permanent hiatus

here is the statement of brandon bernard’s legal team, who put it far better than i ever could. 

[ID: Attorney statement re: execution of Brandon Bernard.

“Tonight, those of us who love Brandon Bernard - and we are many - are full of righteous anger and deep sadness at the actions of the federal government in taking his life. Brandon’s live mattered. To us, his legal team, to his two beautiful and talented daughters, to his mother, brother, and sister, and to the countless people around the country who came to know him and his story in recent weeks.

Brandon made one terrible mistake at age 18. But he did not kill anyone, and he never stopped feeling shamed and profound remorse for his actions in the crime that took the lives of Todd and Stacie Bagley. And he spent the rest of his life sincerely trying to show, as he put it, that he “was not that person”. Brandon showed us that and so much more, carrying himself with grace and generosity, and always treating everyone around him with kindness and respect. He worked to help other troubled kids avoid similar devastating mistakes, and he lived every day his commitment to serving both God and humanity. 

Many things went wrong to put Brandon on death row, including egregious government misconduct in concealing evidence and misleading the jury, which the courts refused to remedy. Before Brandon’s execution, five of the jurors who sentenced him to death said they no longer stood by that verdict. They joined the lead appellate prosecutor on Brandon’s case in urging President Trump to commute his death sentence to life without parole. Those pleas for clemency were joined by hundreds of thousands of supporters, including celebrities, faith leaders, and members of the United States Congress.

Brandon’s execution is a stain on America’s criminal justice system. But I pray that even in his death, Brandon will advance his commitment to helping others by moving us closer to a time when this country does not pointlessly and maliciously kill young Black men who pose no threat to anyone, when we hold prosecutors to the highest standards of integrity in every case, and when our leaders exercise their moral authority where it is needed. 

We were proud to call Brandon our client and our friend, and we will miss him greatly.”

-Robert C. Owen, attorney for Brandon Bernard

December 10, 2020]

On December 10, 2020, Brandon Bernard is scheduled to be executed by the federal government for a crime he committed when he was 18 years old. He has spent 21 years on death row. Five out of the nine surviving jurors that found him guilty and one of his prosecutors no longer agree with his sentence. Please spread his story on social media, email President Trump, and call the Justice Department to ask them to commute his sentence to life without parole. Brandon Bernard’s crime is incompatible with his punishment and we cannot allow the federal government to follow through with this.

Please click the source link to be taken to his website, which details his life in prison and ways you can advocate for him. In the replies are a page with specific actions we can take to help his case and an Instagram post to share.

There is a lot of misinformation in the notes so I am adding a few things:

His exact participation in this crime/murder is this: he drove to the location of his friends at 7:30pm. He did not abduct anyone. Vialva, in a separate car, shot Todd Bagley dead and fatally shot Stacie Bagley, who was medically dead on impact. He then ordered Bernard and Brown to set the car on fire, which they did. Bernard did the actual lighting. The fire did not hurt either victim as both were incapable of brain activity at that point. (source) (source)

I am not defending his crime: it’s horrible. His legal team is not defending his actions, nor is he. The specific problem is that he has not earned the death penalty and his sentence should be commuted to life in prison without parole. Absolutely no one is calling for his release from jail. That is just much different from a death sentence.

I did not write all of this out because I figured that linking to his website was enough for people to go do their research. At the very least, people could google his name. I wanted people to look him up before reblogging the post and definitely before taking any action to help him. Next time I’ll write out an essay, but I am not hiding anything about him when I linked to his website in the post, I and others have linked articles, and google is free.

TW: POLICE BRUTALITY, SEXUAL ASSAULT, DEATH

jayaraj (60) and fenix emmanuel (31), a father-son duo were shopkeepers in the town of sattankulam in tamil nadu, india. they were arrested on june 19th because they had kept their shop open in the evening beyond the govt. imposed covid-19 curfew. they were verbally assaulted, beaten, sexually brutalized and later succumbed to their injuries. fenix died on june 22nd due to an internal hemorrhage and jayaraj was running a high fever and was bleeding when he passed away on june 23rd. the police officers responsible have a previous history of violence and sexual assault. the town has erupted into protests and shop keepers all over the state have gone on strike in solidarity with the victims. the police officers have only been suspended. here is an article that gives more details about what has happened. here is a twitter thread that details their brutalization (TW: extremely graphic details... do not read if you are sensitive to this).

how can you help?

sign this petition demanding that the 13 police officers (including the two who did most of the brutalizing) involved be fired, arrested and charged with murder and every human rights violation they have committed.

send an email to the tamil nadu state government and state human rights commission using this email template. it'll only take 5 minutes.

please please please sign the petition and send this email! their family continues to be terrorized by the local police department and the most the state govt. has done is suspended the police officers and promised the family a monetary compensation. they do not want this. they want justice. please reblog this!

The thing that pisses me off the most about this Florida school shooting is that this kid’s instagram IS LITERALLY HIM SHOWING OFF HIS BIG ASS GUNS.

AND NO ONE SAID ANYTHING. NO ONE REPORTED IT AND SHOWED ZERO CONCERN OR QUESTIONED LIKE “hey, it’s kind of odd that my former classmate is showing off his guns on social media, maybe I should tell his parents or alert the principal because he looks pretty pissed off”.

We are so unbelievably desensitized to guns and it’s horrible. I hate when a tragedy happens and it’s not until people fucking die when people give a shit about regulating guns (specifically gigantic fucking guns that aren’t fucking legal).

I hate that all policians say is “thoughts and prayers” how about you shut the fuck up and work on finding a solution? stop sitting there in your stupid ass leather chair at your fancy desk talking out of your tiny uptight ass about “prayers”, save your stupid speech, save it all and get the fuck down to whoever you need to talk to about fixing this shit.

If I ever have kids one day, I’m not about to send my kids to school if solutions aren’t going to be offered up. I’ll homeschool them, I don’t give a fuck.

I’m mad. I’m mad and I’m glad people are mad, STAY THE FUCK MAD. Hopefully this can light a fire under our asses to fix this fucking country.

Edit: yes I know about the report to the FBI but they didn’t do much so bye, next

no, his behavior on social media wasn’t “normal” he posted a picture of a bloody dead frog on his Instagram feed, that’s not just some kid showing off guns, that’s animal cruelty and who posts that kind of thing? first rule of psychopathy is killing animals, bye NEXT

a jewish kid was murdered by a nazi last week in california and almost none of the articles about it are mentioning that he was jewish or that his murderer was a nazi

he was taken into the woods by someone he thought was a friend and killed. hits pretty close to home bc multiple relatives of mine, including my great-great-grandfather, were taken into the woods by their own neighbors and killed during the holocaust

Jewish and openly gay. This article is the most frank about it that i’ve seen.