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D'Edward D. Wester
http://www.newnation.co/ forums/showthread.php?t=159737
BOSSIER CITY, LA (KSLA) - A 64-year-old Bossier City woman faces drug charges after authorities say she sold drugs to an undercover officer.
Honey Mae White was charged with three counts of distribution of a schedule III drug - two of the counts for selling Vicodin and one count for selling Lortab.
Authorities say White sold $40 worth of Vicodin to a Bossier Parish undercover agent on June 19. One week later she sold $12 worth of Vicodin and $6 worth of Lortab to the same agent. Both sales happened from her home in the 300 block of Wyche Street.
White was booked into the Bossier Parish Jail with a bond set at $150,000.
(CN) - Correctional officers in South Carolina violated the religious rights of a Rastafarian inmate by forcibly shaving his head, the 4th Circuit ruled. However, the court rejected his claims that officers used excessive force to restrain him and kept him in deplorable prison conditions.
Kevin Smith, also known as "Bar-None Royal Blackness,"sued 26 employees of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, claiming the mandatory haircut violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and his constitutional rights.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., vacated the lower court's ruling for the correctional officers, saying the department failed to show that the forced shaved
-head policy, implemented "for security reasons," is the "least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest."
The prison's "forcible grooming" policy substantially burdened Smith's religious exercise, the appeals court ruled.
Many Rastafarians associate dreadlocks with a spiritual journey and vow never to cut their hair. They cite biblical commandments, such as in Leviticus 21:5: "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they not shave off the corner of their beard nor make any cuttings in their flesh," and a passage in Numbers stating that "no razors may be used on his head ... he must let the hair on his head grow long."
"The policy requiring Smith to cut his hair - and implementing that policy with physical force - compelled him to modify his behavior in violation of his genuinely held religious beliefs," Judge Michael wrote.
Smith said officers used more force than necessary to shear his locks on two occasions. In 2
002, five officers entered his cell, shackled his arms and legs, and moved him to another room for the haircuit. The next year, officers allegedly approached him in the exercise yard and doused him with pepper spray, claiming they didn't think his handcuffs would adequately restrain him.
After viewing prison videos, the court determined that the officers hadn't used excessive force in restraining Smith, and the videos supported their claim that Smith resisted being placed in restraints by spreading soap and water on the floor, throwing feces and wielding a shank. The 4th Circuit affirmed summary judgment against Smith on his constitutional claims.
But prison officials failed to dodge Smith's claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. To show how its forced grooming policy benefitted the state, the prison had relied on an affidavit showing how the policy could be a cost-cutting measure for inmates in lower-security cells.
However, the a
ffidavit said nothing about maximum-security inmates or the grooming policy's impact on religious beliefs, the 4th Circuit noted. Even security concerns, such as long hair being used to hide contraband, were not explored among higher-security inmates, Judge Michael said. As a result, the court concluded, the affidavit can't be used to support the claim that the policy served a compelling governmental interest.
It vacated summary judgment for the defendants on that ground and remanded.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - One of Buffalo's ten most wanted fugitives is in custody.
US Marshals say they found 46-year-old Melzee Wilkins hiding in an upstairs closet on cambridge avenue Tuesday.
Authorities say he got into a brief scuffle with agents before being taken into custody.
Wilkins is facing a long list of weapons and drug charges.
"The policy requiring Smith to cut his hair - and implementing that policy with physical force - compelled him to modify his behavior in violation of his genuinely held religious beliefs," Judge Michael wrote.
PHILADELPHIA - To get booted off the street, a police officer has to do something pretty serious - like shoot a suspect or be accused of brutality.
But in the 35th District, which covers Logan, Olney and adjacent neighborhoods, apparently a hairdo will do it.
A cop who got cornrows was ordered off the street and kept on desk duty for two days until he cut his braids off, sources said.
While dozens of black officers across the city wear cornrows, Officer Thomas Strain is white. So when the five-year veteran showed up for work Sept. 3 with the traditionally black hairstyle, it didn't take long for his colleagues - or his bosses - to notice.
"They pulled him out of roll call and took him right up to the inspector's office," said an officer who asked to remain anonymous.
Reached last week, Strain declined to comment about the hair hubbub.
But multiple officers in the 35th say it's been hot gossip, overshadowed only by worries of potential police layoffs, which were averted Thursday when the state agreed to help alleviate the city's budget woes.
"It's absolutely discriminatory," said one officer. Strain's cornrows 'do "was neat. It was above his collar. It's not like he shaved a Nazi sign or something anti-black or anti-Hispanic on his head. It's just cornrows. I don't know what the problem is."
The problem, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said, is that Strain's superior didn't feel his cornrows were "professional."
Ordering Strain to chop them off had nothing to do with discrimination, added Vanore, who spoke with Inspector Aaron Horne about the incident.
Horne, who oversees the Northwest Police Division, which includes the 35th District, is the supervisor who directed Strain to banish the braids.
"The policy's the policy, it doesn't matter what race you are," Vanore said.
Police policy requires officers to have "clean, properly trimmed and combed hair" that doesn't prevent them from wearing their uniform hat "in a military-manner," Vanore said.
The policy prohibits "unnatural" hair colors such as blue, purple or green but doesn't ban specific styles, such as cornrows, mohawks, dreadlocks or bouffants.
Vanore didn't see Strain's cornrows, but speculated that they may have kept his hat from fitting his head in the required military manner. He couldn't explain why black officers with cornrows weren't ordered to get haircuts - unless they're women, because the hair policy for female officers is slightly more permissive.
Still, while the division inspector did instruct Strain to get a haircut, Vanore emphasized, the officer wasn't formally disciplined.
This isn't the first time an officer's appearance has caused commotion in the 35th District.
Officer Kimberlie Webb in 2005 sued the city and the police department after she was barred from wearing a hijab, or Muslim head scarf, on the job. A federal appeals court last April upheld the department's policy, saying religious garb imperils the department's appearance of "religious neutrality."
Other police departments have endured hair hullabaloos too.
Baltimore in 2007 tried to ban its officers from wearing cornrows, mohawks and dreadlocks, shaving designs into the hair or fashioning hair into "sculpture."
But officers and others objected on civil-rights grounds, and the ban was never implemented.
Two officers in Dallas in 2001 claimed they lost their jobs because they refused to cut off their dreadlocks. A Dallas police spokesman said those officers were fired for other disciplinary reasons unrelated to hairstyle.
As for Strain, friends describe him as a hardworking cop who hails from a family of police officers and who adores police work.
The former Marine served in Iraq, where he twice survived explosions when his Hummer hit roadside bombs in 2006, co-workers said.
"He's a guy that, when things go bad, you want him there," one officer said.
John McGrody, vice president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, said the union has "no position" on the discrimination claim.
"If the officer's hairstyle is consistent with the policy, it shouldn't affect him," he said.