John Brown's Body

     In the early morning hours of June 22nd, 2019, Jarric Carolina, a black man, was brutally attacked outside a tavern in Shawnee, Oklahoma, by Brandon Killian and Devan Johnson, being knocked unconscious by the two while they shouted, "You're dead, n****r." The entire incident was captured on a security camera. In October 2019, Johnson pleaded guilty to felony charges in exchange for a sentence of five years in prison, but apparently that didn't change him. After his arrest, he threatened to "kill all the black people" in the saloon; at a court date, he shouted to victim's girlfriend, "Go to your black boyfriend now!" Now, both men, lifelong felons, have been charged with hate crimes carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison with three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. If they hadn't been indicted on federal charges, Johnson might have been getting out of prison in a matter of months, so the community is much safer ...

     Today, February 23rd, 2022, is the first annual observance of Ahmaud Arbery Day. Yesterday, the three men who murdered him, Travis and Gregory McMichael and William "Roddie" Bryan, were convicted of attempted kidnapping and a hate crime; the McMichaels were each also convicted of federal firearms charges. Already convicted of murder charges in Georgia and sentenced to life in prison, they'll likely get the same sentence for the federal crimes whenever the day comes that they find out. Meanwhile, the family has turned their attention to former DA Jackie Johnson and neighboring DA George Barnhill. Both lost their office after Johnson ordered the police not to arrest the three men who murdered Arbery and recused herself; she sent the case to Barnhill, who also recused himself, but not before issuing a report claiming the men had done nothing wrong.      It took the video going viral and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stepping in in May 2020 for arres...

     On February 22nd, 2022, just three hours after they began deliberations and the day before the two-year anniversary of Ahmaud Arbery's murder, a jury found Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan guilty of a hate crime in the murder of Arbery.      The trio were each founding guilty of depriving Arbery of his civil rights (a hate crime) and attempted kidnapping, while the McMichaels were each also convicted of federal firearms charges. They were found guilty of murder on November 24th, 2021, and sentenced to life plus 20 years without parole for the McMichaels and life with parole after 30 years for Roddie Bryan in state court on January 7th, 2022. However, because Georgia did not have a hate crime statute at the time, race, which has always played a central role in the case, was not confirmed to be the motivating factor until today.      The defendants had a long history of racism: Greg McMichael reportedly told a c...

     The Trump DOJ's recommendation of harsh penalties for Black Lives Matter protestors in 2020 is paying dividends for several reasons. During the course of the summer, when tens of millions of Americans protested racial injustice, a total of 300 were arrested by the Department of Justice. These were not good people: all 300 were charged with serious crimes like arson, weapons possession, and assaulting police. The DOJ recommended decades-long prison sentences for people it accused of violating at least eight federal statutes related to rioting and property damage. When the Capitol insurrection occurred, the Biden DOJ got evidence of apparent bipartisan support for harshly punishing rioters and violent criminals who damage property with the memo from Trump's DOJ: they even charged those who made it into the Senate chamber with 20-year felonies whether they committed violent or destructive acts or not. That's the sole felony charge Jacob Chansley got a 41-month sentence ...

     Upon receiving her guilty verdict, Kim Potter showed no surprise; after all, the first words out of her mouth after she killed Daunte Wright were, "I'm going to prison." It would only wind up being for two years, but she did go to prison. The man seated next to her seemed devastated, however, putting his head in his hands. At sentencing, the same man went on an incoherent, stumbling rant, even reading a letter from Potter's 82-year-old mother claiming that the only reason she was going to prison, the only reason people despised her, was because she was a police officer. Remember, that's the argument Reform Party appointee Judge Regina Chu bought.      That letter was from Potter's mother, but the fact that Gray read it word for word lets you know he really believes it, as does the fact that Kim Potter is not the only high-profile police brutality case he has taken in Hennepin County alone. He calls himself one of Minnesota's most "elite attorneys...

     Kim Potter was found guilty of manslaughter. That is no longer up for debate. As the world watched the trial of Derek Chauvin, who would be found guilty of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison, just blocks away, another black man lost his life at the hands of police. Daunte Wright was shot in the chest in the driver's seat of his car, killing him and sending the now-driverless car down the street, where it crashed into another car, giving the passenger in Daunte's car a broken jaw and numerous other injuries and injuring a person seated in the other car, leading them to hospice, where, 10 months later, they are likely to be killed as a result of these actions.      Potter's attorneys have given a number of reasons they believe their client should have been given probation. She is a middle-aged woman with no prior criminal history, they say, a devout religious woman and likely not a danger to the community in the future. All of these things may ...

     I've covered the story of Ahmaud Arbery extensively, from the trial to the sentencing to the hate crimes trial that recently began in federal court. Many are familiar with the fact that this young man was brutally lynched in broad daylight while his three white killers, including father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael, went almost three months without being arrested. This is because one white DA called police and ordered them not to make an arrest while another failed to properly recuse himself in spite of an obvious conflict of interest. DA Jackie Johnson has been charged, and I'm still holding out hope that DA George Barnhill will be charged next.       Well, now, almost exactly two years later, a similar incident is playing out. Thankfully, Demonterrio Gibson, 24, survived to tell his story. Ahmaud Arbery's "crime" was jogging as a black man. Gibson's "crime" was working as a FedEx driver while black in Brookhaven, Mississippi. While del...

     Who would've guessed except everyone in the entire country? Michelle Odinet, a judge in Lafayette, Louisiana, went viral in December 2021 after being caught on camera joining several guests in her home calling a black suspect in a string of local vehicle break-ins a "n*gger" and saying he was "like a roach." That's some Rwandan Genocide language right there. It's not known how the video was obtained or who recorded it, but the backlash was swift.      Odinet, a Republican who worked as a DA in Lafayette before being elected to her seat with 57 percent of the vote in November 2020, claimed that she had taken a sedative beforehand and didn't remember the incident in question, the Roseanne Barr excuse. A word of advice: drugs and alcohol don't make you racist; they simply remove or damage the filter that would ordinarily keep you from saying those racist things out loud.      It's fine to be upset about criminal actions, but when you cease ...

     Cory P. Evans is a piece of shit, and now the world knows it. Compared to other major racial justice cases in 2020 and 2021, like the murders of George Floyd, Daunte Wright, and Ahmaud Arbery, the case of Breonna Taylor's murder has seen almost no closure aside from a civil settlement. Protests sparked in Louisville against police brutality were met, like in most other places around the nation, with more police brutality. Enter Evans: on May 31st, 2020, while working as part of LMPD's Special Response Team, he ordered a group of peaceful protestors who were out past curfew to surrender in order to be arrested. They all did as they were told, but, as one protestor sat on his knees with his hands behind his back, rather than cuff him, Evans clubbed him in the back of his head, knocking his victim out while splitting his head open.      Evans has a history of brutality. In 2015, while his body-worn camera was deactivated, he shot a pet dog in its owner's ...

     Most Americans know the story of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man lynched in broad daylight while out for a jog, and his murderers, Travis McMichael, his father Gregory, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan. Travis McMichael would be convicted of nine felony counts related to the murder, Gregory McMichael on eight, and William "Roddie" Bryan on six in a state trial that ended on Thanksgiving 2021. In January 2022, the McMichaels would each be sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years without the possibility of parole while William "Roddie" Bryan would be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. All three men still face felony hate crime charges in federal court.      One of the most disturbing parts of the crime was the fact that the men were not arrested until May 2020, nearly three months after the murder, when Gregory McMichael and Roddie Bryan released the video in an attempt to clear their names and said v...