COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Four men acquainted with a gunman who killed two people in Copenhagen were acquitted of abetting terrorism Tuesday. Two of them, however, were convicted of illegal arms possession.
Copenhagen's City Court cleared Bhostan Khan Hossein, 26; Liban Ahmed Saleban Elmi, 20; Ibrahim Khalil Abbas, 23; and Mahmoud Rabea, 31, of abetting Omar El-Hussein in the attacks last year.
BOSTON — With relations between police and America's black communities dominating headlines and becoming a focal point in this year's presidential election, the state's highest court has weighed in, holding that running from the cops does necessarily justify pursuit when the runner is black.
In a unanimous opinion issued Sept. 20, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that racial profiling by the Boston Police Department "suggests a reason for flight totally unrelated to consciousness of guilt." The opinion, authored for the Court by Justice Geraldine S. Hines reasons that because black males are disproportionately "targeted" by police, "such an individual, when approached by the police, might just as easily be motivated by the desire to avoid the recurring indignity of being racially profiled as by the desire to hide criminal activity."
