist at the University of Chicago, with Ming-Ching Luoh, has shown.

The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are scarce, while men, who face an abundant supply of potential mates, don’t need to compete as hard to find one. As a result, Mr. Charles said, “men seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to maintain them.”

The imbalance has also forced women to rely on themselves — often alone — to support a household. In those states hit hardest by the high incarceration rates, African-American women have become more likely to work and more likely to pursue their education further than they are elsewhere.

The missing-men phenomenon began growing in the middle decades of the 20th century, and each government census over the past 50 years has recorded at least 120 prime-age black women outside of jail for every 100 black men. But the nature of the gap has changed in recent years.

Since the 1990s, death rates for young black men have dropped more than rates for other groups, notes Robert N. Anderson, the chief of mortality statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both homicides and H.I.V.-related deaths, which disproportionately afflict black men, have dropped. Yet the prison population has soared since 1980. In many communities, rising numbers of black men spared an early death have been offset by rising numbers behind bars.

It does appear as if the number of missing black men is on the cusp of declining, albeit slowly. Death rates are continuing to fall, while the number of people in prisons — although still vastly higher than in other countries — has also fallen slightly over the last five years.

But the missing-men phenomenon will not disappear anytime soon. There are more missing African-American men nationwide than there are African-American men residing in all of New York City — or more than in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Houston, Washington and Boston, combined.

Places with the lowest rates

Place / Pct. black men

Ferguson, Mo. 37.5%

Shaker Heights, Ohio 38.1%

Highland Springs, Va. 38.3%

Westmont, Calif. 38.3%

Farmington Hills, Mich. 39.0%

Union City, Ga. 39.1%

Euclid, Ohio 39.3%

Oak Park, Mich. 39.3%

East Chicago, Ind.39.4%

Garfield Heights, Ohio 39.6%


Places with most missing men

Place / Pct. / Black Men "Missing"

New York 43.1% 118,000

Chicago 43.4% 45,000

Philadelphia 42.8% 36,000

Detroit 45.2% 21,000

Memphis 43.6% 21,000

Baltimore 44.0% 19,000

Houston 45.5% 18,000

Charlotte, N.C. 43.3% 15,000

Milwaukee 42.2% 14,000

Dallas 44.8% 13,000
_________________________________

LINK TO NY TIMES ARTICLE: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

More information about this analysis can be found in an article about the methodology: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/upshot/the-methodology-1-5-million-missing-black-men.html

President Obama honors the NCAA Football champions - Thee - Ohio State Buckeyes

Ohio State Buckeyes team captain Michael Bennett (top row, 2nd R) holds his fingers behind U.S. President Barack Obama's head during a photo as Obama plays host to the reigning NCAA football champion Buckeyes in a reception at the East Room of the White House in Washington, April 20, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Story by AP

President Barack Obama is honoring the national champion Ohio State football team, taking just a little bit of credit for the new playoff system that the Buckeyes mastered.

Obama noted that he first supported a playoff to determine college football's national champion during his first campaign for the White House, in 2008. He jokingly talked about throwing his political weight behind the idea.
More than 200 guests and dignitaries packed the White House East Room for Monday's ceremony, including former Ohio State players Archie Griffin and Cris Carter.

Norway will be the first country to "TURN OFF FM" Radio

Story by Gizmodo
Written by Maddie Stone

Norway’s Minister of Culture announced this week that a national FM-radio switch off will commence in 2017, allowing the country to complete its transition over to digital radio. It’s the end of an era.

As Radio.no notes, Digital Audio Broadcasting(DAB) will provide Norwegian listeners more diverse radio channel content than ever before. Indeed, DAB already hosts 22 national channels in Norway, as opposed to FM radio’s five, and a TNS Gallup survey shows that 56% of Norwegian listeners use digital radio every day. While Norway is the first country in the world to set a date for an FM switch-off, other countries in Europe and Southeast Asia are also in the process of transitioning to DAB.

According to Thor Gjermund Eriksen, head of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation:
“This is an important day for everyone who loves radio. The minister’s decision allows us to concentrate our resources even more upon what is most important, namely to create high quality and diverse radio-content to our listeners.”

Frequency modulation, or FM, radio was patented in 1933 and has been recording and sharing the human story for nearly a century. But its days are clearly waning.

According to a 2012 Pew Study, while over 90% of Americans still listen to AM/FM radio at least weekly, more people are choosing to forgo analog radio for Internet-only services each year. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before many countries follow Norway’s example, although I’m not so sure I’m ready to part with my 80’s-era Grundig. Thing still sounds like a dream.

WDKX Radio pioneer and women's advocate Marietta Avery dies

Story by Democrat and Chronicle
Written by James Johnson (*KT contributor)

Marietta Avery, General Manager of WDKX, died Tuesday night according to officials at the radio station in Rochester. She was 65.

"Today, I lost my older sister," the radio station's co-owner Andre Langston said in a release. "She was not an employee, but a member of the Langston family."
______________________

*WDKX is a heritage Black-Owned station in Rochester N.Y. I was the voice of the station during the 1990's for then-owner Andrew Langston, who died in 2010. Andrew named the station after his African-American heros. The letters DKX - from the call letters WDKX - stands for Douglass (Frederick Douglass), King (Rev Dr Martin Luther King), and X (Malcolm X).

Roberto Clemente debuted 60 years ago today for the Pittsburgh Pirates

On this date in 1955 (60 years ago today)....Roberto Clemente, Right Fielder, debuted for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Amongst his career accomplishments:

1. Four Batting Titles
2. MVP (1966)
3. 12 straight Gold Gloves
4. World Series MVP with 12 hits, .414 batting average, and .729 slugging percentage (1971)
5. First Latin American and Caribbean Player to win a World Series as a starter (1960)
6. 12-Time All-Star
7. 3,000th major league hits
8. Clemente hit in all seven games of the 1960 and 1971 World Series.

The Pirates' Roberto Clemente - who turned into a one-man gang in the 1971 World Series victory over the Baltimore Orioles - became the first Spanish-speaking ballplayer to earn a World Series MVP honors.

Roberto Clemente is considered the greatest "all-around" baseball player that ever lived.

Clemente died in a plane crash in 1972 while delivering aid to his homeland of Puerto Rico.

Roberto Clemente's Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Clemente

Former Congressman Ron Paul warns us about the 'Coming United States Currency Crisis'

Exclusive 54-Minute Video Interview with Ron Paul. 12-Term Congressman Ron Paul's Warning to Americans about the Coming Currency Crisis.
________________________________________

From: Kirk Tanter
To: Economist Andre Eggelletion
Subject: Ron Paul predicts financial currency crash...What say you?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2015 19:37:51 +0000
________________________________________

From: Economist Andre Eggelletion
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 5:25 PM
To: Kirk Tanter
Subject: RE: Ron Paul predicts financial currency crash...What say you? Video link below...

Brother Kirk

The economic principles Ron Paul talked about, and their effect on various economies throughout history are real and immutable. The only reason the worst hasn't happened in America is because of the dollar's expanding hegemony since 1944. People should listen and do what they can to insulate themselves from what I believe we will continue to see; entrenched and increasing structural problems in the economy brought about from the Federal Reserve's relentless monetary expansion and the continued associated GRADUAL shift from the Bretton Woods dollar based system. And I ain't bulls***ttin neither.

Andre
______________________________________

African-Americans Killed by Police in the United States of America - 2015 and 2014

Here are the names of African-American people killed by police, to date, in 2015:

Walter Scott 50
Bernard Moore 62
Lavall Hall 25
Jonathan Ryan Paul 42
Jamie Croom 31
Terry Garnett Jr. 37
Monique Jenee Deckard 43
Tony Terrell Robinson Jr. 19
Tyrone Ryerson Lawrence 45
Naeschylus Vinzant 37
Andrew Anthony Williams 48
Dewayne Deshawn Ward Jr. 29
Ledarius Williams 23
Yvette Henderson 38
Edward Donnell Bright, Sr. 56
Thomas Allen Jr. 34
Charley Leundeu Keunang, “Africa” 43
Fednel Rhinvil 25
Shaquille C. Barrow 20
Kendre Omari Alston 16
Brandon Jones 18
Darrell “Hubbard” Gatewood 47
Cornelius J. Parker 28
Ian Sherrod 40
Jermonte Fletcher 33
Darin Hutchins 26
Glenn C. Lewis 37
Calvon A. Reid 39
Tiano Meton 25
Demaris Turner 29
Isaac Holmes 19
A’Donte Washington 16
Terry Price 41
Stanley Lamar Grant 38
Askari Roberts 35
Dewayne Carr 42
Terrance Moxley 29
Theodore Johnson 64
Cedrick Lamont Bishop 30
Anthony Hill 27
Terence D. Walke 21
Janisha Fonville 20
Phillip Watkins 23
Anthony Bess 49
Desmond Luster, Sr. 45
James Howard Allen 74
Natasha McKenna 37
Herbert Hill 26
Markell Atkins 36
Kavonda Earl Payton 39
Rodney Walker 23
Donte Sowell 27
Mario A. Jordan 34
Artago Damon Howard 36
Andre Larone Murphy Sr. 42
Marcus Ryan Golden 24
Brian Pickett 26
Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed 41
Ronald Sneed 31
Leslie Sapp III 47
Matthew Ajibade 22

Here are the names of African-American people killed by police in 2014:

Kevin Davis, 44
Eric Tyrone Forbes, 28
Jerame C. Reid, 36
David Andre Scott, 28
Quentin Smith, 23
Terrence Gilbert, 25
Carlton Wayne Smith, 20
Gregory Marcus Gray, 33
Antonio Martin, 18
Tyrone Davis, 43
Xavier McDonald, 16
Brandon Tate-Brown, 26
Dennis Grisgby, 35
Michael D. Sulton, 23
Thurrell Jowers, 22
Travis Faison, 24
Calvin Peters, 49
Christopher Bernard Doss, 41
Jerry Nowlin, 39
William Mark Jones, 50
Rumain Brisbon, 34
Lincoln Price, 24
Eric Ricks, 30
Leonardo Marquette Little, 33
Tamir E. Rice, 12
Akai Gurley, 28
Myron De’Shawn May, 39
Keara Crowder, 29
Tanisha N. Anderson, 37
Darnell Dayron Stafford, 31
David Yearby, 27
Aura Rosser, 40
Carlos Davenport, 51
Cinque DJahspora, 20
Rauphael Thomas, 29
Christopher M. Anderson, 27
Charles Emmett Logan, 68
John T. Wilson, III, 22
Christopher Mason McCray, 17
Kaldrick Donald, 24
Zale Thompson, 32
Terrell Lucas, 22
Ronnie D. McNary, 44
Adam Ardett Madison, 28
Balantine Mbegbu, 65
Elisha Glass, 20
Qusean Whitten, 18
Vonderrit Myers Jr., 18
O’Shaine Evans, 26
Latandra Ellington, 36
Aljarreau Cross, 29
Iretha Lilly, 37
Lashano J. Gilbert, 31
Miguel Benton, 19
Eugene Williams, 38
Tracy A. Wade, 39
Javonta Darden, 20
Marlon S. Woodstock, 38
Oliver Jarrod Gregoire, 26
Nolan Anderson, 50
Cameron Tillman, 14
John Jolly Jr., 28
Charles Smith, 29
Michael Willis Jr., 42
Briant Paula, 26
Kashad Ashford, 23
Carrey Brown, 26
Ceasar Adams, 36
Ricky Deangelo Hinkle, 47
Elijah Jackson, 33
Darrien Nathaniel Hunt, 22
Shawn Brown, 20
Alphonse Edward Perkins, 50
Naim Owens, 22
Kendrick Brown, 35
Eugene N. Turner III, 28
Ronald Singleton, 45
Jeremy Lewis, 33
Vernicia Woodward, 26
Cortez Washington, 32
Steven Lashone Douglas, 29
Desean Pittman, 20
Roshad McIntosh, 18
Anthony Lamar Brown, 39
Arvel Douglas Williams, 30
Darius Cole-Garrit, 21
Kajieme Powell, 25
David Ellis, 29
Luther Lathron Walker, 38
Andre Maurice Jones, 37
Frederick R. Miller, 38
Michelle Cusseaux, 50
Dante Parker, 36
Corey Levert Tanner, 24
Ezell Ford, 25
Robert Baltimore, 34
Dustin Keith Glover, 27
Eddie Davis, 67
Michael Brown, Jr., 18
Michael Laray Dozer, 26
John Crawford III, 22
Daniel Row, 37
Jacorey Calhoun, 23
Anthony Callaway, 27
Patrick Small, 27
Harrison Carter, 29
Vamond Arqui Elmore, 37
Donovan Bayton, 54
Charles Leon Johnson, II, 29
Briatay McDuffie, 19
Jonathan L. Williams, 25
Eric Garner, 43
Dominique Charon Lewis, 23
Michael Reams, 47
Lawrence Campbell, 27
Kenny Clinton Walker, 23
Tyshawn Hancock, 37
Charles Goodridge, 53
Cedric Stanley, 35
Ennis Labaux, 37
Warren Robinson, 16
Christopher Jones, 30
Icarus Randolph, 26
Jacqueline Nichols, 64
Jerry Dwight Brown, 41
Nyocomus Garnett, 35
Rodney Hodge, 33
Paul Ray Kemp Jr., 40
Dennis Hicks, 29
Samuel Johnson, 45
Lavon King, 20
Antoine Dominique Hunter, 24
Samuel Shields, 49
Juan May, 45
Denzell Curnell, 19
Ismael Sadiq, 30
Devaron Ricardo Wilburn, 21
John Schneider, 24
Jason Harrison, 38
Frank Rhodes, 61
Roylee Vell Dixon, 48
Broderick Johnson, 21
David Latham, 35
Lonnie Flemming, 31
Steven Thompson, 26
Thomas Dewitt Johnson, 28
Frank McQueen, 34
Sandy Jamel McCall, 33
Quintico Goolsby, 36
Dominique Franklin, Jr., 23
George V. King, 19
James Renee White Jr., 21
Devante Kyshon Hinds, 21
Pearlie Golden, 93
Jerome Dexter Christmas, 44
Armand Martin, 50
Dontre H. Hamilton, 31
Joe Huff, 86
Emmanuel Wooten
Matthew Walker, 55
Daniel Christoph Yealu, 29
Adrian Williams, 29
Gregory Towns, 24
Jameel Kareem Ofurum Harrison, 34
Zikarious Jaquan Flint, 20
Raason Shaw, 20
DeAndre Lloyd Starks, 27
Douglas Cooper, 18
Winfield Carlton Fisher III, 32
Deosaran Maharaj, 51
Daniel Martin, 47
Emerson Clayton Jr., 21
Rebecca Lynn Oliver, 24
Treon “Tree” Johnson, 27
Gabriella Monique Nevarez, 22
Marquise Jones, 23
Kenneth Christopher Lucas, 38
Keith Atkinson, 31
Yvette Smith, 45
D’Andre Berghardt Jr., 20
Stephon Averyhart, 27
Anthony Bartley, 21
Earnest Satterwhite, Sr., 68
Anneson Joseph, 28
Alton Reaves, 31
McKenzie Cochran, 25
Cornelius Turner, 19
Eldrin Loren Smart, 31
Henry Jackson, 19
Jordan Baker, 26
Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr., 30
Paul Smith, 58
Jeffrey Ragland, 50
Kendall Alexander, 34

Odin Lloyd's Mom Ursula Ward speaks about her Son killed by Aaron Hernandez. Hernandez was convicted of 'First Degree Murder' today.

Murder Victim's Mother Ursula Ward speaks from the heart about her first born child Odin Lloyd. NFL New England Patriots' Aaron Hernandez sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder.

Read more: http://kirktanter.blogspot.com/2015/04/aaron-hernandez-found-guilty-of-first.html

R&B singer Percy Sledge dies at 74

Percy Sledge, singer of "When a Man Loves a Woman" and other hits, passed away at the age of 74. (Bob Levey/WireImage/Getty)

"When a Man Loves a Woman" famed singer, Hall of Fame inductee, succumbs to Liver Cancer

Story by Rolling Stone Magazine
Written by Kory Grow

Bio and discography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Sledge

Percy Sledge, the soul singer who belted out the hit "When a Man Loves a Woman," died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana Tuesday morning. The cause of death was Liver Cancer, his manager Steve Green tells Rolling Stone. He was 74.

The singer sky-rocketed to the top of both the Hot 100 and R&B charts with his dramatic, heartrending ballad "When a Man Loves a Woman" – his debut single and one of Rolling Stone's Greatest Songs of All Time – in 1966. It spent 13 weeks on the Billboard pop chart, and was the first chart-topper to come out of the Muscle Shoals, Alabama music scene.

He previously performed as a member of the Esquires Combo, but his breakout success as a solo artist paved the way for several more hits, including "Warm and Tender Love," "It Tears Me Up," and "Out of Left Field," among others. He scored more hits in the next decade, with 1973's "Sunshine" and 1974's "I'll Be Your Everything."

His next hit was a surprising one: "When a Man Loves a Woman" received a surge in interest after it was featured in Oliver Stone's 1987 Vietnam War movie Platoon. It became a Number Two single in the U.K. that year and stayed on the country's charts for 10 weeks, a notable feat since it had reached only Number Four in that country upon its initial release.

The song became an enduring hit, in part, due to the real pain in Sledge's voice. The tune began as a pleading ballad with the Esquires, after Sledge lost both his construction job and his girl. "I didn't have any money to go after her, so there was nothing I could do to try and get her back," Sledge recalled of the song's origins. Producer Quin Ivy subsequently helped him rewrite it, and Sledge later gave the songwriting credits to his Esquires bandmates. He had been working in a hospital and was performing only at small shows and frat parties around the time the song ascended the charts, according to ABC News.

Bette Midler, Michael Bolton and Esther Phillips all covered the songs and scored hits with it, with Bolton's version reaching Number One.

Sledge was honored with the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Career Achievement Award in 1989 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

The singer toured consistently throughout his life. The BBC reports that he is survived by his wife and children.

He “Didn’t Deserve To Die:” Walter Scott’s Passenger Pierre Fulton Speaks Out

Funeral of Walter Scott (Getty photo)

Story by AOL

Pierre Fulton, the passenger seated in the front seat alongside Walter Scott before he was gunned down, released a statement late Monday, saying, his friend “didn’t deserve to die,” according to AOL.

Until now, no one had heard from Fulton, who remained seated in the vehicle throughout the confrontation on April 4 when Scott, 50, was pulled over by Michael Slager, a North Charleston police officer, due to a broken tail light. As Slager ran a background check, dash cam video shows Scott leaving his car and running away, while Fulton remained seated in the vehicle. Scott’s family speculates that he ran out of fear of going to jail for delinquent child support payments.

“Walter was a dear friend and I miss him every day,” Pierre Fulton said in a statement through his lawyer issued late Monday. “Over the past five years he helped me to become a better man and showed me the value of hard work.”

Fulton can be seen sitting next to Scott in the dashboard camera footage that shows now-fired Patrolman Michael Slager pull over and question Scott. Fulton remained in the vehicle when Scott made his run. A different video clip captured on a cellphone camera shows the moment Slager shot and killed Scott.

“I’ll never know why he ran, but I know he didn’t deserve to die,” Fulton said in his statement. “Please keep Walter and his family in your prayers and respect my privacy moving forward.”

A bystander named Feidin Santana used his cellphone to film Slager firing eight times at Scott, leading to his death. Video footage then shows Slager, 33, dropping something near Scott’s body. Many speculate it was a Taser gun, which Slager told investigators Scott tried to take away from him during an alleged confrontation in which he feared for his life.

Slager was later arrested and charged with murder, and he fired after Santana released his video.

DAY OF PROTEST in San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area over Police killings in South Carolina of Walter Scott 50 and Oklahoma of Eric Harris 44

Protesters blocked the 5th Street on-ramp on to Eastbound I-80 in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon. (Video KTVU)

It's all part of a day of action across the country to protest against killings by police. Marches were also held in Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose.


Protesters storm San Francisco City Hall (Video KTVU)

National Football League's New England Patriots' Aaron Hernandez found guilty of 'First-Degree Murder'

Story by Yahoo
Written by Dan Wetzel
Video by ESPN

A jury found Aaron Hernandez guilty of murder in the first degree for the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd, ending forever his life of NFL fame and fortune.

A Bristol County jury of seven women and five men deliberated for 36 hours over seven days before reaching a unanimous verdict on the former New England Patriots star. They said the murder rose to first degree due to Hernandez acting with extreme atrocity or cruelty. The conviction carries a sentence of automatic life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Hernandez, 25, stood stone-faced as the verdict was read, only to collapse into a chair as the guilty charges piled on. Behind him, his fiancée Shayanna Jenkins wept uncontrollably on the shoulder of Teri Hernandez, Aaron's mother. Lloyd's family, who during the trial made a daily pilgrimage to this old mill town 50 miles south of Boston, wept and embraced as the verdict was read.

"Stay strong, stay strong," Hernandez mouthed to his mother and Jenkins. Moments later, he was placed in handcuffs.

Formal sentencing took place about 30 minutes later. Before the sentence was handed down, Ursula Ward, Lloyd's mother, stood before the court.

"The day I laid my son Odin to rest, I felt my heart stop beating for a moment," she said, fighting back tears. "I felt like I wanted to go into that hole with my son, Odin.

"... I forgive the hands of those who had a hand in my son's murder, and I pray and hope that someday everone out there will forgive them also."

Hernandez will likely head to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution – Cedar Junction, before being transferred to another facility where he will serve his life sentence.

Lloyd was found shot to death in the early morning hours of June 17, 2013, after Hernandez and two co-conspirators picked the 27-year-old up at his Boston home, and then proceeded to an undeveloped piece of land behind an industrial park in North Attleboro, Mass. – just a few minutes from Hernandez's home.

"The perfect spot to kill somebody," prosecutor William McCauley said in closing arguments of the dark, out-of-the-way area called Corliss Landing. "No witnesses, other than the killers."

The prosecution overcame the lack of testifying eye witnesses by painstakingly piecing together a mountain of circumstantial, forensic evidence and so-called "electronic witnesses" that was so convincing it forced the defense during closing arguments to change tactics and concede that Hernandez was at the murder site. They just claimed he didn't do it, but rather witnessed a possible PCP-rage killing by either Ernest Wallace or Carlos Ortiz, friends of Hernandez and low-level drug dealers in Connecticut.

Much of the most powerful evidence against Hernandez was taken from his own home security system. Jurors were able to see Hernandez, Wallace and Ortiz arrive at the house minutes after the murder, cementing the prosecution timeline. Hernandez was soon after seen inside his home carrying what an expert identified as a Glock .45 semiautomatic pistol that prosecutors say was the murder weapon.

Ursula Ward (photo left), mother of the victim, reacts to the guilty verdict of Aaron Hernandez. (REUTERS)

Later that same day all three men lounged around the home and the outdoor pool, drinking smoothies made by Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins. The following day video showed Jenkins removing a box from the basement, which she said she did at Hernandez's request. She took it, she said, to a nearby dumpster, although she couldn't recall where.

Under Massachusetts' "Joint Venture" law, the prosecution was not required to prove Hernandez pulled the trigger, although they cited the location of shell casings and various fingerprints to allege that. A guilty verdict could be found by proving Hernandez "intentionally participated in some fashion and that he had or shared the intent" to commit the crime, Bristol County Superior Court Judge E. Susan Garsh instructed the jury.

In the end, the prosecution's evidence was strong enough to overcome the lack of a murder weapon and a clear motive of why Hernandez would kill what appeared to be a friend. Lloyd, a landscaper from Boston, was dating Shaneah Jenkins, the younger sister of Hernandez's fiancée, Shayanna Jenkins.

The two sisters occasionally spent days at the trial seated on opposite sides of the tense courtroom. On the stand, Shayanna described their once close relationship as "estranged."

The trial took 41 days and featured 135 witnesses stretched over parts of 10 weeks. It was repeatedly delayed by harsh winter weather. It started days before the local Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl and included testimony from team owner Robert Kraft, whose testimony showed that Hernandez originally lied to him about his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Kraft testified that Hernandez "hoped that the time of the murder came out because I believe he said he was in a club." Hernandez was not at a club that night.

Hernandez, originally from Bristol, Conn., was a decorated player at the University of Florida before being drafted by the Patriots in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL draft. He played three seasons as a tight end, serving as one of quarterback Tom Brady's preferred targets and catching a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl.

In 2012, the Patriots rewarded him with a $40 million contract, only a portion of which he eventually earned before being arrested for this murder.

This stands as one of the most spectacular falls of an American sports star and the shocking uncovering of what appears to be a double life of football hero/would-be street gangster.

Hernandez is also set to stand trial on double-murder charges in Suffolk County, Mass., for allegedly being the gunman in a drive-by shooting after an incident at a Boston nightclub in the summer of 2012. He wasn't arrested for that crime until after the Lloyd murder caused police to reexamine an otherwise cold case.

Hernandez is also accused in a civil suit of shooting his friend Bradley Alexander in the face after a night out at a South Florida strip club in February of 2013. Alexander is expected to be the star witness in the double-homicide case.

Judge Garsh prohibited the prosecution from mentioning any of the above incidents in this case, deeming the "prior bad acts" as unduly prejudicial to Hernandez. That allowed the defense to focus on the lack of motive and acting incredulous that a man such as Hernandez, who had so much to lose, would engage in such reckless behavior.

It didn't matter.

The jurors saw through the high-priced defense team and convicted Hernandez anyway. He was also convicted of gun and weapons charges, which carry maximum sentences of five and two years, respectively.

Sentencing will take place later, when Lloyd's family and others can read victim statements. Hernandez would also have the opportunity to address the court at that time, although that seems unlikely.

He has been held without bail at the Bristol County House of Corrections since his June 2013 arrest. He'll head to state prison after his sentencing.