This blog is dedicated to my beautiful wife. The mother of my wonderful children, who does the hardest job in the world for free. She continues to be a blessing to our family.
Do you know what it means to be free? I don't mean free to do whatever you want, and I'm not talking about being free as an American. I am talking about true freedom. Not being bound by the toils, and snares in this life because Jesus Christ set you free! That is true freedom. Freedom from worry, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from hurt and pain. Because we know that God our father will forgive us and give us brand new mercy with each and every sunrise.
Walking with Jesus is not an easy life by any means. But it is a wonderful life, that I wouldn't change for the world.
If you're bound, and you want to be free just remember....
Romans 10:9 - That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
John 8:36- If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Like I've said before I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist. I'm not a nut or a crazed lunatic but I do believe that some things are just crazy enough to be true.
With that being said, the war on the poor and disenfranchised continues.
It’s one thing to ban smoking from bars and restaurants, as Kansas City did in 2008 following years of fierce debate.
It’s quite another to say people can’t smoke in their own homes and yards yet that’s precisely what the Kansas City Housing Authority is preparing to do. In a move that is rememiscent of communist Russia, the agency’s board has approved a policy to go completely smoke-free at all its publicly owned developments, indoors and even on outdoor grounds. The move affects more than 1,700 residential units and about 5,000 adults and children living in Kansas City public housing.
Some residents are quite angry about it, and at least two advocacy groups have concerns.
“I want the right to smoke in my apartment. That’s the bottom line,” said Juia Leggett, who lives with her husband, also a smoker, in the TB Watkins development at 13th and Vine streets.
I have never been a smoker, nor do I advocate smoking. But I do believe that as American's we have the right to do whatever we want to do within the four walls that we call home. Otherwise democracy turns to dictatorship.
But Edwin Lowndes, Kansas City Housing Authority executive director, said smoking is a proven unhealthy activity for the smokers as well as nonsmokers around them.
“I have to provide a healthy environment for all my families to live in,” Lowndes said.
Mr. Lowndes' attitude is quite disturbing. Although I cannot ascertain what his intentions really are, or if there are alterior motives involved his terminology is quite telling. He refers to the residents of public housing as his families. As if he has the right to dictate how they should live their lives.
This is just as strange for me to write as it is for you to read. Defending people who still choose to smoke despite the certainty of certain adverse health effects kinda flies in the face of everything that I stand for. But we must look past this story and ask the question. If it starts here, where does it end?
The smoking ban takes effect July 1. Residents who smoke can seek a six-month extension but must quit smoking in their units by Jan. 1, 2015.
Kansas City follows more than a dozen other large housing authorities on the coasts as well as Minneapolis, Detroit and Houston. But Lowndes said Kansas City is one of the largest public housing authorities in the region to take this step.
“I do think we’re the trend-setter for the Midwest,” he said. “In talking to my colleagues both in Kansas and Missouri, they have been considering it but wanted somebody else to go first.”
Donovan Mouton, chairman of the Housing Authority board, watched Kansas City’s contentious argument over eliminating smoking from bars and restaurants when he was an aide to then-Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes. He expected a lot of opposition this time around but didn’t hear it.
“It was surprising,” Mouton said. “We have been hearing from people, nonsmokers, who were worried about the secondary smoke, especially among our seniors.”
But an estimated 40 percent of the residents smoke, and some of them are furious. Some say they became aware of the debate just a few weeks before the board’s April 16 vote on the new policy.
Leggett has been busy taking care of her disabled husband and wasn’t aware of the debate until a notice was put on her door about a month ago. She said she pays $405 in rent per month for her TB Watkins apartment and had no idea “that they would try to pull something this ludicrous.”
Beverly Moore, who lives in the Riverview Gardens development in Old Northeast, agreed, even though she is in the process of quitting smoking for reasons other than the new policy.
“I really just don’t think they should be able to dictate what you can do in the privacy of your own home,” she said.
The Public Housing Resident Council, which represents the tenants, endorsed the policy but thought residents would be given more time to adapt, said Martha Allen, council president.
“I’ve been supportive of quitting smoking probably all my life,” said Allen, a nonsmoker who had an uncle and a brother die from smoking-related diseases.
But she’s sympathetic to how hard it is to quit. “I have concerns for the people because it’s easy to say, ‘Don’t smoke,’ but some people have smoked 40 and 50 years. To stop them right away ... we need more time for that.”
I am amazed at the fact that bureaucracies feel as if they have the right to "parent" the poor in America as if they are deficient in their ability to make adult decisions.
Housing Authority officials say that’s why they’re giving existing residents until the end of the year, but Allen said that’s probably not enough time. She said if it proves too difficult for residents to quit, the board will have to reconsider the policy “because we don’t want a rebellion.”
Studies show nicotine is so addictive that quitting smoking can be terribly difficult.
That’s an issue for Melissa Robinson, executive director of the Black Health Care Coalition, which was told about the initiative last year because 80 percent of the Housing Authority families are African-American.
She said her organization is concerned about “the potential that residents in public housing may be evicted and facing homelessness due to nicotine addiction.”
Getting people to quit smoking is very important to promote healthier communities, she said. But she had been led to believe that the Housing Authority’s policy would take effect more gradually, and she was upset at the short time frame.
Mouton responded that the health benefits outweigh the concerns and it’s time to get started. He added that the board will monitor the policy’s implementation and can make adjustments if it proves too difficult.
Lowndes says the Housing Authority posted the policy, surveyed residents a year ago with the help of the Mid-America Regional Council, did extensive outreach and solicited comment for months that showed majority support.
Smoking cessation information and classes will be provided, and Lowndes noted that other housing authorities have successfully implemented comprehensive policies despite initial resistance.
“Public housing is a federally subsidized benefit, and we can implement reasonable rules,” he said. “The health piece is the most important. The smoker here is impacting the nonsmoker here.”
The smoking ban initiative here was sparked, literally, by a July 2012 fire on the ninth floor of the 12-floor Brush Creek Towers, 1800 Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard. A resident on oxygen was smoking a cigarette, which flared and caused his apartment to catch fire.
He wound up in the University of Kansas burn unit, Lowndes said, and although he survived, he didn’t return to Brush Creek. His unit and another had fire damage, and six others had water damage that ultimately cost close to $250,000 to repair, Lowndes said.
The Housing Authority realized smoking was a serious safety issue, as well as a health problem. It has also calculated that it costs an average of several thousand dollars to repair, clean and turn over a smoker’s unit, versus about $500 per unit for nonsmoking residents.
Some places, such as Denver, have chosen to implement their smoking bans gradually and over a period of years. Bob Prettyman, chief operating officer of housing management for the Denver Housing Authority, said they have sought extensive tenant input and buy-in, and are banning smoking from units in new or rehabbed buildings before extending it systemwide.
Mouton said that, at first, he thought Kansas City might just implement the policy in its two highrises, Brush Creek and Pemberton Heights. But he said supporters pushed to extend it to all the publicly owned developments, although it does not affect Section 8 housing vouchers or properties with both subsidized and market rate units, because they have other owners and landlords.
The ban extends to public housing courtyards and other grounds, Lowndes said, because otherwise people congregate around doorways that become smokers’ dens.
“If you’re going to say no smoking, you have to make it comprehensive,” Lowndes said.
Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development first began encouraging housing authorities to implement smoke-free policies in 2009. She said more than 20 of the organization’s 70 member authorities have adopted these policies in the past few years.
“I would predict that over the next two years, we’re going to see many more housing authorities doing this,” she said.
But it remains rare in many privately owned apartment complexes, said Sam Alpert, who represents apartment owners and managers locally through the Heartland Apartment Association.
“It’s still a little bit unique,” Alpert said. “The character and quality of the buildings themselves matters a lot. If the smoke is migrating from one unit to the next, that’s a different concern than if it’s not.”
Lowndes said smoking in public housing units will be treated as a lease violation. The first two violations can result in a warning, but the third could result in lease termination. There is an appeals process, and Lowndes said it may be possible to move smokers who truly can’t quit into other properties where it is still allowed.....
And this is the conspiracy. Forcing poor nicotine addicted people out of public housing by implementing a rule that they cannot possibly abide by. Resulting in cities like Kansas City having the opportunity to sell the buildings to a private corporations or lease the apartment for "fair market" value.
Sounds crazy until it happens!
PR
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/04/5002570/kc-public-housing-units-will-soon.html#storylink=cp
She could have sentenced him to 20 years in prison after he admitted to raping a 14-year-old girl in her high school.
But in a stunning miscarriage of justice, a Texas judge gave the defendant a 45-day sentence and probation after vilifying the victim by implying that she was promiscuous.
Judge Jeanine Howard told local media sources that she based the sentence, in part, on medical records indicating that the girl had had three sexual partners and had given birth.
She told the newspaper that the victim "wasn't the victim she claimed to be" and said the defendant, 20-year-old Sir Young, "is not your typical sex offender."
Critics fear the decision could discourage other victims from reporting rapes because they themselves may be put on trial.
"We're certainly concerned about the message that's being sent to victims of sexual assault," said Andrea Moseley, chief prosecutor for the Dallas County District Attorney's Office.
"We expect that our victims will be protected and that their reputations will be protected and that they will feel safe in coming forward and reporting these crimes."
But it wasn't just the sentence that drew criticism. Perhaps what is even more appalling is the type of community service Young was sentenced to.
Adding insult to injury, Young, who was a schoolmate of the victim's when the rape occurred in 2011, was ordered to serve 250 hours of community service at a rape crisis center. The center later said he was not welcome there.
"Just having a criminal defendant in the office could be a triggering effect for many of our clients," Bobbie Villareal, director of the Dallas Rape Crisis Center, said. "It's just not appropriate."
Young's defense attorney, Scottie Allen, says that he feels the sentence was "fair and appropriate" given the circumstances, and he agreed with Howard that his client wasn't a normal sex offender.
But the question is. Is there such a thing as a normal offender?
"What we have here is an 18-year-old high school student who was very talented, very gifted," Allen said, adding that Young had scholarship offers from a "couple of universities."
Allen further claimed that the victim had agreed to have sex with Young, just not on campus, and "upon making this bad judgment, he admitted that he proceeded over her objections to stop, and he admitted that to the police."
"We don't think that he qualifies as your typical sex offender. This is not somebody who has preyed on some young kids or unsuspecting people."
But the fact that he admittedly forced her to have sex in spite her objections is the very definition of rape.
The judge has since recused herself from the case.
A new judge will oversee the case moving forward, including a motion filed by prosecutors to add more restrictive requirements to Young's probation.
The victim said that she was devastated by the sentencing.
"I was shocked that a judge, someone that I trusted with this case, would go behind my back, would go and find records and make these allegations that she knows nothing about," she said.
Meanwhile, Young is serving his 45-day jail sentence. If he compiles with the terms of his probation, he won't have a conviction on his record, effectively allowing him to get away with rape.
It almost makes you wonder whose daughter is going to be next.
"Uncle Tom" is the worst thing that one African-American can call another. It is akin to calling someone Benedict Arnold. A traitor, a turn coat, or a sell out.
Nobody wants to be called an Uncle Tom, but 150 years ago, it was a compliment. In Harriet Beecher Stowe's abolitionist 1852 novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Uncle Tom is a martyr, not a sell-out. His devotion to his fellow slaves is so unshakable that he sacrifices a chance for freedom and, ultimately, his life to help them.
How did a term of such high praise become the ultimate black-on-black insult? Scholars believe that "Uncle Tom" was first used as an epithet in 1919 by Rev. George Alexander McGuire, a supporter of the radical black nationalist Marcus Garvey.
Addressing the first convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, McGuire declared, "the Uncle Tom nigger has got to go, and his place must be taken by the new leader of the Negro race, not a black man with a white heart, but a black man with a black heart." In the event's opening parade, marchers held protest signs that hopefully proclaimed, "Uncle Tom's dead and buried."
So the name Uncle Tom was turned into a negative almost a hundred years ago in a speech and it's connotation reverberates to this day. But it is only applied to those who's opinions are in direct conflict with the collective. The collective, in this case, being the Black community. In addition to being opinionated these so called "Uncle Toms" often support measures designed to deny African-American's and other minorities many of the same opportunities that were afforded them, siting personal responsibility as the virtue that will light the path way to achievement. Often times they are influencial people like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or world renown neuro-surgeon Dr. Ben Carson. Both men are prominent public figures, and both men have opinions and views that are undoubtedly conservative despite having come from humble beginnings.
But while their views and opinions are somewhat controversial they are hardly alone. The truth is, many African-American's have conservative views whether they realize it or acknowledge it. The majority of us are tough on crime, and determined to achieve success as a result of our hard work. We resent those of us who want something for nothing, and blame everyone but themselves for underachieving. But the difference between "the average African-American" and the proninant African-American conservative is empathy. Those of us who's influence is not as far reaching, and are not as isolated from other segments of our race have not been allowed to forget where we came from. Simply because the reminders are next door, around the corner, and down the block from us. Some of our co-workers neighbors, and friends are still engaged in a struggle for every day survival, and while we're doing better than they are, the rapidly closing gap between the poor and the middle class has allowed us to identify with each other. The difference is often no more than a pay check or two.
Where as the gap between the rich and proninant is wide enough so that there is no association with any other socio-economic group. Their race becomes secondary and their wealth becomes primary. So much so that even those who have come from humble beginnings and have had a mode come of success feel quite comfortable in criticizing those who have not done the same. Their assertion is that they've pulled themselves up by their own "boot straps", and seem quite puzzled when others cannot do the same. They forget about their struggles, and act as if they have always been triumphant. As if they've stood alone and conquered each and every obstacle by their own whit. But EVERYONE who has ever been successful in the history of the planet earth has had help. Whether it was guidance, kind words, or someone sewing a seed into their spirit giving them the strength to press on. Everybody has been helped and needs help. And while the "Uncle Toms" among us are entitled to their opinions, criticism without offering an adequit solution or a helping hand, is little more than mean-spirited pontificating.
"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime"
Rush Limbaugh can sleep well now. Donald Sterling is the new most hated man in America !
Donald Sterling is not only banned for life from the Los Angeles Clippers and the NBA. A Nevada brothel owner also wants nothing to do with him.
Dennis Hof has banned Sterling for life from ever entering the doors of the Bunny Ranch near Carson City, Nevada, and any of his six other brothels in the state.
Even pimps and hoes have morals. Who knew!!!!
"A lot of NBA players come here to party," Hof told the local media "Out of respect to them, we have banned Sterling from coming here."
Hof says his sense of confidentiality prohibits him from confirming or denying if Sterling has ever visited his brothels.
"I can tell you this: Johnny Buss, one of the owners of the Los Angeles Lakers, and I have had a dual birthday party at the Bunny Ranch for the last 18 years, so a lot of NBA people have been here," he said.
Hof's stand against Sterling isn't only in support of the basketball players who've had to deal with the billionaire's alleged racism over the years.
"At any given time, 20 to 23 percent of the prostitutes here are African-American," Hof said. "And they're smoking hot. Some of them were crying this morning so we're doing this for them as well. We don't need racists or bigots at the Bunny Ranch."
Sterling isn't the first high-profile person forbidden to partake in Hof's garden of earthly delights.
"We banned the 'Duck Dynasty' guys. Those guys are the biggest homophobic assholes and they make their living killing animals," Hof said. "We've also banned Michael Vick. We don't want him here. I couldn't guarantee his safety from the girls. They love animals."
Sterling may be persona non grata at Hof's brothel, but his estranged girlfriend, V. Staviano, now has a free lifetime pass.
"She needs to meet some women who can satisfy her more than any man could," Hof said.
One word......ewwwww!!!!!
Warning: Some of the details in this next story definitely fall into the T.M.I category.
But everybody loves a good train wreck?!
A morbidly obese woman in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is facing the biggest battle of her life, losing 200 pounds in a hurry.
Charity Pierce, 38, is trying to lose enough weight to qualify for gastric bypass surgery. She believes surgery is the only way she'll be healthy enough to marry her 21-year-old boyfriend, Tony Sauer.
"I'm determined not to get married at home." I want to be able to walk up the aisle," she told Barcroft TV. "We both love country music so I plan to wear a wedding dress, cowboy boots and cowgirl hat and Tony will be in jeans and cowboy boots."..............
But wait it gets better!
Sauer isn't just Pierce's lover and confidant. His brother, Jimmy, had a previous relationship with Pierce that produced her 18-year-old daughter, Charly...........Gasp!!!...........
Is she the only morbidly obese woman in town? He couldn't find his own?
But wait, it gets better!
Sauer first met Pierce when he was 8 and she was 25. They reconnected at a party three years ago.
"After Charly was born I didn’t often see Jimmy, so we weren’t ever a couple," she said. “When I met Tony, he seemed very mature for his age and we just got on.”
In the early days of their courtship, Pierce recalled that she and her boyfriend werehaving sex "up to four times a day".
She has since developed lymphedema, a condition that has caused extreme swelling in her left leg and hip, and that has cut into her sex life.
"The lymphedema feels like another whole person. It feels like cinder blockshanging off you all thetime". Pierce sad.
Sauer says Pierce's size isn't an issue, but he worries she could die.
Although she has reduced her daily caloric intake from 10,000 to 1,200, Pierce has only lost 22 pounds in the last few months. She believes gastric bypass surgery could help, but local doctors won't operate until she loses at least 200 pounds.
There is a doctor in Houston who is willing to operate on patients who weigh more than 600 pounds, she said. To get there, she needs to raise $5,000 to pay for an ambulance -- the only vehicle that can transport her.
Pierce has set up a GoFundMe page and has raised $2,338 so far.
If the Houston doctor believes she's a good candidate for surgery, her experience could be filmed for the TLC series, "My 600 lb Life"
When doctors brought a set of heavy-duty scales to Pierce’s home, she topped the scales at 765 pounds, more than 122 pounds heavier than Pauline Potter, who is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's heaviest living woman.
"Seeing those figures appear on the scales was such a shock. I didn’t expect that. It was devastating," she said.
REALLY?!?!?!
As the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." So be careful what you throw away.
Shirley Nelson of Boulder, Colorado was on her way into the thrift store, when she saw a man getting out of his car carrying an old, weathered violin case. He was on his way in to donate it.
Nelson, who has been tinkering with learning to play the violin for about eight years and whose daughter plays in a youth orchestra, intercepted his path.
"It was all beaten up. It smelled and looked like hardly anything," she says. "But I felt something with the case -- this really positive energy."
Inside, she found a chipped violin with broken strings and a dusty, used violin bow. On a whim, she asked if he'd sell the case and its contents to her on the spot for all the cash in her wallet: $15. The man, who was presumably about to get nothing for the donation anyway, took the money and handed her the case.
She brought the case and its contents to Eric Paulu, one of the rare, professional bow-makers and experts in the state and one of only a few dozen across the country. She'd only met him once before, when he repaired her daughter's bow. She wondered if her find was worth anything.
"I had to warn her, because there are a lot of imitations made -- imitation fine bows, fakes, in the way there are fake Picassos," Paulu says. "I told her not to get her hopes up."
Then he opened the case.
"Violins and bows end up in thrift stores and pawn shops and antique stores all the time. This is not what's unusual," Paulu says. "What's unusual is it had something of real remarkable value inside the case."
He recognized the wood: Pernambuco, from Brazil, the best wood for a top-of-the-line bow.
This led him to examine the metal parts. They had tarnished black-grey, not green, indicating they were sterling silver, not nickel silver, and they were accented with a special engraved ornamentation.
Then he saw the brand: Eugene Sartory. A famous 20th-century French master bow-maker. Paulu estimated the bow was authentic, about 100 years old. And the $15 cast-away item was worth at least $10,000.
After a few small crack repairs, some wood straightening and new horsehair, Paulu values the bow around $16,000.
Hmmm, I wonder if my limited edition Mr. T action figure, complete with gold chains and tools was worth anything? Too late now.
For the most part I am a pretty easy going guy. It takes a lot to upset me, I rarely get emotional, and I can easily put most things into perspective. I haven't always been that way. But at the age of 43 I am a seasoned man forged in the fire, and built by life. That's not to say that I don't still have a long way to go. After all I still have many lessons ahead of me. But I'd like to think that there are some things that I would never do simply because I am too mature to do them. With that being said, there are some things that a grown man, especially a 30 or 40 something year old man, should never do.........
It is an excruciatingly painful experience for me to read the sad and pitiful posts written by a grown "behind", ( and I use the word "behind" because this is a family blog), who decides to reveal his inner most feelings and emotions for all of his Facebook world to see. It's not cute, it's not attractive, and it's definitely not cool! I can guarantee you that the same woman that you're wasting text tears for is probably letting her friends and her Mama read your posts, as they shake their heads and chuckle at you being SOFT! S O F T.
Cut it out. Work your issues out away from the internet, and stop wearing your heart on your sleeve.
No good will ever come out of it.
If you're reading this you might be "hot" right about now. But only if you KNOW that this is you. If it's not you, then it shouldn't matter. But if you have an issue with anything that I wrote contact me at theprbrownreport@gmail.com. But if only only if you recognize yourself.
This is a story that I had to read 3 different times from 3 different media outlet's to believe, and I am still having trouble digesting it.
A widow has been told for the second time by a Pennsylvania court that her home's sale at auction after she failed to pay property taxes is valid - she owed only $6.30 at the time it was sold.
Eileen Battisti, 53, of Aliquippa, lost legal rights to her $280,000 home over two years ago after failing to pay the paltry sum but has made multiple appeals on grounds she did not know it was owed.
The most recent decision made last week denied her request to reverse the September 2011 sale of a house she is still reportedly living in.
'I paid everything, and didn't know about the $6.30,' Battisti said. 'For the house to be sold just because of $6.30 is crazy.'
She had previously owed other taxes, the court noted, but at the time of the sale she owed just $235, including other interest and fees.
Beaver County Common Pleas Judge Gus Kwidis wrote in his ruling that the county tax claim bureau complied with notification requirements in state law before the auction.
'There is no doubt that (she) had actual receipt of the notification of the tax upset sale on July 7, 2011, and Aug. 16, 2011,' the judge wrote. 'Moreover, on Aug. 12, 2011, a notice of sale was sent by first class mail and was not returned.'
Battisti also admitted to receiving those notices, according to the judge.
He wrote in the ruling there “is no doubt' Battisti “had actual receipt” of them.
The property sold for about $116,000, and she is entitled to $108,039 if subsequent appeals are unsuccessful.
'She's going to get that money, but she's going to lose her house. All the notice requirements were met,' wrote Kwidis. 'In tax assessment laws, even if I feel sorry for her, I can't do anything to help her.
In most cases I am against the death penalty, and although I may face criticism for having caveates to my vehement opposition I believe that I am justified in feeling the way that I do. The fact is, while there are some who are wrongfully convicted and wrongfully executed. There are inmates who's crimes are so heinous, and so evil, that they do not deserve to live among us. So excuse me if I don't shed a tear for Clayton Lockett
Oklahoma prison officials halted Lockett's execution after botching the delivery of a new three drug lethal injection cocktail but he died anyway.
The state postponed the execution of a second prisoner scheduled to die Tuesday night as defense lawyers called for an independent investigation and the dead man's family demanded answers.
"Why? Why? Why?" Clayton Lockett's stepmom, Ladonna Hollins, wailed in a phone interview as witness accounts of the execution began trickling out.
Robert Patton, the director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said the intravenous line into Lockett's arm blew out.
Lockett, on death row for shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman with a sawed-off shotgun and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999, suffered a heart attack and died at 7:06 p.m. CT, officials said.
Media witnesses reported that soon after the execution began with a combination of drugs that have been used in other states but not by Oklahoma. It became apparent there was a problem.
Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first drug was administered, but three minutes later he began breathing heavily, writhed on the gurney, clenched his teeth and strained to lift his head. But his pain probably pales in comparison to be blasted with a shotgun and burned alive.
Lockett tried to talk and appeared to say the word, "Man," before prison officials lowered the blinds, blocking the view of those in the gallery, according to a reporter who was a witness.
Hollins, who did not attend the execution, said she was horrified by the details.
"When they opened up the curtain, he was still alive. He was alive after they injected him! It did not do the job. They screwed it up," she said. "If they cannot effectively execute a person, then don't do it. What is wrong with this system?"
The complications are sure to figure heavily in the growing debate over lethal injections, from the drugs that states use to kill prisoners to the secrecy surrounding the pharmacies that supply them.
Lockett and fellow death-row inmate Charles Warner won a delay in their executions when Oklahoma revealed it could not obtain the pentobarbital it had been using and scrambled to put in place a new protocol: the sedative midazolam, the paralytic pancuronium bromide and heart-stopping potassium chloride.
The two men tried and failed to force the state to reveal where it got the new drugs, arguing they needed the information to ensure the chemicals would be untainted and effective.
Hollins, who expressed sympathy for his victim's family, said her son had made his peace with the idea that he would be executed but feared a painful end.
"I thank God he doesn't have to go through it anymore," she said. "He did a bad thing and he died a bad way. Nobody else should have to die like that."
Deanna Parker, Lockett’s aunt, said what happened in the death chamber "was exactly what he feared."
"That is why he was fighting. He wasn't just fighting for him, he was fighting for the men after him, too," she said.
She faulted Gov. Mary Fallin for pushing ahead with the execution amid clashing legal opinions about whether the state should proceed without revealing the source of its drugs.
"I would like to say to her, 'She is not God.'"
Fallin said Tuesday evening that she has ordered a review of the execution process, but appeared to have a somewhat different explanation to what happened, saying the lethal injection was “ineffective.”
"I have asked the Department of Corrections to conduct a full review of Oklahoma's execution procedures to determine what happened and why during this evening's execution of Clayton Derrell Lockett," Fallin said in a statement.
Fallin said Lockett's execution was halted when it “appeared the lethal injection administered to him was ineffective.”
The execution of Warner, who was convicted of raping and killing his roommate's 11-month-old child in 1997, was postponed for 14 days.
Madeline Cohen, Warner’s attorney, called for a moratorium on executions in Oklahoma.
"This botched execution should give Oklahoma serious pause. No other executions should take place until there has been an opportunity for a full investigation," she said.
She said the probe should include an autopsy by independent pathologist, full transparency as well as information about the source, preparation and administration of the drugs.
She disputed the prison’s contention that he blew a vein.
"That's garbage. That's dissembling." Lockett "did not have a vein issue,” she said. “He was not an IV drug user. He was healthy. He had bulging veins."
Before Lockett's execution, his victim's family issued a brief written statement in which they recalled that she loved children and had worked at Bible school.
"She was the joy of our life," they said. "We are thankful this day has finally arrived and justice will finally be served."
