Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Bresha Meadows, girl who killed abusive father is free!

Bresha Meadows, the Ohio teenager who killed her father after he allegedly terrorized and abused her family for years, is finally home.

On Sunday, Bresha, who is now 16, was released from the residential mental health facility where she spent the last six months. Her case attracted national media attention, and opened up a conversation about how black women and girls are treated by the criminal justice system when they claim self-defense.

Bresha was 14 when she fatally shot her father in the head while he was asleep. She and her siblings alleged that her father, Jonathan Meadows, 41, was physically and verbally abusive toward them, often threatening them with the same gun Bresha fired. Her mother, Brandi Meadows, called Bresha a hero, and told reporters that her husband beat her ruthlessly in front of the children.

“I believe that she saved all of us,” she said.

Bresha’s case was propelled into the national spotlight thanks to the work of a small organizing collective, dubbed #FreeBresha, which advocated on behalf of the teen after her arrest. They organized book drives and letter-writing campaigns to the prosecutor, and started a petition to demand Bresha’s immediate release. Over 100 domestic violence organizations endorsed the call to drop the charges. A fundraiser for Bresha has raised over $150,000.

“Bresha should never have been incarcerated, but it is a win nonetheless,” two of the organizers, Colby Lenz and Mariame Kaba, wrote in an op-ed welcoming the teen home. “The punishment system was unsuccessful in disappearing this young Black woman.”

Prosecutors charged Bresha with aggravated murder, and sought to try her as an adult, which meant she potentially faced life behind bars. Ultimately, she was tried as a child, and last May, she pleaded true to a charge of involuntary manslaughter, the equivalent of guilty in juvenile court.

She was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention, with credit for time served, as well as six months at a mental health facility and two years of probation. On Sunday, she was released into her family’s care.

Her record will be sealed and expunged when she reaches adulthood.

[SOURCE: YAHOO NEWS]

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Why I will be rooting against Floyd Mayweather in his fight with Manny Pacquiao

It has finally been announced that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will finally be fighting on May 2, 2015. Many boxing fans are happy about this and can't wait for the fight. I can't wait to watch the fight either but I wont be rooting for Floyd Mayweather. I will be rooting hard for Manny Pacquiao. Why you ask?

I am not a guy that places athletes on pedestals or thinks that they are somehow supposed to be morally superior to the rest of us. I understand that there are human beings and as such have human frailties. They will make mistakes But making a mistake and beating women are two different things.

Floyd Mayweather is not a guy who can claim his beating of a woman is an isolated incident. Mayweather is a "man" that has committed seven physical assaults on five women that resulted in arrest or citation. One of those assaults was on the mother of his three children. Mayweather served two months in jail for domestic battery.

As a man that loves and respects every female in my family I can't find it in me to root for a convicted woman beater. This is a person who will only fight men in a ring but will hit a woman outside of it. There are many stories of Mayweather arguing with men, but none of him fighting or hitting another man when he is not protected by the rules of boxing. In short, Floyd Mayweather is a punk and is not a person to be idolized or respected in anyway.

It may not and probably wont happen but I would like to see Pacquiao slowly beats him down and have Mayweather guessing where the next punch will come from, just like Maywaether's victims had to endure. Again it probably wont happen but stranger things have happened in the sport of boxing.

George Cook AfricanAmericanReports.com

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Marissa Alexander freed!

Marissa Alexander, a Florida woman who says she fired a warning shot at her abusive husband was released from a Jacksonville jail on Tuesday under a plea deal that capped her sentence to the three years she had already served.

Marissa Alexander, 34, was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 but her conviction was later overturned. She faced another trial on charges that could have put her behind bars for 60 years before she agreed to a plea deal in November.

Her case helped to inspire a new state law permitting warning shots in some circumstances.

Leaving the courthouse, Alexander cried as she thanked her supporters, sharing plans to continue her education in order to work as a paralegal.

Read more: Marissa Alexander, Woman Jailed In 'Warning Shot' Case, Released