POET HERO: EMMA LAZARUS

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
New York City, 1883
[more]

Yousuf Mollah, mentally ill, killed by LAPD

On July 27 in Los Angeles, police responded to a complaint that Yousuf Mollah, a Bangladeshi with a long history of serious mental problems was exposing himself in the street outside his apartment.

Police arrived at his house at 6:30. They said Yousuf came to the door with a large knife and officer Alma Andrade ordered him to drop it. He didn't and instead lunged at her. She shot him once in the abdomen. That is the police account. Eyewitnesses said he didn't have a knife.

He crawled back into his apartment. The police waited 3 hours to call a SWAT team. Yousef's brother was there by 8 pm. They told him nothing about what was happening. One would think the police might ask the brother to help negotiate to get Yousuf out, but no, they never asked. Also, no medical help was ever called.

At 9:30 pm the SWAT team fired tear gas into the apartment, and at 10 pm they stormed in and found Yousuf had bled to death.

Yousuf, as mentioned, had serious mental problems. His family had tried at least 30 times to get him help. Under California law, you can be held for 72 hours to assess your mental health. He had been held many such times, but no facility could ever be found to house him. There's been so many budget cutbacks that many of these facilities have been forced to close.
[...]

Kripa also said that -- thanks to post 9/11 hysteria -- 13,000 immigrants are currently in custody and waiting to be deported back to their homelands. Many of them are "guilty" of technical offenses like not registering a change of address in time - hardly a sign they could be terrorists. And more than a few have fled to Canada to avoid being rounded up in the US and deported.

That's right, people are now fleeing the U.S. to avoid persecution -- unjust heavy-handed persecution that targets them because they are Muslim or because of their country of origin.

And Yousuf Mollah bled to death alone in his apartment.
[more]