Keiosha Felix was only 15 years old when she vanished from Duson, Louisiana on April 30, 2012. She was not just a missing teen. She was also a young mother. Her life matters, especially for her child, because any attempt to casually suggest that Keiosha simply “left” collapses under the weight of one brutal fact. She left behind her little girl. The FBI and other public case summaries still list her as missing, and nearly fourteen years later, there has still been no justice, no closure, and no honest accounting for how badly this case was handled.

From the beginning, this case carried the stench of failure. Public records shows that several people tied to Keiosha’s disappearance were arrested in 2012, including her aunt Patricia Andrus, her cousin Portia Felix, and Leon Wilkerson Jr., the boyfriend of Keiosha’s aunt. Public case summaries also state that Keiosha had allegedly accused Wilkerson of sexually assaulting her before she disappeared. there also were rumors that Wilkerson may have fathered Keiosha’s child. Those are not small details. They’re flashing red lights that should have sent state case workers into action, if only to insure the protection of a teen mother under state custody.

The weekend before she vanished, Keiosha got a weekend pass to visit her paternal aunt Patricia Andrus. She was last seen leaving Patricia’s Duson, Louisiana home. She has never been seen or heard from again. Keiosha was initially classified as a runaway just as most cases involving missing Black kids are. She had run away once in the past, but she was back after two days. Additionally, Patricia’s daughter (Keiosha’s cousin) Portia Felix claimed to have heard from Keiosha after April 30th, and that Keiosha allegedly said she was “just fine”.  Yet, despite arrests, headlines, and all the noise that surrounded this case, Keiosha was never found.

However, many relatives on Keiosha’s mother’s side have stated that Keiosha would not leave her one-year-old daughter behind. Keiosha was also a frequent social media user, yet she had not accessed any of her social media accounts since the day she was last seen.That information makes the case even more alarming and creates suspicion whether something happened to the teen. There should also be public outrage, not because it was another missing Black teen, but because the manner in which the teen’s case was fumbled by the authorities.

It all of three months, before Keiosha was reclassified as an endangered missing person. Throughout the investigation, the Duson Police Department learned more information about Keiosha’s relationship with her aunt Patricia and Patricia’s boyfriend, Leon Wilkerson Jr. It was discovered that prior to her disappearance, Keiosha had allegedly told her aunt Patricia that Leon had sexually assaulted her. Patricia never reported this to the authorities, nor did she tell investigators about it after Keiosha went missing. That alone should disturb anybody paying attention to this child’s case.

In July of the same year, Leon was arrested and charged with rape and second-degree kidnapping in connection with Keiosha’s disappearance. Patricia was arrested and charged with improper supervision of a minor and accessory to rape. Keiosha’s cousin Portia, who told investigators that she heard from Keiosha after her disappearance, was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice. Also,  in August 2012, Leon’s brother Ronald Wilkerson was also arrested and charged with kidnapping in connection with Keiosha’s case. It seemed that investigators were closer to getting their answers about what happened to Keiosha. Then, the following month, the investigation took an unexpected turn. This is where the focus from finding out what happened to a missing teen mother, shifted the following month, and the investigation took an unexpected turn

At that time, the Duson Police Department was handling the case, and the police chief was Frank Andrew. Lt. Gerald Credeur, who was then the assistant chief, was the lead investigator, but instead of this case moving toward truth, it spiraled into controversy. Credeur was suspiciously removed from the investigation, suspended, and later fired. Public records says he was accused of unlawful arrests, illegal searches and seizures, and false testimony. After that, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office took over the case.

The Board of Alderman determined that Credeur did, in fact, make the searches and the arrests without probable cause and he was fired the following month. The charges against Leon and Ronald Wilkerson were dropped. The charges were eventually dropped against Andrus and Felix also. This leaves so many unanswered questions related to this missing teen case. Did Lt. Credeur botch the case on his own? What did Credeur falsely testify about? What basis were the Wilkerson brothers arrest on? Were the rape allegations true? Did Patricia Andrus actually tell investigators that Keiosha told her about the alleged rape? Way too many unanswered questions, and it appears that the public has heard more about Credeur’s firing than the progress of the teen’s case.

When a missing child investigation turns into a mess of arrests, internal discipline, firings, and a transfer of control to another agency, that is not justice working smoothly. It’s a warning sign that something went terribly wrong. There have long been rumors that Chief Frank Andrew may have had some relationship or connection to people initially arrested in the case. But based on the publicly available reporting I could verify, I did not find confirmed evidence establishing that Frank Andrew was related to those suspects. That point should be stated plainly and clearly. But,the rumor exists, it remains unverified in the sources I reviewed. What is verified is that the investigation became compromised, the lead investigator was fired, the case changed hands, and Keiosha Felix is still missing.

Whether the rot in this case came from incompetence, internal politics, bad police work, or something even darker, the result has been the same. A missing Black teenage mother has gone almost fourteen years without answers. That’s not just tragic. It’s disgraceful.

What makes this case feel even more troubling is what happened in August 2025. I personally made contact with former lead investigator Gerald Credeur. In our messages, he agreed to a telephone interview and even discussed timing, saying he would be willing to talk. But when the scheduled time came, it passed without a word from him. No call. No explanation. No follow-up. That silence does not prove wrongdoing, and I will not pretend it does. But in a case already soaked in unanswered questions, his failure to follow through only adds another layer of unease. It leaves the public to wonder: is it simple avoidance, or is there still fear about what might be said. or what might happen if people start talking too freely? That is food for thought.

Keiosha Felix was not some disposable child whose life should be buried beneath departmental drama, legal technicalities, and whispered rumors. She was a young girl. She was a mother. She was someone whose life mattered, and the system that should have protected her instead delivered confusion, contradiction, and collapse.Fourteen years later, the central truth remains unchanged, Keiosha Felix did not fail the system. The system failed Keiosha. Until the full truth comes out, the stain of that failure belongs not to the missing child, but to every institution and every adult who let this case drift into darkness. I remain committed to finding out what happened to Keiosha and will speak with anyone regarding her disappearance. there is something seriously rotten in the Louisiana justice system.

I’m Journalist and Blogger David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

It was exactly 58 years ago today. I was only 2 years old, in my mother’s arms as she held me near the third-floor window of her apartment in the 2200 block of Brookfield Avenue in West Baltimore. Mom and Dad were only 22-years-old. Outside, the city was in chaos. I remember people coming down our block carrying items they had looted from the business district up on Whitelock Avenue at the top of our street. I remember National Guardsmen walking down the middle of the block with rifles pointed in the air while clearing the street. I remember fires burning across the city. I remember fear. I remember unrest. I remember a country coming apart in real time at just 2-years-old.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated on April 4, 1968, and by April 8, the pain, rage, and hopelessness in Black communities had spilled into the streets. That era was not ancient history. It was in my generation. Too many people speak about the Civil Rights era as if it belongs to some long-dead America, as if racism was buried with the past, as if the hatred, exclusion, police abuse, economic deprivation, and racial contempt that fueled those uprisings somehow disappeared. It has not. We are not far removed from that America at all. In truth, many of its foundations and social ideologies are still standing.

What some white Americans still refuse to understand is that riots and looting do not happen in a vacuum. They are not born simply from “bad behavior,” moral failure, or some manufactured idea that Black people are naturally disorderly. That kind of thinking is itself rooted in racism. What happened in cities like Baltimore after Dr. King’s murder was the explosion of generations of injustice, neglect, humiliation, and pain.

When people are locked out of power, denied dignity, brutalized by the systems sworn to protect them, and then told to remain peaceful while their lives are treated as disposable, eventually something breaks. Yet, even today, some still talk about the rioting and looting of 1968 with more outrage than they ever speak about the racism that gave birth to it. That’s the hypocrisy.

They condemn the response, but remain silent about the conditions. They criticize broken windows, but not broken humanity. They mourn property, but rarely mourn the decades of racial terror, segregation, disinvestment, and systemic abuse that made those streets a powder keg in the first place. That’s why America still struggles with race now. Too many people want the comfort of reconciliation without the truth of accountability. Too many want racial peace without racial justice. Too many want to lecture Black communities about behavior, while refusing to confront the historical and present-day forces that have poisoned relationships between the races for generations.

If we truly want to live better together, then honesty has to come first. We must tell the truth about what racism has done to this country. We must tell the truth about why cities burned. We must tell the truth about how white supremacy shaped housing, schools, policing, employment, and opportunity. We must tell the truth that racial wounds do not heal just because time has passed.

Living better together requires more than slogans. It requires empathy. It requires humility. It requires that people stop asking only, “Why were they rioting?” and start asking, “What kind of nation creates the conditions where despair and rage become that deep?” That is the real question we should be asking.

My memory of Baltimore in flames is not just a memory of destruction. It is a memory of unresolved pain in America. And 58 years later, this country still has not fully dealt with the sickness that put those flames in the streets.

We are not far removed from that racism. We are still wrestling with it. Still suffering from it. Still being divided by it. Until this nation develops the courage to understand the why behind the anger, not just condemn the anger itself, we will keep repeating the same cycles under different names.

Dr. King is gone. The smoke from 1968 has long cleared. But the moral failure that helped ignite it still lingers, and that should disturb every one of us.

Relisha Rudd should be 20 years old today. She should be living her life, chasing her future, laughing, growing, and becoming the young woman she was never given the chance to be. Instead, more than 12 years after she vanished from a community shelter in Washington, D.C., Relisha is still missing, her case is still unsolved, and this country still has no answers for what happened to an 8-year-old Black child who disappeared in plain sight.

Relisha was last seen on March 1, 2014. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children still lists her as missing, and the FBI still offers a $25,000 dollar reward for information leading to her location and return. That alone says everything that needs to be said. The years have simply passed, the headlines have faded, but Relisha has still not been found. This should trouble every adult with children.

There is something especially cruel about the passage of time in cases like this. Every birthday becomes another open wound. Every year that goes by is another reminder that a vulnerable child vanished, and the system that should have protected her couldn’t. Relisha’s name should have never become a symbol of neglect, indifference, and institutional failure, but that’s exactly what happened. Her disappearance exposed a devastating truth, that some children are failed long before they are ever reported missing.

Let’s tell the truth plainly. If this had been a child of a different ethnicity, from a different background, this case would have drawn outrage on a national level. Relisha Rudd was a little Black girl, and like far too many missing Black children, her pain never received the sustained national urgency it deserved. Her life mattered. Her disappearance matters, and the fact that she remains missing in 2026 (12 years later) is a moral indictment of a society that too often looks away when Black children vanish.

Today, Relisha would be 20. That fact is as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. Because behind that number is the life she never got to live. She is a child who was supposed to be protected. Behind that number is a family still waiting, still hurting, still carrying the unbearable weight of not knowing what happened to her.

The sad reality is not just that Relisha Rudd disappeared. It’s that she still has not been found after all these years, after all the public promises, and until she is found. This case remains an open wound, not just for her family, but for every person who still believes missing children deserve more than candlelight memorials, faded posters, and empty words. Relisha Rudd would be 20 now, and America still owes that little girl answers.

The Suspicious Adults Around Her Still Cast a Dark Shadow

This case has always carried a deeply disturbing cloud over it, because the circumstances around the adults in Relisha’s life were troubling from the beginning. Authorities say Relisha was last seen with Kahlil Tatum, a 51-year-old shelter janitor who had become close to her family while they were living at the D.C. General shelter. He was not some random stranger who crossed her path for a moment. He was someone who had access, familiarity, trust, and that makes this case even more chilling.

The suspiciousness surrounding the situation only deepens from there. NBC Washington reported that Relisha’s mother had allowed Tatum to take her, and police said Tatum even posed as a doctor to explain Relisha’s absence from school. On top of that, no one, not family, not shelter staff, nor school officials reported Relisha missing until March 19, even though she had already been out of school for weeks. Those are not small details. They are the kinds of facts that leave the public asking hard, painful questions about who knew what, who ignored what, and how a vulnerable little girl was allowed to slip so far out of sight.

Then there is Tatum himself, the so-called family friend at the center of this nightmare. The FBI says authorities believed Relisha was with him before he was later found dead. Investigators also searched intensely after video showed Relisha with him at a D.C. motel, and reporting from local news outlets said that investigators believe he killed her before taking his own life, even though her body has never been recovered. That is a brutal, unfinished horror of this case. The man at the center of suspicion is dead, but Relisha is still missing, and the truth was buried with too many unanswered questions.

This is why Relisha Rudd’s case still stings so deeply. It is not only the tragedy of a missing child. It is the tragedy of a child surrounded by adults, systems, and circumstances that all raised red flags and yet she still vanished. The suspicious behavior, the delayed reporting, the false explanations and the easy access this older man had to her life! All of it paints a picture that is as enraging as it is heartbreaking.

Relisha would be 20 now. She should be somewhere living, growing, becoming. Instead, she is still missing, still waiting to be found, and still waiting for the full truth to come to light. That’s the sad reality and until she is brought home, this case remains an indictment of every person and every system that failed to protect her.

I’m Journalist And Blogger David B. Adams\

The People’s Champion Blog

When Iran nationalized its oil in 1953, it committed the unforgivable sin of telling Western powers that its wealth belonged to its own people. That was never going to be tolerated by colonizers lusting to conquer Mideastern wealth. So in 1953, the United States and Great Britain helped crush Iran’s leadership within it’s sovereign and democratic nation, removed Mohammad Mossadegh (who was democratically elected) from power, jailed him, and propped up the Shah of Iran, a ruler many saw as an American puppet placed in Iran to protect foreign interests, not Iranian freedom.

For years, Iran lived under that arrangement, with its resources and future tied to the demands of outside powers. Then in 1979, the pressure finally exploded. The Iranian people revolted and Revolution came, the Shah fell, and 66 American hostages were initially taken (14 of those hostages were African-American and were released by the Iranians). But that hostage crisis did not come out of nowhere. it didn’t start at the front gate of the U.S. Embassy. It came out of years of foreign interference, control, and the bitterness that grows when a nation and it’s indigenous people are denied the right to truly govern themselves.

This is the part that Western Media and powerful Zionist has never wanted said too loudly. Instead, our Zionist controlled media has always painted the Iranians, those of Mideastern ethnicity, and just about any foreign civilization resisting and refusing to bow to Western Imperialism, as terrorist or fanatical. It’s not difficult to see how America’s enemies are always other countries with vast resources imperative to Western interest. They are always the bad guys while America never paints herself as the bully.

More importantly. the struggle over Iran has never just been about diplomacy, peace, or security. It has always been about oil, power, and who gets to control both (the old Imperial playbook mirroring the colonization of other mineral and natural resource enriched nations). The rich and the Western elite have been chasing the control over Iranian resources ever since Iran tried to take its own wealth back. What we are seeing today is not some new conflict. It is the continuation of an old one, rooted in greed, impirialism, and the refusal to let Iran stand fully on its own.

Let the record be told clearly, plainly, and pray that the lives of young serviceman won’t fall as ponds in a war rooted in the pursuit of wealth by the Western Imperialist.

I’m Journalist David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States, yet far too many children can go missing here without the kind of nonstop national alarm their disappearances should trigger. For Black children especially, the silence often feels even louder. Their faces do not always dominate the news cycle. Their names do not always trend. Their families do not always get the public urgency they deserve. But the Metropolitan Police Department’s own missing persons page makes one thing painfully clear: this crisis is not imagined. It is real, it is present, and it has names.

As of March 30, 2026, the juvenile names listed on the Metropolitan Police Department’s “Currently Missing” page include Kimora White, 13; Joshua Quigley, 15; Malaysia Allen, 12; ARi Talley, 17; Khalil Hall, 16; Laynya Fitzhugh, 16; Jamiyah Davis, 14; Yaniza Almendarez-Zecena, 15; Paige Doye, 15; Janelle Thomas, 17; Zori Johnson, 12; Micah Carrington, 17; Amari Wilson, 16; Delayja Stewart, 14; Kyon Jones, 2 months; and Relisha T. Rudd, 8. MPD’s page also shows when they were reported missing, with several posted in March 2026 alone. D.C. Metropolitan Police Missing

Read those names slowly.

Kimora White. Malaysia Allen. Khalil Hall. Laynya Fitzhugh. Jamiyah Davis. Zori Johnson. Micah Carrington. Amari Wilson. Delayja Stewart. Relisha Rudd.

These are not talking points. These are not passing blurbs for people to scroll past. These are someone’s children. And every single name should be forcing a larger public reckoning about how this country responds when young people, especially Black children, go missing.

What’s troubling is how easy it is for the public to become numb. A police webpage updates. A new flier appears. Another child’s name is added. Then the day moves on as though this is normal. But there is nothing normal about a city carrying this many missing juvenile cases on a public law-enforcement page. There is nothing normal about that at all.

To be clear, MPD says the page is updated daily and that information changes in real time as missing people are reported and found. The department also notes that fliers are removed when a missing person is located. That matters. Accuracy matters. But even with that reality, the larger question still stands. Why does it take so little to make these children disappear from public conversation, even when they have not yet returned home? That’s where the real indictment should begin.

America has a long and ugly habit of deciding which missing children deserve saturation coverage and which ones get a fraction of that concern. Some children become household names. Others remain trapped on police websites, known mainly to grieving families, local advocates, and whoever happens to stumble across their photo online. That disparity is not accidental. It reflects whose innocence is centered, whose pain is amplified, and whose disappearances are treated like emergencies rather than routine entries in a database.

The name Relisha T. Rudd should still haunt this city. MPD’s page lists her as missing since March 1, 2014. That’s over 12 years. Her case should have permanently changed the way Washington responds to missing children. It should have created a culture of sustained vigilance. Instead, too often the lesson seems to have been forgotten, while more names continue to appear.

That is why these names must be said. That is why these children must be seen. Naming the missing is one way of resisting the silence that too often swallows them. Every flier represents a family living in fear. Every date on that page marks another day of uncertainty, another day without answers, another day a child remains out of sight and, too often, out of the public mind.

Washington, D.C. should not be comfortable with this. The nation should not be comfortable with this. The media should not be comfortable with this. The public should not be comfortable with this. These children deserve more than a webpage. They deserve headlines. They deserve urgency. They deserve organized public attention. And above all, they deserve to be found.

Young, Black, and missing in America should never be a normal condition. In Washington, D.C., it is a moral emergency.

I’m Journalist David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

Some family secrets do not stay buried because they are harmless. They stay buried because the truth is too disruptive to the story people have chosen to live with. I can’t image what was so horrible that our mother couldn’t tell us or face such truth in her life time. The sad reality is that we now may never know, but this is what we do know.

About fourteen years ago, a cousin appeared in our lives out of nowhere through social media. At first, it seemed like one of those unexpected family connections that time and distance had simply delayed. She and her mother shared photographs with me, and from the beginning they believed that my mother was her mother’s biological sister. As I looked through those images, I was stunned. The pictures of her mother’s mother were so strikingly familiar that I thought I was looking at photographs of my own mother. But I wasn’t.

That woman was supposed to be my Aunt Jean (a woman I had heard about, but never met). You see Jean was the younger sister of a woman name Dorothy, who we were taught was our mother’s biological mother (despite the fact mom and Dorothy had no physical resemblamce whatsoever). And as it turned out, Jean was not just some distant relative floating around in family lore. Jean was my mother’s biological mother, not Dorothy. Let that settle in for a moment. For nearly 70 years, the truth had been buried beneath silence, omission, deflection, and what now feels like a coordinated effort to keep a family secret alive at all costs, and those we we had grown to love and trust, were the very people perpetrating this fraud.

What makes this story even more haunting is that the signs were there before this cousin ever appeared. About three years earlier, I had found my mother’s birth record. That record raised questions I could not shake, it sparked debate and an ugly fued between siblings, because the woman we had always been taught was our biological grandmother was not listed on the birth document. Jean’s name was listed as her mother. From that day forward, a quiet suspicion began to grow in me, and I wondered had my mother been adopted, hidden, or passed off under a false family narrative?

Now years after finding her birth record, my suspicion was no longer a theory. It had a face. It had names. It had bloodlines. It had photographs. It had witnesses. More importantly, it had lie and deceit written all over it. Yet, instead of truth, all we keep getting from the older generation is the same tired response, lies, evasion, or some version of “it’s best to leave the past in the past.” No. It is not best, at least in my mind.

That phrase has been used for generations to protect the comfort of adults in our family at the expense of the emotional well-being of their children and grandchildren. “Leave it in the past” usually means protect the lie, preserve appearances, and ignore the wreckage the secret has caused in the lives of everyone forced to live in such confusion.

Whether people are willing to acknowledge it or not, secrets like this do cause damage. They damage identities.They damage trust we learn to develop. They damage a person’s sense of belonging and they damage how people understand themselves, where they come from, and who they are connected to. When a family hides the truth about a mother’s origins for nearly seven decades, that is not some small private matter. It’s like the theft of history. It’s the manipulation of lineage and the denial of a person’s right to know their own blood, their own story, their own inheritance of truth.

However, what is perhaps most painful is not just that the secret was kept, but that even now, when the evidence has surfaced, so many still choose dishonesty over healing. They refuse to set my siblings and I free. Everyone involved in the actions that may have caused the birth of such deception are now gone. What is left to protect? The choice tp continuously deny us the truth says something.

It says that some people within our own family have become so invested in a lie that they begin to treat truth as a real threat. It says that preserving an old family myth matters more to them than the emotional injury caused by decades of deception. It also says that accountability is unwelcome, even when silence has clearly done more harm than honesty ever could. What exactly were they protecting? Reputation? Shame? Scandal? The sensibilities of dead people? Whatever the reason, one truth remains. When adults bury the truth, the children inherit the confusion for generations.

The kind of confusion I am talking about is not abstract. It lives in the questions that never got answered. The lives in the relationships that were never formed. The years stolen from people who could have known one another honestly. It lives in the emotional disorientation of discovering that parts of your family tree were deliberately hidden from you. You can’t imagine the anger that comes when you realize that what you were taught as fact your entire life, may have simply been fiction all along.

There is also a level of cruelty in being told, after we have made such a discovery, that the truth no longer matters, we should leave well enough alone, because too much time has passed. Time does not erase harm. Silence does not sanctify deception, and age does not excuse betrayal. If anything, the length of time makes the betrayal heavier. Nearly 70 years?

Seventy years of a hidden maternal truth. Seventy years of people knowing, or suspecting, and refusing to speak plainly. Seventy years of allowing future generations to build their identity on an incomplete or false foundation. Did they think they were protecting someone or something from harm? That is not protection. That is generational damage that we have all suffered and continue to bleed into later generations.

Families often talk about legacy as if it is only about good names, old photographs, family reunions, and sentimental stories. But legacy is also about truth. Legacy is honesty. Legacy is whether you leave your children clarity or confusion. Whether you pass down courage or cowardice. Whether you hand them roots, or force them to dig through lies just to find the soil they came from.

What happened here is not just a family matter. It is a lesson in what silence can do. It’s proof that secrets do not disappear. They wait. They surface. They echo and when they do, they do not just expose the original lie. They also expose every person in the family who helped keep it alive. I do not accept that the truth should be buried simply because it is old. I do not accept that bloodlines should be hidden for the sake of convenience of others or their dignity. Nor do I accept that descendants should be denied answers because previous generations found deception easier than honesty.

I certainly do not accept the idea that asking questions is somehow more offensive than the lies that were told themselves. If the older generation wants to “leave it in the past,” that is their choice. But some of us are trying to reclaim what was taken from us. We deserve to know the truth, our true identity, and the right to know our own family story without filters, omissions, and manufactured myths.

A nearly 70-year-old secret is not just old news. It’s old damage. Sadly, the people still protecting it need to understand that silence may have preserved their comfort, or that of other relatives, but it has come at the cost of some within this generation’s peace.

I’m Journalist and Blogger David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

From the desk of:

There is a dark truth at the heart of Western society. White fear has long been weaponized, and Blackness has long been treated as inherently suspicious. From that poisonous pairing came a culture where white lies are too often believed without question, while Black lives are too often placed on trial before any facts are known.

This has never been just about individual dishonesty. Its about power. Its about a society conditioned to see white accusation as credible and mere Black existence as threatening. In this system, truth does not have to be proven. A claim, a tear, a finger pointed in fear is often enough to destroy a life.

Too many Black men have been falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, brutalized, and lynched because white fear is treated as evidence and Blackness treated as guilt. The lies themselves are dangerous, but even more dangerous is the culture that protects it. It’s a culture that gives falsehood authority amd reinforces racial hierarchy.

That’s how oppression works. It does not survive on brute force alone. It survives on myths, stereotypes, and fear. It survives by making suspicion of Blackness feel natural, justified, even moral. Once that suspicion becomes embedded in the public mind, injustice becomes easy. The police move faster. The courts listen differently. The media frames the story predictably. The public assumes the worst.

The damage has been staggering. Freedom stolen. Reputations buried. Families shattered. Innocent people made into cautionary tales by a society more committed to preserving racial myths than pursuing truth.

The culture white lies built is not merely a relic of the past. Its echoes remain wherever white fear is still centered and Black humanity is still forced to prove itself. Until that foundation is confronted honestly, justice will remain fragile, selective, and far too often denied to those who need it most.

The People’s Champion

I’m Journalist David B. Adams

There comes a point when carefully chosen political language is no longer enough to hide what people can plainly see with their own eyes.

What is happening to the Palestinian people, and what is now unfolding with Iran, does not look to me like morality. It does not look like justice. It does not look like peacekeeping, self-defense, or the preservation of democracy. It looks like power. It looks like domination. And more than anything else, it looks like the same old bullying behavior that the Western world has long inflicted on the Middle East and much of the Global South. I am frustrated because the script never seems to change.

The powerful nations of the world, particularly the United States and its closest allies, always find a way to package violence as virtue. They bomb, sanction, threaten, destabilize, and occupy, and then tell the world they are doing it for freedom, for order, for security, for civilization itself. Meanwhile, the people on the receiving end of that violence are expected to suffer quietly, bury their dead, watch their cities burn, and somehow still believe the lie that this is all being done for their benefit. I do not believe that.

I believe what we are seeing in Palestine and Iran is part of a much larger pattern. It is the pattern of Western power behaving like a bully whenever its dominance is challenged, its access is threatened, or its economic interests are placed at risk. It is the pattern of nations with enormous military power deciding that other people’s sovereignty, lives, and futures are expendable. It is the pattern of taking from the Middle East and the Global South while giving back war, instability, and grief.

For years, Palestinians have been forced to live under conditions that much of the so-called civilized world would never tolerate for itself. Their lives are debated like abstractions. Their deaths are explained away with legal language, political euphemisms, and media double standards that expose just how cheaply Palestinian humanity is regarded by those in power. Entire families are wiped out, neighborhoods are shattered, children are killed, and still the world’s most powerful governments find new ways to justify the machinery that keeps crushing them.

Now Iran is once again being pushed into the familiar role of the villain that must be confronted, weakened, punished, or subdued. To me, this is not disconnected from what is happening in Gaza. It is part of the same worldview. It is part of the same imperial logic. It is part of the same belief that certain nations have the right to dictate the fate of others, especially when those others sit on land rich in resources, energy, and strategic value.

Let us stop pretending the Middle East is attacked, manipulated, and destabilized simply because the West is guided by principle. If principle were truly the issue, there would be far more consistency in who is condemned, who is armed, who is sanctioned, and who is protected. If human rights were truly the issue, Palestinian lives would not be treated as disposable. If peace were truly the issue, war would not remain such a profitable and recurring instrument of policy. That is why so many of us look at these events and see something deeper. We see oil. We see trade routes. We see regional control. We see extraction. We see wealthy nations and their allies protecting a global order that enriches them while others bleed for it.

I am not saying every missile, every policy, or every statement can be reduced to one single motive. The world is more complicated than that. But complexity should never become a shield for dishonesty. The Middle East has long been treated as a chessboard for outside powers. Its people have too often been made to pay for the ambitions of governments, corporations, and geopolitical strategists who speak the language of order while practicing domination. Who benefits from that domination?

Certainly not the Palestinian mother searching through rubble for her child. Certainly not the Iranian family wondering if they will wake up to airstrikes, blackouts, or more threats from abroad. Certainly not the ordinary people across the Global South who feel the shockwaves of war through rising prices, economic pressure, and political instability.

No, the ones who benefit are often the already-powerful: wealthy political elites, defense contractors, energy interests, strategic planners, and nations that believe the world’s resources should remain available to them on their terms. That is why I call it bullying.

Bullying is not just about force. It is about force used with entitlement. It is about deciding that your interests matter more than someone else’s life. It is about punishing resistance, silencing dissent, and expecting obedience because you believe you are too powerful to be meaningfully challenged. That is exactly how much of the Western relationship with the Middle East has looked to me for decades.

When countries in the region cooperate, they are praised as partners. When they resist, they are called threats. When civilians die, their deaths become regrettable but acceptable collateral. When Western lives are at risk, it is treated as an international emergency. That double standard is not accidental. It reflects how the world is ordered and whose humanity is consistently centered, and I am tired of it.

I am tired of a world where Palestinians are expected to die quietly and Iranians are expected to accept intimidation as diplomacy. I am tired of the polished language used to cover up brutality. I am tired of the moral arrogance of nations that speak of law and order while helping shatter both. I am tired of people acting as though questioning these wars is somehow radical, while accepting endless bloodshed is normal.

It should not be radical to say that human life matters more than empire. It should not be radical to say that Palestinian children should not have to die so geopolitical talking points can survive. It should not be radical to say that threatening or attacking Iran while pretending it is all about peace deserves scrutiny, not automatic applause. It should not be radical to ask whether the real engine behind all of this is power, profit, control, and access, because to many of us, that is exactly what this looks like.

It looks like a world where the strong still believe they can take what they want. It looks like a world where military force is used to discipline weaker nations and populations. It looks like a world where resources and strategic geography matter more than justice. And it looks like a world where the suffering of brown and Black people across the Middle East and the Global South is too often treated as the acceptable cost of preserving Western advantage.

History has taught us that empires rarely call themselves empires. They call themselves defenders of order. They call themselves liberators. They call their violence necessity. They call their extraction partnership. They call domination stability, but the people beneath the bombs know better and so do many of us watching.

What is happening to Palestinians, and what is now being done to Iran, does not look like a righteous struggle for peace to me. It looks like a continuation of an old and ugly pattern: the powerful using force to secure their interests, enrich their allies, and remind the rest of the world that might still too often writes the rules. That is why I am angry. That is why I am frustrated. And that is why I refuse to dress this up in language that softens what it is. To me, it is bullying, it is empire, and it is bloodshed in service of power.

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I’m Journalist and Blogger, David B. Adams

The People’s Champion

Could it be true? Could the prayers of one man’s family finally be answered? Is it even possible after over 25 years that relief in the form of solicited help from law students might be the culmination of an ugly story that was born out of lies, deception, and corruption from police and prosecutors who sent an innocent man to prison for 35 years in a murder case where no one could even identify the actual killer? It seem as if the skies opened and God himself spoke, the day I received a phone call from the Pinckneyville Correctional Center where Mr. Jordan is being housed, and was told by Valdez himself of a law school’s interest and involvement in his criminal case.

For over half a decade I was among the minority of those who actually believed in the innocence of Valdez Jordan, who was charged, tried, and subsequently convicted for killing a man name Kenneth Spann one October night back in 1999 during a “crap house” robbery in the small midwestern town of Alton Illinois. The record in his case demonstrates that the police who initially investigated the crime had tunnel vision, and honed in on Mr. Jordan once it was learned that he was among the attendees at the illegal gambling club that infamous night.

For nearly ten years Jordan has written various innocence programs soliciting assistance with correcting his wrongful conviction. At times it seems as if his pleas only fell upon death ears. He even took the extraordinary measure of writing a petition to the Illinois Attorney General exposing corruption in Southern Illinois (Madison County), citing pattern and practices of corruption by law enforcement officials and state prosecutors alike, with supporting documentation. When you take a very close look at the record in his case, his appeal to the state’s top law enforcement official seems justified (read Valdez Jordan’s Petition to Illinois Attorney General).

Some of the state’s own witnesses not only placed other potential perpetrators on the scene that night, but others were identified holding firearms, and were never even questioned by police investigators (or at least that’s what official police reports indicated on the record). Those who did identify other possible subjects had a hard time while being interviewed by the cops, who either intimidated them, their families, or omitted exculpatory statements from their reports and crafted a narrative to pin the killing of Valdez Jordan.

These are just a few of the intriguing details that demonstrate perhaps why the University of Illinois at Springfield (The Illinois Innocence Project) in conjunction with the University of Chicago Law (The Exoneration Project) have officially entered their appearances to represent Mr. Jordan’s Appeal and bid for Freedom. The most prominent aspect of his case could easily be centered around the lack of any evidence what so ever that establishes as fact, that Jordan is guilty of the killing beyond a reasonable doubt.

During interviews that I conducted with Mr. Jordan and others who were there that fateful night in Alton, I was able to disclose important details through blog articles which essentially highlighted new evidence in his case that was never provided to the court, his counsel, nor the trial jury. This new evidence along with other documents that Mr. Jordan obtained over the years while incarcerated, displays a vicious and nasty abuse of power, and offers a very compelling argument demonstrating as a matter of fact and law, that Mr. Jordan never received a fair trial as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution (Read his disturbing story from a previous article on his case below).

Previously reported by TPC

In the case of Valdez Jordan, it was a routine traffic stop that became very odd when a state cop made a very strange request of Mr. Jordan who was riding down an Alton street when he was pulled over by the officer. The cop asked Jordan why was his car swerving when the cop was behind him? Jordan explained to the officer that he had dropped something and was trying to retrieve it. The state cop ran Jordan’s license and registration, and everything came back clen. The cop advised Jordan that he checked out, that he wasn’t in trouble, but a Madison County Sheriff name Bradley Wells had overheard him calling in his info to police dispatch. According to Mr. Jordan’s account, Wells contacted the state cop and asked him to request Jordan to stay there momentarily because he would like to speak with him. Jordan says he was reluctant, but stayed until Wells arrived.

When Wells pulled up Jordan says he motioned for him to come get inside of his police cruiser, and Jordan got in. Wells then asked Jordan if he knew who killed “Pookie” (Nekemar Pearson). Jordan states that he told Wells that he doesn’t know anything about that, and then Wells allegedly stated “you know who killed “Pookie,” Raven (James Evans) killed “Pookie.” Jordan says Wells asked him about his gang affiliation and he responded “I think you already know the answer to that.” Jordan said the conversation got even stranger, as Wells appeared to solicit him to do something violent to James Evans, because he had allegedly killed his “homeboy,” and was selling drugs on his gang’s turf. Jordan says he kept his conversation with Wells brief and then got out of his cruiser.

Months later Valdez Jordan was locked up in the Madison County jail facing murder charges related to an Alton “Crap house” robbery that resulted in the killing of a man. Jordan says he was called by jail correctional staff for an attorney visit, but when he got to the visiting area, no attorney was present, instead it was Madison County Sheriff Bradley Wells. Jordan alleges that Wells offered to assist him with his current criminal case, stating that he could “make the charges disappear” if he was willing to testify to a certain “scenario” (that essentially fingered James Evans as the person responsible for the killing of Nekemar Pearson). Jordan states he reiterated to Wells that he had no knowledge pertaining to that case, and that he didn’t need his assistance with his own criminal case because he was innocent of the charges. Jordan says that he was called on at least another occasion for an attorney visit in which it was Bradley Wells again. He states that he was requested by Wells to assist in the Pearson killing by providing “false testimony against Evans” for a second time, but only he was given a warning upon leaving that particular meeting with Wells on this occasion. Wells allegedly stated “you’re going to regret not cooperating with me,” Jordan said.

Jordan believes that Well’s parting words to him that day resulted in the recruitment of Demond Spruill to lie and fabricate a confession, allegedly provided by Jordan regarding the killing of Kenneth Spann at the Alton “crap house” robbery for which Jordan is now serving a 35 year sentence. Jordan also believes that arrangements began immediately after he last spoke with Wells at the Madison County jail, because as he entered the cell block Demond Spruill was being escorted to the same area he had just left. Spruill was on his way to the same meeting area for an allege attorney visit. He says he even warned Spruill in passing, that there was no attorney waiting for him, and instead “it was Bradley Wells out there.” Jordan also believes that was probably when the negotiations for Spruill to testify against him were set into motion. Valdez Jordan has always maintained his innocence related to the Kenneth Spann homicide, and has stringently denied having confessed the crime to Spruill or anyone else.

However, Demond Spruill would go on to later testify against Valdez Jordan while alleging that he had confessed to the “crap house” killing. Mr. Jordan believes that one of the main reasons he was fingered for the “crap house” shooting is because he refused to lie for cops who appeared to be desperately trying to develop a murder case against James Evans by any means necessary (official records in the form of a police report that contains Spruill’s initial statements to police, establishes that the tip from a confidential informant in the “crap house” killing that Valdez Jordan was fingered for, ironically originated from Madison County Sheriff Bradley Wells) (Read the Affidavit of Valdez Jordan here).

Mr. Jordan was subsequently convicted of murder in what could be described as another weak Madison County prosecution with a known professional “jail house informant,” Demond Spruill cast as the state’s star witness. Although Spruill’s appearance was highly problematic (which I’ll explain later in the article), there were other witnesses who provided vague, opinionated, circumstantial, and exculpatory testimony that collectively could never establish as a matter of fact that Valdez Jordan, or anyone else for that matter, was actually the gunman beyond a reasonable doubt during the fateful earlier morning hours in Alton. Although Jordan admittedly had been at the “crap house” gambling earlier, he says he left after having “craped out” (lost all his money), and wasn’t present during the robbery that resulted in the killing of Kenneth Spann.

State prosecutor’s however, pitched the theory to the jury that Jordan lost his money and came back armed in a violent rage to rob the place. During the investigation it was established by a volume of eyewitnesses at the “crap house” when the shooting occurred, that the perpetrator had a sheer stocking cap over his face which made it difficult to identify him. At Jordan’s trial no witness testified to observing Valdez Jordan shooting Mr. Spann, hell no one testified to even seeing the actual shooter’s face. Only one witness stated that he saw Valdez Jordan on the street outside of the “crap house” holding a gun after the shooting, but the same witness also testified to seeing others with guns in their hands also (like a man name Jarvis Brown). Some people in Alton familiar with the “crap house” told TPC that “the place had been robbed multiple times in the past,” and “there was a lot of money floating around in there. Everybody in there probably had a damn gun, and more than likely had taken their weapons out to protect themselves when the shooting started,” they said.

That witness who was the sole person, who claim to have seen Valdez Jordan at the scene of the crime immediately after the shooting, spoke on conditions of anonymity, and told TPC that he was “under the influence of mind altering drugs the night of the killing,” which was an important detail related to the case that wasn’t disclosed to the court, Jordan’s defense, nor the jury. It’s important to note here, that the witness didn’t actually see the shooting take place. His testimony only provided an alleged vantage from outside of the “crap house” after the place dispersed with people fleeing the area after the gun fire erupted.

Some witnesses testified that they believe the person who committed the crime was Valdez Jordan because of the sound of the shooter’s voice. One of those witness (Ramando Alexander) who testified and claimed to had been knowing Jordan for about 6 months, a statement that Jordan says was untrue. He denies ever having known the witness. Court documents show that Alexander was also under indictment for an unrelated first degree murder case himself, which the state subsequently reduced to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint (in the killing of Antonio Ray) for his cooperation and testimony against Valdez Jordan. Court trial transcripts show how on cross examination it was revealed that Alexander actually had a deal with prosecutors to testify against Valdez Jordan, and despite a signed agreement being introduced into evidence, Alexander repeatedly denied it (Read the trial testimony of Ramando Alexander here). Also, Alexander’s statement to Alton police was entirely different from his trial testimony, as Valdez Jordan’s lawyer rightfully and thoroughly impeached on cross examination during the trial (Read an excerpt from Ramando Alexander’s statement to Alton Police here).

Another witness (a known drug addict) who testified and also pointed at the sound of Jordan’s voice, was the sister of a former girlfriend of Mr. Jordan. Only in her original statement to police, she says that she knew the voice, but couldn’t put a face with the voice, and then only after Alton police officials suggested Valdez Jordan’s name to her did she suddenly realize who the perpetrator was, and changed her statement to identify the shooter to be, in her opinion Mr. Jordan, according to her testimony. That witness admitted that she had an outstanding arrest warrant for unknown charges squashed by Alton police and the prosecutor’s office in exchange for her testimony against Valdez Jordan. Moreover, Alton police arrested that witness four days before she was to testify in Jordan’s trial.

Her original statement to police placed Jordan at her apartment at the time of the shooting, while in police custody her statement suddenly morphed into placing Jordan at her place after the shooting, and claimed that Jordan told her that he heard the “crap house” had been robbed and he was going to find out more about it (placing doubt on Jordan’s claims of not being on the scene at the time of the crime). Also, arguments from Jordan’s defense counsel in court transcripts from a post trial motion hearing, disclose how the witness was actually held in police custody until the actual trial, and then immediately upon the completion of her testimony, she was released from police custody on her own recognizance with the approval of the state prosecutors (Read an excerpt from Valdez Jordan’s post trial motion hearing here).

Although some witness testimony against Valdez Jordan appear suspect (especially witnesses who suddenly regained their memory after being locked up by police), their accounts (witnesses who identified Jordan as the shooter because in their opinion they thought it was his voice behind the mask, and an admitted drug addict who say he saw Valdez Jordan on the street holding a gun after the shooting) collectively fall short of establishing Mr. Jordan’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The testimony of a state’s witness not only put other people on the street with guns in their hands outside of the “crap house” after the shooting, but that witness even identified Jarvis Brown by name, which raises even more suspicion as to why Alton police never interviewed him during the course of the entire investigation (Read that witness redacted trial testimony here).

However, it was the testimony of Demond Spruill who provided the most culpable testimony against Jordan, claiming he confessed and made other statements that more than likely weighed heavily on the trial jury in determining their verdict, but as I eluded to earlier in the article, Spruill’s appearance was highly problematic. During pretrial motions Mr. Jordan’s counsel stated that his defense team was ready for trial, but Mr. Jordan wasn’t. Judge Charles Romani who heard the arguments addressed Mr. Jordan directly to ascertain why he wasn’t prepared for trial. Jordan told the court that their were witnesses who could testify for his defense who had not been interviewed by his lawyers and hadn’t been summoned for trial. He also expressed exception to the anticipated testimony of Demond Spruill who had testified in a volume of other murder cases. Judge Romani assured Mr. Jordan that his witnesses would be contacted and that during the trial, everyone would learn about Demond Spruill. “I even know about Demond Spruill,” the judge said. The trial proceeded as scheduled and the trial resulted in Mr. Jordan being convicted of murder (Read an excerpt from Valdez Jordan pretrial motion hearing here).

However, during a post trial motion hearing, Mr. Jordan’s lawyers requested that the verdict in the case be vacated, citing that there was insufficient evidence establishing that Mr. Jordan committed the crime, and also expressed concern of a state’s witness being released from police custody immediately after testifying in the trial. His lawyers also argued that Demond Spruill was in fact acting as an agent of the state when he held conversations with Mr. Jordan at the Madison County jail. They argue that as a defendant, Mr. Jordan had a right to have his legal counsel present during such conversations, and that the dialogue with Spruill without his counsel present in fact violated Mr. Jordan’s 6th amendment rights under the United States Constitution (meaning Spruill’s testimony shouldn’t have been entered into the record) (Read Valdez Jordan’s Post Trial arguments here).

State prosecutor Keith Jensen countered the defense’s motion by claiming that “no one sent Mr. Spruill in their to speak with Mr. Jordan. They met on the cell block and that’s where the conversations took place your honor,” Jensen stated. Judge Romani eventually ruled that there was no evidence presented during the trial that establishes that Demond Spruill was acting as an arm of the prosecution, and the defense’s motions were denied, essentially allowing the guilty verdict to stand. However, official court documents related to this case that were acquired by Mr. Jordan reveal some alarming facts. When prosecutor Jensen claimed in open court that “no one sent Mr. Spruill in there to speak with Mr. Jordan,” he was in fact lying and the judge knew it. TPC has obtained documents that disclose the use of eavesdropping devices in the case in which Demond Spruill participated in at the behest of Alton police. Those documents are in fact signed by Alton police detectives, a police supervisor, state prosecutors, Demond Spruill and Judge Charles Romani himself. Although prosecutor Jensen lied in open court, it really wasn’t that shocking, as official court documents reveal how Keith Jensen has repeatedly lied in open court during the prosecution of at least four defendant’s cases (Evans, Greer, Jordan, and Ewing).

During the pretrial motion hearing where Mr. Jordan expressed concern regarding the anticipated testimony of Demond Spruill, and Judge Romani stated that “even I know about Demond Spruill,” the obvious conflict of interest should have been recognized by the judge, who should have immediately recused himself from hearing the trial. Romani’s ruling pertaining to defense post trial motions on Spruill becomes extremely problematic, because his ruling seems to completely side step Jensen’s denial of Spruill’s obvious participation in a police and state prosecution investigation, and the fact that it was Judge Romani himself who actually signed the applications and approved the request for the use of eavesdropping devices in the case, could easily be interpreted as complicity in denying the defendant Valdez Jordan the right to a fair and impartial trial under the law. It appears that the state along side judge Charles Romani attempted to deliberately conceal the fact that Spruill had participated in eavesdropping activities which targeted Valdez Jordan, at the behest of state prosecutors (Read the official Eavesdropping documents here).

Additionally, the witnesses that Mr. Jordan told Judge Romani that he believed could testify on behalf of his defense, were never called during the trial, appeared to be no shows, and the defense counsel never requested a continuance or asked for time to present those witnesses before the jury. TPC has since conducted multiple interviews with one of those witnesses and learned that she (Monique Kimble) did in fact appear at the courthouse on the day of the trial, was placed in a room to await what she thought would be her opportunity to testify at the trial, but she was allegedly told by Alton police detective Shane Gibbs (the same cop who interviewed her on the morning of the homicide at the “crap house”) that her testimony would not be needed, and that she could go home. Ms. Kimble stated that she was “confused” regarding having been told her testimony wouldn’t be needed, but she says she left because she was intimidated by the police. She also told TPC that she had previously had several arguments with the same officer (Gibbs) during the initial investigation into the “crap house” robbery when she gave her eyewitness account of the shooting).

Ms. Kimble went on to say that she told Det, Gibbs of the Alton police that the shooter wasn’t Valdez Jordan, and that she thought the perpetrator looked like “Jarvis Brown” or maybe another man they called “Chuckie.” She said that Gibbs kept trying to get her to change her statement, and that the things Gibbs wrote down weren’t what she had told him. So, she says they had several arguments back and forth. She also claims that she felt intimidated by Gibbs and believed that Alton police had been harassing her son. She apparently was so fearful, that she eventually moved to Missouri away from Alton a short time after the murder trial took place.

Her eyewitness account which very well may have been impactful, was never heard by Valdez Jordan’s trial jury, as her statements corroborated the testimony of a witness who spoke on conditions of anonymity, and a statement given to Alton police by Demond Spruill, who all also placed a man name “Jarvis Brown” on the street outside of the “crap house” immediately after the shooting. Ms. Kimble’s sister (Pamela Burgess) was one of a few witnesses who actually experienced close direct interaction with the perpetrator. Ms. Burgess said she testified at the trial after receiving a subpoena. She told TPC that despite Alton police detective Cooley trying to get her to say that the shooter was Valdez Jordan, she testified to the fact that “the shooter was rude, very disrespectful toward women, calling them bitches, and had pointed the gun directly in her face,” but she couldn’t tell if the perpetrator was Valdez Jordan. She also said that she never told the police this, but that she was close enough to him to see “the complexion of his skin (light skin) and that he appeared to be much lighter than Valdez Jordan,” she said.

After conducting interviews with various witnesses, reviewing various official court documents and other valuable information related to this case, TPC has discovered extremely disturbing information regarding “Jarvis Brown.” It was learned that Brown actually lived on old Brittney Court (now Maple Manor) off Washington Avenue in Alton for a few years around the time of the “crap house” killing. Brown who lived with and dated a much older woman name Robin (a female cousin of Monique Kimble and Pamela Burgess) was a teenager known to rob people within the community, and had relocated to the state of Indiana a few years after the Kenneth Spann murder. His close relationship to Ms. Kimble’s Cousin afforded her the advantage of possibly identifying him as the “crap house” shooter, which she actually did in her police statement, but they apparently ignored her account, left it out of the report, and used intimidation tactics to suppress her statement from the jury.

Now, some of Brown’s violent behavior has been discovered through official records from the U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana in which they even sought the death penalty for Brown (Read Jarvis Brown’s federal court Death Penalty document here). Brown along with his associates engaged in a crime spree in which they were robbing “gambling houses” (the exact kind of illegal after hour and covert establishments like the Alton “crap house”) and an article on the Federal Bureau of Investigations website potentially brings new light pertaining to Brown’s possible involvement in the Alton “crap house” robbery to bare. In fact, in 2009 Jarvis Brown was convicted in a federal criminal case that was the result of a coordinated state and federal law enforcement investigation, including agents and officers from the Indianapolis Police Department Robbery/Homicide Unit, the Evansville Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Evansville Safe Streets Task Force.

Brown plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, one count of interference with commerce by threats or violence; three counts of using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime or crime of violence resulting in death, and one count of tampering with a witness resulting in death. These revelations in relationship to the trial and conviction of Valdez Jordan are simply incredulous when considering the nature of the details entailed in Brown’s charges in the case, and especially considering the fact that various witnesses either testified to seeing Brown on the street in Alton outside of the “crap house” after the shooting, or believed that the shooter looked like him is extremely compelling towards Brown’s potential culpability to having been the actual shooter that night in Alton.

In the Indiana case Brown was charged with a 2005 Indianapolis to Evansville crime spree that included Brown and several associates, which left four persons dead. Brown’s group of heavily armed and violent cocaine and marijuana dealers operating in Indianapolis went on a crime spree that ultimately resulted in a series of approximately 13 drug dealer robberies, three attempted gambling house robberies, approximately 13 shootings, three gun murders, four gun assaults wherein the victims sustained permanent and life threatening injuries and one witness murder.

In addition to Indianapolis, where most of the incidents took place, Brown, the ringleader of the group, together with several associates also traveled to Evansville, and committed one of the robbery/murders. The weapons used by the group included a Tech-9 machine pistol, SKS assault rifles, shotguns and various handguns. The bloody trail came to an end on January 1, 2006, after Brown and several of his associates within a 24 hour period committed the murder and attempted murder of two individuals in Indianapolis. They were subsequently apprehended by officers of the Indianapolis Police Department after a high speed car chase through the near east side of the city. Jarvis Brown was subsequently sentenced to 5 consecutive life sentences plus 20 years, and is now being held at the United States Penitentiary Pollock, in Pollock Louisiana.

When we consider the statements given to police by witnesses on the scene around the time of the Alton “crap house” shooting, such as Monique Kimble, Gardell L. Ballinger, who both placed Jarvis Brown at the crime scene. (Read Gardell Ballinger’s statement to police here), it’s just difficult not to imagine that if Alton police had simply followed up on this particular lead in the case, then its quite possible that lives may not have been lost. That’s of course if Brown was actually the perpetrator who killed Kenneth Spann during the “crap house” robbery, and not Valdez Jordan as Alton Police and state prosecutors allege. TPC has learned that it was rumored and widely believed on the streets of Alton shortly after the killing of Kenneth Spann, that Jarvis Brown was in fact the person who commit the crime for which Mr. Jordan took the fall for, and some eyewitnesses on the scene apparently told Alton police as much (one even claim he saw Brown with a gun in his hand). Hell, even the state’s star “professional snitch” Demond Spruill gave police a statement that put Brown on the street outside the “crap house” after the shooting.

Spruill’s mentioning of Brown in a police report is highly suspicious though, as it was hearsay which he claimed that Jarvis Brown and a man name Kareem Hamilton gave him the details of what happened at the “crap house” the previous day, and appears to only serve as an explanation of his (Brown’s) presence on the street during those early morning hours. It was a cleverly plotted out statement orchestrated by Alton police that some believe was to rebut the constant mentioning of Brown’s presence on the street at the time of the crime by eyewitnesses who knew him as a “stick up” man, known to rob people in the city of Alton. Besides, even one of the state’s witnesses testified during the trial that he also saw Jarvis Brown with a gun in his hand on the street after the shooting.

Besides, the hearsay comments that Spruill gave to police doesn’t align with the very detailed account of witnesses inside of the “crap house” who stared down the perpetrator’s gun in fear for their lives. Spruill’s recounting of Valdez Jordan’s allege confession to him is in fact contradictory to the statement of Gardell Ballinger, Jarvis Brown’s allege statement, and the witness who spoke on anonymity, and were either inside of the “crap house” or was on the street outside and only saw the aftermath of the shooting (Read Demond Spruill’s statement to police here). Even more disturbing is the fact that Alton police puts Jarvis Brown’s allege statement on record via their “professional snitch” Spruill. Other witnesses of the crime told TPC that Alton Police drove to St Louis Missouri to get them to come in and give a statement, but despite the constant mentioning of Jarvis Brown (who resided a short distance away in Alton) being on the street after the shooting, to this day he has never been questioned by police officials, and that alone is an extraordinary element of this tragic story that is simply incredulous.

The accounts of various witnesses apparently fell upon death ears, and people say they believe that once police discovered that Valdez Jordan was at the “crap house” at some point on the day of the shooting, the cops developed tunnel vision and focused in on Jordan who they had decided was going to take the blame for this crime (Read the FBI article on Jarvis Brown Here).

(continued)…

Many of the details that are disclosed in this article stem from the research of court records and interviewing witnesses. Some of the information could easily have been obtained through basic rudimentary investigative work. It’s extremely said that so much information fell through the cracks and now after over 25 years of being incarcerated, the facts of exactly what happened may finally be brought to the surface. However, even if law students can assist in freeing an innocent man from prison, an even greater tragedy persist, as the actual killer has never been brought to justice.

We should pray for the redemption of one man’s plight as well as the family and friends of Kenneth Spann who lost his life in a senseless act of violence. The injustice of the American criminal justice system is simply a very sad commentary. “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.”

University of Illinois at Springfield

University of Chicago Law

The People’s Champion Blog, I’m Crime Writer and Blogger David Adams

The saga of a music industry mogul has enveloped all of social media, and has been exacerbated by brash criticisms characterizing him as a complete monster who kidnapped people, raped men and women alike, and even sexually assaulted children to name a few charges levied against him. These horrific allegations are only overshadowed by the volume of japes and mockery besieged upon the now seemingly defunct empire of Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Combs who is a native New Yorker, that despite having grown up without his biological father, was cultured and was afforded educational opportunities that many African-American boys who are raised in urban settings without good male role models are rarely, if ever afforded. He attended the Mt Saint Michaels Academy in the Bronx New York, and then went on to attend Howard University in Washington D.C.

Howard is an HBCU (Historical Black College And University) and once featured Combs as one of it’s countless “Crown Jewel” Alumni. Combs development was not bad at all for a NYC kid whose was bastertized at 2-years-old, when his dad was killed in a back alley drug deal that went south. Perhaps his dad’s abscence was to “Puffy’s” long term detriment. Maybe his father’s lifestyle metted out a generational curse. Then again, have we even considered the troubles Sean probably faced at St Michaels? Which ever scenario has merit, it’s clear that the seeds of Sean Combs troubles were broadcasts very early on in his life during his youth.

Who was Melvin Earl Combs?

There isn’t very much available information on Sean Combs’ father Melvin Earl Combs, but he was known to be involved in drug dealing, and was associated with other infamous New York City crime figures such Frank Lucas and Bumpy Johnson (two notorious drug lords in their day). I’m sure that an investigation into public records in New York could turn a page of two regarding his rap sheet. Melvin Combs had an extensive criminal record that largely surrounded petty street crimes that he engaged in as a “hustler” on the streets of New York.

He was killed one night when someone put two bullets in his head while he sat in his car. Police officials believed Combs was targeted because he was considered a “rat” who had snitched on other criminals while working as an informant for the cops. However, it was Melvin’s old street business partner Frank Lucas who said that Combs’ father was wrongfully accused, and was the victim of policing tactics that allowed the streets to think Melvin Combs was working with New York City police. In many respects Melvin Combs was rubbed out as a mere casualty of urban street violence.

thers say the cops may have killed Melvin Combs themseleves on the direction of organized crime bosses that wanted the likes of Melvin Combs, Frank Lucas, and other black street hustlers dead, who were selling dope on the street, to eliminate some competition, as drug dealing had largely become an acceptable business practice in the late 60s and early 70s, after having once been frowned upon by crime figures who acted on a strict street code.

Either way, Sean’s father left an unescapable legacy for him, and should also be credited with the carnage of death and addiction that he (Melvin) and other dope peddlers left in the wake of selling poison to largely their own people in poverty stricken area of the city. Melvin also left a chorus of admirers who often gave Sean a nod (pass) as he moved through the streets as a kid. “I use to run with your father,” they would say to him. If enough people told a kid this he would probably develope a tremendous degree of pride, and maybe become egotistical. A street celbrity in fact. Perhaps this was what created an onset of extreme arrogance that many claim Sean possesses.

We can only speculate whether the life Melvin lived made a positive or negative impact on Sean’s life, but it had to influence his development in some form. It at least helped his mother provide for him while she raised her son in a single parent home. I mean let’s face it, during the time that Melvin Combs was dealing drugs in New York, the Civil Rights Movement was in full affect, and most black families were simply struggling to survive.

There were always people who wanted more and refused to settle for what the system allowed colored folks to obtain during those times, and many black people chose to lead a life of crime to bolster their lifestyles so they could afford the things most only dreamed of. Melvin Combs was one of these people. Hell, he was once pinched by the cops with $45,000 cash. That was a whole lot of money in the 60s and 70s, even for well to do white folks.

When he died I wonder how much of that drug money was put away for a rainy day. He had to have known that the stakes of the drug game were extremely elevated, and could even result in his death. I wonder if drug money is what helped fund Sean Combs education in Catholic School. Most schools run under the order of Catholicism are, and always have been, private. With Melvin murdered, it seems that Sean and his mother did alright for themselves without him.

His mother has stated that she sent him to Mt. Saint Michael to help turn her son’s life toward a different path, unlike the drug peddling lifestyle that his father lived. That’s a very “slippery slope” considering everything that Sean had learned about his father from the streets and the people who knew his dad. Sean developed a “hustler’s” mentality that he repeatedly, and readily admits openly to this day. Though, there must be a degree of admiration for the heights he climbed in the music industry and in business, but Perhaps his mother’s efforts related to his educational development was wishful thinking, and a “hail Mary” to save her son who arguably is, and always has been, fruit from a poisonous tree.

More importantly, if no one has said it openly, let me be clear. The Combs family came up on the backs of poor people who suffered from the disease of drug addiction. It’sdno secret that drugs and alcohol were introduced to the black community and made available at the very apex of market places that catered to black consumers. They used people like Melvin Combs as a mule to aid in the oppression and destruction of his own people.

Sean Combs’ father led a life that he subtly glorifies and wears as a badge of honor. It was a lifestyle that displayed very poor lessons on morality many believe that were left behind for his son, that may ultimately result in his demise.

Mt. Saint Michael Academy

It should be stated right out of the gate that my views are related to Mt. Saint Michael is only centered around events that allegedly occurred during and after Sean Combs attended the institution. In no way is it a slight, nor indictment against the school or the Catholic Church, but rather an attempt to add context to circumstances surrounding one of their former students.

With that being said, Sean Combs graduated from Mt. Saint Michael in 1987, and is a former altar boy. A year later there were allegations made against two members of the school’s faculty, accusing them of sexually assaulting students. The school is run by a Marist Order of the Catholic Church, and it was a Roman Catholic Priest and a Chaplain who were named in an indictment after an investigation by federal and city authorities.

The Rev. Bernard Lynch, 41 years old, and a former campus chaplain is one of the men named in the indictment. Lynch is also an Irish national who fled the U.S. to his homeland in Ireland, shortly after the investigation had been announced. The other school employee who was named is a Marist Brother, Timothy Brady, 41, who was the acting principal when the incidents are said to have occurred, was charged as well, but was only moved to a Marist retreat in Arizona.

Brady did surrender to the authorities on his on vilition after being advised of the charges that ranged from first degree, third degree sexual assault, and endangering the welfare of a minor child. These acts of sexual abuse were said to have even been occuring while Sean Combs was a student at the school. The rejuvenation of this scandal at Mt Saint Michael having now been cast back into mainstream media, there are probably a volume of people wondering if Combs was in fact a victim of the sexual assaults also at the academy.

The school’s principal Timothy Brady was tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. The circumstances of his case are sealed. He was last known to still be acting as a Marist Brother at a school in Chicago. Father Lynch was subsequently acquitted due to the alleged victim in his case refusing to testify any further, and then the presiding judge ruled that there was no evidence against him.

In Lynch’s defense, there were allegations that he wasn’t well liked by the Archdiocese, mainly due to his advocacy for gay Catholics, and his work related to the AIDS epidemic. Some saw him as a victim himself of being targeted by homophobic teachers and staff at the school. Although Lynch wasn’t found guilty of sexually assaulting students, he is blamed for the culture of homosexuality at Mt Saint Michael during that time. There are varying opinions related to the merit of those allegations.

However, Lynch today is now a former Priest, openly gay, and has been married to a man for over a decade. There has never been any allegations that either of the former school employees ever sexually assaulted Sean Combs, but given the gravity of the current charges against Combs, the irony of these particular school officials having been employed at the school during the years Combs’ attended is far too coincidental to be overlooked.

When we weigh the history of the Archdiocese being embroiled in countless allegations of sexual abuse towards children by Priest and other officials within many branches of the Catholic Church, juxtaposed to the allegations of perversion currently levied against Combs, it extremely challenging not to conclude that Sean Combs more than like was exposed to sexuality variantly while attending Mt. Saint Michael, and perhaps perversion in some form, was also an aspect of his sexual conformity.

The “Puffy” Handle And The Origins of “Diddler”

Sean Combs’ handle or nickname has transformed over the years as his fame and popularity grew in the music industry and business. He went from “Puffy” to “Puff Daddy”, to “P. Diddy”, and finally resolved to his desire to simply be called “Diddy”. Most people like myself probably never gave too much thought regarding what he called himself or the nicknames celebrities in general are referred to. Most people typically obtain these sort of pet names based on life events, our characters, or activities we’re personally known for.

For instance a kid who likes certain kinds of snack foods may acquire the nickname “cookie” for having been known to always eat cookies. Sean Combs’ name “Puffy” is more than likely associated with smoking marijuana, as in “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Although Puff’s origins are rooted in poetry and that later on had a song created about a pet magic dragon named “Puff”. The 1960’s fairytale was also once characterized in a Newsweek article as making a veil reference to smoking marijuana

The parallel can easily be made with the flare of fire that occurs when a marijuana cigarette is inhaled, creating a fiery effect, and then the stream of smoke that appears in an exhale, like a fire breathing dragon. How Combs obtained a nickname that references his personal indulgence in smoking pot, and having it equated with a child’s fairytale is very interesting in itself

Combs’ handle isn’t simply steeped in marijuana smoke as glorified in urban and “hip hop” culture, that part of his nickname can easily be explained, but the “Diddy” portion is a bit more complex and deeper. To grasp a good understanding  we’ll have to take a trip back into time, to European sensational journalism.

Assuming that Combs’ “Diddy” handle is derived from a dialectal of the root word Diddle, we can clearly see the full unmistakable, but extremely dark inference or meaning in Combs’ desired nickname. The term “diddler” is slang used to refer to a person engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior, and often in a deceptive or sneaky manner. The term is also akin to “riddler,” as in “kiddie riddler” or “kiddie diddler.” Now, Combs’ handle is “Diddy,” but it’s a no-brainer that it’s a dialectal of the term “Diddler.”

Without revisiting a collegiate course on linguistics, I’ll just remind us that the terms derived from mid 20th century media in Europe’s tabloids to sensationally, or to utilize the terms in a disparaging manner, as attention grabbers while describing a person who sexually abuses children. After having learned about this figurative language, there must be some clarity established regarding Sean Combs’ choice to openly and publicly promote his “Diddy” handle. Was he ignorant to the term’s origin, or was it a clever play on words to disguise his personal and perverse sexual practices.

There are a volume of Sean Combs supports who will argue that such an analogy is a stretch and the “Diddler” term is only related a the role he was cast in, for the Marvel movie “BatMan,” and is being utilized now in a facetious manner to embarrass, shame, and defame his image. You might make that argument, but it wasn’t until Combs became fully established in the institution of “Hollywood” that the “Diddy” handle came about. Hollywood has had a storied past of its own and may have been the direct influence which has led to Combs’ seemingly imminent destruction.

Diddy As The Establishment’s Whore

There have essentially been a plethora of rumors and allegations regarding the activities and dealings of Sean Combs along with music industry bigwigs, such as Clive Davis and many others. There is no need to go into full detail regarding the specifics, not only are there way too many to delve into, but quite frankly it’s not the intended focus of my commentary. I will simply say this.

If the allegations are true, that Sean Combs actually filmed famous people engaged in sexual activity or while in otherwise extremely compromising posturess, it more than likely was done so for strategic purposes. Whether it was for extorting people, bribery, sexual pleasures or other superficial reasons, his actions appear to have been calculative. He allegedly used the party atmosphere as a guise to lure unsuspecting party goers into a web of erotic sex orgies without their knowledge. These escapades were dubbed “Freakoffs.”–

However, we shouldn’t allow ourseleves to be pulled down the rabbit hole and made to believe that the man we know as Sean Combs is some mega freak, who rapped, extorted, kidnapped, and sexually abused men, women, and children solely for his own personal pleasure. The very fact that the parties were attended by Hollywood elites, business executives, policians, clergy, and a volume of other powerful people from around the globe, clearly demonstrates that these events were a cultural practice, and essentially what these people enjoy doing.

His attentions, although pervasive, were also purposeful, and he had help too. Combs seemingly targeted certain music artists, music executives, and others whose wealth was developed through entertainment, their talents, and business practices. Many of these celebs also were under contracts, endorsements, and other business related obligations that could be jeopardized if they encountered a horrible public relations incident. So, it was careless of them to not be chary about attending Combs’ “Freakoff” parties.

Combs and his business associates probably benefited from a volume of celebrities attending these parties, and then the video tapes were more than likely used to broker deals favorable to Combs and his partners, while famous people had to tow the line and “do as they were told” to avoid the embarrassment and the calamity of what they had been secretly recorded doing on tape ever being made public. Perhaps this is essentially the real reason so many people have been silent all of this time. Combs was used by the “establishment” to recruit and promote its perverse culture within the music industry.

Hollywood’s Resemblance Of O’Cult Like Rituals

I was Alex Jones of the now defunct “InfoWars” platform, who first introduce us to the OcCult dealings in the redwood hills of Northern California, when he penetrated the grounds of the Bohemian Grove (a retreat style vacationing park which is protected by the Sonoma County Sheriffs and the U.S. Secret Service. Jones’ secretly recorded footage of some of the activities that occurred at the Grove in 2001 literally sent shockwaves throughout social media.

That footage and Jones is only mentioned here for the purpose of giving context to what many who are in the know call ritualistic events that date back to the druids of ancient babylon. The annual retreat at the Grove consists of Hollywood elites, business executives. leaders of commerce, industries, and world leaders. It’s an exclusive male event that reportedly involves many of the attendees swimming together in the buff, and other activities that are shocking considering who many of the participants are, and the fact that they’re all men.

The highlight of the annual retreat is the “Cremation of Care” ceremony. From the footage that Alex Jones captured inside of the Grove, you can see a body the size of a child being brought before a 40 foot stone carved into the shape of an owl. The ceremony includes interaction with the owl who demands that they burn their cares before him. It’s supposed to be a sacrifice of a child, just like the druids did to the Moch deity in the Bible.

It’s some really creepy stuff especially since world leaders who have the power of decision making that impact people around the globe. These are the people, the elites, the perverted businessmen and politicians who control the world, that are probably behind the downfall of Sean Combs. There are many theories behind why he suddenly fell from grace, but it’s obvious that something happened. If you consider the kind of people who attended his parties and were in his inner circle for the better portion of 20 years or, and none of the current allegations ever leaked out, tells you that there had to be influence from some very powerful people.

The most disturbing part of the entire ordeal is Combs’ is alleged to have sexually abused children. There is a constant theme here from his days in Catholic School, to the rumors of sex trafficking, homosexuality, to the exploitation and abuse of minors, it appears that the element of sex involving kids has permeated Combs’ entire life. There is a plethora of information available to establish how Sean Combs actually became a “diddle”, “diddler”, “diddy” or whatever he wants to call himself.

May God be with the children, women, and men who may have suffered from sexual abuse everywhere! Godspeed.

I’m journalist, crime writer, and blogger David B. Adams

The People’s Champion Blog

Sources:

Youtube, Vlad TV, New York Times