HEADLINES: RACE IN AMERICA

HUNTER SENTENCED 69 YEARS IN RACE-TINGED KILLING:

Case rekindled tensions after Hmong man fatally shot white hunters  –

Wed., Nov. 28, 2007

MARINETTE, Wis. – A white hunter convicted of killing a Hmong man as they both stalked squirrels in the woods was sentenced Wednesday to 69 years in prison.

James Nichols, 28, of Peshtigo, was convicted last month in the death of Cha Vang, a 30-year-old father of five. The slaying rekindled racial tensions in northern Wisconsin, where a Hmong deer hunter fatally shot six white hunters three years ago.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22008866/

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LAWMAKER:  TICKET RACIALLY MOTIVATED:

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP	Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, who is black, said he will go to traffic court to challenge the $75 ticket given to him early Monday by two white officers.

 

Chicago police say Rep. Davis’s allegations will be investigated

Fri., Nov. 23, 2007

CHICAGO – An Illinois congressman said he was a victim of racial profiling when police gave him a traffic ticket alleging he swerved over the center line.

Rep. Danny Davis, who is black, said he will go to traffic court to challenge the $75 ticket given to him early Monday by two white officers.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21941960/

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LATINO OFFICERS GROUP RIPS NYPD BIAS STUDY:

Report found no clear racial bias in department’s “stop-and-frisk” policy  – 

Thurs., Nov. 22, 2007

NEW YORK – A national Latino law enforcement group on Thursday blasted an outside report that concluded the New York Police Department demonstrated no clear racial bias with its aggressive “stop-and-frisk” policy.

The policy resulted in more than 500,000 stops of pedestrians last year, most of them black or Hispanic, but the report said RAND Corp. researchers found only “small racial differences in the rates of frisk, search, use of force and arrest.”

The National Latino Officers Association of America said the report confirmed what it already knew: “You get exactly what you pay for.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21932274/

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JENA 6 PROCEEDINGS OPEN TO PUBLIC:

Judge rules they be made available, even though they involve a juvenile  –

Wed., Nov. 21, 2007

JENA, La. – Legal proceedings against a black teenager among a group whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate led to a massive civil rights protest must be open to the public, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Because the charges involve violence, all proceedings against Mychal Bell — including hearings, the trial and sentencing — will be public even though Bell is being tried as a juvenile, state District Judge Thomas Yeager decided.

“We need to have public trials so the public has confidence in what we do,” Yeager said during a hearing in a lawsuit filed by media organizations covering the so-called Jena Six. “

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21918698/

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FBI: HATE CRIMES ROSE BY 8 PERCENT IN 2006:

	Pressure from civil rights activists to deal with hate crimes include this rally last Friday outside the Justice Department in Washington.
Mark Wilson / Getty Images

 

Annual count does not include all police agencies—-among them, Jena, La.

Mon., Nov. 19, 2007

WASHINGTON – Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by nearly 8 percent, the FBI reported Monday, as racial prejudice continued to account for more than half the reported instances.

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.

Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at Jena, La., high school occurred in the last half of 2006, they were not included in the report. Only 12,600 of the nation’s more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting. “

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21882843/