Michael Jennings wasn't breaking any laws or doing anything that was obviously suspicious; the Black minister was simply watering the flowers of a neighbor who was out of town. Yet there was a problem: Around the corner, Amber Roberson, who is white, thought she was helping that same neighbor when she saw a vehicle she didn't recognize at the house and called police. Within minutes, Jennings was in handcuffs, Roberson was apologizing for calling 911 and three officers were talking among themselves about how everything might have been different. Harry Daniels, an attorney representing Jennings, said he plans to submit a claim to the city of Childersburg seeking damages and then file a lawsuit. “This should be a learned lesson and a training tool for law enforcement about what not to do,” he said. A 20-minute video of the episode recorded on one of the officers' body cameras shows how quickly an uneventful evening on a quiet residential street devolved into yet another potentially explosive situation involving a Black man and white law enforcement authorities. ___ “Whatcha doing here, man?” Officer Chris Smith asked as he walked up to Jennings, who held a hose with a stream of water falling on plants beside the driveway outside a small, white house. “Watering flowers,” Jennings replied from a few feet away. Lawn decorations stood around a mailbox; fresh mulch covered the beds. It was more than an hour before sunset on a Sunday in late May, the kind of spring evening when people often are out tending plants. Smith told Jennings that a caller said she saw a strange vehicle and a person who “wasn’t supposed to be here” at the house. Jennings told him the SUV he was talking about belonged to the neighbor who lives there. “I'm supposed to be here,” he added. “I'm Pastor Jennings. I live across the street." “You're Pastor Jennings?” “Yes. I'm looking out for their house while they're gone, watering their flowers," said Jennings, still spraying water. “OK, well, that's cool. Do you have, like, ID?” Smith asked. “Oh, no. Man, I'm not going to give you ID,” Jennings said, turning away. “Why not?” Smith asked. “I ain't did nothing wrong," the pastor replied. Read:Video shows Akron police kill Black man in hail of gunfire ___ Jennings, 56, was born in rural Alabama just three years after George C. Wallace pledged "segregation forever" at the first of his four inaugurations as governor. His parents grew up during a time when racial segregation was the law and Black people were expected to act with deference to white people in the South. “I know the backdrop,” Jennings said in an interview with The Associated Press. Meanwhile, the officers who confronted him on May 22 work for a majority-white town of about 4,700 people that's located 55 miles (88 kilometers) southeast of Birmingham down U.S. 280. White people control city hall and the police department. Jennings went into the ministry not long after graduating from high school and hasn't strayed far from his birthplace of nearby Sylacauga, where he leads Vision of Abundant Life Ministries, a small, nondenominational church, when not doing landscaping work or selling items online. In 1991, he said, he worked security and then trained to be a police officer in a nearby town but left before taking the job full time. “That's how I knew the law,” he said. Alabama law allows police to ask for the name of someone in a public place when there's reasonable suspicion the person has committed or is about to commit a crime. But that doesn't mean a man innocently watering flowers at a neighbor's home must provide identification when asked by an officer, according to Hank Sherrod, a civil rights lawyer who reviewed the full police video at the request of the AP. “This is an area of the law that is pretty clear,” said Sherrod, who has handled similar cases in north Alabama, where he practices. ___ Cuffed and seated between two shrubs on the front stoop of his neighbor's home, Jennings told Smith and Gable how his son, a university athletics administrator, had been wrongly “arrested and profiled” in Michigan after a young woman at a cheerleading competition said a Black man had hugged her. Jennings said he felt “anger and fear” during his interaction with the Alabama police officers not only because of what happened to his son but due to the accumulated weight of past police killings — George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others — plus lower-profile incidents and shootings in Alabama. “That's why I didn't resist," he said. ___ Jennings was already in the back of a patrol car by the time Roberson, the white woman who called police, emerged. Jennings, she told officers, was a neighbor and a friend of the home's owner, Roy Milam. “OK. Does he have permission here to be watering flowers?" Smith asked. “He may, because they are friends,” she replied. “They went out of town today. He may be watering their flowers. It would be completely normal.” Milam told the AP that was exactly what happened: He'd asked Jennings to water his wife's flowers while they were camping in the Tennessee mountains for a few days. A few moments later, officers told Roberson that a license plate check showed the gold sport-utility vehicle that prompted her call in the first place belonged to Milam. They got Jennings out of the patrol car and he told them his first and last name. “I didn’t know it was him,” Roberson told police. “I’m sorry about that.” Read:Protests erupt in Michigan after police officer kills black man: U.S. media ___ The officers spent much of their remaining time on the scene in a discussion that began with a question from Smith: “What are we going to do with him?” After weighing different options, they settled on a charge of obstructing governmental operations that was thrown out within days in city court. The police chief who sought the dismissal after reviewing the 911 call and bodycam video, Richard McClelland, resigned earlier this month. City officials haven't said why he quit, but city attorney Reagan Rumsey said it had nothing to do with what happened to Jennings. Childersburg's interim police chief, Capt. Kevin Koss, didn't return emails seeking comment. ___ Michael Jennings is still friends with Milam, the neighbor with the flowers. Milam, who is white, said he feels bad about what happened, and the two men will continue watching out for each other’s homes, just as they’ve done for years. “He is a good neighbor, definitely. No doubt about it,” Milam said. Jennings also recently spoke with Roberson for the first time since the arrest. The pastor, who lives less than a third of a mile from the police station, said he has not seen any of the three officers who were involved in his arrest since that day. He believes all three should be fired or at least disciplined. “I feel a little paranoid,” he said. Nonetheless, he still waves at police cars passing through his neighborhood, partly out of the Christian call to be kind to others. “You’re supposed to love your neighbor, no matter what,” he said. “But you’ve heard the saying, ‘Keep your enemies close to you, too.'”

Black Americans rejoiced Thursday after President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday, but some said that, while they appreciated the recognition at a time of racial reckoning in America, more is needed to change policies that disadvantage too many of their brethren. “It’s great, but it’s not enough,” said Gwen Grant, president and CEO of the Urban League of Kansas City. Grant said she was delighted by the quick vote this week by Congress to make Juneteenth a national holiday because “it’s been a long time coming.” But she added that “we need Congress to protect voting rights, and that needs to happen right now so we don’t regress any further. That is the most important thing Congress can be addressing at this time.” READ: US Congress OKs bill to tackle hate crimes against Asian Americans  At a jubilant White House bill-signing ceremony, Biden agreed that more than a commemoration of the events of June 19, 1865, is needed. That’s when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — some 2 1/2 years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in Southern states. “This day doesn’t just celebrate the past. It calls for action today,” Biden said before he established Juneteenth National Independence Day. His audience included scores of members of Congress and Opal Lee, a 94-year-old Texas woman who campaigned for the holiday. Biden singled out voting rights as an area for action. Republican-led states have enacted or are considering legislation that activists argue would curtail the right to vote, particularly for people of color. Legislation to address voting rights issues, and institute policing reforms demanded after the killing of George Floyd and other unarmed Black men, remains stalled in the Congress that acted swiftly on the Juneteenth bill. Other people want the federal government to make reparations or financial payments to the descendants of slaves in an attempt to compensate for those wrongs. Meanwhile, efforts are afoot across the country to limit what school districts teach about the history of slavery in America. Community organizer Kimberly Holmes-Ross, who helped make her hometown of Evanston, Illinois, the first U.S. city to pay reparations, said she was happy about the new federal holiday because it will lead more people to learn about Juneteenth. But she would have liked Congress to act on anti-lynching legislation or voter protections first. “I am not super stoked only because all of the other things that are still going on,” said Holmes-Ross, 57. “You haven’t addressed what we really need to talk about.” Peniel Joseph, an expert on race at the University of Texas at Austin, said the U.S. has never had a holiday or a national commemoration of the end of slavery. Many Black Americans had long celebrated Juneteenth. “Juneteenth is important symbolically, and we need the substance to follow, but Black people historically have always tried to do multiple things at the same time,” Joseph said. Most federal workers will observe the holiday Friday. Several states and the District of Columbia announced that government offices would be closed Friday. Juneteenth is the 12th federal holiday, including Inauguration Day once every four years. It’s also the first federal holiday since the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday was added in 1983. Before June 19 became a federal holiday, it was observed in the vast majority of states and the District of Columbia. Texas was first to make Juneteenth a holiday in 1980. Most white Americans had not heard of Juneteenth before the summer of 2020 and the protests that stirred the nation’s conscience over race after Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer, said Matthew Delmont, who teaches history at Dartmouth College. He said the new federal holiday “hopefully provides a moment on the calendar every year when all Americans can spend time thinking seriously about the history of our country.” The Senate passed the bill earlier this week by unanimous agreement. But in the House, 14 Republicans voted against it, including Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. Roy said Juneteenth deserves to be commemorated, but he objected to the use of “independence” in the holiday’s name. “This name needlessly divides our nation on a matter that should instead bring us together by creating a separate Independence Day based on the color of one’s skin,” he said in a statement. Added Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who also voted against the bill: “We have one Independence Day, and it applies equally to all people of all races.” The sentiment was different in Texas, the first state to make Juneteenth a holiday. “I’m happy as pink,” said Doug Matthews, 70, and a former city manager of Galveston who has helped coordinate the community’s Juneteenth celebrations since Texas made it a holiday. He credited the work of state and local leaders with paving the way for this week’s step by Congress. “I’m also proud that everything started in Galveston,” Matthews said. Pete Henley, 71, was setting up tables Thursday for a Juneteenth celebration at the Old Central Cultural Center, a Galveston building that once was a segregated Black school. He said the Juneteenth holiday will help promote understanding and unity. “All holidays have significance, no matter what the occasion or what it’s about, but by it being a federal holiday, it speaks volumes to what the country thinks about that specific day,” said Henley, who studied at the school before it was integrated and is president of the cultural center. He said his family traces its roots back to enslaved men and women in the Texas city who were among the last to receive word of the Emancipation Proclamation. “As a country, we really need to be striving toward togetherness more than anything,” Henley said. “If we just learn to love each other, it would be so great.” Holmes-Ross recalled first learning about Juneteenth in church in Evanston, a Lake Michigan suburb just outside Chicago. Over the years, she said she made sure her three children commemorated the day with community events including food, dancing and spoken word performances.   READ: Asian Americans see generational split on confronting racism She said it was about more than a day off for her family and expressed hope that it would be for others, too. “We were intentional about seeking out Black leaders and things we could celebrate as African Americans,” Holmes-Ross said. “Hopefully, people do something productive with it. It is a day of service.”

The murder case against former Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd went to the jury Monday in a city on edge against another round of unrest like the one that erupted last year over the harrowing video of Chauvin with his knee on the Black man’s neck. The jury of six white people and six people who are Black or multiracial began deliberating after nearly a full day of closing arguments in which prosecutors argued that Chauvin squeezed the life out of Floyd last May in a way that even a child knew was wrong. The defense contended that the now-fired white officer acted reasonably and that the 46-year-old Floyd died of a heart condition and illegal drug use. Also read: Prosecutor: Chauvin ‘had to know’ Floyd’s life was in danger The jurors deliberated about four hours before retiring for the night to the hotel where they are being sequestered for this final phase of the trial. They were due to resume Tuesday morning. After closing arguments were done, Judge Peter Cahill rejected a defense request for a mistrial based in part on comments from California Rep. Maxine Waters, who said “we’ve got to get more confrontational” if Chauvin isn’t convicted of murder. The judge told Chauvin’s attorney: “Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.” He called her comments “abhorrent” and “disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch.” Chauvin, 45, is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, all of which require the jury to conclude that his actions were a “substantial causal factor” in Floyd’s death and that his use of force was unreasonable. The most serious charge carries up to 40 years in prison. “Use your common sense. Believe your eyes. What you saw, you saw,” prosecutor Steve Schleicher said in closing arguments, referring to the bystander video of Floyd pinned to the pavement with Chauvin’s knee on or close to his neck for up to 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as onlookers yelled at the officer to get off. Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson countered by arguing that Chauvin did what any reasonable police officer would have done after finding himself in a “dynamic” and “fluid” situation involving a large man struggling with three officers. As Nelson began speaking, the now-fired Chauvin removed his COVID-19 mask in front of the jury for one of the very few times during the trial. With the case drawing to a close, some stores were boarded up in Minneapolis. The courthouse was ringed with concrete barriers and razor wire, and National Guard troops were on patrol. Floyd’s death set off protests last spring in the city and across the U.S. that sometimes turned violent. The city has also been on edge in recent days over the deadly police shooting of a 20-year-old Black man, Daunte Wright, in a nearby suburb on April 11. About 300 protesters marched in the streets outside the courthouse shortly after the jury got the case, lining up behind a banner reading, “Justice 4 George Floyd & all stolen lives. The world is watching.” Prosecutor Jerry Blackwell had the final word Monday, offering the state’s rebuttal argument. The prosecutor, who is Black, said the questions about the use of force and cause of death are “so simple that a child can understand it.” Also read: Defense expert: Floyd died from heart trouble, not restraint “In fact, a child did understand it, when the 9-year-old girl said, ‘Get off of him,’” Blackwell said, referring to a young witness who objected to what she saw. “That’s how simple it was. `Get off of him.’ Common sense.” Under the law, police have certain latitude to use force, and their actions are supposed to be judged according to what a “reasonable officer” in the same situation would have done. Nelson noted that officers who first went to the corner store where Floyd allegedly passed a counterfeit $20 bill were struggling with Floyd when Chauvin arrived as backup. The defense attorney also pointed out that the first two officers on the scene were rookies and that police had been told that Floyd might be on drugs. “A reasonable police officer understands the intensity of the struggle,” Nelson said, noting that Chauvin’s body camera and badge were knocked off his chest. Nelson also showed the jury pictures of pills found in Floyd’s SUV and pill remnants discovered in the squad car. Fentanyl and methamphetamine were found in Floyd’s system. The defense attorney said the failure of the prosecution to acknowledge that medical problems or drugs played a role “defies medical science and it defies common sense and reason.” During the prosecution’s argument, Schleicher replayed portions of the bystander video and other footage as he dismissed certain defense theories about Floyd’s death as “nonsense.” He said Chauvin killed Floyd by constricting his breathing. Schleicher rejected the drug overdose argument, as well as the contention that police were distracted by hostile onlookers, that Floyd had “superhuman” strength from a state of agitation known as excited delirium, and that he suffered possible carbon monoxide poisoning from auto exhaust. The prosecutor sarcastically referred to the idea that it was heart disease that killed Floyd as an “amazing coincidence.” “Is that common sense or is that nonsense?” Schleicher asked the jury. Blackwell, his fellow prosecutor, likewise rejected the defense theory that Floyd died because of an enlarged heart: “The truth of the matter is that the reason George Floyd is dead is because Mr. Chauvin’s heart was too small.” Earlier, Schleicher described how Chauvin ignored Floyd’s cries and continued to kneel on him well after he stopped breathing and had no pulse. Chauvin was “on top of him for 9 minutes and 29 seconds and he had to know,” Schleicher said. “He had to know.” He said Chauvin heard Floyd, “but he just didn’t listen.” The prosecutor said Floyd was “not a threat to anyone” and was not trying to escape when he struggled with officers but instead was terrified of being put into the tiny backseat of the squad car. He said a reasonable officer with Chauvin’s training and experience — he was a 19-year Minneapolis police veteran — should have sized up the situation accurately. Chauvin, wearing a light gray suit with a blue shirt and blue tie, showed little expression as he watched himself and the other officers pinning Floyd to the ground on bodycam video played by his attorney. He cocked his head to the side and occasionally leaned forward to write on a notepad. Also read: Police chief: Kneeling on Floyd's neck violated policy An unidentified woman occupied the single seat set aside in the pandemic-spaced courtroom for a Chauvin supporter. Floyd’s brother Philonise represented the family in court, as he often has during the trial. Schleicher also noted that Chauvin was required to use his training to provide medical care to Floyd but ignored bystanders, rebuffed help from an off-duty paramedic and rejected a suggestion from another officer to roll Floyd onto his side. “He could have listened to the bystanders. He could have listened to fellow officers. He could have listened to his own training,” Schleicher said. “He knew better. He just didn’t do better.”

The current line up of Black, held together by just one original member, nevertheless enthralled fans who showed up for an intimate gig at the Yamaha Music Bangladesh outlet at Jamuna Future Park. Arranged by Yamaha Music Bangladesh, a concern of ACI Motors Limited, the musical session titled ‘Black: Live at YMB’ also featured three other bands - Olik, Encore and Level Five.