Do the lives of black 2 year olds matter? Or just those of criminals whose violent deaths can be exploited for 15 minutes of rabblerousing and rioting?
That's the question here.
Dominique Alexander of the Next Generation Action Network, another anti-police group that apparently marched under the Black Lives Matter banner, and helped organize the Dallas rally at which a Black Lives Matter supporter murdered five police officers, is complainingthat he's being "targeted" by police.
Alexander, the founder of the protest network, believes he was targeted because he refused to stop the demonstrations.
“They try to hush and silence people,” he said. “It would be a failure to the lives lost if we don’t continue. The issues still exist, and they can act like they want to heal, but then they ignore the issues.”
Let's not ignore those. Like child abuse. It's a key issue.
Dominique Alexander demanded justice after a Grapevine officer shot an unarmed man earlier this year. He decried an unsolved murder of a pregnant Dallas woman. He has led numerous protests, including picketing outside the home of a University of Oklahoma fraternity member who helped lead a racist chant.
And now the 26-year-old has moved himself to the forefront of another highly charged racial incident — as a leader of protests over a McKinney police officer’s well-publicized handling of a teenage girl.
Alexander is getting his demand. He's getting justice.
But authorities say Alexander is the same person who has caused a 2-year-old child severe bodily injury, forged a check, led police on a high-speed chase, falsely claimed that car was stolen, and stolen a car himself.
We demand justice!
“It’s not like I’m the first person who has been a leader who has had a troubled past,” Alexander said. “It’s not where you come from. It’s where you’re going.”
To prison.
Alexander is the founder of the Next Generation Action Network, a group he says he wants to take national and give young people a platform for peacefully pushing for reform. He says he has no political ambitions right now — despite briefly considering a City Council run — but added that life can change quickly.
It sure can. One day you're protesting cops. The next day you're being hauled away to jail by them.
Alexander described himself Monday as “a peaceful person” who isn’t radical in his means.
But in 2009, Alexander was charged with shaking a 2-year-old baby who was left alone with him. He initially claimed that the child had fallen asleep and then fallen off a couch. But doctors said the injuries were not consistent with an 18-inch fall.
Also that year, Alexander was arrested and charged with stealing a car. He said he was in a dispute with a car lot, which reported the vehicle stolen, over payment and paperwork. The next year, he was charged with forging a check.
In 2012, Alexander was involved in a domestic disturbance with his girlfriend in Carrollton. A neighbor called the cops and reported that Alexander “has a history of anger” and was grabbing the girl as she walked away from him, police said. Alexander’s girlfriend said she also tried to call police, but that Alexander took her phone to stop her.
Alexander said Monday that he was emotionally distressed at the time and had been drinking.
“I was under the influence,” he said. “I did some crazy, crazy things.”
Police said Alexander drove off and tried to elude police, at one point traveling up to 110 mph on Webb Chapel Road. He eventually wrecked the vehicle. Police said Alexander ran away from the wreck and later called to report the car was stolen. They charged him with making a false police report to cover up his actions.
Alexander called the incident “a bad, bad mistake.”
We demand justice!
On Friday, District Judge Gracie Lewis decided that Alexander should spend the next two years in prison for not adhering to the terms of probation she set for him in 2011, after he pleaded guilty to a charge of serious bodily injury to a child. In his signed confession for the case, he admitted to shaking a 2-year-old boy in July 2009 and striking him with an object, court records say.
And, oh yes, the judge is black.
Others who have been active in the local movement for policing reform said Alexander wasn't the sole leader of their movement.
"There are a lot of good young activists in Next Generation," said John Fullinwider, a co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality.
How about Mothers against Alexander's Brutality. Also I suspect John is not a mother.
But this might be the best part...
His official biography on the group’s website states that he “has been labeled as The New Era Civil Rights Father by CBS.” But that’s not true. The local CBS affiliate, KTVT-TV (Channel 11), called him a new father, because he literally had fathered a child
Literally.