© Illustration by Mr. Fish
Debbie Bourne, 45, was at her apartment in the Liberty Village housing projects in Plainfield, N.J., on the afternoon of April 30 when police banged on the door and pushed their way inside. The officers ordered her, her daughter, 14, and her son, 22, who suffers from autism, to sit down and not move and then began ransacking the home. Bourne's husband, from whom she was estranged and who was in the process of moving out, was the target of the police, who suspected him of dealing cocaine. As it turned out, the raid would cast a deep shadow over the lives of three innocents - Bourne and her children.
The murder of a teenage boy by an armed vigilante, George Zimmerman, is only one crime set within a legal and penal system that has criminalized poverty. Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.
Comment: Indeed, it's starting to look like this was not the drivers' fault. In addition, we now have a possible motive for blaming driver - and as usual, it involves big money.
Why the two-hour delay before a state of emergency declared, leaving local residents to carry out rescue operations?
Why did the driver call the operator to tell them the train was going too fast and that it was about to derail moments before the crash?
Questions are starting to pile up for the Spanish authorities.