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New York City bans racial slur
NEW YORK — New York City symbolically banned use of the word nigger last Wednesday, the latest step in a campaign aimed at expunging the racial slur from hip-hop music and television.
The City Council unanimously declared a moratorium that carries no penalty but aims to stop youth from casually using the word, considered by most Americans to be the most offensive in the English language.
The New York City measure follows similar resolutions by the New York state assembly and state senate. Supporters of the ban are taking their campaign to The Recording Academy, asking it not to nominate musicians for Grammy awards if they use the word in their lyrics.
Many rap artists and young New Yorkers toss the word around as a term of endearment or as a substitute for black, angering some black leaders who consider those who use it as ignorant of the word’s hate-filled history in slavery and segregation.
Councilman Leroy Comrie, a sponsor of the moratorium, said the campaign against the word has gained strength since comedian Michael Richards spewed it in a racially charged tirade in Los Angeles.
The Laugh Factory club where Richards performed has since banned comedians from using the word there and the former “Seinfeld” television star has apologized.
A Grammy spokesman said he doubted the academy’s 11,000 voting members would support any measure that might censor artists.
“They are not going to be supportive of something that excludes someone simply because they are using a word that is offensive,” said Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy.
Christine Kearney contributed to this report.
(Reuters)
Grand jury hears testimony from victims in 50-shot NYPD killing
NEW YORK — Two men seriously injured in a 50-shot police barrage that killed their unarmed friend on his wedding day appeared last Friday before a grand jury investigating whether five officers should face criminal charges.
“I got to tell the truth,” said Joseph Guzman as he left the closed-door session in a wheelchair. “We’d been waiting for this for a long time.”
Guzman, 31, and Trent Benefield, 23, were the first of several key witnesses to testify as the investigation draws to a close. The five shooters began testimony Monday in ascending order based on the number of shots they fired: Paul Headley, who shot one round; Michael Cary, three; Marc Cooper, four; Gescard Isnora, 11; and Michael Oliver, 31.
A vote on whether the officers could face criminal charges is expected by the middle of the month, lawyers said.
Lawyers for the pair have said they would testify that five shooters never identified themselves as police before opening fire.
Sean Bell, 23, was killed before dawn after his Nov. 25 bachelor party at a topless bar where undercover police were investigating prostitution complaints.
Union representatives and lawyers for the officers have said their clients overheard Bell and his friends argue with another patron and thought they were going to retrieve a gun from a car parked around the corner.
When an undercover detective approached the car — driven by Bell and carrying Benefield and Guzman — it lurched forward and bumped him, then twice rammed into an unmarked police minivan, the NYPD said.
The undercover officer, who has claimed through his lawyer that he spotted one of the men make a suspicious move, fired 11 rounds before the vehicle came to a stop.
Bell was black, as are Benefield and Guzman. Some of the officers are black and some are white; all have been taken off undercover duty and put on paid leave.
Family pays for third autopsy of small town La. mayor
BATON ROUGE, La. — A third autopsy will be performed on the body of a southwest Louisiana mayor who was shot to death, paid for by relatives who are convinced he was murdered and did not commit suicide, as two official investigations have determined.
Gerald Washington, the first black elected as mayor of predominantly white Westlake, La., was found dead Dec. 30 with a gunshot to the chest, his gun nearby. No suicide note was found.
State police and the local coroner performed autopsies and ruled Washington killed himself. The district attorney has said he plans to close the case.
But Washington’s widow and children believe the investigations covered up a murder. Washington’s widow, Mary, said last Friday that the family has paid Cyril Wecht, an independent forensic pathologist, $6,000 to perform another autopsy.
Washington, a longtime city councilman, was elected last year with 69 percent of the vote, beating a white candidate. Westlake is 80 percent white, a refinery town with a population of 4,500, about 140 miles east of Houston.
Washington, 57, had not yet taken office when he died.
Washington’s family doubted the results of the first autopsy, by Dr. Terry Welke, the Calcasieu Parish coroner, who said soot from the pistol was deep in the wound, indicating the gun was touching Washington’s chest when the trigger was pulled, a sign of suicide. Welke said it is not unusual for people to kill themselves with a shot to the chest.
A state police autopsy and investigation, performed at the family’s request, also said the death was a clear suicide.
Neither investigation has suggested why Washington would have killed himself. No evidence has been made public that he made farewells to friends or family or put financial affairs in order.
His body was exhumed yesterday. Family spokesman Lawrence Morrow said the body will be taken to Houston, then flown to Pittsburgh, where Wecht is based.
(Associated Press)
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