David Dinkins, who was elected New York City’s first black mayor in 1989 and famously referred to the nation’s largest metropolis as a “gorgeous mosaic,” died Monday night, sources told The Post.

The former mayor passed away due to natural causes at his Upper East Side home at around 9:30 p.m. He was 93 years old.

A home health aide had discovered Dinkins was not breathing and called 911, sources said.

His death comes a little over a month after his wife, Joyce, died at their home. She was 89.

Dinkins — who defeated three-term incumbent Ed Koch in the 1989 Democratic primary — beat Republican Rudy Giuliani that year to become the city’s 106th mayor.

Giuliani mourned the death of Dinkins on Monday night.

“I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Mayor David Dinkins, and to the many New Yorkers who loved and supported him,” Giuliani wrote on Twitter.

“He gave a great deal of his life in service to our great City. That service is respected and honored by all.”

He would serve one-term until 1993, when he narrowly lost his re-election bid in a re-match against his GOP foe.

His turbulent time in office was marked by rampant crime and racial unrest. Despite the turmoil, he led the city with a grace and dignity that was respected even by his political foes and left him an admired figure when his tenure was long over.

“David was a historic mayor. He showed that a black candidate can win biracial support in a city-wide race,” said former Gov. David Paterson, who became the first African-American governor.

“There’s a special appreciation for him. He tried very hard to be the mayor of all the people.”

Dinkins led the nation’s largest city two decades before Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president.

“David Dinkins was a forerunner to Barack Obama. He was elected saying the same things,” said civil right activist Al Sharpton.

“He helped to change the psychology of American politics, making it more inclusive and more progressive.”

Whether residents agreed or disagreed with his liberal politics, Dinkins was loved by many.

“He maintained dignity, class and gentlemanly-ness so rare in today’s world,” said Ken Sunshine, who served as Dinkins’ first chief of staff .

“He was almost too nice to be mayor of New York,” Sharpton said.

Born on July 10, 1927 in Trenton, N.J., the young Dinkins and his family moved to Harlem but he returned to Trenton to attend high school.

He enrolled at Howard University, though his studies were disrupted by World World II.

He served in the United States Marine Corps before returning to Howard, where he graduated with honors and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

Dinkins married a Howard classmate, Joyce Burrow, and earned his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1956.

As Dinkins got more involved in Democratic Party politics in New York City, he would form an alliance with three other up and coming Harlemites — Charles Rangel, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton.

They would later become known as the Gang of Four, the most powerful force in the city’s black political establishment, particularly in Harlem.

His first big step in politics was winning a seat to the State Assembly, in 1965, where he served one-term.

The future mayor began making a name for himself. He was credited with helping create a program that provided state grants to college students from low income families.

Dinkins was appointed president of the city’s Board of Education in 1972. Then-Mayor Abe Beame later tapped Dinkins to serve as deputy mayor. But Dinkins declined the job after embarrassing stories surfaced about unpaid taxes, a debt he later paid off.

Dinkins was subsequently appointed to the mostly ceremonial post of city clerk.

When his pal Sutton stepped down as Manhattan borough president in 1977, Dinkins ran for the post — but lost.

He would lose again, to Andrew Stein in 1981.

But the third time was the charm for Dinkins, who was elected borough president in 1985.

Some longtime associates were surprised when Dinkins sought the mayoralty, describing him as a reluctant warrior.

For much of his political career, Dinkins never talked about running for mayor, said David Paterson, the son of Dinkins longtime pal Basil Paterson.

“David was super ambitious about becoming borough president. He didn’t have the ambition to become mayor,” Paterson said.

Dinkins was kind of pushed into the race against Mayor Ed Koch.”

Dinkins was a methodical guy who plowed ahead and after prodding from supporters, he sought the prize — becoming New York City’s CEO.

The year was 1989.

By that point, Koch had become an unpopular and polarizing figure amid a municipal corruption scandal. And Koch’s forceful personality, prickly humor and blunt speaking style — once an asset — had turned into a liability, particularly with minority voters upset about racial strife and police brutality cases.

During the Democratic primary, Dinkins portrayed himself as a stabilizing force and antidote to the provocative Koch, who he beat by nearly 100,000 votes. He would go on to beat Giuliani 50 percent to 47 percent.

Dinkins’ mayoralty was a challenging one.

Crime was a major issue. The city was reeling with more than 2,000 murders a year, a crack epidemic and 1 million New Yorkers on welfare following a recession.

The Post expressed the anxious mood of the city with a front page headline, “Dave, Do Something.”

Dinkins did.

He personally lobbied in Albany — accompanied by then-Council Speaker Peter Vallone — and persuaded the state Legislature to approve an income tax surcharge to finance the “Safe Streets, Safe City, Cops and Kids” program. The money was used to hire more cops to work on neighborhood patrols.

“Beacon was one of the smart projects he worked on,” Paterson said. “It spawned the idea the charter schools came up with, keep the kids in school later.”

One of the personal highlights of Dinkins’ tenure was welcoming to New York South African leader Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist who spent 27 years in prison.

“At times even those of us who were his supporters didn’t realize how important Dinkins’ election was. Then he escorted Mandela on stage in Harlem. . . . It was a ‘wow’ moment,” Paterson said.

For all the history making of the mayoralty, Dinkins governed a fragile divided city beset with a high crime rate and still recovering from a recession.

Perhaps the biggest fumble by the Dinkins administration was the belated response to racial rioting in Crown Heights in 1991.

The disturbances erupted after a station wagon driven by a Hasidic driver struck and killed black 7-year-old Gavin Cato. In retaliation, angry black youths assaulted Jewish residents. Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Hasidic scholar, was stabbed to death.

A damning state report concluded Dinkins “failed to act in a timely and decisive manner” and also rapped his Police Commissioner Lee Brown and for “inadequate” supervision.

“I wish I had challenged police accounts earlier,” Dinkins said at the time. “The larger lesson is, one has to challenge, cross-examine and question,” he said after the report’s release.

The report was released just months before his re-election bid, against Giuliani, a mob-busting former US Attorney. Many believe the mishandling of the Crown Heights contributed to Dinkins’ defeat.

Dinkins was initially elected as a healer. But now his critics — including rival Giuliani — said he couldn’t keep the peace and was soft on crime.

An earlier racially charged controversy had already put Dinkins’ City Hall on hits heels — a black activists boycott of a Korean-owned grocery store in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section. The protests were spurred by a dispute between a black customer and the grocer .

Dinkins worked behind the scenes to try to end the boycott, which dragged on for eight months.

“The Crown Heights riot and the Korean deli boycott Dinkins handled with less than skill. The state report on the Crown Heights controversy did him in,” said Baruch College professor Doug Muzzio.

Dinkins’ mayoralty was dogged by another divisive issue — a growing and serious secessionist movement on Staten Island, the city’s whitest and most conservative borough.

The ballot question on island secession — and when it would appear — was approved by former Gov. Mario Cuomo and the state Legislature over the city’s objection when Koch was mayor.

Giuliani supporters on Staten Islands fanned the secessionist flames as a campaign strategy to boost turnout for Giuliani.

“The Staten Island secession referendum didn’t help me. No question about it,” Dinkins told the Post in 2015.

A bill to enact Staten Island secession died in the state Legislature — without even a vote — saying it first needed “home rule” approval from the city.

By then, Dinkins had been voted out of office and Giuliani was mayor.

To this day, Dinkins’ supporters are still upset that he didn’t get re-elected, and said racial animosity was a factor in his defeat. Others said he deserved more credit for the reduction in crime, which started with the Safe Streets program.

“The road to a safer city was begun under Dinkins. That began the long and difficult road to where the city is now,” Sunshine said. “Urban America got better and safer.”

After leaving office, Dinkins joined Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs as a professor in public Policy in 1994.

He also kept engaging in activism, as he was arrested for criminal trespassing as part of a public protest in 1999 against the shooting death of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo in a hail of 41 bullets fired by four white police officers.

“He was selective. But when he weighed in, he had a lot of gravitas,” Sharpton said of Dinkins.

Attorney General Letitia James, who is the first African American woman to hold statewide office in New York, paid tribute to Dinkins in a statement early Tuesday morning.

“Personally, Mayor Dinkins’ example was an inspiration to me from my first run for city council to my campaigns for public advocate and attorney general. I was honored to have him hold the bible at my inaugurations because I, and others, stand on his shoulders,” James said.

“The voice that gave birth to the ‘gorgeous mosaic’ is now at rest. New York will mourn Mayor Dinkins and continue to be moved by his towering legacy.”

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/david-dinkins-nycs-first-black-mayor-dead-at-93/

Photo Credit: AP

A man wearing a Trump shirt and an inflatable Trump innertube around his belly who was seen on video deliberately exhaling on two women outside of President Donald Trump’s golf course in Virginia has been charged with simple assault.

Raymond Deskins, 61, of Sterling, Virginia, was charged with misdemeanor simple assault, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

One of the women shot cellphone video of Saturday’s incident outside Trump’s club in Sterling and posted it on social media.

Michele Bowman, public information officer for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed to CNN that Raymond Deskins, the man charged, is the man seen in the video.

CNN has been unable to reach Deskins despite multiple attempts.

In the 24-second video, Deskins — who was not wearing a mask — can be seen in a verbal confrontation with the women who were there protesting Trump. It is not apparent what happened before the video began.

The women can be heard telling him to get away from them and back up. One of the women yelled at him, “Get away from me! Get away from me!”

The other woman told him, “You don’t get up in somebody’s face,” to which he responded, “I’m not in anybody’s face.”

She replied, “You are in my face — and you don’t have a mask, so you need to back up.”

That’s when the man can be seen exhaling forcefully, apparently in the direction of one of the women. The women gasped in shock as the man turned around with a smirk on his face.

One of the women yelled, “That’s assault!”

The man yelled back, “I breathed on you!” He then exhaled on the woman taking the video.

“Two separate parties reported they were assaulted during a verbal argument outside of Trump National Golf Club,” the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “As the incident was not witnessed by law enforcement and the video did not capture the entire interaction, an investigation was conducted on scene and both parties were advised they could go to a Loudoun County Magistrate and seek a citizen obtained warrant.”

LCSO later updated their statement to say, “This afternoon our deputies served a warrant obtained by a citizen through a Loudoun County Magistrate. Raymond Deskins, age 61, of Sterling, VA, was charged with simple assault (misdemeanor) and released on a summons.”

via: https://www.kmov.com/news/video-man-charged-after-exhaling-on-women-outside-trump-golf-club/article_32c5ca9d-1d05-55eb-bba8-05d7536f082c.html?block_id=985911

Photo Credit: kmov.com

A California man was busted for murdering his girlfriend’s 3-year-son — after confessing to stomping on the toddler’s head, authorities said.

Santos Rodriguez, 24, of Desert Hot Springs allegedly told cops he killed the tot Saturday in a fit of rage, the San Bernardino Police Department said.

When the toddler was taken to a local hospital with severe head trauma, Rodriguez allegedly at first told medical personnel and investigators that the boy had fallen off a razor scooter and struck his head on the pavement, authorities said.

But during an “extensive investigation,” Rodriguez allegedly admitted to losing his temper and repeatedly stomping the little boy’s head on the ground, cops said.

Rodriguez was taken to the San Bernardino West Valley Detention Center, where he is being held without bail.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/23/california-man-fatally-stomped-on-girlfriends-3-year-old-son/

Photo Credit: San Bernardino County West Valley Detention Center

Article via NewYorkPost

Authorities predicted months ago that Justin Pena — the homeless man who allegedly shoved a stranger onto the tracks in Midtown last week — would become a serial subway menace, The Post has learned.

Law enforcement had told a previous subway-attack victim — a retired postal worker whom Pena allegedly slugged in the face on an F train in Chelsea on Jan. 16 — that the unhinged shelter resident would soon be back out on the street, free to terrorize again.

“They told us he’s going to get a slap on the wrist and be back on the street and do the exact same thing,” recalled Hermann Leung, the son of victim Anthony Lion. “It’s very upsetting.”

Ten months later, the prediction came true, police now say.

Pena, 23, allegedly sucker-punched a 36-year-old stranger multiple times on a platform of the 42nd Street-Bryant Park, and then shoved the randomly targeted man onto the tracks.

That victim was able to pull himself back onto the platform before a train arrived; he suffered only minor injuries to his knee and hands, becoming the latest in a spate of attacks on subway passengers by violent, mentally ill men.

In the nearly year-long stretch between allegedly beating up Lion, 73, and shoving the younger man to the tracks, Pena has cycled in and out of Bellevue, his mother’s home and the streets.

One place he did not go to was court. Pena, who is now back in Bellevue, has missed multiple court dates and still has not been arraigned, according to a spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office.

Pena spent four years — from age 18 until shortly before the January attack — in jail on a gun-possession rap, said the mom, Angela Pena, 62.

Once released, never got the intensive, confining help he needed to stay on the medications he takes for bi-polar and attention deficit disorder, his adoptive mom, Angela Pena, 62, told The Post.

“Society did not do nothing for my son,” she cried, after learning from a reporter that he’d been jailed in connection to a second attack.

“Help my son, please!” she begged. “If you help him, he would not get in trouble.”

Pena had remained in Bellevue for just two weeks after the January attack, she said. Within weeks of returning home, he was off his medication and threatening to kill her, she said.

“I told them, ‘Keep him in the hospital. If you keep him in a hospital he will get medicated and he will not get violent,’” she said from her two-bedroom Bronx apartment, where she saves good memories of her son in a shoebox of photographs.

“But in the street, he will not be medicated. He will not take his medication,” she said.

“He didn’t take it with me. He didn’t take it when he was a baby. What makes them think he will take it in the streets?”

She added, “They should’ve done something [to help Pena] after he went to jail, because he’s violent.

“But nobody did nothing. Society did not do nothing for my son! My son went to jail. My son is sick in the head. My son is sick in the head,” she cried, despondent.

“Put him in a place where he could get medicated all the time, because if you tell him, ‘Medicate yourself,’ he does not medicate himself. He does whatever he wants.”

Experts agree with Pena’s mom.

To blame, they say, is a lack of intensive, in-patient facilities for the estimated 90,000 untreated, seriously mentally ill people who instead cycle in and out of New York’s jails, hospitals and homeless shelters.

The vast majority are harmful only to themselves, experts at the city-based Mental Illness Policy Organization — but a single-digit fraction of these street people are violent and, save for brief stints in hospital psychiatric wards, unhelped.

The city squandered $1 billion over the past five years on the ThriveNYC “wellness” program while programs for the seriously mentally ill go unfunded, they complain.

Meanwhile, cops are asked to pick up the pieces by responding to emergencies — or else are targeted by the “Defund the Police” movement.

“The subway is not a temporary housing facility for the homeless or mentally ill,” notes retired NYPD Sgt. Joseph Giacalone, an author and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“You can spend all the time and money in the world on social workers to handle the mental health problem, but if there is no place to keep those that need the help, then it will fail miserably,” he told The Post Saturday.

“In addition, some of these suspects were arrested on other crimes, only to be released immediately under the new bail reform laws,” he added.

“Cops have seen this crisis coming for years,” agreed Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association.

“Every time we handle a job involving a seriously mentally ill person — something we do successfully thousands of times each year — we leave knowing that any help we can provide is just a Band-Aid.”

The most psychotic street people — those who won’t take their medication on their own, “need to be confined for their own safety and the safety of others,” Lynch said.

Instead, “we’re being offered a false choice between ‘lock them all up’ [in jail] and ‘do nothing,’ because a real solution would take time, creativity, money and hard work,” he said.

The family of Anthony Lion still hasn’t recovered from his January assault — and after hearing of Wednesday’s alleged subway shove from The Post, they are afraid that more victims could follow.

“Oh wow, that’s terrible,” Lion’s wife, Dorothy, 66, said Saturday of last week’s attack.

Lion speaks mostly Cantonese, and is suffering from dementia, she said in speaking for him.

“There are a lot of mentally disordered people” in the city, she worried.

“Somebody has to follow up with [Pena’s] mental disorder and maybe send him to someplace like rehab or the hospital and get him treatment,” she said.

“I hope there’s no more of this type of victim — I hope it won’t happen again.”

Article via Yahoo News

Shawn Parcells was arrested in March 2019 on three counts of desecration of a body and theft after performing private autopsy services under a variety of names. Parcells is not a doctor, but he was paid by families to conduct private autopsies.

He played a role in the private death investigation of Brown, the unarmed teenager killed by police Officer Darren Wilson in 2014, whose fatal shooting sparked national outrage and protests in Ferguson, Missouri for months.

The Brown family hired a noted pathologist named Michael Baden to perform an independent autopsy on the 18-year-old. Parcells assisted him and appeared on national news shows discussing the case. Baden and Parcells concluded that Brown was likely bent over when fatal shots were fired into the top of his head.

Reports indicate over 20 families spanning the country have accused Parcells of taking their money for autopsy work that was never finished, an amount that passes $1 million, which they’re also trying to recover.

According to an assistant attorney general in Kansas, Parcells has described himself as someone who is self-taught in the trade of pathology. The court alleges he never disclosed his lack of formal training to customers who, prosecutors claim, he scammed out of thousands of dollars.

A judge ruled that there was enough evidence to suggest Parcells had violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act and ordered him to stop conducting his business and shut down his website.

In a separate civil case, Parcells was hit with a temporary restraining order to prevent him from performing services.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt alleged that Parcells violated the state’s False Claims Act and Consumer Protection Act. The state also alleges he billed his county for at least 14 autopsies that were never performed.

In a statement, Parcells’ attorney said that he was assessing the “best course of action” in the case.

Missouri state law requires county medical examiners to be licensed physicians; the law differs in Kansas.

“I feel a sense of accomplishment in that I was able to help this family and, of course, work with Dr. Baden,” Parcells said following the Brown autopsy in 2014, according to The Kansas City Star. “My business is still recovering. I do feel like I’ve bounced back some.”

Darren Wilson’s verdict causes protests & looting in Ferguson #mikebrown

Darren Wilson receives huge donations/Michael Brown’s step father facing charges

Ratchet FL ~Dr. Love A.r.r.e.s.t.e.d AGAIN this is the 2nd time in 2 weeks!