50 Years, MLK, and We Are Losing Ground

US judge orders release of 'first Black Identity Extremist'

Criticis say African American activist Christopher Daniels has been held since December because FBI policed his views.

A US judge has ordered that Christopher Daniels, considered by many to be the first person arrested under the FBI's Black Identity Extremist (BIE) designation, be released from pre-trial detention and dismissed the indictment against him.

Daniels, a cofounder of the Huey P Newton Gun Club and Guerilla Mainframe (GMF), two armed organisations based in Dallas who regularly protest against alleged police brutality, "is entitled to be released from pre-trial detention based on the dismissal of the indictment", Judge Sidney Fitzwater wrote in the order issued on May 1.

Daniels was arrested in December by the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for possessing rifles after being convicted of misdemeanour domestic assault in Tennessee in 2007.

Misdemeanour and felony domestic assault convictions bar US citizens from legally owning firearms under federal law.

The GMF, as well as activists and civil rights advocates, have called him the first prosecution under the BIE designation.

Daniels's lawyers argued that differences between Tennessee's state laws regarding misdemeanour domestic assault and the federal government's definition of the same crime meant the Tennessee conviction "does not qualify", according to court documents.

Under Tennessee law, causing another person to "reasonably fear imminent bodily injury" can be considered a misdemeanour domestic assault, which "does not necessarily" include the use of force, the court document states.

Fitzwater gave the government until mid-day on May 3 to provide further reason to continue detaining Daniels. It does not appear the government filed a further motion.

GMF had not responded to Al Jazeera's request for comment on Daniels' release at the time of publication.

Controversy over BIE
An FBI intelligence assessment (PDF), dated August 2017, defined BIEs as African Americans inclined to commit acts of violence against police officers, "which they perceived as representative of the institutionalized oppression of African Americans".

The document appears to have been drafted in response to a July 2016 shooting in Dallas that left five police officers dead, as well as others in Louisiana, Indiana and Missouri.

The designation has caused controversy with activists, civil rights organisers and US politicians. The intelligence assessment was sent to thousands of police departments across the US.

Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent who specialised in counterterrorism, told Al Jazeera that the FBI already considered groups comprising eco-terrorists, white supremacists, anarchists, anti-abortion rights activists and black nationalists as possible "domestic terror" threats.

But while a designation like white supremacist applies to certain groups, "BIE is applied more broadly."

Southers was concerned that African Americans protesting against police violence could be labelled as threats under the designation.

After receiving the intelligence assessment, law-enforcement officers could consider the BIE designation as "actionable information", the former FBI agent said.

This means that the BIE designation could be used to acquire search warrants or engage in surveillance, Southers said.

Although Daniels was arrested for "illegally possessing firearms", the reasoning given by federal prosecutors for his continued detention focused on social media posts in which Daniels criticised police officers.

Transcripts from a court hearing in December show that Daniels was under FBI surveillance for two years before his arrest due to online videos posted on far-right news outlets that showed the activist at rallies while armed.

Michael German, another former FBI special agent who focused on "domestic terrorism" and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice, told Al Jazeera he never understood how the government was successful in having him held in pre-trial detention in the first place.

German previously told Al Jazeera that the government's use of Daniels's social media rhetoric as a reason to keep him detained highlighted "why the BIE framing that the FBI has developed is problematic.

"It was a very counterproductive use of the FBI's counterterrorism powers," German said on Friday.

Officer deaths in 2018
German, like Southers, found the BIE designation "problematic". Neither of the former FBI agents has found a reason for the designation.

The Congressional Black Caucus, a group of African American legislators, revealed during a briefing on the BIE designation in March that high-level FBI officials were unable to explain how it came to be.

Southers told Al Jazeera the FBI's intelligence assessment featured a number of alleged BIEs, but he found the reasoning behind classifying them as such lacking.

Furthermore, at least 25 police officers have been killed by gunfire in the line of duty in 2018, an increase from 2017, which saw 16 officers killed in the same period, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks police deaths.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that any of the 25 police officers killed were killed by suspects related to alleged "BIE" organisations or groups.

"I do not recall any incidents from this year that would qualify" as involving BIEs, Southers concluded.

Is Al Jazeera your source? You did not list one.

http://www.ips-dc.org/souls-of-poor-folks/
The Souls of Poor Folk is an assessment of the conditions and trends of poverty today and of the past fifty years in the United States. In 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside a multiracial coalition of grassroots leaders, religious leaders, and other public figures, began organizing with poor and marginalized communities across racial and geographic divides. Together, The Poor People’s Campaign aimed to confront the underlying structures that perpetuated misery in their midst.

Fifty years later, The Souls of Poor Folk challenges us to take a look at how these conditions have changed since 1968. The stark findings draw from a wide variety of sources, including primary and secondary data as well as interviews with and testimonies by people who have been living through and responding to these changes on the ground. The facts, figures, and faces in these pages counter numerous myths about poverty in our society

Your link has a Social Justice Calendar. That makes it a site for victims, and encourages the victim mentality. Nothing positive comes from whining or rewarding bad behavior. Just saying.

Was Al Jazera your source for the previous post?

How is it that a man trying to make a purchase of Mentos, you know, the freshmaker, ends up with an off-duty police officer drawing his gun? Who knows, but it happened to Jose Arreola in Buena Park, Calif., and two months later, he’s still looking for answers.

Arreola was at a Chevron station, and minutes before entering took money out of the ATM to buy the mints. As he was finishing up his transaction at the register and getting his change back from his purchase, the man standing behind him pulled his gun and said he was a police officer.

The recently released surveillance footage shows Arreola raising his hands, and looking confused as to why the cop had his weapon pulled. The officer told him to put the money and Mentos down. After a few moments, the cashier explains to the cop that Arreola did indeed pay for the mints.

https://www.theroot.com/off-duty-california-cop-pulls-gun-on-guy-buying-mentos-1825807593?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=The_Root_facebook

Boy you can find some biased sites like Al Jezera and this one. That guy sees those videos because racism and the war on police need to continue or progressives have nothing to bitch about so, again, a complicit media is there to keep this country divided by showing these videos over and over.

Jon Valant, a fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy, discusses his research on disparities and discrimination in how schools discipline students of different racial and economic backgrounds

Ranting Racist White Man on New York Train Identified

Crap like that helped cause the Parkland shooting, Rewarding bad behavior by color, or race, is stupid, just as stupid as rewarding the bad behavior in the first place.

Somehow I don't think King would like the constant whine. You might have me on ignore, which is probably better for you. Certainly easier than confronting the issue.

She wrote:

“During our time in Cali we have been staying at an Airbnb. The 30th was our second morning and at about 11am we checked out. The four of us packed our bags, locked up the house and left. As you can see 3 of us were Black. About 10 seconds later we were surrounded by 7 cop cars. The officers came out of their cars demanding us to put our hands in the air. They informed us that there was also a helicopter tracking us. They locked down the neighborhood and had us standing in the street. Why? A neighbour across the street saw 3 black people packing luggage into their car and assumed we were stealing from the house. She then called the police.

“At first we joked about the misunderstanding and took photos and videos along the way.

About 20 minutes into this misunderstanding it escalated almost instantly. Their Sergeant arrived… he explained they didn’t know what Airbnb was. He insisted that we were lying about it and said we had to prove it. We showed them the booking confirmations and phoned the landlord… because they didn’t know what she looked like on the other end to confirm it was her.. they detained us – because they were investigating a felony charge – for 45 minutes while they figured it out.

“We have been dealing with different emotions and you want to laugh about this but it’s not funny. The trauma is real. I’ve been angry, fustrated and sad. I was later detained at the airport. This is insanity.”

Their harrowing story began to make the rounds on social media over the weekend sparking outrage.


Shaun King
✔
@ShaunKing
23h
Surrounded by police on all sides, tracked by a helicopter, a group of young Black women come face the face w/ death as they leave an @Airbnb.

white woman called the police on them, accusing them of robbery, after they didn’t wave at her#ThisIsAmericahttps://m.facebook.com/directedbykells/posts/10160498802675121 …


Shaun King
✔
@ShaunKing
Four brilliant Black women checked out of their @Airbnb. A white woman outside waved at them and they didn't wave back.

So she called the police.

Then helicopters & a slew of police cars swarmed the area.

is white.

White men charged in deaths of black men found chained, dismembered in pond
By Associated Press May 3, 2018

That's one hell of a dangling participle. I thought editors were supposed to clean those things up.

Then put their asses in jail, do not use the story to race bait. Although it looks like that is not going to happen, not the jail that will, the race baiting.

I bet Dr King would love this, NOT.
https://godfatherpolitics.com/black-leftists-intimidate-other-blacks-for-thinking-independent-thoughts/

Special correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault speaks with Reverend William Barber and Jonathan
Wilson-Hartgrove, co-authors of “The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the
Politics of Division and Fear,” about what it takes to tackle America’s racial divide.

Kellen Hill
on Monday
It’s really sad that you can’t be black and buy a money order without being accused of fraud. I gave my girlfriend $1100 to go get a money order for rent and this guy Travis Donahue from Schnucks Supermarket denied her “because people like you are doing fraud”. He then called the cops and tried to have us arrested for being “disorderly”. Needless to say, we stood our ground and made him give us our money order. No one went to jail or got killed but just another case of racial discrimination in America. Please like and Share this video until it makes it to the corporate office. I want him FIRED IMMEDIATELY ‼️

Did he ask for a manager, or just go off? A manager might have fired the guy right there. Chances are he wanted a confrontation then he can write what happpened and put it on social media. Keep racism alive and be a victim. I bet he is a Democrat.

This incident is an exception, nowhere near the rule.

Reverend Barber is an impressive figure and an inspired orator in an angry world. I'm always He's a voice of sanity in today's conversations.

Yes, he is quite impressive. The more I read about him, the more I admire him. I have discovered more about him through Wikipedia, through television news, through googling his name, and through youtube videos. I greatly admire him for the many many causes he fights for.