Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Racist Cop rightfully gets charged in tasing incident...will he be convicted? or will the system protect the cops and target the niggers like always?








A Louisiana grand jury indicted a former police officer on a manslaughter charge in the death of a man who was Tasered nine times while handcuffed, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Scott Nugent also was charged with felony criminal malfeasance in connection with the January death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes.

Pikes, a 21-year-old sawmill worker, tried to run from Winnfield police, who wanted to arrest him on a warrant charging him with cocaine possession.

A coroner's report found that Pikes was handcuffed and on the ground when first stunned with a Taser and might have been dead before the last two 50,000-volt shocks were delivered.

Nugent, who authorities said was the arresting officer, was suspended and ultimately fired in May.

If convicted, Nugent could get up to 40 years for the manslaughter charge and five years for the criminal malfeasance charge, Winn Parish District Attorney R. Chris Nevils said.

"It is our intention to show at trial that Mr. Nugent caused the death of Baron Pikes by Tasing him multiple times, unnecessarily and in violation of Louisiana law, and by failing to get him medical attention when it was apparent he needed it," Nevils said.

The indictment stems from a state police investigation into the death, which ended in late July.

Nugent's attorney, Phillip Terrell, could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday evening. He said earlier that his client had followed proper police procedure.

A copy of the Winnfield Police Department's Taser training manual, obtained by CNN, says the device "shall only be deployed in circumstances where it is deemed reasonably necessary to control a dangerous or violent subject."

Nugent is white; Pikes was black. Pikes' death led to demonstrations that drew several dozen people in Winnfield, Louisiana, a town of 15,000, roughly half of whom are black.
Police said Pikes told officers he suffered from asthma and had been using PCP and crack cocaine. But Dr. Randolph Williams, the Winn Parish medical examiner, said he found no sign of drug use in the autopsy and no record of asthma in Pikes' medical history.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Another super-tragic death in the black community, Legendary Soul Music Singer Issac Hayes has died..Why God?




Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film "Shaft," has died, sheriff's officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday.

Relatives found Hayes, 65, unconscious in his home next to a still-running treadmill, said Steve Shular, a spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff's Department.

Paramedics attempted to revive him and took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 2 p.m., the sheriff's department said.

No foul play is suspected, the agency said in a written statement.

Hayes was a longtime songwriter and arranger for Stax Records in Memphis, playing in the studio's backup band and crafting tunes for artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave in the 1960s.

He released his first solo album in 1967, and his 1969 follow-up, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a platinum hit.

In 1971, the theme from "Shaft" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and won an Academy Award for best original theme song. The song and the movie score also won Grammy awards for best original score and movie theme.

Hayes won a third Grammy for pop instrumental performance with the title track to his 1972 "Black Moses" album.


From the late 1990s through 2006, Hayes provided the voice of "Chef" for Comedy Central's raunchy animated series "South Park," as well as numerous songs.

The role introduced him to a new generation of fans, but he left after the show lampooned his own religion, the Church of Scientology.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. In a CNN interview at the time, Hayes credited his success to "adjusting and constantly evolving, expanding and trying to stay as young as I can."

The new generation of popular musicians, he said, "could use a little more substance like we had in the day."

"They're standing on our shoulders. Some of them don't realize [it] because they sample me so much," he said.

Hayes credited his role on "South Park" with expanding his fan base, and said that he had almost passed on the job.

"I started to walk out. I thought it was a Disney thing. I [had] never heard of this thing," he said. But his agent persuaded him to tape some episodes.

"Toward the opening I started having trepidations -- 'Oh my god, what have I done? I've ruined my career.' But when it aired, the ratings went through the roof," he said.
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A 1992 visit to the royal family in Ghana was a life-changing experience for Hayes, he said.

"I went back on speaking engagements and encouraged African-Americans to go to Africa [to] interact socially, culturally and/or economically," he said.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Tragic death of epic proportion..one of the Original Kings of Comedy has died...R.I.P Bernie Mac


Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show," died Saturday at age 50.

"Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital," his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Mac's brand of comedy caught flak when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama's campaign.

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."

He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac ... he gave them their money's worth," Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in "Original Kings," said Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Comedian Carl Reiner, who also appeared in "Ocean's Eleven" and its two sequels, said Saturday that he was "in utter shock," because he thought Mac was improving. "He was just so alive. I can't believe he's gone," he said.

Reiner told KNX-AM in Los Angeles that other comics had talked to the audience as Mac did on "The Bernie Mac Show," but "he took it to a new level."

"It was such a popular show because of his bigger-than-life persona," Reiner said.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005's "Guess Who" topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" with Mac as the black dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three children won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion -- and cool."

In real life, he was very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je'niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"He was the king of his household," Childress said in Chicago, describing Mac as "a loving grandfather" to her daughter, his only grandchild.

"The Bernie Mac Show" garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in 2001. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, 'Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?"'

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer.

Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac's first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago's Cotton Club, where she hosted an open-mike night.

"From very early on, I thought he was destined for success," Albritton said Saturday. "He never lost track of where he came from, and he'd often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him."

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.

"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on October 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood -- eating bologna for dinner -- and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac said in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."

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Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."






source - http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/09/obit.bernie.mac.ap/