COVER STORY
BLACK MAN MURDERED BY COPS! AGAIN!! THIS MUST STOP!!!
29 Black People Have Been Killed by Police/Security Since Jan 2012: 16 Since Trayvon
by Carl Dix
Eighteen-year-old Michael Brown had
graduated from High School in Ferguson,
Missouri, a mostly Black small town just
outside St. Louis, and was going to start college
in August. But now he will be buried in August
Walker in North Carolina, Darrick Collins in
Georgia, Tyrone Brown in Maryland, and I
could go on and on.
Investigations, whether done by the local cops
and district attorneys or the feds, aren’t going
to do a thing about the way police brutalize
and even murder people. They do it all the
time and almost never get punished in any way.
The authorities treat it like it’s part of their job
description.
THIS MUST STOP! IT MUST STOP NOW,
AND IT’S UP TO US TO STOP IT!
Immediately following Michael’s murder,
people poured into the streets, outraged
that the cops had stolen the life of another
Black youth. Cops were called in from all the
surrounding areas, some in riot gear and
others with vicious dogs straining at their
leashes. But far from suppressing people’s
anger, it brought out even more rage. It
has been reported that 20 police cars were
damaged and some stores were broken into.
The authorities and the media predictably tried
because a murdering cop shot him eight
times. Michael was walking in the street with
a friend in the middle of the day when cops
rolled up on them and ordered them out of the
street and fired a shot when they kept walking.
Michael and his friend ran, and the cop shot
again, hitting Michael. Many witnesses say that
Michael put his hands up, but the cop shot him
again and again. Then the cops left his body
laying on the ground for hours.
GUN VIOLENCE AIMED
AT BLACK MALES
TRIGGERS CONCERN
By Freddie Allen
NNPA Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Several new
studies confirm what most people have
suspected all along: no group is harmed
more by gun violence than young Black
males.
“While 13 percent of Americans are
black, in 2010, 65 percent of gun murder
victims between the ages of 15 and 24
were black,” revealed a report by the
Center for American Progress (CAP).
“Forty-two percent of the total gun deaths
of individuals in this age group were of
black males.”
This trend has continued, the report
noted, even as crime rates decline.
Another report on gun violence by the
Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) mirrors
the CAP findings.
“Between 1963 and 2010, 59,265 Black
children and teens were killed by guns
– more than 17 times the recorded
lynchings of Black people of all ages in
the 86 years from 1882 to 1968.”
The Children’s Defense Fund study also
reported that, “Black males ages 15-19
were nearly 30 times more likely to die in
a gun homicide than White males.”
Yet another study on Black homicides in
the United States by the Violence Policy
Center, shows that 8 percent of Black
homicide victims never reached their 19th
birthday and the average age of Black
homicide victims was just 30 years old.
We’re told all the time that Black youth are
in the situation they’re in because they make
poor life choices or don’t take personal
responsibility or because their parents don’t
raise them right. This is pure Bull! Michael
Brown had graduated from high school and
was about to start college. His mother and
father worked hard to make sure he had that
opportunity. But now a killer cop, a front line
enforcer for a system that has no future for the
youth, has snatched all that away.
But the numbers tell only part of the story.
“More than 1 million years of potential
life are lost due to gun deaths each
year,” the CAP report found. “These are
years of life that young people killed by
guns would have achieved educational
milestones, entered the workforce, had
families, and contributed to the social,
economic, and cultural advancement of
society in untold ways – all erased by
gunfire.” .
THIS MUST STOP! IT MUST STOP NOW,
AND IT’S UP TO US TO STOP IT!
Michael Brown today, before that it was Eric
Garner in NYC, Jonathan Ferrell and Derek
Gun Violence CONTINUES ON PAGE 12
www.spectacularmag.com | August 2014 | SPECTACULAR MAGAZINE
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