"Greensboro police Officer Travis Cole acted illegally when he assaulted Dejuan Yourse on June 17 and then was complicit in having Yourse falsely charged with the crimes of assault on an officer and resisting arrest."
-Greensboro News & Record, September 26,2016, Lewis Pitts and Nelson Johnson: Ex-officer should face charges
Perhaps even more damming is the teaser to this article that was posted at Greensboro101,com:
Just in case you're having trouble with the small text on your tiny personal devices:
"GREENSBORO, NC — A deeper look reveals a culture of corruption and cover-up that is aided and enabled by the chief of police, the city manager, the city attorney, the District Attorney’s Office and an indifferent City Council. These are structural and institutional issues that must be addressed. ($$$ — fee may be required.)"
You see, it's not just about racism. Believe it or not there is a bigger issue than racism at play here.
Bigger than racism? You ask. But how could that be?
What is going on in Greensboro and most cities across the country is the thing that allows governments to get away with institutional racism, corruption, bribery, and corruption of every sort. Until this bigger problem is addressed here in Greensboro there is no hope in solving racism or any of the other issues that plagues our Democracy today.
I named this series, Adding To Roch's Pile, because public records advocate Roch Smith jr has compiled mounds of evidence that proves as Roch wrote, "A deeper look reveals a culture of corruption and cover-up that is aided and enabled by the chief of police, the city manager, the city attorney, the District Attorney’s Office and an indifferent City Council." and now we here at EzGreensboro.com along with the Greensboro News & Record and Yes Weekly have all joined Roch in his pursuit of open and honest governance.
It doesn't matter where you stand on any issue, you cannot know the truth until all the records have been made public.
And when governments take authoritarian positions on public records they invite incidents like the rioting and looting that took place in Charlotte last week.
I mean, face it folks, without condoning the rioting and looting, one must admit that happy, sober people don't destroy their own neighborhoods. Rioting and looting are cause by systemic problems and if the problem isn't government then what is it?
Well the problem could be a lot of things and I'm sure my critics have lots of suggestions but the only way to prove anyone right is to eliminate the variables. And the first variable we should eliminate is the failure of governments to make public records public.
The City of Greensboro staff posts dozens of press releases and stories online every day, they can't post public records to the Internet as well?
Not even if it saves the taxpayers thousands of dollars per month:
"UNC’s public records website states that the approximate cost to the University was $7,930 for each media request that was filed.And we are currently paying for an open records website our City Council has decided not to use? What's up with that?
And why will not one single member of the Greensboro City Council speak publicly about this problem?
Greensboro, we have a problem. And you, dear readers, need to be up in arms about it before the riots and looting comes here.
If you haven't read the rest of this series, Adding To Roch's Pile, I highly recommend you do so. Please continue reading Adding To Roch's Pile: Part 14.
