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Tag: Leo Anthony Gallagher

  • Trial to start for Texas cop who shot Black woman in home

    Trial to start for Texas cop who shot Black woman in home

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    FORT WORTH, Texas — A white former police officer is set to go on trial Monday for fatally shooting a Black woman through a rear window of her Texas home while responding to a call about an open front door in a case that has faced years of delays.

    Fort Worth Officer Aaron Dean quit and was charged with murder two days after killing 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson in October 2019. Jefferson had been playing video games with her then-8-year-old nephew, who later told authorities his aunt pulled out a gun after hearing suspicious noises behind the house. Body-camera footage showed Dean didn’t identify himself as police.

    At the time, the case was unusual for the relative speed with which, amid public outrage, the Fort Worth Police Department released the body-camera video and arrested Dean. Since then, his case has been repeatedly postponed amid lawyerly wrangling, the terminal illness of his lead attorney and the COVID-19 pandemic.

    By contrast, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin went on trial and was convicted of murdering George Floyd more than 1 1/2 years ago. Yet Floyd was killed some seven months after Jefferson, in a case that sparked global protests over racial injustice.

    Dean, who has pleaded not guilty, has been free on $200,000 bond. Now 38, he is charged with killing Jefferson on Oct. 12, 2019, after a neighbor called a non-emergency police line to report that the front door to Jefferson’s home was open.

    Bodycam video showed Dean approaching the door of the home where Jefferson was caring for her nephew. He then walked around the side of the house, pushed through a gate into the fenced-off backyard and fired through the glass a split-second after shouting at Jefferson, who was inside, to show her hands.

    Dean was not heard identifying himself as police on the video and it’s unclear whether he knew Jefferson was armed. That question and the potential testimony of another officer who was there that night are likely to be key points at trial.

    Jefferson was considering a career in medicine and moved into her mother’s home months before the shooting there to help as the older woman’s health declined.

    Her killing shattered trust police had been trying to build with communities of color in Fort Worth, a city of 935,000 about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Dallas that has long had complaints of racially unequal policing and excessive force.

    The shooting drew swift rebuke from the city’s then-police chief and Republican mayor, who at the time called the circumstances “truly unthinkable” and said Jefferson having a gun was “irrelevant.”

    Dean’s legal team used those comments in unsuccessful attempts to move the case from Fort Worth, claiming media attention and statements from public officials would bias the jury pool.

    As jury selection was set to start last week, Dean’s defense attorney, Jim Lane, died. After years of delays, District Judge George Gallagher moved forward anyway and, following days of questioning potential jurors, a panel of 12 jurors and two alternates was selected Friday. Eight were men, six women and none of them appeared to be Black.

    The opening day of Dean’s trial is set to end early so participants can attend Lane’s funeral.

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    Follow AP’s complete coverage of the killing of Atatiana Jefferson: https://apnews.com/hub/atatiana-jefferson

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  • Gallagher, watermelon smashing comedian, dies at 76

    Gallagher, watermelon smashing comedian, dies at 76

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    NEW YORK — Gallagher, the long-haired, smash-’em-up comedian who left a trail of laughter, anger and shattered watermelons over a decadeslong career, has died at age 76.

    Craig Marquardo, in a statement identifying himself as Gallagher’s “longtime former manager,” said that he died Friday at his home in Palm Springs, California, after a brief illness. Gallagher had numerous heart attacks over the years, including one right before a scheduled show in Texas in 2012.

    With a beret on his head and a few simple props, from a can of oil to a bull whip, the man born Leo Anthony Gallagher Jr. built a nationwide following in the 1970s and ’80s, appearing on the “Tonight” show with Johnny Carson and starring in numerous Showtime specials. His act included observational humor (“What about Easter? Whose idea was it to give eggs to an animal that hops”), political commentary (“They don’t call a tax a tax. They call it a revenue enhancer”), invented sports (synchronized Ping-Pong) and his trademark Sledge-O-Matic destruction.

    “Ladies and gentlemen! I did not come here tonight just to make you laugh. I came here to sell you something, and I want you to pay particular attention!” he would call out in his best rapid-fire impersonation of a late-night television pitchman. “The amazing Master Tool Corporation, a subsidiary of Fly-By-Night Industries, has entrusted who? Me! To show you! The handiest and the dandiest kitchen tool you’ve ever seen.”

    Sledgehammer in hand, he would then apply his full muscle to apples, grapes, lettuce and other produce, most famously the inevitable watermelon, with audience members in front showered in food bits.

    Gallagher was a Fort Bragg, North Carolina, native who started out in 1960 as road manager for the comedian/musician Jim Stafford and soon began performing himself, honing his act at the Comedy Store and other clubs. He was not the only funnyman in the family: His younger brother Ron became a comedian, received Leo’s initial blessing and looked and acted enough like his better-known sibling that some audiences were unsure who they had come to see. Leo Gallagher eventually secured a court injunction barring his brother from using his routines.

    The elder Gallagher became increasingly controversial in recent years, chastised for racist and homophobic remarks. Gallagher even cut short an interview in 2011 with Marc Maron after the WTF podcast host confronted him about his statements.

    “I’m the problem?!” Gallagher said at one point. “Do you think when I’m dead, gays will finally have an opportunity in America? Have I really been holding them down?”

    In 2003, Gallagher was among more than 100 candidates running in the recall election for California governor, won by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the past decade, Gallagher appeared in a Geico commercial and in the movie “The Book Of Daniel.”

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