Just Noticing: Observations Of A Blogger
Posted by Michelle Moquin on November 10th, 2013
Good morning!
Never a break.
Florida Cop Kills Man By Running Him Over With His Car, Will Not Be Charged
New video released by the family of a man killed by police in DeLand, Fla., shows how an officer ran him over with his car as he ran through a vegetable garden. The family is calling for an independent investigation by state and federal agencies, after a grand jury decision last week not to file criminal charges against officer James Harris.
Marlon Brown, who was 38 when he died in May, was being pulled over for an alleged seatbelt violation when he got out of the car and started running. Officers were following him in a police car when Harris sped to the scene from behind. The released video shows Harris’ car speeding toward Brown — passing the other police car by. When Brown tripped and fell, and the police car kept going.
Watch it:
An internal police investigation found that Harris violated the Department’s chase policy, and he was fired. But the grand jury found there was not enough evidence to criminally prosecute Harris for vehicular homicide. Brown’s family points out that the jury had not seen video of the incident, and questions the testimony of the medical examiner, Shiping Bao, who was fired after his testimony in Trayvon Martin’s case. Bao said the car didn’t strike Brown and that Brown had no broken bones, but that he was pinned underneath the car and suffocated.
“This was an execution in a vegetable garden,” the Brown family attorney, Benjamin Crump, said upon release of the video. “The officer came at Marlon with such velocity that … he could not have stopped.” Crump was also the attorney for Trayvon Martin’s family.
Prosecutors chose to bring the case before a grand jury, which decides in secret whether an individual should be charged. But that was not their only option. Prosecutors could have also made their own unilateral decision, or used a coroner’s inquest — a public hearing at which evidence is presented without the shroud of a grand jury proceeding.
A grand jury, like other juries, is comprised of community members, who could have been biased if they had known that Brown had a criminal history. (Brown is being described in some news coverage as a “known felon.”) Under the rules of evidence applicable to a trial, the prior convictions of a defendant or a victim are typically not admissible to prove a person’s character because of this potential for bias, although they may be admissible to prove other elements of the case. Grand juries, however, are subject to relaxed rules of evidence, and there is no mechanism for enforcing those rules, as no judge or defense attorney is present to object. George R. “Bob” Dekle, a former prosecutor who leads the University of Florida law school’s criminal prosecution clinic, told ThinkProgress he likely would not have considered Brown’s prior convictions relevant and would not have submitted them to a grand jury. He acknowledged, however, that grand jurors frequently ask the prosecutor about prior convictions. He would tell them it is not relevant but would offer to provide the information if they insist on knowing it, in order to “maintain a working relationship with the grand jury.”
Dekle also told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that a prosecution for vehicular homicide would be “iffy” and that the use of a grand jury would give a prosecutor an indication of how a jury was likely to decide. Others interviewed by the newspaper said prosecutors should have used a coroner’s inquest instead, to ensure public accountability.
The city has already paid Brown’s family $550,000 in exchange for their agreement not to further pursue civil litigation.
*****
Readers: What did you just notice in the video? Blog me.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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November 10th, 2013 at 11:58 am
Jews and niggers, They want justice give the half mill back for him going to jail bet they wont do that lol.
November 10th, 2013 at 11:58 am
He fell and was run over as a result. Don’t try to make the cops look bad for your family member’s poor decision making and illegal behaviors
November 10th, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Michelle, I would think that you would applaud my efforts to find a new outlet for my habit. Danny you won’t be sorry that you contacted me. This one I will do for free, you can thank Michelle.
Follow all the instructions I sent to you. It will make verification easier and so simple.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:47 pm
Bret:
Please don’t reproduce. We have courts to punish offenders. Its not the officers job to chase a man on foot with a police cruiser ON GRASS. Anyone with any common sense can see the danger when the brakes are applied.
People are hilarious.
I see illegal activity everyday. Jaywalking, speeding, california stops, using cell phones when driving, illegal lane changes, unsafe driving.
Should the cops chase and run those people over also?
November 10th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Bret, You’re right, it was his own damn fault for not outrunning the police car, why the fuck did we let his forefathers live when they are so slow, woulda made terrible cotton-pickers right?
November 10th, 2013 at 12:48 pm
Why did Brown run? If he had not run he’d still be alive.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:50 pm
Okay, asshole, I’ll tell you he ran. Here’s what people always fail to understand: with the cops (especially if you’re a suspect of color), there’s a chance that you’ll be beaten, tazed, shot, murdered, etc. if you DO stick around!
People run because they’re afraid of what a police officer will do to them. By all accounts, it looks like fear and fleeing are appropriate responses. Fleeing and eluding are not punishable by death, so running shouldn’t have resulted in his death.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
William that is just another “Blame the victim” response.
Why did the cop chase him? If he hadn’t chased him, he wouldn’t be facing vehicular manslaughter charges.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
What part of “I think he’s underneath the fucking car” would allow one to conclude that he hadn’t been run over (and killed)… by police??
November 10th, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Howie, it’s a shame that some white people think they have the right to abuse other people. It is even worst that their jUStice system allows them to get away with it.
Like the bigots in the House, these people have a political set up that protects their racist behavior.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Norma, the nigger fell. Learn to watch a simple video.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
Bret, Falling. It can happen when people run (or anytime for that matter).
Cars. They cant stop on a dime, especially on grass.
So now that you know the basics, Why didnt the officer stop the car to prevent running a man over?
They didnt care, or were negligent. It may have been an accident, but it was caused by the officers negligence.
He might be a great officer, but he made a very bad decision in the heat of the moment that resulted in a mans death.
The taxpayers then had to pay the family. Imagine how much your taxes would swell to if all police officers ran over persons running.
I for one would rather see more tax money provided to schools/teachers to combat general ignorance.
November 10th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Jackie, Obviously the cop was to blame since the city gave the victims family $550,000
November 10th, 2013 at 1:02 pm
Jackie;
Remind us all to tell you it’s “too bad” when one of your loved ones is “accidentally” killed by a Cop.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:02 pm
remind us to find sympathy for losers who run form the cops and die as a reult of their own actions.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
Bret, Going by your Logic Rodney King threw his body repeatedly at the Police attempting to arrest him whilst the Police around him were forced to defend themselves by holding their batons in front of themselves
November 10th, 2013 at 1:03 pm
The police are not your friend. They are the enemy. You live in occupied territory.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:04 pm
HE HIT THAT MAN WITH HIS VEHICLE … how can anyone doubt that this officer KILLED that man?
Once again in FLORIDA there is no real justice for a victim – the officer may not have intended to kill but his actions resulted a death – at the very least he should have been charged with manslaughter or vehicular manslaughter EITHER applies in this case but NO CHARGES being brought is WRONG.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:05 pm
To the Medical Examiner. I didn’t go to medical school or serve an internship and residency in medicine and specifically in Pathology, but that dude got run over by a police car.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Michelle, what that video showed is what murder looks like.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:07 pm
You must be a nigger, that was a suspect falling on his butt and suffering the consequences.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:10 pm
a black man killed in Sanford florida. for what, a seat belt violation. last time it was for carring ice tea and skittles . home from the store. cops gone wild.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
A seat belt violation? A man was pursued, run down and actually MURDERED for a G——-D seat belt violation?????
The right thinks cops are out of control because ‘Obama’s coming to get you’. The truth is they’re out of control because, for the first time in the history of this country, they’ve become militarized, something this nation knew was wrong until the days of the disgustingly inappropriately named ‘Patriot Act’.
Yes, I know Obama has renewed various parts of it, but he wouldn’t have had the opportunity had it not been for the despicable policies of the Bush administration. Yes, I also know that almost every Democrat voted for it, but if they hadn’t, given all the hyped up rhetoric being pushed by the administration and its enablers, they would have been labeled as ‘anti-American’, ‘aiding the terrorists’, ‘soft on terrorism’, ‘soft on security’— you name it. There was a hysteria created by 9/11 by the administration and used by the administration which was absolutely shameful.
Now off my soapbox…..
The medical examiner should be fired. NO evidence of being run over? Good grief!
November 10th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Mary, Did you ever stop to think that by running, he made the police think he had a good reason to run, like he was a wanted criminal? Do you think MAYBE that’s why they chased him?
November 10th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Mary, I live in Orlando, Deland and Sandford are two different small cities, many miles apart.
And this is no comparison to the murder of Trayvon Martin.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
There are some people in this world who will find ANY excuse to forgive the cops for whatever crime they commit against a citizen- even murder.
Apparently you’re one of them.
Or do you simply hate people who don’t use seat belts?
I suppose you think there’s a vast anti-seat belt conspiracy out there bent on destroying our way of life, and THAT’S why the cop had to kill a man for doing nothing– literally– that would cause most cops to hunt someone down as if he’d been an ax murderer.
Priorities, PLEASE.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:21 pm
Kay, Sure there is. It means life is cheap for people of color in your neck of the woods.
November 10th, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Mary, Yea, I’m sure that cop started out in his car thinking ‘how can I kill someone today—and get away with it.’
You don’t know me at all, but just because you didn’t like what I posted. I’m a cop lover, a hater non seat belt users.
I could just as easily accuse you of thinking that every cop is out to kill members of minorities.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:01 pm
William, If you weren’t trolling this site excusing the scumbag for running down a man for a FREAKING SEAT BELT VIOLATION, I wouldn’t have said what I did.
Your defense makes no sense at all otherwise, and I don’t give a damn if you don’t like it.
BTW— it’s nice that it dawned on you that the victim was black, since you wouldn’t even acknowledge that at first. Of course, you probably still haven’t watched the video: people like you seldom do because you just might have to admit what a scumbag you’re defending.
No one said he started out his day wanting to kill someone, but ANYONE capable of running someone over for this should not be a cop. He belongs in jail.
Again, if you refuse to see that, then you are EXACTLY what I said you are.
Now find another site to troll and other people to bother.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Mary#23, While you are busy shooting your mouth off, you should go look up Brown’s rap sheet. It’s about 3 or 4 feet long. He was also wanted on several outstanding warrants. THAT’S why he ran. He was a career criminal.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:04 pm
Sure, and Brown was being pursued for a SEAT BELT VIOLATION, JERK.
The cop had NO IDEA at the time WHO he was pursuing, unless, of course, you think his ID was painted on his car and strapped to his back.
Anyone could have been driving that car.
You ought to be ashamed for defending a KILLER.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:18 pm
Did it ever occur to you that being a black man in florida makes you run from the cops? Guess he was RWB (running while black).
November 10th, 2013 at 2:19 pm
Or maybe it was because the cop felt that his manhood was in question if he didn’t make the guy knuckle down.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:20 pm
It doesn’t seem to matter what part of the country you are in if you are an OTW, there will be some bigots to harass or murder you.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:21 pm
The Medical Examiner needs to be charged as an accessory after the fact!
November 10th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Really? Official malfeasance is just plain @$$-whole stupid? About as stupid as the cop running down a fleeing suspect and not being arrested for it. I believe even in your neck of the woods that is excessive force.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Volusia County……………..Where have I heard of this place? Oh yes, the place where they don’t know how to count votes and they still lie.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:24 pm
The medical examiner should be fired. No evidence that he was struck by the vehicle? Seriously?
November 10th, 2013 at 2:24 pm
Pearl, I take it that you examined the body, then.
November 10th, 2013 at 2:25 pm
William#39, I take it you’re a middle class white man over the age of 40?
November 10th, 2013 at 5:14 pm
SWASTIKAS AND ANTI-SEMITIC SLURS IN N.Y. SCHOOL DISTRICT.
Pine Bush, N.Y., School District Faces “Accusations” of Anti-Semitism (Continued from Michelle’s Post Yesterday)
The swastikas, the students recalled, seemed to be everywhere … on walls, desks, lockers, textbooks, computer screens, a playground slide — even on a student’s face. Is that an accusation? Ask the student with the swastika drawn on a Student’s face … Was that an accusation?
This is the Post Michelle wrote yesterday with additions and editing by me. I hope it works the way I want it to. No offense to you Michelle — I could not outdo what you wrote so I gave my commentary to it.
A picture of President Obama, with a swastika drawn on his forehead, remained on the wall of an eighth-grade social studies classroom for about a month after a student informed her teacher, the student said.
For some Jewish students in the Pine Bush Central School District in New York State, attending public school has been nothing short of a nightmare. They tell of hearing anti-Semitic epithets and nicknames, and horrific jokes about the Holocaust.
If any one of the jokesters had actually seen what went on with their own eyes they would cry like babies from the life threatening ordeal of the situation of being in the Holocaust, The horror of the images would never leave their memories.
Do any of the Name-callers know what the meaning of Holocaust? It is the complete destruction (eradication) and annihilation of something. Would any of you really want the complete eradication of anyone or even a group of these people? You would probably get sick and vomit if you saw a live Human body bludgeoned and dead lying next to you.
They say that on school buses in this rural part of the state, located about 90 minutes north of New York City and once home to a local Ku Klux Klan chapter president, students have chanted “white power” and made Nazi salutes with their arms. Why?… the Germans lost the war and should be embarrassed instead of proud to repeat these silly Nazi gestures. Do you people really believe the Third Reich will return to control the populations of the world? — Insanity.
The proliferation and cumulative effect of the slurs, drawings and bullying led three Jewish families last year to sue the district and its administrators in federal court; they seek damages and an end to what they call pervasive anti-Semitism and indifference by school officials.
The district — centered in Pine Bush, west of Newburgh, and serving 5,600 children from Orange, Sullivan and Ulster Counties — is vigorously contesting the suit. But a review of sworn depositions of current and former school officials shows that some have acknowledged there had been a problem, although they denied it was widespread and said they had responded appropriately with discipline and other measures.
“There are anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred that we need to address,” John Boyle, Crispell Middle School’s principal, said in a deposition in April.
In 2011, when one parent complained about continued harassment of her daughter and another Jewish girl, Pine Bush’s superintendent from 2008 to 2013, Philip G. Steinberg, wrote in an email, “I have said I will meet with your daughters and I will, but your expectations for changing inbred prejudice may be a bit unrealistic.”
Mr. Steinberg, who, along with two other administrators named as defendants, is Jewish, described the lawsuit in recent interviews as a “money grab.” He contended that the plaintiffs had “embellished” some allegations. Nonetheless, reports of anti-Semitism have persisted, with at least two recent complaints made to the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County.
The New York Times has reviewed about 3,500 pages of deposition testimony by parents, children and school Administrators, which were provided by the families’ lawyers on the condition that the identities of the children, some of whom are still enrolled, be protected. Limited attempts were also made to protect student privacy.
The children, in their depositions, accuse at least 35 students, who are identified by their initials, of carrying out anti-Semitic acts; other offenders are identified less specifically.
Whatever the number of students involved in such activity, its impact was felt by the Jewish children, said Ilann M. Maazel, a lawyer for the families. “There were multiple children who just did not feel safe going to school day after day,” he said.
A Hostile Environment
In 2008, T.E., then a fifth grader at Pine Bush Elementary School, told her mother that two boys had made drawings in school that she did not understand, adding, “I think it was something bad.”
The mother, Sherri E., 48, asked her daughter to draw what she had seen, and realized it was a swastika. The mother testified that during a subsequent meeting, the elementary school principal at the time, Steve Fisch, agreed to talk with the boys but added: “What’s the big deal? They didn’t aim it towards her.” Mr. Fisch, in his deposition, denies saying that.
Not long afterward, the mother said, one of the boys called T.E. “Jew” on the bus and made an offensive gesture toward her and her daughter.
Sherri E. withdrew her daughter from Crispell Middle School last year, and is now educating her at home. Some of the affected students saw their grades suffer, and felt socially isolated and depressed, the depositions show. One said he contemplated suicide. The swastikas, drawn or carved onto school property, or even constructed by students out of pipe cleaners, caused much of the anxiety. Sometimes they were accompanied by messages like “Die Jew,” the children testified.
“I actually started to hate myself for being Jewish,” D.C., a Pine Bush High School graduate who now attends college, said in an interview. He recalled that around the time of the Jewish holidays, teachers would ask if there were Jewish students in the class. “I learned very, very quickly not to raise my hand,” he said.
D.C., now 18, testified that he was “overwhelmed” by the number of swastikas he saw. In eighth grade, he said, he reported one that was about a foot in diameter, which he found in a bathroom; it was removed, but it reappeared quickly. He testified that he stopped reporting swastikas because “nobody was doing anything about them.”
His sister, O.C., now 15, testified about a more direct message from a sixth grader who formed his hand into the shape of a gun and “said he was killing Jews.”
In seventh grade, O.C. said, she saw a girl holding her hands up to hide a swastika on her face. The girl explained that a student had restrained her while another drew the insignia; the school said it had disciplined the two students.
O.C. said she heard slurs like Christ killer, stupid Jew, dirty Jew, disgusting Jew. “Jew was kind of an insult,” she explained.
Her father, David C., an adjunct instructor at Orange County Community College, recalled telling his daughter’s teachers that she lacked focus because of the harassment and swastikas. He had even stumbled upon one, he testified, describing how he saw a “small swastika on one of the stalls” in a school bathroom.
The children testified about hearing crude jokes about the Holocaust and the killing of Jews. “How do you get a Jewish girl’s number? Lift up her sleeve,” went one. D.C. remembered a student telling him that his ancestors had died in the Holocaust. The student then blew on his flattened hand, and said, “You are just ashes.”
“Every day at the high school,” D.C. testified, “I would go in, and I would just have the worst day of my life.”
‘So Many’ Accused
Mr. Steinberg said in his deposition that his challenge as superintendent was that “so many” students were being accused of anti-Semitic behavior.
“The issue is not three students doing it all the time; the question is if you have 30 students doing it,” he said. “How do you undo the years of inbred prejudice?”
At the edge of town, a big red barn is painted with a patriotic yellow ribbon. Across the street, a yard decorated with military equipment has a bomb painted with the words, “God Bless Our Troops.” Billboards advertise 4-H clubs; stores sell tractors, snow blowers and soft-serve ice cream.
Most people interviewed — from a bagel shop owner to McDonald’s clerks, adults and teenagers alike — said they had not heard of the swastikas. But some said they were aware of bullying or hate-fueled teasing, including a middle-school student who said she knew a boy who had drawn swastikas on the back of their school. “It’s just hate,” she said outside after school last month. “And just being kids.”
At that point, a pickup truck pulled up nearby, and a man emerged. The man, John Barker, 42, a mechanic, cautioned that “everybody watches out for everybody.” When asked about the presence of Jewish families, he blurted out, “We don’t want them in our town.
“They can’t drive, for number one — and they already have Sullivan County. Who really wants them here? They don’t belong here.”
Who decides these matters? … Who shall live in a town and who may not? Is it the K.K.K.? What happened to tolerance? Is this taught in Church Sermons every Sunday? It is sickness gone wild to the next generation. They have no idea why they hate … they just DO!
No person or group has the right to tell any group whether they are welcome to move into a particular town. This must be settled by the courts and the School Board. Too many years of being a K.K.K. Haven and the nonsense they spew to their friends and neighbors has been knocked into the empty heads of one generation who taught this nonsense to their children who are just tape recorders who love to repeat the hate that was shoved down their throats while growing up.
Bullies on the Bus
The bus was a particularly difficult place for Jewish students. On April 19, 2010, T.E., then in sixth grade, told her mother that students on her bus had made Nazi salutes and discussed how to celebrate the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday, which was the next day.
Sherri E., who knew the date was also the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, said she reported the episode to school officials, telling them her daughter would stay home the next morning. No violence followed, but the harassment continued, T.E. said in an interview. “I finally said, ‘I’m not going back to school,’ ” she said. She withdrew in early 2012.
D.R. was in sixth grade when a school-sponsored ski trip turned ugly. A boy on the bus ride home asked if he was Jewish, and when D.R. answered yes, a group of students began taunting him with slurs, he testified. One boy then repeatedly punched him in the stomach “until I was ready to throw up,” D.R. said in his account.
His father, Jerrold R., 52, an aircraft leasing executive, testified that his son cried uncontrollably that night. “That was the worst experience he had ever been through,” he said.
Pine Bush said it had disciplined the student who led the episode, requiring him to write an apology note and contacting his mother.
D.R., now 16 and a junior, testified that early this year, he saw four or five Pine Bush students goose-stepping and high-fiving with Nazi salutes in the hallway.
The School District has sharply disputed claims that swastikas were “everywhere” in the high school, and said it responded diligently to reports of anti-Semitic behavior. Laura Wong-Pan, a lawyer for the district, said Pine Bush had taken many steps to address “the plaintiffs’ complaints and deal with bullying in general,” like disciplining students in a manner that was “reasonably calculated to prevent a recurrence.”
Ms. Wong-Pan said that in some cases, that “included counseling, detentions, suspensions, letters to parents and meetings.”
She said the district had also held anti-bullying assemblies and classroom discussions; brought Holocaust survivors and experts to address students on issues like bullying, anti-Semitism and tolerance; and provided staff training on such topics.
Trouble Seeking Help
The families say their conversations with school officials led nowhere. They were told that their complaints were isolated, and were not informed that other families had raised similar issues.
T.E. testified that when she was in seventh grade, she and O.C. were reporting anti-Semitic graffiti and other behavior to a Crispell administrator, who discouraged them at one point. “We would write it down and bring it to him, usually at the end of the week,” she said. “He told us we were now just looking for trouble and that we were causing our own problems.”
Jerrold R. said that he once asked an assistant principal why his older son, A.R., then in middle school, was disciplined for defending himself against a student who had grabbed him after taunting him about the Holocaust. The school official replied, “ ‘We have a zero-tolerance policy on fighting,’ ” the father recalled. And I said, ‘How about a zero-tolerance policy on anti-Semitism?’ ” That is what is needed badly to help remedy this sad cas of intolerance
In a court filing, the families cited eight cases of slurs or coin-throwing in which one child received two hours of detention, one was counseled, and six received no discipline.
“I was lied to, to my face, repeatedly, by the schools,” Jerrold R. recalled in an interview. The assurances, he said, “kept us from doing something that would have protected our kids, taking a more aggressive stance.”
Two parents testified about meeting with Mr. Steinberg in spring 2011. “We told him about the swastikas,” David C. said. “We told him about the name-calling. We told him about the insidious Holocaust jokes. We showed him the pictures of four or five or six of the swastikas that the girls had taken. We told him about being singled out and being bullied for being Jewish.”
Sherri E. testified that Mr. Steinberg once told her how his own son had experienced anti-Semitism, leading him to move his family and send him to a different school. “My response to him was, ‘Well, in a better economy that might be nice, but I can’t sell my house and move from here right now,’ ” she said. “Something needs to be taken care of at the school level.”
History of Racism
Mr. Steinberg, 65, who retired as superintendent in the summer, worked as a teacher, principal and superintendent in New York City’s schools before taking the Pine Bush position in 2008.
He said in his deposition that when he was being considered for the post, members of the Pine Bush school board cautioned him about the community’s history of anti-Semitism and Klan activity, and that it “was not a Jewish area.” He said his hiring was an example of how far the district had come.
In the 1970s, Pine Bush was the home of the grand dragon of a Klan chapter that became embroiled in a legal dispute with the state attorney general’s office, which had demanded that it reveal its membership list. The group, Independent Northern Klans Inc., which was represented by the American and New York Civil Liberties Unions, successfully rebuffed the effort. The Klan leader’s wife had been a member of Pine Bush’s school board.
The Anti-Defamation League, which said then that the chapter had about 200 “activists” in the region, says today there has been little evidence of organized Klan activity in the state in recent years.
Mr. Steinberg, in interviews, said he asked the parents who had sued why they chose Pine Bush. “I said to them, ‘If being Jewish is so important to you, why would you move into a community that does not have a synagogue?’ ”
“ ‘If you want your kids to hang out with more Jewish children or have more tolerance,’ ” he added, “ ‘why would you pick a community like Pine Bush?’ ”
He had experienced anti-Semitism as a child and as a parent, he said, elaborating on how he moved his own family within Nassau County after his young son was told by a classmate that she would not eat lunch with him because he was Jewish. “A 7-year-old doesn’t learn that except from her parents,” Mr. Steinberg remembered thinking.
“We don’t teach them hate in school, but yet we have to undo the hate and the intolerance,” he said.
Mr. Steinberg said he and his staff followed up on all complaints about anti-Semitic behavior, but substantiated fewer than a dozen examples of swastikas and other offensive graffiti. He said that through the assemblies, staff training and visits from Holocaust experts, he had sought to “try and change behaviors one student at a time.”
A Continuing Fight
In a September court hearing in White Plains, the district’s lawyer, Ms. Wong-Pan, told Judge Kenneth M. Karas that Pine Bush officials did not condone anti-Semitism. She accused the plaintiffs of distorting the facts.
“I mean, the way they describe it, it sounds like it’s the Third Reich in those schools,” she said. At the local McDonald’s recently, a worker sweeping the floor, Corey Kyles, 25, said that his brother, Tyler, used to draw swastikas outside the town’s Boys and Girls Club, and also carve them into the high school’s wrestling mats.
“God only knows why he did it,” Mr. Kyles said of Tyler, who died in a car accident in 2009. “He probably was just stupid.”
The experiences of other Pine Bush alumni have varied. Sherri Kravitz-Donnell, the board president of Congregation Beth Hillel in nearby Walden and a longtime high school English teacher in Pine Bush until she retired in 2008, said she did not witness anti-Semitic behavior, nor did she hear about it from her son or daughter, who attended the schools.
But after they graduated, she said, her children, now in their 20s, said that they had experienced anti-Semitic teasing and slurs but had kept it from her, not wanting her to intervene.
Since 2011, at least two complaints about such behavior in Pine Bush’s Circleville Middle School have been received by the Jewish Federation in Orange County, said Susan Notar, a federation volunteer.
The first was from a parent about a boy on the school bus who said he had dressed up as a Hasidic Jew for Halloween because he “thought it was funny,” and whose brother had wanted to dress up as Hitler.
Ms. Notar said she emailed Circleville’s principal, Lisa Hankinson, who replied that she was “deeply troubled” and invited Ms. Notar to speak to the faculty. Ms. Notar said she offered the teachers resources to fight anti-Semitism, racism and other forms of intolerance.
The federation received another complaint last spring. Ms. Notar said that she again emailed Ms. Hankinson, and at her invitation returned two weeks ago to speak to an assembly of students.
Ms. Notar said Ms. Hankinson had responded appropriately. “I teach about the Holocaust,” Ms. Notar said. “I know what can happen when people look the other way.”
Readers: I don’t care how deeply ingrained these prejudices are, they are wrong and something has to be done. It is no excuse to do nothing simply because you find it challenging and “unrealistic” to undo inbred prejudice. Doing nothing does not make it go away – it only sends the message that it is OK, and perpetuates the sick behavior. And I despise when someone says, “Kids are just being kids.” There is no excuse for anti-Semitism or any form of racism. Kids are taught this from their parents. The change begins at home. That is where the prejudice starts … In the Home … from one generation to the next.
That is where Hitler came up with his future ideas 0f world domination by using the Jewish people as a scapegoat — That they were not Human and therefore it is not murder to kill a Jew. This felt better to the population — they now had an excuse for their murder — Jews were not Human.
What a sick excuse that was … although millions of Germans followed and worshipped Hitler and followed him into Hell where they belong.
If this world is going to continue, we ALL must learn tolerance. If not, we haven’t got a chance of a future.
HOWIE
November 11th, 2013 at 8:01 am
Everyone from Nov 6, if it’s all so easily explained and GMO foods have no issue for the human body, (love the science lesson by Ted, I think his name is…), if what you say is true, then what’s the problem with just labeling it as such, for those who think it’s no big, then you simply see ‘gmo’ label on your foods and buy anyway, for those of us who prefer more organic farming methods untainted by Monsanto’s geniouosity (yup I just made that up) then a label ‘gmo’ would simply have us moving down the aisle.
I’m looking for Walter and Danny comments, they must’ve slid in here when and where I wasn’t looking.
I watched the video, clearly this cop wasn’t slowing down and perhaps his brakes didn’t work on grass properly though it did not appear that he cared one way or the other, which, sorry to break it to you, is murder. Don’t care what his ‘rap sheet’ is bc at this point he’d just been pulled over. Perhaps you might argue that this cop might’ve run over a running white dude though I doubt it…
(and just an observation of my own: all cops should be put on a strict no caffeine, no sugar diet, these dudes are always wound up, I see them at Starbuck’s talking shit all the time, gourmet coffee just like the downscale version, Dunkin’ Donuts, works the same and makes them ready to pounce at the slightest provocation, mix that with their usual prejudices and some adrenaline and you’ve got a recipe for disaster )
WTF is up with all the hatred, gays (why do we care who anyone else chooses to love?), Jews (I don’t even get this one, my Jewish pals are the best, my bestie I call her ‘Ma’ bc she is like a confidante mother I never had is Jewish and she’s logical, smart and people savvy, how is this a ‘not white’ issue?), OTW (why is there such a hard core attitude with others, why not live and let live, I don’t have tons of OTW friends, though I have some, and frankly I don’t consider it my business at all to think anything about them one way or another, no one is superior to me, no one is lesser than me, period), but all that being said, it’ll continue…
I’m with you, Howie, if it doesn’t all stop, we don’t stand a chance.
Luv, Zen Lill