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March 28, 2023

The Chestertown Spy

An Educational News Source for Chestertown Maryland

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Spy Highlights

NYT Report Details Yearlong Firestorm Over Queen Anne’s School Superintendent’s Note on Racism

October 11, 2021 by Spy Desk

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In a front-page article in Monday’s print edition, the New York Times details the firestorm that erupted in Queen Anne’s County last year after the county school superintendent emailed parents a note about racism following the in-custody murder of George Floyd by a police officer.

“Racism is alive in our country, our state, in Queen Anne’s County, and our schools,” Dr. Andrea Kane, the county’s first black school superintendent, wrote in the June 5, 2020, letter.

The email led to the creation of a Facebook group seeking Kane’s ouster, the posting of racist comments, and the election of school board members opposed to Kane, the Times reported.

According to the report:

“Over the last year, the protests and reflection prompted by Mr. Floyd’s death reverberated in school districts throughout the country, as school boards and legislatures reconsidered how and what students should learn about race and racism, from the history of slavery and segregation to the Black Lives Matter movement.

“The debate has sometimes focused on K-12 curriculums after conservative activists began branding a range of topics including history lessons and diversity initiatives as ‘critical race theory,’ an academic framework that views racism as ingrained in law and other modern institutions. The term is now often deployed to attack any discussion of race and racism in American classrooms — pitting educators who feel obligated to teach the realities of racism against predominantly white parents and politicians who believe that schools are forcing white children to feel ashamed of their race and country.”

Filed Under: Spy Highlights Tagged With: andrea kane, black lives matter, board of education, Education, George Floyd, queen anne's county, superintendent

Former Md. Chief Medical Examiner Appears as Defense Witness in Chauvin Trial

April 15, 2021 by Maryland Matters

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Maryland’s former chief medical examiner testified Wednesday as a defense witness during the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Dr. David Fowler, who retired in 2019, is a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Anton Black, a 19-year-old killed in police custody in 2018 after being subdued on the ground for six minutes in Greensboro.

According to an autopsy report published by The Baltimore Sun, Fowler ruled Black’s death an accident, stating that sudden cardiac death with factors contributed by Black’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder was the cause.

Sonia Kumar, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, criticized Fowler’s testimony.

Kumar said Fowler downplayed “the role of police actions in causing a death,” in the cases of Floyd and Black.

“Dr. Fowler is again ignoring plain evidence in the killing of a Black man who would be alive but for the actions of other people because those people were police. Medical examiners hugely impact our ability to end police violence,” she said in a statement. “When medical examiners and others downplay the role of police actions in causing a death, they are both protecting police and hiding information that could prevent avoidable deaths. That is exactly what happened in the police killing of Anton Black, and other Black people in Maryland. We hope that ends now.”

“Under Dr. Fowler’s leadership, the Maryland Office of the Medical Examiner has been complicit in creating false narratives about what kills Black people in police encounters, including Tyrone West, Tawon Boyd, Anton Black, and too many others,” Kumar said in a statement.

“The medical examiner’s office ruled that Anton Black’s death was not a homicide even though video showed police chase him, tase him, and pin him face down to the ground after he was handcuffed and at which point he stopped breathing,” Kumar said. “The medical examiner blamed Anton for his own death — peppering its report with false claims about laced drugs, a heart condition, and even Anton’s bipolar disorder — instead of the police who killed him.”

Chauvin faces murder charges for the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 in police custody; witness videos showed Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes.

Floyd’s official cause of death on his death certificate prepared by Dr. Andrew M. Baker, the Hennepin County chief medical examiner, was ruled a homicide. He died of cardiopulmonary arrest caused by “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” according to the report.

Heart conditions, “fentanyl intoxication” and “recent methamphetamine use” were listed as other contributing conditions.

Fowler said he believes that recent drug use and potential carbon monoxide poisoning from vehicle exhaust “contributed to Mr. Floyd having sudden cardiac arrest.”

“In my opinion, Mr. Floyd had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia due to his atherosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease — you can write that down multiple different ways — during his restraint and subdual by the police. And then his significant contributory conditions would be … the fentanyl and methamphetamine,” Fowler told the court Wednesday.

“There is exposure to a vehicle exhaust — so potentially carbon monoxide poisoning … and the other natural disease process that he has. So all of those combined to cause Mr. Floyd’s death.”

Medical witnesses called by the prosecution earlier in the trial testified that any potential contributing factors were irrelevant and that Floyd died because of Chauvin’s actions.

The appearance of Fowler at Chauvin’s trial comes on the heels of the end of Maryland’s 2021 legislative session, where lawmakers worked to enact sweeping police reform legislation inspired by national outrage at Floyd’s death.

The General Assembly presented five reform bills to Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) — two of which he allowed to become law without his signature.

He vetoed the remaining three, including Anton’s Law, named in honor of Black, which will regulate the execution of search warrants and allow officer misconduct records to be disclosed to the public.

“When 19-year-old Anton Black was tragically killed … I was among the first to call for full transparency and answers for his family from law enforcement and the medical examiner’s office. I support updating procedures to executing search warrants and the disclosure of investigatory and personnel records,” Hogan wrote in his veto letter, in which he said the changes proposed by the legislature were too restrictive. “As amended, these provisions place the officers’ safety at risk, erode officers’ relationships with the residents of our most vulnerable communities, and deter witness participation in the prosecution of violent crimes.”

The legislature overrode Hogan’s vetoes to the police reform package Saturday.

The bill’s sponsors Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City) and Del. Gabriel Acevero (D-Montgomery) have worked with the Black family over the course of several years to enact this legislation. And while they hail its passage as a win, both said more reforms are needed.

“While passage of this legislation won’t bring Anton back nor will it heal the pain of his family and community, with Anton’s Law we’ve moved a step closer to building community trust by ensuring transparency, which is critical to holding law enforcement as well as agencies accountable,” Acevero said in a statement. “As historic as the passage of Anton’s Law is, there’s more work to be done, and don’t plan on resting any time soon.”

By Hannah Gaskill

Filed Under: Maryland News Tagged With: anton black, autopsy, derek chauvin, dr. david fowler, George Floyd, medical examiner

U.S. House Passes Police Reform Mandate, GOP Balks at Democrat Led Bill

June 26, 2020 by Maryland Matters

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed a sweeping police reform package Thursday night in response to massive civil unrest over police brutality.

The package cleared the chamber largely along partisan lines, with 236 lawmakers (mostly Democrats) voting for it and 181 lawmakers (180 Republicans and one Independent) voting against it. Three Republicans sided with Democrats in backing the bill — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan and Will Hurd of Texas.

“There is justifiable anger in this country because justice is not being upheld,” House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said on the House floor.

“That does not mean it’s never being upheld, but it ought to be always upheld. There is a deep frustration because some of those charged with enforcing our laws are doing so without tolerance, in a way that disregards the rights and welfare of victims without just cause. That does not damn all members of the police. In fact, not the majority. But it does damn actions that are inconsistent with justice and peace and tolerance and liberty,” Hoyer said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hailed the package on the House floor Thursday, saying it would “fundamentally transform the culture of policing to address systemic racism, curb police brutality and save lives.”

But the bill — passed one month after George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed while in police custody — is unlikely to become law.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried and failed to advance a modest GOP bill Wednesday and is not expected to take up the Democrats’ more comprehensive measure.

The bill backed by Democrats and passed in the House is “a crucial first step to rooting out racial injustice in our police system,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in a statement, urging “Senate Republicans to listen to Americans, heed their calls for change, and allow immediate consideration of this legislation.”

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, threatened on Wednesday to veto the Democratic bill, arguing it would deter people from pursuing law enforcement careers, erode public safety and weaken relationships between police departments and communities.

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) urged Democrats to instead “get on board” with the GOP bill, which he said “has a real shot at becoming law.”

The Democratic legislation would ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants at the federal level, bar racial profiling, limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement officials and make it easier to prosecute police misconduct in the courts by eliminating the “qualified immunity” doctrine that shields law enforcement officials from lawsuits, among other things.

The bill drew objections from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which called increased funding for law enforcement a non-starter. “The role of policing has to be smaller, more circumscribed and less funded with taxpayer dollars,” ACLU legislative counsel Kanya Bennett  said in a statement when the bill was introduced this month.

House passage comes a day after Senate Democrats blocked a GOP bill authored by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the Senate GOP conference.

Scott’s bill would incentivize departments to increase the use of body cameras, improve training in de-escalation tactics and require that performance records be taken into greater account when making hiring decisions. It would also increase data collection on the use of force, weapon discharge and no-knock warrants, among other provisions.

Unlike the Democratic bill, it would not ban chokeholds or no-knock warrants at the federal level or make it easier for victims of police brutality to sue officers and seek damages. Nor would it bar racial and religious profiling or limit the transfer of military-grade equipment to state and local law enforcement officials.

McConnell tried to bring the bill to the floor Wednesday, but he fell five votes short of the 60 votes he needed to advance it.

Democrats and leading civil rights advocates called the Senate GOP bill “weak” and said it failed to live up to an historic moment in which diverse coalitions of protesters are taking to the streets to demand racial justice and equality in the wake of Floyd’s death. Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis officer who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, was fired and has been charged with second-degree murder.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the GOP bill “weak tea” on the Senate floor Wednesday. He cited a letter from civil rights groups who said the bill “falls woefully short of the comprehensive reform needed to address the current policing crisis and achieve meaningful law enforcement accountability.”

On the other side of the Capitol, Pelosi said the GOP bill is “inconsistent with a genuine belief that Black lives matter” and said she hopes passage of the Democratic bill will force the Senate to act. The Senate, she said, has the choice to either honor Floyd’s life or do nothing.

McConnell, meanwhile, painted Democrats with the do-nothing label. “Our Democratic colleagues tried to say with straight faces that they want the Senate to discuss police reform — while they blocked the Senate from discussing police reform,” he said Thursday.

By Allison Stevens

Filed Under: Maryland News Tagged With: George Floyd, police, reform, senate, U.S. House

Chestertown Silently Honors the Memory of George Floyd and Confirms Black Lives Matter

June 6, 2020 by The Spy

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Some 200 residents of greater Chestertown gathered on Friday night at Fountain Park in a display of unity and respect for Black Lives Matter and to honor the life of George Floyd. From the downtown park, the demonstrators walked peacefully to College Avenue and circled back to Wilmer Park in silence.

Organized with the help of Leon Frison, bishop of Greater Highway of Church of Christ in Kent County and local clergy, the crowd listened to the words of Rev. Robert Brown Jr. of Bethel A.M. E. Church.

The Spy was there to document this historic event.

This video is approximately two minutes in length

Filed Under: News Homepage, News Portal Highlights Tagged With: black lives matter, George Floyd

Spy Moment: Chestertown Honors George Floyd

June 1, 2020 by James Dissette

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Chestertown held a peaceful vigil Sunday night at Wilmer Park to honor the life of George Floyd and to encourage everyone to join the fight against racism.

An opening prayer was given by Ms. Kita Sorrell. Social Action Committee for Racial Justice co-founder Paul La Tue, Kent County NAACP Bishop M. Tilghman, and Soul Force Politics founder Heather Mizeur also addressed the gathering of about 200 during the candlelight vigil. A closing prayer was given by James Christy.

The Spy and the community would like to thank Rani Gutting for helping to coordinate and emcee the vigil

“This vigil should not be a box you check. What happens tomorrow, next week, next month, next year? As a black man in this country I don’t have the power to dismantle racism…but white people do. If indeed you are an ally, start using that power to vote…” —Paul La Tue

Here are a few minutes from the evening.

This video is approximately two minutes in length

 

Filed Under: Spy Top Story Tagged With: George Floyd

Spy Minute: Honoring George Floyd and Pleading for Justice

May 30, 2020 by The Spy

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With less than twenty-four hours notice, the residents of the Mid-Shore gathered along Marlboro Street in Easton on Saturday morning to pay their respects to George Floyd and to demand justice for this senseless act of racism that took place in Minneapolis last week.

Over four hundred lined the sidewalks on both sides of the road as Saturday morning drivers honked their horns to honor George Floyd. With lines extending to Glebe Road, the protesters’ message was clear that this community was united in their grief and they’re demand for racial justice.

The Spy was there to capture a few moments from this remarkable community event.

This video is approximately one minute in length.

Filed Under: Spy Top Story, Top Story Tagged With: George Floyd

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