Foster Parents of Missing Calif. Boy Now Murder Suspects
The foster parents of a missing 5-year-old California boy with cerebral palsy are now suspects in a murder investigation, police say. On Aug. 10, Jennifer Campbell and Louis Ross, who are engaged, told police in Oakland, Calif., that Hasanni Campbell vanished while Ross was dropping him off at the shoe store where his fiancée worked. Police arrested the couple but released them after the Alameda County District Attorney said there was too little evidence to hold them on. “We had nothing to do with it. He’s our little boy we want him and we want him home, and our main concern is finding him,” Campbell told a local Oakland TV station. Police also arrested Campbell, Hasanni’s biological aunt, Friday in the Union City BART station on suspicion of accessory to murder after the fact, Lt. Jeff Thomason said. Her fiancé, Ross, was arrested a short time later at the couple’s Fremont, Calif., home on suspicion of murder. “We will continue to review the case as police continue their investigation,” Deputy District Attorney Tom Rogers said. Thomason declined to explain why the case had become a homicide investigation less than a month after Hasanni’s guardians reported him missing. No body has been found. “There’s a lot of evidence right now we feel we still need to keep close to the investigation,” he told CNN. “Even though they’re released, they’re still suspects,” he said. “They’re the last people who saw Hasanni alive.” Police also have released surveillance video from Wal-Mart showing the couple and Hasanni together on Aug. 6 – the last independent sighting of Hasanni alive.

Cosby Urges Detroit Parents to Get Involved in Education
Bill Cosby, enlisted by Detroit Public Schools, to help improve the troubled district, is urging parents to get involved in their children’s education. Cosby said that he supports the efforts of the district’s emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb’s campaign to help keep kids in school, and he went door-to-door late Tuesday afternoon, to persuade parents to keep their children in, or return them to, the district. “This has a chance,” Cosby told reporters at a news conference. “And we’re going to knock on these doors because they weren’t open. And we’re going to talk to people to get them to understand the seriousness of a child left without a reason to understand math, without a reason to study and be able to understand English.” Bobb is pushing the district’s $500,000 student retention campaign called “I’m In.” It features 172 blue doors meant to welcome parents and students to the 172 district schools, The Associated Press reports. Enrollment dropped below 100,000 last year, and Bobb has budgeted for 83,777 students this fall. Classes begin next Tuesday. Cosby said he became interested in working with Detroit Public Schools after learning of Bobb’s effort to clean up the district’s finances while improving education. Since Bobb was appointed in March by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, he has launched a number of audits, uncovering waste and fraud that has cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has closed 29 schools and laid off more than 1,000 teachers while cutting into a $259 million budget deficit.

Detroit Could Axe Hundreds of Teachers

In the face of a projected $303 million deficit, Detroit Public Schools may have to lay off 600 teachers and close 23 schools. These measures are part of a proposal by Michigan’s financial overseer, Robert Bobb, who was named to the position in January after the schools’ superintendent was fired in December of last year. Full story.

 
Three Workers Fired in Noose Incident

A fuel company at a Rhode Island airport fired two workers Monday accused of hanging a noose over the desk of a Black co-worker. It was a colleague of John Valles at the T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I., who found the noose when Valles was on vacation Feb. 15. “I took it as a racial slur. A hate crime. That’s how I took it,” Valles said. Allied Aviation announced the firings following the findings of its internal investigation, officials said. Read the rest.