Pulley Stepping Down as Hampton J-Dean

Judge Holds Back Videos of Chicago Officer's Fatal Shots

"A federal judge said Wednesday he would not order the release of videos that captured a Chicago police officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman as he fled from officers in the South Shore neighborhood in January 2013,"[accessible via search engine]Jason Meisner reported Wednesday for the Chicago Tribune.

"But in keeping the records sealed, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said the surveillance footage could be made public as soon as next month.

"'If it's likely going to come out through pretrial motions, then there really is no reason to wait,' Gettleman said.

"As Mayor Rahm Emanuel was speaking to the City Council about fixing the broken system of police accountability in the wake of the Laquan McDonald case, city attorneys went before Gettleman to oppose making the videos in Chatman's shooting public, arguing the case should not be tried in the media. . . ."

• Esther J. Cepeda, Washington Post Writers Group: Spike Lee's new film was a missed opportunity
  
  
• Leah Donnella, NPR "Code Switch": 'Chi-Raq' And A Hard Place: What Critics Are Saying About Spike Lee's New Movie
  
  
• Editorial, Chicago Sun-Times: Erasing history no way to reform police department 
  
  
• Editorial, Chicago Tribune: The Laquan McDonald case: Where were you in April, Chicago aldermen? [accessible via search engine]
  
  
• Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times: Mayor dodges the tough questions with conciliatory speech
  
  
• Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald: Muster outrage for the scourge within

Blacks Progress, but More Likely to Be Lower Income

"After more than four decades of serving as the nation's economic majority, the American middle class is now matched in number by those in the economic tiers above and below it," the Pew Research Center announced on Wednesday.

"In early 2015, 120.8 million adults were in middle-income households, compared with 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households combined, a demographic shift that could signal a tipping point, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. . . ."

Pew also said, "Some demographic groups have fared better than others in moving up the income tiers, while some groups have slipped down the ladder. The groups making notable progress include older Americans, married couples and blacks. Despite this progress, older Americans and blacks remain more likely to be lower income and less likely to be upper income than adults overall. Those Americans without a college degree stand out as experiencing a substantial loss in economic status. . . ."

Family Plans No Service for C. Gerald Fraser

The family of C. Gerald Fraser, the longtime New York Times reporter who died Tuesday at 90, plans no service for him.

"You may quote me concerning Gerald not wanting the family to have a funeral or a memorial for him," M. Phyllis Cunningham, his partner of many years, told Journal-isms by email on Wednesday. "He had told family members (the three children and I ) and we have agreed to respect his wishes.

"Once, when discussing the issue, he pointed out that Bob Teague," the late television and print reporter who died in 2013, "did not have a funeral nor a memorial and he did not want them either."

Meanwhile, Fraser's contemporaries challenged a statement in the New York Times obituary that "When Mr. Fraser joined the paper, he became one of only two black reporters on the staff at that time. The other, Thomas A. Johnson, had been hired a year earlier."

Earl Caldwell told Journal-isms that he joined the Times in March 1967, before Fraser arrived that fall.