Jefferson Parish, LA sheriff Harry Lee is at it again. He stated earlier in the month that he would "stop, search and run background checks on young black males congregating in high-crime areas." (DC Examiner) Wow, doesnt that sound like racial profiling to you?

If you dont know who Mr. Lee is, let me bring you back to New Orleans, August 2005. If you recall, many people who were trapped at the Convention Center and the Superdome in NO were trying to cross the bridge to escape to Gretna....however, Mr. Lee's enforcement stopped them dead in their tracks with loaded guns. He didnt want his white flight suburbs to be infiltrated by the masses of en route blacks so he cut off the evacuees means of escape with armed officers. Yep, now do you remember him? No?

Okay, then for you hip hop heads out there, he was the sheriff that was pissed beyond pee when rapper, C-Murder, tried to release an album and a video which had some focus on the racial profiling that goes on in NO. Some of the album and the video was completed while C-Murder was in residence in Mr. Lee's jail cell. (full story) Okay, now your remember right ?

This guy, Lee, just has a penchant for causing agitation and dissension among the black population. Heres a background of his earlier atrocities targeting black people (AlterNet):

During the 1980s, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee famously ordered special scrutiny for any black people traveling in white sections of the parish. "It's obvious," Lee said, "that two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominantly white neighborhood ... They'll be stopped."

The New Orleans Gambit newsweekly reported that 1994, "after two black men died in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center within one week, Lee faced protests from the black community and responded by withdrawing his officers from a predominantly black neighborhood. 'To hell with them,' he'd said. 'I haven't heard one word of support from one black person.'"

The Gambit also reported in April of this year that in Jefferson Parish, officers were found to be using as target practice what critics referred to as "a blatantly racist caricature" of a black male. Sheriff Lee laughed when presented with the charges. "I'm looking at this thing that people say is offensive," he says. "I've looked at it, I don't find it offensive, and I have no interest in correcting it."

These accusations of "target practice" gained force a few weeks later with the May 31 killing of 16-year-old Antoine Colbert, who was behind the wheel of a stolen pickup truck with two other teens. One hundred-ten shots were fired into the truck, killing Colbert and injuring his passengers. In response to criticism from black ministers over the incident, Lee responded "They can kiss my ass."

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Labels: news, politics