ReportWire

Tag: policing and police forces

  • Juvenile suspect in Raleigh mass shooting will face charges as an adult, prosecutor says | CNN

    Juvenile suspect in Raleigh mass shooting will face charges as an adult, prosecutor says | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Raleigh, North Carolina
    CNN
     — 

    A 15-year-old will be charged as an adult for allegedly carrying out a mass shooting that left five people dead Thursday in Raleigh, North Carolina, prosecutors said, as calls to curb gun violence are renewed once again in the US.

    The suspect, identified by police as a White male juvenile, was taken into custody by law enforcement after an hours-long manhunt Thursday.

    The sprawling crime scene of more than two miles across the Raleigh neighborhood of Hedingham also left two people wounded in the attack, officials said. One of the five victims killed was off-duty police officer Gabriel Torres, 29, who shot while on his way to work.

    “My heart is heavy, because we don’t have answers as to why this tragedy occurred,” Raleigh Police Chief Estella D. Patterson said during a news briefing Friday.

    Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told CNN on Friday her office intends on charging the suspect as an adult.

    He is hospitalized in critical condition following his apprehension Thursday night after a standoff with police, officials said. Freeman said her office is monitoring the suspect’s condition.

    As authorities investigate, few details have been provided related to how exactly the shooting unfolded.

    In one of four 911 calls obtained by CNN, a caller told a dispatcher that the shooter was wearing camouflage and looked like he was 16. The caller said the gunman “walked by and shot” a police officer “for no reason.” Another caller reported that two neighbors had been shot. A third caller reported that a “kid running around here with a shotgun” shot a person and “ran back into the woods.”

    The suspect donned camouflage clothing and carried a camouflage backpack, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. After the shooting, a handgun and long gun were recovered, according to the source.

    The other deceased victims identified by police are Nicole Conners, 52; Sue Karnatz, 49; Mary Marshall, 35; and James Roger Thompson, 16.

    The two victims who were wounded include a responding police officer, who was later released from care.

    Marcille Lynn Gardner, 59, remains in critical condition, Patterson said.

    The mass shooting prompted a response from President Joe Biden, who lamented the harrowing loss of Americans to gun violence yet again and reiterated his call for an assault weapon ban.

    “Enough,” Biden said. “We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings.

    “Too many families have had spouses, parents, and children taken from them forever,” the President added.

    Biden’s remarks come as the Raleigh community grieves the sudden loss of loved ones and neighbors.

    Karnatz, one of the victims killed, was described by her husband, Tom, as a loving wife and mother to three boys, whose ages are 10, 13 and 14.

    “We had plans together for growing old. Always together. Now those plans are laid to waste,” he wrote Friday on social media.

    Christine Hines, who is Karnatz’ neighbor, said she feels as if her heart had been pierced by the loss. The pair had seen each other the day of the shooting while walking their dogs.

    Marshall, another victim who was killed, was also walking her dog when she heard gunshots ring out, her sister Meaghan McCrickard told CNN.

    After hearing the shots, Marshall called her fiancé to tell him about the firing and said she was heading back to the house, McCrickard said.

    “She was my hero despite being my younger sister,” McCrickard added. The sisters were three years apart.

    Marshall, a culinary arts alumnus of Wake Technical Community College, was described by faculty and classmates as “a hard worker with a good attitude and a determination to succeed,” the school said in a statement.

    Thompson was a junior at Knightdale High School when he was fatally shot Thursday, principal Keith Richardson said in a statement.

    “It is an unexpected loss and we are saddened by it,” said Richardson, noting that counseling and crisis services are available for students and staff.

    Those who witnessed some of the violence unfold also described their anguish over what their neighbors endured.

    A resident, who asked not to be identified, stood beside her 15-year-old daughter as she recounted that police cars, ambulances and fire trucks were descending when a neighbor approached.

    “She had seen a ghost,” the resident said. “She comes towards us, and I’m, like, what happened, and she said, ‘I just witnessed my neighbor being shot in the driveway.’ She was completely in shock.”

    The resident and her daughter locked themselves in a bedroom after an officer in an unmarked car told them there was an active shooter.

    “I started crying,” her daughter recalled. And on Friday morning, she cried again.

    “Imagining what people are going through,” she said. “And the fact that it was so close to us. It could have been us.”

    McCrickard, Marshall’s sister, expressed frustration that gun violence has not been restrained further.

    “We want to take this unimaginable opportunity to beg our local, national, and country leaders to finally step up and do something about gun control,” McCrickard said. “Being a leader is about leading and making decisions that benefit, support and keep our country safe. How many times do we have to hear our leaders say, ‘We’re sorry’ and ‘Something must be done?’ We demand action.”

    North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper echoed Biden’s sentiments following the shooting, saying the Raleigh community’s pain is unimaginable.

    “We’re sad. We’re angry and we want to know the answers to all the questions,” the governor said. “Those questions will be answered. Some today and more over time. But I think we all know the core truth: No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Five takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

    Five takeaways from the Georgia Senate debate | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    When Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker met to debate in the already contentious Georgia Senate race, all the focus was on how personal allegations against Walker would roil the first – and likely only – debate in the campaign.

    The allegations that Walker paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time, however, were just a blip in the hour-long contest, which instead centered on Warnock’s ties to President Joe Biden, the vast differences between the two candidates on abortion and even, however briefly, Walker’s use of what appeared to be a sheriff’s badge.

    Walker continued to deny the allegations about him – calling them “a lie” – and Warnock, as he has on the campaign trail, did not engage on the controversy, instead choosing to question his Republican opponent’s relationship to the truth.

    “We will see time and time again, as we have already seen, that my opponent has a problem with the truth,” Warnock said. “And just because he says something doesn’t mean it’s true.”

    For Walker, the debate was as much about touting his own candidacy as it was about tying Warnock to Biden, who was invoked early and often. His effort, in the closing moments, to assuage fence-sitting voters about his readiness to serve also included a jab at Warnock and Biden.

    “For those of you who are concerned about voting for me, a non-politician, I want you to think about the damage politicians like Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock have done to this country,” Walker said.

    Here are five takeaways from Friday’s debate:

    Biden wasn’t on the stage Friday night, but Walker tried repeatedly to convince viewers that the Democratic President was ostensibly there with his Democratic opponent.

    From the outset of the event, Walker repeatedly invoked Biden, hoping to tie his Democratic opponent to the President’s low approval ratings.

    “This race isn’t about me. It is about what Raphael Warnock and Joe Biden have done to you and your family,” Walker said at the top of the debate.

    Later, when pressed on voter fraud in the 2020 election, he added, “Did President Biden win? President Biden won, and Sen. Warnock won. That’s the reason I decided to run.”

    He then synthesized his point: “I am running because he and Joe Biden are the same.”

    Warnock did little to distance himself from Biden, even at times touting the legislation he passed with the President’s help. But during a question on foreign policy, he took the chance to note a specific time he stood up to the Biden administration.

    “I am glad we are standing up to Putin’s aggression and we have to continue to stand up, which is why I stood up to the Biden administration when it suggested we should close the Savanah Combat Readiness Training Center,” Warnock said. “I told the President that was the exact wrong thing to do at the exact wrong time. … We kept that training center open.”

    Walker went back to his message in response: “He didn’t stand up. He had laid down every time it came around.”

    “It is evident,” said a somewhat exasperated Warnock, “that he has a point that he tried to make time and time again.”

    Headed into the debate, the focus was on how Walker – and arguably less predictably, Warnock – would address the accusations that the Republican candidate allegedly paid for a woman to terminate her pregnancy and then, two years later, encouraged the same woman to have the procedure a second time.

    Walker did what he has done repeatedly as the allegations roiled an already contentious Senate race: Label the allegations a lie.

    “As I said, that is a lie,” Walker said in response to a question from the moderator. “I put it in a book, one thing about my life, I have been very transparent. Not like the senator, he has hid things.”

    Walker added: “I said that is a lie and I am not backing down. And we have Sen. Warnock, people that would do anything and say anything for this seat. But I am not going to back down.”

    CNN has not independently verified the allegations about Walker.

    Warnock, as he has done previously, did not address the allegations, instead choosing to let Walker fight them off without pushing them himself.

    Instead, the senator took a broad approach, focusing on Walker’s “problem with the truth” and less on the specific allegations.

    The candidates also clashed on abortion rights more generally, with Walker insisting he did not support a federal ban, in contrast to past statements, and pointing to the state’s restrictive “heartbeat” law. The law prohibits abortions as soon as early cardiac activity is detectable, which can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant.

    “On abortion, I’m a Christian. I believe in life. Georgia is a state that respects life,” Walker said.

    The Georgia law makes exceptions for cases of rape or incest, pending a timely police report, and in some cases where the pregnant person’s health is at risk.

    Before the Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, state law had allowed abortions up to 20 weeks.

    Warnock, who supports abortion rights, repeated an argument he’s made on the trail: “A patient’s room is too narrow and small and cramped for a woman, her doctor and the US government. … I trust women more than I trust politicians.”

    Walker then shot back, invoking Warnock’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality.

    “He told me Black lives matter… If Black lives matter, why are you not protecting those babies? And instead of aborting those babies, why aren’t you baptizing those babies?,” Walker said.

    Warnock, as he did throughout the debate, didn’t directly answer Walker’s provocation. Instead, he repeated his position.

    “There are enough politicians piling into the rooms of patients,” the senator said, “and I don’t plan to join them.”

    Georgia is one of 12 states not to expand Medicaid and currently has an estimated 1.5 million uninsured residents.

    Walker, when asked by the moderator if the federal government should step in to make sure everyone has access to health care, began a confusing non-response.

    “Well, right now, people have coverage for health care. It’s according to what type of coverage do you want. Because if you have an able-bodied job, you’re going to have health care,” he said. “But everyone else – have health care is the type of health care you’re going to get. And I think that is the problem.”

    Walker continued to say that Warnock wants people to “depend on the government,” while he wants “you to get off the government health care and get on the health care he’s got.”

    To note: Warnock, as a US Senator, is on a government health care plan.

    Walker also gave a puzzling response to Warnock’s attack on his opposition to federal legislation capping the price of insulin for people with diabetes.

    “I believe in reducing insulin, but at the same time, you have to eat right,” Walker said. “Unless you have eating right, insulin is doing you no good. So you have to get food prices down and you got to get gas prices down so they can go and get insulin.”

    Warnock responded by telling viewers who require the drug that Walker was, in effect, blaming them for their struggles accessing it.

    Warnock, on the subject of his pledge to close the Medicaid gap, was asked how he would pay for it.

    “This is not a theoretical issue for me,” he replied, invoking the story of a nurse in a trauma ward who lost coverage when she became sick and, as he put it, died “for lack of health care.”

    “Georgia needs to expand Medicaid,” Warnock continued. “It costs us more not to expand. What we’re doing right now is we’re subsidizing health care in other states” – a reference to the state’s refusal to accept federal funds that residents already pay into.

    The debate within the debate over Warnock’s support for police, in which the senator pointed to his support for legislation that backed smaller departments, was briefly derailed when Walker pulled out what appeared to be a police badge.

    The moderator quickly admonished Walker, reminding him that props were not allowed onstage.

    “You have a prop,” the surprised moderator said. “That is not allowed, sir.”

    Moments earlier, Warnock – in response to Walker’s claims that he has “called (police officers) names” and caused “morale” to plummet – said that his opponent “has a problem with the truth.”

    Warnock then hit Walker with a callback to a more than two-decade-old police report in which the Republican discussed exchanging gunfire with police and a subsequent false claim from Walker that he previously served in law enforcement.

    “One thing that I haven’t done is I haven’t pretended to be a police officer and I’ve never, ever threatened a shootout with police,” he said.

    Warnock also argued that his support for greater scrutiny of police didn’t undermine his support for law enforcement.

    “You can support police officers, as I’ve done, through the COPS program, through the invest-to-protect program, while at the same time, holding police officers, like all professions, accountable,” he said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A juvenile suspect is in custody after a shooting leaves 5 dead, at least 2 wounded in Raleigh, North Carolina, police say | CNN

    A juvenile suspect is in custody after a shooting leaves 5 dead, at least 2 wounded in Raleigh, North Carolina, police say | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A 15-year-old suspect is in custody after five people were killed and at least two others wounded in a mass shooting Thursday in Raleigh that North Carolina’s governor called a “moment of unspeakable agony.”

    A handgun and long gun were recovered after the shooting, during which the suspect wore camouflage and carried a camouflage backpack, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

    One of the victims killed was an off-duty Raleigh police officer, Gabriel Torres, 29, who was on his way to work, authorities said.

    The mass shooting came one day after two police officers were killed and another seriously wounded while responding to a call of a domestic disturbance in Bristol, Connecticut.

    “Enough,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Friday. “We’ve grieved and prayed with too many families who have had to bear the terrible burden of these mass shootings.”

    The President added, “We must pass an assault weapons ban. The American people support this commonsense action to get weapons of war off our streets.”

    Officials offered few details about what happened in the quiet, middle-class Raleigh neighborhood but said the crime scene extended over two miles on streets and a popular greenway. It ended after a long standoff during which the shooter was critically wounded.

    The other fatalities were identified as Nicole Conners, 52; Sue Karnatz, 49; Mary Marshal 35; and James Roger Thompson, 16.

    A police officer who was injured has been released from a hospital and another victim, Marcille Lynn Gardner, 59, is in critical condition, according to Raleigh Police Chief Estella D. Patterson.

    “My heart is heavy, because we don’t have answers as to why this tragedy occurred,” Patterson said.

    Karnatz’s husband, Tom, called her a loving wife and mother to three sons – ages 10, 13 and 14.

    “We will miss her greatly,” he said in a statement to CNN.

    In a Facebook tribute, he wrote Friday: “We had plans together for growing old. Always together. Now those plans are laid to waste.”

    Christine Hines said she was having yard work done at her home Thursday afternoon when the gunfire erupted. Sirens blared. An officer yelled at her to get back in the house when she went to close the patio door, she said.

    “I want to leave the area and then I have to consider that there’s really no perfect place,” Hines said. “And this is as close as I have seen, but I’m not sure if I want to stay.”

    Hines recalled seeing Sue Karnatz earlier Thursday. They walked their dogs about the same time each day on opposite sides of the street because the pets don’t get along. Knowing her neighbor is gone, Hines said, feels like her heart had been pierced.

    Of the teen suspect, Hines lamented: “Life hasn’t even begun for him.”

    Another resident, who stood with her 15-year-old daughter and asked not to be identified, said police cars, ambulances and fire trucks were descending when a neighbor approached.

    “She had seen a ghost,” the resident said. “She comes towards us, and I’m, like, what happened, and she said, ‘I just witnessed my neighbor being shot in the driveway.’ She was completely in shock.”

    An officer in an unmarked car told them there was an active shooter. They locked themselves in a bedroom, the resident said.

    “I started crying,” her daughter recalled.

    On Friday morning, the teen was crying again.

    “Imagining what people are going through,” she said. “And the fact that it was so close to us. It could have been us.”

    Knightdale High School principal Keith Richardson said in a statement that Thompson was a junior at the school. “It is an unexpected loss and we are saddened by it,” said Richardson, adding that counseling and crisis services were available for students and staff.

    Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, who joined police and city officials at a news conference Friday, called the rampage an “infuriating and tragic act of gun violence.”

    “It was a complex mission, in a short amount of time, to stop the shooter,” said Cooper, praising the police response.

    “We’re sad. We’re angry and we want to know the answers to all the questions,” Cooper added. “Those questions will be answered. Some today and more over time. But I think we all know the core truth: No neighborhood, no parent, no child, no grandparent, no one should feel this fear in their communities.”

    Raleigh police spokesperson Lt. Jason Borneo identified the suspected shooter as a White juvenile male, and police have not released any other details about him.

    The suspect was moved to a hospital after being taken into custody, CNN affiliate WRAL-TV reported. Officials did not say the extent of the suspect’s injuries. CNN has reached out to the hospital for further information.

    The shooting began just after 5 p.m. in the neighborhood of Hedingham near the Neuse River Greenway, officials said. A manhunt ensued as authorities worked to apprehend the suspect.

    Police “contained” the suspect around 8 p.m. inside a residence in the area, Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin told reporters Thursday.

    Helicopter footage from WRAL-TV showed more than a dozen emergency vehicles lined up on a road through a wooded area.

    A woman who was at the Hedingham Golf Club driving range said an “unending stream of police” drove by the area.

    “A golf pro came out to tell us to shelter inside or leave ASAP,” she told CNN. “They were very calm, but I could tell something was wrong, so we left right away.”

    The suspect was taken into custody before 9:40 p.m. Thursday, police said.

    Baldwin, joined at the news conference Thursday by other officials including Cooper, expressed her frustration at the heart-wrenching gun violence that infiltrated her city.

    “Today has been a very difficult day in our city. We pray that something like this will never happen here. It did,” Baldwin said.

    The mayor emphasized the widespread of gun violence must be stopped. “We have work to do, but there are too many victims,” she said.

    “We have to wake up. I don’t want other mayors standing here at the podium, with their hearts breaking because people in their community died today, needlessly and tragically.”

    There have been at least 531 mass shootings – including Thursday’s in Raleigh – in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The organization, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

    Cooper echoed the mayor’s sentiments and called for prayers for the victims and the community.

    “Tonight, terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh,” Cooper said. “This is a senseless, horrific and infuriating act of violence that has been committed.”

    Both Cooper and Baldwin praised the multi-agency response to the shooting, with Cooper saying law enforcement officers ran to “an active shooter who was ready to kill people.”

    Law enforcement is anguished by the killings, including that of a fellow officer, Borneo said.

    “For the Raleigh Police Department, every officer is a brother or sister, so when we lose one of our own, it is a tragic, heartbreaking day for all of us,” Borneo said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 5 dead in Raleigh, North Carolina, shooting, mayor says | CNN

    5 dead in Raleigh, North Carolina, shooting, mayor says | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Five people – including an off-duty police officer – are dead after a shooting Thursday in eastern Raleigh, North Carolina, according to Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin.

    Two people were taken to the hospital, one of whom was a Raleigh K9 officer with non-life threatening injuries and was later released, authorities said. The other victim is in critical condition, Raleigh police spokesperson Lt. Jason Borneo said during a news conference Thursday night.

    “Tonight, terror has reached our doorstep. The nightmare of every community has come to Raleigh,” Gov. Roy Cooper said at the news conference.

    The suspect was taken into custody shortly after 9:30 p.m, Borneo said. The suspect is a White male juvenile, police said, and have not identified him further.

    “This is a sad and tragic day for the city of Raleigh,” Baldwin said. “All of us in Raleigh right now need to come together. We need to support those in our community who have suffered a terrible loss. A loss of a loved one. We need to support the family of the police officer who was killed and also the police officer who was shot.”

    The hours-long ordeal and subsequent search for the suspect began shortly after 5 p.m. when multiple people were shot in the Hedingham neighborhood. Earlier helicopter footage from CNN affiliate WRAL-TV showed more than a dozen emergency vehicles lined up on a road through a wooded area.

    A woman who was at the Hedingham Golf Club driving range said an “unending stream of police” drove by the area. “A golf pro came out to tell us to shelter inside or leave ASAP,” she told CNN. “They were very calm, but I could tell something was wrong, so we left right away.”

    Police tweeted shortly before 6 p.m. that officers were “on the scene of an active shooting in the area of the Neuse River Greenway near Osprey Cove Drive and Bay Harbor Drive.”

    At around 8:30 p.m., police advised residents to remain in their homes “until further notice.”

    Numerous local and state law enforcement agencies are assisting Raleigh police, including the Charlotte Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

    Gov. Cooper tweeted he spoke with the mayor and “instructed state law enforcement to provide assistance responding to the active shooter in East Raleigh.”

    “State and local officers are on the ground and working to stop the shooter and keep people safe,” the governor said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Barnes seeks to rebut crime attacks headed into final Senate debate with Johnson in Wisconsin | CNN Politics

    Barnes seeks to rebut crime attacks headed into final Senate debate with Johnson in Wisconsin | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Mandela Barnes, the Democrat taking on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin’s Senate race, on Thursday faces what could be his last clear shot at rebutting the avalanche of GOP attacks on crime and police funding that have taken a months-long toll on his campaign.

    Barnes and Johnson are set to meet for their second and final debate Thursday night – hours after the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol holds a hearing that is expected to function as its closing argument ahead of the November midterm elections.

    Barnes is highlighting Johnson’s actions on that day, seeking to cast him as an unreliable and hypocritical messenger on what it means to support police officers. Johnson, who played a role in trying to push “fake electors” for then-President Donald Trump before the start of the congressional certification of the 2020 electoral votes, has repeatedly downplayed the attack on the Capitol, saying it was not an “armed insurrection,” including as recently as earlier this month.

    Johnson and Republican outside spending groups have hammered Barnes, the Wisconsin lieutenant governor, throughout the fall in television advertisements, at events and in their first debate on crime – echoing a theme the GOP has made a core component of its closing message in Senate races across the map. Those attacks have coincided with Johnson rebounding from a summer slump in the polls less than four weeks from Election Day.

    During a campaign event Tuesday in Milwaukee where the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police and the West Allis Professional Police Association endorsed the two-term Republican senator, Johnson said that Barnes has shown “far greater sympathy for the criminal or criminals versus law enforcement or the victims.” He pointed to Barnes’ history of statements in support of decreasing or redirecting police funding.

    “The dispiriting nature of attempting to cut or use the code words of ‘reallocate,’ ‘over bloated budgets,’ – my opponent says that it pains him to see a fully funded police budget. I mean, that type of rhetoric,” Johnson said, “Those types of policies are very dispiriting for police.”

    Barnes, who says he does not support defunding the police, is attempting to shift the debate over crime away from his previous comments by targeting Johnson’s actions around the attack on the Capitol after President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

    Ahead of Thursday’s debate, Barnes plans to hold a virtual news conference with retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served on the National Security Council and emerged as a star witness against Trump during the his first impeachment. Barnes’ campaign said the event would serve to “hold Ron Johnson accountable for his attempt to send a fake slate of electors to the Vice President.”

    Johnson’s role in trying to put forward the slate of electors who had not been certified by any state legislature was uncovered in June by the House select committee investigating the events around the insurrection. “I was aware that we got this package and that somebody wanted us to deliver it, so we reached out to Pence’s office,” Johnson told CNN at the time.

    In his first debate with Barnes, Johnson said he did not know what he was being asked to hand Pence.

    “I had no idea when I got a call from the lawyers for the president of the United States to deliver something to the vice president, did I have a staffer who could help out with that – I had no idea what it was,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t even involved. I had no knowledge of an alternate state of electors.”

    His comment was part of perhaps the most memorable clash in their first debate last week. Barnes said that Johnson didn’t have any concern for the “140 officers that were injured in the January 6 insurrection.”

    “One officer was stabbed with a metal stake. Another crushed between a revolving door. Another hit in the head with a fire extinguisher,” Barnes said. “Let’s talk about the 140 officers that he left behind because of an insurrection that he supported.”

    Johnson said of the insurrection that he “immediately and forcefully and have repeatedly condemned it and condemned it strongly.”

    Barnes consistently led polls of the Senate race over the summer. But that edge has evaporated, more recent polls show – a change that has coincided with Republicans spending millions on TV ads focused on crime.

    A Marquette University Law School poll of Wisconsin released Wednesday showed movement among likely voters toward Johnson. The Republican led Barnes by 6 percentage points, 52% to 46%, among likely voters, the poll found. That’s a jump in Johnson’s favor from the neck-and-neck race the same poll found, with Johnson at 49% to Barnes’ 48%, in September.

    The poll’s results among likely voters are significantly more favorable to the GOP than are its results among all registered voters, suggesting substantial uncertainty hinging on Democrats’ ability to turn out less motivated supporters. By contrast, in Marquette’s latest results among all registered voters, Barnes and Johnson are tied at 47% in the Senate race.

    Other recent polls of the race have found likely voters deadlocked. In a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday, Johnson took 50% to Barnes’ 49% among likely voters.

    The Marquette poll found that inflation is a top issue in Wisconsin, with 68% of registered voters saying they are very concerned about it. Smaller majorities are also very concerned about public schools (60%), gun violence (60%), abortion policy (56%), crime (56%) and an “accurate vote count” (52%).

    But it’s crime that Republican strategists say has been central to Johnson’s rebound in the race.

    The attacks have taken place against the backdrop of rising violent crime figures, including a 70% increase in Wisconsin’s homicide rate from 2019 to 2021, according to the state’s Department of Justice. Republicans have also highlighted those convicted of violent crimes who have been paroled by the Wisconsin Parole Commission, an independent agency whose chairperson is appointed by the governor.

    “They don’t have an answer,” Brian Schimming, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin, said of Barnes’ campaign. “With Mandela Barnes, it’s not just one thing. It’s not anecdotal. There are three, four, five issues there that are not playing with an electorate that’s pretty concerned about crime right now, and not just if they’re in Milwaukee.”

    In the month of September, 61% of the nearly $9 million that Johnson and GOP groups spent on TV ads in the Wisconsin Senate race was behind ads focused on crime, according to data from the firm AdImpact.

    That share has dropped to 30% so far in October, but nine of the 14 ads that Republican groups have aired so far have been focused on crime.

    It has forced Democrats to respond. Barnes and Democratic groups have focused 40% of their TV ad spending so far in October on crime, with ads rebutting the GOP groups.

    The Republican attacks have focused on Barnes’ efforts as a state lawmaker to end cash bail, as well as a 2020 interview with PBS Wisconsin – weeks after the police killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minnesota – in which Barnes suggested that funding should be redirected from police budgets to other social services.

    “We need to invest more in neighborhood services and programming for our residents, for our communities on the front end,” he said then. “Where will that money come from? Well, it can come from over-bloated budgets in police departments.”

    He did, however, also stress in that same interview that he did not want police budgets completely done away with, saying, “The more money we invest in opportunity for people, the less money we have to spend on prisons.”

    One Johnson campaign ad shows video of Barnes saying that “reducing prison population is now sexy.” A narrator in the ad highlights Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration’s efforts to reduce the state’s prison population and says: “That’s not sexy. It’s terrifying. And as a mother, I don’t want Mandela Barnes anywhere near the Senate, from defunding our police to releasing predators.”

    Another Johnson spot features the sheriffs of Ozaukee and Waukesha counties, both huge sources of Republican votes in the Milwaukee suburbs.

    “Barnes wants to defund our police,” Waukesha County Sheriff Eric Severson says in the ad.

    “Mandela Barnes’ policies are a threat to your family,” Ozaukee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says.

    Barnes’ campaign has responded with ads of its own, including one in which Barnes says of GOP ads claiming he supports defunding the police, “That’s a lie.”

    “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police,” a retired Racine Police Department sergeant says in another Barnes spot. “He’s very supportive of law enforcement and I know his objective is to make every community in the state of Wisconsin better.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Singapore jails OnlyFans creator for defying police order to stay off the site | CNN

    Singapore jails OnlyFans creator for defying police order to stay off the site | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A Singapore court on Tuesday sentenced an OnlyFans creator to three weeks in prison for breaching a police order to stay off the adult subscription site while he was under investigation for allegedly breaking obscenity laws.

    Titus Low, 22, pleaded guilty to the charge and another count of transmitting obscene material for which he was fined 3,000 Singapore dollars (about $2,000), according to court documents. He will begin his jail term on October 26, his lawyer told CNN.

    The sale and production of pornographic materials is illegal in Singapore but that has not stopped OnlyFans from building a following in the conservative city state – where watching porn is not against the law but online sites are restricted by state censors.

    Low is the first OnlyFans creator to be prosecuted in Singapore. He joined the site famous for its NSFW content in April 2021 and at one point had more than 3,000 paid subscribers to his channel – mostly men.

    His bisexual image has challenged taboos in the country, which in August announced it would repeal a colonial-era law that criminalized gay sex.

    Police arrested Low in December last year after a man had complained three months earlier that he found an obscene video of the OnlyFans star on his 12-year-old niece’s phone.

    Low was later released on bail under the condition that he would not access his OnlyFans account.

    In court Tuesday, prosecutors said Low had breached that order and “undermined police investigations to advance his financial interests” on multiple occasions.

    Low admitted to the court that he failed to comply with the police order. He told the court he had reached out to OnlyFans to regain access to his account several times because he felt “obligated” to continue providing content to his subscribers.

    Defense lawyer Kirpal Singh told CNN that Low’s adult content had been “redistributed without his knowledge, authorization or consent.”

    “He has also not been posting on the platform and wants to finally move on from this episode,” Singh said, adding that Low had no plans to appeal.

    CNN reached out to OnlyFans for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication.

    Low told CNN on Wednesday that he was “prepared” to serve prison time. “I plan to meditate a lot and read,” he said. And he also refused to rule out a return to OnlyFans.

    “It wouldn’t be fair if the ban stayed. I love what I do and it’s what I’m known for. My nudes are out there already,” he said.

    “But that is also the nature of OnlyFans. Creators have little control over our material being leaked or recirculated without our knowledge and that is not something I can control, but I will definitely be more careful going forward.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Louisiana prosecutor says he will take Ronald Greene case to a grand jury in November | CNN

    Louisiana prosecutor says he will take Ronald Greene case to a grand jury in November | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    More than three years after the incident, a grand jury will finally get to hear evidence in the case of motorist Ronald Greene, who died after he was violently arrested by Louisiana State Police troopers.

    Union Parish District Attorney John Belton told CNN he will present evidence in the incident involving Greene and the Louisiana State Police to a grand jury starting on November 10.

    Greene, a 49-year-old Black man, died in May 2019 after what the police described as resisting arrest and a struggle with officers. However, his family said state police initially informed them that Greene died in a car crash after a police chase.

    CNN has reached out to Greene’s family for comment.

    Greene’s family has filed a wrongful-death civil lawsuit against the state troopers involved in the incident, as well as their superiors – seeking damages for payment for all medical and funeral expenses.

    The troopers have maintained that Greene’s death “was caused by crash-related blunt force chest trauma that resulted in a fractured sternum and ruptured aorta” and said they used force “for their own personal safety and for the safety of the public,” according to court documents.

    Video of the incident released two years later showed officers kicking, punching and using a Taser on Greene before he died in their custody.

    An independent investigation looking into the circumstances of Greene’s death was conducted by the US attorney’s office at Belton’s request, the district attorney told CNN. The investigation took about two and a half years to complete, he said.

    “They completed the investigation this summer, and I received their files this summer,” said Belton, noting that it was a large file.

    “It’s taken me this long to review it and prepare,” said Belton. “I can’t guarantee an indictment. I can only say I will present all evidence to the grand jury,” he added.

    Belton said he expects to finish presenting the evidence by the end of the year, barring any possible witness availability problems.

    Belton did not specify who he intends to seek indictments for. So far, no troopers have been charged in relation to Greene’s death.

    The US Department of Justice is also looking into Greene’s death. The investigation includes prosecutors from department’s civil rights division.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Mandela Barnes has signaled support for removing police funding and abolishing ICE — despite ad claiming otherwise | CNN Politics

    Mandela Barnes has signaled support for removing police funding and abolishing ICE — despite ad claiming otherwise | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Wisconsin Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes has previously signaled his support for removing police funding and abolishing ICE, according to a review by CNN’s KFile, despite claiming otherwise in a recent ad in which he speaks directly to the camera to defend his record on those issues.

    “Look, we knew the other side would make up lies about me to scare you. Now they’re claiming I want to defund the police and abolish ICE. That’s a lie,” says Barnes to the camera in a recent 30-second television ad called “Truth.”

    But a CNN KFile review of Barnes’ social media activity and public comments he made in interview appearances reveal a different and more nuanced picture in which Barnes often signaled his support for such positions.

    In multiple posts from 2018 uncovered by CNN, Barnes liked tweets that criticized the immigration agency and called to abolish them. He told a group that supported abolishing the institution in 2019 that the “wrong ICE” was melting and attended one of their “Abolish ICE” local rallies.

    This week, Barnes pushed back on attacks on his record on criminal justice and crime, saying he wouldn’t be “lectured on crime” by Republicans, citing the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol in which more than 100 police officers reported injuries.

    Barnes, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, fielded another attack Friday night from incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, with whom he is locked in a tight race. The outcome could determine control of the US Senate next year.

    “He has a record of wanting to defund the police,” Johnson said of Barnes during a debate. “And I know he doesn’t necessarily say that word, but he has a long history of being supported by people that are leading the effort to defund, who uses code words like (Missouri Democratic Rep.) Cori Bush said, talking about reallocate over bloated police budgets.”

    Barnes shot back that Johnson didn’t have any concern for the “140 officers that were injured in the January 6 insurrection.” Johnson in turn said that he “immediately and forcefully and have repeatedly condemned (the Capitol riot) and condemned it strongly.”

    Though Barnes has never outright embraced the “defund the police” slogan, he has on numerous occasions said he supports redirecting or decreasing police funding – even before the slogan gained popularity in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by police.

    In one 2020 interview reviewed by CNN, Barnes told a local Wisconsin public radio show that funding should go to social workers and a “crisis intervener or a violence interrupter,” instead of police.

    Maddy McDaniel, spokesperson for the Barnes campaign, said he does not support defunding the police or abolishing ICE.

    “As independent fact-checkers have verified, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes does not support abolishing ICE or defunding the police.”

    In previously unreported activity on social media reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Barnes repeatedly liked tweets about abolishing ICE.

    He liked one September 2018 tweet that used the “#AbolishICE” hashtag and compared the agency to “modern day slave catchers.” His Twitter account also liked other tweets calling for abolishing ICE twice in July 2018 and twice in June.

    “Imagine a world without ICE,” read one of the tweets liked by Barnes.

    Barnes also once solicited an “Abolish ICE” T-shirt on Twitter in 2018 writing, “I need that,” when offered the Democratic Socialists of America-branded shirt. A photo of Barnes holding a similar shirt later circulated on social media. Barnes told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which first reported on the shirt, he was not part of the abolish ICE movement saying “no one slogan can capture all the work we have to do.”

    While speaking to the Wisconsin-based immigration group Voces de la Frontera Action in 2019, Barnes alluded to calls to get rid of the immigration enforcement agency.

    “We’re bringing science back. We’re bringing science back for the next generation. We’re bringing science back because the wrong ICE is melting,” Barnes said.

    In June of 2018 at a different event from the group, Barnes attended what was labeled a protest to “top the Indefinite Imprisonment of Families & Abolish ICE,” according to photos on his Facebook page.

    “Great turnout at Voces de la Frontera’s event to #protest President Trump’s #immigration policies at the Milwaukee Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office! However, there is more to do to ensure that immigrants’ rights – human rights – are protected. Let your voices be heard!” Barnes wrote on Facebook about the event, which featured the executive director of the organization calling for the abolishment of the agency.

    While he has never outright embraced the “defund the police” slogan, Barnes has long called for reforming or changing policing, especially in communities of color and reducing their budgets.

    Speaking in 2015 on a panel entitled “Civil Rights in the Age of Extremism,” Barnes called police officers who don’t live in communities in which they police an “occupying force.” He also advocated reducing police budgets even before the “defund the police” slogan became popular on the far-left in the summer of 2020.

    Which policies the “defund the police” slogan stands for are actively debated, with some arguing it means abolishing police departments all together, while others have embraced shifting police funding to other social services in the community. Barnes reiterated support for the latter in a 2012 survey for the organization Vote Smart where he indicated he supported slightly decreasing budgets for law enforcement and corrections.

    In early June 2020, Barnes said “defunding” police wasn’t as “aggressive” as it was portrayed, citing budget cuts to other social services.

    “Defunding isn’t necessarily as aggressive as a lot of folks paint it,” Barnes said. “You know, school budgets get cut almost every year.”

    When asked directly if he supported defunding the police, Barnes told Wisconsin public radio in late June 2020 that he thought funding for police was a “mismatch” compared to other services in the city.

    “You can look at the City of Milwaukee, for example, where 45% of the departmental allocations that goes to police while libraries are like two or three percent, neighborhood services, two or three percent,” Barnes said. “I think that you can look at that a, a priorities mismatch.”

    Barnes, comparing police budgets to money spent on prisons and the military, said the money could be better spent on social workers or violence interrupters.

    “We’re working to reduce our prison population, we’re very intentional about making that happen and it takes that intentionality,” he said. “It’s easy to look at the police department and say, ‘Well, yeah, we are spending a lot of money. How do we get smarter about this?’”

    “It becomes the conversation about needs,” he continued. “This isn’t about attacking the police. If anything, it’s about making their jobs easier by implementing programs … where we have services where they wouldn’t have to respond to things that aren’t crime, where they don’t have to respond to, you know, instances that would be better suited for a social worker or some sort of crisis intervener or a violence interrupter that would help, you know, uh, promote peace and communities in the first place.”

    “I think that’s where our funding should go,” Barnes reiterated. “What’s going on right now isn’t necessarily working, you know, police brutality is one thing – but in general, uh, the idea of promoting safer communities, I don’t, I don’t think that we’re doing a good job at that.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments Friday.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Iran’s ‘women’s revolution’ could be a Berlin Wall moment | CNN Politics

    Iran’s ‘women’s revolution’ could be a Berlin Wall moment | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]

    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    The Islamic regime in Iran has ruled for decades with fear and intimidation.

    Outrage at the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22 year-old who died after being detained by Iran’s morality policy, allegedly for improperly wearing her hijab, ignited nationwide protests across the country that have gone on for weeks.

    That Iranians are risking their lives and freedom to stand up to their government has sparked hope among many that change is coming. Read CNN’s latest report.

    I talked on the phone to Masih Alinejad, an Iranian in exile in the US who works as a journalist and activist.

    Key points:

    • She uses social media – 8 million followers on Instagram alone – to amplify and aid the protests inside Iran.
    • US authorities charged four Iranian nationals with trying to kidnap her last year.
    • To Alinejad, that women in Iran are removing their headscarves as an act of protest is equal to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
    • She sees solidarity with dissidents from other oil-rich autocracies like Russia and Venezuela, and has a stern message for feminists in the West.

    Our conversation, edited for clarity and length, is below. I’ve also added some context and links in parentheses where appropriate.

    WHAT MATTERS: This newsletter is not usually focused on Iran. Can you first just explain what’s happening?

    ALINEJAD: Mahsa Amini was only 22 years old. … She came from Saqqez to Tehran for a vacation. Then she got arrested by the so-called morality police – because I call them the hijab police.

    And for your audience, if they don’t know what morality police means, they’re a bunch of police walking in the streets, telling people whether their way of wearing hijab is proper or not.

    Mahsa was arrested for wearing inappropriate hijab. So she was not unveiled.

    (Here is a CNN report in which the Iranian police deny the allegation she was beaten.)

    ALINEJAD: That created huge anger among Iranians. And that is why women across Iran first started to cut their hair. Then they took to the street and they started to burn their headscarves. And now, with men, shoulder to shoulder, across Iran they’re not only saying no to compulsory hijab, they are actually chanting against the dictator and they are saying we want an end to the Islamic Republic.

    This is a revolution.

    To me, this is a women’s revolution against a gender apartheid regime.

    WHAT MATTERS: The Iranian government has tried to crack down on this. We see video that gets out of Iran of these protests. How have things changed in the weeks since Mahsa’s death?

    ALINEJAD: From the beginning, the level of crackdown was so brutal. They opened fire, they really opened fire on teenagers, school leaders, university students, they opened fire on unarmed people.

    Now some reports say more than 130 people have been killed. But it’s strongly believed the number is much more than this. Only in Zahedan on only one day, they opened fire on those who were praying. Who were praying. They killed more than 80 people in Zahedan.

    (CNN has not verified all of these claims. Related CNN report: Iranian security forces beat, shot and detained students of elite Tehran university, witnesses say.

    Amnesty International has reported on the killing of 66 in Zahedan along with other deaths recorded in other places.

    Regarding death tolls: CNN cannot independently verify the death toll –  a precise figure is impossible for anyone outside the Iranian government to confirm – and different estimates have been given by opposition groups, international rights organizations and local journalists.)

    ALINEJAD: The Iranian regime cut off the internet in some cities to prevent the rest of the world from getting to know about the crackdown, to get to learn about the number of people killed.

    But again. That didn’t stop people. Actually, it changed the tone of the protesters. They became more angry. They were holding the names and photos of those who got killed and the major slogan was this: ‘We are ready to die, but we won’t live under humiliation.’

    One of the young women whose name was Hadis Najafi, she was only 20 years old. She made a video of herself walking in the street and saying I’m joining the protests. In the future, if I see that Iran has changed, that change came, then I was proudly part of this demonstration. She got killed. There are many of them.

    (CNN has reported that Najafi’s family said she was shot six times and never made it home from a protest. She was 23. There are reports of multiple young women killed. Here’s a CNN video report on Nika Shahkarami, whose family found her body at a morgue after not being able to find her for 10 days following an Instagram story of her burning her headscarf.)

    Students filmed themselves burning their headscarves, but they got killed. But murdering and killing didn’t stop the protests. Instead they became more angry. Now schoolgirls came out, university professors came out, teachers came out and ask for a strike.

    (Here’s a CNN report that explains the special significance of strikes in Iran.)

    WHAT MATTERS: The flashpoint is one woman’s death that set off all of these protests. But it’s a movement that’s been building for months –

    ALINEJAD: Don’t say for months. I don’t accept that. It has been building for years. Years of women pushing back the boundaries the anti-woman laws, especially compulsory hijab laws.

    For years and years, these women that you see in the streets, they have been fighting back compulsory hijabs alone. Like lonely soldiers. I myself have published videos of women being beaten by morality police under the hashtag #mycameraismyweapon. I really want you to go and check this hashtag. Brave women filming themselves while being harassed by morality police and looking to the morality police and saying that you cannot tell me what to wear.

    Slavery used to be legal. I’m not going to respect bad law in Iran.

    This is being built up by women within the society practicing their civil disobedience in bravely saying no to forced hijab and the gender apartheid regime for years and years. That’s my opinion. Mahsa’s name became a symbol of resistance for women to take to the streets in large numbers. That’s the new thing.

    WHAT MATTERS: How will this be transformed into permanent change? How will it evolve from here?

    ALINEJAD: Look, this is not going to happen overnight. This is the beginning of an end. It takes time. It reminds me of the revolution 40 years ago. People were taking to the streets for like one month and were going back home and then coming back again. The national strike helped a lot. For me and millions of people, this is just the beginning to an end.

    The compulsory hijab is not just a small piece of cloth for Iranians. It’s like the Berlin Wall. I keep saying that. If women can successfully tear this wall down, the Islamic Republic won’t exist.

    Maybe in the West, people ignore me and they never take this seriously. But the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, he knows what I’m talking about. That’s why, just two days ago, he referred to my statement comparing the hijab to the Berlin Wall, saying that ‘she is an American agent and we have taken action against her.’

    (Alinejad shared this video of Khamenei on Twitter, in which he refers to US political elements making the comparison to the Berlin Wall.)

    ALINEJAD: But it’s not me. It’s millions of people who believe that compulsory hijab is like the main pillar of the religious dictatorship. It’s like the main pillar of the Islamic Republic.

    That’s why I believe that now people are being fearless and clear that we want to break this weakest pillar of the Islamic Republic… I strongly believe that the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic are the women who are leading the revolution, who are facing guns and bullets and saying that we want an end for this gender apartheid regime.

    WHAT MATTERS: In Iran, and we’ve seen this in Russia as well, social media is helping spread the word and is essential to organizing protests. Here in the US, it is often viewed as a threat to our democracy because that’s where misinformation is spread. I wonder if you had any thoughts on that dichotomy.

    ALINEJAD: Let me be very clear with you. Right now, the tech companies are actually helping the Islamic Republic. First of all, Iranians are banned from using social media – Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are filtered. The leaders like Khamenei and other officials who ban 80 million people from using social media, they all have verified accounts. They have multiple accounts on social media. Basically, the Iranian regime cut off the Internet for its own people, but they’re being more than welcomed on social media to spread fake information, misinformation, disinformation.

    (Accounts that appear to be associated with Khamenei are on Twitter and Instagram and have large followings. They are not verified by Instagram or Twitter. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Meta said this in an email: “Iranians use apps like Instagram to stay close to their loved ones, find information and shed light on important events – and we hope the Iranian authorities restore their access soon. In the meantime, our teams are following the situation closely, and are focused on only removing content that breaks our rules, while addressing any enforcement mistakes as quickly as possible.”)

    WHAT MATTERS: The US government has tried to increase Iranian’s access to the internet. Is that working?

    ALINEJAD: Oh, of course, this is phenomenal. But we need more. We need more.

    The thing is, at the same time, the US government, we’re pleased that they’re providing internet access for Iranians. This is good. We appreciate that.

    But at the same time, the US government is focused on getting a deal from this regime, the same regime.

    They condemn the brutality, they condemn the Iranian government for killings, but at the same time, they try to give money, billions of dollars, to the same murderers. And I don’t understand this contradiction.

    (The US government could give Iran’s government ​access to billions of dollars of frozen Iranian funds if it re-joins an agreement whereby Iran can sell oil in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons capability. Recent talks, however, have not gone well. Read more.)

    ALINEJAD: Many people in the streets are now risking their lives and want an end for the same regime. They aren’t asking for US government to go there and save them at all. They’re brave enough to do it themselves. But they’re really clearly asking the US government not to save the Iranian regime. …

    People believe that the money goes to the benefit of the people. It doesn’t go to the people. The money goes to Syria, Lebanon, to Hamas, Hezbollah, to terrorist organizations.

    For millions of Iranians now, this is the moment they want the US government to ask its allies, the European countries, to recall their ambassadors and to cut their ties with the murders until the day that they are sure that the Iranian regime is stopped killing its own people.

    (CNN isn’t able to confirm that all the money goes to terrorist organizations or that none of it goes to Iranian people. Iran does fund terror groups outside its borders, according to the US government, and its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard is a terror group, according to the US government.)

    WHAT MATTERS: I want to talk about another dichotomy you’ve pointed out. You wrote in The Washington Post that feminists all over the world need to pay attention and take to the streets.

    ALINEJAD: You cannot call yourself a feminist in the West, in America, and not take action on one of the most important feminist revolutions, in Iran.

    By saying that, I don’t mean that I want the feminists to just appear on TV and cut their hair to show their solidarity.

    I want, especially the female politicians, to cut their ties … and instead take to the streets to show their solidarity with the women of Iran. When the Women’s March happened here in America, like every single feminist around the world showed solidarity. I was part of the Women’s March in New York. The main slogan was ‘my body my choice.’

    But at the same time I’m witnessing that when it comes to Iran and Afghanistan, it seems that my body my choice is not as important as it is in the West.

    (Here Alinejad said women representing Western governments who meet with Iranian and Afghan officials should refrain from wearing headscarves.)

    WHAT MATTERS: You took part this week in an Oslo Freedom Forum event in New York with other dissidents from Russia and Venezuela. Those are two places that are repressive, and they’re also funded largely by oil. The US wants more oil on the market. I just wondered if you had any larger comments to make on this question?

    ALINEJAD: This is what’s missing here. The dictators are more united than our freedom fighters.

    Let me give you an example. Just two months ago, (Vladimir) Putin went to Iran. (Nicolás) Maduro from Venezuela went to Iran … from China to Russia to Venezuela to Nicaragua, everywhere. The leaders from autocracies and dictatorships are united. They’re helping each other. They’re supporting each other to oppress protests taking place in each country. But we the freedom fighters, we the opposition to these dictators must be united as well, because when we fight against autocracy or dictatorship on our own, we’re not going to be successful.

    (Alinejad said she has talked to dissidents from Russia and Venezuela about calling a World Liberty Congress for opposition and activist leaders.)

    ALINEJAD: If we don’t get united to end dictatorship, then the dictators will get united to end democracy. We’re not fighting just for ourselves. I’m not fighting just for Iran. Garry Kasparov is not fighting for just Russia. Leopoldo Lopez is not fighting just for Venezuela. We are fighting for democracy. We’re trying to protect the rest of the world from these dictators.

    (Our conversation continued from here and Alinejad argued the “United Nations is useless.” It’s true the United Nations prioritizes inclusion of most countries over action. And it is awkward at best that Iran sits on the UN’s Commission on Women’s Rights and Russia sits on the Security Council.)

    ALINEJAD: We need to have our own alternative United Nations, where all the good people get united, not the bad guys. Now the bad guys are winning because they’re helping each other. So this is the time that all the good people who care for freedom and democracy get united and have their own society.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Search continues for abducted California family as relatives appeal for public’s help in finding them | CNN

    Search continues for abducted California family as relatives appeal for public’s help in finding them | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The search for a family of four kidnapped in California continues Wednesday as relatives appealed for the public’s help.

    Authorities said they have a person of interest in custody and held a news conference in which they showed surveillance video of the family being forced into a truck by an armed man.

    The kidnapping of 8-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur and Jasdeep Singh and the child’s uncle Amandeep Singh occurred on Monday in Merced, California.

    “Every store, gas stations, everybody who has cameras please check the cameras,” Sukhdeep Singh, a brother of one of the victims, told reporters Wednesday. “We need the public’s help right now. Please help us … so my family comes home safe.”

    Another relative, identified only as Balvinder, described the family as “peace loving” and said they own a small business and are longtime residents of the area.

    “We are devastated. We are shocked. We are dying every moment not finding any clues,” Balvinder said.

    Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said the man in custody was convicted in 2005 in a case involving armed robbery and false imprisonment. The man was paroled in 2015. Warnke said the man acted alone in the previous case, and knew the victims.

    Warnke said he believes at least one other person was involved in the kidnapping but “we don’t have any evidence to support that.”

    In the video shown at the news conference, Jasdeep and Amandeep Singh are seen arriving at the family trucking business nine minutes apart. Shortly before 9 a.m. Monday, Jasdeep encounters a man outside the business – who carried a trash bag and then pulled out what appeared to be a firearm.

    Jasdeep and Amandeep, hands tied behind their backs, are later seen being escorted by the gunman into the back of a truck, which leaves and returns six minutes later.

    The gunman then reenters the business and is seen taking Jasleen, who is carrying baby Aroohi, to the pickup.

    A farmer found two of the victims’ cell phones on a road Monday, authorities said. The farmer at one point answered the phone and spoke with a relative of the victims.

    The person of interest, who attempted to take his life, was sedated because he has been violent at the hospital.

    “We’ve got to get this person into a position where we can start asking questions and hopefully get some answers,” the sheriff said.

    “Right now, the big question and the first question that’s asked is, ‘Where’s the family?’” he added.

    No charges have been filed, according to the DA’s office. CNN is not naming the man in custody.

    According to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office, the investigation began Monday at 11:39 a.m., when the California Highway Patrol responded to a 2020 Dodge Ram that was on fire and asked the Merced Police Department to help track down the vehicle’s owner.

    Roughly an hour later, at 12:35 p.m., Merced police officers arrived at the truck owner’s address and met with a family member there. Officers tried to contact the couple and the child’s uncle, but they were not able to reach them.

    Later Monday, at 1:04 p.m., officers with the Merced County Sheriff’s Office responded to a business on South Highway 59. “During the primary investigation, Detectives determined that the individuals were kidnapped,” the sheriff’s office stated Tuesday.

    The kidnapping involved a gun and restraints, according to Deputy Alexandra Britton, public information officer for the sheriff’s office.

    In an initial statement about the case Monday, the sheriff’s office said it believed the family was taken “against their will” from a business in the 800 block of South Highway 59 in Merced, which sits between Modesto and Fresno in central California.

    “We have no motivation behind it. We just know they are gone,” Warnke said in a video message posted on Facebook.

    Warnke also said investigators collected evidence that indicates “the individuals involved in this destroyed evidence in an attempt to cover up their tracks.”

    On Tuesday, authorities took a 48-year-old man into custody as a person of interest in the case.

    Britton said the man’s family had contacted law enforcement and told them the man admitted being involved in the kidnapping. Law enforcement made contact with the man after the family’s call.

    As they investigate, the Merced County Sheriff’s Office continues to ask the public to contact its office at 209-385-7547 to share any information they may have regarding the case. The FBI and the California justice department are also investigating.

    Investigators learned Tuesday morning that an ATM card belonging to one of the victims was used at a bank in Atwater, California, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Atwater is about nine miles northwest of Merced. Britton said it is unclear whether the 48-year-old in custody is the person who used that card.

    After that transaction, investigators were able to identify the 48-year-old man as a person of interest in the case and later took him into custody, officials said.

    The man tried to take his life before law enforcement involvement, and he was in critical condition Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s office.

    Authorities were working to confirm the man in custody is the same suspect they released photos of Monday, Alexandra Britton, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, told CNN.

    “Investigators obtained the surveillance photo of a subject making a bank transaction where the person is similar in appearance to the surveillance photo from the original kidnapping scene,” the sheriff’s office said.

    On Monday, officials described the suspect as a man with a shaved head and was last seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt. He was considered armed and dangerous, officials said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Survivors recount horror of Indonesia stadium tragedy as officials say locked exits contributed to crush | CNN

    Survivors recount horror of Indonesia stadium tragedy as officials say locked exits contributed to crush | CNN

    [ad_1]


    Jakarta, Indonesia
    CNN
     — 

    Fans attempting to escape the chaos that erupted at Indonesia’s Kanjuruhan Stadium last Saturday became trapped after security failed to open multiple exit gates, according to the national football association, contributing to the crowd crush in which at least 131 people died.

    Security forces are facing mounting anger over their role in the disaster, amid questions over whether officers used excessive force in attempting to remove fans from the field following Arema FC’s 3-2 defeat against visitors Persebaya Surabaya.

    The disaster, one of the worst in the sport’s history, saw a number of the 42,000 Arema FC fans clash with police, prompting security forces to fire tear gas into enclosed areas of the stadium. Most of the deaths – including 33 children – are believed to have occurred as panicked fans attempted to flee the choking smoke, triggering a crush at the exits.

    Indonesian police have launched an investigation into the use of tear gas at the game in the city of Malang, leading to the suspension of nine officers from East Java province.

    But amid allegations of mismanagement by both police and the game’s organizers, survivors of the tragedy are demanding answers.

    “We were all disappointed with the match result but there was no (sign of) violence or chaos until police started firing tear gas,” said Arema fan Toni Lestari Widodo, 62.

    It only “escalated the situation” and made it worse, he said. “The police overreacted in their handling of the situation. I really don’t understand why they did it. There was really no point for violence (on their part).”

    Andi Hariyanto, 32, lost multiple members of his family in the tragedy, including his wife, two teenage daughters and nephew.

    He had remained behind with his family in the stands to avoid joining crowds rushing for the exits.

    Riot police on the field fired tear gas at supporters in the stands, he said.

    “It was a big mistake,” he said. “Don’t they know that there were many women and children who were also watching the match? I still don’t understand. What did we do to make them want to shoot us?”

    Hariyanto managed to escape the ensuing crush along with his his 2-year-old son, Gian.

    His wife, Gebi Asta Putri Purwoko, and their two daughters, Natasya Debi Ramadani, 14, and Naila Debi Anggraini, 12, did not.

    At around midnight, he returned to the stadium, where dozens of body bags were lying on the ground. “One by one, I opened the covers to find my family,” he said.

    “Then I found Natasya and Naila, lying there close to each other,” he said, fighting back tears. “I can’t remember how many bodies I checked to find them but when I finished it all, I still couldn’t find my wife.”

    In a statement Tuesday, the Football Association of Indonesia said it had permanently removed the security official responsible for regulating the stadium’s exits. It said some of the gates remained locked during the disaster owing to a failure to properly communicate orders.

    “The doors should have been open but were closed,” said Erwin Tobing, chief of the association’s discipline commission. There are 14 gates at the stadium in total.

    Safety rules and measures state that gates must be unlocked 10 minutes before the end of a match.

    On the night of the disaster, several gates were still locked minutes after the referee blew the final whistle, the association noted.

    Spokesperson Ahmad Riyadh also blamed the shortage of workers, saying that “only a few guards” had been on hand to open the gates.

    All Indonesian soccer league matches have been suspended under orders of President Joko Widodo, as official investigations are underway. On Wednesday, Widodo said he will order a “total audit” of soccer stadiums across the country in an effort to prevent any further tragedies.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2022 | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The race for the Senate is in the eye of the beholder less than six weeks from Election Day, with ads about abortion, crime and inflation dominating the airwaves in key states as campaigns test the theory of the 2022 election.

    The cycle started out as a referendum on President Joe Biden – an easy target for Republicans, who need a net gain of just one seat to flip the evenly divided chamber. Then the US Supreme Court’s late June decision overturning Roe v. Wade gave Democrats the opportunity to paint a contrast as Republicans struggled to explain their support for an abortion ruling that the majority of the country opposes. Former President Donald Trump’s omnipresence in the headlines gave Democrats another foil.

    But the optimism some Democrats felt toward the end of the summer, on the heels of Biden’s legislative wins and the galvanizing high court decision, has been tempered slightly by the much anticipated tightening of some key races as political advertising ramps up on TV and voters tune in after Labor Day.

    Republicans, who have midterm history on their side as the party out of the White House, have hammered Biden and Democrats for supporting policies they argue exacerbate inflation. Biden’s approval rating stands at 41% with 54% disapproving in the latest CNN Poll of Polls, which tracks the average of recent surveys. And with some prices inching back up after a brief hiatus, the economy and inflation – which Americans across the country identify as their top concern in multiple polls – are likely to play a crucial role in deciding voters’ preferences.

    But there’s been a steady increase in ads about crime too as the GOP returns to a familiar criticism, depicting Democrats as weak on public safety. Cops have been ubiquitous in TV ads this cycle – candidates from both sides of the aisle have found law enforcement officers to testify on camera to their pro-police credentials. Democratic ads also feature women talking about the threat of a national abortion ban should the Senate fall into GOP hands, while Republicans have spent comparatively less trying to portray Democrats as the extremists on the topic.

    While the issue sets have fluctuated, the Senate map hasn’t changed. Republicans’ top pickup opportunities have always been Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and New Hampshire – all states that Biden carried in 2020. In two of those states, however, the GOP has significant problems, although the states themselves keep the races competitive. Arizona nominee Blake Masters is now without the support of the party’s major super PAC, which thinks its money can be better spent elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, where retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is far from the nominee the national GOP had wanted. But this is the time of year when poor fundraising can really become evident since TV ad rates favor candidates and a super PAC gets much less bang for its buck.

    The race for Senate control may come down to three states: Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, all of which are rated as “Toss-up” races by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. As Republicans look to flip the Senate, which Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a “50-50 proposition,” they’re trying to pick up the first two and hold on to the latter.

    Senate Democrats’ path to holding their majority lies with defending their incumbents. Picking off a GOP-held seat like Pennsylvania – still the most likely to flip in CNN’s ranking – would help mitigate any losses. Wisconsin, where GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is vying for a third term, looks like Democrats’ next best pickup opportunity, but that race drops in the rankings this month as Republican attacks take a toll on the Democratic nominee in the polls.

    These rankings are based on CNN’s reporting, fundraising and advertising data, and polling, as well as historical data about how states and candidates have performed. It will be updated one more time before Election Day.

    Incumbent: Republican Pat Toomey (retiring)

    Sarah Silbiger/Pool/Getty Images

    The most consistent thing about CNN’s rankings, dating back to 2021, has been Pennsylvania’s spot in first place. But the race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey has tightened since the primaries in May, when Republican Mehmet Oz emerged badly bruised from a nasty intraparty contest. In a CNN Poll of Polls average of recent surveys in the state, Democrat John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, had the support of 50% of likely voters to Oz’s 45%. (The Poll of Polls is an average of the four most recent nonpartisan surveys of likely voters that meet CNN’s standards.) Fetterman is still overperforming Biden, who narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2020. Fetterman’s favorability ratings are also consistently higher than Oz’s.

    One potential trouble spot for the Democrat: More voters in a late September Franklin and Marshall College Poll viewed Oz has having policies that would improve voters’ economic circumstances, with the economy and inflation remaining the top concern for voters across a range of surveys. But nearly five months after the primary, the celebrity surgeon still seems to have residual issues with his base. A higher percentage of Democrats were backing Fetterman than Republicans were backing Oz in a recent Fox News survey, for example, with much of that attributable to lower support from GOP women than men. Fetterman supporters were also much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Oz supporters.

    Republicans have been hammering Fetterman on crime, specifically his tenure on the state Board of Pardons: An ad from the Senate Leadership Fund features a Bucks County sheriff saying, “Protect your family. Don’t vote Fetterman.” But the lieutenant governor is also using sheriffs on camera to defend his record. And with suburban voters being a crucial demographic, Democratic advertising is also leaning into abortion, like this Senate Majority PAC ad that features a female doctor as narrator and plays Oz’s comments from during the primary about abortion being “murder.” Oz’s campaign has said that he supports exceptions for “the life of the mother, rape and incest” and that “he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic.”

    Incumbent: Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto

    02 democrat immigration legislation 0717

    CNN

    Republicans have four main pickup opportunities – and right now, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s seat looks like one of their best shots. Biden carried Nevada by a slightly larger margin than two of those other GOP-targeted states, but the Silver State’s large transient population adds a degree of uncertainty to this contest.

    Republicans have tried to tie the first-term senator to Washington spending and inflation, which may be particularly resonant in a place where average gas prices are now back up to over $5 a gallon. Democrats are zeroing in on abortion rights and raising the threat that a GOP-controlled Senate could pass a national abortion ban. Former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt – the rare GOP nominee to have united McConnell and Trump early on – called the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling a “joke” before the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June. Democrats have been all too happy to use that comment against him, but Laxalt has tried to get around those attacks by saying he does not support a national ban and pointing out that the right to an abortion is settled law in Nevada.

    Incumbent: Democrat Raphael Warnock

    Sen Raphael Warnock 10 senate seats

    Megan Varner/Getty Images

    The closer we get to Election Day, the more we need to talk about the Georgia Senate race going over the wire. If neither candidate receives a majority of the vote in November, the contest will go to a December runoff. There was no clear leader in a recent Marist poll that had Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who’s running for a full six-year term, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker both under 50% among those who say they definitely plan to vote.

    Warnock’s edge from earlier this cycle has narrowed, which bumps this seat up one spot on the rankings. The good news for Warnock is that he’s still overperforming Biden’s approval numbers in a state that the President flipped in 2020 by less than 12,000 votes. And so far, he seems to be keeping the Senate race closer than the gubernatorial contest, for which several polls have shown GOP Gov. Brian Kemp ahead. Warnock’s trying to project a bipartisan image that he thinks will help him hold on in what had until recently been a reliably red state. Standing waist-deep in peanuts in one recent ad, he touts his work with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to “eliminate the regulations,” never mentioning his own party. But Republicans have continued to try to tie the senator to his party – specifically for voting for measures in Washington that they claim have exacerbated inflation.

    Democrats are hoping that enough Georgians won’t see voting for Walker as an option – even if they do back Kemp. Democrats have amped up their attacks on domestic violence allegations against the former football star and unflattering headlines about his business record. And all eyes will be on the mid-October debate to see how Walker, who has a history of making controversial and illogical comments, handles himself onstage against the more polished incumbent.

    Incumbent: Republican Ron Johnson

    Sen Ron Johnson 10 senate seats

    Leigh VogelPool/Getty Images

    Sen. Ron Johnson is the only Republican running for reelection in a state Biden won in 2020 – in fact, he broke his own term limits pledge to run a third time, saying he believed America was “in peril.” And although Johnson has had low approval numbers for much of the cycle, Democrats have underestimated him before. This contest moves down one spot on the ranking as Johnson’s race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has tightened, putting the senator in a better position.

    Barnes skated through the August primary after his biggest opponents dropped out of the race, but as the nominee, he’s faced an onslaught of attacks, especially on crime, using against him his past words about ending cash bail and redirecting some funding from police budgets to social services. Barnes has attempted to answer those attacks in his ads, like this one featuring a retired police sergeant who says he knows “Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police.”

    A Marquette University Law School poll from early September showed no clear leader, with Johnson at 49% and Barnes at 48% among likely voters, which is a tightening from the 7-point edge Barnes enjoyed in the same poll’s August survey. Notably, independents were breaking slightly for Johnson after significantly favoring Barnes in the August survey. The effect of the GOP’s anti-Barnes advertising can likely be seen in the increasing percentage of registered voters in a late September Fox News survey who view the Democrat as “too extreme,” putting him on parity with Johnson on that question. Johnson supporters are also much more enthusiastic about their candidate.

    Incumbent: Democrat Mark Kelly

    Mark Kelly AZ 1103

    Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who’s running for a full six-year term after winning a 2020 special election, is still one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in a state that has only recently grown competitive on the federal level. But Republican nominee Blake Masters is nowhere close to rivaling Kelly in fundraising, and major GOP outside firepower is now gone. After canceling its September TV reservations in Arizona to redirect money to Ohio, the Senate Leadership Fund has cut its October spending too.

    Other conservative groups are spending for Masters but still have work to do to hurt Kelly, a well-funded incumbent with a strong personal brand. Kelly led Masters 51% to 41% among registered voters in a September Marist poll, although that gap narrowed among those who said they definitely plan to vote. A Fox survey from a little later in the month similarly showed Kelly with a 5-point edge among those certain to vote, just within the margin of error.

    Masters has attempted to moderate his abortion position since winning his August primary, buoyed by a Trump endorsement, but Kelly has continued to attack him on the issue. And a recent court decision allowing the enforcement of a 1901 state ban on nearly all abortions has given Democrats extra fodder to paint Republicans as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.

    Incumbent: Republican Richard Burr (retiring)

    Sen Richard Burr 10 senate seats

    Demetrius Freeman/Pool/Getty Images

    North Carolina slides up one spot on the rankings, trading places with New Hampshire. The open-seat race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr hasn’t generated as much national buzz as other states given that Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in the state since 2008.

    But it has remained a tight contest with Democrat Cheri Beasley, who is bidding to become the state’s first Black senator, facing off against GOP Rep. Ted Budd, for whom Trump recently campaigned. Beasley lost reelection as state Supreme Court chief justice by only about 400 votes in 2020 when Trump narrowly carried the Tar Heel state. But Democrats hope that she’ll be able to boost turnout among rural Black voters who might not otherwise vote during a midterm election and that more moderate Republicans and independents will see Budd as too extreme. One of Beasley’s recent spots features a series of mostly White, gray-haired retired judges in suits endorsing her as “someone different” while attacking Budd as being a typical politician out for himself.

    Budd is leaning into current inflation woes, specifically going after Biden in some ads that feature half-empty shopping carts, without even mentioning Beasley. Senate Leadership Fund is doing the work of trying to tie the Democrat to Washington – one recent spot almost makes her look like the incumbent in the race, superimposing her photo over an image of the US Capitol and displaying her face next to Biden’s. Both SLF and Budd are also targeting Beasley over her support for Democrats’ recently enacted health care, tax and climate bill. “Liberal politician Cheri Beasley is coming for you – and your wallet,” the narrator from one SLF ad intones, before later adding, “Beasley’s gonna knock on your door with an army of new IRS agents.” (The new law increases funding for the IRS, including for audits. But Democrats and the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner have said the intention is to go after wealthy tax cheats, not the middle class.)

    Incumbent: Democrat Maggie Hassan

    Sen Maggie Hassan 10 senate seats

    Erin Scott/Getty Images

    A lot has been made of GOP candidate quality this cycle. But there are few states where the difference between the nominee Republicans have and the one they’d hoped to have has altered these rankings quite as much as New Hampshire.

    Retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who lost a 2020 GOP bid for the state’s other Senate seat, won last month’s Republican primary to take on first-term Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan. The problem for him, though, is that he doesn’t have much money to wage that fight. Bolduc had raised a total of $579,000 through August 24 compared with Hassan’s $31.4 million. Senate Leadership Fund is on air in New Hampshire to boost the GOP nominee – attacking Hassan for voting with Biden and her support of her party’s health care, tax and climate package. But because super PACs get much less favorable TV advertising rates than candidates, those millions won’t go anywhere near as far as Hassan’s dollars will.

    A year ago, Republicans were still optimistic that Gov. Chris Sununu would run for Senate, giving them a popular abortion rights-supporting nominee in a state that’s trended blue in recent federal elections. Bolduc told WMUR after his primary win that he’d vote against a national abortion ban. But ads from Hassan and Senate Majority PAC have seized on his suggestion in the same interview that the senator should “get over” the abortion issue. Republicans recognize that abortion is a salient factor in a state Biden carried by 7 points, but they also argue that the election – as Bolduc said to WMUR – will be about the economy and that Hassan is an unpopular and out-of-touch incumbent.

    Hassan led Bolduc 49% to 41% among likely voters in a Granite State Poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The incumbent has consolidated Democratic support, but only 83% of Republicans said they were with Bolduc, the survey found. Still, some of those Republicans, like those who said they were undecided, could come home to the GOP nominee as the general election gets closer, which means Bolduc has room to grow. He’ll need more than just Republicans to break his way, however, which is one reason he quickly pivoted on the key issue of whether the 2020 election was stolen days after he won the primary.

    Incumbent: Republican Rob Portman (retiring)

    Sen Rob Portman 10 senate seats

    TING SHEN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Ohio – a state that twice voted for Trump by 8 points – isn’t supposed to be on this list at No. 8, above Florida, which backed the former President by much narrower margins. But it’s at No. 8 for the second month in a row. Republican nominee J.D. Vance’s poor fundraising has forced Senate Leadership Fund to redirect millions from other races to Ohio to shore him up and attack Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who had the airwaves to himself all summer. The 10-term congressman has been working to distance himself from his party in most of his ads, frequently mentioning that he “voted with Trump on trade” and criticizing the “defund the police” movement. Vance is finally on the air, trying to poke some holes in Ryan’s image.

    But polling still shows a tight race with no clear leader. Ryan had an edge with independents in a recent Siena College/Spectrum News poll, which also showed that Vance – Trump’s pick for the nomination – has more work to do to consolidate GOP support after an ugly May primary. Assuming he makes up that support and late undecided voters break his way, Vance will likely hold the advantage in the end given the Buckeye State’s solidifying red lean.

    Incumbent: Republican Marco Rubio

    Sen Marco Rubio 10 senate seats

    DREW ANGERER/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democrats face an uphill battle against GOP Sen. Marco Rubio in an increasingly red-trending state, which Trump carried by about 3 points in 2020 – nearly tripling his margin from four years earlier.

    Democratic Rep. Val Demings, who easily won the party’s nomination in August, is a strong candidate who has even outraised the GOP incumbent, but not by enough to seriously jeopardize his advantage. She’s leaning into her background as the former Orlando police chief – it features prominently in her advertising, in which she repeatedly rejects the idea of defunding the police. Still, Rubio has tried to tie her to the “radical left” in Washington to undercut her own law enforcement background.

    Incumbent: Democrat Michael Bennet

    Sen Michael Bennett 10 senate seats

    DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/AFP/POOL/Getty Images

    Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is no stranger to tough races. In 2016, he only won reelection by 6 points against an underfunded GOP challenger whom the national party had abandoned. Given GOP fundraising challenges in some of their top races, the party hasn’t had the resources to seriously invest in the Centennial State this year.

    But in his bid for a third full term, Bennet is up against a stronger challenger in businessman Joe O’Dea, who told CNN he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. His wife and daughter star in his ads as he tries to cut a more moderate profile and vows not to vote the party line in Washington.

    Bennet, however, is attacking O’Dea for voting for a failed 2020 state ballot measure to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy and arguing that whatever O’Dea says about supporting abortion rights, he’d give McConnell “the majority he needs” to pass a national abortion ban.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Three people, including father and son, charged in the death of PnB Rock | CNN

    Three people, including father and son, charged in the death of PnB Rock | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday filed murder charges against a father and son in connection to the fatal shooting of musical artist PnB Rock.

    Freddie Trone, who is being sought by police, along with his minor son were each charged with murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and second-degree robbery, according to a release from the DA’s office. A woman was charged with accessory after the fact.

    The minor appeared in juvenile court Thursday and is set to return for a preliminary hearing on October 19. The woman is expected to be arraigned Thursday afternoon.

    Trone is considered armed and dangerous, police said, and anyone who sees him should immediately call 911, according to a LAPD news release.

    On Tuesday, LAPD arrested a 32-year-old woman and young man under 18 years old who police “believed to be involved” in the rapper’s death, according to the release.

    LAPD did not have information on the young man or woman’s relationship to Trone.

    The fatal shooting of PnB Rock took place September 12 while the rapper and his girlfriend were eating at Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles on West Manchester Avenue, according to LAPD Chief Michel Moore. The chief identified the rapper by his real name, Rakim Allen.

    “[Allen] was brutally attacked by an individual who, apparently, we believe… came to the location after a social media posting of the artist and the woman accompanying him,” Moore said.

    Moore said a picture of the pair’s meal had been posted on Instagram, with the location tagged. He said a Black man attacked the rapper at the restaurant, demanding his property. PnB Rock “had an extensive amount of jewelry and other valuables,” Moore said.

    Between 2016 and 2019, PnB Rock had eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100, four of which were in 2019.

    The rapper’s latest song, “Luv Me Again,” was released on September 2.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tim Scott once described own police reform bill as a ‘defund’ bill — then attacked Democrats for same approach | CNN Politics

    Tim Scott once described own police reform bill as a ‘defund’ bill — then attacked Democrats for same approach | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott once said his 2020 police reform bill would “defund” local police departments from federal grants for non-compliance, but he later attacked Democrats for proposing the same policies.

    Introduced in the summer of 2020, Scott’s JUSTICE Act was aimed at reforming the practices of local police departments in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

    The bill, according to its text and summaries from the Congressional Research Services, in part used incentives from the federal government to force local police departments to enact change, withholding funding through two key programs from local police departments that did not comply with law.

    “Our bill says that we will defund departments if they don’t ban chokeholds,” Scott said in one Facebook live in June 2020, describing one of the defunding provisions.

    “You lose money from the federal government,” he added, if departments didn’t use body cameras. “It’s all tied to money. That’s the one penalty we can actually enact on the federal level.”

    Senate Democrats blocked Scott’s bill shortly after it was introduced in June 2020, saying the bill inadequately addressed reforming law enforcement and police misconduct.

    As Republicans took strong issue with the so-called “Defund the Police” movement – a slogan that gained popularity during the summer of 2020 in which supporters sought to redirect funds from police to other public services such as social work and mental health services or remove police funding entirely – Scott began to use the approach he had previously advocated for to attack Democrats.

    “Is it OK to limit funding to grants if local police don’t meet a certain standard or don’t qualify based on some parameters? I say, no. They say yes,” Scott said in April 2022.

    A Scott campaign spokesman said in a statement that Scott’s “focus has always been to provide more resources to departments while incentivizing reform.”

    “As Democrats called for defunding the police, the senator worked with law enforcement for more net funding. To suggest otherwise is patently false,” said the spokesman, Nathan Brand.

    The JUSTICE Act stipulated that state and local governments would not be eligible to continue to receive grant funding through two federal grant programs – the COPS program and the Bryne Program – unless police departments put in place certain reform practices.

    The bill required the banning of chokeholds and no-knock warrants in drug cases to continue to receive funding under the programs. It also put in place certain DOJ training requirements for new officers and compelled police departments to provide use of force data to FBI databases to maintain funding.

    Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” in June 2020, Scott responded to a story from The Root, a left-leaning Black publication, which said that the bill’s mechanism of preventing departments from receiving funding if they failed to comply with the law was a version of defunding the police.

    “God bless ‘The Root.’ It’s nice to have them on my side every blue moon. I’m not sure I would go with their conclusions. But, yes, it is important for us to use the resources that we provide to law enforcement, and a way to get them, to compel them towards the direction that we think is in the best interest of the nation, the communities that, they, they serve and frankly of the officers themselves,” said Scott.

    “And I guess their point is if the, if the – police departments don’t do what you are asking, they will lose access to federal funds,” followed up Jon Karl, the show’s host. “So, so there would be an element of withholding funding here?

    “Yes,” said Scott. “Very, very important aspect of our bill.”

    Speaking with PBS, Scott made similar comments in summer 2020.

    “In your proposal, you are saying these things should be tied to federal funding, that, if departments go ahead with them, they risk losing funding,” Scott was asked.

    “Yes,” he responded.

    A year later, however, Scott was directly attacking Democrats for the same approach.

    “We have about a billion dollars in grant money that goes to police,” Scott said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” in September 2021. “When you start saying in order to receive those dollars, you must do A, B, and C, and if you don’t do A, B, and C, you literally lose eligibility for the two major pots of money – the Byrne grants and the COP grants, when you tell local law enforcement agencies that you are ineligible for money, that’s defunding the police. There’s no way to spin that.”

    After Scott made his comments, the two major policing organizations – the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police – disputed his categorization that the Democratic bill defunded police departments.

    “Despite some media reports, at no point did any legislative draft propose ‘defunding the police,’” the groups said in joint statement in September 2021. “In fact, the legislation specifically provided additional funding to assist law enforcement agencies in training, agency accreditation, and data collection initiatives.”

    “What I did not agree to was the cuts that come from noncompliance,” Scott added on CBS. “When you say once again that in order for you to receive the money for the Byrne grants or the COP grants, you must do the following, and if you don’t do the following you lose money – that’s more defunding the police. We saw that tried throughout the country.”

    The Democrats’ bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, like Scott’s bill, had requirements, albeit harsher ones, to continue to receive funds through the two programs. The bill required reporting use of force data, submitting misconduct records to a national database, the elimination of and training on racial profiling and independent audit programs, and passing laws banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants in drug cases, among other provisions.

    “I’m not gonna be a part of defunding the police by making them ineligible for the two major grants that come from the federal government to local police,” Scott added on Fox News in September 2021.

    Scott made similar comments in April 2022.

    “Is it OK to limit funding to grants if local police don’t meet a certain standard or don’t qualify based on some parameters? I say no. They say yes,” Scott said in April 2022. “You know, the whole defund the police conversation that’s been going on. And what we’ve seen is that unfortunately, a lot of the cities have literally tried defunding the police to see if it works. The answer is, it doesn’t work very well.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘There is no universal school safety solution.’ Nashville attack renews debate over how best to protect students | CNN

    ‘There is no universal school safety solution.’ Nashville attack renews debate over how best to protect students | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Semiautomatic gunfire echoed in the hallways of The Covenant School, making a distinct noise teachers there would not soon forget.

    That was more than 14 months ago – before three children and three adults were gunned down on Monday in the stately stone school connected to Covenant Presbyterian Church, atop a tree-shrouded hill just south of downtown Nashville.

    The active shooter training session ended with live gunfire intended to familiarize school staff with real gunshots if they ever heard them.

    “Blanks don’t sound the same. They just don’t,” said security consultant Brink Fidler, whose firm conducted the exercise.

    A bullet trap the trainers wheeled around captured the rounds of a semiautomatic pistol and an AR-15-style rifle loaded with real ammunition.

    When a handful of teachers heard the very first shot of Monday’s rampage they initially mistook it for the din of ongoing construction at the building.

    “But then they said, ‘When we heard a few more after that we all knew because we had heard it before,” said Fidler, a former police officer who did a walk-through of the elementary school with Nashville officials on Wednesday – two days after another massacre in America renewed questions about what schools are doing to protect children and staff against mass murder.

    As investigators work to determine the motive for the carnage, students, parents and school leaders across the country are again asking what more can be done to secure schools in the era of active shooter drills, lockdowns and widespread anxiety amid recurring mass shootings.

    Fortified school buildings and entrance doors, glass panes coated in bullet-resistant laminate, locked classrooms and heavy surveillance have became a part of life in places where children are supposed to feel inspired to learn.

    A funeral service for Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, the first victim to be laid to rest, was held Friday, which would have been the final school day before Easter break for the 200 or so private school students.

    The shooter was a former Covenant School student, who also killed William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, both 9; Katherine Koonce, the 60-year-old head of the school; Cynthia Peak, a 61-year-old substitute teacher; and Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian.

    Police fatally shot the 28-year-old attacker – who was armed with an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun – inside the school about 14 minutes after the shooter fired through locked glass doors to enter the building.

    The AR-15 and 9 mm pistol caliber carbine appeared to have 30-round magazines, according to experts who reviewed photos and video released by police.

    Officers were on scene at 10:24 a.m. and fatally shot the attacker three minutes later, police said.

    “The shooter, confronted in the second floor lobby, didn’t even have a chance to get to the classrooms,” said CNN analyst Jennifer Mascia, a writer and founding staffer of The Trace, a non-profit focused on gun violence. “That is something that is very reassuring to parents across the country. However, as we see, even a robust police response is not enough.”

    The attack was the 19th shooting at an American school or university in 2023 in which at least one person was wounded, according to a CNN count. It was the deadliest since the May attack in Uvalde, Texas, left 21 dead. There have been 42 K-12 school shootings since Uvalde, where the gunman fired 100 or so rounds before police breached a classroom more than an hour later and killed the attacker to end the siege.

    Once again, children, their parents and school leaders are left struggling with how to stop and handle mass shootings even though such incidents are rare and schools are still quite safe.

    “What a lot of school leaders have learned is don’t react quickly. You’ve got a lot of pressure to do something right away but it’s really better to be thoughtful,” said Michael Dorn, executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit school safety firm that has evaluated security at thousands of schools.

    “You should assume that you don’t have a good picture of what really happened and what didn’t. Be very skeptical about claims that this saves lives or people died because of that. In Tennessee no one will have a really accurate picture of what happened there for months.”

    Coping with the nightmare scenario of a school shooting is now part of the mission to educate and counsel children.

    It’s been 24 years since the Columbine High School mass shooting left 13 people dead in 1999. And more than a decade since a gunman shot his way through glass at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed six adults and 20 children.

    “We keep repeating the same mistakes because people don’t know what the same mistakes are,” Fidler said. “School resource officers are a great part of the solution. Security laminate – great part of the solution. Cameras – great part of the solution. But if the people in the building don’t know what to do, none of that other stuff means anything.”

    Audrey Hale shot throught the doors at The Covenant School to gain entry.

    Mass shootings have helped fuel a multibillion dollar school security industry in recent years – ranging from high-tech surveillance systems to weapon scanners and hand-held emergency panic devices to immediately alert law enforcement and lock down schools.

    “The message is really simple and it has been since before Nashville,” said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, who was scheduled to speak about school security this weekend at the annual conference of the National School Boards Association in Orlando, Florida. “One of the worst times to make knee jerk policy and administrative actions is after a high profile incident like this when you’re in a highly emotional state.”

    Experts said school officials should not give in to political pressures to take steps that are likely to be ineffective and wasteful of limited resources.

    “We’ve been in schools where, on the positive side, almost every staff member has a two-way walkie talkie, which is good,” Trump said. “And we’ve been in other schools, sometimes in the same district, where they’re sitting in a charger and the principal says, ‘Well, we have them but I prefer to not use them.’ “

    He added, “When security works, it works because of people. When it fails, it fails because of people.”

    Dorn said he has been inundated with emails since Monday from companies “I’ve never heard of,” with offers of technology they claim will heighten security in schools.

    “The three things that every school leader better pay a lot of attention to is, we have limited time, energy and budget for safety,” Dorn said. “So we can’t afford to waste any of that. We can’t spend our budget or training time on something that we don’t have pretty good evidence actually bears fruit. With the caution that nothing’s going to be 100 percent. This idea that we’re gonna stop all school shootings; there’s just, no country has been able to do that.”

    Dorn and others pointed to a 2016 school safety technology report from Johns Hopkins University that found there was insufficient evidence to show devices such as weapons detectors and high-tech alarms and sensors helped curb mass shootings.

    “There is no universal school safety solution – no one technology will solve all school safety and security issues,” the researchers wrote. “The sheer number of schools and school districts across the country – with different geography, funding, building construction and layout, demographics, and priorities – make each one different.”

    Pictures of the victims killed in the mass shooting at The Covenant School are fixed to a memorial by Noah Reich from the non-profit Classroom of Compassion near the school on Wednesday.

    Fidler and others said more resources should be devoted to educating and training students and school staff on recognizing and responding to threats.

    “I can’t tell you how many of our school clients still have classroom doors that are not lockable from inside the classroom,” he said.

    Referring to training and preparation for catastrophic school events like a mass shooting, Fidler said: “As a society we suck at this – which is terrible, but we do.”

    On Wednesday, two days after the massacre, Fidler did a walk-through of the blood-stained school corridors with investigators. “It was hard, man. I’m struggling,” the law enforcement veteran of nearly 20 years said Saturday. “Some of that blood belonged to people I know.”

    Fidler found that upon recognizing they were under attack teachers and staff relied on their training.

    The shooter fired multiple rounds into several classroom doors but didn’t hit any students inside “because the teachers knew exactly what to do, how to fortify their doors and where to place their children in those rooms,” Fidler said.

    “Their ability to execute, literally flawlessly, under that amount of stress while somebody is trying to murder them and their children, that is what made the difference here,” he said.

    “These teachers are the reason those kids went home to their families.”

    Koonce, the head of the school, had been adamant about training school staff on how to respond during an active shooter situation, Fidler said.

    “She understood the severity of the topic and the severity of the teachers needing to have the knowledge of what to do in that situation,” he said.

    “Katherine went to find out what was happening” when she was shot, Fidler said. “You know, Katherine Koonce, I could have had a lasso around her waist and she would drag me down the hall. She was going to go find out what’s going on and try and figure out what’s best for her students… She went right to it.”

    Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake could not confirm how Koonce died but said, “I do know she was in the hallway by herself. There was a confrontation, I’m sure. You can tell the way she is lying in the hallway.”

    Fidler said teachers covered windows. They shut off lights. Unused medical kits sat on desks.

    “Countless teachers had their bleeding control kits out, staged and ready to treat people in their classroom,” he recalled.

    “The fact that they had the wherewithal to do that. ‘Ok, I’ve got my kids secure. I’ve got the door locked and barricaded.’ And now, as a teacher, to have the wherewithal to remember the last piece, the medical, because we can potentially save a lot of people. They crushed it. They were able to perform under that amount of stress… They were able to recall all this information and put it into practice.”

    The six shooting victims were trapped in hallways and killed, Fidler said.

    “How many teachers in America could walk into their classroom right now and throw a tourniquet on the table and put that on? How many of them could do it?”

    His message for anxious parents: “Ask questions. Find out what your kids’ school is doing or not doing. And don’t stop asking until something’s done.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Accused January 6 rioter fired shots at police during standoff ahead of arrest, court documents say | CNN Politics

    Accused January 6 rioter fired shots at police during standoff ahead of arrest, court documents say | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A Texas man facing charges in connection to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol opened fire on law enforcement officers last week when they arrived at his house in the Dallas area for a welfare check, according to an affidavit.

    Nathan Donald Pelham, who is charged with misdemeanors for entering the restricted Capitol building and disorderly conduct, now faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm after opening fire on authorities from Hunt County Sheriff’s Office, according to court documents.

    Politico first reported the standoff with Pelham. CNN has reached out to Pelham’s attorney for comment.

    Pelham’s father called law enforcement on April 12, warning that his son had a gun and was threatening suicide, the affidavit said. That same day, an FBI agent had called Pelham to notify him of a warrant for his arrest related to charges from the insurrection and Pelham had agreed to turn himself in the following week.

    After arriving at Pelham’s home and speaking to a neighbor, officers saw a young girl, Pelham’s daughter, walk out of the house and she was put in a patrol car for safety, according to the affidavit.

    Then authorities from the sheriff’s department heard gunshots coming from inside the house, the affidavit said.

    “Deputy J.W. reported that the gunshots were spread out in time and that they were not towards the HCSO personnel,” the agent wrote. “At approximately 9:38 p.m., Pelham’s father arrived on scene. Deputy J.W. heard another gunshot and reported that ‘the bullet from this gunshot came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side.’”

    The standoff lasted until shortly after midnight when law enforcement left without arresting Pelham, according to the affidavit. Pelham was arrested on Tuesday, according to online court records.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • St. Louis school shooter had an AR-15-style rifle, 600 rounds of ammo and a note saying ‘I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family,’ police say | CNN

    St. Louis school shooter had an AR-15-style rifle, 600 rounds of ammo and a note saying ‘I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family,’ police say | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The 19-year-old gunman who killed two people and wounded several others at his former high school left a note saying his struggles led to “the perfect storm for a mass shooter,” St. Louis police said.

    Orlando Harris graduated from Central Visual and Performing Arts High School last year and returned Monday with an AR-15-style rifle, over 600 rounds of ammunition and more than a dozen high-capacity magazines, St. Louis police Commissioner Michael Sack said.

    Harris died at a hospital after a gun battle with officers.

    Investigators found a handwritten note in the car Harris drove to the school. Sack detailed some of the passages:

    “I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve never had a social life. I’ve been an isolated loner my entire life,” the note said, according to Sack. “This was the perfect storm for a mass shooter.”

    Given the gunman’s extensive arsenal, the tragedy could have been “much worse,” the police chief said.

    Authorities credited locked doors and a quick law enforcement response – including by off-duty officers – for preventing more deaths at the school.

    But the shooter did not enter a checkpoint where security guards were stationed, said DeAndre Davis, director of safety and security for St. Louis Public Schools.

    Davis also said the security guards stationed in the district’s schools are not armed, but mobile officers who respond to calls at schools are.

    “For some people that would cause a stir of some sort,” Davis said Tuesday. “For us, we thought it’s best for our officers, for the normalcy of school for kids, to not have officers armed in the school.”

    Student Alexandria Bell, 15, and teacher Jean Kuczka, 61, were gunned down in the attack.

    One of the teacher’s colleagues, Kristie Faulstich, said Kuczka died protecting her students.

    During the rush to evacuate students from the school, “One student looked at me and she said, ‘They shot Ms. Kuczka.’ And then she said that Ms. Kuczka had put herself between the gunman and the students,” Faulstich said.

    Jean Kuczka

    Kuczka was looking forward to retiring in just a few years, her daughter Abigail Kuczka told CNN.

    Alexandria was looking forward to her Sweet 16, her father Andre Bell told CNN affiliate KSDK.

    “It’s a nightmare,” Bell said. “I am so upset. I need somebody – police, community folks, somebody – to make this make sense.”

    He joins a growing list of parents grappling with the reality of their child being killed at school.

    Across the country, at least 67 shootings have happened on school grounds so far this year.

    As the shooting unfolded in St. Louis, a Michigan prosecutor who just heard the guilty plea of a teen who killed four students last fall said she was no longer shocked to hear of another school shooting.

    “The fact that there is another school shooting does not surprise me – which is horrific,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said.

    “We need to keep the public and inform the public … on how we can prevent gun violence. It is preventable, and we should never ever allow that to be something we just should have to live with.”

    Students grieve near Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, where two people were killed.

    Bell, the father of the slain teen, said he’s struggling to get answers about what happened.

    “I really want to know: How did that man get inside the school?” he told KSDK.

    Authorities have said the doors were locked. But the St. Louis police commissioner declined to detail how the shooter got in.

    “I don’t want to make this easy for anybody else,” Sack said.

    The gunman didn’t conceal his weapon when entering the school, Sack said.

    “When he entered, it was out … there was no mystery about what was going to happen,” the commissioner said. “He had it out and entered in an aggressive, violent manner.”

    Faulstich said school’s principal came over the intercom and used the code phrase “Miles Davis is in the building” to let faculty know an active shooter was in the building.

    “I instantly but calmly went to lock my door and turn off the lights,” the teacher said. “I then turned to my kids and told everyone to get in the corner.”

    Within a minute of locking her second-floor classroom door, Faulstich said, someone started “violently jostling the handle, trying to get in.”

    “I absolutely commend my students for their response,” Faulstich said. “Even in the moments when they were hearing gunfire going on all around they stood quiet and I know they did it to keep each other safe.”

    Adrianne Bolden, a freshman at the school, told KSDK that students thought the school was conducting a drill – until they heard the sirens and noticed their teachers were scared.

    “The teacher, she crawled over and she was asking for help to move the lockers to the door so they can’t get in,” Bolden said. “And we started hearing glass breaking from the outside and gunshots outside the door.”

    Sophomore Brian Collins, 15, suffered gunshot wounds to his hands and jaws. He escaped by jumping from a classroom window onto a ledge, his mother VonDina Washington said.

    “He told me they heard an active shooter notification over the intercom so everyone in the class hid,” Washington said. According to her son, the gunman then came into the classroom and fired several shots before leaving.

    After the gunman left the third-floor classroom, Washington said another student opened a classroom window, and some of them jumped.

    Brian has numbness in his hands and trouble moving some of his right-hand fingers.

    “He’s really good at drawing,” Washington said. “He went to CVPA for visual arts, and we’re hoping he’ll be able to draw again.”

    Math teacher David Williams told CNN everyone went into “drill mode,” turning off lights, locking doors and huddling in corners so they couldn’t be seen.

    He said he heard someone trying to open the door and a man yell, “You are all going to f**king die.”

    A short time later, a bullet came through one of the windows in his classroom, Williams said.

    His classroom is on the third floor, where Sack said police engaged the shooter.

    Eventually, an officer said she was outside, and the class ran out through nearby emergency doors.

    Security personnel were at the school when the gunman arrived, St. Louis Public Schools Communications Director George Sells said.

    “We had the seven personnel working in the building who did a wonderful job getting the alarm sounded quickly,” Sells said.

    The commissioner did say the school doors being locked likely delayed the gunman.

    “The school was closed and the doors were locked,” Sack told CNN affiliate KMOV. “The security staff did an outstanding job identifying the suspect’s efforts to enter, and immediately notified other staff and ensured that we were contacted.”

    After widespread controversy over the delayed response in confronting school shooters in Uvalde, Texas, and Parkland, Florida, Sack said responding officers in St. Louis wasted no time rushing into the school and stopping the gunman.

    “There was no sidewalk conference. There was no discussion,” Sack said. “There was no, ‘Hey, where are you going to?’ They just went right in.”

    A call about an active shooter at the high school came in around 9:11 a.m., according to a timeline provided by the commissioner.

    Police arrived on scene and made entry four minutes later.

    Officers found the gunman and began “engaging him in a gunfight” at 9:23 a.m. Two minutes later, officers reported the suspect was down.

    Asked about the eight minutes between officers’ arrival and making contact with the gunman, Sack said “eight minutes isn’t very long,” and that officers had to maneuver through a big school with few entrances and crowds of students and staff who were evacuating.

    Police found the suspect “not just by hearing the gunfire, but by talking to kids and teachers as they’re leaving,” Sack said.

    As phone calls came in from people hiding in different locations, officers fanned out and searched for students and staff to escort them out of the building.

    Officers who were at a church down the street for a fellow officer’s funeral also responded to the shooting, the commissioner said.

    A SWAT team that was together for a training exercise was also able to quickly load up and get to the school to perform a secondary sweep of the building, Sack said.

    Some officers were “off duty; some were in T-shirts, but they had their (ballistic) vests on,” the commissioner said. “They did an outstanding job.”

    Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong age for 15-year-old Alexandria Bell, who was killed in the shooting.

    [ad_2]

    Source link