August 2003
These are not the only crack cocaine and other drug-related murders in Decatur--just the
murderers caught and sentenced to death.  Kenneth Gregory Long, now deceased,
stabbed a woman to death for crack money.  His accomplice, also given LWOP, is
housed in Mississippi; seems we're out of room for warehousing killers.  This is only the
tip of the iceberg of the violence associated with the use and distribution of crack
cocaine, and now its country cousin, crystal methamphetamine.

Just this morning, a body was found along a rural logging road near Decatur.  The body
is that of a young black male, shot multiple times.  There is a "MOB" tattoo on his left
chest.  "MOB" is an acronym for "member of bloods," a well-known organized
crime/gang spread throughout the United States.  "MOB" also stands for "money over
bitches," a quote often attributed to Tupac Shakur, who had a new "MOB" tattoo of his
own when he was murdered by multiple gunshots.  It's part of their philosophy:  money
is more important than bitches, and all women are bitches (or whores).

The list keeps growing.
The Daily has an article today (August 12, 2003) outlining the State of
Alabama's response to Judge Thompson's explanation.  They call him
"Tipton Judge" again.

I think Judge Glenn Thompson would like for us to believe he's
another Judge James Horton, Jr--a wise and honorable man whose
duty to
administer justice far outweighed any personal or professional
considerations.

But to me, he's just another Judge Callahan--overtly biased and
beholden to the good old boys of the day.

I think it's noteworthy that in the 1930's, the local press was blind to
the implications of the events unfolding here.  They couldn't see Judge
Callahan's egregious misconduct, or the culture of hatred and
self-promotion that fostered it.  They were too busy making a
propaganda war against the "Jew money from New York" (and against
African-Americans everywhere) to notice.  They didn't let the truth get
in the way of a good story.  They were part of the problem.

And they still are.
NEXT
The young murder victim above has been identified as Jeremy McKinley Black of
Decatur.  He was 22 years old.  The fact the press doesn't consider it a major story
doesn't diminish the fact another resident of Decatur was just murdered, and whoever
did it might well be driving around Decatur tonight.  Everybody seems to enjoy playing
homicide detective so much, I wonder why they don't jump on this case...a brutal,
unsolved homicide. The press, and the public, tend to trivialize the victims of homicide.
There is a strong tendency to rationalize the horror of a murder as being somehow
normal, even deserved--and happening to people unlike them.  It makes them feel safer.
Real-life homicide investigators don't have the luxury of feeling safe, because they know
better. Homicide survivors are thrust abruptly into a world of violence and insanity;
homicide detectives are already there, every day.  They deal constantly with devastated,
distraught, confused, frightened, angry, and even homicidal people.  They work in the
dirty, real world in an ultimate high-stakes "game"--to find the evidence necessary to
convict a killer.  And years, even decades later, their every move is judged in retrospect,
very publicly and often unfairly,  solely in the context of an utter fantasy world of safety
and perfection called the legal system.