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Friday, April 30, 2010

Transcript: ISABEL ALLENDE 'The House of the Spirits' - BBC, The Strand Monday 26 April 2010

Monday: Gay Film in India, Isabel Allende, Rankin, Peter Porter.
Duration: 28 minutes
The Strand
Monday 26 April 2010, still available.
ISABEL ALLENDE:
 "Islands Beneath the Sea"

Her first novel, 'The House of the Spirits', began as a letter to her dying grandfather. It became an international bestseller and has been followed by 17 subsequent books, often drawing on her personal experience to examine the challenges faced by her female protagonists. Her latest novel, 'Island Beneath the Sea', is an exploration of slavery, motherhood and sacrifice, set against the backdrop of Haiti's historic slave revolt. She reveals what sparked her interest in Haiti (and which Hollywood actor she used as inspiration for one of her characters).

-a rush transcript -
by Nana Akyea Mensah

 

HARRIET GILBERT: Now, rejoice O English-speaking fans of Isabel Allende, her latest novel has just been translated! 
The Chilean Allende leapt into readers hearts with her very first book, "The House of the Spirits", an exploration of South America's post-colonial traumas through a somewhat fantastical family saga. And her exuberant story-telling skills plus her real concern with politics and history have kept her on the world's bestseller list since.

Her new novel, "Islands Beneath the Sea" opens in 18 century Haiti or San Domang as it is then known, and it drops us into a cauldron of simmering, frequently boiling over violence. The country's massive prosperity, as the richest in the Caribbean, depends entirely on the African slaves who worked on the sugar plantations under particularly brutal owners and overseers. So it is scarcely surprising that at last the slaves rebel, putting the slave heroine of Allende's novel, Zarite, in a painful position of having to rescue her master, not to save him, but to save the child she has had by him. Isabele Allende reads:

ISABEL ALLENDE: I found him limp with liquor lying on his back. His mouth gaping open with a thread of saliva down his chin. Suddenly, all the revulsion that I had for him seized me and I thought I was going to vomit. My presence and the light took an instant to penetrate the fog of the cognac. He waked with a cry, and with one quick move pulled out the pistol he kept beneat the pillow. When he recognised me, he lowered the gun but he didn't put it down.

"I have come to propose something to you Maître", I told him.

He sat on the edge of the bed with the pistol on his knees, as I explained that within hours rebels would attack Salazar, there would be a slaughter and fire, and that was why we had to flee immediately with the children, or tommorw we would all be dead.


HARRIET GILBERT: Isabel Allende reading from "Islands Beneath the Sea", in which a complex, often interelated cast of characters, African, European, mixed race, is driven from San Domang to New Orleans, where the tentacles of slavery still reach them. When I spoke to Isabele Allende from San Francisco where she lives now I asked why she would be interested in slavery as a subject?

ISABEL ALLENDE: I wasn't at the beginning that was not my intention. I wanted to write really a novel about New Orleans. And my idea was something about Pirates of the Caribbean. And then I ended up studying the history of New Orleans and found out that in the 1800s, 10,000 refugees that had fled from Haiti went to New Orleans and changed the flavour of the city. They were French colonisers, white, with their white families and also their families of colour, their African concubines and their children of colour. When I started doing the research I realised I needed to find out why these people had come and then I started studying about Haiti and I got totally involved in slavery and the plantations and the history of the only slave revolt in the world that succeeded.


HARRIET GILBERT: One of the things your novel shows is that when they did rebel, they themselves, the Africans, were almost as vicious and cruel to the white slave owners and to their overseers and so on, and also to they could, also be pretty cruel to their own people, they would resell them into slavery, for instance?

Yes, not in the time of Toussaint L'Ouverture but afterwards.


HARRIET GILBERT: He was the big slave rebel, the rebel leader.

ISABEL ALLENDE: Yeah, but after he was arrested by Napoleon, De Saline was in charge and he was very cruel and after sometime he started selling his own people to the pirates of the Caribbean who would then sell them in the United States where trade was forbidden so you couldn't bring new slaves from Africa - so they became very expensive, and so, De Saline was selling them to buy weapons.


HARRIET GILBERT: Were you at all uneasy about showing in the novel, the unattractive side of the slave rebellion? 

ISABEL ALLENDE: No, because I totally understand it.  The brutality that they had endured made them brutal because that's what happens. So, I wasn't at all uneasy because I don't think that any race is more virtuous than another one.

HARRIET GILBERT: From the research you've done in this novel, do you have a sense that this particularly cruel history of Haiti, of San Domang, has in some way coloured the country now, the 20th - 21st Haiti?
ISABEL ALLENDE: Haiti was isolated. Isolated by Europe and then isolated also by the United States. It is a country that has been... the land has been devastated. And the it was betrayed also by its own people
It has a history of corruption and betrayal.

Today in Haiti there are three hundred thousand slave children that are sold or given away by their families because they can't feed them and they work as slaves in households, and these kids could be five, six years old and this is happening today. By the way, not only in Haiti, it happens in many countries.

HARRIET GILBERT: You talk about the fact that the Africans in Haiti could come from all over the continent but one thing that appears to unite in the novel is voodoo, its religion?

ISABEL ALLENDE: Yes, that came from Africa and was blended into other beliefs because some of the African slaves were Muslims and others were animists and so they had different beliefs but this voodoo thing really was extraordinary religion. When these people would go to battle, they would feel invincible because the spirits of the dead, that came from the Island Beneath the Sea, from Guinea, from paradise, they would come up to fight with them. For each man that was fighting against the troops of Napoleon, there were ten thousand spirits. So they felt they couldn't lose.


HARRIET GILBERT: What came across to me, finally the most powerfully, was the way that slavery affected the whole institution of motherhood. You have throughout this novel, women trying to, or actually succeeding  in killing their babies rather than allow them to become slaves. Was that really so common?
Apparently in Haiti it was. It was very exceptional because there the conditions were so brutal that the mothers would rather have their babies dead and they truly believed that they would go to the island beneath the sea and live their happy lives, and that would be better than having them serving the master in the plantation.

HARRIET GILBERT: I mean, there is an enormous complex of offspring some of whom as the result of rape by a slave owner, some of whom have been bought up by slaves even though they are not their children, and I just thought the whole way in which parenthood and relations between parents and children resolve themselves was so very interesting in this book?

ISABEL ALLENDE: Well the thing with slavery and this is something that is not often spoken of, is that incest was very prevalent because at that time rape was a crime only if the woman involved was white. If she was a woman of colour there was no crime. And you could have fathers having sex with their daughters, I mean, you wouldn't talk about it, but it was very common. And that created very complicated family structures. And sometimes what happened is that the master would be able to emancipate the mother of the children after she was thirty years of age, but he could not emancipate the children. So the children would become that woman's slaves until they were  of age to be emancipated.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

JUSTICE4KOFI NOW!!! NEWS & UPDATES

Protest of UF police shooting incident of Kofi Adu-Brempong | Gainesville.com: http://bit.ly/bVfcAC via @addthis

 BACKGROUND TO THE CASE:

A compilation of comments and newspaper reports edited by Nana Akyea Mensah, the Odikro

Kofi Adu-Brempong, a 35-year-old Ghanaian post-graduate student pursuing a Ph.D degree in Urban Geography, and working as a teaching assistant at the University of Florida, USA, who could barely walk without the aid of a walking cane, was shot with a bean bag gun three times, and shot in the face at close range with an M-4 Bushmaster, a military assault rifle, by the University Police Department (UPD) in his own apartment at Cory Village, on the campus of the University of Florida (U-F) for "resisting arrest" in an ordinary noise ordinance violation. All these occurred within 40 seconds of entry into the premises of a mentally and physically disabled, 5 foot 4 inch person by five able-bodied and supposedly "well-trained" police officers. 


Adu-Brempong's research areas include urban geography, urban and regional analysis and planning and spatial analysis and modeling with a research topic in urban spatial change in Ghana and implications for environmental sustainability, according to UF's Web site. On the professional network LinkedIn, Adu-Brempong lists his education at UF from 2005 through 2009. Another site where students rate professors is complimentary of Adu-Brempong. One entry from November 2009 said he likes to be called "The True Son of Africa" and is "an amazing guy." "He's a really great guy to just talk to after class and he really enjoys teaching," the entry stated.

Police Chief Linda Stump said officers had also been in contact with Adu-Brempong on Monday, but details on that contact were not immediately available. Stump said the incident began at 8:17 p.m. and marked the first time in at least a quarter century that a campus office had fired on someone on campus. "I do know that our officers had an on-again, off-again dialogue with him until about 10 p.m.," Stump said. "When we lost contact with him, our officers made the decision to enter his apartment." Once inside, officers said they found Adu-Brempong wielding a pipe and a large knife. The "pipe" in question was his walking cane!

Adu-Brempong had difficulty walking and used a cane, according to his neighbors and students. One neighbor said Adu-Brempong parked his car in the grass next to his apartment because he had problems carrying groceries from the nearby parking lot. One student who took his geography class last semester, Daniel Lynch, said Adu-Brempong suffered from ailments related to a childhood bout of polio. He said Adu-Brempong was hunched over when he walked and relied on the cane to get around. "He called himself the three-legged son of Africa," Lynch said.

The police had been informed of Kofi's mental problems the previous day, March 1st, 2010. According to a police report issued after the shooting, Geography Professor Peter Waylen contacted police to say that Adu-Brempong had sent an e-mail with troubling statements, which were redacted in the police report.  Waylen told police Adu-Brempong had been having delusional thoughts for at least a year and that he had previously received help from a UF counselor because he was upset over a belief that the U.S. government was not going to renew his student visa, the report stated. Waylen and an officer spoke with Adu-Brempong at his apartment Monday. University of Florida police released a report from a police visit on Monday to the student and graduate assistant. 

In a related article published on Monday, March 15, 2010, Nathan Crabbe of the Gainsville asks: "Was UF shooting avoidable?" and answers it in the subtitle: "Mental health experts: If police had used Baker Act, things may have ended better". Betty Strayer, who deals with Baker Act admissions as vice president for emergency services at Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, said she sees a difference in officers who receive the training. Those officers tend to show more knowledge about the Baker Act and mental illness, she said. She said law enforcement need to be aware that they can use the act without threat of lawsuit or repercussions. "If we decide after the evaluation that they don't meet the criteria, then we release them," she said.



"I asked Adu-Brempong if he had any concerns that I could help with. Adu-Brempong advised that he was fine and did not need anyone's help," Officer Gene Rogers wrote in the report. "I advised him that Waylen and I were concerned for his safety and were there to assist him any way we could." The report states Adu-Brempong refused help from a counselor and stated several times that he was fine and that the group was bothering him. On March 2, 2010 was apparently having a nervous breakdown (due to visa renewal worries) in his apartment at UF's Corry Village housing complex. His shouting and other erratic behavior brought members of the UF campus police to Corry Village, where they surrounded his apartment and evacuated his neighbors. 

After about two hours of oral negotiations (in which UF's understaffed mental health counselors were not involved), during which they confirmed that Adu-Brempong was alone and threatening no one, the police kicked down his door. Five officers entered the apartment. In less than  half a minute (21 seconds!), they shocked Adu-Brempong three times with a taser, shot him twice with a beanbag shotgun, and blasted him in the face with an M4 military assault rifle. An ambulance took him to UF-affiliated Shands Hospital, where he remains with a bullet lodged dangerously near his spinal cord and unable to speak due to mouth injuries.

Dispatcher calls show that officials requested an ambulance at Corry Village just before 10 p.m. and that the incident initially reported stated the patient had shot himself and had facial wounds, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office reported. The call then stated that a knife and a gun were involved. Another call came in two minutes after 10 p.m. and was listed as an assist another agency with university police requesting that Sheriff's Office forensics investigators respond to the scene. This call reported that the patent had a gunshot and stab wounds and that this was believed to be a suicide attempt, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Art Forgey. However, the call taker later amended the report saying that this was an officer-involved shooting.

Adu-Brempong has been charged with aggravated assault on an officer and resisting an officer with violence. For over three weeks, he was under continuous guard by two county deputies before his family posted a $10,000 bond to prevent him from being transferred to the overcrowded local jail. Reported medical costs already approach $300,000.


As UF Student Fernando Figueroa stated during a recent demonstration on Democracy Now!: “We’re demanding that all charges be dropped against Kofi, because they’re trying to do, you know, kind of something what’s called extortion. Like they’re saying, ‘Oh, we’ll drop the charges if you don’t file a lawsuit.’ And so, we’re demanding that all the charges be dropped and that more severe action be taken against the offending officer, Keith Smith.”


Media reports include: "The officer who shot Kofi Adu-Brempong has been identified as Keith Smith. He has previously been reprimanded for an incident in which he allegedly harassed and threw eggs at African Americans while off-duty." Three Gainesville police officers received written warnings for their actions in these incidents, according to the city police department. Smith, hired in November 2005, received a verbal warning for his involvement and was removed from his recently assigned position to the narcotics task force, university police reported at the time.


Meanwhile instead of compensating Kofi for his totally undeserved and avoidable injuries, they have proceeded to charge Kofi! Keith Smith had one month of leave of absence and is back to the police force since 2nd April! Adu-Brempong is facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill and five counts of resisting an officer with violence, according to Alachua County court records. Police, in their arrest report, alleged Adu-Brempong threatened officers, both verbally and by his actions. Officers who were involved were Keith Smith, William Sasser, James Mabry, Stacy Ettel, and William Ledger, the report stated.

According to Brandon Kutner, the President of PBA, says the police did nothing wrong even though they knew about Kofi's mental condition the previous night!

Jamel Lanee: "David, the Police Benevolent Association is representing the five officers who were involved in the shooting on March 2nd. The investigation was in the hands of the F-D-L-E but was completed on Friday and turned over to the State Attorney. PBA members say they believe the results in the investigation in a comment Adu-Brempong made to a local newspaper will show the officers acted accordingly and by the book!"

Brandon Kutner: "Reference was made to the metal rod being a cane he used, errh, to walk possibly, urh, because of his, errh, childhood disease with polio, errh, by his own admission and by his own statement given to the Sun, he was lucid that night, urrhm, he knowingly pulled off that, errh, rod off his computer desk and swung it on the officers."
Click here to: Watch Video


As Fernando Figueroa, of Gainesville SDS noted: “We will not let up until we gain justice for Kofi. We are taking a stand against police brutality and racism on our campus and throughout the country... It is astounding to see so few reporters covering the point blank shooting of an African man in the face here. This is the same campus where you could not walk ten feet without bumping into a reporter or TV crew following a white student’s famous ‘Don’t tase me bro!’ incident.”



TAKE ACTION!

Please, join the Coalition Against Police Brutality,  Justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong to demand:

  1. UPD drops all charges against Kofi
  2. An Independent Grand Jury investigations into the shooting.
  3. Implementation of an independent review board for the UPD
  4. Indefinate unpaid suspension for the shooter, Keith Smith, pending investigation.
  5. Improvement of mental health and crisis services on campus to prevent future incidents.
  6. Elimination of UPD's Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT).
Coalition members include Students for a Democratic Society, African Student Liason, Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), NAACP, Graduate Assistants United (GAU), International Socialist Organisation (ISO), Amnesty International. There have been three on-campus protests and marches. The first one was on Tuesday April 6th, the second 16th March,  the last one was on Tuesday 20th March, 2010. The students of the University of Florida just returned from spring break (when the shooting occurred). 

Updates on further organizing, Adu-Brempong's condition, and more are regularly posted at the "Justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong" Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=336549896343 (Facebook membership not required to view).


For More Information: 
Dave Schneider- (407)-267-1419; 
Justin Wooten - (352)-213-6519

Photos from Justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong

Photo 12 of 183|Back to Group|See All Photos 



Added April 6, 2010.
Person doesn't use Facebook?


Fellow Ghanaians, Africans and citizens of a free and democratic world! Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere! As UF Student Fernando Figueroa stated during a recent demonstration on Democracy Now!:

“We’re demanding that all charges be dropped against Kofi, because they’re trying to do, you know, kind of something what’s called extortion. Like they’re saying, ‘Oh, we’ll drop the charges if you don’t file a lawsuit.’ And so, we’re demanding that all the charges be dropped and that more severe action be taken against the offending officer, Keith Smith.”

It has been said that the best way to pray is to speak to yourself, and the best way to speak to the authorities is to speak to your neighbours, family and friends about your problem and ask them to do the same thing! Whenever justice is not only fair, but also not seen by all to be fair, it is no longer a legal case, it becomes a political problem. This is the time for all of us to come out with original and creative ways of raising public awareness to this case if our own media is failing us. We should cry our own cry and shout our own SHOUT! 

My attention to this case was on the 17th of March during my routine watch of Democracy Now! A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S. Slowly but surely, we will be heard! I did not just want to be a spectator of this struggle but a participant in it, even though I reside far away on the other side of the Atlantic. I followed it up with a google search and it was easy to find the group on facebook.

I simply realised that not many Ghanaians are yet aware of what is going on, that, it was going to take a lot of time each time someone decided to know what is going on enough to make informed responses. I decided to do a fact sheet and a regular news updates as my contribution for not being able to attend the Rally at the Plaza! This is therefore not an official site of Justice4Kofi, it is a blog of an active member. So far as one is being sensitive to the good work being done by the coalition, we can all play a part in getting the message across!

Over to you!

JUSTICE4KOFI NOW!!!"

Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Nana-Akyea-Mensah
Blog: http://nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheOdikro



"Kofi Adu-Brempong, a Ghanaian doctoral student and teaching assistant at the University of Florida, on March 2, 2010 was apparently having a nervous breakdown (due to visa renewal worries) in his apartment at UF's Corry Village housing complex.

His shouting and other erratic behavior brought members of the UF campus police to Corry Village, where they surrounded his apartment and evacuated his neighbors. After about two hours of oral negotiations (in which UF's understaffed mental health counselors were not involved), during which they confirmed that Adu-Brempong was alone and threatening no one, the police kicked down his door.

Five officers entered the apartment. In less than a minute, they shocked Adu-Brempong three times with a taser, shot him twice with a beanbag shotgun, and blasted him in the face with an M4 military assault rifle. An ambulance took him to UF-affiliated Shands Hospital, where he remains with a bullet lodged dangerously near his spinal cord and unable to speak due to mouth injuries.

Adu-Brempong has been charged with aggravated assault on an officer and resisting an officer with violence. For over three weeks, he was under continuous guard by two county deputies before his family posted a $10,000 bond to prevent him from being transferred to the overcrowded local jail. Reported medical costs already approach $300,000."... MORE... ( If cops shoot unarmed man and nobody hears, did it happen? April 11, 2010, 3:25PM)
 Latest News:



 UF shooting exposes mental health issues

Published: Saturday, April 17, 2010 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, April 16, 2010 at 9:48 p.m.
The shooting of a University of Florida student who apparently had been experiencing mental health problems has brought calls to improve the university's counseling and mental health services, but the issue goes beyond the incident.
Sherry Benton, director of UF's Counseling and Wellness Center, said the center has seen about 100 more cases of suicidal students in the past 12 months than in the previous year. The increase, which she attributed in part to economic anxiety, comes at a time when budget cuts are straining the center's resources. UF is merging its counseling and mental health services as part of those cuts, a step that Benton and others say should actually provide benefits as those services move together into a new facility next month. But she said UF could use additional resources, such as more case managers to address situations like the events leading up to the shooting of UF doctoral student Kofi Adu-Brempong. "Honestly there is nobody on this campus who is not completely upset by this whole thing," Benton said. "I think from the president on down, we're trying to make sure that this never happens again." UF President Bernie Machen met Friday with students protesting Adu-Brempong's shooting March 2 by a university police officer, their second meeting in a week. The protesters' six demands include a call for the improvement of mental health and crisis services on campus to prevent further incidents. Machen told the students that UF might establish a committee to study the issue and recommend changes. He compared such a committee to the one formed after University Police shot UF student Andrew Meyer with a Taser stun gun during a speech by U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2007. Machen said it similarly could take several months to reach conclusions. Read more on the meeting between Machen and protesters at chalkboard.blogs.gainesville.com.

From Haiti to Kofi, a busy spring semester at UF

It was jam-packed spring semester at the University of Florida. After years of negotiations, UF and its faculty union agreed on a new contract. A push to renovate the Reitz Union was met with a push back from students. A number of prominent speakers visited the university, ranging from a U.S. Supreme Court Justice to a Saturday Night Light cast member. But for me, two stories dominated the semester. The first was the Haiti earthquake. In the wake of the quake, several UF faculty members went to help with the relief effort. Two documentary students initially missing in Haiti were located and returned to the U.S., only to go back to the country to finish their work — and get involved in a controversy over the university’s ban on travel there. The other story was the shooting of UF doctoral student Kofi Adu-Brempong by a university police officer. The shooting has raised questions about the experience and training of university police officers and mental health services on campus. There have been three protests over the shooting, the latest held this week. Now everyone is waiting for the State Attorney to make a decision on criminal charges against Adu-Brempong and release an investigation into the shooting. If that happens in the next two weeks, I won’t be the one covering it. I’m taking a vacation and will return at the start of the summer semester. The blog will be on hiatus until then.

 



Public video of UFPD shooting of Adu-Brempong

Judging by the background of this guy, the given circumstances, the obvious overpower the cops' had over the suspect, the lack of rage of the suspect, the lack of a truly dangerous weapon, and the fact that he was disabled to the point of needing a cane to walk...
I seriously doubt the cops needed to shoot two AR-15 rounds at this guy and blow his fucking jaw out of his skull.
I want to see a cop go to jail over this.
Link to Gainesville Sun story
Replies: 8Last Post April 20 2:51pm by Dedalus 
Post edited at 1:58 pm on April 20, 2010 by redhotchilis64

News from AM850.com
Shooting Video Released and Rally Held

 University of Florida The University of Florida’s Students for a Democratic Society posted a new video to YouTube showing the events of the night UPD shot Kofi Adu-Brempong. An anonymous neighbor of Adu-Brempong’s shot the 10 minute video. The SDS used the video at a Justice for Kofi rally yesterday at the Plaza of the Americas. Protestors marched to the office of State Attorney Bill Cervone’s office. SDS member Justin Wooten says the video shows the quick progression of events the evening of March 2nd. After about five and a half minutes, the video shows police breaking down the door and within the next minute firing on Adu-Brempong first with a taser, then with bean bags and finally an assault rifle. Wooten says the video is difficult to stomach. UF Spokesman Steve Orlando says he’s hopeful about negotiations between the student protesters and the university. He says the students have met with President Bernie Machen twice, and they have always been respectful.
Posted: Wednesday April 21, 2010

ON YOUTUBE:

Video Alert for: Kofi Adu-Brempong
Shot on Campus with Police Assault Rifle
02:35
Police Brutality: Student Shot with Assault Rifle on Campus Kofi Adu-Brempong Shot on Campus with Police Assault Rifle
youtube.com
 

UF Police Shooting - Kofi Adu-Brempong


States attorney’s office occupied
Battle to get justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong continues
By Jared Hamil | April 21, 2010
Read more articles in
Students and community members joined a third rally, April 20, demanding justice
Above:
Students and community members joined a third rally, April 20, demanding justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong, the African student shot in the face by university police. (Fight Back! News)
Protesters marching in Gainesville for Kofi
Students at rally protesting for Kofi
Right:
 Despite a 50/50 chance of rain, the protest kicked off with a few speakers from Students for a Democratic Society and Michael Leslie, a black professor at the University of Florida. (Fight Back! News)

During the occupation, the angry crowd used megaphones and shouted to bring a representative of the attorney’s office out of the back rooms to answer questions. (Fight Back! News)

Gainesville, FL - Students and community members joined a third rally, April 20, demanding justice for Kofi Adu-Brempong, the African student shot in the face by university police. Over 120 people showed up at the protest, which started in the Plaza of Americas, on the University of Florida campus, and ended at the State Attorney’s office. This took place after several meetings between the Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality and the University of Florida administration - including the chief of the university police department, Linda Stump and the president, Bernie Machen.

Despite a 50/50 chance of rain, the protest kicked off with a few speakers from Students for a Democratic Society and Michael Leslie, a black professor at the University of Florida. From there, the protesters marched off of campus and into the streets, taking a lane of traffic while chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” Marching to downtown Gainesville, the protesters chanted outside the state attorney’s office and shortly afterwards occupied it. The plan was to present a list of demands to Bill Cervone, the state attorney. However, Cervone had left town earlier. MORE..

PBA Supports Officers Involved In Adu-Brempong Shooting 
by Jamel Lanee · Apr 19th 2010 · See more Local News

The Police Benevolent Association is representing the five officers who were involved in the shooting of U-F student, Kofi Adu-Brempong. Union members believe the results of F-D-L-E's investigation on the shooting will show the officers acted accordingly and by the book. Click here to: Watch Video

PBA Supports Officers Involved In Adu-Brempong Shooting
"The Police Benevolent Association is representing the five officers who were involved in the shooting of U-F student, Kofi Adu-Brempong. Union members believe the results of F-D-L-E's investigation on the shooting will show the officers acted accordingly and by the book."
by Jamel Lanee · Apr 19th 2010 · Source: wcjb.com/

Rush Transcript:

Click here to: Watch Video 

TV20 News Apr 19th 2010

David Snyder: "Good evening,... It is one step forward in the prosecution of a case against a U-F student who police say he started an incident that led to his shooting by U-F police, but it maybe the last step forward, before the Department of Law Enforcement completed its investigation into what led to the shooting of Kofi Adu-Brempong on March 2nd. Now it is up to the State Attorney's office to determine whether they would prosecute him.

Protesters have been calling for an investigation into the officers involved in the shooting. The TV20 Jamel Lanee is here to report that the police union says they did nothing wrong."

Jamel Lanee: "David, the Police Benevolent Association is representing the five officers who were involved in the shooting on March 2nd. The investigation was in the hands of the F-D-L-E but was completed on Friday and turned over to the State Attorney. PBA members say they believe the results in the investigation in a comment Adu-Brempong made to a local newspaper will show the officers acted accordingly and by the book:

Brandon Kutner: "Reference was made to the metal rod being a cane he used, errh, to walk possibly, urh, because of his, errh, childhood disease with polio, errh, by his own admission and by his own statement given to the Sun, he was lucid that night, urrhm, he knowingly pulled off that, errh, rod off his computer desk and swung it on the officers."
Jamel Lanee: "We were able to contact Adu-Brempong's attorney, Larry Turner and he released a statement,
Larry Turner:  'I have not seen the report, and I hope to see it soon. I hope that it reflect a fair and impartial judgement. I will reserve judgement until we see the report.'
The state Attorney says they are in the process of reviewing F-D-L-E's findings and it could take weeks before they decide to put forward with the case against Adu-Brempong. He is charged with resisting arrest and aggravated assault. The officers involved were on administrative leave but have since returned to work. Jamel Lanee, TV20 News."

 --- Rush Transcript I TV20 News, Apr 19th 2010 · Source: wcjb.com/   This transcript has been made and certified by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro. Watch Video --


MARCH 12, 2010 12:36PM 
University of Florida Police Shoot Student in the Head 
Swat team acted without probable cause, according to Judge.
  building
Today, as UF students return from spring break, President Bernie Machen emailed the student body to tell us of a shooting of a student by Campus Police last week.  I have been off campus on-and-off this semester, engaged in filedwork for my PhD dissertation, so I did not hear about it when it happened March 2nd.

The victim is a PhD student in the Geography Department, Mr. Kofi Adu-Brempong, a native of Ghana, where his wife and family still reside.  He is a UF Teaching Associate (as I myself have been), and has been in the graduate program since 2005. He also is disabled by polio, and walks hunched over with a cane.

He has lately been suffering from paranoid delusions, fearing that the government will revoke his student visa. Concern from his colleages in geography prompted them to alert the authorities prior to the shooting, but a police report from the day before the shooting suggested that he was not a danger to others and just wanted to be left alone. He refused counseling on March 1st.

Neigbors reported screaming from his apartment and called the police on the evening of March 2nd.

After a 1.5 hour stand off, officers stormed his apartment and officer Kieth Smith shot him in the  head with an M-4 Bushmaster rifle, after Mr. Adu-Brempong allegedly brandished a knife and a "pipe"... MORE... 

 Brother of student shot at UF contends police brutality
By Cindy Swirko
Staff writer /www.gainesville.com/

Published: Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 3:53 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 3:53 p.m.

The brother of a University of Florida student shot by police on Tuesday said Saturday the family believes he was a victim of police brutality.

Dr. Kwame Obeng visited his brother, Kofi Adu-Brempong, at Shands at the University of Florida Friday and said he is in very serious condition and under police guard.

Obeng said the family has gotten little information from UF on the incident, can't understand why police shot his brother and has hired an attorney to represent him.

"The family believes that Kofi is a victim of police brutality and we are demanding that he be released to the custody of his family," Obeng said.

"Kofi has never been a violent person. He is kind, compassionate and helpful. He is a father, son, brother and friend to many," Obeng said. "The family is very shocked by what happened. We have been very, very patient waiting answers as to what happened. So far we not been given any reasonable answers as to why such force was used on my brother."

University Police Chief Linda Stump and Capt. Jeff Holcomb, the agency's spokesman, could not be reached for comment Saturday afternoon.... MORE...



Attorney says grad student apparently shot in face, hand

Video may shed light on standoff with UF campus police officers.



Published: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 12:24 a.m. 
An attorney for the University of Florida student shot last week by campus police says his client was wounded in both the hand and face, while the student's brother says a bullet remains lodged near his spine and poses a threat for paralysis. More...


According to UPD public information officer Jeff Holcomb, all officers are prepared and trained to identify when the Baker Act needs to be enforced, or when a person can be involuntarily hospitalized after becoming a danger to themselves or others.

Was UF shooting avoidable?

Mental health experts: If police had used Baker Act, things may have ended better


Published: Monday, March 15, 2010 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 11:37 p.m.


Betty Strayer, who deals with Baker Act admissions as vice president for emergency services at Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, said she sees a difference in officers who receive the training. Those officers tend to show more knowledge about the Baker Act and mental illness, she said.
April 16, 2010 11:33 p.m.
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Mar 3, 2010 ... A University of Florida graduate student described as delusional but praised by
his students remained hospitalized Wednesday after being ...
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100303/ARTICLES/100309832 - -1k - Similar pages
Mar 6, 2010 ... The brother of a University of Florida student shot by police on Tuesday said
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Mar 24, 2010 ... On March 2nd, graduate student and teaching assistant Kofi Adu-Brempong was shot
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See ratings and read comments about professor Kofi Adu-Brempong from University
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Mar 8, 2010 ... wall post: "The inept UPD police force (who somehow still feel at liberty to
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Mar 3, 2010 ... (Update posted at 4 pm) University of Florida police released a report from a
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Mar 21, 2010 ... They presented the board with a list of demands, including dropping all charges
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Apr 7, 2010 ... Gainesville, FL - 250 people rallied here, April 6, to support Kofi Adu-Brempong
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Mar 24, 2010 ... Crowd of several hundred demonstrators at the University of Florida in the
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