March 23, 2011
BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND
The news as I see it and the views as I want them.
March 23 is … National Organize Your Home Office Day and National Chip and Dip Day
To help illustrate what I was writing about yesterday, the following was reported by AP yesterday afternoon. I am not saying our government or any government employees were involved in the initial rape and attack just the cover-up and injustice. Nearly 70 years after she was raped by a gang of white men, Recy Taylor got an apology Monday from leaders of a rural southeast Alabama community who acknowledged that her attackers escaped prosecution because of racism and an investigation bungled by police. "It is apparent that the system failed you in 1944," Henry County probate judge and commission chairwoman JoAnn Smith told several of Taylor's relatives at a news conference at the county courthouse. Recy Taylor, 91, is seen in her home in Winter Haven, Fla. Black and white leaders from a rural southeast Alabama community apologized Monday to relatives of Taylor, who was raped in 1944 by a gang of white men who escaped prosecution because of what officials described as police bungling and racism. Taylor told The Associated Press in an interview last year that she believes the men who attacked her are dead, but she would still like an apology from the state. The AP does not typically identify victims of sexual assault but is using her name because she has publicly identified herself.
Taylor, 91, lives in Florida and did not attend the news conference. Family members said she was in poor health and was not up to traveling to Abbeville or speaking with reporters. But her 74-year-old brother Robert Corbitt, who still lives in town, was front and center and said he would relay the apology to his sister. "What happened to my sister way back then ... couldn't happen today," he said. "Boy, what a mess they made out of it. They tried to make her look like a whore and she was a Christian lady." Taylor was 24, married and living in her native Henry County when she was gang-raped in Abbeville. She was walking home from church when she was abducted, assaulted and left on the side of the road in an isolated area.
Two all-white, all-male grand juries declined to bring charges. Democratic State Rep. Dexter Grimsley of Newville said police bungled the investigation and harassed Taylor. "I would like to extend a deep, heartfelt apology for the error we made here in Alabama," Grimsley said Monday, looking straight at Corbitt. "It was so unkind. We can't stand around and say that it didn't happen." He said the statements from the mayor and the probate judge help to assure area residents that "that era won't return to us." He also said he is working on a resolution asking the state to apologize to Taylor.
Taylor's story, along with those of other black women attacked by white men during the civil rights era, is told in "At the Dark End of the Street," a book by Danielle McGuire released last year. McGuire said Monday she would eventually like to see more formal apologies from the state, city and county, but views the statements from officials, prompted by publicity about her book, as a good first step.
"The fact that they are acknowledging that this happened is important," said McGuire, a history professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. The case got the attention of NAACP activist Rosa Parks in the 1940s, a decade before she became an icon by refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus. Parks interviewed Taylor in 1944 and later recruited other activists to create the "Alabama Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor." Those efforts were later overshadowed by other civil rights battles. Corbitt said he felt like his sister's case was forgotten until he started doing some research several years ago and found out about the work that McGuire was doing. Mayor Ryan Blalock, who was among those apologizing Monday, said he had not heard about the case until recently.
"It felt good that the mayor said he is sorry about it," Corbitt said. Blalock got emotional when he told Taylor's family that Abbeville is now a good place to live and that white people and black people respect each other and work and play together. "My 8-year-old son has as many black friends as he does white friends," said Blalock, who is white. "They are welcome at our place and he is welcome in their homes."
Mistaken slaughter in America. A California man who was mistaken for a burglar lost his life last weekend when a victimized homeowner chased him down and hacked him to death with an ax, according to police reports. The homeowner, 29 year-old Steven Zinda, has been booked into the Sacramento County Jail on a single count of murder. He is being held without bail, and his arraignment is scheduled to take place Tuesday afternoon.
According to police documents and interviews, this is allegedly what happened.
Early Sunday morning, Zinda returned home and discovered someone trying to rob his home in Rio Linda, a small community in the Sacramento metropolitan area. The burglary suspect fled the house, Zinda said, according to Deputy Jason Ramos. At the same time that the man was running away on foot, 20-year-old David Valdez, a resident of Elverta, was driving his SUV and got stuck in a ditch down the street from Zinda's home. When Zinda saw Elverta, he assumed he was the same person who had just attempted to break into his home, police said. "Zinda confronted him with a weapon, and the man fled on foot," Ramos told AOL News. Zinda chased Valdez, eventually catching him about a mile away. In the ensuing confrontation, Zinda attacked Valdez with a "sharp-edged object," reportedly an ax. He then returned to his home and made a 911 call around 4:30 a.m., police said.
Paramedics found Valdez dead at the scene. According to Ramos, the victim "suffered trauma to his head and upper body." Authorities confirmed that there was a break-in at Zinda's residence, but they were unable to establish a connection between Valdez and the attempted robbery. "Detectives believe there is likelihood that the victim was killed under Zinda's mistaken assumption that he was involved somehow in the burglary," Ramos said. Valdez's mother, Maria Nunez, told Sacramento's KXTV her son had attended a party Saturday night and had called a family member early Sunday to report he was stuck on the side of the road.
"My son was looking for help. He was not trying to do anything bad," Nunez said.
This unfortunate event will be used by liberals in an attempt to outlaw axes, no doubt.
And then there is this slaughter in America. A Montgomery County District Court judge ordered Brittany Norwood, 28, the woman accused of killing her co-worker Jayna Murray at the Lululemon store in downtown Bethesda March 11, held without bond in court Monday.
Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy argued for no bond in court, arguing that Norwood posed a threat to public safety. “The nature of the crime is shocking in the level of violence directed during the attack,” McCarthy said. Murray's injuries, McCarthy said, were "catastrophic." The blows to her head were probably “too numerous to count,” McCarthy said, her skull was crushed, and there was a ligature wound around her neck. Norwood at first portrayed herself to be a victim of an attack by two masked men, he said, but her story later unraveled. Norwood said both women had been attacked by two masked men and sexually assaulted, but there was no evidence to support that, police later said. The crime initially characterized by police as "random" heightened fears in downtown Bethesda and left residents taking extra security precautions. “Her cunning and her ability to lie are almost unparalleled,” McCarthy said. McCarthy said that Murray suspected Norwood may have been stealing from the store, and called store management to report her suspicions. Murray found items Norwood may have stolen from the store in Norwood’s bag, McCarthy said. During the phone call with management, which happened the day of the murder, Murray was told it would be dealt with the next day, McCarthy said.
After closing the store on March 11, Norwood called Murray to return to the store just after 10p.m. because Norwood said she had forgotten her wallet, and a confrontation ensued, McCarthy said. The attack, which may have lasted as long as 20 minutes, took place at numerous locations within the store, he said. Witnesses at the nearby Apple Store heard two women screaming, but didn’t hear any male voices, McCarthy said. He said materials from inside the store itself were used as weapons. “The instruments used to take Jayna Murray’s life all came from within the store itself,” McCarthy said. McCarthy said Norwood told “pathological lies by the hundreds” and that much of what police found at the crime scene was a product of what she had staged. Norwood wore a pair of size 14 shoes that belonged to the store and tracked footprints through Murray's blood, he said. She later washed the shoes and put them back on the shelf, McCarthy said. Police found blood on the shoes “despite her own best efforts to wash the blood off,” McCarthy said. The rear of Murray's pants had been cut to make it appear as though she was sexually assaulted, McCarthy said. Later, Norwood tied herself up using her teeth, he said. McCarthy said police found a box of the pull ties she used to tie herself inside the store. Norwood's injuries were consistent with self-inflicted wounds, McCarthy said. Charging documents described them as “superficial scratches and parallel."
The crime scene, he said, was “awash as much as any crime scene I’ve ever been at with the blood of this victim.” Norwood also changed her story about Murray’s car, McCarthy said. Norwood initially said she had never been in the vehicle. Officers found the car parked in the lot adjacent to the Montgomery Farm Women’s Cooperative Market on Wisconsin Avenue, McCarthy said. In it, detectives found blood that matched both Murray and Norwood. Blood was found on the door handle, the gear shift, and the steering wheel, as well as on a hat in the backseat, McCarthy said. It wasn’t until the fifth time that officers interviewed her that Norwood said she had “just remembered” that the assailants made her move the car, giving her ten minutes to return or they would kill her, McCarthy said. When asked whether she had asked for assistance during that time, she said no, McCarthy said.
Around the same time, a Montgomery County police officer observed what they thought to be Norwood sitting in Murray’s car for an extended time, he said. The officer “saw what he believed to be her sitting in the car for an hour and a half, trying to decide what to do,” McCarthy said.
Detectives in the case detailed what they had found to Norwood’s family, McCarthy said. She was later left alone with her brother while she was incarcerated. She told her brother, “I don’t want to disappoint you. I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk here, they might be recording it,” McCarthy said. When her brother asked her why she fought with Murray, she said, “I don’t know,” McCarthy said. Alan Drew, a public defender, didn't have a comment after the hearing. A public defender will be representing Norwood, he said. Norwood is scheduled for a preliminary hearing April 15. McCarthy told reporters the case would likely go before a grand jury for a potential indictment before the preliminary hearing. McCarthy said he would personally be handling the case at trial. Norwood appeared via closed circuit television before the judge, speaking only to state her name. The liberals will now want to take shoes and department stores away from American citizens.
I sure hope we can fix the world in a hurry so we can get back home and fix America.
BRUCE A. BRENNAN
DEKALB, IL 60115
COPYRIGHT 2011
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"Always try to do something for the other fellow and you will be agreeably surprised how things come your way -- how many pleasing things are done for you." - Claude M. Bristol
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