Comments of Councilman Mike Barber, Greensboro City Council meeting, June 16, 2009
Barber [reading from a piece of paper] : “I want to say this publicly. I had made one phone call. There is a home in Greensboro on Keeler Street behind Sedgefield Elementary school.”
Councilwoman Trudy Wade: “That’s my district.”
Barber: “Yes, it is. There is an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old that lives in this home, and they are members of the gang the Latin Kings. They have discharged a firearm in the neighborhood. They have been investigated by the sheriff’s department — Guilford County Sheriff’s Department — for internet prostitution, pornography and have committed other bad behavior in the community.
“These are the same organization, I’ll just mention, that Cardes Brown is defending currently. But I’m making a public comment because the folks in the community have called the police and they feel they are not getting a response. They had one police officer tell them, according to them: ‘We’re just having trouble dealing with it. We’re not sure what we’re going to do about it either.’
“This is a problem. And I’m saying it publicly so hopefully it will prompt the police officers to really sit on this house at the corner of Keeler and Frazier streets. Keeler and Frazier street. 2800 or 2900 block.”
Councilman Robbie Perkins: “Weren’t the police just being criticized earlier tonight for going after these gangs?”
Barber: “Oh, sure. I mean, we’ve got our three 18-carat gold ministers that are calling press conferences to defend these wonderful citizens of our community that are discharging weapons around children.”
Wade: “Mike, they were in touch with that neighborhood yesterday.”
Barber: “They’ve been in touch with them four or five times and have done nothing.”
I bet Jorge Cornell, leader of the Latin Kings, will have something to say about this at a press conference about "police harassment" that is scheduled at 12:45 p.m. tomorrow at Faith Community Church.
An "official media announcement" promises that Cornell "will describe incidents of intimidation, harrasment, economic hardship, and public criticism that he and members of his organization have experienced since calling for peace in June of 2008."
Some background here.
UPDATE: 8:29 p.m.: I'll be following up, obviously. In the meantime, I did speak with Col. Randy Powers, chief deputy of the Guilford County Sheriff's Office, who had this to say: “Apparently, he must have been talking about some other sheriff’s office it wasn’t ours. I don’t think we’ve got anything going, and we’ve checked pretty deep.”
8 comments:
I'm with Barber.
I bet Jorge Cornell, leader of the Latin Kings, will have something to say about this at a press conference about "police harassment" that is scheduled at 12:45 p.m. tomorrow at Faith Community Church.
Gang leaders giving press conferences, is this insane or what.
Beau, another reason to use quotation marks when quoting someone else's remarks, in addition to keeping it from making you look like a plagiarizing moron, is that you cannot remain anonymous in the local blogosphere with your one-of-a-kind laziness.
Ronnie: Thanks for participating in this discussion. Any particular reasons why you give credence to Barber's statement?
Anonymous1: It's not at all out of the ordinary for groups or individuals who feel maligned and despised to give press conferences. It's considered to be more effective than going directly to elected and appointed officials. Which the Latin Kings have done also.
Anonymous2: Let's keep this focused on examining the facts at hand instead of making insults. I'll have more reporting for our next issue.
No offense Jordan, but The Latin Kings are a GANG, plain and simple. Antonio Fernandez (a.k.a. King Tone) tried to do something similar in NYC. It didn't work out to say the least.
They are using that idiot Rev. Nelson Johnson (Who has done NOTHING for The Black Community, BTW. Does he even HAVE a church of his own?) for their own "agenda" and I'm sure Nelson's using them to boost his profile locally.
Ken: I'm aware of King Tone's history, and I've discussed it with Jorge. Your point is taken on that. In light of that history, the Latin Kings in Greensboro have to know that any of their actions will be closely scrutinized, and I think their offenses have been amply documented by myself and others.
Nelson Johnson does have a church. It's called Faith Community Church. Sunday morning services, sermons, the whole bit. They also run a hospitality house down the street and serve breakfast. I've visited, and partaken of a meal.
Jordan, in your article on the Latin Kings last week, you began with the following:
"Old wounds transfer into new grievances, while new controversies supplant old ones along familiar battle lines in Greensboro.
The 1979 Klan-Nazi killings and the black police officers’ discrimination claims against the city have steamrolled into a new conflict between District 4 Councilman Mike Barber and the street organization known as the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation,"
What do you mean by "old wounds" being "transferred"? How do you connect a 1979 incident to a grievance by black police officers and a current city councilman's issues with a gang, or as you call the Latin Kings, a "street organization"?
And what exactly is a "street organization" and how is it different from a gang? How many "organizations" call their leaders "kings" and "queens"?
Old wounds transfer into new grievances this way: A plaintiff in the GPD discrimination case named AJ Blake has accused Councilman Mike Barber of offering to get criminal charges dropped in exchange for Blake dropping out of the discrimination suit. AJ Blake alleges racism in various forms within the GPD. The Rev. Cardes Brown takes up Blake's cause. Brown speaks from the floor at a city council meeting urging the council to go beyond issuing a statement of regret for the 1979 shootings and apologize instead. Barber raises some concerns about the statement of regret and votes against it. After the vote, Barber makes some unsubstantiated allegations against the Latin Kings, taking a shot at Brown while he's at it.
The Latin Kings call themselves a street organization. "Gang" is a nebulous term that can mean anything from a criminal syndicate to a group of people who go to the farmers market every Saturday morning together. "Gang" implies criminality. I think the principle of innocent until proven guilty applies here, I think. I think the jury's still out as to whether the Latin Kings of North Carolina are an organization that is dedicated to criminal enterprises. Have some Latin King members been convicted of crimes? Yes. But so have some members of many churches, law enforcement agencies and governments.
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