Democracy Now #8

Nadia Leon

Soc122 Mon/Wed 3:30- 4:45

Democracy Now #8

April 7, 2014: On today’s episode of Democracy now one of the stories that was discussed was one that took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This story involved the mayor requesting federal monitoring of the local police force. This was due to the reports of fatal shootings within the city. The mayor wants the force to be monitored in order to decrease these shootings. One of the shootings that caught a lot of attention was the shooting of James Boyd. Boyd was a homeless man that was shot and killed on scene by police, this shooting got a lot of attention because on scene Boyd seemed to be surrendering. Due to this shooting the mayor felt the need to request the local police force to be monitored in order to prevent future incidents such as this. The mayor also stated that those on the police force will receive better training on how to deal with individuals with mental illnesses.  Those who had mental illnesses were the majority of the victims of the shootings. Another story that was covered in this episode was one that discussed how a newspaper in Ohio filed a lawsuit due to two journalists being unlawfully restrained. The two journalists where taking photos of General Dynamics tank plant when their equipment was confiscated by military police. There photos were all deleted, even some that were unrelated to the plant. The two journalists were kept for longer than an hour and this was viewed as them being unlawfully restrained, they were also threatened while being contained. One of the last stories that was covered was the story of Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras. They both received the Ridenhour prize. This prize is given to those who tell the truth, the reward is named after Ronald Ridenhour. He helped expose the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Both Snowden and Poitras were honored for exposing the truth bravely.