ReportWire

Tag: Law and order

  • 4 appear in court over terror attack at Ivory Coast beach

    4 appear in court over terror attack at Ivory Coast beach

    [ad_1]

    ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Four of the defendants arrested in connection with a 2016 Islamic extremist attack that killed 19 people on an Ivory Coast tourist beach appeared in court Wednesday to face murder and terrorism charges.

    Authorities last week had released the names of 18 defendants accused in the Grand-Bassam killings, which were later claimed by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

    It was the nation’s first terror attack of its kind, and deepened fears that Islamic extremism was spreading further south from neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso. In the year after the killings, suspects also were arrested in those countries as well as in Senegal.

    Prosecutors did not address where the other defendants were on Wednesday or whether they might appear at a later date.

    Prosper Kouassi, a defense lawyer representing the detainees, could not provide an explanation either.

    “We were presented the four people, it is the four people we will defend,” Kouassi said.

    Grand-Bassam is linked by highway to Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial hub, and was a popular weekend destination for beach-goers. The victims that day included 11 Ivorians, four French, one German, one Lebanese, one Macedonian and one Nigerian.

    When gunfire broke out on the beach on that Sunday afternoon in 2016, many holidaymakers initially thought they were hearing fireworks. As the jihadis approached closer with their Kalashnikov assault rifles, terrified tourists and workers at the beachside bars and restaurants tried to seek refuge in nearby hotels. Some beachgoers who were in the ocean at the time of the attack were able to swim out against the waves to safety.

    Among those in the courthouse to watch the proceedings Wednesday was Odile Koko Kouamenan, whose son was there that day in 2016 and has never been the same since, she said.

    “The scene happened in front of him,” she recalled, “He was a witness on the ground and so traumatized that he left the city and went to the village for a year.”

    Her son needs follow-up care, which he hasn’t gotten, she added.

    “If the state can face him and help him, that’s all a mother wishes for her child.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Holocaust survivors offered DNA tests to help find family

    Holocaust survivors offered DNA tests to help find family

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — For decades, Jackie Young had been searching.

    Orphaned as an infant, he spent the first few years of his life in a Nazi internment camp in what is now the Czech Republic. After World War II he was taken to England, adopted and given a new name.

    As an adult, he struggled to learn of his origins and his family. He had some scant information about his birth mother, who died in a concentration camp. But about his father? Nothing. Just a blank space on a birth certificate.

    That changed earlier this year when genealogists were able to use a DNA sample to help find a name — and some relatives he never knew he had.

    Having that answer to a lifelong question has been “amazing,” said Young, now 80 and living in London. It “opened the door that I thought would never get opened.”

    Now there’s an effort underway to bring that possibility to other Holocaust survivors and their children.

    The New York-based Center for Jewish History is launching the DNA Reunion Project, offering DNA testing kits for free through an application on its website. For those who use the kits it is also offering a chance to get some guidance on next steps from the genealogists who worked with Young.

    Those genealogists, Jennifer Mendelsohn and Adina Newman, have been doing this kind of work over the last several years, and run a Facebook group about Jewish DNA and genetic genealogy.

    The advent of DNA technology has opened up a new world of possibilities in addition to the paper trails and archives that Holocaust survivors and their descendants have used to learn about family connections severed by genocide, Newman said.

    “There are times when people are separated and they don’t even realize they’re separated. Maybe a name change occurred so they didn’t know to look for the other person,” she said. “There are cases that simply cannot be solved without DNA.”

    While interest in genealogy and family trees is widespread, there’s a particular poignancy in doing this work in a community where so many family ties have been ripped apart because of the Holocaust, Mendelsohn said.

    Her earliest effort in this arena was for her husband’s grandmother, who had lost her mother in a concentration camp. That effort led to aunts and cousins that no one in her husband’s family had known about.

    Her husband’s uncle, she said, called afterwards and said, “You know, I’ve never seen a photograph of my grandmother. Now that I see photographs of her sisters, it’s so comforting to me. I can imagine what she look like.”

    “How do you explain why that’s powerful? It just is. People had nothing. Their families were erased. And now we can bring them back a little bit,” Mendelsohn said.

    She and Newman take pains to emphasize that there are no guarantees. Doing the testing or searching archives doesn’t mean a guarantee of finding living relatives or new information. But it offers a chance.

    They and the center are encouraging people to take that chance, especially as time passes and the number of living survivors declines.

    “It really is the last moment where these survivors can be given some modicum of justice,” said Gavriel Rosenfeld, president of the center.

    “We feel the urgency of this,” Newman said. “I wanted to start yesterday, and that’s why it’s like, no time like the present.”

    Rosenfeld said the center had allocated an initial $15,000 for the DNA kits in this initial pilot effort, which would cover about 500 of them. He said they would look to scale up further if they see enough interest.

    Ken Engel thinks there will be. He leads a group in Minnesota for the children of Holocaust survivors and has already told his membership about the program.

    “This is an important effort,” Engel said. “It may reveal and disclose wonderful information for them that they never knew about, may make them feel more settled or more connected to the past.”

    Young definitely feels that way.

    “I’ve been wanting to know all my life,” he said. “If I hadn’t known what I do know now, I think I would still felt that my left arm or my right arm wasn’t fully formed. Family is everything, it’s the major pillar of life in humanity.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Holocaust survivors offered DNA tests to help find family

    Holocaust survivors offered DNA tests to help find family

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — For decades, Jackie Young had been searching.

    Orphaned as an infant, he spent the first few years of his life in a Nazi internment camp in what is now the Czech Republic. After World War II he was taken to England, adopted and given a new name.

    As an adult, he struggled to learn of his origins and his family. He had some scant information about his birth mother, who died in a concentration camp. But about his father? Nothing. Just a blank space on a birth certificate.

    That changed earlier this year when genealogists were able to use a DNA sample to help find a name — and some relatives he never knew he had.

    Having that answer to a lifelong question has been “amazing,” said Young, now 80 and living in London. It “opened the door that I thought would never get opened.”

    Now there’s an effort underway to bring that possibility to other Holocaust survivors and their children.

    The New York-based Center for Jewish History is launching the DNA Reunion Project, offering DNA testing kits for free through an application on its website. For those who use the kits it is also offering a chance to get some guidance on next steps from the genealogists who worked with Young.

    Those genealogists, Jennifer Mendelsohn and Adina Newman, have been doing this kind of work over the last several years, and run a Facebook group about Jewish DNA and genetic genealogy.

    The advent of DNA technology has opened up a new world of possibilities in addition to the paper trails and archives that Holocaust survivors and their descendants have used to learn about family connections severed by genocide, Newman said.

    “There are times when people are separated and they don’t even realize they’re separated. Maybe a name change occurred so they didn’t know to look for the other person,” she said. “There are cases that simply cannot be solved without DNA.”

    While interest in genealogy and family trees is widespread, there’s a particular poignancy in doing this work in a community where so many family ties have been ripped apart because of the Holocaust, Mendelsohn said.

    Her earliest effort in this arena was for her husband’s grandmother, who had lost her mother in a concentration camp. That effort led to aunts and cousins that no one in her husband’s family had known about.

    Her husband’s uncle, she said, called afterwards and said, “You know, I’ve never seen a photograph of my grandmother. Now that I see photographs of her sisters, it’s so comforting to me. I can imagine what she look like.”

    “How do you explain why that’s powerful? It just is. People had nothing. Their families were erased. And now we can bring them back a little bit,” Mendelsohn said.

    She and Newman take pains to emphasize that there are no guarantees. Doing the testing or searching archives doesn’t mean a guarantee of finding living relatives or new information. But it offers a chance.

    They and the center are encouraging people to take that chance, especially as time passes and the number of living survivors declines.

    “It really is the last moment where these survivors can be given some modicum of justice,” said Gavriel Rosenfeld, president of the center.

    “We feel the urgency of this,” Newman said. “I wanted to start yesterday, and that’s why it’s like, no time like the present.”

    Rosenfeld said the center had allocated an initial $15,000 for the DNA kits in this initial pilot effort, which would cover about 500 of them. He said they would look to scale up further if they see enough interest.

    Ken Engel thinks there will be. He leads a group in Minnesota for the children of Holocaust survivors and has already told his membership about the program.

    “This is an important effort,” Engel said. “It may reveal and disclose wonderful information for them that they never knew about, may make them feel more settled or more connected to the past.”

    Young definitely feels that way.

    “I’ve been wanting to know all my life,” he said. “If I hadn’t known what I do know now, I think I would still felt that my left arm or my right arm wasn’t fully formed. Family is everything, it’s the major pillar of life in humanity.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today in History: November 30, birth of Winston Churchill

    Today in History: November 30, birth of Winston Churchill

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Wednesday, Nov. 30, the 334th day of 2022. There are 31 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On Nov. 30, 1782, the United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris for ending the Revolutionary War; the Treaty of Paris was signed in September 1783.

    On this date:

    In 1803, Spain completed the process of ceding Louisiana to France, which had sold it to the United States.

    In 1874, British statesman Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace.

    In 1981, the United States and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

    In 1982, the motion picture “Gandhi,” starring Ben Kingsley as the Indian nationalist leader, had its world premiere in New Delhi.

    In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill, which required a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks of prospective buyers.

    In 2000, Al Gore’s lawyers battled for his political survival in the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts; meanwhile, GOP lawmakers in Tallahassee moved to award the presidency to George W. Bush in case the courts did not by appointing their own slate of electors.

    In 2004, “Jeopardy!” fans saw Ken Jennings end his 74-game winning streak as he lost to real estate agent Nancy Zerg.

    In 2010, the Obama administration announced that all 197 airlines that flew to the U.S. had begun collecting names, genders and birth dates of passengers so the government could check them against terror watch lists before they boarded flights.

    In 2011, an Arizona jury sentenced convicted “Baseline Killer” Mark Goudeau (goo-DOH’) to death for killing nine people in the Phoenix area. (He remains on death row.)

    In 2013, Paul Walker, 40, the star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series, died with his friend, Roger W. Rodas, who was at the wheel of a Porsche sports car that crashed and burned north of Los Angeles.

    In 2018, former President George H.W. Bush, a World War II hero who rose through the political ranks to the nation’s highest office, died at his Houston home at the age of 94; his wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush, had died in April.

    In 2020, two battleground states, Wisconsin and Arizona, certified their presidential election tallies in favor of Joe Biden, even as President Donald Trump’s legal team continued to dispute the results; Biden’s victory in Wisconsin was certified following a partial recount that only added to his 20,600-vote margin over Trump.

    Ten years ago: Israel approved the construction of 3,000 homes in Jewish settlements on occupied lands, drawing swift condemnation from the Palestinians a day after their successful bid for recognition by the United Nations. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Egypt, denouncing President Mohammed Morsi and a draft constitution that was approved earlier in the day by his Islamist allies.

    Five years ago: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called on veteran Democratic congressman John Conyers to resign in the face of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct. (Conyers resigned five days later.) A jury found a Mexican man not guilty in the killing of a woman on a San Francisco pier, a shooting that touched off a fierce national immigration debate. (Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, who had been deported five times, did not deny shooting Kate Steinle but said it was an accident. He was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.) Rapper DMX pleaded guilty to tax fraud, admitting he concealed millions of dollars in revenue to dodge $1.7 million in taxes. (The rapper was sentenced to a year in prison.) Actor Jim Nabors, best known as TV’s “Gomer Pyle,” died at the age of 87.

    One year ago: Ethan Crumbley, a 15-year-old sophomore, opened fire at a Michigan high school, killing four students and wounding seven other people; school staff had discovered his violent drawings but his parents wouldn’t remove him from school. (The parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, are accused of making the gun accessible and ignoring their son’s mental health needs; they face charges including involuntary manslaughter.) The Biden administration moved to toughen testing requirements for international travelers to the U.S., including both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, amid the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus. CNN took Chris Cuomo off the air indefinitely, saying information released by New York’s attorney general showed that he had played a greater role than he had previously acknowledged in defense of his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as he fought sexual harassment charges. (Cuomo would be fired days later.)

    Today’s Birthdays: Country singer-recording executive Jimmy Bowen is 85. Movie director Ridley Scott is 85. Screenwriter Geoffrey C. Ward is 82. Movie writer-director Terrence Malick is 79. Rock musician Roger Glover (Deep Purple) is 77. Playwright David Mamet (MA’-meht) is 75. Actor Mandy Patinkin is 70. Musician Shuggie Otis is 69. Country singer Jeannie Kendall is 68. Singer Billy Idol is 67. Historian Michael Beschloss is 67. Rock musician John Ashton (The Psychedelic Furs) is 65. Comedian Colin Mochrie is 65. Former football and baseball player Bo Jackson is 60. Rapper Jalil (Whodini) is 59. Actor-director Ben Stiller is 57. Rock musician Mike Stone is 53. Music producer Steve Aoki is 45. Singer Clay Aiken is 44. Actor Billy Lush is 41. Actor Elisha Cuthbert is 40. Actor Kaley Cuoco (KWOH’-koh) is 37. Model Chrissy Teigen (TY’-gihn) is 37. Actor Christel Khalil is 35. Actor Rebecca Rittenhouse is 34. Actor Adelaide Clemens is 33. World chess champion Magnus Carlsen is 32. Actor Tyla Harris is 22.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Lawsuits claim negligence in Massachusetts Apple store crash

    Lawsuits claim negligence in Massachusetts Apple store crash

    [ad_1]

    BOSTON — The family of a man who was badly hurt when an SUV crashed into an Apple store in Massachusetts, killing one person and injuring 20, sued the company, the driver and the property owners Tuesday in one of the first lawsuits filed over the crash.

    Matthew Timberger, of Falmouth, suffered broken bones and other serious injuries when the vehicle drove into the store in Hingham on Nov. 21, the lawsuit said. He and his family accuse the driver of negligently operating the vehicle, and Apple and the property owners of negligently failing to place barriers that might have prevented a car from entering the store.

    “The frontage of the Apple Store features tall glass windows and doors, reaching all the way to the ground. These glass windows and doors are not designed or engineered or reinforced in such a way where they would act as an effective barrier against a moving motor vehicle,” the lawsuit said.

    Neither Apple nor property owners and managers WS Development immediately responded to messages seeking comment.

    Doug Sheff, an attorney for the family, said that while there were no protective barriers in front of the store, the shopping plaza did have them in front of electrical fixtures and trash receptacles behind the building.

    Two store employees have also sued over the crash, though they did not name Apple as a defendant.

    Driver Bradley Rein has pleaded not guilty to charges that he was reckless when the SUV crashed through the window.

    Rein told police he was looking for an eyeglass store at the shopping center when his right foot became stuck on the accelerator, according to court documents. He said he used his left foot to try to brake but couldn’t stop the vehicle.

    A phone number could not be located for Rein, who was being represented by a public defender on the criminal charges. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had a lawyer representing him in the lawsuits.

    The Timberger family, including Timberger’s wife, Christina, and their two children, are seeking damages that include compensation for his injuries, lost earnings and harm to their family relationships.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Gas driller pleads no contest to polluting town’s water

    Gas driller pleads no contest to polluting town’s water

    [ad_1]

    MONTROSE, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s most active gas driller pleaded no contest Tuesday to criminal charges, capping a landmark environmental case against a company that prosecutors say polluted a rural community’s drinking water 14 years ago and then tried to evade responsibility.

    Residents of the tiny crossroads of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania say they have gone more than a decade without a clean, reliable source of drinking water after their aquifer was ruined by Houston-based Coterra Energy Inc.

    Under a plea deal entered in Susquehanna County Court, Coterra agreed to pay $16.29 million to fund construction of a new public water system and pay the impacted residents’ water bills for the next 75 years.

    “After more than decade of denials, of shirking responsibility and accountability, Coterra pleaded to their crime, and the people of Dimock finally had their day in court,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the state’s incoming governor, said outside the courtroom. “Today is further proof that you don’t get to just walk away from the harm you do here in Pennsylvania.”

    The plea — the result of years of negotiations between Coterra and the attorney general’s office — represents a milestone in one of the most prominent pollution cases ever to emerge from the U.S. drilling and fracking boom. Dimock drew national notoriety after residents were filmed lighting their tap water on fire in the Emmy Award-winning 2010 documentary “Gasland.”

    Coterra’s corporate predecessor, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., was charged in June 2020 with 15 criminal counts, most of them felonies, after a grand jury investigation found the company drilled faulty gas wells that leaked flammable methane into residential water supplies in Dimock and surrounding communities.

    The grand jury blasted what it called Cabot’s “long-term indifference to the damage it caused to the environment and citizens of Susquehanna County.”

    Cabot, which merged with Denver-based Cimarex Energy Co. to form Coterra, has long maintained the gas in residents’ water was naturally occurring.

    Coterra pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of prohibition against discharge of industrial wastes under the state’s Clean Streams Law. The plea means Coterra does not admit guilt but agreed to accept criminal responsibility.

    “Coterra has worked closely with the Office of Attorney General to resolve historical matters and create a path forward for all parties,” company spokesperson George Stark said via email. He said Coterra ”strives to follow best practices, exceed industry standards, and to continue to be a valuable community partner.”

    Many residents have avoided using their well water since the aquifer was contaminated with methane and heavy metals, using bottled water, bulk water purchased commercially, and even water drawn from creeks and artesian wells instead.

    “These people had to find very creative ways to get water for their homes, water for their families, their kids, their critters, and it was not pretty,” Dimock resident Victoria Switzer said Tuesday. “It was just crazy, people trying to find water.”

    Switzer, whose house will be connected to the new water line, called it “wonderful news” — and a long time coming.

    Another resident, Scott Ely, said some of his neighbors had moved away or developed health problems as a result of Coterra’s practices, while his own children, now in college, had grown up “without a safe water source.”

    “There’s so much heartache,” he said.

    Residents were informed of the plea deal last week. A public utility, Pennsylvania American Water, plans to drill two wells — what it calls a “public groundwater system” — and build a treatment plant that will remove any contaminants from the water before piping it to about 20 homes in Dimock. The utility estimates that construction will take about three years, during which Coterra will be required to provide individual treatment systems and bottled water to impacted residents.

    The settlement comes near the end of Shapiro’s tenure as attorney general.

    On Tuesday, Shapiro, a Democrat who will be sworn in as governor in January, pledged more aggressive regulatory oversight of the industry.

    “We have to change our regulatory structure here in the commonwealth,” Shapiro said. “We have to make sure we are setting clear rules of the road and holding industry accountable. If the regulators fail to do that, then industry is not going to be constrained and they’re going to go ahead and put profits before people. And that’s where the danger comes in.”

    Shapiro demurred on the question of whether Coterra would be permitted to resume drilling in a 9-square-mile (23-square-kilometer) area of Dimock where it has long been banned. Shpairo said he would review the matter with his new environmental secretary after taking office as governor.

    The criminal case has not slowed Coterra’s business. It is the leading shale gas driller in the nation’s No. 2 natural gas-producing state.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Vet’s lawsuit blaming antimalarial drug for psychosis tossed

    Vet’s lawsuit blaming antimalarial drug for psychosis tossed

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge threw out a lawsuit against the maker of an anti-malarial drug blamed for causing psychotic behavior and neurological damage to U.S. servicemembers, ruling that the case had no right to be filed in California.

    The proposed class-action case brought last year by an Army veteran accused Roche Laboratories Inc. and Genentech Inc. of intentionally misleading the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of mefloquine, the generic version of the drug Lariam.

    Similar cases had been brought in Canada and Australia, but the lawsuit in federal court in Northern California was the first large-scale case of its kind in the U.S., attorneys said.

    The U.S. military, which developed the drug during the Vietnam War, was once its largest user to combat malaria. It was given to hundreds of thousands of troops sent to Afghanistan and Somalia.

    Roche, which was granted the intellectual property rights and won FDA approval for Lariam in 1989, said it manufactured its last lots for U.S. distribution in 2005. Those drugs expired in 2008 — a year before the company’s 2009 merger with Genentech.

    The Pentagon continued to distribute generic versions of the drug, though elite Army units were ordered to stop using mefloquine in 2013 after the FDA put a black box warning on it after it was found to cause permanent brain damage in rare cases. The warning said it caused side effects such as dizziness, loss of balance and ringing in the ears that could become permanent.

    The Army has mainly replaced mefloquine with drugs found to be safer.

    John Nelson of Florida brought the suit after he said he became permanently disabled from taking the drug during his Army service from 2005 to 2015. Nelson said he never experienced any neuropsychiatric symptoms until he began taking mefloquine just before being stationed in Afghanistan.

    U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson ruled in San Francisco on Monday that Nelson had sufficiently alleged that the manufacturer knew about dangers of the drug and did not warn the U.S. military.

    But the judge said it was a stretch to apply a California law that holds name brand manufacturers responsible for warnings on the generic version of their drugs. Nelson never lived in California and Roche and Genentech were only headquartered in the state for two months while he took the drug overseas in 2009.

    “It would be unfair for plaintiff to be able to bring his claims in California and, by virtue of the state’s innovator liability doctrine, he would be extended greater rights than he would be granted in his own state of residence, Florida,” Thompson wrote.

    The judge noted that other possible venues — New Jersey, where Roche had been based, and Florida, where Nelson lives and Kentucky, Oregon and Tennessee where he lived previously — either don’t have similar laws that would extend liability to the original manufacturer of a generic drug or have courts that have issued opinions making such a finding unlikely.

    Roche issued a one sentence statement asserting that lawyers were “forum shopping” and said it was pleased the court found the case didn’t belong in a California court.

    Nelson said his symptoms went from vivid stimulating dreams that disrupted his sleep and made him anxious to having panic attacks, paranoia, insomnia and twice tried to take his own life, the lawsuit said. He was diagnosed as depressed and later as bipolar, though medications, including antipsychotics, did not help.

    After attending a conference in 2020 about effects of anti-malarial drugs, Nelson suspected he may have experienced mefloquine toxicity and pursued testing that confirmed the diagnosis.

    The lawsuit sought unspecified damages for negligence, failure to warn users, and fraudulent misrepresentation, among other claims. It also sought to have the companies pay for medical monitoring of those who took the drug to understand the impacts.

    Attorneys for Nelson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Virginia Walmart mass shooting survivor files $50M lawsuit

    Virginia Walmart mass shooting survivor files $50M lawsuit

    [ad_1]

    NORFOLK, Va. — A Walmart employee who survived last week’s mass shooting at a store in Virginia has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the company for allegedly continuing to employ the shooter — a store supervisor — “who had known propensities for violence, threats and strange behavior.”

    The lawsuit, which appears to be the first to stem from the shooting, was filed Tuesday in Chesapeake Circuit Court by Donya Prioleau.

    Walmart, which is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, said in a statement that it was reviewing the complaint and will respond “as appropriate with the court.”

    “The entire Walmart family is heartbroken by the loss of the valued members of our team,” the company said. “Our deepest sympathies go out to our associates and everyone impacted, including those who were injured. We are focused on supporting all our associates with significant resources, including counseling.”

    Prioleau’s suit alleges that she has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, including physical and emotional distress, from witnessing the rampage in the store’s breakroom on Nov. 22. Her lawsuit offers fresh details of the terrifying attack and provides a long list of troubling signs displayed by the shooter that she claims managers failed to address.

    “Bullets whizzed by Plaintiff Donya Prioleau’s face and left side, barely missing her,” the lawsuit states. “She witnessed several of her coworkers being brutally murdered on either side of her.”

    The lawsuit adds: “Ms. Prioleau looked at one of her coworkers in the eyes right after she had been shot in the neck. Ms. Prioleau saw the bullet wound in her coworker’s neck, the blood rushing out of it, and the shocked look on her coworker’s helpless face.”

    Store supervisor Andre Bing, 31, fatally shot six employees and wounded several others before he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, police said.

    The lawsuit alleges that Bing “had a personal vendetta against several Walmart employees and kept a ‘kill list’ of potential targets prior to the shooting.”

    The list is in reference to a “death note” found on Bing’s phone and released Friday by authorities. The note appeared to contain specific references to people he worked with, but authorities redacted their names.

    Bing was a Walmart team leader who had worked for the company since 2010. He was responsible for managing the overnight stocking crew, including Prioleau, who started her job in May 2021, the lawsuit says.

    The lawsuit claims management knew or should have known about Bing’s disturbing behavior and lists several instances of alarming conduct.

    “Prior to the shooting, Mr. Bing repeatedly asked coworkers if they had received their active shooter training,” the suit states. “When coworkers responded that they had, Mr. Bing just smiled and walked away without saying anything.”

    Bing “made comments to other Walmart employees and managers suggesting that he would be violent if fired or disciplined,” according to the suit, which also says Bing “was disciplined leading up to the shooting, making his violent outburst predictable.”

    In another instance, Bing told co-workers “he ran over a turtle with a lawnmower just to see its (guts) spray out, which made him hungry and reminded him of ramen noodles,” the lawsuit says.

    Bing was previously disciplined for bad behavior and harassing employees, but Walmart “kept employing him anyway,” the suit says.

    In her court filing, Prioleau states that she and her mother attempted to take action against Bing.

    Prioleau had submitted a formal complaint on a Walmart Global Ethics Statement Form indicating that Bing had “bizarrely and inappropriately commented on Ms. Prioleau’s age,” the lawsuit stated.

    The lawsuit alleges that Bing told her: “Isn’t your lady clock ticking? Shouldn’t you be having kids?”

    Prioleau also complained that Bing had harassed her for “being poor and being short,” according to the lawsuit.

    The lawsuit states that she also informed Walmart that Bing called her a “bitch” under his breath.

    In September, Prioleau’s mother expressed concerns to a Walmart manager about her daughter’s safety “because it appeared their concerns were falling on deaf ears,” the lawsuit states.

    The manager said “there was nothing that could be done about Mr. Bing because he was liked by management,” according to the suit.

    Before the shooting, Bing told co-workers that “the government was watching him,” the suit says. “He kept black tape on his phone camera so no one could spy on him.”

    In the note left on his phone, Bing claimed he was harassed and said he was pushed to the brink by a perception that his phone was hacked. The note also accused colleagues of mocking him.

    Bing’s death note rambles at times through 11 paragraphs, with references to nontraditional cancer treatments and songwriting. He says people unfairly compared him to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

    Jessica Wilczewski, a Walmart employee who witnessed the shooting, told The Associated Press last week that Bing seemed to target certain people.

    “The way he was acting — he was going hunting,” she said.

    In a note to employees on Tuesday, Walmart president and CEO John Furner wrote that the people who were killed were “amazing, irreplaceable members of our family.”

    “The Walmart Foundation also intends to contribute $1 million to the United Way of South Hampton Roads’ Hope & Healing Fund, which will support those impacted by the shooting and the broader Chesapeake community,” Furner wrote.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Connecticut woman sentenced to year in jail for voyeurism

    Connecticut woman sentenced to year in jail for voyeurism

    [ad_1]

    STAMFORD, Conn. — A wealthy Connecticut woman whose criminal case file was sealed from public view was sentenced Tuesday to one year in jail for secretly recording three people, including a minor, in a manner involving sexual desire.

    Hadley Palmer, 54, of Greenwich, was led out of the state courtroom in Stamford in handcuffs by judicial marshals. She declined to make a statement on her behalf during the hearing, only answering several yes or no questions by the judge.

    Judge John Blawie, who sealed Palmer’s case file earlier this year over objections by the The Associated Press, ordered that the file remain sealed Tuesday, keeping the specifics of the charges included in an arrest warrant shielded from public view.

    Blawie previously ruled the privacy of the victims outweighed the public’s interest in seeing the case documents, and it was not possible to redact all the documents to sufficiently protect the victims’ identities. The AP disagreed, saying documents in many other Connecticut cases involving sex crimes have been redacted in ways to protect the victims.

    The daughter of a notable hedge fund founder, Jerrold Fine, Palmer is currently divorcing her venture capitalist husband, Bradley Palmer. She is seen in photos on the internet at fundraising galas and other society events. The sealing of her case file was called unusual by open government advocates and defense lawyers not associated with the case.

    Under the sentence, which was part of a plea bargain, Palmer also must register as a sex offender for 10 years and will serve 20 years of probation after the jail term.

    She pleaded guilty in January to three counts of voyeurism and one count of risk of injury to a minor — all felonies committed between 2017 and 2018. She already served 90 days in jail earlier this year. The sentencing range of the plea bargain was at least 90 days in jail and up to five years in prison.

    Stamford-Norwalk State’s Attorney Paul Ferencek released some new details of the crimes Tuesday, saying the victims were video recorded in various stages of undress, including fully naked, without their knowledge or consent. He said the videos were used for the sexual gratification of Palmer and an unnamed third person.

    Ferencek also said the victims did not want Palmer to serve more time in jail than she already had. But one of the victims, a female, requested a 30-year criminal protective order barring Palmer from having contact with her, a request approved by Blawie.

    “Obviously this is an upsetting factual situation,” Ferencek said. “I think is is a fair disposition.”

    The victims’ lawyers declined to comment Tuesday, and none of the victims spoke in court.

    Palmer’s lawyer, Michael Meehan, called the sentence just.

    “She’s taken responsibility for her actions,” Meehan said. “This is a very caring, loving and sincere human being.”

    Blawie accepted the plea bargain, saying “Make no mistake, the defendant is paying a price for her actions.”

    Palmer’s case file has been sealed from public view ever since her arrest in October 2021. On the day of her arrest, she applied for a special probation program that automatically results in the sealing of defendants’ files.

    Blawie accepted the application, but Palmer was not eligible for the program because of the seriousness of two of the original charges — employing a minor in an obscene performance and possession of child pornography. Those charges were dropped as part of the plea bargain.

    Palmer later withdrew the application for the probation program, but Blawie kept the case file sealed from the public.

    Palmer also requested that the courtroom be closed during portions of Tuesday’s sentencing including her own statements, which also was unusual and opposed by the AP, but her lawyers withdrew the request at the last minute.

    Adding to the secrecy surrounding Palmer’s crimes was the fact that her name and court case numbers often disappeared from the state court system’s website in the months following her arrest. As her application for the probation program was pending, her name and case numbers only appeared on the site on the days she was scheduled to be in court, unlike other cases that appear daily on the website and involve the probation program.

    Court officials did not know why Palmer’s information disappeared sometimes from the website.

    Nearly every week in Connecticut’s courts, people charged with sex crimes and crimes against children appear before judges and their case files aren’t sealed. Arrest warrants with detailed information on allegations are generally available to the public, although the names of the victims may be redacted or replaced with pseudonyms.

    ————

    This story has been corrected to show Palmer’s lawyer withdrew the request to close the courtroom and the request was not rejected by the judge.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Survivor of Virginia Walmart mass shooting files $50M suit

    Survivor of Virginia Walmart mass shooting files $50M suit

    [ad_1]

    NORFOLK, Va. — A Walmart employee who survived last week’s mass shooting at a store in Virginia has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the company for allegedly continuing to employ the shooter — a store supervisor — “who had known propensities for violence, threats and strange behavior.”

    The lawsuit, which appears to be the first to stem from the shooting, was filed Tuesday in Chesapeake Circuit Court by Donya Prioleau. Walmart, which is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, did not immediately respond to a written request seeking comment on the litigation.

    Prioleau’s suit alleges that she has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, including physical and emotional distress, from witnessing the rampage in the store’s breakroom on Nov. 22.

    “Bullets whizzed by Plaintiff Donya Prioleau’s face and left side, barely missing her,” the lawsuit states. “She witnessed several of her coworkers being brutally murdered on either side of her.”

    The lawsuit adds: “Ms. Prioleau looked at one of her coworkers in the eyes right after she had been shot in the neck. Ms. Prioleau saw the bullet wound in her coworker’s neck, the blood rushing out of it, and the shocked look on her coworker’s helpless face.”

    Store supervisor Andre Bing, 31, fatally shot six employees and wounded several others before he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, police said.

    The lawsuit alleges that Bing “had a personal vendetta against several Walmart employees and kept a ‘kill list’ of potential targets prior to the shooting.”

    The lawsuit also states that Prioleau had submitted a formal complaint on a Walmart Global Ethics Statement Form indicating that Bing had “bizarrely and inappropriately commented on Ms. Prioleau’s age.”

    The lawsuit alleges that Bing told her: “Isn’t your lady clock ticking? Shouldn’t you be having kids?”

    Prioleau also complained that Bing had harassed her for “being poor and being short,” according to the lawsuit.

    The lawsuit states that she also informed Walmart that Bing called her a “bitch” under his breath.

    “Despite Mr. Bing’s long-standing pattern of disturbing and threatening behavior, Walmart knew or should have known about Mr. Bing’s disturbing and threatening behavior, but failed to terminate Mr. Bing, restrict his access to common areas, conduct a thorough background investigation, or subject him to a mental health examination,” the lawsuit states.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • $10M settlement announced in heat death of Georgia student

    $10M settlement announced in heat death of Georgia student

    [ad_1]

    ATLANTA — The parents of a Georgia high school basketball player who collapsed while practicing outdoors in sweltering heat and later died announced Tuesday that they have agreed to a $10 million settlement with the school district.

    As part of the settlement, the Clayton County school system agreed to rename the gymnasium at Elite Scholars Academy for Imani Bell, who was a 16-year-old junior at the school when she died. A ceremony was set to be held Tuesday afternoon to commemorate that renaming, the family’s lawyers said.

    Imani’s father, Eric Bell, called the renaming of the gym a “great honor,” but said the settlement is “bittersweet.”

    “We’d trade everything to have her back here with us,” he said in a phone interview.

    Imani collapsed on Aug. 13, 2019, after running up the football stadium steps during required conditioning drills for the girls’ basketball team, her family said in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against administrators at the school. The temperature was in the high 90s Fahrenheit (more than 35 degrees Celsius) at the time and the area was under a heat advisory.

    Imani died later that day from heat-related cardiac arrest and kidney failure, the lawsuit said. An autopsy done by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found that she had no preexisting conditions and her death was due solely to heatstroke caused by strenuous physical exertion in extreme temperatures, the family’s lawyers said.

    Two coaches, Larosa Walker-Asekere and Dwight Palmer, were indicted in July 2021 on charges including murder and child cruelty in Imani’s death. That criminal case is ongoing.

    Imani’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in February 2021. Online court records show that suit was settled last month. An attorney for the family, L. Chris Stewart, said the significant settlement amount sends a message to other school districts.

    “It sends a nationwide message to every school district and every athletic program … that the lives of our children matter over athletics, and every district needs to realize that no child should die from heat exhaustion,” he said. “We salute Clayton County for sending that message nationwide.”

    The family has started the Keep Imani Foundation, which their lawyers said will be funded in part by funds from the settlement. Eric Bell said it will offer scholarships for students and will help schools get cold tubs to help prevent heat stroke deaths.

    Bell said he wants to send a message to school officials: “Keep educating coaches, keep educating students about the dangers of heat and humidity, and try to be prepared for a situation like this.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Missouri prepares to execute man for killing officer in 2005

    Missouri prepares to execute man for killing officer in 2005

    [ad_1]

    FOR MOVEMENT TUESDAY AT 1 AM ET. EDITED BY CBLAKE.

    A Missouri inmate convicted of ambushing and killing a St. Louis area police officer he blamed in the death of his younger brother was scheduled to be executed Tuesday, though his lawyers are seeking to have the lethal injection halted.

    Kevin Johnson’s legal team doesn’t deny that he killed Police Officer William McEntee in 2005, but contend in an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court that he was sentenced to death in part because he is Black. The U.S. Supreme Court declined a stay request last week, and Gov. Mike Parson on Monday announced he would not grant clemency.

    “The violent murder of any citizen, let alone a Missouri law enforcement officer, should be met only with the fullest punishment state law allows,” Parson, a Republican and a former county sheriff, said in a statement. “Through Mr. Johnson’s own heinous actions, he stole the life of Sergeant McEntee and left a family grieving, a wife widowed, and children fatherless. Clemency will not be granted.”

    Johnson, 37, faces execution at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Bonne Terre. He would be the second Missouri man put to death in 2022 and the 17th nationally.

    McEntee, 43, was a 20-year veteran of the police department in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb. The father of three was among the officers sent to Johnson’s home on July 5, 2005, to serve a warrant for his arrest. Johnson was on probation for assaulting his girlfriend, and police believed he had violated probation.

    Johnson saw officers arrive and awoke his 12-year-old brother, Joseph “Bam Bam” Long, who ran to a house next door. Once there, the boy, who suffered from a congenital heart defect, collapsed and began having a seizure.

    Johnson testified at trial that McEntee kept his mother from entering the house to aid his brother, who died a short time later at a hospital.

    That same evening, McEntee returned to the neighborhood to check on unrelated reports of fireworks being shot off. A court filing from the Missouri attorney general’s office said McEntee was in his car questioning three children when Johnson shot him through the open passenger-side window, striking the officer’s leg, head and torso. Johnson then got into the car and took McEntee’s gun.

    The court filing said Johnson walked down the street and told his mother that McEntee “let my brother die” and “needs to see what it feels like to die.” Though she told him, “That’s not true,” Johnson returned to the shooting scene and found McEntee alive, on his knees near the patrol car. Johnson shot McEntee in the back and in the head, killing him.

    Johnson’s lawyers have previously asked the courts to intervene for other reasons, including a history of mental illness and his age — 19 — at the time of the crime. Courts have increasingly moved away from sentencing teen offenders to death since the Supreme Court in 2005 banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime.

    But a broader focus of appeals has been on alleged racial bias. In October, St. Louis Circuit Judge Mary Elizabeth Ott appointed a special prosecutor to review the case. The special prosecutor, E.E. Keenan, filed a motion earlier this month to vacate the death sentence, stating that race played a “decisive factor” in the death sentence.

    Ott declined to set aside the death penalty. The Missouri Supreme Court convened an emergency hearing Monday to consider the request.

    Keenan’ told the state Supreme Court that former St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch’s office handled five cases involving the deaths of police officers during his 28 years in office. McCulloch sought the death penalty in the four cases involving Black defendants, but did not seek death in the one case where the defendant was white, the file said.

    Assistant Attorney General Andrew Crane responded that “a fair jury determined he deserves the death penalty.”

    McCulloch does not have a listed phone number and could not be reached for comment.

    Johnson’s 19-year-old daughter, Khorry Ramey, had sought to witness the execution, but a state law prohibits anyone under 21 from observing the process. Courts have declined to step in on Ramey’s behalf.

    The U.S. saw 98 executions in 1999 but the number has dropped dramatically in recent years. Missouri already has two scheduled for early 2023. Convicted killer Scott McLaughlin is scheduled to die on Jan. 3, and convicted killer Leonard Taylor’s execution is set for Feb. 7.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ex-prison warden faces trial over inmate abuse allegations

    Ex-prison warden faces trial over inmate abuse allegations

    [ad_1]

    OAKLAND, Calif. — The former warden of an abuse-plagued federal women’s prison known as the “rape club” went on trial Monday, accused of molesting inmates and forcing them to pose naked in their cells.

    Ray J. Garcia, who retired after the FBI found nude photos of inmates on his government-issued phone last year, is among five workers charged with abusing inmates at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California, and the first to go to trial.

    Opening statements kicked off Monday in federal court in Oakland, with prosecutors spelling out evidence they said would show Garcia’s abuse of several inmates followed a pattern that started with compliments, flattery and promises of transfers to lower security prisons, and escalated to sexual encounters. Garcia, 55, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he would face up to 15 years in prison.

    An Associated Press investigation in February revealed a culture of abuse and cover-up that had persisted for years at the prison, about 21 miles (34 kilometers) east of Oakland. That reporting led to increased scrutiny from Congress and pledges from the federal Bureau of Prisons that it would fix problems and change the culture at the prison.

    Garcia is charged with abusing three inmates between December 2019 and July 2021, but jurors could hear from as many as six women who say he groped them and told them to pose naked or in provocative clothing. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said prosecutors can call three additional accusers as witnesses, even though their allegations are not part of Garcia’s indictment.

    One of the women testified Monday that she started developing romantic feelings for Garcia and that their first sexual encounter was in the bathroom of the visitor’s area of the prison. The woman, whose prison job was to clean the visitation room, said Garcia told her he knew of several parts of the visitation area that wouldn’t be captured by surveillance cameras.

    “I felt like he cared about me and he loved me,” the woman said, her voice breaking.

    She said that at first Garcia was “very sweet” but eventually became “very pornographic, very vulgar.”

    She testified that their first sexual encounter happened in the bathroom of the visitation room and that she was in shock and didn’t know what to think.

    “I couldn’t believe it was happening but I felt like he loved me and he cared about me and I wanted to make him happy,” she said.

    The woman said similar sexual encounters between her and Garcia happened in the visitation room and in a warehouse while other prison officials and/or inmates were nearby.

    Garcia’s lawyer argued that there was no surveillance video capturing the alleged sexual misconduct. Union officials have long complained the prison has an inadequate number of cameras.

    “The evidence is not going to show one single video of any of these supposed events,” Garcia’s defense lawyer, James Reilly, said. In court papers, the defense argued that Garcia took pictures of one inmate because he wanted documentation that she was breaching policy by standing around naked.

    The case, with shades of #MeToo behind bars, is likely to put a spotlight on the Bureau of Prisons, calling into question its handling of sexual abuse complaints from inmates against staff and the vetting process for the people it chooses to run its prisons.

    The AP generally does not name people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they consent to being identified. All sexual activity between a prison worker and an inmate is illegal. Correctional employees enjoy substantial power over inmates, controlling every aspect of their lives from mealtime to lights out, and there is no scenario in which an inmate can give consent.

    Garcia was promoted from associate warden to warden in November 2020 while he was still abusing inmates, prosecutors say. The Bureau of Prisons has said it didn’t find out about the abuse until later. Garcia is the highest-ranking federal prison official arrested in more than 10 years.

    The agency’s new director, Colette Peters, has reiterated the agency’s zero-tolerance policy for staff sexual misconduct and has called for harsher punishment for workers who commit abuse. But as abuse raged at Dublin, the process for reporting it was inherently broken.

    Garcia was in charge of staff and inmate training on reporting abuse and complying with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act at the same time he was committing abuse, prosecutors say, and some inmates say they were sent to solitary confinement or other prisons for accusing employees of abuse.

    Prosecutors say Garcia tried to keep his victims quiet with promises that he’d help them get early release. He allegedly told one victim he was “close friends” with the prison official responsible for investigating staff misconduct and couldn’t be fired. According to an indictment, he said he liked to cavort with inmates because, given their lack of power, they couldn’t “ruin him.”

    Garcia is also accused of ordering inmates to strip naked for him as he made his rounds and of lying to federal agents who asked him if he had ever asked inmates to undress for him or had inappropriately touched a female inmate.

    “We see inmates dressing and stuff … and if they’re undressing, I’ve already looked,” Garcia told the FBI in July 2021, according to court records. “I don’t, like, schedule a time like, ‘You be undressed, and I’ll be there.’”

    Garcia was placed on administrative leave before retiring. He was arrested in September 2021.

    Earlier this month, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco directed federal prosecutors across the U.S. to “consider the full array of statutes,” including the federal Violence Against Women Act in cases involving Bureau of Prisons employees who are accused of sexual misconduct.

    In those cases, Monaco said prosecutors should consider asking judges for sentences that go beyond the federal guidelines if the sentence recommended in the guidelines isn’t “fair and proportional to the seriousness of the offenses.”

    Of the four other Dublin workers charged with abusing inmates, three have pleaded guilty and one is scheduled to stand trial next year. James Theodore Highhouse, the prison’s chaplain, is appealing his seven-year prison sentence, arguing that it was excessive because it was more than double the recommended punishment in federal sentencing guidelines.

    ———

    Sisak and Balsamo reported from New York. On Twitter, follow Michael Sisak at http://twitter.com/mikesisak and Michael Balsamo at http://twitter.com/MikeBalsamo1 and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge mulls arguments in Mississippi death penalty protocol

    Judge mulls arguments in Mississippi death penalty protocol

    [ad_1]

    JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge will decide whether to block Mississippi from using three drugs when it puts inmates to death, and his ruling could determine whether the state carries out its next execution in about two weeks.

    U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate heard several hours of arguments Monday in a lawsuit filed in 2015 on behalf of some Mississippi death row inmates. Wingate noted that one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., is facing a Dec. 14 execution date, which was recently set by the Mississippi Supreme Court.

    “The court is going to move expeditiously on this matter,” Wingate said, an indication that he could issue a decision within days.

    The mother of the 16-year-old girl killed by Loden watched the court hearing. Wanda Farris of Fulton said she has waited 22 years for justice for her daughter, Leesa Gray.

    “She was a sweet Christian girl, loved the Lord, had a lot of life ahead of her,” Farris told reporters outside the courtroom.

    Farris’ best friend, Sondra Pearce, was also in court to listen. She said she taught Leesa in kindergarten, and she didn’t like hearing the judge and attorneys discuss whether Loden might feel pain during an execution.

    “Let’s talk about Leesa and the inhumane things he put her through,” Pearce said outside the courtroom.

    Wingate requested a sworn statement from Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain about the state’s current stock of execution drugs.

    Gerald Kucia, a Mississippi special assistant attorney general, told Wingate that none of the execution drugs currently in stock are expired. He said some expired execution drugs were recently destroyed by the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

    Attorneys for the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center sued the Mississippi prison system, saying the state’s lethal injection protocol is inhumane.

    Jim Craig, a MacArthur Center attorney, said Monday that since 2019, only Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee have conducted executions using a three-drug protocol.

    According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 states have the death penalty. Craig said a majority of death-penalty states and the federal government used a three-drug protocol in 2008, but the federal government and most of those states have since started using one drug.

    “Mississippi also has no serious training of their staff before an execution takes place,” Craig said. He said the people who insert needles into a condemned inmate for the execution are not present during practice runs of the procedure.

    Craig also pointed out that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey last week sought a pause in executions. Ivey ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of the state’s capital punishment system after an unprecedented third failed lethal injection.

    Kucia told Wingate that the U.S. Supreme Court has never blocked a method of execution.

    “This court should not say that Mississippi’s method of carrying out executions is unconstitutional,” Kucia said.

    Mississippi’s most recent execution was in November 2021 — its first in nine years. The Mississippi Department of Corrections revealed in court papers in July 2021 that it had acquired three drugs for the lethal injection protocol: midazolam, which is a sedative; vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Cain said the drugs listed in the court records were the ones used for the execution that November. He would not say where the department obtained them.

    Mississippi and several other states have had trouble finding drugs for lethal injections in recent years since pharmaceutical companies in the United States and Europe began blocking the use of their drugs for executions.

    Loden joined four other Mississippi death row inmates in the federal lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol. Mississippi revised the protocol to allow the use of midazolam if thiopental or pentobarbital cannot be obtained.

    Wingate granted an injunction to prevent the state from using compounded pentobarbital or midazolam, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling. That sent the case back to Wingate.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ex-Border Patrol agent accused of killing 4 goes on trial

    Ex-Border Patrol agent accused of killing 4 goes on trial

    [ad_1]

    SAN ANTONIO — The capital murder trial began Monday of a former U.S. Border Patrol agent who confessed to killing four sex workers in South Texas, telling investigators he wanted to “clean up the streets” of his border hometown.

    If convicted of capital murder, Juan David Ortiz, 39, faces life in prison without parole because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

    At the time of his arrest, Ortiz, a Navy veteran, was a Border Patrol intel supervisor. He was arrested in Laredo on Sept. 15, 2018, after Erika Pena escaped from him and asked a state trooper for help. Ortiz pleaded not guilty Monday to capital murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful restraint and evading arrest.

    “You will see and you will hear, through his own words, how he took each woman to their last resting place, how he executed them,” Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz told jurors during opening statements. “You will hear in his own words the indifference, the disrespect, the degradation that he has for these people.”

    “You will hear the evidence in this own words: ‘I wanted to clean up the streets,’” Alaniz said, adding that Ortiz in Spanish called the women “dirt.”

    Ortiz is standing trial in San Antonio, in Bexar County, following a defense request to move the trial from Webb County due to extensive media coverage.

    Alaniz also said that during the confession, Ortiz told investigators where to find the body of one of his victims.

    Ortiz’s attorney, Joel Perez, told jurors in opening statements that investigators had jumped to conclusions, and that his client’s confession was “coerced.” He said his client was “broken” and “suicidal” when he made the confession after being questioned for over eight hours. Months earlier, the veteran had been put on “a bunch of psychotic pills” after seeking help when he was unable to sleep and having nightmares, Perez said.

    Ortiz told investigators he’d had blackouts as well, Perez said.

    “This is a defeated man,” Perez said.

    Melissa Ramirez, 29, was killed on Sept. 3, 2018, and 42-year-old Claudine Luera was killed on Sept. 13, 2018.

    On Sept. 14, 2018, Ortiz picked up Pena, who told investigators that Ortiz acted oddly when she brought up Ramirez’s slaying. Pena testified Monday that she took off running when Ortiz pointed a gun at her in a truck at a gas station, and was crying as she approached a state trooper who was refueling his vehicle.

    Ortiz fled and, he later told investigators, picked up and killed his last two victims, 35-year-old Guiselda Alicia Cantu and 28-year-old Janelle Ortiz. Authorities eventually tracked Ortiz to a hotel parking garage where he was arrested.

    Each of his victims was shot in the head and left along rural Laredo-area roads. One died of blunt force trauma after being shot.

    “Through the evidence, we will take you … to those last moments of these women’s lives,” Alaniz told jurors on Monday.

    The Border Patrol placed Ortiz on indefinite, unpaid suspension after his arrest. When asked Monday for an update on his current employment status, a Border Patrol official said the agency doesn’t comment on “pending litigation.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • FBI confirms remains in landfill belong to Georgia toddler

    FBI confirms remains in landfill belong to Georgia toddler

    [ad_1]

    SAVANNAH, Ga. — The FBI on Monday confirmed that the bones found in a Georgia landfill are those of a toddler who had been reported missing last month and whose mother was arrested last week on charges including murder.

    The FBI used DNA analysis to confirm that the bones belonged to 20-month-old Quinton Simon, the agency said in a news release. Chatham County police said on Nov. 21 that they had arrested Leilani Simon, 22, on charges of malice murder, concealing the death of another person, false reporting and making false statements involving her son.

    Simon was being held in the Chatham County Jail, and it wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether she had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.

    Simon called police on Oct. 5 to report that her son was missing from his playpen in their home just outside Savannah. The remains that were determined to be Quinton’s were found in a landfill on Nov. 18.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Court: Cop who shot Castile wrongly denied teaching license

    Court: Cop who shot Castile wrongly denied teaching license

    [ad_1]

    MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Monday that a state board must reconsider its rejection of a substitute teaching license for the former police officer who shot and killed Philando Castile in 2016.

    Jeronimo Yanez applied to be a substitute teacher in 2020, but his application was denied based on “immoral character or conduct.” The appeals court ruled that this reason was unconstitutionally vague and the Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board must reconsider — focusing narrowly on whether Yanez’s conduct makes him unfit to teach.

    The appeals court said that upon reconsideration, the board must identify factors it is using to determine whether Yanez’s conduct “violated moral standards for the teaching profession.” The board must also avoid characterizing policing practices — such as a pretextual reason for a traffic stop — as immoral.

    “The board’s decision must focus exclusively on Yanez’s conduct and his fitness to be a teacher, not fitness to be a police officer,” the appeals court ruled.

    Messages left with Yanez’s attorney and with the licensing board were not immediately returned Monday.

    Yanez, a former St. Anthony police officer, shot Castile during a traffic stop after Castile, who was Black, said he had a gun. Authorities later discovered that Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, had a permit for the firearm.

    The case got widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend, who was in the car with her young daughter, began livestreaming the shooting’s aftermath on Facebook.

    Yanez was charged with manslaughter but was acquitted by a jury. The shooting and Yanez’s subsequent acquittal led to massive public outcry and protests in Minnesota and beyond.

    Yanez left the police department after his trial. In February 2020, he applied for a substitute teaching license, according to the appeals court ruling. At the time of his application, he was teaching Spanish part-time at a parochial school. The school’s principal supported his license application.

    During the application process, the board’s disciplinary committee investigated Yanez’s case and recommended that his application be denied.

    He appealed to an administrative-law judge, who also recommended that his application be denied after a hearing in which St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joseph Gothard testified that Yanez’s actions were hurtful and offensive to the community. An expert who testified for Yanez said the traffic stop was lawful and that he agreed the deadly use of force was reasonable.

    The administrative-law judge found Yanez prejudged Castile as a robbery suspect because of his “wide set nose” — initiating a pretextual traffic stop that indicated “racial bias, microaggressions, and negativity bias that are detrimental to students, especially students of color.”

    The administrative-law judge also found that Yanez failed to establish that his use of deadly force was reasonable and necessary. The board ultimately denied Yanez’s application.

    Yanez argued on appeal that denying his application due to “immoral character or conduct” was unconstitutionally vague. The appeals court agreed, saying that other jurisdictions have found that immorality means different things to different people, and that the conduct in question must be directly related to a teacher’s ability to teach.

    The appeals court said that the phrase is nebulous and “vulnerable to the caprice of ever-changing public opinion and the potential for arbitrary, biased enforcement” but that it could survive constitutional scrutiny if narrowed to “relate to professional morals in the occupation of teaching.”

    Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, said Monday that she didn’t know Yanez was trying to obtain a substitute teaching license, and that she doesn’t think he belongs in the classroom.

    She said children – particularly students of color — might have trouble focusing on what Yanez is teaching and could worry that they were in danger. She said parents would also need to be notified if he was in a classroom.

    “The community knows about what he did and I don’t think the kids would be comfortable even having him there,” she said. “We have to think about our children’s comfort levels. … We have to think about those children and the trauma they suffered because of what he did.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge accepts insanity plea deal for man in face-biting case

    Judge accepts insanity plea deal for man in face-biting case

    [ad_1]

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A judge accepted a plea deal Monday for a man who randomly killed a Florida couple in their garage six years ago and then chewed on one victim’s face that will send him to a mental hospital for treatment.

    Austin Harrouff, 25, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges for the 2016 slayings of John Stevens, 59, and his wife, Michelle Mishcon Stevens, 53.

    The agreement worked out between the defense and prosecution avoids a trial that had been scheduled to start Monday before Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer and had been expected to last three weeks.

    Harrouff will be committed to a secure mental hospital until doctors and a judge agree that he is no longer dangerous. If the trial had gone forward, Harrouff could have faced life in prison.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A trial for a former college student who randomly killed a Florida couple in their garage six years ago and then chewed on one victim’s face was set to begin Monday.

    Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer will decide whether Austin Harrouff, 25, goes to prison for the rest of his life, or to a mental hospital. Harrouff waived a jury trial after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges for the 2016 slayings of John Stevens, 59, and his wife, Michelle Mishcon Stevens, 53. He also seriously injured a neighbor who tried to help them.

    The trial for the former Florida State University student has been delayed by the pandemic, legal wrangling and Harrouff’s recovery from critical injuries suffered while drinking a chemical during the attack. It is being held in Stuart, north of West Palm Beach, and is expected to last about three weeks.

    Defendants are presumed sane under Florida law, meaning that Harrouff must show he had a severe mental breakdown that prevented him from understanding actions or that they were even wrong by “clear and convincing” evidence.

    He has claimed he was fleeing a demon when the attack happened.

    If the judge agrees he was insane, Harrouff will be committed to a secure mental hospital until doctors and a judge agree that he is no longer dangerous. Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, said it would effectively be a life sentence because “it’s highly unlikely” that they would risk releasing a killer as notorious as Harrouff.

    If convicted, Harrouff will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; prosecutors waived the death penalty.

    Harrouff’s parents, who are divorced, and others said he had acted strangely for weeks. His parents had set up an appointment for him to be evaluated, but the attack occurred first.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Lawyers: Buffalo supermarket gunman plans to plead guilty

    Lawyers: Buffalo supermarket gunman plans to plead guilty

    [ad_1]

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — A white gunman who targeted a Buffalo supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood plans to plead guilty on Monday to killing 10 people and wounding three others, according to lawyers representing victims’ relatives.

    Payton Gendron, 19, is scheduled to appear in Erie County Court for a hearing that was postponed for a week by a snowstorm.

    Gendron’s lawyers disclosed in recent weeks that he planned to plead guilty to all of the counts in a state indictment and to waive his right to appeal, according to attorneys John Elmore and Terrence Connors, who represent families of those killed and injured.

    Erie County District Attorney John Flynn declined to comment on the nature of Monday’s court appearance, citing a court-imposed gag order.

    The 25-count grand jury indictment includes charges of murder, murder as a hate crime and domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carries an automatic life sentence upon conviction.

    Gendron also faces charges for separate federal hate crimes that could result in a death sentence if he is convicted. The U.S. Justice Department has not said whether it would seek capital punishment.

    Investigators said Gendron drove about three hours to Buffalo from his home in Conklin, New York, intending to kill as many Black people as possible at a store that he chose because of its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

    Shortly before opening fire with an AR-15-style rifle on May 14, he posted documents that outlined his white supremacist views and revealed that he had been planning the attack for months. Inside the store, he roamed the aisles and livestreamed the attack from a helmet-mounted camera as he shot store employees and shoppers.

    Those killed ranged in age from 32 to 86.

    He was arrested in the parking lot upon exiting through the store’s front entrance.

    Relatives of the victims have since called on Congress to address issues of white supremacy and gun violence. A food summit organized by Buffalo-based attorney and activist Kevin Gaughan last month focused on closing the “grocery gap” laid bare by the attack on the neighborhood’s only supermarket.

    The supermarket was closed for two months.

    ———

    For more AP coverage of the mass shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/buffalo-supermarket-shooting

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Judge to decide on Florida face-biter insanity plea

    Judge to decide on Florida face-biter insanity plea

    [ad_1]

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A former college student who randomly killed a Florida couple in their garage six years ago and then chewed on one victim’s face finally goes on trial Monday, with a judge deciding whether he goes to prison for life or to a mental hospital.

    Austin Harrouff, 25, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges for his August 2016 slayings of John Stevens, a 59-year-old landscaper, and his 53-year-old wife, Michelle Mishcon Stevens, who had retired after working in finance.

    The former Florida State University student has waived a jury trial, meaning Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer will decide whether Harrouff was insane when he killed the couple, and seriously injured the neighbor who came to their aid.

    The trial has been delayed by the pandemic, legal wranglings and Harrouff’s recovery from critical injuries suffered while drinking a chemical during the attack. It will be in Stuart, an hour drive north of West Palm Beach, and last about three weeks.

    Prosecutor Brandon White did not respond to a call and email seeking comment. Harrouff’s lead attorney, Robert Watson, declined comment.

    Under Florida law, defendants are presumed sane. For Harrouff’s defense to succeed, Watson must show that he had a severe mental breakdown that prevented him from understanding his actions or that they were wrong by “clear and convincing evidence.” Harrouff has said he was fleeing a demon when he attacked the couple.

    If convicted, Harrouff will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; prosecutors waived the death penalty.

    If Harrouff is ruled insane, Bauer will commit him to a secure mental hospital until doctors and a judge agree that he is no longer dangerous. That would also effectively be a life sentence, said Craig Trocino, a University of Miami law professor, because “it’s highly unlikely” that doctors and a judge would risk releasing a killer as notorious as Harrouff.

    Two mental health experts, one hired by prosecutors and one by the defense, examined Harrouff and found that he suffered an acute psychotic episode during the attack. They also found that he couldn’t distinguish between right and wrong.

    Prosecutors then hired a second expert who said Harrouff was sane, but recently withdrew him saying he has serious health issues. They now have a third expert who believes Harrouff was on a drug that didn’t appear in post-arrest tests, but has not examined him.

    Lea Johnston, a University of Florida law professor, said that only about 1% of felony defendants try an insanity defense because the bar to succeed is so high. About a quarter of those succeed, usually in a pretrial deal where prosecutors agree that the defendant’s mental illness meets the standard.

    She said for insanity defenses that reach trial, defendants who waive a jury have the most success. Judges understand the system, she said, while jurors often worry that defendants acquitted by reason of insanity will be released sooner. They also may question whether treatment at a mental hospital works.

    “There is decades of research showing that (the public) is biased against the insanity defense and it is widely misunderstood,” she said.

    Harrouff’s attack made national headlines because of its brutality and randomness; he did not know the victims. He was a 19-year-old with no criminal record — a former high school football player and wrestler who was studying exercise science. He stripped nearly naked and attacked the couple in their open garage with tools that he found there. When police arrived, Harrouff was biting chunks off John Stevens’ face.

    It took took several officers, an electric stun gun and a police dog to subdue Harrouff. Officers didn’t shoot him because they feared hitting Stevens.

    Harrouff nearly died from chemicals he drank in the garage, which burned his digestive system.

    Investigators found he purchased some hallucinogenic mushrooms a few days before the attack, but friends said he destroyed them and no trace was found in his blood. He also did Google searches for “how to know if you are going crazy.”

    Harrouff’s parents, who are divorced, and others said he had acted strangely for weeks. His parents had set up an appointment for him to be evaluated, but the attack occurred first.

    His father, Wade Harrouff, told TV psychologist Phil McGraw that on the night of the slayings his son left a restaurant where they had been eating without explanation. He walked two miles (three kilometers) to his mother’s house and tried to drink cooking oil. Mina Harrouff stopped him, but he poured the oil into a bowl with Parmesan cheese and ate it.

    She brought him back to the restaurant. Wade Harrouff, a dentist, told McGraw he grabbed his son and said, “What is wrong with you?” He said his son raised his fist, but Wade Harrouff’s girlfriend told him to stop and he left.

    The restaurant’s security video shows Austin Harrouff calmly exiting about 45 minutes before the attack. His mother, before knowing of the attack, called 911 and told the dispatcher her son seemed delusional, claiming to have superpowers and that demons were in her house.

    But it was too late — Harrouff walked or ran the four miles (six kilometers) to the Stevens’ home.

    Austin Harrouff told McGraw he was escaping a demon he called Daniel and only has vague recollections of the slayings.

    He said he encountered Michelle Stevens in the couple’s garage. She screamed, and “then it’s a blur.”

    “I don’t remember what she said — I just remember being yelled at,” Harrouff said. He said he grabbed a machete, but doesn’t remember why he killed her and her husband.

    “It’s like it happened, but I wasn’t aware of it,” Harrouff said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link