Tag: lawsuit

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Community Group Plans March in Protest of Memphis 3.0

A community group in one North Memphis neighborhood has plans to protest on Saturday in opposition of the Memphis 3.0 plan.

The New Chicago Community Partnership Revitalization community development corporation said Thursday that the action, dubbed the “Stop Gentrification 901 March,” is meant to dissuade the Memphis City Council from passing the ordinance approving the comprehensive plan.

“African-American communities in Memphis will march against approval of Memphis 3.0 because we need capital investments, affordable housing, tax incentives, and jobs; not bike lanes and housing that prices us out of our neighborhoods,” the group said in an email.

In a Wednesday Facebook post, Carnita Atwater, president of the New Chicago CDC encouraged attendance of Saturday’s protest: “This opposition against the Memphis 3.0 Plan is too important to sit at home and just talk about it. React as if your life depends on it…and IT DOES if you want to stay in the city of Memphis!

Atwater also said the group is planning a march “in every black neighborhood across this low-down, disrespectful city until justice is served in this city. WE WILL NOT BE QUIET AND WE WILL CERTAINLY will pull the rug from over these low-down city leaders that think that black lives do not matter.”

[pullquote-2] The march is slated for Saturday, March 30th at 9:00 a.m. beginning at the New Chicago CDC headquarters on Firestone. 

Last week more than two dozen New Chicago residents attended the city council meeting to oppose the council’s passing of the plan. As a result, the council delayed the vote until its April 2nd meeting.

Atwater also said last week that she would be filing a $10 billion lawsuit against the city because the plan was not inclusive to North Memphis.

Atwater said Thursday that she is still in the process of filing that lawsuit, as “that’s the only thing that will stop these people.”

“The basis for the suit is racial disparity,” Atwater said. “It’s very clear it’s not inclusive. Why would you pass a plan and there’s no specific details for what they will do for African-American communities that look like war zones. It’s not a black thing or a white thing, but a human rights thing.”

But, Ursula Madden, chief communications officer for the city, said that Atwater “has been a part of the conversation” and that “the city has met with her on numerous occasions.”

[pullquote-1] “It’s unfortunate that Ms. Atwater feels this way,” Madden said in a statement. “Over the last two years, over 15,000 Memphians took the opportunity to share their ideas, any concerns and actively participated in the planning process for Memphis 3.0.

“The New Chicago neighborhood is one of many anchors in our plan and the New Chicago Community Partnership Revitalization CDC is listed as one of our community planning partners based on this group’s input in the plan.”

The Memphis 3.0 plan, which has been in the works for the past three years, is a comprehensive guide for future development and investments in the city, officials have said.

The plan details specific strategies for nurturing, accelerating, or sustaining certain neighborhoods within the city’s 14 planning districts.

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News News Blog

Local Journalist Sues For Access to Crime Commission Records

Wendi Thomas

A local journalist, joined by a national news outlet, filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Memphis and Shelby County Crime Commission (MSCC), contending that its records should be open to the public.

The suit was filed in Shelby County Chancery Court by Wendi Thomas, founder of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, along with leaders from The Marshall Project, a New York-based nonprofit news organization.

According to the petitioners, the MSCC denied multiple records requests, including requests for the details surrounding a $6.1 million police retention grant the commission announced in October.

Thomas and the other petitioners also requested information including how the commission operates, what its policies are, and details of its interactions with the Memphis Police Department and others.

The suits says, in part, that because the MSCC is “the functional equivalent of a government agency, it’s records are, therefore, public records subject to the access requirements of the Public Records Act.”

Local Journalist Sues For Access to Crime Commission Records

However, the crime commission maintains that it does not have to adhere to the Tennessee Public Records Act and that its records are not public.

In one response to Thomas’ request for records, MSCC president Bill Gibbons responded: “As we have stated in response to precious similar requests, the Memphis and Shelby County Crime Commission is a 501(c)(3) private nonprofit entity and is not subject to the Tennessee Public Records Act.”

Additionally, the suit argues that because one-third of the MSCC’s current leadership, including Gibbons, is employed by a public entity, the commission itself is a public body.

The petitioners are asking the court to order MSCC to appear before the court within 10 days to make its case.

Additionally, Thomas and The Marshall Project staff are asking that the documents previously requested are released immediately, their attorneys fees be covered, and that the court finds that the MSCC “willfully refused to grant access to public records.”

Chairman of the MSCC board of dircetors Ben Adams said in a statement Thursday that the commission is not subject to the public records act: “The Crime Commission is a non-profit corporation funded privately and with no governmental authority. It is not subject to the public records act.”

This story has been updated with a statement from the MSCC.

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News News Blog

Trial on Memphis Activists Surveillance Begins

Arguments began Monday in a trial to determine whether or not the city of Memphis violated activists’ First Amendment rights with a system of surveillance that included extensive monitoring of social media.

U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla will ultimately decide whether or not city leaders violated a 1978 consent decree entered in Kendrick v. Chandler. The order was meant to stop the city from gathering intelligence and surveillance on people engaged in protected free speech activities. Specifically, the decree prohibits political, covert, and electronic surveillance, as well as harassment and intimidation.

Opening arguments on Monday focused on whether or not the American Civilc Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) — as it exists today — was the plaintiff in the 1976 complaint involving Chan Kendrick, an ACLU official at the time.  

Lawyers for the city argued that the ACLU-TN was not a party in the Kendrick complaint, and therefore did not have standing in the present case. They presented close to 20 historical memos to prove that today’s version of ACLU-TN didn’t exist in 1978 and questioned Hedy Weinberg, current executive director of ACLU—TN.

With that, Buckner Wellford, one of the city’s attorney representing the city asked the judge to rule on the ACLU-TN’s standing, a move that could have ended the trial. But McCalla said that’s an issue that should be thoroughly considered before making a decision.

“This is a really important issue to the case,” McCalla said. “It’s more important to get it right than to get it fast.”

Should the judge decide the ACLU has standing, Thomas Castelli, counsel for the ACLU-TN said the other key issues to be decided are:

• Whether the city is in contempt of the 1978 consent decree by learning about protests through social media.

• Whether the city infiltrated activist groups for the purpose of political intelligence.

• Whether photos of protesters were taken for the purposes of political intelligence.

• Whether the city contacted protest organizers to chill their first amendment rights

• Whether the city made the process for obtaining permits for protest harder than for other events.

Castelli said most of plaintiff’s evidence will be from a time period between Spring 2016 and 2017, when protests occurred at the Memphis Zoo, Valero Memphis Refinery, the Hernando de Soto bridge, and Graceland.

Wellford said his team will aim to reveal the motivations of the Memphis Police Department (MPD) and prove there was no ill-intent or attempts to stymie First Amendment rights. In his opening statement, Wellford said MPD’s main motivation for monitoring activists has been to ensure public safety.

“July 2016 was probably the most tumultuous month in Memphis since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in modern times,” Wellford said, citing the bridge protest, the police shooting of Darius Stewart, and other incidents that had occurred around the country.

The threats were “real and tangible,” Wellford said.

McCalla told Wellford that no one disagrees with those facts, but that “they aren’t central issues to the case.”

“Public safety is important, but we can’t lose sight of why we are here,” McCalla said. “The case is about whether or not the city complied with the consent decree.”

As of press time, court was set to resume Monday afternoon. The second witness, MPD Sgt. Timothy Reynolds, was to return to the stand. Reynolds was instrumental in creating the undercover social media account of “Bob Smith,” which was used to monitor the moves of activists.

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News News Blog

Rallings Calls Media Coverage of ACLU Lawsuit “Erroneous”

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Brandon Dill

Michael Rallings with crowd during protest

In response to news coverage of a recent court ruling saying that Memphis violated a 1978 consent decree by gathering political intelligence on protesters, Michael Rallings, director of the Memphis Police Department (MPD), said Tuesday that some of the language in the reports “does not accurately reflect the department’s activities.”

Specifically, Rallings said the terms “surveillance” and “spying” are “erroneous.”

Rallings also said the city’s goal has been to be transparent about the issues involved in the case, ACLU of Tennessee, Inc vs. City of Memphis.

“In fact the only reason many of the articles were printed in the first place is because we voluntarily unsealed documents and posted them on the city website for the world to see,” Rallings said.

[pullquote-2]

Set to go to trial Monday, August 20th, the case is the result of a lawsuit against the city for gathering political intelligence on protesters over a two-year period through social media and other mediums. Rallings said he can’t speak at length about ongoing litigation but “feels compelled to explain a few things”:

-The terms “surveillance” and “spying” are “erroneous,” and were never used in the court’s order. “Those words conjure up images of officers in unmarked vans on the street corner listening to tapped phone conversations. This does not accurately reflect MPD’s activities, or its motivation, regarding the monitoring of events which are the subject of this lawsuit.”


-Officers look at social media posts to help us gauge the size and intensity of demonstrations so that we can properly provide for public safety. This is also an effective tool in stopping criminal activity such as sexual predators, domestic violence, stalking, and threats. We also use other technology, such as body cameras, SkyCops, and security cameras in our law enforcement efforts to keep Memphians safe.

-Monitoring of social media posts and the usage of modern technology such as body cameras are considered to be best practices in policing nationwide. Various media reports show that many other cities, such as Boston, Charlotte, Denver, Little Rock, San Jose, and Seattle, use social media monitoring. In the aftermath of last year’s Charlottesville riots that resulted in about 40 casualties, including three deaths, the after-action recommendation said that monitoring social media is crucial to protecting public safety.

[pullquote-1]

“We feel like we have been complying with the consent decree as it would apply to today’s world,” Rallings said. “We need to be able to read these posts and use them as part of our decisions about how we deploy resources, since we are responsible for the safety of all involved.”

Protest and counterprotest can cause “mayhem and loss of life,” Ralling said, but proper social media monitoring helps the agency prepare and respond to those types of events.

“These tools enabled me to ensure that the 2016 bridge protest was peaceful and without injury,” Rallings said. “Without these tools, I believe that night would have ended very differently We will, however, follow the judge’s order.”

Rallings said if the judge rules in favor of the plaintiff, then the department will “find a way to balance public safety with complying with the manner in which the court interprets the consent decree.”

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Opinion

Worst In Its Class

There are two stories about “juicing” in the national news this month. One is about major-league baseball players who allegedly used steroids and human growth hormone to juice their statistics.

The other one got less attention, but, unfortunately, Memphis and Regions Morgan Keegan are at the center of it. It’s about a mutual-fund manager named James Kelsoe Jr., who juiced investment returns to Barry-Bonds-like proportions before the funds “crashed and burned,” as a columnist for Kiplinger.com put it this week.

A few days earlier, Morgan Keegan’s mutual funds were the subject of The Wall Street Journal‘s “Money & Investing” column headlined “Morgan Keegan Sued Over Mutual-Fund Woes.” The funds and Kelsoe were also written up in a Wall Street Journal page-one story on October 17th.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Memphis on December 6th by Richard Atkinson and his wife Patricia seeks class-action status and names as defendants Morgan Keegan, Regions Financial Corporation, funds manager Kelsoe, and 13 directors of the funds, including Morgan Keegan co-founder Allen Morgan Jr.

Why are a southeastern regional brokerage firm and a couple of its mutual funds getting so much attention? Because the funds are “worst in class” at a time when the phrases “credit crisis” and “sub-prime lending” have become household words and moved from the financial news to mainstream news. In 2007, the funds lost 50 percent or more of their value, while other funds in their peer group either had positive returns or losses of 8 percent or less.

“Of 439 other intermediate bond funds and 253 other high-income bond funds, none suffered losses of this magnitude,” the lawsuit says.

It claims the defendants omitted or misrepresented important facts about the funds and made them appear less risky than they were. Morgan Keegan does not comment on pending litigation, a spokeswoman said.

Silence only whets the appetite of investors and reporters. The danger for Kelsoe and Regions Morgan Keegan is that they will become the symbol — à la Bernie Ebbers and WorldCom and the telecom crash, Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs and class-action lawsuits against tobacco and insurance companies, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and evangelical Christians — for a regional story that becomes a national story. Fat chance, you scoff; this is just a one-day story. Well, three “one-day stories” in national publications in two months are pretty unusual for a regional financial firm. As The Wall Street Journal wrote last week, “Fund managers and others on Wall Street will be closely watching this case.” That’s journalese for “test case.”

Since its founding in 1969 by Morgan and James Keegan, Morgan Keegan has been a Memphis success story. In 1970, Morgan Keegan purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1978, the company attached itself to Federal Express by making the first trade when it became a public company. And in 1983, Morgan Keegan itself became a public company. Two years later, it moved into its downtown headquarters, which is still the centerpiece of the Memphis skyline. Morgan Keegan was bought out by Birmingham-based Regions Financial in 2001. Allen Morgan has announced that he is retiring at the end of this year.

The sub-prime story has legs, as we say. In other words, it will be around awhile. Class-action lawsuits — and the Atkinson lawsuit has not yet been granted class-action status — can take years to unwind. And that means more publicity as the plaintiffs and their attorneys (the Apperson Crump law firm in Memphis, plus outside counsel) and public-relations firms keep the story alive. Plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial.

The bigger story is homeowners, foreclosures, and a possible recession. Investors and their adventures are a part of that. Thousands of downtown condos and suburban homes in Memphis were financed with sub-prime mortgages with low teaser interest rates that will be reset to higher rates in 2008. Webb Brewer, a lawyer with Memphis Legal Services, said he believes there will be 12,000 to 15,000 foreclosures in Shelby County in 2008, with half of them related to sub-prime loans.

Regions Morgan Keegan isn’t the only one hurting. First Horizon, the last big independent bank with headquarters in Memphis, is down more than 50 percent in the stock market in 2007, and its dividend, now 7 percent, may be in jeopardy.

Why didn’t we all just invest in Hannah Montana concert-ticket futures instead?

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Music Music Features

Contract Is the Ginuwine Article

Hip-hop entertainer Elgin Baylor Lumpkin, better known as Ginuwine, had sued Memphian Michael Bourne over an allegedly fraudulent contract.

Lumpkin signed an exclusive deal with Bourne’s King Music Group in May for $1.75 million. Bourne subsequently ceased contact with Lumpkin, who sought legal dissolution of their agreement and $4 million in damages.

Thursday, Lumpkin attributed the flap to “miscommunication” and said that he would begin recording a new album for King — Lumpkin and Bourne’s company — in the next couple of weeks. The lawsuits have been dropped.