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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

DC'S CULTURE OF FEAR AND DEATH: WHAT SHALL I DO?






One of the most detestable yet, essential, processes of judicial exercise is witnessing.  Both art and science, the term “witness” is derived from the Greek martyr, meaning to “care, trouble, be anxious or thoughtful”.  From Sanskrit smarati, it means "remember" and from the Latin memor "mindful".  In our society, the call to witness has been gutlessly denied by the proverbial street code principle that “snitchers get stitches”.  The ideal of being self-sacrificial is doused by the icy waters of “self-preservation”.  Many wonder what this culture produces.  One is the seed that bears a culture of life and prosperity.  The other seed bears a culture of death and fear.  It is the ability of people to evolve from a spirit of “I will do” to a spirit of “what will I do”.  We have grown from a resolute manner of “defend and protect” to a painful custom of “look away and deny”.  This is not merely an observation of Urban America but all facets of our Nation are diseased as such.  In order to change our culture, we must become martyrs willing to reclaim the virtues of a Great Nation under God.




What cultural institutions have become, complacent and even complicit in this new custom in the “Land of the Free”?  Individuals fear the police state will arrest them for legally protecting themselves while criminals advantage themselves in gun-free zones and gun control cities.  Families lose children to the Missing Persons List and Unresolved Homicide List while politicians speak of building a new recreation center to replace them.  Our economy suffers for where a man does not feel safe, he will not build and invest.  Where there is lack of capital, poverty persists.  Where poverty increases, hopelessness endures.  Leaving only three options: flee, fight or persists.  Those with a desire for greater risk and thus, greater gain, are mobile.  They flee and take their abilities and capital with them.  Those that fight exhaust themselves over time and either flee as those before them or persist hoping that progressive policies will result in success for all.  Unfortunately, they exhaust half a century of a war on poverty and watch as their neighborhoods—err, I mean communities—fall by the wayside, anxiously awaiting the antidote of government intervention and tax enforcement to remedy what ails.  Those that will persist will seek any means necessary to demand redistribution, stymy growth with price control and budgetary promises and command peace officers to disband and allow public chaos and riot. 

Positive signs include fewer uninsured children overall and the all-time high in national high school graduation rates, although McCarthy cautioned that many students are still not sufficiently proficient in math and reading.

He said the foundation calls for a “two-generation approach” that invests in parents and children, including support systems like tax credits, job training and food stamps, as well as much greater investment in early education. He also said that businesses could do more, including schedule employees with flexible work hours.

 Patrick McCarthy, President,
Annie E Casey Foundation, Kids Count Data Book 2013

Our educational system is so corrupt that we have convinced parents to give drugs to perfectly healthy children in order to keep them motionless in the classroom.  Common core and “teaching to the test” have replaced individual victory plans for students.  Our nation has put a price on failure and it comes to the budget table annually requesting an increase in its spending.  Unfortunately, we believe it more important to feed the “ideals” of education success and starve the “facts” of education performance.  We all suffer the misery of the results.

Our government wants you to believe that they do not know where synthetic marijuana came from and that they are adamantly opposed to it because it’s dangerous.  All while legalizing organic marijuana, creating price controls that heighten interest in the black market and outlawing synthetic marijuana but not natural marijuana.  Heck, why don’t you lower the standards so that even children with a doctor’s note can get marijuana?  No sane person would allow children to use medical marijuana and risk them becoming synthetic marijuana users!  It would certainly not be a government that has for years spent the treasury’s wealth advising children not to use drugs.  Is it possible that the culture of fear and death industries have infiltrated our government and left our children at risk? 

Court documents reveal that Sutherland, a 2013 American University graduate, was stabbed 30 to 40 times after the attacker tried to grab a cellphone tucked into Sutherland’s waistband.  Police said that after stabbing Sutherland, the assailant threw the cellphone to the floor and returned to stomping the victim’s body.

“Suspect in July 4 fatal Metro stabbing speaks out in D.C. Superior Court” By Keith L. Alexander, Washington Post (July 17)

Jasper Spires, according to a police report, kicked two officers in the legs as they handcuffed him.  Apparently, assault on a Metropolitan Police Officer was not a serious enough crime for to keep him in lock-up.   Yeah, you can kick and stomp a Peace Officer and only be charged a misdemeanor.  A Law enforcement officer is the answer that registers only 100 points on the Jeopardy TV Show. 

Alex:  For 100 points, what is a misdemeanor in DC? 
Jasper:  Alex, what is slapping the daylights out of a DC Police Officer?
Alex:  Jasper, that’s right!  Pick a Category.
Jasper:  I’ll have Culture of Fear and Death for 500, Alex.
Alex:  What Do Metro Train and 30 – 40 Slashes Have in Common?
Jasper:  I Don’t Believe You Have Probable Cause to Ask Me that Question, Alex!

Our government would prefer that you look away from the screen and believe that all is well.  It is not.  Our children are missing and being sold into sex trafficking operations.  Our children are being slain on the streets and a limited resource of officers and detectives are called upon to remedy the list of Unresolved Homicides.  Ssssssssh!  No talking about the issues unless you are intending to blame our inability to perform on a lack of resources, global warming, a lack of affordable housing or simply, we need more jobs training.  In the words of Democrat Alderman Jeffrey Boyd (STL-Ward 22), “If you want a job, go get a job!”  I concur.  I also believe that it is time to march.  We need to march down to the District Building and hold the City’s Judiciary Committee accountable.  Liberal Talking points will not heal our City’s issues with Missing Persons and Unresolved Homicides.




Finally, our Faith community needs to be held accountable.  I like to thank Pastor Wellington Boone for leading me to this Scripture:  Ezekiel 22: 23-31.  Many of you are so tied to the religions of ideology and status that you cannot react in a manner that is decent for the hour at hand.  You have sold the souls of your church to the government and now seek only to appease those in power.  It is far easier to preach fiery rhetoric from the pulpit when it is a “white police officer killing a black man in the community” but where is the muster of your homily when your lambs are slain before you by men of ill-repute in your “community”?  You have preached so long to appease and comfort women that you cannot assemble your men to protect and defend the most precious treasures in the House of God—your people!  Your city reeks.  Boys using the tools of men are slaying the babes before you.  Your answer is?  We’ll get a committee together and have a meeting.  Listen, the answers are before you.  It is not enough to fill the seats if there is no REAL change in the hearts of men, the servant leaders of cities and the Nations before you.  Instead of holding your Holy Convocation in a well ventilated, air conditioned conference center, why not take your ministers of music and Word and reach those in the most dangerous “communities”. 

“We can’t? “

“Why?”

“Because that’s dangerous!”

Yeah, it is.  However, salvation and correction requires moving beyond the comforts of your cathedral and reaching “the least, the last and the lost”.   Booker T. Washington said, “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”  When it takes three weeks for someone to announce that a little girl is missing from a homeless shelter, we have an obstacle.  When after two months, none can say who killed a “daughter of the community”, even with film evidence, we have an obstacle.  When more than 80% of the persons on the Unresolved Homicide List are Black men, we have an obstacle.  When only three Pastors respond to a vigil call that speaks to the condition of the poorest communities in the District’s history, we have an obstacle.  When the Houses of Worship have gone silent over the deaths of persons, over the tyranny of the bureaucracy and the hopelessness of the people, MEN OF GOD, we have an obstacle.

GET UP OFF YOU KNEES and RESPOND TO THE CRIES OF YOUR PEOPLE!

How can you help now?  I am glad that you asked.

Number One.  Join the Relisha T. Rudd Law Campaign.  Contact Rebecca Taylor, Campaign Coordinator, for further instruction.  Go to the Facebook Link for the Campaign.  



Number Two.  Please sign and send the following letter to each of the Judiciary Committee members of the DC City Council.  I am ok with copy and paste and please add your address.  The more members hear from you, the greater the chance of a public hearing.  Every Life Matters.  The Finding of Missing Persons and the Resolution of Cold Cases Matters, Too!







The Honorable Kenyan McDuffie, Chair Pro Tempore
DC City Council Judiciary Committee Chair
Council of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004 

Dear Chairman McDuffie: 

This is a letter of request for a Public Oversight Hearing of the Metropolitan Police Department's Unresolved Homicides and Missing Persons Division. We extend our concerns to include collaborative agencies as Commission on Fathers, Men and Boys, Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety & Justice, Forensic Health and Science Laboratories, Juvenile Justice Advisory Group, Office of Victims Services and any other deemed essential to reducing the number of outstanding Unresolved Homicides and Missing Persons in the District of Columbia. 

The Committee on the Judiciary is responsible for all legislation related to criminal, civil, and administrative law in the District of Columbia. It also oversees all of the District’s public safety agencies, conducting hearings to hold agencies and their directors accountable for performance and spending. The Committee also serves as the Council's liaison with federal partners in the justice system. We are counting upon your Committee to avail itself to public hearing the multiple concerns and solutions to reduce the crisis of Missing Person and Unresolved Homicide. District Citizens Relisha Rudd and Charnice Milton have garnered International attention for the distinctions of Missing Person and Unresolved Homicide.  Relisha Rudd's disappearance from a DC Homeless Shelter went without report to the Metropolitan Police for three weeks. Sarah Stein, PhD of The Center for the Resolution of Unresolved Crime advises that over 85% of children missing after three hours are found dead.  Unfortunately, we have not found Relisha Rudd. We believe that if Relisha's absence was reported earlier then, we would have had a better chance of finding her. Hence, we propose the Relisha T Rudd Law which would require mandatory reporting of missing children under age 13 within 24 hours of their noted absence. We must hold parents and guardians accountable for the care of their children. We believe this measure will reduce threats of death, violence and kidnapping and preserve our City's families and public safety.

Charnice Milton was murdered in Southeast Washington, DC on Wednesday, May 27, 2015. She lived, worked and worshiped in her Native City.  A graduate of Ball State University, she earned a Master's Degree from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.   Milton covered Wards 6, 7 and 8 for the Capital Community News.  She was on her way home from the monthly meeting of the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee when she was used as a human shield by a gang member avoiding a direct shot from a rival gang member.  On the night that the Honorable Mayor Muriel Bowser visited our home to extend condolences on behalf of the City, Charnice Milton was placed on the City’s Cold Case List.  The name of the List has since been changed to Major Case/Unresolved Homicides however, unchanged is our daughter’s place on the list.  


On May 27, 2015, she was the 31st added.  Today, there are 48 and growing.  The MPDC's Major Case/Cold Case Unit is composed of eight detectives.  With over 100 Major Case/Unresolved Homicides in the past two years, it must be daunting for such a small staff to bring closure to such a significant compilation of cases.  We must answer why a City of this magnitude, after years of community policing, has great duress in resolving homicides.  Our concern is not why someone was murdered or the content of the character of the person that was murdered.  We are concerned that a father, mother, sister, brother or other is unable to know peace because the homicide is unresolved.  The City should not sleep until every family has been restored by the resolution of each.  The City’s efforts aid in bringing closure for families and friends suffering emotional dissonance and reassures public safety.  We believe that a review of people, processes and performances must be done publicly. 
We thank you for taking to review this request and seek a public hearing on these matters very soon.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. 



Cc        Councilmember Jack Evans, Judiciary Committee member, jevans@dccouncil.us
            Councilmember Mary Cheh, Judiciary Committee member, mcheh@dccouncil.us
            Councilmember LaRuby May, Judiciary Committee member,   LMay@DCCOUNCIL.US
            Councilmember Anita Bond, Judiciary Committee member, abonds@dccouncil.us
            Kate Mitchell, Judiciary Committee Director, kmitchell@dccouncil.us



Wednesday, July 15, 2015

CHAIRMAN MENDELSON: "RELISHA RUDD" AND "CHARNICE MILTON" DEMAND A HEARING


They are voiceless.  Yet, we hear them.
They are invisible.  Yet, their presence demands our attention.
They are without vengeance.  
May those that proclaim justice cover their innocence with truth.


 The Supreme Court in Heller struck a balance between the right of individuals to protect themselves and the right of individuals to be protected. If we so limit gun control as to favor individuals to protect themselves, but then disadvantage the right of individuals to be protected by the police, what will we have gained for the public good?
Phil Mendelson
An at-large member of the D.C. Council and chairman of the council’s 
Committee on Public Safety & the Judiciary.
D.C. Vote: This Is About Safety, Not the 2nd Amendment
March 22, 2009

Mr. Chairman of the District of Columbia City Council, Relisha T. Rudd and Charnice Milton demand a Public Hearing on the State of Missing Persons and Homicide Resolutions in the Nation's Capital.  Relisha T. Rudd and Charnice Milton represent individuals that have not seen the fruition of the promises of their city leaders or the resolution of their acquaintances with loss and death despite the efforts of community policing.  They are citizens of the District of Columbia.  Yes, a District formed on the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers that has shown a greater commitment to those that reside illegally than those of natural birth.  I know Mr. Chairman!  We have no reason to complain that our policing agency, oft criticized and maligned for the sack of political expediency, is restricted to enforce law on those that reside here illegally.  I mean what did they ever do to us to bring cause?


Mary Cheh, a D.C. Councilmember from Ward 3 was on council in 2012 when D.C. adopted its current illegal immigration policy, which says the city will not hold illegal immigrants for the Feds unless there’s a criminal investigation. Also, the District does not check the immigration status for anyone arrested. So, an illegal immigrant in D.C. could commit murder and Cheh says the Feds will not be told.
Wow!  I remember Mr. Chairman that you sat on that same council that made DC a sanctuary city.  
  
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has flagged for deportation the sole suspect charged in the high-profile, quadruple homicide in the multimillion dollar Northwest home of businessman Savvas Savopoulos.  The agency has placed an immigration detainer on Darron Delon Dennis Wint, who was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in last month’s killings of a D.C. couple, their 10-year-old child and the family’s housekeeper. ICE officials confirmed that Mr. Wint, who is a citizen of Guyana, could face deportation from the United States if he is convicted.

No need to worry about the City Council.  We know that this legislative body will always see that the right of individuals to be protected by the police is weighed heavily in all deliberations and observed in every legislative matter including agencies' oversight.  While the status of DC as a sanctuary city lends credence to the need for citizen oversight, the Unresolved "Missing Person" claim of Relisha T. Rudd and the "Major Case/Unresolved Homicide" claim of Charnice Milton begs our attentions.  For this and other reasons, We the People petition the City for public remedy by hearing of its oversight of agencies under the Committee of the Judiciary.




Unresolved "Missing Person" claim of Relisha T. Rudd is harrowing in that despite the great interventions of the city government's agencies we somberly closed the year without finding the little girl.  It took more than two weeks for Relisha Rudd to be reported missing. According to police, Relisha was last seen on March 1, but a police search warrant indicates that her disappearance wasn’t reported until March 19, when a public school social worker contacted authorities about her repeated unexcused absences from school.  Sarah Stein, Ph.D. of The Center for the Resolution of Unresolved Crime, says that in Missing Persons Cases, if a child is not found in the first 3 hours then, there's an 86% chance that the child will be found dead.  Shelter Janitor Kahlil Tatum, Relisha's suspected kidnapper, committed suicide after killing his wife, with a bullet to the head, in a hotel room.  There is no sign of Relisha anywhere.  The resolution of this missing person matter seems bleak.  Yet, it revealed some of the most repulsive procedures and processes of agencies regarding missing persons.   Mayor Muriel Bowser, Chief of Police Cathy Lanier and other city leaders maintained conditions at D.C. General homeless shelter have improved since Relisha's disappearance.  Per NBC Washington News, "they have added 24-hour security, fixed broken surveillance cameras and repaired the heating and air conditioning".  We appreciate the improvements however, is there nothing more appalling than not knowing where a child is for more than a moment?  Howabout three weeks?  in Lori Jane Gliha's Who's to Blame for the Disappearance of Relisha Rudd, Melissa Young, Relisha's grandmother, relates:

Anybody did not call.  The most disconcerting is that her mother Shamika Young did not call.   Rebecca Taylor and others are petitioning for the Relisha T. Rudd Law.  Akin to Caylee's Law, parents or legal guardians would be charged with a felony for not reporting missing children under 13 years of age or not reporting a child's death or the location of a child's corpse within hours of the child's death.  An individual would face one to to five years in prison, fines up to $10,000 or both.  Simply, parents must be parents.  Government, even with the promise of police protection, can not be parents.  When parents refuse to do their Godly duty, they are a risk to public safety and the peace of society.  Some punishment is necessary when parents put their children and our culture at risk.  For this and other reasons, We the People petition the City for public remedy by hearing of its oversight of agencies under the Committee of the Judiciary.



Nowhere in the United States Constitution, which is truly the "Law of the Land", or the DC Home Rule Chartering Agreement with Congress is there a Guarantee of Protection of the Citizenry by Police.  "Law enforcement generally does not have a federal constitutional duty to protect one private person from another", according to L. Cary Unkelbach, Assistant County Attorney Representing the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office, Centennial, Colorado.  I don't know where I get this from.  Some off the wall magazine.  O, yeah, Police Chief Magazine!  Mr. Chairman, where would a sensible man of law get this type of thinking from?  Maybe it was from SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIVIL DIVISION Civil Action No. 4695-76 CAROLYN WARREN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants.


The Court, however, does not agree that defendants owed a specific legal duty to plaintiffs with respect to the allegations made in the amended complaint for the reason that the District of Columbia appears to follow the well-established rule that official police personnel and the government employing them are not generally liable to victims of criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection.

Talk about your War on Women!  It was this DC Police Case that stands the test of federal and state judicial systems.  Yet, many have fought against innocents like my daughter protecting themselves on the cruel streets of Washington.  I know, as long as "thugs" are not opening drug war zones across the street from Cheese Cake Factory on Connecticut avenue NW, I guess we are good to go.  However, here's a problem with that scenario: Charnice Milton.  On the night that Mayor Bowser visited our home to offer comfort on behalf of the City of Washington, our beloved daughter, Charnice Milton, was placed on DC Metropolitan Police's "Cold Case" List.  However, we were corrected about 72 hours later.  We were told that a few days before her funeral that she wasn't on a "Cold Case" List.  She was on the "Major Case/Unresolved Homicide" List.   I was worried.  I did not want her to be on the "JV" Team of Unresolved Homicide Cases.  

I was told that her killers were on all terrain vehicles and other recreational vehicles.  Like champions of public safety, I heard the Council and DC Agencies jump out to really solve the crime.  "Go after the ATVs and synthetic marijuana!  That will solve these unsolved cases."  Huh?  The long and short of it is that my daughter's killers were able to get away with murder in Washington, DC.  In fact, my daughter was unresolved case No. 31 at the the time of her slaying, May 27, 2015.  It's July 15, 2015 and there are 48 unresolved homicides and my daughter remains listed.   What of the Public Safety, Mr. Chairman?  You once sat on the Judiciary Committee.  You oversee the Commission on Fathers, Men and Boys.  Should they not be up in arms that over 85% of the Unresolved Homicides are Black Men?  You oversee the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety & Justice.  Should you not be concerned that Mayor Bowser and Chief Lanier held a press conference because one case was solved?  Aren't you the least bit concerned that a limited staff of detectives must play catch up on over 100 Unresolved Homicide Cases after one year and half (1-1/2)?  You oversee Metropolitan Police Department.  Besides the obvious questions, have you ever wondered why police are not using the same vehicles as the criminals?  Even better, why are our police not using electromagnetic pulse equipment to shutdown these vehicles?  This makes it easier to arrest on site rather than depending on grainy videos to identify the "thugs".  Should you not wonder aloud why Kevin Southerland, whose killer was arrested in less than 48 hours after our Attorney General released him the day before the murder because hitting a police officer was not a great enough charge to hold him in the clink, is still listed as an Unresolved Homicide?  Your silence on these matters make the Council complicit with the Culture of Fear and Death that grown in this city.  

It was not a law abiding citizen gun owner that killed my daughter, Mr. Chairman.  For the report of great DC Detectives, 14 Black men and women were responsible for her death.  One black man used Charnice Milton as a human shield to avoid being struck by the assailant.  My daughter laid in the arms of a gentle policeman who watched over her.  He watched her bleed out of the chest onto the street.  He listened to her murmur and cry her last tears.  He listened as she cried out for her mother and father wishing they were there in the police officer's place.  He reached over his shoulder, as she breathed with such discomfort, to call for backup and an ambulance.  The agony and pain almost unbearable for those that gathered.  Some day you will see the photograph of how she looked when she exited the Sanctuary of this City and entered into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Why bother you with this testimony.  These crimes don't fit the narrative that would require the City to outlaw Confederate Flags.  It does not fit the safe and secure racial disharmony narrative.  Imagine the marches.  Imagine the ministers falling out of their pews to speak about injustice everywhere.  I can only imagine what this City would be like if the narrative were different.  Ideological narrative should never supersede the moral responsibility of public safety.  Whom will build this City if it is not safe?  Whom will protect this city if not the police as you say?  Mr. Chairman, there are two that have been silenced that are due their day before their respective servants.  Relisha Rudd and Charnice Milton are they. 

CHAIRMAN MENDELSON: "RELISHA RUDD" AND "CHARNICE MILTON" DEMAND A PUBLIC HEARING BEFORE THE DC CITY COUNCIL.