Ohio Republican Governor forcing public schools to partner with faith based organizations in order to qualify for tax dollars set aside for mentoring program.

Courtesy of Cleveland.com:  

Gov. John Kasich's $10 million plan to bring mentors into Ohio's schools for students now has a surprise religious requirement – one that goes beyond what is spelled out in the legislation authorizing it. 

Any school district that wants a piece of that state money must partner with both a church and a business – or a faith-based organization and a non-profit set up by a business to do community service. 

No business and no faith-based partner means no state dollars. 

"You must include a faith-based partner," United Way of Greater Cleveland President Bill Kitson, told potential applicants at an information session the United Way hosted Thursday here in Cleveland. 

Asked why the governor is mixing religion with a state program - items usually required to be kept separate - Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said: "The governor believes faith-based organizations play an important role in the lives of young people." 

And Kasich's recorded video welcoming the applicants made the importance he places on faith in this effort clear. 

"The Good Lord has a purpose for each and every one of them (students) and you're helping them to find it," Kasich said on the video.

Yes the Governor believes that "faith based organizations play an important role in the lives of young people" and that "the good lord has a purpose for each and every one of them" because he is an Evangelical. And Evangelicals simply cannot accept that others will be offended by the inclusion of religion into a public school that is supposed to serve students of all faiths, or not faiths.

That is why the separation of church and state is so vital. And why people like Governor Kasich refuse to accept that it even exists.

Rage inducing video of the day. Girlfriend of man shot to death in an Ohio Wal-Mart threatened with jail for not admitting that she knew he had a gun before entering the store. He did not.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Police aggressively questioned the tearful girlfriend of a young black man they had just shot dead as he held a BB gun in an Ohio supermarket – accusing her of lying, threatening her with jail, and suggesting that she was high on drugs. 

Tasha Thomas was reduced to swearing on the lives of her relatives that John Crawford III had not been carrying a firearm when they entered the Walmart in Beavercreek, near Dayton, to buy crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars on the evening of 5 August. 

“You lie to me and you might be on your way to jail,” detective Rodney Curd told Thomas, as she wept and repeatedly offered to take a lie-detector test. After more than an hour and a half of questioning and statement-taking, Curd finally told Thomas that Crawford, 22, had died. “As a result of his actions, he is gone,” said the detective, as she slumped in her chair and cried. 

For the record John Crawford III was NOT armed when he entered that Wal-Mart. 

He only had a BB gun in his possession when he was shot.

This poor woman was on the phone with him when the police opened fire on him.
A 94-minute police video recording, released to the Guardian by the office of Mike DeWine, the Ohio attorney general, in response to a public records request, shows Thomas, 26, being interviewed by Curd after she was driven from Walmart to the Beavercreek police department. Curd later told investigators he had not yet been told Crawford only had a BB gun that had been on sale at the store. 

Curd promptly asked Thomas whether she and Crawford had criminal records. Already tearful and breathless, Thomas explained that she may have had some traffic offences and had been arrested for petty theft as a juvenile. 

The detective then became increasingly aggressive and banged on the table between them with his hand. “Tell me where he got the gun from,” Curd repeated. Thomas insisted Crawford had been carrying only a white plastic grocery bag when they arrived at Walmart to buy the ingredients to make s’mores at a family cook-out. 

Asked one of several times whether Crawford owned a gun, Thomas said: “Not that I know.” 

Curd told her: “Don’t tell me ‘not that you know’, because that’s the first thing I realise somebody’s not telling me the truth”. 

He later repeated: “You need to tell me the truth” and “You need to be truthful.” 

I have to question the fact that his officer claims that he did not know the murdered man only had a BB gun on him. Either he is lying to save face, or else he should never have been in that room interrogating this poor woman with no knowledge of what actually took place.

To me it appears that Detective Curd is trying to get her to say hEr boyfriend was armed in order to provide an excuse for officers to have executed him in that fashion.

When she fails to do so his anger is apparent.

Personally I am disgusted by this.

Cleveland police who shot 12 year old boy provided him no first aid. That was administered almost 4 minutes later by an FBI agent.

Courtesy of WEWS-TV:  

Cleveland officials said Thursday officers waited close to four minutes to administer first aid after Tamir Rice, 12, was shot. 

Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said a detective and FBI agent who were in the area responded to the call for help and began giving medical help to Rice three minutes and 49 seconds after he was shot by rookie Cleveland patrol officer Timothy Loehmann. 

NewsChannel 5 Investigators asked Cleveland officials why the two officers involved in the shooting did not immediately administer first aid. Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson, said all of the officers' actions are under investigation. 

We also asked why officials did not show reporters the video of how the officers reacted after the shooting. Williams said the officers only released the video because the family requested the footage be made public. 

I actually did not know this detail yesterday when I first posted this story.

The debate yesterday was fairly lively, with some people taking the officer's side and others feeling that the speed with which the police shot this young man left them no chance to evaluate whether he actually presented a danger or not.

Whatever your position I have to wonder if realizing that the officers did nothing to save this young man for four minutes has any effect on your point of view?

Tragic shooting of twelve year old boy by Cleveland police.

Courtesy of CNN:  

A Cleveland police officer shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice about two seconds after the officer and a partner pulled up in a car to investigate reports that someone was brandishing a gun at a park, surveillance video that police released Wednesday shows. 

Tamir, who had what police said is an air gun that looked like a real firearm, died Sunday, a day after he was shot outside a recreation center. 

Police also released two audio recordings Wednesday -- a 911 call preceding the shooting and a tape of a dispatcher asking officers to go to the park. 

The shooting happened after a person called 911 to report that a black male -- "probably a juvenile" -- was pointing "a pistol" at people outside the recreation center. Twice the caller said the gun might be fake. 

The dispatcher radioed to officers about a black male who was "pointing a gun at people," but did not mention that caller's belief that he could be a minor and that the gun might not be a real firearm, one of the released recordings shows. 

I held off posting this until the day after Thanksgiving, since I did not want to ruin everybody's holiday.

However it is definitely something worth discussing as it is just one more example of a black person being shot by police officers.

I think his age might immediately bring up Trayvon Martin in a lot of people's minds, but personally my immediate connection was to the death of John Crawford III who was killed by police while holding a fake gun in Wal-Mart back in August. in this case like that one, police seemed to fire before taking the time to assess if the person actually presented a danger to them or to others.

Why the dispatcher did not relay the information of child's age or the caller's beleif that the gun was fake We will probably never know, but it seems clear that if they had done so this young man would still be alive.