Philadelphia police, roiled by harassment scandal, brings in Black woman to turn it around

Philadelphia, in a response to a dilemma in which the city was facing turmoil and scandal in law enforcement has hired an African American woman — the first ever — to lead its police department in hopes she will help the city turn a corner.

Danielle Outlaw, 43, who has served chief of police in Portland, Ore., since 2017, was announced as Philadelphia’s new police commissioner on Monday by Mayor Jim Kenney, four months after her full-time predecessor was forced to resign amidst a sexual harassment scandal, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

READ MORE: Philadelphia, St. Louis police departments remove cops from the street after investigation into racist social media posts

Outlaw, a native of Oakland, is the first Black woman ever to run the Philadelphia police, and the second woman overall, following the acting commissioner brought on in August, Christine Coulter. Outlaw is also the youngest commissioner in at least two decades, according to the Inquirer.

But the new top cop is walking into a minefield, starting with but not limited to the way the job opened. Former commissioner Richard Ross resigned in August when a lawsuit surfaced accusing him of ignoring sexual harassment claims of an officer against a fellow officer. Ross, also an African-American, had been with the department for 30 years and had held the position since January 2016.

READ MORE: Philly police chief resigns as sexual harassment and discrimination claims roil department

Multiple cases of harassment, and of gender and racial discrimination in the department, surfaced after that. In addition, the crime rate in the city has continued to soar, as has the poverty level.

“I am very qualified to make the jump,” Outlaw said in her introductory press conference. “The issues remain the same. I am very experienced in each of them.”

Outlaw came out on top of a search of 31 candidates, 18 of which were from the Philadelphia force, the Inquirer said. Several factions pushed for a woman of color to get the job, and although many had favored one already in the force, they are glad the city was willing to take the leap to reward a previously-under-represented group.

“Most of us are very encouraged,” Philadelphia city councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell told the Inquirer about her fellow council members. “They’re especially happy that she’s a woman — and happy of course that it’s an African American woman — but especially happy that she’s a woman.”

READ MORE: 13 Philadelphia cops to be terminated after offensive Facebook posts

Outlaw also came with the endorsement of the head of the police union in her former home of Portland, Daryl Turner: “You’re getting a damn good chief. We hate to lose her.”

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'Don't Put Your Race Before Being Christian': Pastor Assures Parishioners That Trump Visit Won't Cause ICE Raids

Pastor Guillermo Maldonado of King Jesus International Ministry Church in Miami addressed concerns of hundreds of parishioners in a Spanish-language service on Sunday.

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Kanye approves of T.I.’s controversial fatherhood remarks; claims God does, too

Kanye West used the one-year anniversary of his Sunday Service to give some public support to a fellow rapper and his quest to preserve his adult daughter’s sexual purity. It wasn’t noticeably embraced by his Los Angeles audience, and didn’t seem to be a completely logical fit with the rest of his message.

In the midst of his service at Union Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, Kanye gave a shout-out to the embattled T.I., whose discussion about taking his daughter annually to assure that her hymen is intact (and thus, in his mind, her virginity) set off a public firestorm.

For his part, however, T.I., later appeared on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook Live show ‘Red Table Talk’ and contritely explained that he did not mean to be taken literally when he made the comment.

OPNION: How Jada Pinkett Smith schooled an ‘incredibly apologetic’ T.I. during a candid ‘Red Table Talk’

Still T.I.’s actions, West told the crowd, were “God-approved,’’ as opposed to “devil-approved,’’ in video shown on TMZ.com. His remarks before and after that were about the appreciation of his presenting his Sunday Service for an entire year, and about multiple states’ death-penalty statutes and “a worldwide solution” to the homeless problem personified by the location of that current service.

“They tryna play T.I., but he’s talkin’ about somethin’ that’s God-approved,” West told the crowd in the clip TMZ showed. The New York Post said the comment, was “met by silence from the audience.’’ That differed from the louder, more positive reactions to his later remarks about his Sunday Services being an “alternative to opioids” and an “alternative to pornography.’’

READ MORE: Killer Mike calls out T.I. and Candace Owens for arguing over ‘who got the best master’

On the TMZ video snippet, West prefaced his T.I. comment with one about how “people love to take a soundbite and say, ‘This was not exactly devil-approved by the internet.’ ” That appeared to refer to the avalanche of online condemnation following T.I.’s remarks about his daughter.

West also randomly mentioned talking to Elon Musk and, calling it a “shameless name-drop,” alluding to a discussion with him about homelessness and addiction problems commonly confronted by Union Rescue Mission.

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Joe Biden, heading into primary season, says he’s OK with a GOP running mate

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden may be taking the idea of reaching across the aisle farther than his 2020 election competitors.

According to CNN, while at a campaign stop in Exeter, N.H., Monday, the former vice president answered a question about whether he would consider picking a Republican as his vice-presidential running mate, with, “The answer is I would, but I can’t think of one now.”

READ MORE: Joe Biden on racism — White people ‘can never fully understand’

Biden made the remark in the state which will hold the first Democratic primary in less than two months. Until this revelation, all the speculation about his running mate had centered around non-white males, such as former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and former candidate Sen. Kamala Harris.

While Biden has consistently struck a conciliatory, cooperative tone about working with Republicans, that party has shown little desire to return the favor to him. The root of the improprieties that got President Trump impeached recently was his and his administration’s attempts to engage Ukraine in digging up incriminating information to use specifically against Biden.

There has not been a major-party presidential ticket in modern times in which the nominee and his or her running mate has been from the opposing party. According to CNN, the late GOP senator John McCain considered Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman in 2008, but settled on Republican Sarah Palin to eventually be beaten by Barack Obama and Biden.

READ MORE: Joe Biden remains top choice for Black voters, according to new poll

For what it’s worth, Biden clarified his statement in Exeter by saying, “You know there’s some really decent Republicans that are out there still, but here’s the problem right now … they’ve got to step up.

“There’s a plethora of really qualified people,’’ Biden said. “Whomever I would pick were I fortunate enough to be your nominee, I’d pick somebody who was simpatico with me, who knew what I, what my priorities were and knew what I wanted to.’’

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There Was But One Creative Gawd Who Smote All Others in 2019. Mr. Billy Porter Is Kuumba Personified

If there’s one thing black folk are—it’s creative. Whether through necessity or just burned into our melanin-ness, we make sumptuous meals from scraps, our bodies defy gravity when we dance; and we have reimagined fashion, hair, sport, ways of looking at the world, or even naming our children in our burnished image…

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