Post by nighttimer on Jan 11, 2019 19:07:24 GMT -5
Oh hey, don't look now, but your "I'm impartial and I condemn both sides equally" mask is slipping and your conservative Republican bias is showing. Must be from having an openly bigoted dickhead like Governator Ronny DeSantis saying and doing openly the foul shit Slick Rick at least tried to keep on the down low.
Meet the new racist. Same as the old racist.
TALLAHASSEE — After nearly 70 years, all members of the Groveland Four — four young black men falsely accused of raping a white woman in Lake County — were pardoned by a unanimous vote Friday.
Florida's new Cabinet and Gov. Ron DeSantis met for the first time as the state Clemency Board Friday, where they heard from family members of the men who were either imprisoned, tortured or murdered by mobs and a racist sheriff. The Groveland Four matter was only supposed to be up for discussion and families were not expecting to hear a vote Friday. But at the very end of the meeting, DeSantis called for a vote.
"I believe in the principles of the Constitution. I believe in getting a fair shake," he said. "I don't think there's any way that you can look at this case and see justice was carried out."
Some call the treatment of the four men one of the worst episodes of racism in American history. In 1949, a 17-year-old white woman and her estranged husband told police that she'd been kidnapped and raped by four black men after the couple's car broke down outside Groveland, in Lake County. Sheriff Willis McCall arrested the four men, even though Charles Greenlee, 17, was arrested in a separate incident 20 miles away when the alleged rape occurred and said he didn't know the other three men.
Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin told police they had stopped to help the couple but denied assaulting Norma Padgett. After being beaten by police in the county jail, both Greenlee and Shepherd confessed. Ernest Thomas escaped but was murdered two days later by a posse of 1,000 men who shot and killed Thomas while he slept under a tree in Madison County.
The families of Greenlee, Irvin, Shepherd and Thomas sat scattered throughout the room Friday in the Capitol. Some spoke at the podium in front of the Clemency Board.
Florida's new Cabinet and Gov. Ron DeSantis met for the first time as the state Clemency Board Friday, where they heard from family members of the men who were either imprisoned, tortured or murdered by mobs and a racist sheriff. The Groveland Four matter was only supposed to be up for discussion and families were not expecting to hear a vote Friday. But at the very end of the meeting, DeSantis called for a vote.
"I believe in the principles of the Constitution. I believe in getting a fair shake," he said. "I don't think there's any way that you can look at this case and see justice was carried out."
Some call the treatment of the four men one of the worst episodes of racism in American history. In 1949, a 17-year-old white woman and her estranged husband told police that she'd been kidnapped and raped by four black men after the couple's car broke down outside Groveland, in Lake County. Sheriff Willis McCall arrested the four men, even though Charles Greenlee, 17, was arrested in a separate incident 20 miles away when the alleged rape occurred and said he didn't know the other three men.
Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin told police they had stopped to help the couple but denied assaulting Norma Padgett. After being beaten by police in the county jail, both Greenlee and Shepherd confessed. Ernest Thomas escaped but was murdered two days later by a posse of 1,000 men who shot and killed Thomas while he slept under a tree in Madison County.
The families of Greenlee, Irvin, Shepherd and Thomas sat scattered throughout the room Friday in the Capitol. Some spoke at the podium in front of the Clemency Board.
DeSantis didn't have to grant a pardon. Rick Scott didn't. Charlie Crist didn't. Jeb Bush didn't. Which means I gotta give not one, but two Republican governors their props for doing the right thing this week as outgoing Tennessee governor Bill Haslam granted clemency to Cyntoia Brown.
So here it is---THANKS.