Family values – Memphis Flyer

Animal Antics

Carrier pigeons have been couriers of legitimate and nefarious items for centuries, but officials at the Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, British Columbia, nonetheless were stunned when a gray bird with a tiny backpack landed in a fenced inmate prison yard on Dec. 29. The CBC reported that officers “had to corner it,” according to John Randle, Pacific regional president of the Union for Canadian Correctional Officers. “You can imagine how that would look, trying to catch a pigeon.” After some time, they were able to grab it and remove the package, which contained about 30 grams of crystal meth. “We’ve been focusing so much on drone interdiction … Now we have to look at, I guess, pigeons again,” Randle said. They set the little guy free and are investigating its origin. [CBC, 1/6/2023]

Family Values

It’s important to encourage your children in their scholastic endeavors. But an unnamed mother in LaGrange, New York, took parental support too far when she snuck into Arlington High School on Jan. 17 before school started to watch her freshman daughter beat up another girl. The Mid Hudson News reported that Mom was caught on video using vulgar language and egging her daughter on as the girls tussled. Superintendent Dave Moyer said the woman blended in with the students coming to school by wearing a backpack. “The students and the mother involved … will be held accountable for their actions,” Moyer said. [Mid Hudson News, 1/18/2023]

WSMV-TV reported that a car that crashed into a mailbox in Nashville, Tennessee, on Jan. 14 was driven by an underage motorist —really underage, as in 5 years old. The child’s father, John Edwin Harris, 53, was seen by a witness grabbing the kid and running from the scene, police said. Officers found multiple open bottles of alcohol inside and ran the tags; when they arrived at Harris’ home, he was driving away in his wife’s car. He failed a field sobriety test, could barely stand up, and smelled of alcohol. He was charged with DUI and leaving the scene of an accident — where’s the child endangerment charge?! — and was released on $4,000 bond. [WSMV, 1/16/2023]

Repeat Offender

An unnamed 62-year-old man from Garfield Heights, Ohio, was arrested — for the 70th time — in early January after he allegedly stole a shopping cart full of packaged meat to sell to restaurants, WJW-TV reported. The Walmart in South Euclid alerted authorities to the theft; in the parking lot, the thief transferred the goods to a stolen suitcase and threw what wouldn’t fit in a dumpster. He told officers he sells the meat half-price to area restaurants. He was booked, again, for theft. [WSW, 1/10/2023]

It’s Come to This

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported a 108 percent increase in a certain smuggled item at ports of entry, Fox5-TV reported on Jan. 18. It wasn’t fentanyl or heroin, though. Seized egg products and poultry were the hot catch as prices soared in the United States. “My advice is, don’t bring them over,” said CBP supervisory agriculture specialist Charles Payne. Or, he advised, if you do, declare them so you won’t be fined. Thirty eggs in Juarez, Mexico, cost $3.40 — a fraction of what they’d cost in the U.S. because of an outbreak of avian flu that forced producers to euthanize 43 million egg-laying hens. [Fox5, 1/18/2023]

Least Competent Criminal

Federal prosecutors charged Mohammed Chowdhury, 46, of Boston with one count of murder-for-hire on Jan. 17, ABC News reported, after he allegedly contracted with “hired killers,” aka federal agents, on the internet. Chowdhury had shared his wife’s and her boyfriend’s work and home locations, photos, and work schedules with the contractors, and wanted both of them snuffed out — all for $8,000, with a $500 down payment. The agents met with Chowdhury for two months to plan the murders. “No evidence. No evidence from like, you know, that, uh, I did something, you know?” Chowdhury told them. He was arrested as they met to collect the down payment; he could face up to 10 years in prison. [ABC News, 1/19/2023]

Awesome!

Dominican sailor Elvis Francois, 47, was rescued by the Colombian navy on Jan. 18 after surviving 24 days drifting from the island of St. Martin in the Netherlands Antilles, NPR reported. Francois said he had been making repairs to a sailboat when currents swept it out to sea. He scrawled “help” on the boat’s hull, then survived on a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder, seasoning cubes, and collected rainwater while he waited for a rescue. “I called my friends, they tried to contact me, but I lost the signal,” Francois said. “There was nothing else to do but sit and wait.” He finally caught the attention of a passing airplane by signaling with a mirror. “I thank the coast guard. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be telling the story,” he said. [NPR, 1/19/2023]

NEWS OF THE WEIRD
© 2023 Andrews McMeel Syndication.
Reprinted with permission.
All rights reserved.

I never met Freddie Gray. But in reporting on cases in “the pit” — the bottom floor of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis — I’ve met plenty of guys like the man so many African Americans in Baltimore have exalted to martyr status.

They are the ones who suffer from a fatal flaw of omission, as they anxiously relate to me their stories of persecution at the hands of police, either before or after their arrests. I’ve patiently listened. Then I’ve gone back and checked their criminal rap sheets and found out the vital information, the arrest history they didn’t bother to tell me.

In the case of the 25-year–old Gray, public outrage with his death has continued to overshadow a lengthy criminal record that included almost two dozen prior arrests from illegal gambling to burglary to drug possession. It makes me shake my head in wonderment that Gray’s acknowledged criminal career and the highly questionable nature of his death in the custody of Baltimore police, should be elevated to a martyrdom that becomes the catalyst for people burning down their own neighborhoods under the banner of “black lives matter.”

Why, given the illustrious history of the civil rights movement, are we African Americans now willing to let social media, racially motivated opportunists, and our thirst to create modern-day martyrs lead us to ignore the lack of moral character of some of these victims of police misbehavior?

In the dictionary, “martyr” is defined as a person who willingly suffers death on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause. Where does Gray fit into any of that? What in his life dictated his death should be elevated to the same category as those of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, or James Chaney? Why should Gray’s murder be categorized as a life that mattered any more than that of white civil rights icons Detroit housewife Viola Luiza or slain civil rights activists Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner?

The success of the civil rights movement didn’t hinge on the skin color of those who knowingly and willingly were ready to sacrifice their lives for the tenets of social justice they believed in. It was because, in one of the most turbulent times in our history, those eventual victims of atrocities all embraced the unpopular concept that all lives matter, whether white, black, or brown.

I was warned not to write this column, because it might be construed as somehow being disloyal to black people. I was told it might be safer to take some middle ground, where I would express some amount of outrage for Gray’s death and stress the need to continue efforts to establish a civilian review board in Memphis to have some form of oversight on potential overzealous MPD actions.

I do feel sadness for Gray’s family, and I believe the Baltimore police officers involved in his death should be investigated. And now that the Baltimore prosecutor has filed charges against the officers (who were black and white, male and female), the investigation will go forth as it should. I also hope the Memphis City Council will give members of the civilian review board some teeth in order to help to be more effective watchdogs over incidents when law enforcement officers have possibly overstepped their legal bounds.

However, why I wrote this column didn’t come to me until I sat across from my granddaughters and grandson for a joyous brunch in Overton Square. I’ve read all of this fatalistic crap about how black children are destined to fail in life. I’ve heard all the arguments. They’ll have no parental guidance. I’ve ingested those cold statistics that project by the time they’re in their teens they’ll know a family member who’s been shot or is in jail or is dead. Because they’re black, they’ll be prone to acquiring felony records that will immediately limit future career opportunities and they’ll be sentenced to being on the welfare rolls.

None of those dire predictions will happen as long as my grandchildren remain in the loving embrace of their family. Whether they like it or not, they will be exposed and entrenched in the values of pride, honesty, and the drive to succeed. They will not help to burn down cities. They will strive to be active parts of the foundations upon which great cities and communities are built. But above all, it will be instilled in them, that wherever life takes them, they will always be ensconced in the truth that “all lives do matter,” including theirs.