First, the good news: Wake and Orange Counties are the first and second healthiest counties in North Carolina, respectively. The bad news? North Carolina, as a state, isn’t healthy at all. The County Health Rankings, an annual study from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, have been released, […]
Paul Blest
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Primary Offers a Glimpse of Voter Problems
On Tuesday, North Carolina saw its highest primary turnout in history, but that didn’t mean all N.C. voters had such an easy time exercising their right to vote. Democracy NC, a Durham-based voter rights organization, said that a voter hotline set up at the UNC School of Law fielded over 1,000 calls between early voting […]
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Two Years After Michael Kerr’s Death, Activists Say North Carolina’s Prisons Haven’t Changed Enough
Saturday marked the second anniversary of the death of Michael Anthony Kerr, a fifty-four-year-old schizophrenic man who died of dehydration while being transferred between North Carolina prisons. His death raised serious questions about the state prison system’s use of solitary confinement and its treatment of mentally ill prisoners. Kerr was put into solitary on February […]
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“Awesome” Turnout at Cameron Village: Election Day in Raleigh
Despite fears that confusion surrounding the state’s new voter ID law would reduce turnout and slow down lines, it appears that voting in at least two Raleigh precincts is going fairly smoothly. At around 1:30 p.m. at the Cameron Village Library, Chief Judge Barbara Abernathy said that around six hundred voters had cast their ballots. […]
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Four Shots on Bragg Street: Southeast Raleigh Grapples with the Death of Akiel Denkins
Raleigh Police Shootings 2008—Present Akiel Denkins was the seventh civilian shot by Raleigh police since 2008. Of the remaining six, five were African-American, while one was white. In addition, in May 2014, Sergeant J.D. Malzahn accidentally shot Officer K.J. Barefoot while attempting to take a suspect into custody. The six accounts below are taken from […]
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Bishop Darnell Dixon Sr.: “We Just Need to See Policemen Who Look Like Us”
In the aftermath of Akiel Denkins’s death in Southeast Raleigh Monday, Bishop Darnell Dixon Sr. of the Bible Way Temple has been at the forefront of the response from the community. On Wednesday morning, he sat down with the INDY to talk about the unfair perceptions of Southeast Raleigh, the aftermath of Akiel Denkins’s death, […]
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House Speaker Tim Moore Declares Himself Potty Protector
In a historic vote last week, Charlotte passed an ordinance that extended protections related to public accommodations to the LGBTQ community. Immediately, Speaker Tim Moore publicly mulled convening a special session to overrule the duly elected members of Charlotte’s city council, before Governor McCrory and Senate leader Phil Berger told Moore to cool his jetsthey’ll […]
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Southeast Raleigh Community Leaders Demand a “Thorough” and “Transparent” Investigation into Akiel Denkins’s Death
The day after twenty-four-year-old Akiel Denkins was shot and killed by Raleigh police officer D.C. Twiddy, community leaders met in Southeast Raleigh and called for a thorough investigation of Denkins’s death. Alongside the victim’s mother, Rolanda Byrd, North Carolina NAACP head Reverend Dr. William J. Barber spoke Tuesday morning about “historical tensions” that are pervasive […]
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Scenes from the Aftermath: How Akiel Denkins’s Death Played Out on Bragg Street—and on Social Media
On Monday night, a vigil was held for twenty-four-year-old Akiel Denkins and his family at the intersection of Bragg and Garner Streets in Southeast Raleigh. Denkins was shot and killed yesterday by Raleigh police officers. Police say he had a felony drug charge and a gun was found near the seen, but community members claim […]
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Southeast Raleigh Woman Claims a Police Officer Shot Her Son in the Back
In Southeast Raleigh today, a twenty-four-year-old African-American man named Akiel Denkins was shot and killed by a Raleigh police officer. Members of the community have said that Denkins was unarmed—though police say there was a weapon in his vicinity—and shot in the back seven times by a white officer. The shooting happened around noon today […]