Death on the Border: Shocking Video Shows Mexican Immigrant Beaten and Tased by Border Patrol Agents
A new PBS documentary exposes the tasing and beating death of a Mexican immigrant by U.S. border agents in California, and has renewed scrutiny of what critics call a culture of impunity.In May 2010, 32-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas was caught trying to enter the United States from Mexico near San Diego. He had previously lived in the United States for 25 years and was the father of five U.S.-born children. But instead of deportation, Hernández Rojas’ detention ended in his death.
A number of border officers were seen beating him, before one tasered him at least five times. He died shortly afterward. The agents say they confronted Hernández Rojas because he became hostile and resisted arrest.
But previously undisclosed videos recorded by eyewitnesses on their cell phones show a different story. “All eyewitnesses that we spoke to basically tell the same story of a man hogtied and handcuffed behind his back, not resisting, being beaten repeatedly — by batons, by kicks, by punches, by the use of a taser — for almost 30 minutes until he died,” says reporter John Carlos Frey, whose exposé aired in a national television special last Friday night, as part of a joint investigation by the PBS broadcast, "Need to Know," and the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.
Smiley, Cornel West to promote book at S.C. State
PBS late-night talk show host and bestselling author Tavis Smiley and educator and philosopher Cornel West will promote their new book, “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto,” on the S.C. State University campus Wednesday evening.Smiley and West will appear at 7 p.m., with more details to be released later. The event is free and open to the public.
In their book, published by SmileyBooks, Smiley and West advocate a new socioeconomic system based on a foundation of “fundamental fairness.” In the book, they support “good public policy that prioritizes and delivers living-wage jobs, support for single mothers and pragmatic training and employment of low-skilled and unskilled workers so that all Americans will have a chance to lift themselves out of poverty.
S.C. judge rules against Catawbas in pursuit of York County casino
A judge has ruled against the Catawba Indian Nation in its attempt to build a casino on its York County reservation, but even opponents of the casino expect the tribe to appeal the ruling.Judge J. Ernest Kinard ruled against the Catawbas in their lawsuit against South Carolina and the state's top law enforcement officials over the tribe's gaming rights, Kinard’s law clerk Wilson Davis said.
New Jersey Nets say ‘goodbye’ Newark, ‘hello’ Brooklyn
Infant stabbed in neck at social services building in Baltimore; mother in custody
In 1958, America accidentally dropped a nuclear weapon on two little girls’ playhouse
For certain rural residents of the Carolinas during the Cold War, apocalyptic anxiety hit disturbingly close to home. In 1958 and 1961, the American Air Force lost nuclear weapons over the skies of South and North Carolina, respectively, raining potential apocalypse on the folks below.In both incidents, complete catastrophe was avoided thanks to that ever-potent combination of foresight and unmitigated dumb luck. And in the former incident, the bomb fell square on some unsuspecting children's playhouse.
The first accident occurred over Florence, South Carolina on March 11, 1958, slightly after 4:30 in the afternoon. An American B-47E bomber was flying from Savannah, Georgia to Bruntingthorpe Air Base in England for exercises — onboard was a Mark 6 30-kiloton fission bomb.
Boeing secures option on more land in South Carolina
Boeing has secured an option to buy 94 additional acres near Charleston, S.C., an option that if exercised could significantly increase Boeing’s presence in that region.An April 23 story in the Charleston Regional Business Journal said that Boeing paid $10 to Stone Mountain Industrial Park for an option on the land, and right of first refusal until July 30, 2014.
The land is adjacent to the Boeing Interiors Responsibility Center, about five miles north of Boeing's final assembly plant for 787. The interiors center builds interior parts for 787s.
Cuban Actors Disappear En Route to New York Film Festival Premiere
In a case of life imitating art, a pair of young Cuban actors who were
expected at the New York premiere of their film about defecting to the
U.S. have disappeared after landing in Miami.
The film "Una Noche" is about three young Cubans who decide to flee the
country on a raft after one of them is accused of assault. The film
follows the day they attempt to make it 90 miles across the ocean to
Florida.
All three of the film's stars—Anailin de la Rua de la Torre, Javier Nunez Florian and Dariel Arrechaga—were expected to appear at New York's Tribeca Film Festival for the premiere. But Torre and Florian, both 19, were nowhere to be found the night of the event.
