National Black United Front National Chairperson Kofi Taharka was arrested May 18th, 2012 for shutting down the office of the Harris County District Attorney Pat Lycos.
NBUF organized a protest as a result of the not guilty verdict by an ALL WHITE jury in the case of Andrew Blomberg, a Houston Police officer that was caught on video tape beating a 15 year old Black male named Chad Holley during a daylight arrest on March 2010.
The graphic video of police officers savagely beating Holley sparked outrage within the Black community.
Houston Rep. Al Green has renewed his request that the U.S. Justice Department investigate the case. His new request (Green submitted his first letter to the Department of Justice in February of 2011) — and a visit by the Democratic congressman to Justice Department offices — came in the wake of a “not guilty” verdict in the case of one of the policemen, Andrew Blomberg.
“Chad Holley and his family deserve a fair and just federal civil rights investigation,” Green said. “The Houston Police Department deserves a fair and just federal civil rights investigation. We must not allow the actions of some officers to become the image of the entire department.”
Blomberg has since lost his job at the Houston Police Department. Three other officers also have been charged and are awaiting trial.
Community activists who were gathered in the hallway outside the courtroom yelled “Racism!” and “Injustice!” after hearing the outcome.
“It is pathetic. It is unacceptable,” the Rev. James Dixon of the Community of Faith Church said of the jury’s decision. “This kind of expression says to me, to my children and to every black child in the city, ‘Your life is not worth manure.’”
Quanell X, the community activist who had released the video of the alleged beating to the media, called the verdict “wrong” and criticized the lack of blacks or other minorities on the six-person jury.
“They knew what they were doing with an all-white jury,” he said.
