Jean Truchon, right, looks on as lawyer Jean-Pierre Menard gives their reaction to a Québec judge overturning parts of provincial and federal laws on medically assisted dying on September 12, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The federal and Québec governments appear reluctant to appeal what’s known as the Truchon decision, which invalidated Canada’s “reasonable foreseeable death” and “end of life” access criteria for medical assistance in dying.
The case was brought by Nicole Gladu and Jean Truchon, two Québec residents who each have physical disabilities that severely restrict their ability to complete daily tasks, remove or reduce significantly their mobility and cause intolerable pain. After being deemed ineligible to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) because they were not at the end-of-life stage, they went to court to challenge the federal and Québec laws.
And here is why: The ruling raises important questions about the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that require clarification. The court’s ruling undermines Parliament’s power to issue broad legislation aimed at protecting the rights and interests of people who are elderly, ill or disabled, and at preventing suicide. We also believe the use of some of the evidence in the decision raises concerns about its reasonableness.
The value and quality of a life
First, Justice Baudouin rejected two explicitly stated goals of the federal medically assisted dying law: the confirmation of the inherent and equal value of every person’s life, combined with the prevention of negative perceptions of the quality of life of persons who are elderly, ill or disabled; and the prevention of suicide.
Nicole Gladu, who is incurably ill, filed an action in Québec Superior Court with Jean Truchon, arguing the eligibility requirements for physician-assisted death are too restrictive and violate their rights to the procedure.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
As a result, she failed to evaluate whether the broader societal impact of an expansive MAID regime could justify the current restriction to end-of-life. Parliament explicitly introduced this restriction to balance the autonomy of people requesting physician-assisted deaths with the need to protect the interests of vulnerable people, as well as the broader societal interests of avoiding negative perceptions and preventing suicide.
Baudouin only ruled on whether the restriction is necessary to protect vulnerable people from being induced to end their lives. She concluded that as not all people with disabilities are vulnerable, existing medically assisted death practices will suffice to offer that protection.
By focusing only on the need to protect vulnerable people, she did not sufficiently consider the more complex evidence related to negative perceptions of the quality of life of people who are elderly, ill or disabled, or the challenges related to suicide prevention.
Disabled lives are worth living
The disability community has long expressed concern about how laws and policies reflect views that disabled lives as not worth living. These laws can result in practices that undermine the rights and well-being of people with disabilities and may influence how people think about disabled lives and what health-care choices they should have.
There are historical precedents for this concern: policies portraying disabled lives as not worth living were prevalent during the eugenics movement in the 20th century. In Canada, manifestations of the eugenics movement can be seen in the sexual sterilization laws designed to prevent people with disabilities from reproducing.
Even more recently, concerns have been expressed that gene editing casts a similar negative light on the existence of people with disabilities.
Activist Alice Wong speaks on ‘Resisting Abelism: Disabled People and Human Gene Editing’
There are also concerns, fuelled by developments in the few countries that provide access to MAID outside the end-of-life context, that being elderly and fragile is increasingly accepted as a reason for a physician-assisted death and that this may create subtle pressure. A recent analysis of Dutch assisted dying cases of patients with intellectual disabilities and autism suggested that physicians’ value judgments and prejudices may have influenced how they evaluated their requests.
By rejecting the broader goals of the law, the court failed to fully evaluate why people with disabling health conditions make their decisions. This includes the way in which law, funding policies, social-support mechanisms, access to alternative treatments and societal and personal perceptions interact.
These longer term and broader concerns, as well as the impact on suicide prevention, were not taken seriously enough by the Québec Superior Court in its proportionality assessment under Section 1 of the Charter. They should have been.
An irreversible, life-ending act
A related problem underlies discrimination concerns. Baudouin invoked two reasons why the restriction to end-of-life is discriminatory: one is that it makes a distinction based on whether or not people’s health or disability brings them on a trajectory towards the end of their life. The second is that it distinguishes between people with disabilities who are at the end of their lives and those who are not. Both may be incapable of ending their own lives when they are suffering unbearably, yet only those at the end of life are being offered medically assisted deaths.
We’re dealing with a criminal law-based limit on when health professionals can perform a radical life-ending procedure. To conclude that a policy limiting it to the end-of-life is discriminatory, it seems essential to look at all the evidence and arguments in support of this restriction.
By limiting the goals of the legislation, Baudouin failed to look at the delicate balance between providing access to medically assisted dying, protecting people against premature death and preventing stereotypes about the value of a life with disabilities, and in the context of a practice that raises unique challenges.
Unlike other claims of discrimination, this is not about claims of access to an unconditional good such as essential medicines, or high-quality supportive care, or accommodation to empower people with disabilities. We are dealing with an irreversible, life-ending act.
While death may seem desirable in some circumstances, there are unique concerns about the impact of MAID, precisely on those who are already disadvantaged.
Inhumane treatment in long-term care
More explicitly, while the MAID law indeed requires consent, these irreversible choices about ending a life are made in a complex social, cultural and health-care context, where lack of access to adequate care, lack of social support and overall ableist stigma have an impact on the choices people with disabilities may have.
The law’s end-of-life criterion should create the necessary space to prioritize substantive support for people with disabilities. We need more complex discussions around support for the rights to life of people with disabilities, including those in palliative care, not a reduction of the opportunities for this support by expanding access to physician-assisted deaths.
The judge’s analysis of the evidence
There are also reasons why an appeal court should review the reasonableness of the court’s use of evidence.
The relevance of much of the evidence (for example from suicide experts and disability studies experts) was already undermined by the court’s restriction of the goals of the law. But even in the assessment of directly relevant evidence — for example in determining capacity and distinguishing MAID from suicide in the context of mental illness — Baudouin too easily brushed aside the government’s experts as having only theoretical knowledge and being prejudiced.
In contrast, Baudouin appeared to take at face value two experts for the plaintiffs who currently conduct medically assisted death assessments in Canada’s system, but who have not done so in relation to mental illness.
It would send a terrible signal if both the federal and Québec governments concede that one judge can curtail Parliament’s power to promote broader societal interests in protecting people who are elderly, ill or disabled.
Given that we are currently in an election period, and that it will take time before a new government is put in place, it seems particularly important to create the time and space for careful assessment of our options in this complex area of policy-making.
In the interests of society, the attorneys general in both Québec and in Ottawa need to appeal this case.
Thursday, 10 October 2019 04:05 Written by LINDAIKEJI
A Nigerian woman identified as Jumoke Monsurat Ayedun has been arrested in New Jersey, United States after she scammed an elderly woman of $17,000.
Using the old 419 trick, Ayedun had told the woman, who later became her victim, that the victim was eligible for a grant of $75,000 from the United Nations Democracy Fund Program. The Smith County Sheriff’s Office said the victim, based in Smith County, Texas sent Ayedun $17,000 in total, to access the $75,000 from a fake UN Fund.
The victim later talked to a family member, who told her it was a scam. The police waded in. According to the sheriff’s office, the victim told officials a person using a fake Facebook contacted her saying they were a family member.
The victim began to talk to the scammer after seeing a picture of another family member of the victim. The Smith County Sheriff’s Office began to investigate the case and tracked down the suspect through the bank account number used by the suspect during the transactions.
Investigator John Partlow determined the suspect as 29-year-old Jumoke Monsurat Ayedun, a Nigerian living in New Jersey on a visa. Partlow obtained a passport picture of Ayedun and determined she was the same person as the suspect seen on an ATM video removing money from the account. Parlow also determined Ayedun had been receiving payments into her account from various sources such as Venmo, Zellepay and personal checks.
Partlow helped to freeze Ayedun’s account to possibly make money available to the victim. A warrant for Ayedun’s arrest was issued in September. Her bond was set at $1 million. Ayedun was arrested Monday, October 7th by police in Teaneck, New Jersey. She is currently in the Bergen County Jail awaiting extradition.
With the Reserve Bank of Australia cutting official rates to 0.75% on Tuesday, has been a wave of commentary about the move doing little to help the economy apart from boosting housing prices.
There are two parts to assessing this claim. First, do rate cuts drive up property prices? Second, is that all they do?
Do rate cuts drive up property prices?
Economists have a precise answer to this question, and also a more practical one.
The precise answer is that all assets – stocks, bonds, property, stamps, vintage baseball cards, you name it – can be priced using what is known as the stochastic discount factor (SDF).
This says that in pricing an asset you should factor in all the future cash flows the asset will generate (rent or dividends or capital gains) and then translate those returns into today’s money, adjusting for the riskiness of those cash flows.
An easier way to think about how rate cuts might affect property prices – consistent with the asset-pricing approach – goes like this.
People look at how much money they can borrow based on what they can afford to pay back. An interest rate cut boosts their borrowing power.
Even though the major banks have only passed on about half of the Reserve Bank’s latest cut (owner-occupied mortgage rates have been cut by 13-15 basis points), that’s enough to give a household with income of $150,000 about another $12,000 to $14,000 in borrowing power.
They thus spend more and, because there is a limited supply of properties, this pushes prices up. So, yes, lower interest rates do tend to boost property prices.
Is that all rate cuts do?
But boosting property prices is not all that rate cuts do.
Higher prices for new dwellings help developers. They often lead to an increase in construction jobs as developers anticipate better conditions for selling properties. New property construction has a number of other effects, too, such as changing the average quality of the rental stock and spurring more retail spending (because those new homes need to be furnished).
Perhaps even more important is the pseudo-psychological effect of existing home owners feeling wealthier when house prices go up. This can lead to increased consumer spending – and this can have a big economic effect, given consumer spending accounts for about 60% of GDP.
This “wealth effect”, rational or not, seems to be real. It is part of the reason the Reserve Bank’s governnor, Philip Lowe, appeared to be concerned about Sydney and Melbourne house prices falling in the past couple of years. It is also why federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is happy to see property prices again on the rise.
Finally, lower interest rates do make business investment cheaper.
Would corporate tax cuts provide a bigger boost to investment? You bet. Are there diminishing returns to rate cuts as the cash rate approaches zero? That’s very likely to be the case.
But would businesses invest more if rates were two percentage points higher? No way. And would business like rates to be higher? I seriously doubt it.
Rate cuts do something to drive down unemployment, drive up consumer prices, and boost investment generally.
Are rate-cut driven prices increases bad?
But they certainly do also drive up residential property prices.
The important question is whether that’s bad or not. The answer to this question is a little murkier.
Let’s start with the fact borrowers should be thinking about how much to borrow.
If they borrow too much and are unable to repay their loans, that’s very bad news for them. Defaulting on a mortgage is a wrenching experience. Most people try hard to avoid that.
That said, sometimes people make poor choices through lack of information, lack of thought or lack of willpower. Occasionally an unscrupulous third party will encourage them to borrow more than they should.
But it’s not in the interest of banks to make too many loans that don’t get repaid. If borrowers are the first line of defence again bad price increases, lenders are the second line of defence.
So property prices increasing a few percent on the back of the rate cuts is unlikely to be problem – though as the Reserve Bank governor is fond of saying, “time will tell”.
In what will come across as a shocking development, a man has robbed a bank just one day before his wedding.
According to a report by CNN, a Texas man is accused of robbing a bank because he couldn't pay for his wedding.
Heath Bumpous turned himself in on Friday, about two hours after he robbed the Citizens State Bank in Groveton, Texas -- and a day before he was set to get married, according to Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace. The bank is only about 500 feet away from the sheriff's office in the small town north of Houston.
"He basically stated that he was getting married tomorrow so he didn't have enough money for a wedding ring that he wanted to buy and he needed to pay for the wedding venue," Wallace said in a video message posted Friday on Facebook.
Wallace said that Bumpous went into the bank and "demanded money and indicated that he had a weapon."
He was able to get away with an undisclosed amount of money, Wallace said.
The sheriff's office posted pictures from the bank's surveillance video and a description of his vehicle on social media to see if the public could identify the suspect.
Someone did -- his fiancee.
She recognized him from the images and convinced him to surrender in nearby Houston County, where they live, Wallace said.
He is being held on charges of aggravated robbery. CNN was unable to contact Bumpous and county officials did not know on Monday morning if he had an attorney.
Wallace said Bumpous confessed to the robbery during questioning.
Authorities were able to recover most of the money and found a gun while processing the car, Wallace said. They also found clothes that he had thrown out of his car while making his getaway.
CNN affiliate KTRE reported that Bumpous is a former EMS employee from Crockett, Texas.
The Groveton Independent School District issued a "Lock Out" after the robbery and would not let anyone in or out of school buildings until authorities determined it was safe, according to a Nixle alert issued by the sheriff's office.
This federal election season, abortion is undeniably a campaign issue, with media coverage routinely suggesting abortion rights are tenuous or up for debate.
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer made a personal pro-life declaration during his morning address at a volunteer fire department in Upper Kingsclear, N.B., October 3, 2019.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May continues to argue that a
As a registered nurse who provides abortion care, and as a researcher of abortion access, I worry these news stories create confusion about the reality and legality of access in Canada. Furthermore, news of anti-abortion legislation in the United States seeps north and clouds understanding of our needs and concerns.
Abortion is safe for patients, and most abortion providers in Canada feel safe providing it. The vast majority of procedures take place in the first trimester. Abortion is publicly insured and in the majority of cases is free for the patient.
In 2015, Health Canada approved Mifegymiso, the medical abortion pill. It has been available since 2017 and is effective for use up to nine weeks gestation. Mifegymiso is also publicly insured by all the provinces and territories.
Mifegymiso actually comprises two medications: mifepristone and misoprostol, taken over the course of 24 hours. A week after taking Mifegymiso, patients repeat their blood work. A large decrease in the pregnancy hormone beta HCG confirms a successful pregnancy termination.
Lack of ultrasound availability should also not be a barrier, although ultrasound remains valuable for dating a pregnancy and to rule out ectopic pregnancy.
Persistent inequities across Canada
The greatest practical barrier to abortion in Canada is geographic: there are too few providers living in too few places. Surveys of abortion providers here have found most live in large urban centres.
The introduction of Mifegymiso could change this. All physicians and nurse practitioners could prescribe Mifegymiso (there are exceptions in Québec). In theory, every primary care office in the country could be providing this care. This means abortion is potentially more accessible in Canada than in any other country in the world.
One in three Canadian women will seek an abortion in their lifetime.(Shutterstock)
But for now, there is stigma and misinformation to contend with. A few persistent inequities complicate matters, making the access landscape seem unintelligible or mystical. For example, New Brunswick does not insure surgical procedures in a clinic outside of hospital. Ontario will not pay for Mifegymiso if you are living outside the province or if you are a non-Ontario resident. Québec will not allow nurse practitioners to prescribe Mifegymiso.
Unlike in the United States, in Canada, nurse practitioners can carry out medical abortion, but not surgical.
Aligning irregular policies across Canada is the first obvious step. The next is simplifying the path to access by enhancing self-referral processes and reducing wait times for primary care and ultrasound. Expanding the scope of practice of nurse practitioners and midwives to provide both surgical and medical abortion could boost the number of providers.
Most important, however, is increasing factual education about abortion. The public need to know what abortion is and how to get one. Health-care students and professionals need to learn how to include abortion in their practice and how to swiftly and easily refer a patient to the care they need.
Finally, abortion needs to be understood as critical but inadequate for reproductive health. Menstrual health, consent, contraception, trans health services and reproductive mental health all need to make it onto the news, the party platforms and the agenda for our next government.
Saturday, 28 September 2019 13:05 Written by face2faceafrica
Things are not looking too well for ex- Gambian president Yahya Jammeh after the United States banned him and his family from setting foot in the country ever.
The U.S. Department of State, on December 10, announced that the former president was barred from the country because of his heavy involvement in corruption and human rights violations. According to the statement:
The Department is publicly designating former president of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, under the terms of Section 7031(c) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2018, due to his involvement in significant corruption. Section 7031(c) provides that, in cases where the Secretary of State has credible information that foreign government officials have been involved in significant corruption or a gross violation of human rights, those individuals and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States.
The ban affects his immediate family members, including spouse, Zineb Yahya Jammeh, his daughter, Mariam Jammeh, and his son, Muhammad Yahya Jammeh.
Jammeh is currently living in Equatorial Guinea since his ouster in 2016. It took negotiations, a military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), threats from the international community, visits by about half a dozen heads of state and an immunity deal for him and his family before he agreed to not only relinquish power but also leave the country after losing the December 2016 elections to current president Adama Barrow.
He has also been accused of stealing more than $50 million from the state, according to the country’s justice minister and of going away with more than $11 million and a number of luxury vehicles when he left the country in 2017.
Yaya Jammeh’s $ 3.5 million Potomac, Maryland mansion
According to a former employee, the ex-dictator and his wife considered the U.S. a favourite destination, usually accessed by private planes. Their daughter is a student in an expensive boarding school in Manhattan.
Questions abound as to why the U.S. waited two years before issuing such a designation to the ex-president.
On September 24, 2019, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives had launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.
While the announcement was a shock, it didn’t come out of thin air given that there has been impeachment talk since the day Trump unexpectedly won the 2016 election, a contest marred by interference from Russian hackers. The speculation ramped up with every twist and turn of investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller, during which 34 figures associated with Trump – including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former national security advisor Michael Flynn and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen – were indicted, convicted or pleaded guilty. Mueller chose to not bring charges against the president himself, however, yet specifically did not exonerate him.
Despite the seriousness of the latest allegations, however, history indicates that even if Trump is impeached, he is likely to stay in office
Impeachment march in Portland, Oregon, on March 1, 20/17.MB298/Flickr, CC BY
Some history
American impeachment law has its origins in the English Civil War, but not everyone at the 1787 Constitutional Convention thought it should be applied to US presidents. Some felt that the legislative branch’s trying the executive was a breach of the separation of powers. Benjamin Franklin pointed out that if a president could not be removed for his misdeeds while in office, he would have every motivation to remain in office and would do so by any means – including tyranny – and could only be removed by death. The clauses for impeachment of the highest magistrate passed. Provisions of this kind only passed in France in 2014.
In the US Constitution, impeachment and conviction are not the same things. To impeach is to bring charges against a high-office holder. “The House of Representatives… shall have the sole Power of Impeachment,” the Constitution states (Article I, section 2). That means that the charges or articles must be brought in the House and can pass with a simple majority. The trial, however, will take place in the Senate. “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present” (Article I, section 3). It is thus possible to remove a sitting president from office, but this procedure does not make it easy or likely given the political hold he has on his party. A two-thirds majority in the Senate means that 67 out of the 100 senators must vote in favour of conviction.
To remove presidents, Articles of Impeachment have only been passed through the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee three times in US history and only been passed by the House of Representatives to the Senate for trial twice. For judges and other high officials, impeachment proceedings have been started in the House 62 times and Articles of Impeachment have been approved by the House 19 times, sometimes resulting in conviction and removal of Federal judges, one as recently as 2008, for perjury and bribery.
Andrew Johnson, 1867: survived
Andrew Johnson, vice president and later president. He escaped impeachment by a single vote in 1867.Marion Doss/Flickr
In the case of presidents, however, every time political questions of power have been palpably important. A congress dominated by one party has never impeached or convicted a sitting president of its own party. When Richard Nixon, a Republican, resigned, both houses were controlled by Democrats. When Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, came within a vote of conviction, both houses were controlled by Republicans.
Johnson, from a southern slave state, was vice president when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated. Johnson was the first president to face Articles of Impeachment. The accusations against him now seem obscure and even inconsequential compared to what Trump has been accused of. To keep the Radical Republican Edwin Stanton in control of Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War, Congress passed the “Tenure of Office Act,” which required the president to seek the Senate’s advice and consent before removing cabinet and other high government officials. Believing the Tenure of Office Act to be an unconstitutional breach of the separation between executive and legislative powers, Johnson fired Stanton while Congress was out of session on August 5, 1867.
This brought about a face-off with the Republican-dominated Senate. In those post–Civil War days when many of the recently rebellious southern states had no representation in Congress, there were only 54 senators and of those, only 9 were Democrats. After the Senate trial, 35 Republicans voted to convict Johnson. The nine Democrats were joined by 10 Republicans, making 19 votes for acquittal. It would have taken 36 guilty votes to reach the two-thirds majority necessary for conviction. With an overwhelming majority in the Senate, the Republicans were unable to remove Johnson.
Richard Nixon’s Impeachment Articles – obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of congress – had all passed, 27 to 11, 28 to 10 and 21 to 17, with Republicans joining Democrats each time in the voting on July 27, 1974. Nixon’s hold even on his own minority Republican party had been weakened by the Watergate scandal and hearings that had played on television throughout 1973. Several related and much-publicised trials and investigations weakened him further since the June 1972 Watergate break-in. The day the impeachment articles passed committee, the House Minority Leader, Republican John Rhodes, estimated that there would be 300 votes for impeachment in the House, far more than the simple majority of 218 needed to send the case to the Senate for trial. The Senate Minority Leader, Republican Hugh Scott, estimated 60 votes in the Senate for conviction, only a little short of the 67 needed. Could Nixon have survived a Senate trial? Probably not.
On July 24 the Supreme Court had ruled that all the White House tapes, not just a selection, had to be released as part of the Watergate investigation. On August 5, 1974, the White House released the “smoking gun” tape of June 23, 1972, recorded shortly after the famous break-in. The tape demonstrated that Nixon had known then of the White House connection to the burglary and had approved of the cover-up. When senior Republican senators Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater met with Nixon on August 7, just over a week since Scott’s 60-40 vote estimate, they told Nixon he had only 15 votes for acquittal left in the Senate. He needed 34. A majority of 56 Democrats in the Senate could not have convicted Nixon without bipartisan support, but with the serious charges and the years of much-publicised investigation, bipartisan support had lined up against Nixon. He could be convicted as well as impeached.
Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, rather than risk impeachment and conviction.Wikimedia
The 1998-1999 case against Bill Clinton didn’t come close to the seriousness of Nixon’s in either the importance of the accusations or the voting. The Senate was divided 45 Democrats to 55 Republicans. No Democrat voted against Clinton, so neither the perjury charge nor the obstruction of justice charge ever came close to the 67 votes needed for conviction. In fact, 10 Republicans joined the Democrats to acquit Clinton of the perjury charge, 55 to 45, and 5 Republicans joined the Democrats to acquit on the obstruction of justice charge. The House of Representative votes that set up the impeachment trial in the Senate look like a purely partisan decision to take advantage of a 221 to 211 Republican advantage in the House, hardly based on the merits of any case that could have been tried.
Donald Trump, 2019?
In the 2018 mid-term elections, the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, allowing the house to launch a formal impeachment inquiry after the Ukraine scandal broke out. Should the house decide that a trial is warranted, they can send Impeachment Articles to the Senate – but the upper house is still controlled by the Republican party, 53 to 47. While Republicans have recently shown some rare solidarity with Democratic colleagues, going so far as to call for transparency on the part of the Trump administration, it would take 67 votes, or two-thirds of the 100 senators, to convict in an impeachment proceeding, and this has never been done.
Only in the case of Richard Nixon did that look possible and only after years of public hearings and trials over Watergate. Even then, it was probably the “smoking gun” tape sapping support in Nixon’s own party that caused him to count the votes again a few days after the tape’s release. There were 56 Democrats, 1 independent, 1 conservative and 42 Republicans in the Senate in 1974. Nixon had lost the support of all but 15 senators by August 7. He resigned.
Should Donald Trump face Impeachment Articles in the Senate, the result will be embarrassing, awkward and paralysing to the US government. However, it is highly improbable that those articles will get much further. There is rigid partisan control now, and no hint of the broad bipartisan support that finally brought down Nixon. And of course, Trump is not sensitive to Constitutional arguments in the same way as Nixon, a lifelong political man. Trump notices all insult and injury, as did Nixon, but insults and injury seem to increase Trump’s belligerent determination, where eventually they undermined Nixon.
Thus, barring a truly dramatic change in events, we are likely to see Trump serve out his first term, which doesn’t end until January 20, 2021.
This article has been updated to reflect ongoing events, including the September 2019 launch of an impeachment inquiry and the results of the 2018 mid-term elections.
At the time of his shooting, there had already been at least 13 cases of black children who had been shot in St. Louis.
The unprovoked killing of 15-year-old Sentonio Cox, on August 25, took the number to 14 but now, it seems some justice is being served.
Today, 54-year-old Joseph Renick, a suspect in the Sentonio case, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm, reports The Associated Press.
The case was brought before the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, where Mayor Lyda Krewson announced a $100,000 reward for persons with information on the more than a dozen killings of young Black people in the area.
Atlanta Black Star reports that Renick has been held on a $500,000 bond for the fatal shooting of Cox whose body was discovered by authorities after he was reported missing.
Cox had been shot in the head in what is reported to have been an unprovoked case, adding up to the rising numbers of killings of black people in St. Louis who are under the age of 16.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a teen who said he was Sentonio’s friend said that Sentonio was walking home when he was shot. He added that Sentonio usually cut through an empty lot near where the shooting occurred in order to get to his home.
Reports say that Sentonio was backing away with his hands in the air when he was gunned down by Renick in the Patch neighbourhood of south St. Louis.
“Defendant pointed a revolver at Sentonio Cox as he was backing away from him in retreat with his hands raised,” the charging documents said, reports Metro STL. “Defendant fired one shot into Cox’s head killing him.”
Renick was not legally allowed to have a gun because of a 2015 conviction for not paying child support, according to the charges, reports Riverfront Times.
Roxzyanne Edwards, who is Sentonio’s mother, has been questioning the length of time with which the police took in arresting the suspect, in an interview with Fox 2 Now.
“Why did it take four days for them to get him when they were told who done it?” she asked after visiting the location where a vigil was held for her son earlier last week.
St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden speaks at a press conference held at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters on Saturday, Aug. 24, 2019 where an offer of $25,000 reward was announced for anyone with information leading to the arrest in cases of recent shootings of young children. Photo by Christine Tannous, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Expressing her displeasure with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, Edwards said she feels race played a part in locating the suspect, a white man who she said was sitting on his porch across the street from the vigil site rather than sitting in prison.
“If my son would have done something, they would have come and got him,” she said, before noting that others should be accountable for her son’s killing.
“I want him to be the same way as my son,” Edwards said. “I want the same penalty.”
Sentonio, 15, (right) with his twin brother, Antonio and mother, Edwards | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Edwards has had to deal with the pain and anguish of losing two sons out of six children to be shot to death after an older son, 18-year-old Leland Butler, was killed two years ago.
Renick is the second person arrested in connection with the killings of Black children and teens. The first arrest, made in mid-August, was a suspect accused of killing 7-year-old boy Xavier Usanga who was playing with his sisters in the backyard of their home, police said.
St. Louis is the location for one of America’s deadliest riots ever. On July 2, 1917, in East St. Louis, Illinois, a race riot erupted leading to the slaughtering of at least 100 African-Americans (some sources put the figure at nearly 200) with over 6,000 others left homeless. By comparison, eight whites died.
The riots happened because white workers of the Aluminum Ore Company in East St. Louis decided to go on a massive strike which prompted the management of the company to employ African-Americans and a few other willing white people to take over their work. This decision, however, did not go down well with the striking whites.
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