Woman says supermarket called police on her while she was helping a homeless man
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Barbecuing while black. Napping while black. Now add helping homeless people while black to the list of things that can lead to a visit from police.
Employees at a Safeway supermarket in Mountain View, California, called 911 on an African-American woman and her family because they suspected them of shoplifting, police said. Safeway has since apologized for what the store said was a misunderstanding.
Erika Martin told CNN that the incident occurred when she stopped at the store last month to help a homeless man she knew hung out there. She gave him a bag of dog food and some treats for his pit bull. Her two sisters were also there and gave two men care packages with soap, toothpaste, hand sanitizer and other hygiene products.
“I help the homeless as much as I can. I see homeless people weekly and I try help them the best that I can,” Martin said.
Martin said her son, who’s about to turn 10, and her nieces and nephews went into the store to see if the bakery was giving out free cookies and to get samples from the deli.
Martin stayed outside and talked to her sisters and the man to whom she gave the dog food.
She said a Safeway employee came out of the store, looked directly at her and rushed back inside, which she thought was strange.
As Martin prepared to leave, two police cars drove up and one stopped behind her so she couldn’t back out of her parking place. They asked why she was there and if she had any warrants, Martin said. She told them that she’d never even had a parking ticket.
Mountain View Police spokeswoman Katie Nelson said that a Safeway employee called the police and to report a theft in progress. Five officers were dispatched to interview store employees and the Martin family.
“It was extremely clear to us that no one who had been identified was potentially involved in any sort of criminal activity, and we explicitly said as much to Safeway employees,” Nelson said.
Martin said one of the officers told her that Safeway had called the police because she matched the description of someone taking items from the store and said the suspect was wearing a spaghetti-strap shirt.
Martin said she was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt that said “Y’all need Jesus,” and had not even gone into the store. Nelson said the description “somewhat matched” the top one of Martin’s sisters was wearing.
The employee told the police that the children were running back and forth to a car parked outside.
“During the initial dispatch call, a Safeway employee informed our dispatcher that both employees and customers believed a man and a woman as well as children were working together to try and take items from the store,” Nelson said.
Martin said the questioning scared her son and he started crying while talking to one of the officers.
He told her that when the children asked for cookies the woman at the bakery counter told him that “We don’t have anymore cookies to give to you,” Martin said. He said they looked behind the counter and saw that there were cookies back there.
The officer asked if they had taken any cookies and he said no.
“My son was crying so much, he was so scared because he thought he did something wrong. He thought the police were going to arrest him for looking behind the counter,” she said. “To see my child in so much fear broke my heart.”
She said police let them go after about 30 minutes
“In that short amount of time, we not only determined that no crime occurred, we explicitly told Safeway employees as such. None of the people Safeway identified in their call to us nor in their subsequent interview with us committed any crime whatsoever,” Nelson said.
“We were very appreciative of the way the family allowed our officers to wrap up the call, and we apologized for inconveniencing their evening,” she said.
After one of Martin’s sisters, Faith Martin-Ware, posted a video of the July 8 incident on Facebook, news outlets began picking up on the story.
Martin said she and her sisters had shopped at that store three or four times a week but are not comfortable going back there now.
“We were there to do a good deed and we left feeling humiliated, embarrassed, hurt and shocked,” she said.
Safeway spokeswoman Wendy Gutshall said in a statement that employees called police because a man suspected of shoplifting there in the past was in the store.
“Safeway has reached out to Ms. Martin to sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding, and we look forward to continuing the discussion regarding her concerns. We have also commenced an internal investigation, which remains ongoing,” she said.
Martin said that a store manager has apologized for what happened and she is scheduled to speak with someone with the Safeway corporate office on Wednesday.
Gutshall said that Safeway held store-wide employee meetings earlier this year to reiterate their policies against racial discrimination and racial profiling of customers, and plan to roll out training on implicit bias later this year.
Dad ran over son twice in driveway while texting
COLUMBUS, Ga. — Police in west Georgia say a father was texting when he ran over his toddler son twice in his driveway.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports 24-year-old Trenton Cook is charged with second-degree homicide by vehicle and failing to exercise due care, both misdemeanors.
Columbus police Officer Chad Daugherty testified during Cook’s preliminary hearing Tuesday. He said Cook waited until his girlfriend’s children went inside to pull into his driveway May 8. He felt a bump, and then another while reversing. He discovered he’d run over 22-month-old Zakai A. Cook, who later died.
Daugherty says cellphone data shows Cook sent a text while pulling in. Police found no evidence of intent, and public defender Lindsey Brown called it an accident.
The judge agreed and set Cook’s bail at $2,800.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/08/01/dad-ran-over-son-twice-in-driveway-while-texting-cops/
Woman allegedly kills roommate over texts to ex-fiancé
An Oklahoma woman is accused of killing her roommate after she found text messages with her ex-fiancé, according to officials.
Kristen Elizabeth Jones, 21, allegedly shot her 23-year-old roommate, Miranda Pederson, in the head then covered up the murder by setting their house in Luther on fire, The Oklahoman reported.
Jones’ ex-fiancé, Bryson Harrington, lived at the house with both women, according to the newspaper.
The alleged shooting occurred when Jones discovered Pederson had been exchanging texts with Harrington.
In a phone call monitored by authorities, Jones told Harrington that Pederson first stabbed her in the hand.
Jones then allegedly grabbed a gun and shot Pederson in the back of the head, according to police. She also reportedly admitted to burning down the home to “cover it up because she got scared.”
Hickory Hills Fire Protection District responded to the home around 9:45 a.m. Monday after the fire chief spotted smoke, news station KFOR reported.
“While at the scene, putting out the fire, they discovered a body inside the home,” Oklahoma County Sheriff spokesman Mark Opgrande told KFOR. “They immediately called the sheriff’s office, and we called our homicide investigators to the scene.”
Authorities said they learned Jones fled the state and pulled her over Monday afternoon at a traffic stop in Gainesville, Texas.
She was booked Tuesday into the Oklahoma County jail on suspicion of murder, arson and desecration of a human corpse.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/08/01/woman-allegedly-kills-roommate-over-texts-to-ex-fiance-cops/
McDonald’s Serves Pregnant Woman Cleaning Fluid In Latte
A pregnant woman in Canada had a stomach-churning experience Sunday morning when she was served a latte filled with cleaning fluid.
Sarah Douglas of Lethbridge, Alberta, was on her way to her son’s baseball tournament when she went to a McDonald’s drive-through for a latte.
It wasn’t until she was on the highway that she suspected something was wrong, she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“I immediately had to put my hazard lights on and pull over and spit it out and rinse my mouth out with … water,” Douglas said. “I opened up the lid of the coffee and out pours this pungent smell of chemical. It wasn’t a latte at all.”
Douglas, who is seven months pregnant with her third child, said the liquid in her cup was a watery brownish color.
When she returned to the restaurant to complain, she said, a staff member told her that two cleaning lines were hooked up to the latte machine, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.
The on-duty supervisor showed Douglas the bottle of cleaning fluid so she would know what to tell poison control.
“So, I took a picture of it and then another co-worker of his had also overheard what had been going on, and was a little bit upset at the situation and said that this had happened before,” she told Lethbridge News Now. “And she was a little mad that it was occurring again.”
Douglas contacted Alberta Health Services’ Health Link and was transferred to poison control.
She turned out to be OK, since she hadn’t swallowed the liquid. She visited her family doctor just to make sure there were no lingering effects, according to the CBC.
Dan Brown, who owns the McDonald’s franchise where Douglas purchased the tainted latte, released a statement on Wednesday:
Since learning about the complaint, our team has been in very close contact with the guest and apologized to her. The health inspector also visited my restaurant and is not investigating further.
McDonald’s is renowned for its food safety protocols and I am sorry that this happened in my restaurant here in Lethbridge.
What happened is that the machine was being cleaned — as it is every morning. Unfortunately, the milk supply line was connected to the cleaning solution while this guest’s drink was made.
We have taken immediate action to review the proper cleaning procedures with the team and have put additional signage up as an added reminder.
Although Douglas survived the ordeal unharmed, it’s still eating at her, mainly because she fears that the cleaning fluid might end up in juice, soda or soft-serve ice cream and be ingested by kids.
“As a mother, I want to make sure I have voice and that I’m being heard in terms of the safety of consumers, and how (alleged) negligence can affect people in such a drastic way,” she told Lethbridge News Now.
Chicago Nonprofit Hosts Safe Space For Black Girls To ‘Unapologetically Exist’ At The Site Of Rekia Boyd’s Death
Article via: Chicago Nonprofit Hosts Safe Space For Black Girls To ‘Unapologetically Exist’ At The Site Of Rekia Boyd’s Death
Chicago’s “The Visibility Project: Black Girls Takeover Douglas Park,” hosted by A Long Walk Home, a nonprofit dedicated to ending violence against girls and women, was created to be a safe space where black girls could be their full selves.
If Douglas Park sounds familiar to you, it is likely because it is the very same place Rekia Boyd was shot and killed by off-duty police officer Dante Servin in March 2012.
“Douglas Park is a place where kids are supposed to play, and people are supposed to barbecue and have fun,” 15-year-old Amaya Sam told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s not supposed to be a place where the energy is just sad. I feel like what we’re doing is taking it back.”
During the free event on Thursday, July 26, black girls got to enjoy the soft croons of Jamila Woods, double dutch, pick up treats from an ice cream truck, color coloring books and more.
“You never really see a space where black girls can unapologetically, like, exist,” said 17-year-old Aliya Young, according to Teen Vogue. “So to be able to be in a space where so many of us are able to exist — and that is powerful and radical by itself — and the fact that we’re claiming this space for Rekia [Boyd] and the missing and murdered black girls, it’s nice to not just hear all those stories and be triggered all the time, but to just celebrate our reclamation.”
Now, check these out:
How This 22-Year-Old Is Sketching A Space For Black Girl Animators And Making History While Doing It
How Assata’s Daughters Is Helping Chicago Bloom By Empowering Black Urban Farmers
New Documentary Tells The Stories Of Black Women Killed By Police In Chicago
Democratic Donor Accused Of Killing A Young, Gay Black Man By Injecting Him With Drugs Will Face No Charges
Recently, the WeHo Times reported the tragic death of Gemmel Moore, killed a crystal meth overdose in late July.
Moore was found at the home of Ed Buck, a wealthy, high-profile Democratic Party donor and political activist. The police report filed on the incident reported the death as an “accident.” However, Moore’s mother LaTisha Nixon wasn’t so sure that that was the case.
Nixon found out through one of Moore’s friends that Moore had engaged in sex work before his death, and that Buck was a client of both men.
“I called one of my son’s friends and was like, ‘who the hell is Edward Buck?’” Nixon said. “And my son’s friend was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s that white guy, that wealthy white politician guy … he was like, ‘Oh my God …’”
The reason for the friend’s horror was what he told Nixon next.
“[Buck] would have my son to go out to … Santa Monica Boulevard looking for young gay black guys so he could inject them with drugs, see their reaction and how [they] would react and take pictures of them,” Nixon said the friend told her.
John Bice, a friend of Moore’s, told LA Weekly a similar story.
“Basically this guy would find young struggling black guys around town, pick them up and say he was going to help them out — make sure they had clothes and food. … He wanted to see them get high, first with weed. Then one day, the guy wanted him to shoot up,” Bice said.
Nixon believes Buck was basically conducting a psycho-sexual version of the Tuskegee experiments on the young black men.
“[Buck] would supply heroin, meth and other drugs to him to smoke or use with a needle,” Nixon said. “Buck would pleasure himself at the sight of my son using drugs.”
Moore’s mother added that her son’s friends told her that Buck would reward young men for taking big hits.
“The bigger the cloud of smoke,” the more money Buck would give the men. Nixon said Buck “would excitedly encourage [Moore] to increase his dosage by saying, ‘More, more, and I’ll give you $500 more.’”
Buck himself hasn’t spoken out about these accusations, but his lawyer, Seymour Amster, has.
Amster said that Moore injected himself with the meth, that Buck was Moore’s friend and “did not witness it being injected” and that, “This was an accidental death. This was an unfortunate death … but that doesn’t mean we can make spurious accusations and spin something out of control.”
However, Moore’s journals, which were discovered after his death, tell a different story.
Read more via: Democratic Donor Accused Of Killing A Young, Gay Black Man By Injecting Him With Drugs Will Face No Charges
Tiffany Haddish Reveals She Was Raped as a Teen by a Police Cadet
Photo by Jemal Countess (Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions)
In the September issue of Glamour, the 38-year-old comedian opens up about a painful and life-changing sexual assault at the hands of a police cadet. Haddish was just 17-years-old at the time, she sayss.
“That whole experience put me in such a messed-up place for a long time, and I ended up going to counseling,” Haddish told writer Niela Orr.
Haddish told Orr that she reported the incident when it happened, but nothing came of it. She added that she wasn’t sure what justice would look like in that incident.
“Me just yelling out people’s names with no thought behind it is pointless. I need a plan,” Haddish said. “I could be a voice, but what’s a voice going to do—just keep talking? Or is there action behind it?”
Since the rape, Haddish says she’s developed a brashness towards men that functions as a sort of defense. She discloses how directors and producers have come on to her (“I might get real bossy and say, ‘First off, don’t nobody want to see your little dick!’ I get loud, all that,” she says). But she also uses sexual aggression to take control.
“I notice that men are afraid of women that are aggressive. So to protect myself I become semi-aggressive,” Haddish said. “You hear about, ‘Tiffany always hitting on somebody,’ but that’s to keep them from hitting on me.”
Haddish has spoken out about rampant sexual harassment in the entertainment industry before. In an interview with People magazine last year about her memoir, The Last Black Unicorn, Haddish said, “it seemed like everybody wanted to get in my panties. It was constant defending and battling. These men will try you every single time.”
“It’s like hazing,” she continued. “Once they figure out you’re strong and you don’t roll like that, then they start treating you like a colleague.”
Article via: Tiffany Haddish Reveals She Was Raped as a Teen by a Police Cadet
Donald Trump Says You Need A Picture ID To Buy Groceries In America The president made the comment while pushing for voter ID laws at a Florida rally.
WHERE DAY DO DAT AT? REALLY TRUMP?? OMG
President Donald Trump told a crowd in Florida on Tuesday night that buying groceries requires an identification card.
Trump made the comment while pushing for voter ID laws at a rally in Tampa to support Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) in the state’s gubernatorial race. The president touched on a number of his regular talking points, including unemployment rates and tariffs, before talking about voter fraud.
Trump claimed Democrats were attempting to give undocumented immigrants the right to vote.
“Which is why the time has come for voter ID, like everything else,” Trump told the crowd. “You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need ID.”
President Trump, at his rally in Tampa, is pushing for voter ID laws and said you need to show an ID to buy groceries.
(You don't need ID to buy groceries.) pic.twitter.com/7WAs05R4dz
— Liam Martin (@LiamFromBoston) July 31, 2018
There is no evidence that noncitizen voting is a widespread problem, despite Trump’s claims. Pressed in court earlier this year to offer evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in Kansas, experts whose work Trump has relied on were only able to point to a handful of cases.
To be clear, American citizens do not need a picture ID to buy basic groceries. There are some federal and state regulations that prohibit the sale of alcohol or certain over-the-counter medications without identification, but that does not extend to basic food or cleaning products.
Social media users remarked on Trump’s assertion as “out of touch” and wondered when the billionaire last bought his own groceries….