Tennessee Preacher-Cop calls for Execution of LGBT People

Being gay in America remains dangerous - a reality lost on gay Republicans, many of whom falsely believe their white skin and social status will protect them from the raging homophobia being fanned by the Republican Party (the 2016 GOP platform opposes same sex marriage) and the Trump/Pence regime in particular.   The unleashing, indeed encouragement, of homophobia by the current White House regime is emboldening "Christian" extremists.  Just days after the 3rd anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre, a group of anti-gay extremist pastors, some exhorting the execution of LGBT individuals, gathered in Orlando, Florida.  Now, media reports have revealed that one Tennessee police officer who doubles as a pastor of an extremist church, likewise wants gays executed.  One can only imagine the fate a gay stooped by this officer might suffer.  Thankfully, the local District Attorney is reviewing all cases involving this hate monger.   Here are excerpts from a CNN article:

Authorities in Tennessee are reviewing all pending cases involving a Knox County Sheriff's Office detective after he gave a sermon at his church that called for the government to execute members of the LGBTQ community.

"They are worthy of death," Grayson Fritts said in a June 2 sermon at All Scripture Baptist Church, a small church in Knoxville that he leads.

The church posted the sermon online and then removed it, according to The Washington Post. The video was picked up by the Tennessee Holler, an independent liberal news outlet, and edited into a six-minute clip.

"God has instilled the power of civil government to send the police in 2019 out to the LGBT freaks and arrest them and have a trial for them, and if they are convicted, then they are to be put to death," he said in the clip.

Fritts said it would be easy to find people to arrest at events such as gay pride parades."We have a bunch of them we're going to get convicted because they have all their pride junk on, and they're professing what they are, that they're a filthy animal," he said.

Speaking to journalists before giving a sermon last Wednesday, Fritts said his anti-LGBTQ beliefs have not interfered with his work as a law enforcement officer.

Charme Allen, the Knox County district attorney general, issued a statement calling Fritts' comments "personally offensive and reprehensible. Allen said she would review all of Fritts' pending cases and an assistant district attorney will review any complaints about closed cases involving Fritts.

"When any potential witness in a criminal proceeding expresses an opinion of hatred and/or bias towards a class of citizens, I am ethically bound to explore that witness' credibility," Allen said. "Accordingly, I am reviewing all pending cases involving Mr. Fritts to scrutinize them for any potential bias. Although my office has never received a complaint regarding Mr. Fritts prior to this incident, I have assigned an assistant district attorney to receive complaints regarding closed cases, and I will act on those complaints as justice dictates." Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler said . . . . "I want to be very clear that it is my responsibility to ensure equal protection to ALL citizens of Knox County, Tennessee under the law, my oath and the United States Constitution without discrimination or hesitation. Rest assured that I have and will continue to do so," Spangler said in a statement, according to WATE.

The All Scripture Baptist Church website says it is "an independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning church. Don't expect anything liberal, watered down, or contemporary here." The website is clear about the church's stance on the gay community:

"We believe that sodomy (homosexuality) is a sin that is against nature. A person will only burn in their lust toward the same gender if they have been given over to a reprobate or rejected mind. God said homosexuality should be punished with the death penalty, as set forth in Leviticus 20:13. No homosexual will be allowed to attend or join All Scripture Baptist Church." Two Knoxville public officials criticized Fritts' comments.

"I am outraged at the statements by Knox County Sheriff's Detective Grayson Fritts," Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said in a statement posted on the city's website. "Fritts' statements raise concerns locally and nationally about protecting LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Fritts' statements have cast a negative light on our community making it imperative to share my personal position and the position of the City of Knoxville."

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs also criticized Fritts, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

"Mr. Fritts is not my employee so I can only give my personal thoughts on the issue," Jacobs said. "I find his comments to be extremely vile and reprehensible and I strongly condemn threats of or calls for violence."

Some would argue that Fritts is an outlier, yet the Republicans in the Tennessee legislature have continued to push extreme anti-gay legislation. If your are LGBT, Tennessee is likely NOT a place to live.  Just as disturbing is the reality that leaders of extreme "Christian" groups have Trump's ear and are pushing him to implement their agenda, including the appointment of anti-gay judges.

New York Police Wrongfully Arrest Black Tennis Star

While the apologists on the far right refuse to admit that there are serious problems in many of the nation's police forces when it comes to excessive force against blacks, the wrongful arrest and excessive force used by the New York City police against James Blake a retired Harvard educated tennis star.  Sadly, in the minds of too many police offers, being black - or in Blake's case, bi-racial - automatically makes one guilty and opens the door to abusive force.  Pretending the problem doesn't exist or that President Obama is undermining respect for the police doesn't solve the serious problem.  The New York Times looks at the latest embarrassment to the NYPD.  Here are excerpts:

A New York Police Department officer was stripped of his gun and badge as Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton issued swift apologies on Thursday for the rough arrest of James Blake, the retired tennis star, after he was misidentified as a suspect in a fraudulent credit card ring.

Criticism swirled over whether Mr. Blake had been mistreated because he was biracial. But it was Mr. Bratton’s acknowledgment that excessive force may have been used when an officer threw him to the ground that put a renewed national focus on the everyday arrest tactics long criticized by members of minority groups.

The officers failed to report the mistaken arrest, as they were required to do, raising the possibility that it would not have come to light had Mr. Blake not spoken out.

The officer’s decision to throw an unarmed, compliant man to the ground added to the sense that black people are often roughed up by the police out of view, with few resources to bring attention to their grievances. In a sign of the shifting discourse on race and policing, Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Bratton moved with unusual speed to contact Mr. Blake to apologize. But the gestures also raised questions about whether they would have moved so swiftly if the encounter had not involved a well-known figure.

“This shouldn’t have happened and he shouldn’t have been treated that way,” Mr. de Blasio said in an interview on NY1 on Thursday, echoing remarks made earlier by Mr. Bratton.

The actions of the officer, James Frascatore, were under review by internal affairs investigators and the Civilian Complaint Review Board. At least three force-related complaints, one of which was partially substantiated, were filed against Officer Frascatore, 38, with the review board in 2013, said a law enforcement official, who spoke anonymously because the police inquiry was continuing.

Video of the arrest reviewed by the authorities revealed how a botched sting operation had ensnared a sports celebrity, resulting in his being body-slammed to the sidewalk, according to his account, and handcuffed for 15 minutes on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Blake, 35, who retired from tennis two years ago, said the episode had drawn attention to the kind of rough arrest tactics that he believed were all too common in New York City.

“I do think most cops are doing a great job keeping us safe, but when you police with reckless abandon, you need to be held accountable,” Mr. Blake, whose mother is white and whose father was black, said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The self-effacing tennis star, known on the tour for his speed and sportsmanship, was leaving the Grand Hyatt New York on East 42nd Street around noon on Wednesday to make an appearance for a corporate sponsor at the United States Open when Officer Frascatore, who was dressed in street clothes, barreled toward him.

“This happens too often,” Mr. Blake said, “and most of the time it’s not to someone like me.”

There's more to the story, but you get the drift.  There are many good police officers, but there are a number that have no business wearing a badge and carrying a gun.  Sadly, most internal affairs departments' number one goal is protecting police officers rather than the public.  Until police departments get rid of the "bad apples," they deserve to be viewed with distrust.  It is ultimately their own fault when they continue to have officers like James Frascatore and those who have shot unarmed individuals on their staffs.  

The Great Police Violence Cover-Up

Politico isn't always the most liberal of news outlets.  It's not Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, but it isn't Salon or the Huffington Post either.  Thus, it is informative that its magazine arm has an article bearing the same title as this blog post.  America has a serious problem with lawless police officers.  That statement is not intended as a denigration of all police officers.  But like it or not, there are far too many officers who have no business wearing a badge or carrying a gun.  Especially when it comes to their views of minorities, particularly blacks.  White, conservative Christians too often revere the police yet have no idea what its like to have the police view you as a menace or unworthy of decent treatment simply because of your skin color or your sexual orientation.  It's bad enough to be gay around some police officers much less to be black or brown skinned.  Here are article highlights:

I have a 20-year-old son, and I have a 12-year-old son, and I’m so afraid for them. … This is about a war machine. It is us against the [expletive] machine!” 

—Rapper Killer Mike

Perhaps the saddest thing is: We don’t really know what the truth is. We don’t really know if Killer Mike—his voice breaking on stage this week after the Ferguson grand jury decision—is correct in his perception that America’s police departments are less protectors of the peace than monstrous “war machines” leveled against the nation’s poor and minorities.

[N]o one knows for sure how serious the problem is—now, or then—because there simply are no reliable national data on police violence in the United States. The data are lacking because police departments keep almost all those numbers to themselves, in defiance of a 20-year-old federal law—the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act—requiring the Justice Department to compile an annual report on “the use of excessive force” by police.

The story of the various failed national efforts to compile and release such data—or to obtain any reliable numbers on violence by police officers at all—is just another dimension of an issue that Monday’s grand-jury decision threw into relief: a sense that police departments across the country are simply not held accountable enough.

And because a substantial portion of these alleged police abuses of law and justice appear to be directed against blacks and other minorities in certain communities—not the white-dominated power structure in their own communities—it rarely becomes a notable issue, at least until a Michael Brown-type killing provokes enough violence and outrage in the streets for the TV cameras to pay attention.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program collects data from the roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the country to compile statistics about crime and law enforcement, and yet here too police departments are not required to submit data on what they consider to be justifiable homicides by officers.

But given the average number of dubious shootings in any given year—most recently the killing of a 12-year-old boy wielding a BB gun in Cleveland—many criminologists say it’s clear that there is a serious problem, especially in minority neighborhoods, that has not been quantified. “If there’s smoke, there must be fire there,” says Sam Walker, an expert on police accountability at the University of Nebraska.

Despite the consistently high percentage of African-Americans in prisons, the issue is not necessarily racial. “It’s not a black or white issue. It’s a blue issue,” Frank Serpico, the former New York City detective whose efforts to expose corruption were made famous in a 1973 movie starring Al Pacino, said in a telephone interview. “The fact is that police have never been accountable,” said Serpico, who in the decades since his retirement from the NYPD has become an advocate for police whistleblowers and greater restraint on the use of force. . . . . what erupted in Ferguson is not just about Ferguson. This thing has been a long time coming.”

According to another widely cited criminologist, Lorie Fridell of the University of South Florida, “It’s not just about when force is used. There is a lot of variation in this country about how police treat low-income, high-minority neighborhoods. There are places where police treat them very, very differently than they do white communities.” She adds that “police have gotten better over the years, but also expectations might have gotten higher.”

[A]ccording to John Firman, director of development of the IAPC, after a year “the Justice Department shut it down, and for good reason: The number of [police departments] reporting back to us was under 600” out of about 18,000 in the country. The law had no means of forcing cooperation, Firman added, and as for whether the government is simply ignoring the mandate of the law, “that was between the Congress and the DOJ.”

Other criminologists have found that even when they participate, law enforcement agencies often misrepresent data in survey responses. “On nonsensitive subjects we usually get a high response in our surveys,” says Edward McGuire, a criminologist at American University. “But then on questions about the use of violence we get a very low response rate. That’s because they had been advised by their attorneys not to answer those questions.”

[T]he real answer to restoring accountability may lie in technology, especially sensors and body-worn cameras for police officers. Despite some current resistance, most officers like that solution too, she says, because most of them probably have nothing to hide. “The police profession is unlike any other in that officers usually operate outside the direct review or purview of supervisors in most cases. So this is a way to document not only what the police are doing—but what the subjects are doing as well.”

. . . “body-worn cameras increase transparency and citizen views of police legitimacy,” and it quoted William A. Farrar, chief of police in Rialto, California, as saying: “When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better. And if a citizen knows the officer is wearing a camera, chances are the citizen will behave a little better.”

 We need to do a far better job of policing the police.