NY serial killer Arthur Shawcross dead at 63 Staff and agencies19 November, 2008
Shawcross died late Monday at an Albany hospital, where he had been taken after complaining of leg pain earlier in the day at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, Corrections Department spokesman Erik Kriss said Tuesday. The cause of death was still under investigation, he said.
Shawcross‘ victims, most of them prostitutes, were killed in the period from March 1988 to January 1990. At the time, he was on parole after serving 15 years in prison for killing two children in northern New York‘s Watertown in 1972.
He was convicted of killing 10 of the women in December 1990 after jurors deliberated only 6 1/2 hours. Jurors rejected defense arguments that he was legally insane at the time of the killings because of brain damage, abuse during childhood and his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam.
He did not testify during his trial, but jurors were shown videotapes of him being interviewed under hypnosis by a defense psychiatrist, Dr. Dorothy Lewis. He switched in and out of a high-pitched woman‘s voice and told Lewis he had once been a cannibal in medieval England. He also described childhood incestuous relations with a sister and wartime atrocities and cannibalism in Vietnam.
But in videotaped interviews with a prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. Park Dietz, Shawcross said he never heard voices or had different personalities. Dietz argued that Shawcross was faking mental illness to avoid prison.
Inmates bought their own art supplies and kept half the proceeds from their sales, with the other half going to the state Crime Victims Board. A portrait of the late Princess Diana was among 10 sketches and paintings by Shawcross that sold for as much as $540 each in 2001.
Source:
http://www.onelocalnews.com/newhopecourier/stories1/index.php?action=fullnews&id=48134
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
To my fellow bloggers:
To my fellow bloggers:
Please post this article on the hate crime in Texas town of Paris.
It's outrageous and it goes to show how little Black lives are valued in America.
All this summer I hear was Caylee. What about Mr. McClelland? He's just as valuable as any other American citizen.
Killing in a small town raises hate crime fearsBy Howard WittOctober 5, 2008
PARIS, Texas - When the mutilated and partially dismembered body of Brandon McClelland, a 24-year-old black man, turned up lying in the middle of a rural east Texas road one morning last month, the police immediately pronounced the case a hit-and-run by an unknown driver.Within a few days, however, suspicions turned toward two white friends who had picked up McClelland in their truck a few hours before he was found dead early on Sept. 16. Despite signs that the truck had been washed, authorities discovered blood and other physical evidence on the undercarriage and arrested the two men, both with long criminal histories, for murder.Now this small, racially divided town--already seared with a racist label by civil rights groups last year over differences in how blacks and whites were treated by the local justice system--is on edge yet again, wondering if it's got a horrific new hate crime on its hands.The district attorney insists race had nothing to do with McClelland's death and police investigators are portraying the case as an apparent falling-out among friends.But McClelland's relatives and Paris civil rights leaders are less certain. Citing the violence done to McClelland's body and reports that one of the alleged assailants, Shannon Finley, had white supremacist ties, they are demanding that Paris authorities investigate the case as a possible hate crime akin to the infamous 1998 lynching of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas, 250 miles south of here.Byrd was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck by three white supremacists who were later convicted of murder. McClelland was walking in front of the pickup when Finley, 27, and a friend, Charles Ryan Crostley, 27, who was also arrested, allegedly ran him down and then dragged him 40 feet along the road until his mutilated body popped out from beneath the chassis, according to a police affidavit accompanying the warrant for Finley's arrest."If you take somebody out to the country like that in the middle of the night and do that to him in that way, that's how they do black people around here," said Brenda Cherry, a local activist working with McClelland's family. "To me, it smells like Jasper."Paris' race relations came under withering national scrutiny last year after the Tribune reported the case of Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African-American youth who was sentenced by a local judge to up to seven years in a youth prison for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. Just three months earlier, the same judge had sentenced a 14-year-old white girl to probation after convicting her of the more serious crime of arson for burning down her family's house.The discrepancy in the treatment of the two teenagers provoked protests from national civil rights groups and led to Cotton's early release from prison. Now McClelland's family fears that Paris officials, eager to protect their city of 26,000 from another round of negative publicity over race relations, are purposefully downplaying potential racial overtones in McClelland's murder."At the crime scene, it looked like these boys went back and poured beer on my son's body," said Jacqueline McClelland, Brandon's mother. "Two beer cans were lying out there, but the police didn't even pick them up, they just left evidence out there. They won't even consider the racial issues. That's the way it is in Paris."Even the editor of the local newspaper, normally an impassioned defender of Paris' reputation, has cautioned law enforcement officials to be thorough and "leave no stone unturned" in their investigation."Hopefully, this community has learned from its past," Mary Madewell wrote in the Paris News. "... Even if our worst fears prove to be true, let us realize that the actions of single individuals should in no way bring condemnation to an entire community."Family members and other critics are also concerned about the impartiality of Lamar County District Atty. Gary Young, who five years ago, before he was elected prosecutor, served as Finley's court-appointed defense attorney when Finley pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting a friend to death.Young has declined to state whether he will recuse himself and other prosecutors in his office from handling the McClelland case.Although the victim in Finley's 2003 manslaughter case was white, race played a role in the incident. Finley told police he was sitting in a pickup with his friend in a park when two gun-wielding black men supposedly walked up alongside and tried to rob them. Finley said he grabbed his friend's handgun and fired at the robbers, but instead shot his friend.An autopsy determined that the victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the head, but the district attorney at the time accepted Finley's contention that the shooting was an accident and offered him a plea bargain on a reduced manslaughter charge. Finley served three years of a 4-year prison sentence. The alleged robbers were never found.That manslaughter case also tied Finley and McClelland closely together. McClelland furnished a false alibi for Finley, testifying before a grand jury that Finley was with him at the time the shooting occurred. That lie under oath earned McClelland a conviction for aggravated perjury, for which he served two years in prison.Largely because of that connection between McClelland and Finley, police discount the possibility that race played a part in McClelland's death. "I don't see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends," said Stacy McNeal, the Texas Ranger who is the lead investigator on the case.But McClelland's relatives say they have heard that Finley fell in with white supremacists while in prison and that he had grown upset over Brandon's overtures to a white girl--factors they say the police ought to investigate."I always told Brandon that Finley was bad news and he should stay away from him," said Ervin Barry, a friend of McClelland's. "But Brandon thought they were good friends."Race relations in Paris, Texas : An updateSHAQUANDA COTTON: The black high school freshman whose sentence of up to seven years in prison for shoving a school hall monitor drew national scrutiny to the town's justice system was released from prison in March 2007. Now 17, she is studying for her GED certificate and hopes to attend junior college.TASK FORCE: Citizens concerned about racial fissures in town exposed by the Cotton case convened a local Diversity Task Force, which has held several meetings and last month hosted a community-wide block party attended by several hundred residents.INVESTIGATION: The U.S. Department of Education last month concluded a two-year investigation of allegedly discriminatory disciplinary policies in the Paris public schools. The agency said it found "insufficient evidence to support a conclusion" that black students were being disciplined more harshly than whites.
Please post this article on the hate crime in Texas town of Paris.
It's outrageous and it goes to show how little Black lives are valued in America.
All this summer I hear was Caylee. What about Mr. McClelland? He's just as valuable as any other American citizen.
Killing in a small town raises hate crime fearsBy Howard WittOctober 5, 2008
PARIS, Texas - When the mutilated and partially dismembered body of Brandon McClelland, a 24-year-old black man, turned up lying in the middle of a rural east Texas road one morning last month, the police immediately pronounced the case a hit-and-run by an unknown driver.Within a few days, however, suspicions turned toward two white friends who had picked up McClelland in their truck a few hours before he was found dead early on Sept. 16. Despite signs that the truck had been washed, authorities discovered blood and other physical evidence on the undercarriage and arrested the two men, both with long criminal histories, for murder.Now this small, racially divided town--already seared with a racist label by civil rights groups last year over differences in how blacks and whites were treated by the local justice system--is on edge yet again, wondering if it's got a horrific new hate crime on its hands.The district attorney insists race had nothing to do with McClelland's death and police investigators are portraying the case as an apparent falling-out among friends.But McClelland's relatives and Paris civil rights leaders are less certain. Citing the violence done to McClelland's body and reports that one of the alleged assailants, Shannon Finley, had white supremacist ties, they are demanding that Paris authorities investigate the case as a possible hate crime akin to the infamous 1998 lynching of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, Texas, 250 miles south of here.Byrd was dragged to his death behind a pickup truck by three white supremacists who were later convicted of murder. McClelland was walking in front of the pickup when Finley, 27, and a friend, Charles Ryan Crostley, 27, who was also arrested, allegedly ran him down and then dragged him 40 feet along the road until his mutilated body popped out from beneath the chassis, according to a police affidavit accompanying the warrant for Finley's arrest."If you take somebody out to the country like that in the middle of the night and do that to him in that way, that's how they do black people around here," said Brenda Cherry, a local activist working with McClelland's family. "To me, it smells like Jasper."Paris' race relations came under withering national scrutiny last year after the Tribune reported the case of Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African-American youth who was sentenced by a local judge to up to seven years in a youth prison for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. Just three months earlier, the same judge had sentenced a 14-year-old white girl to probation after convicting her of the more serious crime of arson for burning down her family's house.The discrepancy in the treatment of the two teenagers provoked protests from national civil rights groups and led to Cotton's early release from prison. Now McClelland's family fears that Paris officials, eager to protect their city of 26,000 from another round of negative publicity over race relations, are purposefully downplaying potential racial overtones in McClelland's murder."At the crime scene, it looked like these boys went back and poured beer on my son's body," said Jacqueline McClelland, Brandon's mother. "Two beer cans were lying out there, but the police didn't even pick them up, they just left evidence out there. They won't even consider the racial issues. That's the way it is in Paris."Even the editor of the local newspaper, normally an impassioned defender of Paris' reputation, has cautioned law enforcement officials to be thorough and "leave no stone unturned" in their investigation."Hopefully, this community has learned from its past," Mary Madewell wrote in the Paris News. "... Even if our worst fears prove to be true, let us realize that the actions of single individuals should in no way bring condemnation to an entire community."Family members and other critics are also concerned about the impartiality of Lamar County District Atty. Gary Young, who five years ago, before he was elected prosecutor, served as Finley's court-appointed defense attorney when Finley pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting a friend to death.Young has declined to state whether he will recuse himself and other prosecutors in his office from handling the McClelland case.Although the victim in Finley's 2003 manslaughter case was white, race played a role in the incident. Finley told police he was sitting in a pickup with his friend in a park when two gun-wielding black men supposedly walked up alongside and tried to rob them. Finley said he grabbed his friend's handgun and fired at the robbers, but instead shot his friend.An autopsy determined that the victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the head, but the district attorney at the time accepted Finley's contention that the shooting was an accident and offered him a plea bargain on a reduced manslaughter charge. Finley served three years of a 4-year prison sentence. The alleged robbers were never found.That manslaughter case also tied Finley and McClelland closely together. McClelland furnished a false alibi for Finley, testifying before a grand jury that Finley was with him at the time the shooting occurred. That lie under oath earned McClelland a conviction for aggravated perjury, for which he served two years in prison.Largely because of that connection between McClelland and Finley, police discount the possibility that race played a part in McClelland's death. "I don't see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends," said Stacy McNeal, the Texas Ranger who is the lead investigator on the case.But McClelland's relatives say they have heard that Finley fell in with white supremacists while in prison and that he had grown upset over Brandon's overtures to a white girl--factors they say the police ought to investigate."I always told Brandon that Finley was bad news and he should stay away from him," said Ervin Barry, a friend of McClelland's. "But Brandon thought they were good friends."Race relations in Paris, Texas : An updateSHAQUANDA COTTON: The black high school freshman whose sentence of up to seven years in prison for shoving a school hall monitor drew national scrutiny to the town's justice system was released from prison in March 2007. Now 17, she is studying for her GED certificate and hopes to attend junior college.TASK FORCE: Citizens concerned about racial fissures in town exposed by the Cotton case convened a local Diversity Task Force, which has held several meetings and last month hosted a community-wide block party attended by several hundred residents.INVESTIGATION: The U.S. Department of Education last month concluded a two-year investigation of allegedly discriminatory disciplinary policies in the Paris public schools. The agency said it found "insufficient evidence to support a conclusion" that black students were being disciplined more harshly than whites.
The cruel grip of history
October 27, 2008 at 7:05 pm (Uncategorized)
Richard Abshire of the Dallas Morning News offers a timely update to the racially-tinged death of Brandon McClelland in Paris, Texas. A companion piece chronicles the Northeast Texas community’s historical association with lynching.
This is the second time Paris officials have been accused of racial bias in recent history. Last year, Shaquanda Cotton was sentenced to a Texas Youth Commission holding facility for pushing a teacher’s aid.
Neither Shaquanda Cotton’s mother nor the mother of Brandon McClelland want to see the men responsible for this latest outrage put to death–both women are staunch opponents of the death penalty–but they want to see justice served.
It has been argued that the white men accused of killing McClelland couldn’t have committed a hate crime because they were good friends with their black victim.
Friends don’t drag friends to death.
That said, it is difficult to establish the motivation of any crime. Brandon McClelland paid the ultimate price for associating with violent individuals who were strangers to natural human affection. We need to know far more about the victim’s relationship to his murderers. According to Abshire:
The men were thought to be friends. Mr. McClelland was convicted of perjury for lying on Mr. Finley’s behalf in a manslaughter case. Mr. Finley went to prison from 2004 to 2007 for shooting a friend in a Paris park; Mr. McClelland was sentenced to a two-year term.
Did McLelland perjure himself to help out a buddy, because he was threatened with dire consequences if he told the truth, or are we dealing with a complicated mix of both factors? Is McLelland of normal intelligence, or were his white associates taking advantage of a man with a serious learning disability? More light needs to be shed on these questions.
Is it fair to bring up the close historical association between Paris and lynching?
It isn’t just fair; it is critically important.
Heinous crimes perpetrated by an entire community leave a psychic stain (ala Lady McBeth) that will not wash away. You don’t torture a man to death and then wander casually back to business as usual. Churches complicit in this kind of demonic rage remain crippled and scarred until confession is made and forgiveness is extended.
Across America, especially in the southern states, individuals, families, and congregations shoulder crushing emotional and spiritual burdens, often without realizing it. You see the consequences most clearly in the criminal justice system and in strained and tenuous relations between black and white communities.
I congratulate Mr. Abshire for noting that a monument to the Confederacy stands on the courthouse steps in Paris. I have noted the same phenomenon on the grounds of the state capitols in Little Rock, Arkansas and, last week, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The most soul-destroying example of this form of spiritual oppression can be found in Colfax, Louisiana.
source:
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-cruel-grip-of-history/
Takes five weeks or so for the national news media to pick up the story of a man whose body was discovered torn apart by the side of a road. The man was Brandon McClelland, 24, of Paris, Texas.
That’s the same Paris where Shaquanda Cotton received a seven-year sentence for pushing a hall monitor in high school back in 2005. She’s since been released.
The McClelland death sounds a lot like James Byrd, Jr.’s, 10 years ago in Jasper, Texas, about five hours southeast of Paris. Both cases involved groups of drunk men, all white except for the one who ended up dragged or run over by a truck — allegedly, in the second case. McClelland, like Byrd, was black.
The broadest exposure to this previously seems to have been this story by Howard Witt in the Chicago Tribune three weeks ago. Witt had covered the Cotton story, filing this piece 19 months ago on her early release.
I’ve never been to Texas. It’s a big state and I’m sure there’s a lot to experience there. What I gather from afar is that 1) authorities are doing their level best to sweep Brandon McClelland’s death under the rug, and 2) racism was at play in the crime and is at play in the suppression of talk about it.
But Shannon Keith Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley have been charged with murder and jailed. By appearance at least the wheels of justice are turning.
The AP story I linked to in the opening paragraph plays up the conflict between the assertion of McClelland’s mother and others that his death resulted from “a racist attack” and prosecutors doubts about that characterization. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office calls comparisons with the Byrd case “preposterous.”
I’m not kidding.
Source:
http://varneer.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/brandon-mcclelland-and-hate-crime/
The District Attorney's office reports there is no evidence that this was a hate crime, but the victim's family and advocates from Paris, the county seat, and beyond, insist that it is indeed a hate crime and that prosecutors are either covering that up or are so insensitive to the issue that they are simply ignoring the fact that two white men killed a black man.
The district attorney and two of his assistants, the Paris city manager, local ministers, a co-chair of Paris' year-old Diversity Task Force, the president of the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce and the president and legal counsel of the Paris Chapter of the NAACP invited me to meet with them after I indicated on a blog that I was going to write about the situation.
Pike Burkhart, the chamber president, said the Shaquanda Cotton incident two years ago came as a surprise to many in the community. Ms. Cotton, a 14-year-old Paris High School student, was found delinquent in a jury trial on an assault charge for shoving a teacher's aide and was sent to the Texas Youth Commission. Many in the black community decried this as proof of bias, citing the case of a white teen who was given probation after burning down her family's home. Prosecutors insist they followed the law, but the case brought national media attention to Paris and most of it was negative.
Community advocates like Brenda Cherry and Creola Cotton, Shaquanda's mother, told me that white community leaders are in denial about racial problems. The whites point to the formation of the diversity task force and the city's finally finding funding for demolition of a dilapidated apartment block in a predominantly balck neighborhood as evidence of their good will.
A Houston-based blogger and an AP reporter have referred to Mr. McClelland's death as a "dragging death" and compared it to the murder of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper TX in 1998. They have suggested that, like two of the men convicted of that crime, Mr. Finley joined a white supremacist in prison, but that is almost certainly not the case.
Groups and bloggers from throughout the state and even out of state have been talking about the McClelland case and feelings are strong on both sides -- among people who feel it was a racist act that's being covered up and among others who claim that troublemakers are using it as an excuse to foment conflict.
In talking about race relations in Lamar County, the subject of the lynchings (especially one in 1920 that still resonates) almost always comes up, along with grievances about under-representaion of African-Americans in jobs at the courthouse and elsewhere. And then there is the Confederate statue. Black Parisians told me it casts a chill on them when they walk up to the courthouse and see that memorial to a past that they see as evil. White Parisians see it as a reminder to their history. The Confederate statue overshadows smaller stones raised in honor of the veterans of 20th century wars - WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
Source:
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/paris-texas-death-stirs-racial.html
October 27, 2008 at 7:05 pm (Uncategorized)
Richard Abshire of the Dallas Morning News offers a timely update to the racially-tinged death of Brandon McClelland in Paris, Texas. A companion piece chronicles the Northeast Texas community’s historical association with lynching.
This is the second time Paris officials have been accused of racial bias in recent history. Last year, Shaquanda Cotton was sentenced to a Texas Youth Commission holding facility for pushing a teacher’s aid.
Neither Shaquanda Cotton’s mother nor the mother of Brandon McClelland want to see the men responsible for this latest outrage put to death–both women are staunch opponents of the death penalty–but they want to see justice served.
It has been argued that the white men accused of killing McClelland couldn’t have committed a hate crime because they were good friends with their black victim.
Friends don’t drag friends to death.
That said, it is difficult to establish the motivation of any crime. Brandon McClelland paid the ultimate price for associating with violent individuals who were strangers to natural human affection. We need to know far more about the victim’s relationship to his murderers. According to Abshire:
The men were thought to be friends. Mr. McClelland was convicted of perjury for lying on Mr. Finley’s behalf in a manslaughter case. Mr. Finley went to prison from 2004 to 2007 for shooting a friend in a Paris park; Mr. McClelland was sentenced to a two-year term.
Did McLelland perjure himself to help out a buddy, because he was threatened with dire consequences if he told the truth, or are we dealing with a complicated mix of both factors? Is McLelland of normal intelligence, or were his white associates taking advantage of a man with a serious learning disability? More light needs to be shed on these questions.
Is it fair to bring up the close historical association between Paris and lynching?
It isn’t just fair; it is critically important.
Heinous crimes perpetrated by an entire community leave a psychic stain (ala Lady McBeth) that will not wash away. You don’t torture a man to death and then wander casually back to business as usual. Churches complicit in this kind of demonic rage remain crippled and scarred until confession is made and forgiveness is extended.
Across America, especially in the southern states, individuals, families, and congregations shoulder crushing emotional and spiritual burdens, often without realizing it. You see the consequences most clearly in the criminal justice system and in strained and tenuous relations between black and white communities.
I congratulate Mr. Abshire for noting that a monument to the Confederacy stands on the courthouse steps in Paris. I have noted the same phenomenon on the grounds of the state capitols in Little Rock, Arkansas and, last week, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The most soul-destroying example of this form of spiritual oppression can be found in Colfax, Louisiana.
source:
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-cruel-grip-of-history/
Takes five weeks or so for the national news media to pick up the story of a man whose body was discovered torn apart by the side of a road. The man was Brandon McClelland, 24, of Paris, Texas.
That’s the same Paris where Shaquanda Cotton received a seven-year sentence for pushing a hall monitor in high school back in 2005. She’s since been released.
The McClelland death sounds a lot like James Byrd, Jr.’s, 10 years ago in Jasper, Texas, about five hours southeast of Paris. Both cases involved groups of drunk men, all white except for the one who ended up dragged or run over by a truck — allegedly, in the second case. McClelland, like Byrd, was black.
The broadest exposure to this previously seems to have been this story by Howard Witt in the Chicago Tribune three weeks ago. Witt had covered the Cotton story, filing this piece 19 months ago on her early release.
I’ve never been to Texas. It’s a big state and I’m sure there’s a lot to experience there. What I gather from afar is that 1) authorities are doing their level best to sweep Brandon McClelland’s death under the rug, and 2) racism was at play in the crime and is at play in the suppression of talk about it.
But Shannon Keith Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley have been charged with murder and jailed. By appearance at least the wheels of justice are turning.
The AP story I linked to in the opening paragraph plays up the conflict between the assertion of McClelland’s mother and others that his death resulted from “a racist attack” and prosecutors doubts about that characterization. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office calls comparisons with the Byrd case “preposterous.”
I’m not kidding.
Source:
http://varneer.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/brandon-mcclelland-and-hate-crime/
The District Attorney's office reports there is no evidence that this was a hate crime, but the victim's family and advocates from Paris, the county seat, and beyond, insist that it is indeed a hate crime and that prosecutors are either covering that up or are so insensitive to the issue that they are simply ignoring the fact that two white men killed a black man.
The district attorney and two of his assistants, the Paris city manager, local ministers, a co-chair of Paris' year-old Diversity Task Force, the president of the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce and the president and legal counsel of the Paris Chapter of the NAACP invited me to meet with them after I indicated on a blog that I was going to write about the situation.
Pike Burkhart, the chamber president, said the Shaquanda Cotton incident two years ago came as a surprise to many in the community. Ms. Cotton, a 14-year-old Paris High School student, was found delinquent in a jury trial on an assault charge for shoving a teacher's aide and was sent to the Texas Youth Commission. Many in the black community decried this as proof of bias, citing the case of a white teen who was given probation after burning down her family's home. Prosecutors insist they followed the law, but the case brought national media attention to Paris and most of it was negative.
Community advocates like Brenda Cherry and Creola Cotton, Shaquanda's mother, told me that white community leaders are in denial about racial problems. The whites point to the formation of the diversity task force and the city's finally finding funding for demolition of a dilapidated apartment block in a predominantly balck neighborhood as evidence of their good will.
A Houston-based blogger and an AP reporter have referred to Mr. McClelland's death as a "dragging death" and compared it to the murder of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper TX in 1998. They have suggested that, like two of the men convicted of that crime, Mr. Finley joined a white supremacist in prison, but that is almost certainly not the case.
Groups and bloggers from throughout the state and even out of state have been talking about the McClelland case and feelings are strong on both sides -- among people who feel it was a racist act that's being covered up and among others who claim that troublemakers are using it as an excuse to foment conflict.
In talking about race relations in Lamar County, the subject of the lynchings (especially one in 1920 that still resonates) almost always comes up, along with grievances about under-representaion of African-Americans in jobs at the courthouse and elsewhere. And then there is the Confederate statue. Black Parisians told me it casts a chill on them when they walk up to the courthouse and see that memorial to a past that they see as evil. White Parisians see it as a reminder to their history. The Confederate statue overshadows smaller stones raised in honor of the veterans of 20th century wars - WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
Source:
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/paris-texas-death-stirs-racial.html
Black man dragged to death in Texas
Ten years after James Byrd
Black man dragged to death in Texas
By Larry Hales
Published Oct 30, 2008 11:23 PM
Brandon McClelland’s dismembered body was found Sept. 16 in the middle of a Paris, Texas, road. Three days later, according to the young Black man’s mother, bits of his skull could still be found on the road where he died.
The 24-year-old man was killed by two white men, Shannon Keith Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley, who are alleged to have been friends of his. The white men ran Mr. McClelland down with their truck and dragged his body more than 40 feet.
According to the story of the two white men, they had an argument with McClelland after having driven across Texas/Oklahoma state lines to get beer. When Mr. McClelland got out of the car to walk home, the two white men ran him down with their truck, trapping and dragging his body in the undercarriage.
The murder is similar to the lynching of James Byrd Jr., who was tied to a truck by his ankles and dragged for miles by three white supremacists. That incident occurred in Jasper, Texas, on Sept. 16, 1998—10 years, to the day, of McClelland’s death. Jasper is about 200 miles south of Paris.
The lynching of Byrd sparked an international outcry and many protests. It thrust the New Black Panther Party into the spotlight, when the group announced a march through Jasper to defend the Black community there against a threatened march by white supremacists.
Paris authorities have asserted that the killing had nothing to do with race. Stacy McNeal, the Texas Ranger in charge of the investigation, said, “I don’t see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends.”
However, McClelland’s family, Black residents of the town and activists with the New Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the NAACP and the Millions More Movement believe differently.
The killing occurred around 4 a.m. on Sept. 16, and initially it was declared a hit and run. According to a Free Speech Radio report, authorities told the McClelland family that a gravel truck had killed Brandon. Crostley and Finley had tried to cover up the incident by washing the blood off their truck and hiding it from sight.
It appears to many that not only were Crostley and Finley trying to cover up their malicious act, but that local and state authorities want to hide the reality of life for the small Texas city’s Black inhabitants.
It wouldn’t take a lengthy search to uncover the racism that exists in Paris. In 2006, a 14-year-old young Black woman named Shaquanda Cotton was handed down a juvenile court sentence that could have led to her spending seven years in detention for pushing a hall monitor. Many juxtaposed Cotton’s sentence to that of a young white woman, whom the same judge sentenced to probation for burning down her family home.
McClelland’s family and activists will continue to fight for justice and that the men responsible for his death be charged with a hate crime.
Jacqueline McClelland, Brandon’s mother, was questioned by the district attorney’s office as to why she spoke with Jesse Muhammad, a writer for the Final Call, who broke the story. Ms. McClelland told Muhammad: “I have lost my son. What do I have to lose now? I am going to keep on pushing. I want justice.”
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Black man dragged to death in Texas
By Larry Hales
Published Oct 30, 2008 11:23 PM
Brandon McClelland’s dismembered body was found Sept. 16 in the middle of a Paris, Texas, road. Three days later, according to the young Black man’s mother, bits of his skull could still be found on the road where he died.
The 24-year-old man was killed by two white men, Shannon Keith Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley, who are alleged to have been friends of his. The white men ran Mr. McClelland down with their truck and dragged his body more than 40 feet.
According to the story of the two white men, they had an argument with McClelland after having driven across Texas/Oklahoma state lines to get beer. When Mr. McClelland got out of the car to walk home, the two white men ran him down with their truck, trapping and dragging his body in the undercarriage.
The murder is similar to the lynching of James Byrd Jr., who was tied to a truck by his ankles and dragged for miles by three white supremacists. That incident occurred in Jasper, Texas, on Sept. 16, 1998—10 years, to the day, of McClelland’s death. Jasper is about 200 miles south of Paris.
The lynching of Byrd sparked an international outcry and many protests. It thrust the New Black Panther Party into the spotlight, when the group announced a march through Jasper to defend the Black community there against a threatened march by white supremacists.
Paris authorities have asserted that the killing had nothing to do with race. Stacy McNeal, the Texas Ranger in charge of the investigation, said, “I don’t see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends.”
However, McClelland’s family, Black residents of the town and activists with the New Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, the NAACP and the Millions More Movement believe differently.
The killing occurred around 4 a.m. on Sept. 16, and initially it was declared a hit and run. According to a Free Speech Radio report, authorities told the McClelland family that a gravel truck had killed Brandon. Crostley and Finley had tried to cover up the incident by washing the blood off their truck and hiding it from sight.
It appears to many that not only were Crostley and Finley trying to cover up their malicious act, but that local and state authorities want to hide the reality of life for the small Texas city’s Black inhabitants.
It wouldn’t take a lengthy search to uncover the racism that exists in Paris. In 2006, a 14-year-old young Black woman named Shaquanda Cotton was handed down a juvenile court sentence that could have led to her spending seven years in detention for pushing a hall monitor. Many juxtaposed Cotton’s sentence to that of a young white woman, whom the same judge sentenced to probation for burning down her family home.
McClelland’s family and activists will continue to fight for justice and that the men responsible for his death be charged with a hate crime.
Jacqueline McClelland, Brandon’s mother, was questioned by the district attorney’s office as to why she spoke with Jesse Muhammad, a writer for the Final Call, who broke the story. Ms. McClelland told Muhammad: “I have lost my son. What do I have to lose now? I am going to keep on pushing. I want justice.”
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Family alleges Jasper-style dragging in Paris, Texas
Family alleges Jasper-style dragging in Paris, Texas
By Jesse MuhammadSpecial to the NNPA from the Final Call
PARIS, Texas (NNPA)—When the body of a 24-year-old black man in Paris, Texas was discovered in the middle of a busy road, law enforcement declared the case a hit and run by an unidentified driver.
Now this small racially-divided town’s worst fears are brewing, with evidence pointing towards two white men who picked up Brandon Clelland in their Dodge truck before he was found mutilated and dismembered in September.
Forensics performed by the Texas Rangers found blood from McClelland and other DNA evidence on the undercarriage of the truck which has the victim’s family calling the death a “Jasper-style” dragging. The term is a reference to the murder of a black man in Jasper, Texas in 1998.
“The tied my son to that truck and drugged him until his body parts were detached,” said Jacqueline McClelland, the victim’s mother in an interview with The Final Call. “His body was so destroyed that it could not even be embalmed by the funeral home. This is a hate crime. I don’t want the death penalty for these killers because that would be too quick. I want them to suffer for life in jail without parole since I will never have my son back.”
The Lamar County District Attorney has decided race is not a factor in the death of McClelland because he was friends with alleged assailants Shannon Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley. Both men are 27-years-old.
Angry family members and community activists, however, are demanding a thorough investigation into a possible hate crime they say parallels the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, which is several hours south of Paris.
In 1998, Byrd was strapped to a pickup truck and dragged to death by three white supremacists eventually convicted of murder. The case spurred massive protests and drew international outcry Paris authorities are trying to stunt, but may have a hard time avoiding.
According to a police report, Mc- Clelland was walking in front of the pickup a little after 4 a.m. on Sept. 16 when Finley and Crostley allegedly ran him down and dragged him up and down a Lamar County road until his disfigured body popped out from beneath the chassis.
“I don’t see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends,” said Stacy McNeal to the local press.
McNeal is the Texas Ranger who is leading the investigation.
“This was not a hit and run. They (Finley’s family) hid the truck and even tried to wash the blood off. The police didn’t even tape off the crime scene and some of my son’s body parts were still lying out there,” said Jacqueline McClelland, as she wiped away tears. “If that would have been a white person killed they would have handled this immediately. This is just like Jasper.”
McClelland added that her family was forced to have the funeral quickly due to pressure applied to the funeral home director. The family wanted to delay the funeral to allow for more investigation, she said.
“He (the funeral director) was told by the police to hurry up and put the body in the ground because they didn’t want any trouble coming to this town,” said McClelland. “They took the life of my only son.”
“I was awakened by our dog barking around 4:25 a.m. but I couldn’t see what occurred because our camper trailer was blocking my view from my back porch. I wish I could have seen more,” said Bobbi Baker.
Baker, who is white, lives with her husband and son a few feet from the crime scene.
“We think this is horrible,” said Jim Baker, who added that eight law enforcement officers live nearby so “things like this hardly happen over here and this was sad.”
Crostley was arrested and is being held in the Lamar County Jail with a bail exceeding $500,000. Finley has waived his right to extradition from Wichita, Kan., where he was arrested. Both men are charged with murder and tampering with evidence.
In 2003, Lamar County D.A. Gary Young served as Finley’s court-appointed defense attorney when Finley pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting a friend to death.
The victim in the Finley manslaughter case was white and Finely told police he was sitting in a truck with his friend when two black men tried to rob them. Finley said he fired at the robbers but accidentally shot his friend.
An autopsy determined the victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the head, but the district attorney at the time accepted Finley’s story that the shooting was an accident. He was offered a plea bargain on a reduced manslaughter charge and eventually served a little over a year of a four-year prison sentence. The alleged robbers were never found.
Ironically, McClelland falsely testified before a grand jury that Finley was with him at the time of the shooting. For lying under oath, McClelland was convicted of aggravated perjury and served more than two years in prison.
Members of the New Black Panther Party, Houston Millions More Movement and the Nation of Islam conducted a fact finding mission in Paris on Oct. 5 to comfort the grieving family, interview witnesses and plan a massive town hall meeting at the end of the month.
“We want justice for this family and we want these two criminals prosecuted to the fullness of the law,” said Krystal Muhammad of the New Black Panther Party. “We will be monitoring this case closely.”
New Black Panther Party members met with District Attorney Young Oct. 6 and held a press conference downtown.
“We are asking for an outside agency to come in and ensure that justice is served,” said party member Derrick Brown.
“This is a hate crime,” said Paris activist Brenda Cherry to The Final Call. She has been working with the McClelland family. “This is just like Jasper all over again.”
“This killing does not surprise me and it bears witness to the racism that still exists in Paris and other towns,” Creola Cotton told The Final Call.
Cotton knows firsthand about Paris’ racial disparities. Last year, her then 14-year-old black daughter, Shaquanda Cotton, was sentenced by a local judge to up to seven years in detention for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. Just three months earlier, the same judge sentenced a 14- year-old white girl to probation after convicting her of torching her family’s house. The case drew national attention and resulted in Shaquanda’s early release.
“Recently after nooses started popping up everywhere, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned us that these type of hate filled activities would increase,” said Deric Muhammad of the Millions More Movement, who visited the victim’s family and the crime scene. “That crime scene looked like the aftermath of a bloody lynching. If this is not a hate crime, I don’t know what is.”
Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you.
Source:
http://www.frostillustrated.com/full.php?sid=4540
By Jesse MuhammadSpecial to the NNPA from the Final Call
PARIS, Texas (NNPA)—When the body of a 24-year-old black man in Paris, Texas was discovered in the middle of a busy road, law enforcement declared the case a hit and run by an unidentified driver.
Now this small racially-divided town’s worst fears are brewing, with evidence pointing towards two white men who picked up Brandon Clelland in their Dodge truck before he was found mutilated and dismembered in September.
Forensics performed by the Texas Rangers found blood from McClelland and other DNA evidence on the undercarriage of the truck which has the victim’s family calling the death a “Jasper-style” dragging. The term is a reference to the murder of a black man in Jasper, Texas in 1998.
“The tied my son to that truck and drugged him until his body parts were detached,” said Jacqueline McClelland, the victim’s mother in an interview with The Final Call. “His body was so destroyed that it could not even be embalmed by the funeral home. This is a hate crime. I don’t want the death penalty for these killers because that would be too quick. I want them to suffer for life in jail without parole since I will never have my son back.”
The Lamar County District Attorney has decided race is not a factor in the death of McClelland because he was friends with alleged assailants Shannon Finley and Charles Ryan Crostley. Both men are 27-years-old.
Angry family members and community activists, however, are demanding a thorough investigation into a possible hate crime they say parallels the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., in Jasper, which is several hours south of Paris.
In 1998, Byrd was strapped to a pickup truck and dragged to death by three white supremacists eventually convicted of murder. The case spurred massive protests and drew international outcry Paris authorities are trying to stunt, but may have a hard time avoiding.
According to a police report, Mc- Clelland was walking in front of the pickup a little after 4 a.m. on Sept. 16 when Finley and Crostley allegedly ran him down and dragged him up and down a Lamar County road until his disfigured body popped out from beneath the chassis.
“I don’t see how it was racial, being as how they were good friends,” said Stacy McNeal to the local press.
McNeal is the Texas Ranger who is leading the investigation.
“This was not a hit and run. They (Finley’s family) hid the truck and even tried to wash the blood off. The police didn’t even tape off the crime scene and some of my son’s body parts were still lying out there,” said Jacqueline McClelland, as she wiped away tears. “If that would have been a white person killed they would have handled this immediately. This is just like Jasper.”
McClelland added that her family was forced to have the funeral quickly due to pressure applied to the funeral home director. The family wanted to delay the funeral to allow for more investigation, she said.
“He (the funeral director) was told by the police to hurry up and put the body in the ground because they didn’t want any trouble coming to this town,” said McClelland. “They took the life of my only son.”
“I was awakened by our dog barking around 4:25 a.m. but I couldn’t see what occurred because our camper trailer was blocking my view from my back porch. I wish I could have seen more,” said Bobbi Baker.
Baker, who is white, lives with her husband and son a few feet from the crime scene.
“We think this is horrible,” said Jim Baker, who added that eight law enforcement officers live nearby so “things like this hardly happen over here and this was sad.”
Crostley was arrested and is being held in the Lamar County Jail with a bail exceeding $500,000. Finley has waived his right to extradition from Wichita, Kan., where he was arrested. Both men are charged with murder and tampering with evidence.
In 2003, Lamar County D.A. Gary Young served as Finley’s court-appointed defense attorney when Finley pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting a friend to death.
The victim in the Finley manslaughter case was white and Finely told police he was sitting in a truck with his friend when two black men tried to rob them. Finley said he fired at the robbers but accidentally shot his friend.
An autopsy determined the victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the head, but the district attorney at the time accepted Finley’s story that the shooting was an accident. He was offered a plea bargain on a reduced manslaughter charge and eventually served a little over a year of a four-year prison sentence. The alleged robbers were never found.
Ironically, McClelland falsely testified before a grand jury that Finley was with him at the time of the shooting. For lying under oath, McClelland was convicted of aggravated perjury and served more than two years in prison.
Members of the New Black Panther Party, Houston Millions More Movement and the Nation of Islam conducted a fact finding mission in Paris on Oct. 5 to comfort the grieving family, interview witnesses and plan a massive town hall meeting at the end of the month.
“We want justice for this family and we want these two criminals prosecuted to the fullness of the law,” said Krystal Muhammad of the New Black Panther Party. “We will be monitoring this case closely.”
New Black Panther Party members met with District Attorney Young Oct. 6 and held a press conference downtown.
“We are asking for an outside agency to come in and ensure that justice is served,” said party member Derrick Brown.
“This is a hate crime,” said Paris activist Brenda Cherry to The Final Call. She has been working with the McClelland family. “This is just like Jasper all over again.”
“This killing does not surprise me and it bears witness to the racism that still exists in Paris and other towns,” Creola Cotton told The Final Call.
Cotton knows firsthand about Paris’ racial disparities. Last year, her then 14-year-old black daughter, Shaquanda Cotton, was sentenced by a local judge to up to seven years in detention for shoving a hall monitor at her high school. Just three months earlier, the same judge sentenced a 14- year-old white girl to probation after convicting her of torching her family’s house. The case drew national attention and resulted in Shaquanda’s early release.
“Recently after nooses started popping up everywhere, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned us that these type of hate filled activities would increase,” said Deric Muhammad of the Millions More Movement, who visited the victim’s family and the crime scene. “That crime scene looked like the aftermath of a bloody lynching. If this is not a hate crime, I don’t know what is.”
Have an opinion on this matter? We'd like to hear from you.
Source:
http://www.frostillustrated.com/full.php?sid=4540
Bangkok protesters adopt witchcraft to topple Thai government
Bangkok protesters adopt witchcraft to topple Thai government
Anti-government protesters in Bangkok have resorted to sorcery and black magic in their campaign to topple the elected administration.
By Thomas Bell in Bangkok Last Updated: 11:26AM GMT 10 Nov 2008
Many Thais are shocked by some highly controversial magical practices.
Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the leaders of the group which is illegally occupying the seat of Thai government, claimed in a recent televised speech that a wicked wizard has blocked the protective power of some of Bangkok's holiest sites.
Mr Sondhi and his so called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) claim that they are protecting Thailand and its monarchy from allegedly corrupt democratic politicians.
The technique Mr Sonhi used to break the alleged spell sounds extreme.
He described how his own magicians removed six imaginary nails that had been placed around a towering royal statue in the city centre to block its power.
"I must thank the women of the PAD," he continued, "because after [the imaginary nails] were pulled out, to ensure they could not be replaced, they took sanitary napkins from menstruating women and placed them over the six points.
"Experts said the (evil wizards) were furious because they could not send their spirits back," Mr Sondhi boasted, "Their magic was rendered ineffective!"
In Thai superstition women's sexuality, and especially menstrual blood, is believed to have great destructive power.
"People who don't like the PAD will think they have lost it and gone quite mad," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist. But he added, "A lot of Thai people believe in this."
The PAD has occupied Government house since August, demanding the government step down. Last month Queen Sirikit, wife of Thailand's revered King Bhumibol gave the movement her public support.
Critics say that the PAD aims to disenfranchise the majority or poor voters whose power at the ballot box threatens the old elite.
This week Mr Sondhi denied that he believes in black magic. Dressed in white and sprinkling Government House with holy water he told the Bangkok Post, "The rituals I performed are paying homage to sacred spirits and my respected teachers."
Dr Thitinan said the magic is designed to appeal emotionally to supporters. "It's manipulation, it's spin, it's some genuine belief," he said. "Going around sprinkling holy water means things are not going your way, you want to chase the demons away."
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/3415789/Bangkok-protesters-adopt-witchcraft-to-topple-Thai-government.html
Anti-government protesters in Bangkok have resorted to sorcery and black magic in their campaign to topple the elected administration.
By Thomas Bell in Bangkok Last Updated: 11:26AM GMT 10 Nov 2008
Many Thais are shocked by some highly controversial magical practices.
Sondhi Limthongkul, one of the leaders of the group which is illegally occupying the seat of Thai government, claimed in a recent televised speech that a wicked wizard has blocked the protective power of some of Bangkok's holiest sites.
Mr Sondhi and his so called People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) claim that they are protecting Thailand and its monarchy from allegedly corrupt democratic politicians.
The technique Mr Sonhi used to break the alleged spell sounds extreme.
He described how his own magicians removed six imaginary nails that had been placed around a towering royal statue in the city centre to block its power.
"I must thank the women of the PAD," he continued, "because after [the imaginary nails] were pulled out, to ensure they could not be replaced, they took sanitary napkins from menstruating women and placed them over the six points.
"Experts said the (evil wizards) were furious because they could not send their spirits back," Mr Sondhi boasted, "Their magic was rendered ineffective!"
In Thai superstition women's sexuality, and especially menstrual blood, is believed to have great destructive power.
"People who don't like the PAD will think they have lost it and gone quite mad," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist. But he added, "A lot of Thai people believe in this."
The PAD has occupied Government house since August, demanding the government step down. Last month Queen Sirikit, wife of Thailand's revered King Bhumibol gave the movement her public support.
Critics say that the PAD aims to disenfranchise the majority or poor voters whose power at the ballot box threatens the old elite.
This week Mr Sondhi denied that he believes in black magic. Dressed in white and sprinkling Government House with holy water he told the Bangkok Post, "The rituals I performed are paying homage to sacred spirits and my respected teachers."
Dr Thitinan said the magic is designed to appeal emotionally to supporters. "It's manipulation, it's spin, it's some genuine belief," he said. "Going around sprinkling holy water means things are not going your way, you want to chase the demons away."
Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/3415789/Bangkok-protesters-adopt-witchcraft-to-topple-Thai-government.html
Angry Witches and Wizards Confront Governor Akpabio
Angry Witches and Wizards Confront Governor Akpabio
By Taju Tijani
Unpleasant, distasteful, disgraceful, annoying and haunting. These are the ready adjectival qualifiers for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme titled “Saving Africa’s Witch Children”, shown on Wednesday 12 November, 2008. The producers were sadistically deadpan in their engagement with the viewers’ repulsive emotion. It is a case of going for the jugular of our humanity to see how loud we could scream with our conscience. My conscience screamed along with other UK based Nigerians whose evening was shattered when the camera began to document another evil variant of our collective bastardy.
A paralysing Pandora box of Nigeria’s unbroken epic of the tale of the unexpected was thrown rudely across our living rooms. It was a grand spoiler. The menu was more of appetite suppressant than the rich delicacy of Akwa Ibom edikaikong. An exuberant, energetic, white foreigner who played the role of a messiah-redeemer was seen combing the creeks of Akwa Ibom State buying our children like chattel of slavery re-enactment. Gary Foxcroft, 29, of the charity body, Stepping Stones Nigeria, is the new reincarnated Bob Geldof. Foxcroft is championing a cause to emancipate Nigerian witch children from the hands of deadly, psychotic, machete-wielding witch and wizard hunters in the villages and towns of Akwa Ibom State.
Among Africa’s shackling demons, witchcraft is the most fearsome. It is in our existence, folklore and our everyday conversation. Every African has one closet witch in his family, I must say, until the day of confession-to- deliverance. Families have been ruined and marriages destroyed when witchcraft grenades are lobbed as weapons of warfare in our society. I am sure we all know one man, woman, relation, neighbour or friend whose life has been emptied of meaning either as a victim of a sustained witchcraft attacks or a card carrying coven attendee.
Gary Foxcroft, a young Englishman, is leading the dance for a new crusade to return sanity back to the people of Akwa Ibom whose confusing blinker has led to senseless beating, detention, starvation, mutilation, rejection and horrid murder of innocent children branded as witches and wizards. Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya, a murderer and an ignoble village jester who doubles as exorcist and deliverer estimated that among Akwa Ibomites, 2.3million of its humanity morph nightly into birds of terror leaving their victims barren, unemployed, deaf, dumb, pauperised, ill, maimed and disorientated. And those of them whose teeth are like graders enjoy nightly feast on human kidneys, heart and flesh.
Ulup-Aya charges N400, 000 to perform bloody exorcism on children who have been initiated into witchcraft. His magic alchemy is the fusion of traditional medicine with Biblical sophistry. He gave it a chic name: poison destroyer. This tool of deceit has made our village urchin rich, influential and sought after as the Grand Exorcist of the Ibomite Witchcraft Order. He even boasted that he had killed 110 of the little angels branded as possessing wicked powers. A murderous bishop, you might say.
As the programme progresses in its relentless portrayal of Nigeria’s Pentecostal bestiality, Gary Foxcroft, a lone white face in a sea of blackness stretched forth his comforting hands to the dazed, dehumanised and despoiled witch children. These children, many of them bedraggled, burdened and betrothed to the waiting embrace of death, rallied round to their white messiah to bring to a glorifying life, Christ call to the weary and burdened in Matthew 11v 28-30.
Foxcroft is a capable hand. There is compulsive passion in his method which is vehemently set against the evil beliefs and barbaric practices of the people of Akwa Ibom. He is also a witness to evil. He has seen the evil of adulterated Christianity that fuses Africanised custom into the sacrament of Christ. There is a sacrilegious greed when the teaching of Jesus Christ- the diluted variant- becomes a convenient cover to exploit, extort and exert irresponsible power on abandoned, ostracised and traumatised minors falsely accused as coven conveners.
Who best typifies this exemplar of Pentecostal exploitation and greed than the self-styled Prophetess Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church? Akpabiosis has led to the resurgence of witch hunting on a massive scale in Akwa Ibom. Ukpabio, rich, vocal, witch hunter and businesswoman preys on innocent children. Going by the amount of videos and DVD she has made, she is a Christian Industrialist. She has created an industry of fear, where, a macabre but thriving genre of flesh tingling, horror-laden, ghoulish and blood suckling drama on the inner secrets of witchcraft are given celluloid reality. Her film, “End of The Wicked” is so unrelenting in its gory details of flesh eating witches that it sails close to screen overkill.
The media feast on the insane criminality of Akwa Ibom and its sordid maltreatment of little witch children is bringing about a moral catharsis among its famous sons. The Divisional Police Officer, Mr Esit Eket said that most of the locals are afraid to give evidence and serve as witness in cases of prosecutable offences. Chief Victor Ikot, the local traditional ruler calibrated anger and rained curses on the pastors who are exploiting the poverty and ignorance of his subjects. Meanwhile, not a single pastor has been convicted for falsely accusing gullible children as witches and wizards. Aposle Dr. Cletus Bassey, the zonal President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, defended the church but denounced Upkabio for creating a cloud of witchcraft fear through her films.
Then the State House invasion. Gary Foxcroft is an activist messiah and a grass root mobiliser. After cleaning his flock of ‘witches and wizards’ and turning them into shinning emerald, he has to take them to a kingly feast with the State Governor, Godswill Akpabio. Any Daily Monitor would have captioned the invasion as “Angry Witches and Wizards Confront Governor”. Mary, a 5 year old malnourished, ebony beauty, embattled and abandoned to Foxcroft led the baying witches and wizards on a long, craggy march to present their freedom chatter to the Governor. Foxcroft cuddled a 3 month’s old abandoned girl in his bosom all through the epochal event.
Foxcroft reminded me of Moses, the deliverer, as he led the children of Israel from servitude to triumphal grace. Confidently and regardless of the governmental pincers on the way, he led his singing hordes of witches and wizards to the fortified palace of Governor Akpabio. Then and then, a white foreigner’s humanity challenged African’s. Then my tears flowed freely. Mary, holding high her banner, “We are not witches or wizards” locked gaze with God Akpabio on his Mount Olympia. Foxcroft, lapping the moment with humble pride, yes an oxymoron, kissed the little angel on his chest, as he watched and compared the absurdity of two Nigerians. Akpabio is a scion of Nigerians who are God, lordly, rich, aloof and powerful. Mary and the little witches and wizards are the other Nigerians who are despised, denied, denounced, detained and dehumanised.
God Akpabio’s, nay, African humanity shrivelled in shame. Foxcroft, an immigrant from a distant shore cuddled, caressed, nursed and laughed with his burdened ‘witches and wizards’ under the burning African sun while God Akpabio, surrounded by his aides, mumbled a belated promise and evaporated into his marble palace. He did not, for the timeless connection of grace between him and the kids touched nor smiled to any of the ‘children witches and wizards’ he was voted to look after.
What is going on in Akwa Ibom outraged my Christianity. I become a converted Christian in 1999 without any delusion that the faith has been massively infiltrated by anti-Christ masquerading as angels of light. Regardless of the sustained assaults against the cross of Christ, I remain unshakeable and deeply committed to a faith that has given me redemption from the pit of darkness. Hallelujah!!! At last, I can laugh with malnourished Mary who had never known laughter until meeting Gary Foxcroft. A baby doll did it for her
Taju Tijani contributes articles to NigerianMuse.
Source:
http://www.nigerianmuse.com/20081117063855zg/articles/angry-witches-and-wizards-confront-governor-akpabio
By Taju Tijani
Unpleasant, distasteful, disgraceful, annoying and haunting. These are the ready adjectival qualifiers for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme titled “Saving Africa’s Witch Children”, shown on Wednesday 12 November, 2008. The producers were sadistically deadpan in their engagement with the viewers’ repulsive emotion. It is a case of going for the jugular of our humanity to see how loud we could scream with our conscience. My conscience screamed along with other UK based Nigerians whose evening was shattered when the camera began to document another evil variant of our collective bastardy.
A paralysing Pandora box of Nigeria’s unbroken epic of the tale of the unexpected was thrown rudely across our living rooms. It was a grand spoiler. The menu was more of appetite suppressant than the rich delicacy of Akwa Ibom edikaikong. An exuberant, energetic, white foreigner who played the role of a messiah-redeemer was seen combing the creeks of Akwa Ibom State buying our children like chattel of slavery re-enactment. Gary Foxcroft, 29, of the charity body, Stepping Stones Nigeria, is the new reincarnated Bob Geldof. Foxcroft is championing a cause to emancipate Nigerian witch children from the hands of deadly, psychotic, machete-wielding witch and wizard hunters in the villages and towns of Akwa Ibom State.
Among Africa’s shackling demons, witchcraft is the most fearsome. It is in our existence, folklore and our everyday conversation. Every African has one closet witch in his family, I must say, until the day of confession-to- deliverance. Families have been ruined and marriages destroyed when witchcraft grenades are lobbed as weapons of warfare in our society. I am sure we all know one man, woman, relation, neighbour or friend whose life has been emptied of meaning either as a victim of a sustained witchcraft attacks or a card carrying coven attendee.
Gary Foxcroft, a young Englishman, is leading the dance for a new crusade to return sanity back to the people of Akwa Ibom whose confusing blinker has led to senseless beating, detention, starvation, mutilation, rejection and horrid murder of innocent children branded as witches and wizards. Bishop Sunday Ulup-Aya, a murderer and an ignoble village jester who doubles as exorcist and deliverer estimated that among Akwa Ibomites, 2.3million of its humanity morph nightly into birds of terror leaving their victims barren, unemployed, deaf, dumb, pauperised, ill, maimed and disorientated. And those of them whose teeth are like graders enjoy nightly feast on human kidneys, heart and flesh.
Ulup-Aya charges N400, 000 to perform bloody exorcism on children who have been initiated into witchcraft. His magic alchemy is the fusion of traditional medicine with Biblical sophistry. He gave it a chic name: poison destroyer. This tool of deceit has made our village urchin rich, influential and sought after as the Grand Exorcist of the Ibomite Witchcraft Order. He even boasted that he had killed 110 of the little angels branded as possessing wicked powers. A murderous bishop, you might say.
As the programme progresses in its relentless portrayal of Nigeria’s Pentecostal bestiality, Gary Foxcroft, a lone white face in a sea of blackness stretched forth his comforting hands to the dazed, dehumanised and despoiled witch children. These children, many of them bedraggled, burdened and betrothed to the waiting embrace of death, rallied round to their white messiah to bring to a glorifying life, Christ call to the weary and burdened in Matthew 11v 28-30.
Foxcroft is a capable hand. There is compulsive passion in his method which is vehemently set against the evil beliefs and barbaric practices of the people of Akwa Ibom. He is also a witness to evil. He has seen the evil of adulterated Christianity that fuses Africanised custom into the sacrament of Christ. There is a sacrilegious greed when the teaching of Jesus Christ- the diluted variant- becomes a convenient cover to exploit, extort and exert irresponsible power on abandoned, ostracised and traumatised minors falsely accused as coven conveners.
Who best typifies this exemplar of Pentecostal exploitation and greed than the self-styled Prophetess Helen Ukpabio of the Liberty Gospel Church? Akpabiosis has led to the resurgence of witch hunting on a massive scale in Akwa Ibom. Ukpabio, rich, vocal, witch hunter and businesswoman preys on innocent children. Going by the amount of videos and DVD she has made, she is a Christian Industrialist. She has created an industry of fear, where, a macabre but thriving genre of flesh tingling, horror-laden, ghoulish and blood suckling drama on the inner secrets of witchcraft are given celluloid reality. Her film, “End of The Wicked” is so unrelenting in its gory details of flesh eating witches that it sails close to screen overkill.
The media feast on the insane criminality of Akwa Ibom and its sordid maltreatment of little witch children is bringing about a moral catharsis among its famous sons. The Divisional Police Officer, Mr Esit Eket said that most of the locals are afraid to give evidence and serve as witness in cases of prosecutable offences. Chief Victor Ikot, the local traditional ruler calibrated anger and rained curses on the pastors who are exploiting the poverty and ignorance of his subjects. Meanwhile, not a single pastor has been convicted for falsely accusing gullible children as witches and wizards. Aposle Dr. Cletus Bassey, the zonal President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, defended the church but denounced Upkabio for creating a cloud of witchcraft fear through her films.
Then the State House invasion. Gary Foxcroft is an activist messiah and a grass root mobiliser. After cleaning his flock of ‘witches and wizards’ and turning them into shinning emerald, he has to take them to a kingly feast with the State Governor, Godswill Akpabio. Any Daily Monitor would have captioned the invasion as “Angry Witches and Wizards Confront Governor”. Mary, a 5 year old malnourished, ebony beauty, embattled and abandoned to Foxcroft led the baying witches and wizards on a long, craggy march to present their freedom chatter to the Governor. Foxcroft cuddled a 3 month’s old abandoned girl in his bosom all through the epochal event.
Foxcroft reminded me of Moses, the deliverer, as he led the children of Israel from servitude to triumphal grace. Confidently and regardless of the governmental pincers on the way, he led his singing hordes of witches and wizards to the fortified palace of Governor Akpabio. Then and then, a white foreigner’s humanity challenged African’s. Then my tears flowed freely. Mary, holding high her banner, “We are not witches or wizards” locked gaze with God Akpabio on his Mount Olympia. Foxcroft, lapping the moment with humble pride, yes an oxymoron, kissed the little angel on his chest, as he watched and compared the absurdity of two Nigerians. Akpabio is a scion of Nigerians who are God, lordly, rich, aloof and powerful. Mary and the little witches and wizards are the other Nigerians who are despised, denied, denounced, detained and dehumanised.
God Akpabio’s, nay, African humanity shrivelled in shame. Foxcroft, an immigrant from a distant shore cuddled, caressed, nursed and laughed with his burdened ‘witches and wizards’ under the burning African sun while God Akpabio, surrounded by his aides, mumbled a belated promise and evaporated into his marble palace. He did not, for the timeless connection of grace between him and the kids touched nor smiled to any of the ‘children witches and wizards’ he was voted to look after.
What is going on in Akwa Ibom outraged my Christianity. I become a converted Christian in 1999 without any delusion that the faith has been massively infiltrated by anti-Christ masquerading as angels of light. Regardless of the sustained assaults against the cross of Christ, I remain unshakeable and deeply committed to a faith that has given me redemption from the pit of darkness. Hallelujah!!! At last, I can laugh with malnourished Mary who had never known laughter until meeting Gary Foxcroft. A baby doll did it for her
Taju Tijani contributes articles to NigerianMuse.
Source:
http://www.nigerianmuse.com/20081117063855zg/articles/angry-witches-and-wizards-confront-governor-akpabio
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