Breaking News: Pittsburgh Police Brutality Case Goes to Jurors in Jordan Miles Senseless Beating

March 28, 2014

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Jurors will deliberate today as closing arguments were given yesterday during the retrial of the Pittsburgh Police in the Jordan Miles civil case. A few years ago Jordan Miles, who was at the time only 18 years old, was brutally attacked by Pittsburgh Police as he was walking down the street from his mother’s to his grandmother’s home. Miles at 18 years of age was a violinist and honor student at Pittsburgh’s prestigious Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA) high school. However, on a January night in 2010, three white officers mistook Miles, a young black male with dreadlocks, for a drug dealer.

Miles took the stand just days ago and spent nearly six hours explaining how undercover officers jumped out at him and never identified themselves. Defense attorneys for the three police officers argue that the officers did what was needed, knowing what they knew that night. Each officer testified that Miles resisted arrest and that they believed he had a gun, although no weapon was found. The officers claim that they may have mistaken a bottle of Mountain Dew in his coat pocket for a gun. The officers say that they threw the bottle down the street once they found that it was not a weapon. Miles states that he never had a weapon or the bottle.

Today jurors will be in for a long day as they determine who is at fault with each side giving entirely different stories.

Miles attorney Joel Sansone argued that this case is about an abuse of power. Noting Miles injuries that night, he sneered at the idea that it was the officers who were in “the fight of their lives” and that the kid with no criminal background suddenly became a “ninja” clashing with police.

“That’s baloney,” said Sansone.

After twelve days of an intense trial, family and friends of the Miles family leave the fate of the three Pittsburgh Police officers up to the jurors.

All charges against Miles were dropped at a preliminary hearing in April 2010, but criminal charges were never pressed against the three officers. This civil trial is the second in the matter. In 2012, a jury found that the officers did not maliciously prosecute Miles, but they could not reach unanimity on whether the officers falsely arrested Miles and used excessive force.

WATCH JASIRI X’S MUSIC VIDEO “JORDAN MILES”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONPo-wslB40&w=560&h=315]

Assata Shakur: From Fugitive to Freedom Fighter — Why the Culture Still Celebrates Her

Words by Dennis Byron

Kash Patel, I hear you. You wear the title of FBI Director today, but let’s be real—you weren’t even around when Assata Shakur’s name shook the system. You didn’t live through the era when the government put a bullseye on Black revolutionaries, when “justice” was too often just another word for oppression. I did. I remember it in real time. And I know the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist.

If America wants to have a serious conversation about domestic terror, let’s start with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blowing up federal buildings. Let’s talk Dylann Roof walking into a Black church and spraying bullets. Let’s talk George Zimmerman stalking Trayvon Martin, David Berkowitz terrorizing New York as the “Son of Sam,” or any number of men whose names will forever be synonymous with true terror. Don’t you dare put Assata Shakur in that same sentence.

A Panther With Purpose

Before the wanted posters and FBI most-wanted lists, Assata was JoAnne Chesimard—a young sister from Queens who stepped into the storm of the civil rights era. She joined the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, not because it was trendy, but because it was survival.

She fed hungry kids when the government wouldn’t. She set up health clinics in communities the state ignored. She gave political education to the people so they could understand the systems stacked against them. That’s not terrorism—that’s love for your people in action.

The Case That Never Added Up

Fast-forward to 1973, a New Jersey turnpike, and a deadly shootout. A state trooper lost his life, and Assata was arrested, shot, and thrown into the legal grinder. By 1977, she was convicted, but ask anyone who truly studied the case—there were holes big enough to drive a truck through.

Assata Shakur and her daughter Kakuya in Cuba – photo via healer Ola Ronke

Jury bias. Coerced testimony. A courtroom atmosphere dripping with racism. It wasn’t just a trial—it was a setup. Human rights groups worldwide have said it loud: Assata didn’t get justice, she got railroaded.

So when she broke out of prison in 1979 and later landed in Cuba, it wasn’t about running—it was about surviving. And Cuba called it like it was: political asylum for a political prisoner.

The Voice That Won’t Die

Exile didn’t silence her. In 1987 she dropped Assata: An Autobiography—part testimony, part revolutionary gospel. Decades later, it’s still studied in classrooms, still quoted in movements, still moving people who see themselves in her story.

Hip hop never forgot either. Common immortalized her in “A Song for Assata.” Tupac—her godson—carried her influence in his bloodline. Her name gets invoked because she embodies that fight-back spirit that hip hop at its core represents.

Who’s the Real Terrorist?

The FBI slaps her on its “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, but let’s keep it a buck: the word “terrorist” loses its meaning when it’s used as a weapon against someone who uplifted her community.

Real terror was Oklahoma City. Real terror was Charleston. Real terror was Trayvon’s killer walking free. When we talk terrorism, those are the names that belong in bold print.

Assata Shakur? She’s a survivor. A symbol. A reminder that you can cage the body but not the spirit. And whether America likes it or not, she will be celebrated—not as a villain, but as a revolutionary who refused to bow down.

Because in the culture, we don’t just remember history—we correct it.

During her 1976 trial, Assata Shakur testified that she had raised her hands when state troopers stopped her vehicle, yet she was shot in the shoulder and back. A medical expert confirmed her injuries were consistent with this account. Despite the evidence, an all-white jury convicted her of first-degree murder in 1977. She was sentenced to the Clinton Correctional Institution in New York but escaped in 1979 and was later granted political asylum in Cuba.

About the Author:
Dennis E. Byron is an award-winning investigative journalist, photographer, and Editor-in-Chief of Hip Hop Enquirer Magazine. With over three decades of experience covering hip hop culture, celebrity trials, and social justice issues, Byron has been on the frontlines of some of the most high-profile stories shaping both the entertainment industry and American society. He is also the founder of Byron Media Group, where his work continues to amplify voices often overlooked by mainstream media.

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