Racist man charged for yelling racial slurs at Dearborn market customers while raising baseball bat

Jason Lucas facing ethnic intimidation, felonious assault charges

By Edward Era Barbacena

A White man who yelled racial slurs at two Black customers outside a Dearborn market while raising a baseball bat over his head and walking toward them has been charged, officials said.

The incident happened May 13 at Westborn Market on Michigan Avenue, according to Dearborn police.

Jason Edward Lucas is accused of directing racial slurs at two Black customers at the market and following them out into the parking lot. He tried to strike them with his vehicle as they were walking to their car, according to police.

Officials said Lucas got out of his vehicle with a baseball bat. As he walked toward the victims, he raised the bat over his head and continued to shout racial slurs at them, authorities said.

Lucas also followed them as they drove away, according to officials.

Investigators said they identified Lucas as the suspect and arrested him May 18. They recovered a baseball bat, officials said.

“There is no place in our society for such reprehensible behavior, and these types of incidents will not be tolerated in the city of Dearborn,” Dearborn police Chief Issa Shahin said. “I’d like to commend the victims in this case for coming forward and our officers for quickly bringing this individual to justice.”

Lucas is charged with four counts of felonious assault, two counts of ethnic intimidation, and habitual offender -- fourth notice.

“We will not tolerate hateful ideologies that threaten members of our community, and we will always defend those who unjustly endure racist intimidation simply for being who they are,” Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud said. “I commend law enforcement officials for taking immediate action to prevent this individual from committing further harm.”

Lucas was arraigned at 19th District Court and given a $150,000 cash bond. He must wear a GPS tether, if released.

A preliminary exam is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 10.

 

New Hampshire 8-year-old killed by a suspected white supremacist randomly shooting at passing cars, South Carolina police say

The incident can be considered as another insane mass shooting perpetuated by another deranged white supremacist.

By Edward Era Barbacena 

Quarius Naqua Dunham, a third grader from Portsmouth, N.H. was killed over the weekend when police say he and his family were victims of a random shooting in South Carolina.

According to the Florence County Sheriff's office, 40-year-old Charles Montgomery Allen allegedly shot at three cars as they drove by his home on Saturday.

Dunham was rushed to the hospital after being shot in the neck. The 8-year-old was removed from life support on Sunday and later died. His father was hit in the leg, but is expected to survive.

Portsmouth superintendent of schools Stephen Zadravec said in a letter to families that counseling will be available throughout the week.

"Our hearts are with the family as we support each other through this unbelievable tragedy," Zadravec said.

Parent Laura Stoll says she struggled to tell her son that his friend won't be returning to school. "This was a completely random act, it's just really heartbreaking and it's terrible to have to tell your child news like this, it's really hard," Stoll said.

"I truly can't imagine what his friends and family are going through, it's a lot," parent Emily Weidman said. 

Allen was arrested after the incident. He is charged with one count each of murder and attempted murder along with possession of a weapon during a violent crime and three counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.

"It's unimaginable from any perspective," Portsmouth Mayor Deaglan McEachern said. "Our hearts go out to the family and when they do return to Portsmouth we will show them just how strong of a community they have."

Florence County Sheriff TJ Joye told WBTW that Allen was likely under the influence of drugs.

"No motive. Just probably methed up. He's got a history. He's incarcerated now without incident. Just a senseless, senseless act," Joye said.

Kansas police officer shot a black pregnant woman despite of having her hands up.

 

Kansas white police officer  shot a black pregnant woman despite of having her hands up.

By Edward Era Barbacena

A Black pregnant woman was shot five times by Kansas City police despite having her hands up, according to a witness.

KCTV first reported that Missouri State Highway Patrol is investigating an officer-involved shooting that occurred on Friday. Highway Patrol said that officers in the Kansas Police Department spotted a vehicle at a Family Dollar that was suspected of being stolen.

A witness named Shédanja later told The Kansas City StarThe Kansas City Star that she had seen the shooting and recorded a video of the aftermath.

The woman exited the car with her hands up, Shédanja said. Officers told the woman to get on the ground, but the woman told them she was pregnant, Shédanja said, and couldn’t get down on the ground. Police asked her to get down multiple times. The woman then told police there was a gun in the vehicle. The woman started backing toward a fence in the parking lot. Several officers approached her and had their weapons drawn, Shédanja said.

“She did not pull out a weapon on them,” Shédanja recalled. “She did not even have a stick in her hand.”

The witness can also be heard narrating in a video she recorded at the scene.

"They got her in handcuff while they shot her, y'all," Shédanja says in the video. "I stopped here to get some gas, y'all, and my son just watched this [shooting]. My one-year-old son just watched this! My 10-year-old son just watched this! And my 13-year-old son just watched this happen!"

"She was fixing to cooperate," she added. "She ran and they shot her. One, two, three, four!"

A spokesperson for the Missouri State Highway Patrol said that a gun "was located" at the scene but he would not say if the gunshot victim was holding it.

"How the sequence of events transpired, there's going to be intricate details of events that transpired, right?" the officer said.

Racist Man Caught on Video Taunting Black Spa Owner: ‘Your Race Destroyed My Life’

 

Racist White Man Caught on Video Taunting Black Spa Owner: ‘Your Race Destroyed My Life’

By Edward Era Barbacens

Source: The Daily Beast

A Black spa owner in Texas said she had to take matters into her own hands Sunday after being racially harassed by a white customer who claimed her “race and class destroyed” his life.

“You ruined my life, my entire legacy of being a Christian,” the man told her in a video that’s since gone viral.

The business owner, who requested anonymity for her own safety, said the incident was particularly unnerving in the aftermath of the massacre at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, which was carried out by a gunman obsessed with the white supremacist “great replacement theory.” And she was angry that cops never arrived at her salon after she called to report the incident.

In a series of videos that have amassed more than 800,000 views on TikTok, the Dallas-area spa owner recorded the man after he refused to leave.

In the first video, the man, who’s wearing a “USA” cap, sits in the spa’s lobby while having a heated debate with the owner about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Please leave my establishment now,” the owner tells him.

The man seemingly taunts the owner by telling her to call the police as he continues to sit.

“You’re judging people and things like that,” the owner says as the man laughs. “Is that funny to you?”

“Yeah, it is. It’s pretty humorous,” he responds.

The man then tells the owner that he has nothing better to do than to waste her time.

“Your race and class destroyed my family and my life,” he says. “You’re playing energy chess with a person that has nothing to do with your class.”

The man continued his racist rant by associating the spa owner with rappers.

“Maybe you could’ve asked me if I wanted to be a rapper or gangster in California,” he said.

 

Jason Sansom, 39 and Maurice Cardinal, 57 were shot and killed by racist father and
son Anthony Bilodeau and Roger Bilodeau on a rural road near Glendon, Alberta on
March 28, 2020

Racists father and son of Alberta guilty in the murders of  Métis hunters

White men Roger Bilodeau and his son Anthony Bilodeau believed that Jacob Sansom and Maurice Cardinal were thieves, court hears

By Edward Era Barbacens

A jury has found a man guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting of two Metis hunters on a rural road in Alberta.

They also found the man's father guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

Lawyers for Anthony Bilodeau and his father Roger Bilodeau had argued the shooting was in self-defence.

The Crown argued the accused took the law into their own hands when they chased down Jacob Sansom and his uncle Maurice Cardinal, because they believed the hunters had been at the family's farm earlier and were trying to steal.

Prosecutors said the shooting was in no way justified.

“This simply is a case of taking the law into your own hands and it's a case of tragic results,” Crown lawyer Jeff Rudiak told the jury during his closing statements Monday.

“Two innocent men, Jake and Morris, had absolutely no business dying that night ... these two fellas did nothing wrong.”

Jurors heard that Sansom and Cardinal had been moose hunting before they were found dead on the side of a road near Glendon, Alta., in March 2020.

Sansom was shot once in the chest and Cardinal was hit three times in the shoulder.

The jurors, who began deliberations around suppertime Monday, returned the verdicts late Tuesday afternoon.

They found Anthony Bilodeau guilty of second-degree murder for shooting Cardinal and guilty of manslaughter for shooting Sansom.

Court heard that on the night of March 27, 2020, Anthony Bilodeau got a call from his father and younger brother, who were pursuing a white Dodge pickup they suspected had been on the family farm earlier in the day.

Roger Bilodeau told his older son to meet up with them and to bring a gun for protection, court was told.

Anthony Bilodeau testified that his phone was still connected to his father's Bluetooth speaker when he heard thuds and cracking glass before his brother screamed for someone not to kill or hurt his father.

Court heard that Sansom smashed the passenger window of Roger Bilodeau's Ford F-150 with his bare fists then allegedly attacked Joseph and Roger Bilodeau in the truck.

When he arrived, Anthony Bilodeau said, he shot Sansom because the man had charged toward him. He also said he heard Sansom call out to Cardinal to get a gun so they could kill him.

Anthony Bilodeau said he shot Cardinal after the hunter came at him with a large gun. He said Cardinal told him he was going to kill him in retaliation for shooting Sansom.

Anthony Bilodeau testified he could see Cardinal's gun had a magazine attached and he feared for everyone's safety. He said he shot Cardinal another two times in the back of the shoulder.

The prosecutor said the killings were unlawful because there had been no threat of violence when Anthony Bilodeau was told to bring a gun.

Rudiak said Anthony Bilodeau was the first person to produce a gun and intensified the situation.

Brian Beresh, a lawyer representing Anthony Bilodeau, told the jury to find his client not guilty because he had no choice but to shoot the two hunters.

Beresh focused on the alcohol levels of Sansom and Cardinal. A toxicology report showed Sansom's blood-alcohol level was nearly three times over the legal driving limit, while Cardinal's was nearly twice over the limit. The prosecution said that wasn't relevant in the case.

Court also heard that after the shooting, Anthony Bilodeau cut up his gun and threw it in a dump. He also disposed of lights from his bumper at another dump. He testified that he did it because he was in shock and didn't want to go to jail for protecting his family.

Shawn Gerstel, Roger Bilodeau's lawyer, said his client only followed Sansom and Cardinal to ask them why they were in his yard.

“Roger's actions that night were a mistake, but they were not criminal,” Gerstel told the jury.

He said the Bilodeaus were on the phone for roughly two and a half minutes before the shooting and could have not developed an “unlawful plan.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

 

$2 million gold tabernacle stolen from Brooklyn church

The tabernacle at St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church was the “central focus of our church outside of worship,” Father Frank Tumino said. 

By Edward Era Barbacena

An 18-carat gold, jewel-encrusted tabernacle valued at 2 million US dollars has been stolen from a Catholic Church in a brazen burglary in New York City.

St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church is known as the “Notre Dame” of Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighbourhood. It was closed for construction at the time the theft took place – sometime between 6:30 pm Thursday and 4pm Saturday late last week.

The thief/thieves cut through a metal protective casing to get to the tabernacle – a box containing Holy Communion items. The tabernacle was built in 1895 for the church’s opening and restored in 1952, and again in 2000. While it is valued at $2 million, the Diocese of Brooklyn says its historical and artistic value makes it irreplaceable.

A guidebook on the church’s website describes the piece as a “masterpiece and one of the most expensive tabernacles in the country, guarded by its own security system” – including an “electronically operated burglar-proof safe” and one-inch thick steel plates that “completely enclose the tabernacle.”

The church says that camera recordings from the church’s security system were also stolen and angel statues flanking the tabernacle were decapitated and destroyed. Bread that had been consecrated as the body of Christ for Holy Eucharist was taken from the tabernacle and thrown on the altar. And a safe in the sacristy, where priests prepare for Mass, was cut open but nothing was inside.

The Diocese of Brooklyn has described it as “a brazen crime of disrespect and hate.”

“This is devastating, as the Tabernacle is the central focus of our church outside of worship, holding the Body of Christ, the Eucharist, which is delivered to the sick and homebound,” Rev. Frank Tumino, the pastor of St. Augustine said in a statement issued by the diocese.

“To know that a burglar entered the most sacred space of our beautiful Church and took great pains to cut into a security system is a heinous act of disrespect,” Tumino said.

 

Another mass shooting in the United States that leaves 10 people injured in Charleston

By Edward Era Barbacena

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said 10 people were wounded in a mass shooting in downtown Charleston late Monday night.

The injuries consist of nine adults and a 17-year-old girl, according to the Charleston Police Department. Tecklenburg said four of the victims remain in the hospital in critical condition.

According to Police Chief Luther Reynolds, the incident began when an officer responded to a noise complaint about a loud party at a vacant lot in the 40 block of South Street.

“Immediately the officer took gunfire,” Reynolds said. “Two shots went into his cruiser, and let me tell you something: as we stand here right now, we’re lucky we don’t have a dead cop or dead citizens or dead community members.”

Authorities with Charleston police said the officer took fire as he arrived at the scene, and had not yet left his cruiser when it was struck multiple times by gunfire. At least two rounds came into the cab of the car.

At least one round was lodged in the headrest of the officer’s seat, and he was injured from the glass shrapnel as the rounds came in, according to police.

Charleston Police Sgt. Elisabeth Wolfsen said “multiple people” were also struck by gunfire in the area of America and South Streets around 11:40 p.m. Monday.

“The crime scene spanned many blocks, many blocks. So we’ve been out all night,” Reynolds said.

Footage from a nearby doorbell camera captured people running for shelter as gunfire erupted.

The video shows one person leaping over a picket fence for safety as others nearby hide behind parked vehicles.

“It’s May 31. That’s day number 151. And that means there’s just over one-and-a-half mass shootings per day in America,” Tecklenburg said. “Every 16 hours in our country, there’s a mass shooting. Think about that, y’all: Every 16 hours in America, there’s a mass shooting. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m angry about it. I’m mad about it. I’m fed up. And I concur with many of our citizens here and across this country that enough is enough.”

3 facing charges, no arrests so far in actual shooting

Reynolds told reporters one person was arrested early Tuesday morning on a charge of disorderly conduct. The Charleston County Sheriff’s Office confirmed earlier that two women were arrested in connection with fights that broke out after the shooting that resulted in the assault of two deputies.

Tahira McGee of North Charleston is charged with second-degree assault and battery and resisting arrest; and Ayesha Saleemah McGee of North Charleston is charged with third-degree assault and battery, Charleston County Sheriff’s spokesman Andrew Knapp said.

Booking photos for the two women were not yet available on the Charleston County jail website Monday morning.

An incident report states deputies responded at approximately 11:43 p.m. to assist the Charleston Police Department after receiving word a Charleston Police officer had been wounded.

Several fights broke out and two deputies were assaulted during the incident, the report states. One deputy was struck in the face and was treated for facial injuries, while another was knocked to the ground by a member of the crowd and suffered cuts to the head and arm, Knapp said.

The report states Ayesha McGee cursed and verbally berated deputies who were attempting to secure the scene, then attempted to “body slam” the deputy to the ground. Deputies say she was restrained by other officers almost immediately, but the deputy suffered cuts to his head, hand and elbow.

Another report states Tahira McGee struck a deputy across the face and was then wrestled to the ground and placed in handcuffs. The report states McGee struck her head on the ground during the takedown and had swelling above her right eye and small lacerations. She was medically cleared by staff at an area hospital. The report states the deputy suffered a scratched cornea and facial cuts from the strike.

A responding Charleston Police officer suffered minor injuries but was in the process of being treated and released from the hospital, Wolfsen said.

Authorities say South Street from Nassau Street to Drake Street and America Street from Reid Street to Mary Street will remain closed as investigators process the scene.