A 3-year-old Memphis boy attacks a cop.  A 3-year-old Memphis boy jumped from a car and helped his mother and the driver, who was a suspect in a crime, attack the arresting officer, according to witnesses. FOX News reports that the officer is recovering at a Memphis-area hospital, while the mother has been arrested and is being held. Watch the video below.

A sixth-grader gets suspended for his anti- Obama T-Shirt

. He wore an Obama T-shirt to school and was given the ultimatum to either change his shirt, turn it inside out or be kicked out of school. Daxx Dalton, an 11-year-old, sixth-grader in Colorado, took the suspension, saying his first amendment rights were being trampled.  On a day when students were asked to show their patriotism by wearing, red, white and blue, Dalton wore a homemade shirt that read “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.” Get more on the story at BET.com/News. Should the boy have been suspended?Police arrest a man who wonders too close to Obama’s home. Police are holding a young Black man, who penetrated the security perimeter around Sen. Barack Obama’s Chicago home Tuesday morning with a gun on the floor of his car, The Chicago Sun-Times reports. The incident occurred around 4:45 a.m. when the man appeared about a block from the south side home of the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley told the newspaper.  He noted, however, that the man did not direct any threats toward Obama, did not “utter any threatening language,” and no weapon was involved, Wiley said. But police told the Sun-Times that officers found a gun and bullet-proof vest in the man’s car. A Secret Service security detail stopped him, according to the report, and he began a “rambling conversation” about getting a job and spoke about how he was a victim of crime and that he was happy that an African-American was running for president. The 30-something man is a convicted felon, the paper reports. What fueled concern, police say, is that after being told to leave the area, the man drove away but returned. That’s when Secret Service officers searched his car and recovered a handgun, the Sun-Times reports.

Smoking causes more cancers than once thought  It is known that tobacco-smoking leads to serious health complications. Smoking is a major risk factor for cancer. But a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) links smoking to more cancers than most people realize. Get the details at BET.com/Body & Soul.

Infamous Klansman will rally troops in civil rights capital

Renowned ex-Klansman David Duke is uniting his troops in Memphis, the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. Duke, the Louisiana White supremacist politician who came a stone’s throw from landing in the U.S. Senate, has announced his Euro-International Conference to be held in the historic city on Nov. 8. But it is unclear exactly where the event will be held, according to Kevin Kane, an official with the convention and visitors bureau. At the convention, Duke will address the presidential election. “We will assemble to say clearly that neither Black radical, Barrack Obama, nor Mr. Amnesty, John McCain, truly represent the will of the American people,” says Duke, who left the Democratic Party several years ago to join the Republican ranks. Before his run for the Senate in 1990, Duke left the KKK - officially - and he formed the National Association for the Advancement of White People, NAAWP. He says he didn’t pick Memphis because it is the infamous site of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, but because it is the most centrally located cities in the United States.

Police seek noose planter at Texas University. Police want to know who put a noose on the chair of the student body president at Abilene Christian University last week. When Daniel Paul Watkins, and African-American senior political science major, returned to his office on Wednesday, somebody had put the racially insensitive symbol there. University President Royce Money said the action is nothing short of a hate crime and campus cops are working to solve the case. Only about 13 percent of the student body at Abilene Christian, a campus of 4,700 students, is Black.

Ex-husband of Atlanta mayor dies. David McCoy Franklin, the ex-husband of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin who was a trusted adviser of former Mayor Maynard Jackson, died Sunday, according to a death notice issued by Murray Brothers Funeral Home in Atlanta . He was 65. No cause of death has been disclosed. Franklin had suffered a long illness, Angelo Fuster, former spokesman for Jackson , told The Associated Press. Fuster said that Franklin ’s political smarts were “quite valued,” AP reports.

Blacks are the target of choice for Taser-wielding Houston Police

Life can be shocking if you’re Black and life in Houston . A new study released Monday revealed that Houston Police officers have used their Tasers on African-American suspects more than any other group of people. Read more at BET.com/News.

Philly cops nab third suspect in cold-blooded murder. Philadelphia Police have netted a third suspect in connection with the slaying of a 78-year-old Korean War vet who was shot in the face last week by thugs who attempted to rob him outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post. The murder of the “sweet and gentle man,” as neighbors described him, shocked the community and the police, which launched an intense investigation into the homicide. Last Thursday detectives arrested two 18-year-olds, Karl Jarmon and Terrell Bennett. Their alleged accomplice, 15-year-old Gary Autrey, is now under arrest, according to homicide Lt. Mel Williams. The trio is being held without bail, charged with murder, conspiracy and weapons charges, police said. “We are satisfied that we took these predators off the streets and we made an arrest in a timely manner, and we were able to give the family closure,” said Lt. Williams. “It’s a tragedy whenever people prey on the old.” Enor Williams had been married to Connie Williams nearly 40 years and, according to The Philadelphia Daily News, was a devoted volunteer at the post. “I hate that [the murder] was the last thing that happened to him,” his 59-year-old widow told the newspaper. “I knew they would find him,” she said of the suspected gunman. “I don’t know how, but I did.” *

Montellis Clark’s mother didn’t want to know how many time he was shot

A man who was killed in a shootout with Atlanta Police in July had 19 bullet holes in his chest and back, 12 in his legs, six in his arms and one each in his neck and butt, an autopsy report obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. The family of the victim, Montellis Clark, has claimed that an officer stood over Clark and blasted away. Although the 39 bullet wounds would seem to suggest excessive force, they did not necessarily confirm that particular account, reported the newspaper, which obtained the autopsy report through an Open Records Act request. Dr. Karen Sullivan of the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, who performed the autopsy July 16 - the day after the shooting - said that some wounds were likely caused by the same bullets that passed through one side and out another. Police say that Clark fired the first shots, firing at police outside an Atlanta home after being told to pull his hands out of his pockets. Two officers, Clarence Tosh and Gregory Dubose shot back, hitting his 25-year-old brother in the back. Clark’s mother, Melissa Clark, witnessed the incident but was not wounded. Interviewed by the Constitution-Journal, Melissa Clark said, “It didn’t take that many shots. Once he was shot, that was enough.” She told the paper that she did not want to know how many times her son was shot.

Hurricane Katrina: three years later. As New Orleans braces for another potentially destructive storm, we look back to the impact and the progress made in the last three years after Hurricane Katrina here.

BET News Quiz: An HBCU gets millions; McCain gets a surprise endorsement; and Yung Berg was allegedly jumped. Test your knowledge here! 

Police are thankful for saggy pants … this time. Instead of enforcing laws against saggy pants, police departments around the country might want to start issuing pairs of the below-the-butt slacks to hoodlums. In Atlanta Wednesday, police shot and wounded a fleeing 21-year-old suspect as he allegedly turned toward officers and aimed his gun but stumbled while struggling to keep his pants up. Police said that Emmanuel Uzowihe was sprinting down one of Atlanta’s busiest streets when he was felled by officers, stopping traffic. His injuries were not life-threatening, and he was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Officers with the department’s Auto Theft Task Force pulled over Uzowihe for an undisclosed traffic violation, Sgt. Lisa Keyes told the Constitution-Journal. Uzowihe jumped from the car and ran down the sidewalk, she said. Police pursued, ordering the suspect several times to stop, she said. A witness, Trevious Grier, said she saw Uzowihe’s weapon as he ran past. “He had a long black handgun he was holding in front of him,” Grier said. “I’ve never seen a gun that big before.” But as soon as he pointed the weapon, an officer shot him twice, police said. But according to witness Darrell Jackson, Uzowihe’s baggy pants is what landed him in the hospital. “He was running pretty fast,” Jackson said. “The only thing that messed him up is he was trying to pull his pants up.” Kelly agreed, saying, “I bet he won’t wear baggy paints again.”

Obama bills are “racist,” some say. A Republican Party leader in Washington state apologized Thursday for phony $3 bill with a picture of Sen. Barack Obama wearing Muslim headgear and sporting a camel that was sold at a booth at a county fair. “I want to apologize to anyone upset or offended by seeing it,” Snohomish County Republican Party Chairwoman Geri Modrell told The Herald newspaper. Underneath the likeness of a smiling Obama is the tag “Da Man,” and there are signatures from purportedly from “Teddy Kennedy, Chief Socialism Advisor” and “Al Sharpton, New Spiritual Advisor.” Modrell said that she asked volunteers to remove them when she discovered them on Tuesday. Some visitors to the fair called the bills “racist” and “offensive.”

Lima, Ohio, chief says the community needs to assist officers.

The head of the Lima, Ohio, Police Department acknowledged that there may be some lessons to be learned in the shooting death of a Black woman while she held her baby, an incident that widened the racial rift between cops and the Black community. Chief Greg Garlock, pressed by Lima’s African-American preachers, released a statement saying that the department will review the findings of the various investigations into the practices of the S.W.A.T. team and its member, Sgt. Joe Chavalia, who killed Tarika Wilson on Jan. 4. The officer was acquitted by a jury earlier this month. “It is my intent to take the information derived from all those investigations, along with an examination of ‘best practices’ of other SWAT teams in the United States, to determine what we can do to enhance our internal practices,” Garlock said in his statement. He said that the community plays a crucial role in helping police solve crimes. Speaking for the ministers’ group, Coalition for Change, the Rev. H. Frank Taylor, described Garlock’s actions as “a good step. It’s good we have gotten such a quick response. …I believe police are here to serve and protect citizens of this community. If there is a perceived high-risk threat to apprehend a person, police move that mission to secure and apprehend. Under no circumstances do police move to a search and destroy mission,” Taylor said.

A Georgia boy dies after being shot by a little girl. A Georgia teen died Saturday after being accidentally shot in the head by a 12-year-old girl late Friday. Police said that 17-year-old Trevayne R. Cozart was pronounced dead at the Gwinnet Medical Center in suburban Atlanta. He had been playing with a friend when the friend’s little sister fired a weapon. Although the girl’s mother was home at the time, she was not in the room where the shooting to place, police said. No charges have been filed against the parents or the child.

NAACP will protest police actions in Conn. town.

The Stamford, Conn., branch of the NAACP, saying that police are “mentally abusing” Black youths, will hold a protest against local law enforcement on Aug. 31. The mass action will mark the first demonstration under NAACP President Jack Bryant, who took over the helm of the chapter five years ago. “I feel this plan of action is necessary as the need to begin policing our police department,” Bryant told Mayor Dannel Malloy and Public Safety Director William Callion in an e-mail a week ago. The mayor responded that he was willing to meet with Bryant, who told The Advocate newspaper that the “the time for meetings is over. This issue has been exhausted with meetings between the police department and the community. I think it’s time for action now.” Bryant says that the complaints from the African-American community have been pouring in. He says that he even witnessed one “disturbing” incident earlier this month but declined to offer details, The Advocate reported. “I approached the officers and they said it’s an investigation and they couldn’t give me any details,” he said. The incident didn’t involve a beat-down, but it was troubling, he added. “It wasn’t physical police brutality but I think mentally it was police brutality … I don’t want this to seem like we’re singling out the whole police department. I’m sure there are a lot of good police officers on the force. There’s just a few who make it seem bad for those whole police force.”

Black chief calls the incident an outrage – the police union disagrees

Police in West Palm Beach, Fla., have released a videotape of officers kicking and beating a Hispanic suspect that is so shocking that the chief of police, in a public rebuke of her officers’ actions, is at odds with the police union over the amount of force used. “To see this actually happens, obviously I’m not pleased with it at all. We are held at a much higher standard than anyone else,” said Police Chief Delsa Bush, an African American. On the video, which is only the latest in a string of police beatings caught live in recent years, Louis Schwartz and Kurt Graham can be seen kicking a handcuffed suspect on the ground outside of a drugstore. A few seconds later, the suspect, Pablo Venezuela, still cuffed but now standing, is repeatedly punched in the face by another policeman, Jason Zangara. All three officers are White. Lawrence Fagan, a police union attorney representing the three officers, says, “It is our position that the force they used was proper. They feel they used that force necessary to diffuse the situation and only the force that was legal and proper. Period.” Venezuela, who is suing the West Palm Beach Police Department, received cuts over his eye and needed several stitches, according to the arrest report. Early on in the videotape, a man who appears to be Venezuela is seen using pepper spray as a weapon to rob oxycodone Graham resigned last month, while Schwartz and Zangara are on paid administrative leave. Bush has not yet announced any discipline for the officers.

Montreal immigrants riot over police shooting. Saturday’s shooting death of an unarmed Honduran teen at the hands of police that led to a riot in a Montreal immigrant community, will be investigated quickly, the city’s mayor said Monday. The rioting happened in Montreal North, a mostly Haitian area that police call “The Bronx of Montreal” because of its poverty and crime, reports the AP. At the height of the riots Sunday evening, angry young people set cars on fire, shot an officer in the leg and looted stores. Officers arrested six in connection with the rioting and hundreds of officers, donning riot gear, roamed the area looking for the young suspects who set fire to eight cars outside a fire station. Before Saturday’s shooting of 18-year-old Honduran immigrant Freddy Alberto Villanueva, police say they were trying to make an arrest when they were surrounded by about 20 people in Henri Bourassa Park. When some of them ran toward the police, one officer fired his gun, they say. The officer shot two other unarmed people, but Villanueva was the only one who died from his wounds. No officers were wounded in the incident, reports the news service. The city’s mayor, Gerald Tremblay, says the reasoning behind the shooting will be investigated by Quebec provincial police and that he will reach out to connect with community leaders. About a quarter of the people who live in Montreal North are immigrants. Of that amount, about 15 percent are Black and 3.5 percent are Latino. “One thing is for sure – we have to do better than we’ve been doing,” he said. And some community leaders agree. “What we are seeing are youngster, a community that is in revolt because they don’t like the way they are being treated. They don’t like how authorities interact with them,” an area youth group leader told the AP. Meanwhile, the family of Villanueva, whose family came to Canada in 1998, is still looking for answers. “We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that’s all,” his sister, Julissa, said.

Russian forces advance into Georgia. Russia’s military pushed further into the former Soviet Republic of Georgia Monday sending the country’s forces scrambling to escape. However, early Tuesday the Russian President called a halt to the fighting. After a weekend of several Russian attacks by air in Gori, streets in the major Georgian city were deserted Monday. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Tuesday he was halting military operations in Georgia because they had accomplished their end, though explosions continued to rattle the now largely empy city of Gore. In a televised statement in Moscow, Medvedev said that after five days of operations “the aggressor has been punished” and largely driven from the two Russian-allied separatist provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. More than 2,000 people are feared dead as a result of the fighting. As BET.com reported earlier, the fighting started when Georgia asserted its authority in S. Osettia.