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Tag: Prison riots

  • Man gets jail for joining Capitol riot after Tinder date

    Man gets jail for joining Capitol riot after Tinder date

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    A Delaware business owner has been sentenced to 30 days of incarceration for storming the U.S. Capitol after seeing the riot erupt on a Tinder date’s television and taking an Uber ride to join the mob’s attack, court records show.

    U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also on Friday ordered Jeffrey Schaefer to pay a $2,000 fine and $500 in restitution for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in Washington.

    On the eve of then-President Donald Trump‘s “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, Schaefer drove from Delaware to northern Virginia to spend the night at the home of a woman whom he had met on the Tinder online dating app. The next day, he decided to take an Uber ride to the Capitol after seeing the riot unfold on TV at his date’s home in Alexandria.

    “He had the Uber driver drop him off near the west front of the Capitol and he approached the Capitol from that drop off point,” Justice Department prosecutor Anita Eve wrote in a court filing.

    Schaefer entered the Capitol though a broken window near the Senate Wing doors, joined other rioters in chanting and spent approximately 28 minutes inside the building before leaving through a door, prosecutors said. He posted several images of the riot on Facebook, including one showing a pile of destroyed media equipment.

    Schaefer, 36, of Milton, Delaware, was arrested in January 2022, He pleaded guilty in August to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum sentence of six months behind bars.

    Defense attorney Joshua Insley noted that Schaefer wasn’t accused of engaging in any violence or destructive conduct on Jan. 6, when Congress had convened a joint session to certify the results of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

    Schaefer owns a charter transportation company based in Milton. Once a “committed supporter” of Trump, Schaefer now believes he was “manipulated and used by those who hold power and will never face any consequences,” his lawyer said.

    “While Mr. Schaefer accepts responsibility for his actions, he was guided and urged every step of the way by no less of an authority than the President of the United States and a majority of Republican Senators and Congressman that continued to repeat the ‘Big Lie’ that the election had been stolen by the Democrats,” Insley wrote.

    More than 900 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 460 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Over 320 of them have been sentenced, with roughly half of them receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.

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    For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

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  • Calls mount for Filipino ex-senator freedom after jail riot

    Calls mount for Filipino ex-senator freedom after jail riot

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    MANILA, Philippines — Human rights activists pressed their call Monday for the immediate release of a former Philippine opposition senator after she was taken hostage in a rampage by three Muslim militants in a failed attempt to escape from a maximum-security jail.

    Police killed three Islamic State group-linked militants behind Sunday’s violence in which a police officer was stabbed and former Sen. Leila de Lima was briefly taken hostage. The militants tried to escape from the jail for high-profile inmates at the national police headquarters in metropolitan Manila, police said.

    National police chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. acknowledged there were security lapses in the detention center and said its commander has been removed as part of an investigation.

    Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch separately expressed deep alarm over the violence and the hostage-taking of de Lima. The groups call for her immediate release.

    “That she has had to endure this traumatizing and frightening experience on top of being arbitrarily detained for over five years now is the height of outrage, negligence and injustice,” Amnesty International Philippine director Butch Olano said.

    About two dozen supporters held a protest for de Lima, who was brought to a metropolitan Manila trial court Monday for a hearing, which was postponed.

    “We condemned what happened yesterday,” said protester Charito del Carmen. “It’s painful for us because if she got killed what would happen to the fight for justice that we’ve been waging for her?”

    One of the three inmates stabbed a police officer who was delivering breakfast after dawn in an open area, where inmates can exercise outdoors. A guard in a sentry tower fired warning shots then shot and killed two of the prisoners when they refused to yield, police said.

    The third inmate ran to de Lima’s cell and briefly held her hostage, Azurin said.

    De Lima, 63, told investigators the hostage-taker tied her hands and feet, blindfolded her and pressed a pointed weapon to her chest and demanded access to journalists and a military aircraft to take him to southern Sulu province, where the Muslim militant group Abu Sayyaf has long had a presence.

    The man continually threatened to kill her until he was gunned down by a police negotiator, she told investigators.

    Following the jail violence, Filibon Tacardon said he and other de Lima lawyers were hoping the court would now grant her appeal for bail. There have also been appeals to place de Lima under house arrest.

    De Lima has been detained since 2017 on drug charges she says were fabricated by former President Rodrigo Duterte and his officials in an attempt to muzzle her criticism of his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. It left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead and sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity.

    She has been cleared in one of three cases, and at least two witnesses have retracted their allegations against her.

    Duterte, who has insisted on de Lima’s guilt, stepped down from office on June 30 at the end of his turbulent six-year term.

    Newly elected President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. talked to de Lima, who was confined in a hospital, by telephone and asked if she wanted to be transferred to another detention site but she rejected the offer, Azurin said.

    Even before the jail violence, the European Union Parliament, some American legislators and United Nations human rights watchdogs have demanded that de Lima be freed immediately.

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    Associated Press journalist Aaron Favila contributed to this report.

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  • Gunfire, blasts in western Iran amid Mahsa Amini protests

    Gunfire, blasts in western Iran amid Mahsa Amini protests

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The sound of apparent gunshots and explosions echoed early Monday through the streets of a western Iranian city, one of the hot spots of protests over the death of a 22-year-old woman. At least one man reportedly was killed by security forces in a village nearby, activists said.

    The incidents come as demonstrations rage on in cities, towns and villages across Iran over the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police in Tehran.

    Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

    From Tehran and elsewhere, online videos have emerged despite authorities disrupting the internet. Videos showed some women marching through the streets without headscarves, while others confronted authorities and lit fires in the street as the protests continue into a fourth week. The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests.

    The violence early Monday occurred in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as well as in the village of Salas Babajani near the border with Iraq, according to a Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights. Amini was Kurdish and her death has been particularly felt in Iran’s Kurdish region, where demonstrations began Sept. 17 at her funeral there.

    Hengaw posted footage it described as smoke rising in one neighborhood in Sanandaj, with what sounded like rapid rifle fire echoing through the night sky. The shouts of people could be heard.

    There was no immediate word if people had been hurt in the violence. Hengaw later posted a video online of what appeared to be collected shell casings from rifles and shotguns, as well as spent tear gas canisters.

    Authorities offered no immediate explanation about the violence early Monday in Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran. Esmail Zarei Kousha, the governor of Iran’s Kurdistan province, alleged without providing evidence that unknown groups “plotted to kill young people on the streets” on Saturday, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Monday.

    Kousha also accused these unnamed groups that day of shooting a young man in the head and killing him — an attack that activists roundly have blamed on Iranian security forces. They say Iranian forces opened fire after the man honked his car horn at them. Honking has become one of the ways activists have been expressing civil disobedience — an action that has seen riot police in other videos smashing the windshields of passing vehicles.

    In the village of Salas Babajani, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Sanandaj, Iranian security forces repeatedly shot a 22-year-old man protesting there who later died of his wounds, Hengaw said. It said others had been wounded in the shooting.

    It remains unclear how many people have been killed in the demonstrations and the security force crackdown targeting them. State television last suggested at least 41 people had been killed in the demonstrations as of Sept. 24. In the over two weeks since, there’s been no update from Iran’s government.

    An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates at least 185 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed in violence in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan.

    The London-based group Amnesty International said security forces killed 66 people, including children, in a bloody crackdown on Sept. 30, and that more people were killed in the area in subsequent incidents. Iranian authorities have described the Zahedan violence as involving unnamed separatists, without providing details or evidence.

    Meanwhile, a prison riot has struck the city of Rasht, killing several inmates there, a prosecutor reportedly said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the riot at Lakan Prison was linked to the ongoing protests, though Rasht has seen heavy demonstrations in recent weeks since Amini’s death.

    The semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Gilan provincial prosecutor Mehdi Fallah Miri as saying, “some prisoners died because of their wounds as the electricity was cut (at the prison) because of the damage.” He also alleged prisoners refused to allow authorities to access those wounded.

    Miri described the riot as breaking out in a wing of a prison housing death penalty inmates.

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    Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

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  • Prosecutors seek prison for rioter’s attack on AP journalist

    Prosecutors seek prison for rioter’s attack on AP journalist

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    Federal prosecutors on Sunday recommended a prison sentence of approximately four years for a Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to assaulting an Associated Press photographer and using a stun gun against police officers during a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss is scheduled to sentence Alan Byerly on Oct. 21 for his attack on AP photographer John Minchillo and police during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot in Washington, D.C.

    Sentencing guidelines recommend a prison term ranging from 37 to 46 months. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of at least 46 months of imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release. Byerly’s attorney has until Friday to submit a sentencing recommendation.

    The judge isn’t bound by any of the sentencing recommendations.

    Byerly was arrested in July 2021 and pleaded guilty a year later to assault charges.

    Byerly purchased a stun gun before he traveled from his home in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, to Washington for the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6. Leaving the rally before then-President Donald Trump finished speaking, Byerly went to the Capitol and joined other rioters in using a large metal Trump sign as a battering ram against barricades and police officers, prosecutors said.

    Then he went to the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace of the Capitol, where he and other rioters attacked Minchillo, who was wearing a lanyard with AP lettering. Byerly is one of at least three people charged with assaulting Minchillo, whose assault was captured on video by a colleague.

    After that, Byerly approached police officer behind bike racks and deployed his stun gun.

    “After officers successfully removed the stun gun from Byerly’s hands, Byerly continued to charge toward the officers, struck and pushed them, and grabbed an officer’s baton,” prosecutors wrote.

    Byerly later told FBI agents that he did just “one stupid thing down there and that’s all it was,” according to prosecutors.

    “This was a reference to how he handled the reporter and nothing more,” they wrote.

    Byerly treated Jan. 6 “as a normal, crime-free day, akin to the movie, ‘The Purge,’ when he could do whatever he wanted without judgment or legal consequence,” prosecutors said.

    “He was mistaken,” they added.

    More than 100 police officers were injured during the Capitol siege.

    Approximately 900 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. More than 400 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Over 280 riot defendants have been sentenced, with roughly half sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from one week to 10 years.

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