by Daniel Saltman / The Post-Standard

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 4:45 PM

An Onondaga County sheriff’s deputy was suspended without pay Wednesday over a traffic stop in which he Tasered a mother in front of her children in January.

After an administrative hearing Wednesday, Deputy Sean Andrews was suspended from his $49,095-a-year job for 30 days, according to Deputy John D’Eredita, a spokesman for Sheriff Kevin Walsh.

Andrews, a deputy for the past four years, was taken off road patrol after he pulled over Audra Harmon and shot her with his stun gun twice in front of her two children on Hopkins Road in Salina. He initially told her he saw her talking on her cell phone while driving, but after she said she could disprove that, he accused her of driving 5 mph over the speed limit, according to Harmon. When she got out of her minivan then did not immediately return at his request, he drew his Taser on her. After she got back in the van, Andrews pulled her out and Tasered her.

Harmon was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and speeding. All the charges were dropped.

The case was reported last week in The Post-Standard and was broadcast on national television and spread across the county via the Internet. The publicity did not lead to Andrews’ suspension, D’Eredita said. Walsh could not be reached for comment.

What happens next with Andrews will be determined by the civil service process, D’Eredita said. If his suspension goes beyond 30 days, his pay must resume, according to state law. If that happens, Andrews would be placed in the sheriff’s “temporary assignment unit,” where deputies facing pending discipline report to a room but are not allowed to do any work.

Neither Andrews, 37, nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.

Harmon, 38, sued the sheriff’s office last week over the incident. Her lawyer, Terrance Hoffmann, said he hopes the sheriff’s office takes more disciplinary action against Andrews. But if the deputy’s record is free from any other misconduct, he should not be fired over the Tasering, Hoffmann said.

“We would like for him to be intensively retrained not only in the appropriate use of Tasers, but also trained in how to appropriately deal with the public,” Hoffmann said. “We would also like an apology.”

John O’Brien can be reached at jobrien@syracuse.com or 470-2187.

Civil rights leaders worried race played a role in death of suicidal neighbor

Daniel Saltman

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Alonzo Heyward carried a rifle around his low-rent Chattanooga neighborhood one day last month, ranting about suicide and ignoring the pleas of friends for hours before six city police officers surrounded him on his front porch and decided it had to end.

His father says Heyward told the officers, “I’m not out here to hurt anybody.”

But police, who tried unsuccessfully to disarm Heyward, fired 59 rounds to kill him on July 18. The medical examiner found 43 bullet wounds in his chest, face, arms, hands, legs, buttocks and groin. Police contend Heyward was a danger to others and threatened the six officers.

Chattanooga police spokeswoman Jerri Weary described the case as “suicide by cop.”

Civil rights leaders concerned
As questions continue to surround the shooting, Heyward’s family and civil rights leaders take issue with the police response. Heyward, a 32-year-old moving company employee, was black. The six officers are white. They were temporarily placed on administrative leave but have since returned to work.

“We have a large concern about the amount of shots fired,” said Valoria Armstrong, president of the Chattanooga branch of the NAACP.

A Chattanooga Times Free Press editorial cartoon asked “IS THIS EXCESSIVE FORCE?” — spelling out the question with letters labeling the wounds in a drawing based on Heyward’s autopsy report.

His father, James Marine, 61, does not believe Heyward really wanted to kill himself or that he was trying to commit “suicide by cop.”

“He just needed somebody to talk to,” Marine said. “I believe he was just depressed at that time.”

A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation inquiry is ongoing. Federal and local authorities are awaiting the TBI report before they do their own examinations of the case. Hamilton County District Attorney Bill Cox said he wants to see the TBI report before deciding whether to pursue a criminal case.

Police: There’s ‘no magic number’
Police spokeswoman Weary said the officers confronted Heyward when they responded to a report of three men wrestling over a gun in the street just after 4 a.m.

Heyward’s father said there was never any wrestling over the .44 Magnum rifle that his son was carrying and sometimes pointing at his chin.

Police said the officers tried but failed to disarm Heyward with a stun gun. Weary said Heyward ignored repeated commands to drop the rifle and officers fired when they felt threatened by the way he moved it.

Police accounts and a patrol car video indicate the shots were fired in three volleys, all within 30 seconds. Each officer used a .45-caliber pistol. Some officers emptied their magazines, reloaded and fired again, while others didn’t fire all their bullets, Weary said.

Some of the gunshots ripped through the unoccupied front room of the house Heyward was renting from his employer, the owner of a local moving company. No one else was injured.

Eugene O’Donnell, a former policeman and prosecutor who is now a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said there is “no magic number” when it comes to officers firing at a suspect.

If death is believed to be imminent “there isn’t anybody in the country who can tell the cops 10 shots and no more,” O’Donnell said.

“Unfortunately this is replicated all over the country. When you send the police they bring deadly force with them. They come armed and they come predisposed to use force,” O’Donnell said.

Heyward’s police record
According to court records, Heyward had been charged three times in the past with domestic assault. The first two were dismissed. The third, from a January 2008 incident, remained pending at the time of his death.

He was sentenced in 2005 to 11 months, 29 days in the county workhouse for passing worthless checks, but the sentence was suspended for good behavior and he was given probation.

He also had a few driving-related charges on his record, including a violation of the auto registration law for which he received a 30-day suspended sentence in 1997.

The morning he died, Heyward was distraught after returning from a party where he had been drinking, his father said.

“He didn’t think anybody cared about him,” Marine said.

Heyward also was upset about not seeing his children — a daughter and two sons — according to brother James Heyward.

CONTINUED : Police told Heyward was drunk

Perhaps all those concerns about a negative backlash against the town hall protests that would ultimately inure to the benefit of those pushing ObamaCare were overblown, because it looks like the public is siding with the protesters:

WASHINGTON — The raucous protests at congressional town-hall-style meetings have succeeded in fueling opposition to proposed health care bills among some Americans, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — particularly among the independents who tend to be at the center of political debates.

In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say demonstrations at the hometown sessions have made them more sympathetic to the protesters’ views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-to-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now.

(…)

• A 57% majority of those surveyed, including six in 10 independents, say a major factor behind the protests are concerns that average citizens had well before the meetings took place; 48% say efforts by activists to create organized opposition to the health care bills are a major factor.

• There’s some tolerance for loud voices: 51% say individuals making “angry attacks” on a health care bill are an example of “democracy in action” rather than “abuse of democracy.”

• Some actions are seen as going too far. Six in 10 say shouting down supporters of a bill is an abuse of democracy. On that question, unlike most others, there isn’t much of a partisan divide: 69% of Democrats and 58% of Republicans agree.

If these numbers stand up, it would be a significant blow to the Obama Administration and to the fortunes of health care reform in Congress.

Posted on 12 August 2009

How the Wall Street giant used your money to make $3.4 billion in profits.

They will never admit to this at Goldman Sachs (they don’t really fess up to much over there at the Big G) but in the fall of 2008, just after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy gave the world a lesson in systemic risk, Goldman, the world’s greatest risk taker, was finished too.

That’s right, it was toast. Finished. Kaput. Until, that is, the firm that was built on wheeling and dealing in some of the most esoteric investments the world of high finance had ever seen, needed a government bailout to stay afloat, which included $10 billion in cash from the Treasury Department (granted by its former CEO, then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson) and more importantly, full access to the Federal Reserve’s discount window to be a commercial bank.

Goldman Sachs, which was bailed out by the federal government, is now using the bailout to resume some of the same risk-taking activity that got it in trouble in the first place.

Goldman, of course, is a commercial bank like no other. You won’t confuse Goldman with the ol’ Bailey Building & Loan. It has no customer deposits—which are what the access to the discount window was first set up to protect—and you won’t be getting a toaster or a debit card from Goldman Sachs anytime soon.

But being a bank has its rewards. With full access to the discount window, Goldman can now borrow cheaply and massively from the Fed in a pinch, and because of that access, it can borrow more cheaply in the credit markets. It’s a loophole that has allowed Goldman to turn back the clock and once again resume much of its risk-taking activities, only this time it’s being financed by the American taxpayer.

There are, of course, many urban legends about Goldman and how it uses its clout in Washington and in the financial business (both Paulson and another former CEO, Robert Rubin held the Treasury secretary post) to advance its allegedly nefarious corporate agenda.

Recent reports have the firm gaming the energy markets, creating the dot-com bubble, and the subprime-debt crisis that took down Wall Street, and then for a time benefitting from its implosion when it “shorted” subprime-related investments, a trade that allowed the bank to profit from the downward spiral. (Hell, I’m sure there are people who also believe Goldman was somehow behind the swine-flu epidemic to corner the market on drug stocks.)

Some of these stories have a basis in fact and some don’t—I’ll leave it up to the reader to figure this out—but what is true is equally disturbing: Goldman Sachs, which was bailed out by the federal government, is now using the bailout to resume the many of the same risk-taking activities that got it in trouble in the first place.

The question I have, of course, is why is the Obama administration, which has decried corporate greed whenever it’s politically feasible, allowed Goldman all the advantages of a bank, when it is really a big hedge fund?

The Treasury Department won’t say and it’s obvious why Goldman is doing what it is doing: Money, and lots of it. The firm announced Tuesday morning that net income for the second quarter was $3.44 billion, while its biggest rival, Morgan Stanley, is likely to announce a quarterly loss.

And it all comes down to risk, or to be more precise, how much risk Morgan is willing to take on the taxpayers’ dime compared to what Goldman Sachs is now taking. Morgan Stanley’s CEO John Mack, chastened by the firm’s own near-implosion last year when it too was forced to become a bank, has radically reduced the amount of borrowing, or “leverage,” Morgan is taking in trading. People inside the firm say it’s difficult to meet client demands without borrowing money.

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“We just can’t get anything done,” said one senior Morgan Stanley executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Borrowing to finance trades amplifies gains, but it also amplifies losses when trades go bad. During the first quarter of 2009, Morgan borrowed just $11 for every dollar it had in capital (by comparison during the Wall Street boom, firms borrowed as much as $35 for every dollar in capital), while Goldman borrowed a significantly higher amount—close to $15 for every dollar it has in capital. “Our leverage is the result of risk-taking on behalf of our clients,” Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag says about the strategy.

And keep in mind this is only for the first quarter. Goldman’s second-quarter leverage is likely much higher given the fact that interest rates have remained remarkably low. Those low interest rates have had another benefit—it has allowed Goldman to make winning bets in the bond markets (bond prices rise when interest rates fall), the same place that decimated Wall Street in 2007 and 2008.

Of course, there are lots of reasons for Goldman’s success. The firm has amazing intellectual capital; some of the smartest people in the world of finance work there. It also knows how to game the system better than any firm on the face of the earth. Case in point: In mid-September 2008, when the world was crashing following Lehman’s bankruptcy, Goldman held $13 billion in highly risky mortgage bonds known as collateralized debt obligations. These bonds were insured by American International Group, which itself was about to go bankrupt.

Without that insurance, Goldman itself would have imploded because the bonds would have been marked down to just pennies on the dollar. The rescue of AIG was supposed to prevent a large-scale crash of the financial system, but it also prevented a crash of Goldman Sachs, which bought those crappy CDOs from Merrill Lynch, which was forced to find a buyer (Bank of America) because it too held the same sludge.

The Goldman purchase of the Merrill CDOs is proof positive that the geniuses at Goldman screw up like everyone else. And I don’t buy van Praag’s spin on the firm’s famous hedges that minimized its losses because the smart money in the markets didn’t at the time. Goldman’s shares were in a freefall, bottoming out at around $50 in the fall of 2008, compared to close to $235 just a year earlier.

Now with all the government help, Goldman is marching its way back up to $235 a share—trading at around $150 Monday—by embracing much of the same risk that nearly led to its demise. It would be nice, though, if the next time Goldman losses money taxpayers didn’t foot the bill.

Identity is formed in relation to both internal and external influences. It is partly what we are, and feel inside and also partly how we are influenced, viewed and constrained by culture and society. Identity isn’t fixed and can be changed and adjusted in many ways. Some we choose ourselves, and others thrust upon us by external influences. Similarly, race and ethnicity are also fluid, altering as people’s perceptions change.

A quote from Henry Louis Gates in the course material is an ideal example of this;

‘My grandfather was coloured, my father was negro, and I am black.’

This illustrates that attitudes and ideas on what being ‘black’ meant have changed since the 1970’s. What it meant varied depending on what the prevailing attitude towards the group was. When being black meant being part of an African or Caribbean ethnic group, the identities of the people in that group were fairly certain. As the term became more wide ranging to include South Asians and Asians, it became less certain. Gradually being black meant something completely different, therefore altering the feeling of identity for black people.

The rights of others to dictate what ethnic or racial group a person belongs to has been a problem area for many years. It was traditionally the established and dominant group which decided what the other groups were or were not. This power balance shifted in more recent time as the different groups all began to exercise their own power.

As the example of the ‘Black is beautiful’ campaign illustrates, identity isn’t fixed and can be changed with a concerted effort to improve the social standing of the subject group. This is a good example of how race and ethnicity impacts identities. The black community worked to improve their social standing with the Black Power campaign, eventually altering their identity. By doing this they also took some of the power away from the dominant white group to decide on the definitions and meanings of the different ethnic groups and their standing in society.

As part of identity is a relationship between what you are a part of, and what you are different from, this change in attitude towards black people also affected the other ethnic groups, especially the white population. Once secure in the knowledge that everyone who wasn’t white was black, and therefore inferior, people were suddenly on shifting ground. With their certainties shaken, the white majorities own identities were changed. For your own identity to be certain you need to know where you are in relation to others. If the identities of others shift then it inevitably affects your own, as the marker you compare yourself to has changed.

These changes have made life more complicated for all ethnic groups. No longer just black or white, there is now a plethora of races and ethnicities to contend with. The power has shifted away from the majority white group to every other racial and ethnic group. Political correctness has also had a hand in this, as white people are often unsure of what to call other racial or ethnic groups for fear of being called racist. Because of institutional racism there appears to be positive discrimination, and preferential treatment to other racial groups. Police training has a specific class, where cadets are taught to treat racial and ethnic groups that aren’t white preferentially, as they may have a negative view of the police. This just adds to confusion and inequality of different kinds of people’s identities.

A quote from Stuart Hall in the course notes sums it up nicely.

‘I never called myself black because no one in the Caribbean was then. I’ve come home to an identity I was never allowed to settle for; discovering I’ve become something I was all the time; a black intellectual, a migrant… People who are 68 should feel the ground solid under their feet. But I’m not surprised it feels shifting… More and more people feel life this way.

This complication of ethnic and racial identities has made it more difficult for all racial ranges to feel secure in their identities. No longer are there just whites and blacks, but more social groups than ever before. This empowerment has in turn allowed all ethnic groups more agency over how they create their own identities. Once severely constrained by racism and strict social boundaries, there is certainly more freedom of expression for all groups.

Wednesday, June 24

A poll released Monday showed 72 percent of Americans favor an insurance health care plan with a public option. So why do only 36 senators support it?

Sure, the Senate is supposed to be a more deliberative body and not be swayed by public opinion to the same extent as the House. But, if there’s widespread backing for this concept, and it’s getting a renewed push from President Obama, why so much resistance in the Senate?

Is it because senators are standing on good old-fashioned apple pie principles?

Maybe not. Here’s an analysis that suggests insurance company PAC money is having the greatest impact on middle-of-the road Democratic senators. According to the report:

“Liberal Democrats are likely to hold firm to the public option unless they receive a lot of remuneration from health care PACs. Conservative Democrats may not support the public option in the first place for ideological reasons, although money can certainly push them more firmly against it.

“But the impact on mainline Democrats appears to be quite large: if a mainline Democrat has received $60,000 from insurance PACs over the past six years, his likelihood of supporting the public option is cut roughly in half from 80 percent to 40 percent.”

As I’ve said, there may well be legitimate philosophical reasons to oppose this type of national health care plan, or any other approach, for that matter. An umbilical cord flowing with ready cash from major insurers isn’t one of them.

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To his credit, Obama finally put pressure on health care companies, and opponents of the public option, in a news conference Tuesday.

As he correctly pointed out: “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care … then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”

It’s only logical if you understand that cash is the conduit through which public policy decisions are often made.

Money doesn’t talk, Dylan said, it swears.

BNP faces legal threat over membership policies

Equality watchdog accuses far-right party of three breaches of Race Relations Act

The BNP is facing the threat of an injunction from the official body on race discrimination, in what is believed to be the first such action against a political party.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the independent watchdog on discrimination, wrote to the BNP today stating that it believes the party is in breach of the Race Relations Act on three counts.

“The legal advice we have received indicates that the British National party’s constitution and membership criteria, employment practices and provision of services to constituents and the public may breach discrimination laws which all political parties are legally obliged to uphold,” said the commission’s legal director, John Wadham.

The letter gives the BNP until 20 July to provide written undertakings in response to the allegations, including a statement that it will not discriminate in party recruitment.

Currently, BNP recruitment is open to members of the party who, according to its constitution, are of … “‘indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race”.

“The commission thinks that this requirement is contrary to the Race Relations Act, which outlaws the refusal or deliberate omission to offer employment on the basis of non-membership of an organisation,” a statement released by the commission says. “The commission is therefore concerned that the BNP may have acted, and be acting, illegally.”

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Other potential breaches of the law raised in the letter include concerns that the BNP’s elected representatives may not intend to offer or provide services on an equal basis to all their constituents irrespective of race and their membership criteria.

After the BNP won two seats in the European parliament earlier this month, the Guardian reported numerous grounds for legal challenge against the party. Lawyers said the BNP’s rise in public office would have increasing legal significance, including a possible investigation by the commission.

The action by the commission is likely to have serious implications, and could lead to further measures, including an injunction against the party and possible legal challenges in court.

“We await a response from the BNP to our letter before deciding what further action we may take, ” Wadham said. “Litigation or enforcement action can be avoided by the BNP giving a satisfactory response to our letter.”

The controversial move is the first time the commission has used against a political party new enforcement powers it obtained after taking over from the former race watchdog, the Commission for Racial Equality, in 2007.

The BNP said it had passed the letter on to its legal team.

“We were expecting something like this but we are not too bothered. We are quite happy with our position,” a spokesman said.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama cited his own long struggle to quit the cigarettes he took up as a teenager as he signed the nation’s strongest-ever anti-smoking bill Monday and praised it for providing critically needed protections for future generations.

“The decades-long effort to protect our children from the harmful effects of smoking has finally emerged victorious,” Obama said during the sun-splashed Rose Garden signing ceremony.

The bill marks the latest legislative victory for Obama’s first five months. Among his other successes: a $787 economic stimulus bill, legislation to expand a state program providing children’s health insurance and a bill making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination.

The president has frequently spoken, in the White House and on the campaign trail, of his own struggles to quit smoking. He did so again during the ceremony, bringing it up while criticizing the tobacco industry for marketing its products to young people.

“I know — I was one of these teenagers,” Obama said. “I know how difficult it is to break this habit.”

Before dozens of invited guests, including children from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the president signed legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate tobacco.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act allows the FDA to lower the amount of nicotine in tobacco products, ban candy flavorings that appeal to kids and block misleading labels such “low tar” and “light.” Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large graphic warnings.

The law won’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency will be able to regulate what goes into tobacco products, make public the ingredients and prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children.

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“It is a law that will save American lives,” Obama said.

Anti-smoking advocates looked forward to the bill after years of attempts to control an industry so fundamental to the U.S. that carved tobacco leaves adorn some parts of the Capitol.

Opponents from tobacco-growing states such as top-producing North Carolina argued that the FDA had proved through a series of food safety failures that it was not up to the job of regulation. They also said that instead of unrealistically trying to get smokers to quit or to prevent others from starting, lawmakers should ensure that people have other options, like smokeless tobacco.

As president, George W. Bush opposed the legislation and threatened a veto after it passed the House last year. The Obama administration, by contrast, issued a statement declaring strong support for the measure.