Jackson Free Press

Video emerged this weekend from New York Giants punter Steve Weatherford (warning there is some bad language in the video) showing defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul throwing cornerback Prince Amukamara into an ice bath.

Hazing has long been a part of life of sports. The problem of hazing is not confided to just the NFL. From Greek life in college to high school and college sports, and even college bands have run into legal trouble from hazing.

Recently more coaches in the NFL have taken stand against hazing that included harmless pranks such as making rookies standup during meals and sing their alma mater fight song to taping rookies to the goal posts after practice.

The harmless pranks lead to over the line pranks like what Pierre-Paul did to Amukamara. Florida A&M is in broiled in a hazing scandal that left a student dead and has led to the band being barred from school activities.

New Your Giants head coach Tom Coughlin and the club needs to come down hard on Pierre-Paul and anyone else who took part in this prank. Weatherford should be punished as well for filming the incident (posting it on twitter, thinking it was funny) and not stopping it.

The NFL has already stated this is a club issue. No word from the NFL Players Association on the hazing incident is just sad.

Every chance the NFLPA gets, they want to fight with the NFL but the group will not take a stance when one member dumps another member into an ice bath.

That is just plain sad and makes the NFLPA even more of a joke.

The reason the Giants need to come down hard on the participants is because this video went viral. Colleges and universities about to begin classes and high schools already in session, there is a chance someone thinks pranks like this one is a good idea and copies it.

Even scarier is the idea that someone would take a prank/hazing further and someone gets seriously hurt or ends up dead. Kids watch pro athletes and think if they do something it is ok for them to copy their actions.

That is why the New York Giants need to come down hard on all the players involved in this incident. There is a saying “it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt”.

Why don’t we put our foot down so things don’t get to the point someone gets hurts?

Several stories about Mississippi's former forensic pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne have cropped up lately in the national media.

I was thrilled to hear today that the Associated Press, of which the Jackson Free Press is now a member, has rejected the use of "illegal" and "illegals" to describe undocumented immigrants. Media diversity expert Richard Prince blogs about the move:

The battle to eliminate use of the term "illegal" or "illegal alien" to describe human beings has been proceeding at least since 1994, when the four associations that staged the first Unity convention "issued a joint statement on the term 'illegal aliens':

" 'Except in direct quotations, do not use the phrase illegal alien or the word alien, in copy or in headlines, to refer to citizens of a foreign country who have come to the U.S. with no documents to show that they are legally entitled to visit, work or live here. Such terms are considered pejorative not only by those to whom they are applied but by many people of the same ethnic and national backgrounds who are in the U.S. legally,' " as a 2006 statement from the National Association of Black Journalists recalled.

The AP released its statements on its blog today:

The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal” should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.

Why did we make the change?

The discussions on this topic have been wide-ranging and include many people from many walks of life. (Earlier, they led us to reject descriptions such as “undocumented,” despite ardent support from some quarters, because it is not precise. A person may have plenty of documents, just not the ones required for legal residence.)

Prince reported that The New York Times expected to follow suit, as early as this week.

It's about time. The Jackson Free Press has long adhered to the principle that a human being cannot be "illegal" and that the phrasing is not only not precise, but it is dehumanizing. We're glad that the AP and The New York Times have realized that it is no place of journalism to encourage offensive labels for human beings.

Right on.

Law enforcement in Hinds and Rankin counties and in the cities of Jackson, Ridgeland, and Pearl worked together with the FBI, the Mississippi Attorney General's office and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics to rescue victims of sex trafficking in Mississippi and bring traffickers to justice.

The local action was part of Operation Cross Country VII, a three-day enforcement action to address commercial child sex trafficking throughout the United States that encompassed 76 cities.

A 17-year-old Mississippi girl was among the 105 children rescued in the sting. The Jackson-area operation included the arrests of 10 pimps. Officials have charged 24 others "with related state and local offenses," the FBI stated in a release.

“Child prostitution is a threat to children not just in other countries, but across America and right here in Mississippi,” said Daniel McMullen, special agent in charge of the FBI in Mississippi. “This operation serves as a reminder that the FBI and its partners in law enforcement remain committed to identifying and rescuing any child who is being victimized in this heinous enterprise.”

Rankin County saw a total of 14 arrests, and charged three men with human trafficking: Christopher Jermaine Armstrong, 28, of Hattiesburg and James Edward Williams Jr., 27, and William Charles Toliver, 48, both of Jackson. Tolliver faces two trafficking counts while Armstrong and Williams are each charged with one count of trafficking and marijuana possession.

Jackson authorities arrested eight people. Among them are Square Jefferson, 24, and Gerald Knight, 25, who are charged with aiding and abetting prostitution--pimping--a felony.

In Ridgeland, the sting netted 12, including four Jackson residents arrested for promoting prostitution: Adrian Harris, 26; Travis Minor, 29; Randy Roberts, 29; and Jasmine Taylor, 20.

Ridgeland Police Lt. John Neal told the Associated Press that Taylor and a second woman both had children with them at the time of their arrests. Police charged the other woman with prostitution.

"Each of them had their two small children with them. There was one that was four years old, the other that was two years old in the car while her mother was up offering services," Neal said.

The number of alleged pimps arrested in Mississippi was fifth-highest in the nation, the AP reported, behind the FBI divisions in Detroit (18), San Francisco (17), Atlanta (17) and Oklahoma City (13).

To learn more about Operation Cross Country and the Innocence Lost National Initiative, visit www.fbi.gov, www.justice.gov, or www.ncmec.org.

A run-down of what's going on this week in music...

Roy McMillan has died after a long illness, the Clarion-Ledger reported.

Frequent visitors to Fondren know McMillan as the brash, fedora-wearing, fetus-sign waving anti-abortion protester near the Jackson Women's Health Organization.

A bit of history on McMillan:

In 1995, a federal court ordered McMillan to stay 50 feet away from the clinic for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, enacted in 1994 after Dr. (David) Gunn's murder in Pensacola. According to court records, on May 3, 1995, McMillan made his hand into the shape of a gun and told clinic employees: "Y'all look like a bunch of birds on a telephone wire waiting to be shot off by a man with a shotgun...Pow, pow, pow, pow."

McMillan pickets the clinic each day they see patients by displaying signs that carry pictures of fetuses and messages equating abortion to genocide. He and his wife, Beverly, an OB/GYN and former abortion doctor, also oppose all hormonal birth control including the pill and the morning-after pill.

He told the Jackson Free Press that meeting Beverly in 1982 is how he became involved in the pro-life movement.

JFP reporter Casey Parks wrote of McMillan: "He was reluctant to even join the mission. He thought Beverly was cute and smart when he saw her speak, though, so he asked her on a date. She thought he was charming, and they quickly married.

The pro-life movement inundated the husband's life as the wife spent most of her weekends speaking around the state. He joined the pro-life movement rather halfheartedly—he agreed to oversee one of the pro-life publications. His master's in journalism from Columbia University would come in handy, he thought, and besides, he wanted nothing to do with sidewalk counseling or protesting. When a colleague suggested that Roy go out to the clinic to take some action photos, Roy got a little nervous."

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photos/2016/jan/21/24204/