Woman Dies When Jet Makes Emergency Landing In Philly
On Tuesday, passengers on a Dallas-bound Southwest Airlines flight fought to pull a woman back into the plane after she was sucked into a hole left completely shattered by a window.
The woman died, officials said.
She is identified as Jennifer Riordan, a Wells Fargo bank executive. In a statement, family members described Riordan as “the bedrock of our family.”
“Jennifer’s vibrancy, passion and love infused our community and reached across our country. Her impact on everything and everyone she touched can never be fully measured,” the statement read. “But foremost, she is the bedrock of our family. She and Mike wrote a love story unlike any other. Her beauty and love is evident through her children.”
Flight 1380 made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after its departure from LaGuardia Airport in New York. Seven other passengers were injured on the flight.
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly expressed his condolences to family and friends of Riordan.
https://twitter.com/Dom_Proto/status/986352776182685696
Police Dispatcher ‘Group Of Males ‘Causing Disturbance’ At Starbucks
The 20-second 911 call that anticipated the arrests of the two black men in the Center City Philadelphia Starbucks on Thursday, a woman dialed 911 at 4:37 pm and said:
“Hi, I have two gentlemen in my cafe who are refusing to make a purchase or leave.” The operator said she would send police.
Three minutes later, a dispatcher said a “group of males” was “refusing to leave.”
Starbucks: The Police Must Be Held Accountable, Too
Source: Alex Wong / Alex Wong
I’m glad Starbucks is closing all its stores on May 29 for racial bias training after a Philadelphia store manager called the police to eject two black customers who attempted to use the bathroom before making a purchase.
Unfortunately, that racial bias training is not enough. I join activists from Black Lives Matter and the NAACP in calling for confirmation that the manager who called police has actually been fired from the company, and not just moved to another store. I also join them in calling for an increased number of black and brown managers at Starbucks. Until those things take place, in addition to company-wide racial bias training, Starbucks must be boycotted.
Because in calling the police on those black men, the manager failed to consider that she might be risking their lives.
I wish that was just hype, but it’s not. Newsweek reported that 25 percent of the people killed by police in 2017 were black. That’s almost twice our percentage of the population.
Thankfully, the Starbucks situation didn’t get to that point, but we now know, thanks to the 9-1-1 calls, that the police are a big part of the problem. The radio chatter went from the original call, which described two gentlemen refusing to make a purchase or leave, to a group of males refusing to leave, to a group of males causing a disturbance.
In a past life, I was a police dispatcher, so I know the call taker should have gotten a description of the men, but they didn’t, which explains why the description went from two men refusing to leave to a group of men causing a disturbance.
The call taker’s failure meant six cops showed up, and when the men made a wisecrack about the officer’s salaries, they were taken out in handcuffs. Police Commissioner Richard Ross said the cops acted appropriately.
Lawyer and activist Michael Coard disagrees.
The Commissioner’s argument that the officers did ‘absolutely nothing wrong’ is absolutely frightening,” Coard said, “because it’s the same kind of argument Nazis used when they said they were just following orders … And his argument that those Black men committed the crime of trespass is absolute BS. Jaywalking is a crime. Spitting on the sidewalk is a crime. Being drunk in public is a crime. But cops show discretion by never arresting anyone for those crimes,” Coard said.
And you know what? Coard is right. So while we’re boycotting to make Starbucks do more than hold a half-day class on racism, we need to hold cops accountable too.
Because we need them doing more than harassing black men in coffee shops. We need them fighting actual crimes.
