This past September many America citizens were hit back-to-back with the realization that Black boys and men are “moving targets” for some police officers in America. In Columbus a thirteen-year old was shot and killed. Why? According to the Columbus Police Department (CPD) he pulled a gun on them during a chase. The “gun” turned out to be a toy gun. King is the third young Black man killed by the CPD this past year in Columbus. The police-officer appears to have fallen under the misbelief that the teenage boy, who happens to be Black, wanted to harm him, and thus his lawyers defense that the white man who is a trained police officer was “in fear for his life.” And now Tyre King’s mother buries her son and cries “no peace until justice.”

On the tragic evening of September 14, 2016, Tyre King, aged 13, was shot and killed by Columbus Police Department (CPD) officer Bryan Mason. Around the city, people are mourning the death of this child. The scars are still new, and will never fade.

We mourn for Tyre and his family, and hope they can find some solace in the vigils and protests that have started to emerge around this atrocity.

While Tyre's story is unique and individual, the violence against him is also part of a larger pattern. So far this year, at the time of this writing, the police have killed 788 people (and counting), and a disproportionate number of them--almost 25 percent--were African American.

In terms of police killings that have received a great deal of media attention, Ohio stands out, with the deaths of Tyre King; Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old killed by police in November 2014, while he was holding a BB gun in a Cleveland public park; and John Crawford III, a 22 year old who police shot in August 2014, while he was in the aisle of a Walmart store near Dayton holding an air gun he was considering buying.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted may have stepped out of bounds by keeping “community bill of rights” proposals off the ballot in Ohio. Residents of Medina, Athens and Fulton counties gathered required signatures to place proposed county charters on their respective ballots in 2015. Medina County Board of Elections (BOE) disallowed their residents’ proposal, and all of the proposed charters were kept off the ballots by Husted.

Husted interjected his interpretation of what “should” go on the ballot, as citizens came forth and asserted their constitutional right to create local laws when our higher-level government is not working for us. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld Husted’s decision. The primary legislative issue is that the 2004 ‘Niehaus Bill’ (HB 278) gave Ohio state regulators full control of oil/gas production, usurping home rule from communities.

Three-C Body Shops is a lot like The Columbus Free Press. Both are fiercely independent and locally owned. And if you haven’t noticed, both are outspoken and unafraid to take on corporate bullies. Three-C and the Free Press are driven to help consumers understand how the corporatization and the consolidation of their respected industries is marginalizing not only them, but also their community.   

Three-C owner Bob Juniper, the second-generation patriarch of the company, says the collision repair industry is under attack and being devoured. Four to five companies, he says, are making a serious attempt to monopolize the industry he’s worked for since he was a teenager. One of these companies is Service King Collision Repair, which is majority owned by the Carlyle Group.

I am writing to inform you of an amazing Filed Memo Opposing Edison Research Motion to Dismiss.PDF available to you to possibly effect a major change in our system of reporting vote counts in the United States. For years, as we have reported to you. Edison Media Research has refused to release the raw data they gather during their exit polls. Raw data from exit polls is adjusted to fit the vote totals that come in from our vote tabulators across the country. The Media Consortium which hires Edison Media Research (EMR) uses the vote totals coming in from the tabulators as the real vote count. Normally, in other countries, exit poll data is supposed to show you what the real vote totals are. If the exit polls differ significantly from the computerized vote totals, the winning politician may be winning from electronic vote manipulation as opposed to the vote of the people.