Weekend Recap: Trayvon, Tulsa And That Derbyshire Column
By Arturo R. García
The tensions surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin continued to fester, with even United Nations officers getting involved.
“As High Commissioner for Human Rights, I call for an immediate investigation,” the U.N’s Navanethem Pillay said at a press conference Friday. “Justice must be done for the victim. It’s not just this individual case. It calls into question the delivery of justice in all situations like this.”
As hip-hop journalist Davey D reports, “situations like this” show no signs of stopping: 29 African-Americans have been killed by police or security officers this year–16 since Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman little more than a month ago.
In Sanford, Flo., where Martin died, a group of 40 college students completed a three-day march from Daytona Beach Sunday, then held a rally demanding justice:
Phillip Agnew, a Florida A&M University alumnus who took part in the march, angrily asked: “Why hasn’t there been an arrest?”
He then encouraged the students to continue speaking out about the Trayvon shooting long after Sunday’s event.
“We will soak our feet and then we will march again,” he said.
In addition to the march and rally, more than two dozen cities reportedly participated in motorcycle rides in memory of Martin.
The students weren’t the only new arrivals to Sanford, however, as seen in this report from WOFL-TV in Orlando (via Little Green Footballs):
LGF’s Charles Johnson also reported that, besides not challenging the National Socialist Movement’s claim to being “a civil rights group” on the air, the station also parroted it online:
Eventually, WOFL settled upon a correct description of the group.
Nazi imagery also surfaced in Ohio late last week, as Columbus residents reported seeing swastikas and “Nazi-inspired phrases” around the same time somebody spray-painted “LONG LIVE ZIMMERMAN” on the Black Cultural Center on the campus of Ohio State University.
Meanwhile, members of the black community in Tulsa, Okla. felt targeted Friday after five black residents were shot –killing three –by two men on Friday. Following the arrest of two suspects, 19-year-old Jake England and his 32-year-old roommate Alvin Watts, on Sunday, authorities said it was “way too early” to call the shootings a hate crime. But the Tulsa World reported that England’s Facebook page showed race was on England’s mind before it being taken down:
The man arrested in Carl England’s death, Pernell Demond Jefferson, was charged with pointing a firearm and is serving a prison sentence through October 2014, according to Department of Corrections records.
Jefferson is black.
Jake England makes several references to the two-year anniversary of his father’s death on his Facebook page, including a post 3:04 p.m. Thursday that says, “Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f—— n—– it’s hard not to go off between that and sheran I’m gone in the head.”
England’s Facebook page indicates that his girlfriend, Sheran Hart Wilde, recently died. Her death notice was published Jan. 12 in the Tulsa World.
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