Mariam Creighton, 21, a sophomore volleyball player at Albany State University, died May 12 during a shootout in an Atlanta nightclub.

Creighton, from Stockbridge, Georgia, and Nakyris M. Ridley, 20, during the 2:30 a.m. shooting at Elleven45 Lounge. Four others were injured after police said that an unidentified gunman started shooting during a fight inside the club.

“Mari was just an all-around great young lady that will truly be missed,” her coach at Stockbridge High School, John Holladay, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Creighton’s death has shocked the Albany State community. A transfer from fellow HBCU Benedict College, she had 5 digs and one assist during the 7 matches she played for Albany State in 2023.

“We at Elleven 45 are profoundly affected by the recent tragic events,” the club said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to all those impacted, and we extend our deepest sympathies to the individuals and families who have suffered loss and injury. The safety and well-being of our patrons and staff have always been our paramount concern. To ensure a thorough investigation in cooperation with local law enforcement, we will be closing our doors today.”

Source: 21-Year-Old HBCU Athlete Fatally Shot At Atlanta Nightclub

Nationwide — Micaela Varlack, an African American mom from Columbus, Georgia, is upset after discovering her 4-year-old daughter Londyn’s locs were combed out by her teacher without asking for her permission.

On April 14, Varlack had her daughter’s hair styled into locs. She spent $150 on the service, which included washing, detangling, conditioning, starting the locs, and blow-drying.

But 3 weeks later, Londyn came home from her pre-kindergarten at Childcare Network with braids instead of locs.

“Monday, on May the 6, I go to pick her up from the daycare,” she recounted, according to WLBT. “There’s a little child who looks like my child with her hair braided.”

Varlack said she was shocked upon knowing her daughter’s hair was rebraided without her knowing.

“Why would you comb 32 locs out of a child’s hair, to sit down and braid them, part them…,” Varlack said. “You didn’t call me, and her literal response was, ‘I just didn’t.’”

Source: Black Mom From Georgia Upset After Teacher Combs Out Her Daughter’s Locs

The governor of Georgia suspended a mayor after he was indicted on charges of stealing nearly $65,000 from the town.

According to Fox 5 Atlanta, the mayor of Pineview, Georgia, Brandon Holt, was given the suspension by Gov. Brian Kemp on April 9. He will not be able to govern until his criminal charges are resolved. Along with the suspension, he will not receive pay while this is being determined.

Holt was accused of taking $64,455 from Pineview’s bank account between June 2023 and October 2023. He allegedly used Cash App to transfer the funds into his banking account 75 times. He was arrested in January and indicted last month as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) charged him with 75 counts of theft by taking. He is currently free on bail.

The GBI announced the arrest in a press release stating that the 34-year-old Holt was taken into custody and booked on January 16 at the Wilcox County Jail. Wilcox County Sheriff Steve Mauldin and District Attorney Brad Rigby requested that the agency look into allegations that the mayor had misappropriated City of Pineview funds.

Source: Georgia Governor Suspends Pineview Mayor After Allegations Of Theft

A Georgia mom seeking justice against her daughter’s alleged sexual abuser has been convicted of murder after another man died in the crossfire. Danyale Harris received a sentence of life in prison for her role in 19-year-old Juan Newkirk’s death.

In March 2020, Harris discovered video footage of her daughter allegedly being abused by 22-year-old Antonio Harley. Despite going to the Dekalb County Police Department to report the crime, Harris decided to deliver justice on her own. According to a press release, an officer urged Harris not to seek revenge, but she did not heed his advice.

“The officer involved the DKPD Special Victim’s Unit, took the report, and told Defendant Harris that detectives would get in touch with her,” detailed the statement. “He warned her not to let her anger get the best of her and not to try to get revenge.”

The next day, she led a mob of people, including Newkirk, to confront Harley at his apartment building. Three of those who tagged along had firearms with them.

Harris, whose then 12-year-old daughter was with her during the confrontation, asked the child to direct her to Harley’s apartment. After an unsuccessful chase of the target man, a member of the vigilante group opened fire into Harley’s apartment. As the bullet injured Harley, his brother began to fire back. According to the document, their younger siblings were also inside the home.

Source: Teen Dies In Crossfire As Mom Tries Killing Child’s Abuser

An appeals court has reversed its decision to convict Robert Olsen, the former DeKalb County, Georgia officer who fatally shot a Black veteran nine years ago, according to reports.

Olsen opened fire at 26-year-old Anthony Hill, whose family said suffered from mental health disorders, on March 9, 2015. The ex-officer responded to a call about a naked man exhibiting “odd” behavior outside of an apartment complex in the area.

The Associated Press reported that the apartment management called police several times about Hill’s actions. The 911 dispatcher informed Olsen that a “possibly demented” man was at the scene.

Bystanders said Hill was “squatting” outside when Olsen finally arrived, per the outlet. The victim then started to run in Olsen’s direction, and the officer ordered him to “stop.” When Hill failed to comply, Olsen fired his struck two times. During the trial, Olsen argued that he was acting in self-defense.

In 2019, Olsen was cleared of two counts of felony murder but was convicted of making a false statement, aggravated assault, and two counts of violation of oath, Fox 5 reported. He was handed down a 20-year sentence and ordered to serve 12 years.

“It just brings back the feelings of losing Tony, like pulling off a scab of a wound you just won’t let heal,” Hill’s sister, Tamara Giummo, said during an interview with local news referring to the new ruling.

Source: Georgia Court of Appeals Reverses Conviction of Former Officer Who Gunned Down Naked Black Man In 2015

A grieving father says he feels like a “scar got ripped open” after he learned that a Georgia burial site could not find his deceased daughter’s remains.

Kamaron Hickman laid his daughter Jada to rest at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Augusta decades ago. The 6-month-old died in her sleep in 2001 while they were living in Germany – where Hickman was stationed at the time while in the Army.

Earlier this month, Hickman shared that he had a plan to exhume Jada’s remains with intentions to cremate her since he no longer lives in the area. But the experience became “an absolute nightmare,” he explained in a Jan. 3 Facebook post.

“The staff told us that they dug up all three plots that we purchased back then with zero success and concluded that after all this time, the remains’ may have’ returned to the earth,” Hickman wrote. “I don’t remember a lot from that day, but I do know she was buried in a white casket, little white shoes, a white dress, a headband, and her favorite rattle toy. We were asked if we wanted some dirt from the plot for our ceremony, which really rubbed me the wrong way.”

Source: ‘An Absolute Nightmare’: Father Devastated After Discovering His Deceased Child’s Remains Are Missing from Georgia Burial Site

A Jewish middle school teacher has been charged with making terroristic threats and cruelty to children after he allegedly threatened to assault and behead a student who found his display of the Israeli flag offensive.

Witnesses, including staff and students at the Georgia school, reported they heard the threats and observed his behavior.

As a safety precaution, the Houston County School District has since removed the teacher from the campus.

Benjamin Reese, seventh-grade social studies teacher at Warner Robins Middle School, was arrested on Friday, Dec. 8, a day after the confrontation with the student, according to the Houston County Sheriff’s Office.

The 51-year-old was charged with felony terroristic threats and acts and misdemeanor cruelty to children in the third degree for allegedly shouting at a student, “You motherf*****g piece of s**t! I’ll kick your a**. I should cut your motherf*****g head off,” according to 13 WMAZ.

Initially, around 3:30 p.m., the student asked the teacher why he had the flag up, and the teacher explained that he was Jewish and had family in Israel.

The young girl remarked she believed the flag was offensive “due to Israelis killing Palestinians” during the Israel-Hamas war. Reese considered this comment anti-Semitic, triggering his outburst.

The student’s statement is based on recent tallies of Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, authorities in Gaza, one of the two Palestinian territories Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, state that over 18,600 individuals have lost their lives in the conflict that began within days of the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that killed at least 1,200 people. The majority of the Palestinian casualties incurred in Israel’s invasion of Gaza are identified as women and children, and the figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

The teacher told the girl, “You don’t make an anti-Semitic comment like that to a Jew,” before spiraling into the threats.

Multiple witnesses, including teachers, staff members, and students who were in class for tutoring or after-school detention, reported to a deputy at the school that they heard threatening the girl and shouting about the incident when she was gone.

“I will drag her a** into the parking lot, slit her f*****g throat and kill her,” one witness heard him repeat.

Source: ‘I Will Drag Her… Into the Parking Lot’: Georgia Teacher Allegedly Threatened to Behead a Student Over Comment About Israeli Flag In Classroom

Relatives of an exonerated man who was shot and killed by a Georgia county deputy in October have filed an intent to sue for $16 million, attorneys announced on Tuesday, Dec. 5.

National civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels discussed the legal action with Leonard Cure’s family in front of the Camden County Courthouse in Georgia.

“We’re filing a notice of intent against Camden County for the wrongful death of Leonard Cure for $16 million,” Crump said at a press conference. “That number is significant to the family because it represents a million dollars for every year he was wrongfully convicted.”

Cure spent nearly two decades in prison for a Florida armed robbery he did not commit and was released in 2020Attorney’sranted $812,000 earlier this year as a relieAttorney’smove forward with his life.

However, he died in October 2023 following a traffic stop by a Camden County deputy on Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida line. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, he was ordered to step out of the vehicle and informed he would be taken into custody.

Officials said when Cure “failed to comply,” he was shocked with a Taser by the deputy. After Cure assaulted the deputy, he was shocked again and then eventually shot. Graphic dashcam video obtained by Atlanta Black Star shows the deputy pulling Cure over for speeding.

Source: Family of Exonerated Man Shot and Killed By Georgia Deputy Files ‘Intent to Sue’ For $16 Million

She found out that her home was being reduced to rubble after a neighbor called her to ask if she’d hired a team to destroy the house.

Sarah Hodgson said she told the neighbor she did no such a thing and was further informed that a company had come and “just demolished the whole house and tore it all down.” She was outraged.

“I am furious. I keep waking up thinking, ‘Is this all a joke or something?’ I’m just in shock,” Hodgson said in an interview with the Associated Press.

According to the woman, her neighbor confronted the “You Call It We Haul It” demolition team, and they “told her to shut up and mind her own business.”

Hodgson eventually contacted a person from her family to go and look at the property. The person spoke to the site supervisor, who checked the permit and admitted to tearing down the wrong house.

Instead of offering a resolution, he then ordered the work crew to pack up their gear and leave. However, by this time, Hodgson’s home was gone.

Hodgson did not live in the home but says while vacant, it was not abandoned.

“[The house has] been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean. The taxes are paid, and everything is up on it,” she explained.

Now she is considering pressing charges, asking, “How do people just go up and tear somebody’s property down and then just drive off?” adding, “I just wish he would come fix the problem that he caused.”

Source: ‘I Am Furious’: Woman Returns from Vacation to Find Bulldozed House After Demolition Company Tears Down Wrong Atlanta Home

There’s a reason so many of us refuse to entertain the “a few bad apples” narrative regarding aggressive and often brutal police officers who demonstrably become more aggressive on average when dealing with Black people. There’s a reason so many of us believe it’s America’s entire system of policing interrogated, investigated, and, possibly, dismantled and reformed anew.

Last Monday, Camden County Sheriff’s Deputy Buck Aldridge shot and killed 53-year-old Leonard Allan Cure, a man who had previously been exonerated after serving 16 years of a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. As we reported Thursday, police surveillance footage released by the Camden County Sheriff’s Office shows Cure, who was pulled over for speeding and driving recklessly, was met by an aggressive and apparently furious Aldridge, who began shouting at him to “GET OUT” of his car before the deputy was anywhere near it. The video shows that Cure complied until he found out he was being arrested for speeding, which he said in protest should only result in a ticket. After a couple of rounds with a police taser and a physical struggle between the two, Aldridge fatally shot Cure, who had not been reported as being armed at the time.

“The officer got out of the car extremely aggressive, yelling and screaming commands, and my brother complied,” said Cure’s brother, Michael Cure. “He did comply, so after watching the video, I do believe things could have been handled differently, but I also believe the officer got out being extremely aggressive.”

The system of policing will likely determine that Aldridge did nothing wrong. It won’t do much in the way of questioning why Aldridge did indeed feel the need to arrest Cure rather than issue him a citation, which would likely have carried a hefty fine considering how fast Cure was reportedly driving. The system of policing won’t empathize with Cure, who had suffered the trauma of a false arrest resulting in him losing more than a decade and a half of his life behind bars. It also isn’t likely it will spend significant time questioning why Aldridge—like so many police officers, most of whom are not held accountable for excessive force—chose to escalate things with a citizen who thought his arrest was unjust rather than deescalate things, which police training is supposed to teach.

Source: ‘Extremely Aggressive’ Georgia Cop Who Killed Leonard Cure Has History Of Excessive Force During Traffic Stop