Results tagged “alsharpton”

The Rev. Al Sharpton will hold a vigil tonight outside police headquarters to support the families of men killed by police, including recent victims Omar Edwards and Shem Walker, as well as Sean Bell, who was killed outside his bachelor party at a Queens strip club in 2006. Sharpton's National Action Network is organizing the vigil. Walker, the most recent victim, was an army veteran who was killed by an undercover cop during a drug sting in Clinton Hill; NYPD sources say the cop had earphones in to keep in touch with his team and didn't hear Walker's demand that he get off his stoop. Cops say Walker kicked the officer in the head and grabbed for his gun in the ensuing scuffle; witnesses insist the cop never identified himself. And in May, Edwards, an officer himself, was killed while chasing a man who had broken into his car. Earlier this month a grand jury declined to indict the officer who fatally shot him.

If Governor Paterson wasn't happy with the media's depiction of his job performance before a radio interview Friday connecting it to an "orchestrated" attack from the press related to race, he certainly can't be thrilled that he ended up inviting a whole new round of onslaught from voices throughout the state questioning his competence.

Black leaders expressed frustration yesterday after a grand jury voted not to indict Officer Andrew Dunton in the fatal "friendly fire" shooting of fellow Officer Omar Edwards one rainy night in Harlem at the end of May. The Black Law Enforcement Alliance called the decision "disturbingly predictable," and demanded that investigations of police shootings be independent of the Police Department and the district attorney’s office: "The relationship between the police and the local prosecutors is incestuous and threatens public confidence in the integrity of the process."

Congresswoman and likely Senate candidate Carolyn Maloney may have stepped in some serious S-word. While giving an interview to the publication City Hall, Maloney was discussing Kirsten Gillibrand's stances being all over the map and relayed a story from a voter on the issue of language in the schools: "I got a call from someone from Puerto Rico, said [Gillibrand] went to Puerto Rico and came out for English-only [education]. And he said, ‘It was like saying n—r to a Puerto Rican.’” City Hall emphasizes that Maloney used the "full racial slur." Talk about bad PR! Well, if Jesse Jackson wasn't going to let Nas use the N-word, you knew Al Sharpton would waste no time in having words for Maloney. The Reverend, who has already endorsed Gillibrand, said the utterance was "alarming and disturbing at best" and wants her to out the person who said this "so we know that in fact this conversation did occur and the way in which it occurred." Maloney was quick to back away from the comment, saying, "I apologize for having repeated a word I find disgusting. It's no excuse but I was so caught up in relaying the story exactly as it was told to me that, in doing so, I repeated a word that should never be repeated."

Just in case you were wondering, the Reverend Al Sharpton is headed to California to be with Michael Jackson's family—his spokesperson said, "Reverend Sharpton is on his way to Los Angeles to meet with Michael's parents and siblings and to talk about the needs to preserve and protect Michael's legacy." Sharpton, who spoke outside the Apollo right after Jackson's death was announced, will lead a moment of silence and read a eulogy for the pop singer during the Apollo's tribute to Jackson, planned on Tuesday. Between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m., 600 mourners per 45-minute interval are invited to leave memorabilia and flowers and remember Jackson's life. And on Wednesday, the Apollo's Amateur Night will feature a moonwalking competition. Apollo Theater Foundation President Jonelle Procope said, "We at the Apollo thought it was important to put these events together to give Michael's fans the chance to remember him as the consummate entertainer that he was."

     

Today at his weekly meeting of the National Action Network, Al Sharpton gathered together some of the major Democratic senators involved in the ongoing power struggle in Albany (with one glaring exception, of course). One week after Senator Hiram Monserrate was out at Yankee Stadium hanging out with Pedro Espada, here he was smiling and yukking it up with the colleagues he helped oust from power, Malcolm Smith and John Sampson.

262 new cops, poised to graduate and start policing on July 2nd, gathered at Harlem's Apollo Theater yesterday for training on cross-cultural understanding, or, as Police Commissioner Ray Kelly puts it, "immersion training." For some rookies, it probably doesn't get more immersive than a visit from Rev. Al Sharpton, who was on hand to warn officers that "in most of our communities there's a tremendous fear of the cops and the robbers seem to be winning." But Sharpton's best sound bite came after the gathering, when he told reporters, "To me, it's always successful to be in a room full of police and not leave with my hands in cuffs." Yesterday marked the fourth and final day of mandatory diversity training, which was initiated after Sean Bell was shot and killed by plainclothes police officers in 2006; the sessions also come in the wake of the fatal cop-on-cop shooting in Harlem last month. The NYPD has been criticized for conducting a record-breaking number of stop-and-frisk searches this year, which groups like the NYCLU say disproportionately target minorities. Oh, and critics have also objected to the sodomy.

The off-duty police officer who was fatally shot by police in Harlem last night as he chased a burglar with his gun drawn died from a gunshot wound from the chest. But a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner says that though the fatal bullet was recovered from the front of Officer Omar Edwards's chest, the bullet actually entered the left side of his back before hitting his heart and left lung. Another bullet struck his left arm, and a third hit his left hip. The NYPD is still withholding the name of the white cop who fired on Edwards and is conducting an investigation to determine whether officers identified themselves. But Rev. Al Sharpton wants a federal investigation; speaking to 1010WINS, he says sees "a growing pattern of black officers being killed with the assumption that they are the criminals." On that note, City Room takes a compelling look back at the many incidents of white cops shooting black cops over the years, including one such report from 1940 with the antiquated yet eerie headline "Patrolman Slain by Fellow-Police: Negro, Off-Duty and Chasing a Burglar, Felled by Shots of Men from Radio Car."

President Obama must have felt like he was hosting an improv comedy parlor game of Party Quirks this afternoon when he welcomed to the White House Mayor Bloomberg, the Reverend Al Sharpton and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The trio was there as part of the nonprofit group, the Education Equality Project. The meeting also included NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who despite co-founding the project, was not deemed worthy of any of today's AP photo opportunities—stick to events headlined by Randi Weingarten if you ever want to be remembered, Joel!

The Reverend Al Sharpton is taking his complaints about the NY Post's controversial editorial cartoon to Washington D.C. His organization, the National Action Network, wants to collect 1 million email signatures in support of an FCC investigation into Post owner News Corp.'s waiver that allows they to control multiple TV stations and newspapers in one city, noting, "This seems to give an imbalanced monopoly to the public airwaves and an imbalance in commercial speech, in particular, in light of their blatant insensitivity to issues of race (i.e. the N.Y. Post Cartoon) and bias through the use of those publicly owned and federally licensed communication tools." The Daily News also reports that students at Medgar Evars College in Brooklyn shut down their MySpace pages and burnt copies of the post; Marie Antoine, president of the student government association, said, "We are the ones who are putting money in their pockets. They have treated us like animals."

About 200 people gathered outside the NY Post's offices in midtown Manhattan to protest the Sean Delonas-drawn editorial cartoon showing a dead chimp, shot by police who say, "They'll have to find someone else to write next stimulus bill." The protesters shouted, "Shut down the Post! Shut down the Post!"

The congresswoman whose last name begins with a soft "g" may have to become the senator who reconsiders her hard-lined history against gun control control advocates. That seems to be the one thing we've learned in the less than 48 hours since it was revealed that Representative Kirsten Gillibrand would be named to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate following the Caroline Kennedy fiasco.

Between now and late January, you can bet that Governor Paterson will be harassed by the curious public—and the media, of course—about who he will choose to take Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. But don't tell him that Caroline Kennedy is a front-runner!

Caroline Kennedy had lunch at Sylvia's with the Reverend Al Sharpton today and told reporters, "I feel like I'm a Kennedy Democrat, a Clinton Democrat, [Sen. Charles] Schumer, Barack Obama -- these are all leaders whose values I share and I feel like those are the kinds of values that I would bring."

Two young men were arrested Friday for the Election Night beating of a black teenager on Staten Island soon after Obama's victory had been announced. Eighteen-year-olds Ralph Nicoletti and Bryan Garaventa allegedly yelled "Obama!" when they pulled up alongside 17-year-old Alie Kamara and attacked him with baseball bats that left bleeding from the head. The two were charged with hate-crime assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Other charges may follow and police are still looking for two more suspects involved with the crime. Federal prosecutors may get involved with the case and Reverend Al Sharpton has spoken to Kamara's mother about pushing the US Justice Department to take action.

After an audit by the Federal Election Commission, Al Sharpton is being forced to pay back almost $500,000 for what they have deemed illegal campaign contributions during his 2004 run for president. The FEC is nailing Sharpton for not delineating between donations for his campaign and money coming in for his National Action Network. The report says that "virtually no effort was made" to show which funds were for which.

Questions are being raised about the allegations made by Michael Mineo after this week's grand jury hearings against the officers he is accusing of sodomizing him while he was being arrested last month. Thursday's testimony from key witness and fellow arresting officer Kevin Maloney pointed the finger at Officer Richard Kern as being the one who used his police baton to sodomize Mineo. But Mineo's testimony accused Officer Alex Cruz of being the one who perpetrated the attack. Mineo's lawyer dismisses the discrepancy since Mineo was on the ground and could not have seen clearly which officer it was. Mineo appeared alongside Reverend Al Sharpton at a National Action Network rally today and thanked Sharpton for visiting him in the hospital last month.

A judge found the Reverend Al Sharpton and seven other protesters guilty of disorderly conduct. Sharpton had organized a number of civil disobedience events around the city to protest the acquittals of three police officers whose gun fire killed unarmed Sean Bell in November 2006. Sharpton had promised to shut down the city with the protests, which was situated at bridge and tunnel crossings and over 200 people were arrested, though most of the cases were ultimately dismissed. WNBC reports that Sharpton and the other defendants were sentenced to time already served (Sharpton had served 5 1/2 hours in jail).

Today, the Reverend Al Sharpton and others who demonstrated in a number of civil disobedience events around the city back in May went to court for the start of a non-jury trial. They were protesting the acquittals of three police detectives who fired 50 shots at unarmed Sean Bell and killed him in 2006, and Sharpton, who had promised to shut the city down by organizing the protests at bridges and tunnels, was arrested on May 7. Sharpton, who rejected an offer to plead guilty for time served (he was held for 5 1/2 hours), said, "We wanted to stop violence, not cause violence."

After many questioned his Monday morning remarks about Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones, radio shock jock Don Imus defended them, explaining he was being "sarcastic."

Last week, the Reverend Al Sharpton announced he hired a former U.S. Attorney as the feds continue to investigate his National Action Network's finances. The announcement comes on the heels of many of his corporate donors being subpoenaed.

The Post reports the IRS has sent "a flurry of subpoenas to [the] most generous corporate donors" of Reverend Al Sharpton's non-profit, National Action Network. Sharpton told the Post, "I think that this is a clear, transparent political investigation, because if they started an investigation in December, why would they be subpoenaing people after December unless they are on a fishing expedition?"

Al Sharpton: Politician. Gadfly. Cyclist?

Al Sharpton released the locations and schedule of his civil disobedience capaign, which is supposed to take place next week. The purpose is to maximize public inconvenience, and Al Sharpton decided that it would be more effective to have as many people show up as possible, as well as to let the NYPD where they were going to be in advance. NY1 reports "The goal of the protests is to tie up traffic and force police to make arrests.

The Reverend Al Sharpton is planning a series of rallies and acts of civil disobedience in the wake of the acquittals of three police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell. Bell, who was a few hours from his wedding, was unarmed when undercover police fired at him 50 times outside a Queens strip club on November 25, 2008.

Last night, hundreds of people marched from the Queens courthouse to the Kalua Lounge, the strip club where Sean Bell was killed on his wedding day, yelling, "Fifty shots equal murder," to protest yesterday's not guilty verdict for three police officers charged in the shooting.

The Reverend Al Sharpton held a press conference on the steps of City Hall today to discuss the Sean Bell shooting trial verdict, which will be announced on Friday. Sharpton said an acquittal would not be justice.

Yesterday Governor David Paterson proclaimed "We're going to work together." And one good example of the high feeling of unity at Paterson's swearing-in was former mayor Ed Koch and the Reverend Al Sharpton's exchange.

In between campaign stops for March 4th primaries, Hillary Clinton put on a happy face about the recent Saturday Night Live skits that aired during the show's return last week, adding that "it's so nice to be a fashion icon at my age" (video here). Last night the SNL troupe was at it again with an opening skit that mirrored last week's. As Clinton (Amy Poehler) faced off with Obama (Fred Armisen), it became less clear who SNL might be supporting; their Fauxbama is pretty lifeless: