Detroit Police Kill 7-Year-Old Girl in "No-Knock" Raid

Seven-year-old Aiyana Jones was asleep on her grandmother's couch when at 12:40 a.m. Sunday Detroit police executed a "No-Knock" warrant on the duplex where she lived. In all the confusion -- it's a no-knock so the police just throw a flash bomb grenade in your house and break down the door, guns drawn -- Aiyana's grandmother either got in a confrontation with or bumped into a police officer and it lead to the officer's gun being fired, hitting Aiyana in the neck as she slept.

How many different kinds of messed up is this?

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Question of the Day: Arizona's Tough Anti-Immigration Law

I'm sure it's going to be "fun times" for anyone brown with an accent living in Arizona. Perhaps they can start sewing scarlet "Cs" to their chest to let the cops know that they're citizens before they get the pat down. Or at least that's what I'm envisioning in a state with a more than 30 percent Hispanic population. That means, in general, there are just a lot of legal people there who happen to look exactly like the folks who may be illegal who can all be detained, legally, by the police. All based solely on how they look thanks to a new law passed in Arizona. It's a legal form of racial profiling that will only just affect nearly 2 million people. No big! You know? Unless you're a citizen of Arizona and the United States who feels that they shouldn't have to roll around with their birth certificate or other proof of being a citizen around.

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'You Don't Bring A Gun to A Snowball Fight'

One of the recurring jokes I have with my friends since first visiting and then moving to Washington, D.C. is how because we live in the Nation's Capital it's a bit like living in a constant police state. It's understandable, to a point. I really don't get why the cops think they need to have the lights flashing all the time or why there was a giant spotlight beaming into the night's sky on Friday at the 7-11 on Eighth and Maryland, but, whatever. I'd lived under the "shoot first, ask questions later" regimes of cruel Kern County Cowboy Justice in Bakersfield, Calif. and the "shoot you in the back just 'cause" justice of St. Louis, Mo. What really could be that different? Cops are cops everywhere, right? Right?

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Beer and Crumpets At The White House (Gates-Gate)

So Scholar Henry Louis Gates and police Sergeant James Crowley finally met, face to face, over beer and other snack items at the White House with President Obama and, of course, Vice President "Mad Dog" Joe Biden. Excellent. Are we cured of our racial ills now? Does drinking Blue Moon with your orange peel in a White House monogram mug (My fav beer too, Crowley. Makes me wanna sing "Ebony & Ivory" with you.) make everything O-Tay?

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Bill Maher: Gates Arrested For Not Kissing Cop's Patootie

From Huffpo:

I'm not even sure this is a racial situation because I don't know if this cop is racist. But I have to say it seems to me more like a police situation. I think Henry Louis Gates was arrested for the crime of not kissing the behind of the police officer.

I might have to agree with that one as well. Thoughts?

The President "Recalibrates" and Gates to have "beer" with cop who arrested him

Shall we all hold hands? Should we sing "Kumbya?"

If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying. Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality. (Henry Louis Gates, The Root)

On Friday, President Barack Obama surprised the Washington Press Corps with an impromptu jacking of the daily press briefing to "clarify" his comments on the arrest of scholar Henry Louis Gates.

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Scholar Henry Louis Gates Arrested, For Nothing, At Own House

Updated on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 12:56PM by Danielle Belton

Obviously the Cambridge, Mass. police department didn't get that memo about us living in "Post-Racial America" and felt it's still cool to arrest a man of a certain age (58) for trying to get into his own house. All he was was the homeowner and a well-connected Harvard Professor. I'm sure he looks EXACTLY like someone who would break into a house in that Tony suburb.

Um ... What's up with this, police?

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