Sharpton limo speeding case -- FREEPER INTERVIEW WITH DEPUTY SHERIFF CHARLES SULLINS

Race-baiting flamethrower, the Reverend Al Sharpton, made some news he didn't particularly want to make after he left the ditch in Crawford, Texas. His limo was pulled over for reckless driving and doing 110 mph in a 65 mph zone. The driver was arrested.

Then the good Reverend gave his side of the story. He called the sheriff's report "ludicrous" and accused Ellis County officers of "embellishing the story."

Why not get the story directly from the Ellis County Sheriff's office? I spoke with the office a few hours ago and left a message for their spokesman, Dep. Sheriff Charles Sullins. Sullins got back to me within two hours and actually apologized for taking so long.

The deputy sheriff is amazed at the calls and publicity. Sharpton may find it mildly amusing that Sullins never even heard of Sharpton. He describes himself as a country boy whose television viewing is not generally the news. It is watching westerns because "the good guys win."

I was pleased to get him up to speed on Sharpton, letting him know about the race-baiting, big mouth troublemaker from New York.

Sullins confirmed the story. Deputies from his office clocked the car at 110 miles per hour and followed it for nine miles with lights on. It was weaving in and out of traffic.

The adventure might have even lasted longer had they not radioed ahead to state troopers. When the driver, Jarrett Maupin of Arizona, saw the two trooper cars, he slowed down and was pulled over.

The vehicle was rented from Avis. The company was contacted, and they told the officers not to let anyone else drive it. Maupin was the only one signed up to drive it. We don't have to be Sean David Morton, Major Ed Dames, or any of Art Bell's other remote viewers to make a bold prediction. Maupin will not be renting from Avis again.

The officers offered to give Sharpton a ride to a nearby motel, but he chose to walk. Al could use a little exercise.

Sullins was very relieved that no one was injured or killed. It was clearly never a race issue. The driver was taken before a judge and posted two $500 bonds.

Alfred (Al) Sharpton, Jr. , is a Pentecostal minister, political and civil rights activist, first African American candidate for the New York State Senate.

Al Sharpton has made a career of placing himself at the front line of the struggle against injustice by lower and middle-income African Americans. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Sharpton began preaching at the age of four and spent his early years as a "wonder boy" sensation on the Pentecostal preaching circuit. In 1964, when he was ten years old, Sharpton was ordained as a minister and preached on a tour with famed gospel music performer Mahalia Jackson. But also that year, the divorce of his parents propelled Sharpton from middle-class comfort in Queens to public welfare and a housing project in Brooklyn. Having lived in better circumstances, he knew that black poverty was not inevitable and he vowed to fight for improved living and working conditions for African Americans. In 1969 civil rights leader Jesse Jackson appointed Sharpton as youth director for Operation Breadbasket, an organization that boycotted and demonstrated against businesses that were not hiring blacks.

After high school and a few years at Brooklyn College, in 1971 Sharpton began his own organization, the National Youth Movement. After meeting soul singer James Brown in 1973, Sharpton became his touring manager and continued in this role until the early 1980s, all the while continuing his political activism.

Sharpton formally entered politics in 1978 as the first African American to run for a seat in the New York State Senate. In the 1980s Sharpton became involved in a series of racial incidents that occurred in various New York neighborhoods. In 1986 he organized demonstrations and called for a special prosecutor in the aftermath of the Howard Beach incident, in which a crowd of whites chased a black man named Michael Griffiths onto a highway, where he was struck and killed by a vehicle. Two years later Sharpton served as an adviser to Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who claimed she had been abducted and raped by a gang of whites. Sharpton's credibility came into question when a grand jury found no evidence of any crime against Brawley. Sharpton also played a prominent role in the protests that followed the 1989 shooting death of Yusuf Hawkins, a black youth who was attacked by a white mob in the Bensonhurst section of New York City. In January 1991 Sharpton was preparing to lead a protest march in Bensonhurst when a drunken white man attacked Sharpton and stabbed him in the chest. After this incident, Sharpton began to refine and tone down his controversial public image.

In 1991 Sharpton founded the National Action Network, a civil rights organization that seeks economic justice and political empowerment for the disenfranchised. Continuing to pursue a career in politics in the 1990s, Sharpton ran unsuccessfully in the 1992 and 1994 Democratic primaries for the U.S. Senate from New York. Meanwhile, in 1993 he served a well-publicized 45-day jail sentence resulting from a 1987 protest march that shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1997 Sharpton made an impressive showing in the city's Democratic mayoral primary, winning 32 percent of the vote. More recently, Sharpton led large demonstrations against police brutality in the New York Police Department following the police torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in 1997 and the shooting of unarmed Ghanaian immigrant Amadou Diallo by four New York City policemen in 1999.

Thanks for the link. This great. I can see someone doing 71 mph saying he wasn't speeding. But 110 mph? =====================================================

City Council candidate has run-in with Texas police

Aug. 30, 2005 12:00 AM

Phoenix City Council candidate Jarrett Maupin II had a run-in with Texas law enforcement after a visit Sunday with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan at her camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford.

Maupin was riding in a car driven by his father, Jarrett Barton Maupin, 43. The senior Maupin was stopped and accused of trying to evade police by driving at speeds up to 110 mph on Interstate 35 in Ellis County.

Also riding in the car were the Rev. Al Sharpton and one of Sharpton's assistants. advertisement

The elder Maupin was released on a $1,000 bond and had to pay $150 to get back the rental car police impounded.

The younger Maupin said they were not speeding and that his father was arrested on "trumped up" charges.

He said that after his father was arrested he, Sharpton and Sharpton's assistant had to walk along the freeway carrying their luggage because police had impounded the rented car. A couple picked them up and gave them a ride to the airport.

Sharpton told the Associated Press that the sheriff's report was "ludicrous on its face" and accused the officers of "embellishing the story."

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