High School Football Star Gunned Down in Random Act

LOS ANGELES (AP)—A 17-year-old high school football star is dead, gunned down on a sidewalk a few yards from his home in what authorities are calling a random, unprovoked gang attack. Jamiel Andre Shaw, a standout running back at Los Angeles High School and the Southern League’s most valuable player last season, was shot about 8:40 p.m., March 2 just a few doors away from his home in the Crenshaw area.

Police said Shaw was not a gang member, but was shot multiple times after he didn’t respond when two men pulled up in a car and asked him “Where you from?” code for which gang did he belong to. He died later at a local hospital.

On March 3, his mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was on her way back from Iraq, where she has been serving her second tour of duty. His father, Jamiel Shaw Sr., said he called Jamiel on Sunday (March 2) night, telling him to hurry home from the mall. A few moments after hanging up, Jamiel Sr. said, he heard the shots outside.

“They killed him while his mother is in Iraq fighting, dodging bullets, and she gets a phone call to say her son is on the streets of L.A., dead. For what?” Jamiel Sr. said.  

Hardy Williams, football coach at Los Angeles High, said Jamiel was “a very special kid. Not only was he an outstanding athlete, he was a good person.” And, Williams said, he was “a Houdini on the football field.” Jamiel was an all-city first-team selection last season after he rushed for 1,052 yards, averaging more than 14 yards per carry, and scored 10 touchdowns. He also ran track. In the past week, Williams said, Stanford and Rutgers universities contacted him about Jamiel. “He was elated,” Williams recalled.

Police said they are seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspects, whom officials described only as two Latino men in a white compact sedan. Investigators believe the shooting was not racially motivated. Jamiel was black.

Obama Fights False Links to Islam

WASHINGTON (AP)— For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo and association.

The Democratic presidential front-runner and his campaign reacted strongly this week when a photo of him in Kenyan tribal garb began spreading on the Internet. And the praise he received Sunday from Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black Muslim group Nation of Islam, prompted pointed questions during Tuesday (Feb. 26) night’s presidential debate and in a private meeting over the weekend with Jewish leaders in Cleveland, Ohio.  

During the debate, Obama repeated his denunciation of Farrakhan’s views, which have included numerous anti-Semitic comments. And, after being pressed, he rejected Farrakhan’s support in the presidential race.

The Democratic candidate says repeatedly that he is a Christian who took the oath of office on a family Bible. Yet on the Internet and on talk radio, and in a campaign introduction for Republican candidate John McCain this week, he often is depicted, falsely, as a Muslim with shadowy ties and his middle name, Hussein, is emphasized. 

“If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, in fact I have never been a Muslim,” he told the Jewish leaders in Cleveland, according to a transcript of the private session.

The photo of Obama wearing Kenyan tribal raiment, taken by an Associated Press photographer during his 2006 visit to the country where his father was born, resurfaced on the Internet amid unsubstantiated claims that it was being circulated by members of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign. Clinton and her aides said they had nothing to do with it. The Obama campaign accused them of “shameful, offensive fear-mongering.”

On Tuesday McCain denounced the introduction he got in Cincinnati that criticized Obama in vivid terms. Talk show host Bill Cunningham referred to Obama three times as “Barack Hussein Obama” and called him a “hack, Chicago-style” politician during Cunningham’s introduction of McCain.

The Obama campaign is closely attuned to the rumors and insinuations. Information on Obama’s Christian faith is prominently available on the “Know the facts” page of his Web site. The campaign has distributed flyers to churches in states with presidential contests. It encourages supporters to flag any attack that may make its way into cyberspace.  If there is confusion, and opportunity for political mischief, it derives at least in part from Obama’s rich cultural background. His mother was a white woman from Kansas, his father was Kenyan, and he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country. Obama has become careful in denouncing the links, lately noting that some rumors about him also have been insulting to Muslims. Jim Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said many Arab Americans are drawn to Obama because of his cultural background.

Bass Becomes First Black Woman to Lead Assembly

SACRAMENTO (AP)— Los Angeles lawmaker Karen Bass was elected the next speaker of the state Assembly on Feb. 28, becoming the first black woman to lead either house of the Legislature.

Bass, 54, was elected to the 80-member chamber in 2004 and is known for writing legislation on child welfare and social justice issues. She also was one of the top supporters of Barack Obama’s campaign in California.

She will work alongside Speaker Fabian Nunez, also a Los Angeles Democrat, before making the full transition into the role later this year.

“This is an amazing, amazing moment,” Bass told her fellow Assembly members after the unanimous voice vote. “Thank you so much for your vote of faith and confidence in me as your next speaker. I am deeply honored and deeply humbled by the trust you have placed in me. I will work to be worthy of that trust every day I am speaker.”

Bass will become just the second black woman leading a state legislative chamber but the first with day-to-day responsibility, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Center for American Women and Politics at the State University of New Jersey.

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