Myriam Mercado, Mother of Jorge Steven López Mercado, Thanks Supporters

"El amor vence el odio"

Gay Puerto Rican Teen Decapitated, Dismembered, and Burned

From Towerload
Over the weekend the brutalized body of gay teen Jorge Steven López Mercado was found by the side of a road in Puerto Rico. The police investigator suggested that he deserved what he got because of the "type of lifestyle" he was leading.

Mercado According to an iReport by Chrisopher Pagan: "On November 14 the body of a gay 19 year old was found a few miles away from the town in which he was residing in called Caguas. He was a very well known person in the gay community of Puerto Rico, and very loved. He was found on the site of an isolated road in the city of Cayey, he was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered, both arms, both legs, and the torso. This has caused a huge reaction from the gay community here, but its a difficult situation. Never in the history of Puerto Rico has a murder been classified as a hate crime. Even though we have to follow federal mandates and laws, many of the laws in which are passed in the USA such as Obama’s new bill, do not always directly get practiced in Puerto Rico. The police agent that is handling this case said on a public televised statement that 'people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen'. As If the boy murdered Jorge Steven López was asking to get killed..."

Jorge Here's a report on the murder (in Spanish) from PrimeraHora.com. Said activist Pedro Julio Serrano: "It is inconceivable that the investigating officer suggests that the victim deserved his fate, like a woman deserves rape for wearing a short skirt. We demand condemnation of this investigator and demand that Superintendente Figueroa Sancha replace him with someone capable of investigating this case without prejudice." (my translation, please suggest a better one if you can).

Fort Hood: How many white male Christians from the midwest felt the need to "mea culpa" after Timothy McVeigh?

How many white male Christians from the midwest felt the need to "mea culpa" after Timothy McVeigh?

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The tragic shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, shouldn’t have a political dimension to it. Yet within hours it was being portrayed that way.

From one side, the alleged shooter — Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist — is a victim of “Pre-traumatic Stress Disorder” who flipped out because as a doctor treating combat veterans he had to deal with the horrors of an unjust war. From the other side, he’s a Muslim terrorist, an Arab (though born in the United States) plotting and carrying out his own murderous jihad.

In his radio address Saturday, President Obama urged Americans to see beyond the ethnicity of the alleged attacker. Speaking of those serving in the US military, he said:

“They are descendants of immigrants, and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America. But what they share is patriotism like no other. What they share is a commitment to country that has been tested and proved worthy. What they share is the same unflinching courage, unblinking compassion and uncommon camaraderie that the soldiers and civilians of Fort Hood showed America and showed the world.”

But WorldNetDaily was quick to trumpet a radical Islamic organization in England hailing Maj. Hasan as “an officer and a gentleman.”

And the conservative Web site even charged that Hasan had played an “advisory role in President Barack Obama’s transition into the White House” thinly based on Hasan’s having attended an event at George Washington University at which corporate executives, academic researchers, and officials from previous administrations discussed homeland security.

Others on the right have suggested that Muslim US military officers might need “special debriefings” or “special screenings.”

In a piece headlined “The massacre at Fort Hood and Muslim soldiers with attitude,” conservative columnist Michelle Malkin writes: “I’ve said it many times over the years and it bears repeating again as cable TV talking heads ask in bewilderment how all the red flags Hasan raised could have been ignored: Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.”

Meanwhile, the debate rages over whether Hasan — aside from his religion, ethnicity, and what he’s reported to have said about two US wars in Muslim countries — himself was a victim of combat-related stress. Even though he’d never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan himself, presumably as an Army psychiatrist he would have treated and counseled many combat veterans physically broken and mentally battered by war.

“Imagine every day trying to help young men and women somehow put their lives back together despite their night terrors, flashbacks, and chronic sleeplessness,” writes psychologist and full-time therapist Todd Essig. “While you reach out to help, they mistrust your every move and respond with hair-trigger tempers, not to mention all the physical symptoms, alienation, and hopelessness. Surrounded by thoughts of suicide — and homicide — you try and keep faith with the honor and challenge of providing care.”

On a New York Times blog site for war veterans, Vietnam vet and former Marine Joseph A. Kinney writes:

“Could it be that the psychiatrist we want to hate saw the unbearable suffering of warriors he was tasked to treat? Could it be that he identified with the suffering of those he treated at Walter Reed Army Hospital? Did he become one of us, another soul tortured by war’s anguish? I cannot forgive this man who betrayed us but I must try and understand him nonetheless.”

Many of the online comments to Mr. Kinney’s blog post expressed outrage that Hasan’s alleged attack should be seen this way. One person wrote: “You want to understand him? Here’s the explanation: at some point, he became a radical Muslim terrorist. Period. Whether that was brought on by PTSD is irrelevant….”

On Huffington Post, Kamran Pasha describes his conversation with another Muslim soldier at Fort Hood, a 22-year Army man and Iraq combat veteran who recently converted to Islam. This soldier (referred to only as “Richard”) knew Hasan. He told Mr. Pasha (a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of “Mother of the Believers,” a novel on the birth of Islam) that he now believes Hasan’s alleged murderous act was motivated both by religious radicalism as well as having worked in a situation where combat stress was always present.

As more becomes known about what happened at Fort Hood — and, most importantly, why — many Americans may be less likely to see the tragedy in the context of their own opinions about the war and those of all backgrounds called to fight it.

By Brad Knickerbocker

Latinos and Education: Explaining the Attainment Gap

Latinos and Education: Explaining the Attainment Gap

by Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, Pew Hispanic Center
Report Materials


Nearly nine-in-ten (89%) Latino young adults ages 16 to 25 say that a college education is important for success in life, yet only about half that number-48%-say that they themselves plan to get a college degree, according to a new national survey of 2,012 Latinos ages 16 and older by the Pew Hispanic Center conducted from Aug. 5 to Sept. 16, 2009.

The biggest reason for the gap between the high value Latinos place on education and their more modest aspirations to finish college appears to come from financial pressure to support a family, the survey finds.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of all 16- to 25-year-old survey respondents who cut their education short during or right after high school say they did so because they had to support their family. Other reasons include poor English skills (cited by about half of respondents who cut short their education), a dislike of school and a feeling that they don't need more education for the careers they want (each cited by about four-in-ten respondents who cut their education short).

Latino schooling in the U.S. has long been characterized by high dropout rates and low college completion rates. Both problems have moderated over time, but a persistent educational attainment gap remains between Hispanics and whites.

When asked why Latinos on average do not do as well as other students in school, more respondents in the Pew Hispanic Center survey blame poor parenting and poor English skills than blame poor teachers. The explanation that Latino students don't work as hard as other students is cited by the fewest survey respondents; fewer than four-in-ten (38%) see that as a major reason for the achievement gap.

This report was prepared for the Latino Children, Families, and Schooling National Conference sponsored jointly by the Education Writers Association, the Pew Hispanic Center and the National Panel on Latino Children and Schooling. The conference was held on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009 at the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C.

New Jersey State Police Seem to be Contradicting CNN Host Lou Dobbs' Account of a Gunfire Incident, ¡Qué lástima!

New Jersey state police seem to be contradicting CNN Host Lou Dobbs' account of a gunfire incident near his Sussex County, New Jersey, house.

On Monday on his radio show, Dobbs stated that "my wife has now been and I have been shot at." The alleged incident, which Dobbs had reported to the New Jersey State Police, took place three weeks prior to the October 26 broadcast of the Lou Dobbs Show, and Dobbs told his listeners that it had "followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls." Dobbs' discussion of the incident during his radio show also included mention of both longtime critic and FOX host Geraldo Rivera and the immigrant advocacy organizations calling for his removal from CNN including the National Council of La Raza, America's Voice and other "ethnocentric interest groups."

Without specifying who he suspects of making the alleged threats, he also said on his radio show that "They've threatened my wife, they've now fired a shot at my house while my wife was standing next to the car." Concluding with a call for "truth, justice and the American way," Dobbs cautioned "if anybody thinks that we're not engaged in the battle for the soul of this country right now, you're sorely mistaken." And during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday, Dobbs spoke again about the gunfire incident, linking it to "threatening phone calls tied to the positions I've taken on illegal immigration."

Interviews with the New Jersey State Police yielded a rather different assessment of the events described by Dobbs. In a phone interview conducted yesterday, Sgt. Stephen Jones, a NJ State Police spokesperson, chuckled out loud after he heard about Dobbs' account of the gunfire incident. Jones commented that he "wouldn't classify it [the gunfire incident] as very unusual." He also confirmed that there are hunters in the area, and stated that, "at this time of year hunter [shooting] complaints go up."

He observed that in the ongoing police investigation sparked by Dobbs' complaint, "nothing has been determined [regarding] what the intended target for this bullet was." Nor did Jones confirm whether the shots near Dobbs' house appeared to be an accident or intentional.

Another New Jersey State Police spokesperson, Sgt. Julian Castellanos, noted that "it's a wide open area and there are hunters in the area." Castellanos explained that the bullet had hit the house in vicinity of the attic; it "hit the vinyl siding and fell to the ground" without penetrating the vinyl, he said.

While Lou Dobbs' wife, Debi Lee Segura, was standing outside the house at the time of the gunfire, the bullet did not come close to her; it "struck at the apex of the house, near the roof," and thus considerably higher than a standing person, Jones observed.

Jones says he had not seen any mention of death threats in the reports about this incident. As Dobbs stated on his October 26 radio show, the CNN host had "decided not to report" "threatening phone calls" he says he has received.

The New Jersey police made no mention of the immigration reform groups Dobbs discussed in connection with the incident.

When asked to comment for this story, Dobbs disputed the New Jersey State Police's account, saying in an email that "there was no hunting season underway three weeks ago." However, an official at the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife Bureau of Law Enforcement confirmed in a phone interview that state hunting seasons were underway at the time of the gunfire incident three weeks ago.

Asked what he thought of Dobbs' version of the gunfire incident, Sgt. Jones stated, "I'm really going to leave Lou Dobbs' assessment to himself."

Bullet hits Lou Dobbs' NJ Home with Wife Nearby

Police in New Jersey are trying to determine who fired a bullet that struck CNN commentator Lou Dobbs' home as his wife stood nearby. State police Sgt. Stephen Jones says Dobbs' wife and driver were outside the home Oct. 5 when they heard the gunshot. Jones says the bullet didn't penetrate the siding and fell to the ground outside.

Dobbs mentioned the bullet earlier this week on CNN and his radio show.

Dobbs says he had been receiving threatening phone calls for weeks. On his radio show, he connected the gunshot to his advocacy for a crackdown on illegal immigration and to his opponents' rhetoric.

The home is on a farm in Wantage, about 50 miles northwest of New York City.

It is small-game hunting season, but no hunters were seen in the area.

Time For Cobb County To Walk Away From 287(g)

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to accept Sheriff Neil Warren’s recommendation on the re-signing of the 287(g) Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They should reconsider this decision.

The 287(g) program delegates immigration enforcement authority to specific local police agencies. The Cobb Sheriff’s Office is one of the five agencies in Georgia that has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to participate in enforcement of federal civil immigration laws.

Though initially intended as a measure to combat violent crime and other felonies such as gang activity and drug trafficking, 287(g) programs have in fact undermined public safety, as immigrant communities, fearful of being deported, hesitate to report crime. The Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Police Foundation have both found that participating in 287(g) programs has harmed community policing efforts.

This trend is documented by the ACLU of Georgia report released Monday titled: “Terror and Isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) had Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety.” The report is based on interviews with 10 community members affected by the program as well as five community advocates and attorneys based in Cobb.

As the report documents, in Cobb specifically, there has been a widespread increase in fear to report crime and mistrust in law enforcement as a result of 287(g). Immigrants feel afraid to seek assistance from law enforcement, even when they are the victims of crimes themselves. This factor poses a public safety threat to all county residents. One community member named Joanna mentioned to us that she once even put out the fire in her kitchen herself, because she was afraid to call 911.

In addition, law enforcement agencies that reallocate limited resources towards cracking down on violations such as driving without a license or lack of insurance may have scarce means left with which to combat crimes of violence and other felonies. In Cobb, immigrants disappear into detention for violations such as having a broken tail light or tinted windows on their car. In 2008, Cobb County turned over 3,180 detainees to ICE for deportation. Of those, 2,180, about 69 percent, were arrested for traffic violations.

In addition, the program has encouraged and served as a justification for racial profiling and human rights violations by some police acting as immigration agents. As the ACLU of Georgia report shows, Cobb officers have misused the power granted to them under the agreement by engaging in racial profiling of Latino communities and detaining individuals in the Cobb jail for unconstitutionally prolonged time periods. A telling example is the case of Jonathan, a Latino man who was shopping for jewelry for his girlfriend at Macy’s when he was followed by a security guard who then called the Cobb Police. Jonathan was detained by the officer without being informed about the reason. He was subsequently charged with loitering and deported. The loitering charge was later dismissed by the district attorney without a hearing. His family now lives in constant fear of the “seemingly unlimited power of the police to arrest a Latino person for any or no reason at all.”

There is currently no meaningful check in place to ensure that local law enforcement do not abuse the program by intimidating and racially profiling immigrant communities in Cobb. A Government Accountability Office investigation earlier this year found ICE was not exercising proper oversight over local or state agencies. This problem is compounded in Georgia, as there is no state legislation banning racial profiling and mandating accountability and transparency for law enforcement.

The minor changes in the program recently announced by the Department of Homeland Security make no serious attempt at discouraging profiling or reducing its negative impact on public safety. In addition, the new MOA actually takes a step backwards in the area of transparency, as it attempts to further shield 287(g) from public scrutiny by declaring that documents related to 287(g) are no longer public records.

In late August, more than 521 organizations across the country, many of which in Georgia, called on the Obama Administration to end 287(g), citing the serious problems associated with the program, including racial profiling. The groups were recently joined in this demand by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In addition, in a recent letter to the Obama administration, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged the administration and Congress to do more to end racial profiling by reconsidering the 287(g) program.

The ACLU of Georgia was joined Monday by faith and community leaders from Cobb and around the state in reiterating this demand. 287(g) programs waste local resources and hinder local police ability to effectively protect public safety in Cobb and other communities around the State. It is time for Cobb to walk away from 287(g).

(Originally posted on The Marietta Daily Journal Online)