Body camera reveals Los Angeles deputy fired at woman who sought help for domestic violence as nine-year-old daughter watched
The Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) released body-camera footage on Friday of an officer fatally shooting Niani Finlayson, 27, who had called 911 for help during a domestic violence incident.
The footage from the 4 December encounter showed that deputy Ty Shelton shot Finlayson four times within roughly three seconds of entering her home.
Continue reading...Asad Farooq, 25, claims club rejected his job application in favour of someone less experienced
A British Asian man is suing Liverpool Football Club, claiming it racially discriminated against him by rejecting his application for a job in favour of someone less experienced.
Asad Farooq, 25, has a degree in stadium and event management, and has worked for Tottenham Hotspur and at the Qatar World Cup, but was not invited for an interview when he applied to Liverpool in November last year for a job in administration.
Continue reading...Luton Town have confirmed South Yorkshire police are investigating an alleged racist comment towards Carlton Morris in his side’s Boxing Day win at Sheffield United.
“We can confirm that Carlton Morris reported an alleged racist comment from the crowd during this afternoon’s Premier League fixture at Bramall Lane,” a club statement said.
Continue reading...EMTs Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper injected 23-year-old with high dose of ketamine in a case that sparked mass protests
Two Colorado paramedics have been convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Elijah McClain after he was stopped by police in 2019.
The jury’s guilty verdicts on Friday for Aurora EMTs Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper mark an extraordinarily rare case of paramedics being found criminally liable for a civilian’s death in police custody and follow years of protests. Cichuniec was also found guilty of second-degree assault. Cooper was acquitted on the assault charges.
Continue reading...Grouping that includes descendants of Indigenous Brazilians as well as of Africans now outnumbers white population
Mixed-race Brazilians are now the largest population group in the South American country, the latest census has revealed, as the number of people identifying as African-descended in Brazil continues to grow.
New data from the 2022 census released on Friday shows that 92.1 million Brazilians identify as mixed-race, equivalent to 45.3% of the population. This is up from 43.1% in 2010, when the last census was carried out.
Continue reading...Far-right council members in Huntington Beach introduce agenda item to switch focus to US wars and America’s independence
The southern California city of Huntington Beach, a bastion of conservative voters, has made the move to block diverse monthlong celebrations of Black history, women’s history and Pride, in favor of observing the revolutionary and civil wars, California’s history and America’s independence.
An agenda item introduced on 19 December forbids any programming that pertains to previously established honorary celebrations for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ groups from taking place on city-owned property, including libraries, or of being featured in city communications such as social media posts, according to Natalie Moser, a city council member who voted against the action.
Continue reading...Surveillance systems incorrectly and without customer consent marked shoppers as ‘persons of interest’, an FTC settlement says
Rite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed “likely to engage” in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people – particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people – on “numerous” occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years.
The FTC said in a federal court complaint that Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers “it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior”. The technology sent alerts to Rite Aid employees either by email or phone when it identified people entering the store on its watchlist.
Continue reading...President of the largest human resources organization in country says national shift following George Floyd’s 2020 murder is fading
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies within US companies will “come under full-out attack in 2024”, the president of the largest US human resources organization in the US has said.
“It’s going to become a hot-button issue this year,” Johnny C Taylor Jr, president and chief executive of the Society of Human Resource Management, told reporters. The national shift to be more inclusive that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, is already fading, he said. “We’re already seeing companies go away from it.”
Continue reading...Mississippi judge also orders child to write a book report on Kobe Bryant after officers arrested him for urinating in a parking lot
A 10-year-old Black child who urinated in a parking lot must serve three months’ probation and write a two-page book report on the late NBA star Kobe Bryant, a Mississippi judge has ordered.
Tate county youth court judge Rusty Harlow handed down the sentence Tuesday after the child’s lawyer reached an agreement with a special prosecutor. The prosecution threatened to upgrade the charge of “child in need of supervision” to a more serious charge of disorderly conduct if the boy’s family took the case to trial, said Carlos Moore, the child’s attorney.
Continue reading...Newspapers and politicians discuss general’s skin tone, saying actor’s casting in the role created ‘a historical error’
A decision to cast black actor Denzel Washington as the ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal in an upcoming Netflix film has sparked a small but heated debate in Tunisia, the military general’s birthplace.
After a similar controversy on race and representation in nearby Egypt over a Netflix docudrama about Cleopatra, Tunisian newspapers, social media and even the halls of parliament have seen discussion on the skin tone of the long-dead leader.
Continue reading...Former Met PC Alice Vinten says online abuse worse since publication of book about women in force that inspired BBC drama
When Alice Vinten wrote The Real Happy Valley, she intended the book to be a celebration of women in the police force, the real-life accounts of those who served as inspiration for protagonist Sgt Catherine Cawood in Sally Wainwright’s acclaimed BBC drama. Vinten interviewed women officers across Yorkshire who told of their careers on the frontline of policing, as depicted by Sarah Lancashire in the series that was set in the Calder Valley around Halifax.
Instead, the book has prompted a campaign of abuse against Vinten, 42, a former Metropolitan police officer herself, on Twitter, now known as X, including what the author calls an orchestrated campaign of leaving bad reviews and even threats. Worse, she says, they’re from police.
Continue reading...Jamie Arnold, 33, made racist remarks and gestures at former England defender, who was working as a TV pundit, court heard
A football fan who racially abused the former England international Rio Ferdinand has been jailed for six months and banned from watching live matches for seven years.
Jamie Arnold, 33, uttered racist remarks and made monkey gestures at the former Manchester United defender, who was working as a pundit for BT Sport, a court heard.
Continue reading...Gallery owner, who has represented Parr for 36 years, says she was sickened by ‘hate graffiti’ in the work, but denies censoring it and has kept it on display
The Melbourne gallery owner Anna Schwartz has dropped the provocative performance artist Mike Parr after a 36-year relationship, after a piece commenting on Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Schwartz sent Parr a two-sentence email on Sunday, the day after he installed the third part of his exhibition Sunset Claws, informing him she would no longer represent him.
Continue reading...Draft resolution to European parliament committee is first formal attempt to place reparations for slavery on EU agenda
The European Union should urgently address and reverse the lasting impacts of European colonialism and support a reparations programme to rectify continuing injustices, according to a draft resolution to be presented to the European parliament’s development committee.
Noting that the EU has made “no concerted efforts to recognise, address and rectify the lasting effects of European colonialism on social and international inequities”, the draft resolution calls for the creation of a permanent EU forum on restorative justice.
Continue reading...Amir Maimon urges government ‘to take all necessary measures’ to ensure ‘different people of different faiths’ feel secure
The Israeli ambassador says he is “very sad” about a rise in antisemitic incidents in Australia and has urged the government to “take all necessary measures” to ensure people of different faiths and backgrounds feel safe.
Amir Maimon said that, in particular, he was “so, so upset” about the presence of pro-Palestine protesters at a Melbourne hotel where relatives and friends of Hamas-held hostages were staying last week.
Continue reading...Darryl George has already spent more than 80% of his junior year outside of his regular classroom, and was first cited in August
A Texas high school sent a Black student back to in-school suspension Tuesday for refusing to change his hairstyle, renewing a months-long standoff over a dress code policy the teen’s family calls discriminatory.
The student, Darryl George, was suspended for 13 days because his hair is out of compliance when let down, according to a disciplinary notice issued by Barbers Hill high school in Mont Belvieu, Texas. It was his first day back at the school after spending a month at an off-site disciplinary program.
Continue reading...A book has named Charles and Catherine as royals alleged to have discussed skin colour of Harry and Meghan’s unborn son
The royal race row that erupted more than two years ago, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey that a member of the royal family had remarked on Prince Archie’s skin colour before he was born, has simmered ever since. Now it has exploded once more as the Dutch version of a new book appears to have named King Charles and the Princess of Wales as family members alleged to have made such remarks.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
The NSW Australian Paramedics Association will take part in a 12-hour strike today, from 7am to 7pm, despite the threat of legal action.
Members will still attend emergency “lights and sirens” jobs as part of an ongoing pay dispute.
We want to assure the public that emergencies will still be attended to, with our focus intensifying on life-threatening cases.
Our decision to limit responses to non-emergency jobs enhances our capacity to manage critical cases.
Facing potential legal repercussions and a substantial fine of up to $20,000 per day, our commitment remains firm.
Continue reading...After recovering from being shot by police in 1983, Toumi Djaïdja led a protest historians say must be written into the nation’s narrative
When Toumi Djaïdja, a 20-year-old youth worker, was shot by police as he helped a teenager who had been bitten by a dog, he did not know it would change the course of French history.
It was 1983, when France was plagued by numerous racist murders of people of north African background, amid anger on housing estates and allegations of police violence. Already, Djaïdja, from an Algerian family on the Minguettes housing estate in Vénissieux outside Lyon, had held a sit-in and a hunger-strike for equal rights and an end to clashes between police and youths.
Continue reading...Representatives from 10 countries sign statement warning of rising hate crimes against Muslims and Jews
Anti-racism officials across Europe have called on law enforcement agencies to remain alert for hate crimes against Muslims and “spare no effort” to protect them, in one of the first statements aimed at addressing a rise in Islamophobia amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The statement, signed by representatives from 10 European countries as well as EU officials, notes the rising number of hate crimes, hate speech and threats to civil liberties that have targeted Muslim and Jewish communities across Europe in recent months. Both “have become targets of physical and verbal attacks”, with people feeling “more and more unsafe and threatened, online and offline”, it read.
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