The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has indefinitely suspended its (former) Georgia President after he advocated for blacks to use their “Second Amendment” rights against police.
“I am going to advocate at this point that all African Americans advocate their Second Amendment rights,” Georgia SCLC President Samuel Mosteller said at a Tuesday news conference in Atlanta. “You stand there, [police] shoot. You run, they shoot. We’re going to have a take a different tack in order to send a message to the majority community that we are not to be victims.
It turns out, as one of our commenters noted, this is the same “reverend” who intervened a couple of years ago in a heart transplant case where a young man was initially ruled ineligible for a transplant because of behavioral issues – until the mother played the race card and Mosteller got involved.
Anthony Stokes’ final Facebook post – a selfie of himself.
Anthony Stokes, the Black teenager with a criminal background whose battle to get a heart transplant was aided by a leading civil rights group, was subsequently abandoned by the group after he got his transplant and disappeared from the headlines.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group co-founded by civil rights icon the Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took Stokes’ case to the national media in the summer of 2013 when the then fifteen year-old Stokes was denied a heart transplant over “non-compliance” issues. At the time Stokes was wearing a court-mandated ankle bracelet reportedly for fighting.
Less than two years after receiving a donor heart, Stokes died during a crime spree Tuesday night in Georgia. According to police Stokes carjacked a vehicle, took it to a house that he broke in to, fired a gun at the elderly female resident then fled in the stolen vehicle. Stokes was spotted by police who gave chase. He lost control of the vehicle hitting a female pedestrian. Then Stokes wrapped the vehicle around a utility pole. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital. Anthony Stokes was just seventeen years old.
Incredibly, the president of the Georgia state chapter of the SCLC told CNN on Wednesday that the group had referred Stokes to a mentor program in 2013 but had no involvement with him afterward. SCLC didn’t even bother to check to see if Stokes participated in the mentor program. They just abandoned him.
In 2013 when the SCLC was engaged in a media blitz on behalf of Stokes, Mosteller told CNN the group had a ‘longtime relationship’ with Stokes.
The warning signs of Stokes’ imminent demise were quite public. He was arrested on January 10, 2015 for ‘possession of tools for the commission of a crime and criminal attempt’ according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Stokes was released after posting $5,000 bond on February 3rd.
Stokes’ Facebook page had numerous photos of him holding guns according to media reports on his death.
Anyone with an interest in the well-being of Stokes, like the SCLC for instance, could see by his postings he was falling fast and heading to a tragic end.
This week Mosteller and the Georgia SCLC made news by calling for Black people to avail themselves of their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves from police.
The national SCLC suspended Mosteller on Wednesday not for abandoning young Anthony Stokes, but for encouraging Black people to defend themselves.
The doctors, nurses at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, as well as the hospital as an institution, expended an enormous amount of effort saving the life of Anthony Stokes. Once the hot lights of the TV cameras were taken off him, the SCLC did not care at all about Anthony Stokes. They did not do the hard work needed to help a troubled teen get on the straight and narrow path to a happy, productive life. Anthony Stokes’ Black life did not truly matter to the SCLC.
Shame on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Shame on them.
Mosteller was indefinitely suspended from his position.
My cynical side wonders if he will return after the heat dies down.
Meanwhile, convicted killer and would-be guard murderer Kamron T. Taylor will be enjoying his Easter dinner in jail, thanks to the Chicago Police Department.
CHICAGO (AP) –– A man convicted of murder who escaped from an eastern Illinois prison by beating and choking a guard into unconsciousness and stealing his uniform, keys and SUV has been captured in Chicago, ending a nearly three-day manhunt.
Kamron T. Taylor fled on foot as Chicago police officers responding to a call of a suspicious person approached him in the South Side neighborhood of Calumet Heights Friday night. Officers caught up with him after a few blocks and found him with a loaded handgun. He is being held on weapons charges until he can be turned over to the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office, Chicago police said.
Attaboys all around to the Chicago cops involved.
Your restraint was admirable.
The scumbag’s aunt was also arrested for aiding the escape.
Got his hands on a gun pretty quick after breaking out, best keep yours handy.