Miami Police Chief Blamed For Deaths Of 7 Black Men In 8 Months

'LIBERTY CITY SEVEN UPDATE: Judge allows 3rd trial in terrorism case against group of Miami blacks.

The terrorism case against Miami’s “Liberty City Seven” appeared weak from the beginning. And after two mistrials, it appears even weaker.

Nevertheless, a federal judge last week announced that he would allow a third trial against the six remaining inner city defendants.


All charges against the seventh defendant were dropped after the first mistrial.


The men from a low income Miami neighborhood are accused of conspiring with Al-Qaeda to blow up buildings in America including Chicago’s Sears Tower.


The prosecutors say their aim was to bring down the U.S. government. Although critics accused the government of engaging in “over-charging” the defendants, prosecutors maintain the alleged plot was serious even though it was only in the talking stages.


The defense, on the other hand, says the alleged Al-Qaeda operative was actually a government informant and the men only pretended interest in carrying out terrorist attacks in order to con the informant out of money.


Thus far, the government has been unable to convince a jury that the plot was serious. The date for the start of the third trial has not yet been announced.

DISTORTING SEAN TAYLOR'S MURDER

THE HUTCHINSON POLITICAL REPORT

A handful of black sportswriters hit the ceiling when they read initial press reports on the shooting death of Washington Redskins All pro safety Sean Taylor.

The issue was the perennial, suspect, and sneaky alleged double standard in the reporting on and public view of tragedies that befall blacks and whites, especially athletes and celebrities.

The howl of protest goes up that when a black athlete is accused of bad behavior, criminality or boorishness the press and public go ballistic. They dredge up every misdeed the player has committed and ad nauseum drill it home that they are bad guys (or girls) and deserve the scorn of the nation.

When white athletes are accused of the same or worse bad behavior, criminality or boorishness, the excuses fly like raindrops in a hurricane, and then the news of their misdeeds vanishes from print and the airwaves faster than a Houdini disappearing act. Taylor is no exception to this rule, and the black journalists that raised the hue and cry were right to scream their lungs out about it.

The first accounts of Taylor's murder were spare on details of the shooting, since there was almost none, and there were no suspects, no reported clues, and no reported motivation for the shooting. But the reports more than made up for the sparseness by dredging up every sordid detail about Taylor's past run-ins with the law.

The image rammed into the public brain, was what's become a template for depicting supposedly bad behaving, bad acting young black males. The war of words was now on with a vengeance. The denials flew hot and heavy that any disrespect, and minimizing the tragedy, or that a subtle dump the blame for Taylor's death on his alleged thug lifestyle was intended. After all, those run-ins did badly color his life. As distasteful as they might be, they were fair game for reporting ... (READ MORE)

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book: The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African- Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press October 2007). email: hutchinsonreport@aol.com - web: www.earlofarihutchinson.blogspot.com