Tag Archives: Civil Rights

U.S. police body camera policies put civil rights at risk: study

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Police forces in 50 U.S. cities are failing to protect the civil rights and privacy of residents due to the inadequacy of programs that govern how their officers use body-worn cameras, a report by a coalition of rights groups said on Tuesday.

Many U.S. cities have approved or expanded the use of body cameras since August 2014, when a white police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. That incident triggered protests and a national debate about police use of force, especially against minorities.

The study was conducted for The Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights coalition by Upturn, a Washington DC-based company that studies how technology affects social issues.

“Body cameras carry the promise of officer accountability, but accountability is far from automatic,” Harlan Yu, principal of Upturn, said on a conference call with reporters.

The study focused on the nation’s largest police departments that have body-worn camera programs, as well as programs that have received federal funding, and those in cities that have had high-profile incidents involving law enforcement officers.

It judged them against eight criteria, including whether each department publishes its body camera policy, to what degree officers are allowed discretion about when they turn on and off their cameras, and whether officers involved in incidents are prohibited from watching the footage before they write reports.

The study found that none of the departments it analyzed met all the criteria, and that the police departments in Ferguson and in Fresno, California, failed all of them. Nearly half did not make body camera footage easily accessible to the public. (Link to the report: https://www.bwcscorecard.org/)

Three major departments with programs – Detroit, Michigan, Aurora, Colorado, and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania – have not made their body camera policies public, the study said.

Representatives of the police departments in Aurora, Detroit, Pittsburg and Ferguson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The coalition released an initial report in November 2015 that studied body camera programs from 25 departments.

The group said some issues have improved since that report, noting several departments, including Chicago, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati now provide individuals who are recorded the opportunity to view the footage.

“Without carefully crafted policy safeguards, these devices could become instruments of injustice rather than tools of accountability,” Wade Henderson, the coalition’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Dan Grebler)

U.S. to schools: Give transgender students bathroom rights

A gender-neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California September 30, 2014.

By Megan Cassella

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration told U.S. public school districts across the country on Friday to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity, rather than their gender at birth.

The new guidance comes as the Justice Department and North Carolina battle in federal court over a state law passed in March that prohibits people from using public restrooms not corresponding to their biological sex.

Officials from the Education and Justice departments told schools that while the new guidance does not carry legal weight, they are obligated not to discriminate against students, including based on their gender identity.

“Our guidance sends a clear message to transgender students across the country: here in America, you are safe, you are protected and you belong – just as you are,” Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement accompanying the letter sent to school districts nationwide.

The guidance contains an implicit threat that those not abiding by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the letter said, a school agrees that it will not treat any person in its educational programs or activities differently on the basis of sex.

It added that the administration’s interpretation of existing regulations means that a school cannot treat a transgender student differently from other students of the same gender identity.

The issue of access to bathrooms by transgender people flared into a national controversy after North Carolina passed a law in March that made it the first state in the country to ban people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.

The U.S. Justice Department this week asked a federal district court in North Carolina to declare that the state is violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act and order it to stop enforcing the ban.

North Carolina’s Republican governor, Pat McCrory, and the state’s secretary of public safety sued the agency in a different federal court in North Carolina, accusing it of “baseless and blatant overreach.”

(Reporting by Megan Cassella and Susan Heavey; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Frances Kerry)

Texas City Stands Up To Sharia Law

The city government of Irving, Texas is standing up and saying sharia law is not going to be legal within the bounds of their city.

A Sunni mosque in Irving had announced earlier this year they were forming an Islamic Tribunal to provide mediation of disputes in the Muslim community according to Sharia Law.  Now, the city has passed a resolution backing a Texas House Bill that would forbid the use of “foreign law” to decide issues within the city.

Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne has been the subject of hate from the Muslim community because of her bold stand against Sharia Law.

“As Mayor of the City of Irving, I took an oath to uphold the laws of the State of Texas and the Constitution of the United States,” Duyne wrote earlier this year. “American citizens need to remember that their rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and I believe no one should subjugate themselves to anything less.”

However, she says this new law is not aimed at religion of any kind.

“This bill does not mention at all Muslims, sharia law, Islam, even religion,” Duyne stated.

Duyne said that she would work to fight for anyone whose civil rights is violated in any way by people connected to the “Tribunal”.

Mississippi Men Convicted of Hate Crime

Three young white Mississippi men are heading to federal prison after being convicted of what one person called violence as evil as the worst of pre-civil rights days.

James Craig Anderson, 20, was killed by a group of men who has been targeting blacks they believed were homeless or drunk.  Anderson was in a parking lot of a hotel in Jackson, Mississippi when he was deliberately run over by a man driving a Ford truck.  The murder was caught on surveillance video.

The driver of the truck, Deryl Paul Dedmon, will spend 50 years in prison after being convicted of the hate crime.  He will serve that sentence concurrent with whatever a Mississippi state judge issues as punishment for Dedmon’s guilty plea to capital murder and a hate crime.

The family of the victim decried the evil of the “strangers with eyes full of hatred.”  Barbara Anderson Young, sister of the victim, told the killers, “My God have mercy on your sinful souls.”

Dedmon’s associates also are heading to prison.  John Aaron Rice was sentenced to 18 ½ years, and Dylan Wade Butler to seven years.

Seven others are still awaiting sentencing for their role in targeting blacks and homeless people for physical assault and abuse.

Religious Freedom Is The New Civil Rights Issue

Pastor Rick Warren and Rev. Samuel Rodriguez said that religious freedom in America is the new civil rights issue.

Rev. Rodriguez, the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said Christians need to fight for their religious freedom or be silenced.

“While ending racial inequality emerged as the civil rights issue of the 20th century … religious liberty will be the civil rights issue of the next decade,” Rodriguez said.  “Today’s complacency is tomorrow’s captivity.”

The two spoke as part of a panel discussion at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting titled “Hobby Lobby and the Future of Religious Liberty.”

A big theme of the meeting was the push by many groups to say that people of faith must proclaim that every religious faith is equally valid and all worship the same God.  That misconception is driving the definition of “tolerance” to mean something other than what tolerance truly means according to the panelists.

“The “definition of tolerance has changed from I treat you with respect and dignity even when we disagree to all ideas are equally valid,” Warren said.

The panel said ultimately even if those who want to strip Christians of their rights to worship and be a part of society, the world can do nothing to stop Jesus.

“If the United States crumbles away, the Gospel is not lost,” Russell Moore said.

Maya Angelou Says Faith In God Made Her “Courageous”

Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86, said that it was her faith that made her so bold in standing for what was right.

“When I found that I knew not only that there was God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous,” Angelou told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2013.

“When I was asked to do something good, I often say yes, I’ll try, yes, I’ll do my best,” she continued, “And part of that is believing, if God loves me, if God made everything from leaves to seals and oak trees, then what is it I can’t do?”

Angelou often stated that before she began to write anything, she would spend time in prayer.  Part of her “writing ritual” was to have a Bible with her when she was writing.

A civil rights leader who spent much time working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Angelou said that her faith in God is what allowed her to see that all people were created equal under God because God created everyone.

“I will see human beings and I believe — whether they believe it or not — I believe they were made by God and I’m not in a position to put them down because they look different from me,” Angelou said.