id
stringlengths 6
8
| url
stringlengths 44
78
| title
stringlengths 12
38
| text
stringlengths 2.06k
43.5k
|
---|---|---|---|
378561 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric%20Harris%20and%20Dylan%20Klebold | Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold | Eric David Harris (April 9, 1981 – April 20, 1999) and Dylan Bennet Klebold (; September 11, 1981 – April 20, 1999) were an American mass murder duo who perpetrated the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. Harris and Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 24 others, at Columbine High School, where they were seniors, in Columbine, Colorado, United States. After killing most of their victims in the school's library, they later committed suicide. At the time, it was the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, with the ensuing media frenzy and moral panic leading it to become one of the most infamous mass shootings ever perpetrated.
Harris and Klebold were both born in 1981. Harris was born in Wichita, Kansas, but moved around frequently as a child due to his father's occupation in the United States Air Force, while Klebold was born and raised near Columbine. Harris' family eventually settled in Colorado. Shortly after, Harris and Klebold met, while they were in the 7th grade. Over time, they became increasingly close. By the time they were juniors, they were described as inseparable. There are differing reports; some say Harris and Klebold were very unpopular students once they were upperclassmen, and frequent targets of bullying, while others say they were not near the bottom of the school's social hierarchy and each had many friends. From their journals, Harris and Klebold had seemed to begin planning the attack by May 1998, nearly an entire year before the attack. Throughout the next 11 months, Harris and Klebold meticulously built explosives and gathered an arsenal of weapons. Both Harris and Klebold each left behind several journal writings and home videos, ones they made both alone and together, foreshadowing the massacre and explaining their motives. Harris and Klebold hoped this content would be viewed by the public extensively, although much of the evidence has never been released by authorities.
After the massacre, it was widely believed Harris and Klebold were part of a clique in school called the "Trenchcoat Mafia", a group of misfits in the school who supposedly rebelled against the popular students. This turned out to be untrue, as neither Harris nor Klebold had any affiliation with the group. The pair's aforementioned writings and videos gave insight into their rationale for the shooting. The FBI concluded that Harris was a psychopath, who exhibited a lack of empathy, narcissistic traits and unconstrained aggression. Klebold, however, was concluded to be an angry depressive, who showed low self-esteem, anxiousness and a vengeful attitude toward individuals who he believed had mistreated him. However, neither Harris nor Klebold were formally diagnosed with any mental illnesses prior to the attack. In the following years, various media outlets attributed multiple motivating factors to the attack, including bullying, mental illness, racism, psychiatric medication and media violence. Despite these conclusions, the exact motive for the attack remains inconclusive.
Harris and Klebold have become pop culture icons, with the pair often portrayed, referenced and seen in film, television, video games, music and books. Many killers since the shooting have taken inspiration from the pair, either hailing them as heroes, martyrs and gods, or expressing sympathy for the pair. Harris and Klebold also have a fanbase, who have coined the term "Columbiners", who write fan fiction and draw fan art of them. Others have also dressed as the duo for cosplay or Halloween.
Early life
Eric Harris
Eric David Harris was born on April 9, 1981, in Wichita, Kansas. Harris's parents were both born and raised in Colorado. His mother, Katherine Ann Poole, was a homemaker. His father, Wayne Harris, was working in the United States Air Force as a transport pilot, forcing the family to move around the country sporadically. In 1983, the family moved to Dayton, Ohio, when Harris was two years old. Six years later, the family relocated to Oscoda, Michigan. Michigan pastor William Stone lived across the street from the Harris family while they were located in Oscoda. Stone recalled them as "great neighbors" and would often see Wayne very engaged with his sons. The Harris family then moved to Plattsburgh, New York, in 1991. During his tenure at Stafford Middle School, Harris played Little League Baseball, regularly went to birthday parties and was "part of the crowd". Kyle Ross, a former classmate of Harris, said, "He was just a typical kid." The Harris family finally settled back in Colorado the next year when Wayne retired from the military.
On a 1997 English class assignment, Harris wrote about how difficult the move was from New York to Colorado. "It was the hardest moving from Plattsburgh. I have the most memories from there", Harris continued. "When I left (his friends) I felt alone, lost and even agitated that I had spent so much time with them and now I have to go because of something I can't stop." Harris, in a basement tape, blamed his father for moving the family around, forcing Harris to "start out at the bottom of the ladder." Harris also added that kids would often mock his appearance.
The Harris family lived in rented accommodations for the first three years that they lived in the Littleton area. While Harris was in 7th grade, he met Klebold. In 1996, the Harris family purchased and settled at a house south of Columbine High School. Harris' older brother, Kevin, attended college at the University of Colorado. Harris' father took a job with Flight Safety Services Corporation and Harris' mother, a former homemaker, became a caterer.
Harris entered Columbine High School in 1995 as a freshman. Columbine had just gone through a major renovation and expansion. From all accounts, he had many friends and was left forward and mid-field on the Columbine soccer team for his freshman and sophomore year. According to one of his teammates, Josh Swanson, he said Harris was a "solid" soccer player, who enjoyed the sport a lot. Harris, during his freshman year, met Tiffany Typher, who was in his German class. Typher later recounted that Harris quickly wooed her. Harris asked her to homecoming and she accepted. After the event, it appeared that Typher was no longer interested in seeing Harris anymore, for reasons never disclosed. When Typher refused to socialize with Harris again, Harris staged a fake suicide, sprawling on the ground with fake blood splashed all over him. When Typher saw him she began to scream for help, at which point Harris and his friends began laughing, prompting Typher to storm off, shouting at Harris to get psychological help.
Dylan Klebold
Dylan Bennet Klebold was born on September 11, 1981, in Lakewood, Colorado, to Thomas and Sue Klebold. On the day after the shooting, Klebold's mother remembered that shortly after Klebold's birth, she described what felt like a shadow had been cast over her, warning her that this child would bring her great sorrow. "I think I still make of it what I did at that time. It was a passing feeling that went over very quickly, like a shadow." Sue said in an interview with Colorado Public Radio. Klebold was soon diagnosed with pyloric stenosis, a condition in which the opening between the stomach and small intestines thickens, causing severe vomiting during the first few months of life. Sue later assured herself that the feeling she had that her son would bring her immense sorrow, was that her son would be physically ill.
Klebold's parents had met when they were both studying art at Ohio State University. The two quickly became smitten. After they both graduated, they married in 1971, with their first child, Byron, being born in 1978. Thomas had initially worked as a sculptor, but then moved over to engineering to be more financially stable. Sue had worked in assistance services with disabled children. Furthermore, Klebold's parents were pacifists and attended a Lutheran church with their children. Both Klebold and his older brother attended confirmation classes in accordance with the Lutheran tradition. As had been the case with his older brother, Klebold was named after a renowned poet, Dylan Thomas.
At the family home, the Klebolds also observed some rituals in keeping with Klebold's maternal grandfather's Jewish heritage. Klebold attended Normandy Elementary School for first and second grade and then transferred to Governor's Ranch Elementary School where he was part of the Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students program for gifted children. According to reports, Klebold was exceptionally bright as a young child, although he appeared somewhat sheltered in elementary school. When he transitioned to Ken Caryl Middle School, he found it difficult. Fellow classmates recalled Klebold being painfully shy and quiet, often to an uncomfortable degree. Klebold's parents were unconcerned with the fact that Klebold found the changing of schools uneasy, as they assumed it was just regular behavior among young adolescents.
During his earlier school years, Klebold played baseball, soccer and T-ball. Klebold was in Cub Scouts with friend Brooks Brown, whom he was friends with since the first grade. Brown lived near the house Harris' parents had bought when they finally settled in Littleton, and rode the same bus as Harris. Shortly after, Klebold had met Harris and the pair quickly became best friends. Later, Harris introduced Klebold to his friend Nathan Dykeman, who also attended their middle school, and they all became a tight-knit group of friends.
Background
Personalities
Both Harris and Klebold worked together as cooks at a Blackjack Pizza, a mile south from Columbine High School. Harris was eventually promoted to shift leader. He and his group of friends were interested in computers, and were enrolled in a bowling class.
Some described Harris as charismatic, and others described him as nice and likable. However, Harris also often bragged about his ability to deceive others, once stating in a tape that he could make anyone believe anything. By his junior year, Harris was also known to be quick to anger, and threatened people with bombs. Classmates also related that Harris was fascinated by war, and wrote out violent fantasies about killing people he didn't like.
Klebold was described by his peers and adults as painfully shy. Klebold would often be fidgety whenever someone new talked to him, rarely opening up to people. Klebold was also exceptionally nervous in front of the opposite sex, sometimes avoiding a confrontation with girls altogether. In the last year of his life, many noted a change in Klebold's behavior. Unlike before, Klebold became short-tempered, often prone to sudden outbursts of anger.
Friendship
Much of the information on Harris and Klebold's friendship is unknown, on their interactions and conversations, aside from the Basement Tapes, of which only transcripts have been released. Harris and Klebold met at Ken Caryl Middle School during their seventh grade year. Over time, they became increasingly close, hanging out by often going out bowling, carpooling and playing the video game Doom over a private server they connected their personal computers to. By their junior year in high school, the boys were described as inseparable. Chad Laughlin, a close friend of Harris and Klebold, said that they always sat alone together at lunch and often kept to themselves.
A rumor eventually started that Harris and Klebold were gay and romantically involved, due to the time the pair spent together. It is unknown if they were aware of this rumor. Judy Brown believed Harris was more emotionally dependent on Klebold, who was more liked by the broader student population. In his journals, however, Klebold wrote that he felt that he was not accepted or loved by anyone. Due to these feelings, Klebold possibly sought validation from Harris. Klebold's mother believes Harris' rage, intermingled with Klebold's self-destructive personality, caused the boys to feed off of each other and enter in what eventually would become an unhealthy friendship.
Columbine High School
At Columbine High School, Harris and Klebold were active in school play productions, operated video productions and became computer assistants, maintaining the school's computer server. According to early accounts of the shooting, they were very unpopular students and targets of bullying. While sources do support accounts of bullying specifically directed toward Harris and Klebold, accounts of them being outcasts have been reported to be false, since both of them had a close knit group of friends.
Harris and Klebold were initially reported to be members of a clique that was called the "Trenchcoat Mafia", despite later confirmation that the pair had no connection to the group and furthermore did not appear in the group's photo in Columbine High's 1998 yearbook. Harris' father erroneously stated that his son was "a member of what they call the Trenchcoat Mafia" in a call he made on April 20, 1999. Klebold attended the high school prom three days before the shootings with a classmate named Robyn Anderson.
Harris and Klebold linked their personal computers on a network and played video games over the Internet. Harris created a set of levels for the game Doom, which later became known as the "Harris levels". The levels are downloadable over the internet through Doom WADs. Harris had a web presence under the handle "REB" (short for Rebel, a nod to the nickname of Columbine High's sports teams) and other online aliases, including "Rebldomakr", "Rebdoomer", and "Rebdomine". Klebold went by the names "VoDKa" and "VoDkA", seemingly inspired by the alcoholic drink. Harris had various websites that hosted Doom and Quake files, as well as team information for those with whom he gamed online. The sites openly espoused hatred for people in their neighborhood and the world in general. When the pair began experimenting with pipe bombs, they posted results of the explosions on the websites. The website was shut down by America Online after the shootings and was preserved for the FBI.
Initial legal encounters
On January 30, 1998, Harris and Klebold broke into a locked van to steal computers and other electronic equipment. An officer pulled over the duo driving away. Harris shortly after admitted to the theft. They were later charged with mischief, breaking and entering, trespassing, and theft. They both left good impressions on juvenile officers, who offered to expunge their criminal records if they agreed to attend a diversionary program which included community service and psychiatric treatment. Harris was required to attend anger management classes where, again, he made a favorable impression. The boys' probation officer discharged them from the program a few months ahead of schedule for good behavior. Of Harris, it was remarked that he was "a very bright individual who is likely to succeed in life", while Klebold was said to be intelligent, but "needs to understand that hard work is part of fulfilling a dream."
A couple of months later on April 30, Harris handed over the first version of a letter of apology he wrote to the owner of the van, which he completed the next month. In the letter, Harris expressed regret about his actions; however, in one of his journal entries dated April 12, he wrote: "Isn't america supposed to be the land of the free? how come, If im free, I cant deprive some fucking dumbshit from his possessions If he leaves them sitting in the front seat of his fucking van in plain sight in the middle of fucking nowhere on a fri-fucking-day night? Natural selection. Fucker should be shot. ".
Hitmen for Hire
In December 1998, Harris and Klebold made Hitmen for Hire, a video for a school project in which they swore, yelled at the camera, made violent statements, and acted out shooting and killing students in the hallways of Columbine High School. Both also displayed themes of violence in their creative writing projects; of a Doom-based story written by Harris on January 17, 1999, Harris' teacher said: "Yours is a unique approach and your writing works in a gruesome way — good details and mood setting."
Acquiring arms
Harris and Klebold were unable to legally purchase firearms due to them both being underage at the time. Klebold then enlisted Robyn Anderson, an 18-year-old Columbine student and old friend of Klebold's, to make a straw purchase of two shotguns and a Hi-Point carbine for the pair. In exchange for her cooperation with the investigation that followed the shootings, no charges were filed against Anderson. After illegally acquiring the weapons, Klebold sawed off his Savage 311-D 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun, shortening the overall length to approximately . Meanwhile, Harris's Savage-Springfield 12-gauge pump shotgun was sawn off to around .
The shooters also possessed a TEC-DC9 semi-automatic handgun, which had a long history. The manufacturer of the TEC-DC9 first sold it to Miami-based Navegar Incorporated. It was then sold to Zander's Sporting Goods in Baldwin, Illinois, in 1994. The gun was later sold to Thornton, Colorado firearms dealer, Larry Russell. In violation of federal law, Russell failed to keep records of the sale, yet he determined that the purchaser of the gun was twenty-one years of age or older. Two men, Mark Manes and Philip Duran, were convicted of supplying weapons to the two.
The bombs used by the pair varied and were crudely made from carbon dioxide canisters, galvanized pipe, and metal propane bottles. The bombs were primed with matches placed at one end. Both had striker tips on their sleeves. When they rubbed against the bomb, the match head would light the fuse. The weekend before the shootings, Harris and Klebold had purchased propane tanks and other supplies from a hardware store for a few hundred dollars. Several residents of the area claimed to have heard glass breaking and buzzing sounds from the Harris family's garage, which later was concluded to indicate they were constructing pipe bombs.
More complex bombs, such as the one that detonated on the corner of South Wadsworth Boulevard and Ken Caryl Avenue, had timers. The two largest bombs built were found in the school cafeteria and were made from small propane tanks. Only one of these bombs went off, only partially detonating. It was estimated that if any of the bombs placed in the cafeteria had detonated properly, the blast could have caused extensive structural damage to the school and would have resulted in hundreds of casualties.
Massacre
On April 20, 1999, just weeks before Harris and Klebold were both due to graduate, Brooks Brown, who was smoking a cigarette outside during lunch break, saw Harris arrive at school. Brown had severed his friendship with Harris a year earlier after Harris had thrown a chunk of ice at his car windshield; Brown reconciled with Harris just prior to the shooting. Brown approached Harris near his car and scolded him for skipping his morning classes, because Harris was always serious about schoolwork and being on time. Harris replied, "It doesn't matter anymore." Harris followed up a few seconds later, "Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home." Brown, who felt uneasy, quickly left the school grounds. At 11:19 am, he heard the first gunshots after he had walked some distance away from the school, and informed the police via a neighbor's cell phone.
By that time, Klebold had already arrived at the school in a separate car, and the two boys left two gym bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb, inside the cafeteria. Their original plans indicated that when these bombs detonated, Harris and Klebold would be camped out by their cars and shoot, stab and throw bombs at survivors of the initial explosion as they ran out of the school. At noon, this would be followed by bombs set up in the pair's cars detonating, killing first responders and other personnel. When these devices failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold launched a shooting attack against their classmates and teachers. It was the deadliest attack ever perpetrated at an American high school until the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on February 14, 2018. Harris was responsible for eight of the thirteen confirmed deaths (Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, teacher Dave Sanders, Steve Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Kelly Fleming, and Daniel Mauser), while Klebold was responsible for the remaining five (Kyle Velasquez, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, and Corey DePooter). There were 24 injured (21 of them by the shooters), most in critical condition.
Suicide
At 12:02 pm, Harris and Klebold returned to the library. Of the 56 library hostages, 34 remained unharmed, all of whom escaped after Harris and Klebold left the library initially. Investigators would later find that Harris and Klebold had enough ammunition to have killed them all. This was 20 minutes after their lethal shooting spree had ended, leaving 12 students dead, one teacher dying, and another 24 students and staff injured. Ten of their victims had been killed in the library. It is believed they came back to the library to watch their car bombs detonate, which had been set up to explode at noon. This did not happen, as the aforementioned bombs failed. Harris and Klebold went to the west windows and opened fire on the police outside. No one was injured in the exchange. Between three and six minutes later, they walked to the bookshelves near a table where Patrick Ireland lay badly wounded and coming in and out of consciousness. Student Lisa Kreutz, injured in the earlier library attack, was also in the room, unable to move.
By 12:08 pm, Harris and Klebold had killed themselves. In a subsequent interview, Kreutz recalled hearing a comment such as, "You in the library", around this time. Harris sat down with his back to a bookshelf and fired his shotgun through the roof of his mouth; Klebold went down on his knees and shot himself in the left temple with his TEC-9. An article by The Rocky Mountain News stated that Patti Nielson overheard them shout "One! Two! Three!" in unison, just before a loud boom. Nielson said that she had never spoken with either of the writers of the article, and evidence suggests otherwise. Just before shooting himself, Klebold lit a Molotov cocktail on a nearby table, underneath which Ireland was lying, which caused the tabletop to momentarily catch fire. Underneath the scorched film of material was a piece of Harris's brain matter, suggesting Harris had shot himself by this point.
Suggested rationales
There was controversy over whether Harris and Klebold should be memorialized. Some were opposed, saying that it glorified murderers, while others argued that Harris and Klebold were also victims. Atop a hill near Columbine High School, crosses were erected for Harris and Klebold along with those for the people they killed, but the father of victim Daniel Rohrbough cut them down, saying that murderers should not be memorialized in the same place as victims.
Overview
Harris and Klebold wrote some about how they would carry out the massacre, and less about why. Klebold penned a rough outline of plans to follow on April 20, and another slightly different one in a journal found in Harris's bedroom. In one entry on his computer, Harris referenced the Oklahoma City bombing, and they mentioned their wish to outdo it by causing the most deaths in US history. They also mentioned how they would like to leave a lasting impression on the world with this kind of violence. Much speculation occurred over the date chosen for their attack. The original intended date of the attack may have been April 19; Harris required more ammunition from Mark Manes, who did not deliver it until the evening of April 19.
Harris and Klebold were both avid fans of KMFDM, an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko. It was revealed that lyrics to KMFDM songs ("Son of a Gun", "Stray Bullet" and "Waste") were posted on Harris' website, and that the date of the massacre, April 20, coincided with both the release date of the album Adios and the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Harris noted the coincidence of the album's title and April release date in his journal. In response, KMFDM's Konietzko issued a statement that KMFDM was "against war, oppression, fascism and violence against others" and that "none of us condone any Nazi beliefs whatsoever".
An April 22, 1999, article in The Washington Post described Harris and Klebold:
They hated jocks, admired Nazis and scorned normalcy. They fancied themselves devotees of the Gothic subculture, even though they thrilled to the violence denounced by much of that fantasy world. They were white supremacists, but loved music by anti-racist rock bands.
The attack occurred on Hitler's birthday, which led to speculation in the media. Some people, such as Robyn Anderson, who knew the perpetrators, stated that the pair were not obsessed with Nazism nor did they worship or admire Hitler in any way. Anderson stated, in retrospect, that there were many things the pair did not tell friends. In his journal, Harris mentioned his admiration of what he imagined to be natural selection, and wrote that he would like to put everyone in a super Doom game and see to it that the weak die and the strong live. On the day of the massacre, Harris wore a white T-shirt with the words "Natural selection" printed in black.
Bullying
At the end of Harris' last journal entry, he wrote: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don't ... say, 'Well that's your fault,' because it isn't, you people had my phone number, and I asked and all, but no. No no no don't let the weird-looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo."
Klebold said on the Basement Tapes, "You've been giving us shit for years. You're fucking gonna pay for all the shit! We don't give a shit. Because we're gonna die doing it."
Accounts from various parents and school staffers describe bullying at the school as "rampant". Nathan Vanderau, a friend of Klebold, and Alisa Owen, Harris's eighth-grade science partner, reported that Harris and Klebold were constantly picked on. Vanderau noted that a "cup of fecal matter" was thrown at them. "People surrounded them in the commons and squirted ketchup packets all over them, laughing at them, calling them faggots", Brooks Brown says. "That happened while teachers watched. They couldn't fight back. They wore the ketchup all day and went home covered with it." In his book, No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine, Brown wrote that Harris was born with mild chest indent. This made him reluctant to take his shirt off in gym class, and other students would laugh at him.
"A lot of the tension in the school came from the class above us", Chad Laughlin states. "There were people fearful of walking by a table where you knew you didn't belong, stuff like that. Certain groups certainly got preferential treatment across the board. I caught the tail end of one really horrible incident, and I know Dylan told his mother that it was the worst day of his life." That incident, according to Laughlin, involved seniors pelting Klebold with "ketchup-covered tampons" in the commons. However, other commentators have disputed the theory that bullying was the motivating factor. Peter Langman also argues against bullying being the cause of the attack. Other researchers have concurred.
Journals and investigation
Harris began keeping a journal in April 1998, a short time after the pair was convicted of breaking into a van, for which each received ten months of juvenile intervention counseling and community service in January 1998. They began to formulate plans then, as reflected in their journals.
Harris wanted to join the United States Marine Corps, but his application was rejected shortly before the shootings because he was taking the drug fluvoxamine, an SSRI antidepressant, which he was required to take as part of court-ordered anger management therapy. Harris did not state in his application that he was taking any medications. According to the recruiting officer, Harris did not know about this rejection. Though some friends of Harris suggested that he had stopped taking the drug beforehand, the autopsy reports showed low therapeutic or normal (not toxic or lethal) blood-levels of Luvox (fluvoxamine) in his system, which would be around 0.0031–0.0087 mg/ml, at the time of death. After the shootings, opponents of contemporary psychiatry like Peter Breggin claimed that the psychiatric medications prescribed to Harris after his conviction may have exacerbated his aggressiveness.
Klebold entitled his journal, A Virtual Book: EXISTENCES. Klebold's first journal entry was March 31, 1997, over a year prior to when Harris began his own writings, and in it, he talks about his depression and suicidal thoughts, over two years prior to the massacre. For the rest of his writings, Klebold often wrote about his view that he and Harris were "god-like" and more highly evolved than every other human being, but his secret journal records the aforementioned self-loathing and suicidal intentions. Page after page was covered in hearts, as he was secretly in love with a Columbine student. Although both had difficulty controlling their anger, Klebold's anger had led to his being more prone to serious trouble than Harris. After their arrest, which both recorded as the most traumatic thing they had ever experienced, Klebold wrote a letter to Harris, saying how they would have so much fun getting revenge and killing police, and how his wrath from the January arrest would be "god-like". On the day of the massacre, Klebold wore a black T-shirt which had the word "WRATH" printed in red. It was speculated that revenge for the arrest was a possible motive for the attack, and that the pair planned on having a massive gun battle with police during the shooting. Klebold wrote that life was no fun without a little death, and that he would like to spend the last moments of his life in nerve-wracking twists of murder and bloodshed. He concluded by saying that he would kill himself afterward in order to leave the world that he hated and go to a better place. Klebold was described as being "hotheaded, but depressive and suicidal".
Some of the home-recorded videos, called "The Basement Tapes", have reportedly been destroyed by police. Harris and Klebold reportedly discussed their motives for the attacks in these videos and gave instructions in bomb making. Police cite the reason for withholding these tapes as an effort to prevent them from becoming "call-to-arms" and "how-to" videos that could inspire copycat killers. Some people have argued that releasing the tapes would be helpful, in terms of allowing psychologists to study them, which in turn could possibly help identify characteristics of future killers.
Media accounts
Initially, the shooters were believed to be members of a clique that called themselves the "Trench Coat Mafia", a small group of Columbine's self-styled outcasts who wore heavy black trench coats. Early reports described the members as also wearing German slogans and swastikas on their clothes. Additional media reports described the Trench Coat Mafia as a cult with ties to the Neo-Nazi movement which fueled a media stigma and bias against the Trench Coat Mafia. The Trench Coat Mafia was a group of friends who hung out together, wore black trench coats, and prided themselves on being different from the 'jocks' who had been bullying the members and who also coined the name Trench Coat Mafia. The trench coat inadvertently became the members' uniform after a mother of one of the members bought it as a present.
Investigation revealed that Harris and Klebold were only friends with one member of the group, Kristin Thiebault, and that most of the primary members of the Trench Coat Mafia had left the school by the time that Harris and Klebold committed the massacre. Most did not know the shooters, apart from their association with Thiebault, and none were considered suspects in the shootings or were charged with any involvement in the incident.
Marilyn Manson was blamed by the media in the wake of the Columbine shooting, and responded to criticism in an interview with Michael Moore, in which he was asked, "If you were to talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people in the community, what would you say to them if they were here right now?", to which he replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them—I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did", referring to people ignoring red flags that rose from Harris and Klebold prior to the shooting.
Psychological analysis
Although early media reports attributed the shootings to a desire for revenge on the part of Harris and Klebold for bullying that they received, subsequent psychological analysis indicated Harris and Klebold harbored serious psychological problems. Harris and Klebold were never diagnosed with any mental disorders, which is overwhelmingly uncommon in mass shooters. According to Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, the FBI's lead Columbine investigator and a clinical psychologist, Harris exhibited a pattern of grandiosity, contempt, and lack of empathy or remorse, distinctive traits of psychopaths that Harris concealed through deception. Fuselier adds that Harris engaged in mendacity not merely to protect himself, as Harris rationalized in his journal, but also for pleasure, as seen when Harris expressed his thoughts in his journal regarding how he and Klebold avoided prosecution for breaking into a van. Other leading psychiatrists concur that Harris was a psychopath.
According to psychologist Peter Langman, Klebold displayed signs of schizotypal personality disorder – he struck many people as odd due to his shy nature, appeared to have had disturbed thought processes and constantly misused language in unusual ways as evidenced by his journal. He appeared to have been delusional, viewed himself as "god-like", and wrote that he was "made a human without the possibility of BEING human." He was also convinced that others hated him and felt like he was being conspired against, even though according to many reports, Klebold was loved by his family and friends.
Lawsuits
In April 2001, the families of more than 30 victims were given shares in a $2,538,000 settlement by the families of the perpetrators, and the two men convicted of supplying the weapons used in the massacre. The Harrises and the Klebolds contributed $1,568,000 to the settlement from their own homeowners' policies, the Maneses contributed $720,000, and the Durans contributed $250,000. The Harrises and the Klebolds were ordered to guarantee an additional $32,000 be available against any future claims. The Maneses were ordered to hold $80,000 against future claims, and the Durans were ordered to hold $50,000.
One family had filed a $250-million lawsuit against the Harrises and Klebolds in 1999 and did not accept the 2001 settlement terms. A judge ordered the family to accept a $366,000 settlement in June 2003. In August 2003, the families of five other victims received undisclosed settlements from the Harrises and Klebolds.
Reaction of Sue Klebold
Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan Klebold, initially was in denial about Klebold's involvement in the massacre, believing he was tricked by Harris into doing it, among other things. Six months later, she saw the Basement Tapes made by Harris and Klebold, and acknowledged that Klebold was equally responsible for the killings. She spoke about the Columbine High School massacre publicly for the first time in an essay that appeared in the October 2009 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine. In the piece, Klebold wrote: "For the rest of my life, I will be haunted by the horror and anguish Dylan caused", and "Dylan changed everything I believed about myself, about God, about family, and about love." Stating that she had no clue of her son's intentions, she said, "Once I saw his journals, it was clear to me that Dylan entered the school with the intention of dying there." In Andrew Solomon's 2012 book Far from the Tree, she acknowledged that on the day of the massacre, when she discovered that Klebold was one of the shooters, she prayed he would kill himself. "I had a sudden vision of what he might be doing. And so while every other mother in Littleton was praying that her child was safe, I had to pray that mine would die before he hurt anyone else."
In February 2016, Klebold published a memoir, titled A Mother's Reckoning, about her experiences before and after the massacre. It was co-written by Laura Tucker and included an introduction by National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon. It received very favorable reviews, including from the New York Times Book Review. It peaked at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
On February 2, 2017, Klebold posted a TED Talk titled, "My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story." As of March 2021, the video has over 11.5 million views. The site listed Klebold's occupation as "activist", and stated: "Sue Klebold has become a passionate agent working to advance mental health awareness and intervention."
Legacy
ITV describes the legacy of Harris and Klebold as deadly, as they have inspired several instances of mass killings in the United States. Napa Valley Register have called the pair "cultural icons". Author of Columbine, Dave Cullen, called Harris and Klebold the fathers of the movement for disenfranchised youth. Harris and Klebold have also, as CNN referred to, left their inevitable mark on pop culture.
Copycats
The Columbine shooting influenced several subsequent school shootings, with many praising Harris and Klebold, referring to them as martyrs, heroes or Gods. In some cases, it has led to the closure of entire school districts. According to psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a legacy of the Columbine shootings is its "allure to disaffected youth".
Ralph Larkin examined twelve major school shootings in the US in the following eight years and found that in eight of those, "the shooters made explicit reference to Harris and Klebold." Larkin wrote that the Columbine massacre established a "script" for shootings. "Numerous post-Columbine rampage shooters referred directly to Columbine as their inspiration; others attempted to supersede the Columbine shootings in body count."
A 2015 investigation by CNN identified "more than 40 people ... charged with Columbine-style plots." A 2014 investigation by ABC News identified "at least 17 attacks and another 36 alleged plots or serious threats against schools since the assault on Columbine High School that can be tied to the 1999 massacre." Ties identified by ABC News included online research by the perpetrators into the Columbine shooting, clipping news coverage and images of Columbine, explicit statements of admiration of Harris and Klebold, such as writings in journals and on social media, in video posts, and in police interviews, timing planned to an anniversary of Columbine, plans to exceed the Columbine victim counts, and other ties. 60 mass shootings have been carried out, where the perpetrators had made at least a single reference to Harris and Klebold.
In 2015, journalist Malcolm Gladwell writing in The New Yorker magazine proposed a threshold model of school shootings in which Harris and Klebold were the triggering actors in "a slow-motion, ever-evolving riot, in which each new participant's action makes sense in reaction to and in combination with those who came before."
Fandom
Harris and Klebold have also spawned a fandom who call themselves "Columbiners", mostly apparent on blogging site Tumblr. While some just have a scholarly interest in the pair or the event, the vast majority of these individuals, mostly young women, express a sympathetic, or sometimes even sexual interest, in Harris and Klebold. There has been homoerotic art drawn of the two, fan fiction created on the pair's future together had they not gone through with the shooting and costumes created on the outfits Harris and Klebold sported the day of the shootings.
"I relate to their feelings of hopelessness, being angry and not being able to change it, and wanting to be accepted and appreciated", an 18 year old Tumblr user wrote on Harris and Klebold. "No one noticed they were struggling, and no one took their suffering seriously", added another user. News site, "All That's Interesting" said on the fandom, "Many of these Columbiners have no positive feelings about the massacre, but are instead focused on the troubled inner lives of its perpetrators because they see themselves in them." The fandom has received much criticism, by allegedly inspiring shooting plots by heroizing Harris and Klebold, such as the Halifax mass shooting plot.
In popular culture
The 2002 Michael Moore documentary film Bowling for Columbine focuses heavily on a perceived American obsession with handguns, its grip on Jefferson County, Colorado, and its role in the shooting.
The 2003 Gus Van Sant film Elephant depicts a fictional school shooting, though some of its details were based on the Columbine massacre, such as one scene in which one of the young killers walks into the evacuated school cafeteria and pauses to take a sip from a drink left behind, as Harris did during the shooting. In the film, the killers are called "Alex and Eric" after the actors who portray them, Alex Frost and Eric Deulen.
In the 2003 Ben Coccio film Zero Day, which was inspired by the Columbine shooting, the two shooters are played by Andre Kriegman and Cal Gabriel and called "Andre and Calvin" after their actors.
In 2004, the shooting was dramatized in the documentary Zero Hour, in which Harris and Klebold are played by Ben Johnson and Josh Young, respectively.
In 2005, game designer Danny Ledonne created a role-playing video game where the player assumes the role of Harris and Klebold during the massacre, entitled Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. The game received substantial media backlash for allegedly glorifying the pair's actions. The father of one victim remarked to the press that the game "disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent."
The 2016 biographical film I'm Not Ashamed, based on the journals of Rachel Scott, includes glimpses of Harris' and Klebold's lives and of interactions between them and other students at Columbine High School. Harris is played by David Errigo Jr. and Klebold is played by Cory Chapman.
See also
List of attacks related to secondary schools
List of school shootings in the United States
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Crimelibrary feature
Eric Harris at Find a Grave
Dylan Klebold at Find a Grave
1981 births
1999 suicides
20th-century American criminals
American arsonists
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
Articles containing video clips
Bombers (people)
Bullying and suicide
Columbine High School alumni
Columbine High School massacre
Criminal duos
Criminals from Colorado
Youth suicides
Joint suicides
Murder–suicides in Colorado
People from Littleton, Colorado
People from the Denver metropolitan area
Suicides by firearm in Colorado |
644791 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Mascolo | Joseph Mascolo | Joseph Peter Mascolo (March 13, 1929 – December 8, 2016) was an American musician and dramatic actor. During his long career, he acted in numerous motion pictures and television series. He was best known for playing Stefano DiMera in 1982 on NBC's soap opera Days of Our Lives and Massimo Marone in 2001 on CBS' soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.
Early life
Mascolo was born on March 13, 1929, and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. His parents, Anna Mascolo (née DeTuccio; 1910–2010) and Peter Mascolo (1901–2008), were immigrants from Naples, Italy, and had their 80th wedding anniversary shortly before his father died. Mascolo had one sister, Marie LaVoie. He attended the United States Military Academy after graduating high school. Mascolo attended the University of Miami. To support himself financially, he studied acting under famed acting coach Stella Adler in New York City. He originally was trained in classical music and opera.
Career
Theatre
Mascolo was in the 1962 production of Night Life as Kazar and the understudy of Neville Brand. He was in the 1966 production of Dinner at Eight as Ricci. Mascolo was in the 1969 production of The Time of Your Life as Blick. His final theatrical appearance was in 1972's That Championship Season as Phil Romano.
Film
Mascolo's first film appearance was in 1968's Hot Spur as Carlo. He was in 1972's neo-noir action crime–drama film Shaft's Big Score! as Gus Mascola. Mascolo was in 1973's The Spook Who Sat by the Door and 1978's Jaws 2 as Len Peterson. He was in 1981's Sharky's Machine as JoJo Tipps and 1982's Yes, Giorgio Mascolo's last film appearance was in 1986's Heat as Baby.
Television
Mascolo was best known in the recurring role of Stefano DiMera on Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1985, returning briefly in 1988, again from 1993 to 2001, and making appearances again since 2007 until Stefano's death in 2016, making his final appearance on February 9, 2017, airing 2 months after his death, and won three Soap Opera Digest Awards. He has also played a wide range of roles on many different series including (but not limited to) a Stefano-like villain named Nicholas Van Buren on General Hospital, and Carlos Alvarez on Santa Barbara. Before achieving his fame, he was seen in the earlier soap operas Where the Heart Is and From These Roots. He also made primetime television appearances on All in the Family, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Lou Grant and The Rockford Files.
Mascolo portrayed Massimo Marone on CBS's The Bold and the Beautiful beginning August 2001. He decided not to renew his contract with the show in July 2006, due to a lack of storyline and decided to return to Days of Our Lives, where his character Stefano DiMera was resurrected after six years.
Mascolo also appeared in The Incredible Hulk in October 1979, as Mr. Arnold in the episode "Brain Child". 10 years later, he would appear again in NBC's The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, as Albert G. Tendelli, a police confidant of Daredevil.
He also appeared in an episode of Hart to Hart on 1/3/84 as villan Mr. Rhodes.
Personal life and death
Mascolo married Rose Maimone in 1953. Together they had a son named Peter. Maimone died in 1986. In 2005, he married his second wife, Patricia Schultz. In January 2016, Mascolo told Soap Opera Digest that he had suffered from a stroke in the spring of 2015. "During my rehab, I thought this would be a good time for Stefano to leave."
Mascolo died on December 8, 2016, in Santa Clarita, California at the age of 87 after years of battling Alzheimer's disease. Mascolo was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).
Theatre
Filmography
Film
Television
References
Sources
External links
1929 births
2016 deaths
American male film actors
American male soap opera actors
American male television actors
American people of Italian descent
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Male actors from Connecticut
People from West Hartford, Connecticut
University of Miami alumni
Military personnel from Connecticut
Deaths from Alzheimer's disease
Neurological disease deaths in California |
1063371 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Massino | Joseph Massino | Joseph Charles Massino (born January 10, 1943) is an American former mobster. He was a member of the Mafia and boss of the Bonanno crime family from 1991 until 2004, when he became the first boss of one of the Five Families in New York City to turn state's evidence.
Massino was a protégé of Philip Rastelli, who took control of the Bonanno family in 1973. Rastelli spent most of his reign in and out of prison, but was able to get the assassination of Carmine Galante, a mobster vying for power, approved in 1979. Originally a truck hijacker, Massino secured his own power after arranging two 1981 gang murders, first a triple murder of three rebel captains, then his rival Dominick Napolitano. In 1991, while Massino was in prison for a 1986 labor racketeering conviction, Rastelli died and Massino succeeded him. Upon his release the following year, he set about rebuilding a family that had been in turmoil for almost a quarter of a century. By the dawn of the new millennium, he was reckoned as the most powerful Mafia leader in the nation. Massino became known as "The Last Don", the only full-fledged New York boss of his time who was not in prison.
In July 2004, Massino was convicted in a RICO case based on the testimony of several cooperating made men, including Massino's disgruntled underboss and brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale. He was also facing the death penalty if convicted in a separate murder trial due to be held later that year, but after agreeing to testify against his former associates, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for both indictments in 2005. Massino testified twice for the government, helping to win a murder conviction against his acting boss Vincent Basciano in 2011, and was resentenced to time served in 2013, though he will be on supervised release for the rest of his life.
Early years
Joseph Massino was born on January 10, 1943, in New York City. He was one of three sons of Neapolitan-American Anthony and Adeline Massino. Raised in Maspeth, Queens, Massino has admitted to being a juvenile delinquent by the age of 12 and claimed that at 14 he ran away from home to Florida. He dropped out of Grover Cleveland High School in tenth grade.
Massino first met his future wife Josephine Vitale in 1956, and married her in 1960. The couple had three daughters. Massino also befriended Josephine's brother, Salvatore Vitale, who, after briefly serving in the Army, became one of Massino's most trusted allies. While athletic in youth, Massino was an avid cook, and grew overweight in adulthood. His weight gained him the nickname "Big Joey", and during a 1987 racketeering trial, when he asked FBI agent Joseph Pistone who was to play him in a film adaptation of his undercover work, Pistone joked that they could not find anyone fat enough. By 2004, Massino was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure as well.
After he turned state's evidence, Massino claimed his first murder victim was a Bonanno crime family associate named Tommy Zummo, whom he shot dead some time in the 1960s. The killing aroused the ire of Maspeth-based Bonanno caporegime Philip Rastelli, but he remained unaware of Massino's participation, and a nephew of Rastelli ultimately helped Massino become his protégé. Rastelli would set Massino up as a lunch wagon operator as part of his "Workmen's Mobile Lunch Association", an effective protection racket; after paying a kickback to Rastelli in the form of membership dues, Massino was assured no competition where he operated.
Bonanno crime family
Rise to power
By the late 1960s, Massino was a Bonanno associate. He led a successful truck hijacking crew, with the assistance of his brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale and carjacker Duane Leisenheimer, while fencing the stolen goods and running numbers using the lunch wagon as a front. He also befriended another mob hijacker, future Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. Increasingly prosperous, Massino opened his own catering company, J&J Catering, which became another front for his activities. In 1973, boss Natale Evola died. On February 23, 1974, at a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan, the Commission named Massino's mentor, Rastelli as boss. On April 23, 1976, Rastelli was convicted of extortion, and on August 27, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In his absence Carmine Galante, a former consigliere and convicted drug trafficker, seized control of the Bonannos as unofficial acting boss.
In 1975, Massino and Vitale participated in the murder of Vito Borelli, who Massino claimed was primarily executed by Gotti at the behest of Paul Castellano of the Gambino crime family. The Borelli hit was significant for Massino in that he "made his bones"—proved his loyalty to the Mafia by killing on its behalf—and put him close to becoming a made man, a full member, in the Bonanno family. Massino also arranged the murder of one of his hijackers, Joseph Pastore, in 1976, after having Vitale borrow $9,000 from him on his behalf. While later acquitted of the crime, both Vitale and Massino would admit to participation after turning state's evidence.
In March 1975, Massino was arrested along with of one of his hijackers, Raymond Wean, and charged with conspiracy to receive stolen goods. He was scheduled to go on trial in 1977, but the charges were dropped after he successfully argued that he had not been properly mirandized, disqualifying statements Massino gave to police from being used in trial.
On June 14, 1977, Massino was inducted into the Bonanno family along with Anthony Spero, Joseph Chilli Jr. and a group of other men in a ceremony conducted by Carmine Galante. He worked as a soldier in James Galante's crew, and later worked in Philip "Phil Lucky" Giaccone's crew. Massino nevertheless remained loyal to Rastelli, then vying to oust Galante despite his imprisonment. Fearing Galante wanted him dead for insubordination, Massino delivered a request to the Commission, the governing body of the American Mafia, on Rastelli's behalf to have Galante killed. The hit was approved and executed on July 12, 1979; Rastelli subsequently took full control of the family and rewarded Massino's loyalty by promoting him to capo.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Massino ran his crew from the J&S Cake social club, a property just behind J&J Catering. The building was seized in 1988 during a crackdown on the Bonannos' gambling activities.
Three capos and Napolitano murders
Following the Galante hit, Massino began jockeying for power with Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano, another Rastelli loyalist capo. Both men were themselves threatened by another faction seeking to depose the absentee boss led by capos Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, Dominick "Big Trin" Trincera and Philip Giaccone. The Commission initially tried to maintain neutrality, but in 1981, Massino got word from his informants that the three capos were stocking up on automatic weapons and planning to kill the Rastelli loyalists within the Bonanno family to take complete control. Massino turned to Colombo crime family boss Carmine Persico and Gambino boss Paul Castellano for advice; they told him to act immediately.
Massino, Napolitano and Gerlando Sciascia, a Sicilian-born capo linked to the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, arranged a meeting at a Brooklyn social club with the three capos for May 5, 1981. They had four gunmen, including Vitale and Bonanno-affiliated Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto, hiding in a closet to ambush them. When Trinchera, Giaccone and Indelicato arrived with Frank Lino to meet Massino, they were shot to death, with Massino himself stopping Indelicato from escaping. Lino escaped unscathed by running out the door. The hit further improved Massino's prestige, but was marred by both Lino's escape and the discovery of Indelicato's body on May 28.
Massino quickly won Lino over to his side, but Indelicato's son, Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato, vowed revenge. Napolitano assigned associate Donnie Brasco, who he hoped to make a made man, to kill Indelicato. "Brasco", however, was in fact an undercover FBI agent named Joseph Pistone; shortly after the hit was ordered, Pistone's assignment was ended and Napolitano was informed of their infiltration.
Already skeptical of Napolitano's support of "Brasco", Massino was deeply disturbed by the breach of security when he learned of the agent's true identity. Vitale would later testify that this was the reason Massino subsequently decided to murder Napolitano as well; as he would later quote Massino, "I have to give him a receipt for the Donnie Brasco situation." In his own testimony, Massino instead claimed Napolitano was targeted for trying to take over the Bonannos himself. On August 17, the former renegade Frank Lino and Steven Cannone drove Napolitano to the house of Ronald Filocomo, a Bonanno family associate, for a meeting. Napolitano was greeted by captain Frank Coppa, then thrown down the stairs to the house's basement by Lino and shot to death. Napolitano's body was discovered the following year.
Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, who helped Pistone formally become a Bonanno associate, was also targeted, but was arrested en route to the meeting where he was expected to be murdered. On February 18, 1982, Anthony Mirra, the soldier who first "discovered" Pistone, was assassinated on Massino's orders. Mirra had gone into hiding upon Pistone's exposure but was ultimately betrayed and murdered by his protégé and cousin, Joseph D'Amico.
Fugitive and Bonventre murder
On November 23, 1981, based on information gained by Pistone's infiltration, six Bonanno mobsters, including the then-missing Napolitano, were indicted on racketeering charges and conspiracy in "the three capos" hit.
In March 1982, Massino was tipped off by a Colombo-associated FBI insider that he was about to be indicted and went into hiding in Pennsylvania with Leisenheimer. On March 25, 1982, Massino was also charged with conspiracy to murder Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera and truck hijacking. In hiding, Massino was able to see the prosecution's strategy and better plan his defense as well as eventually face trial without association with other mobsters. Pistone later speculated Massino also feared retaliation upon the revelation that his associate, Raymond Wean, had turned state's evidence. Massino was visited by many fellow mobsters, including Gotti, and Vitale would secretly deliver cash to support him.
On April 21, 1983, Rastelli was paroled, and he and Massino ordered the murder of Bonanno soldier Cesare Bonventre. Still a fugitive, Massino summoned Vitale, Louis Attanasio and James Tartaglione to his hideout and gave them the order. By this time, even though Rastelli was still officially head of the family, Massino was considered by most mobsters to be the family's street boss and field commander in all but name, as well as Rastelli's heir apparent. According to Vitale, Massino had Bonventre killed for giving him no support when he was in hiding.
In April 1984, Bonventre was called to a meeting with Rastelli in Queens. He was picked up by Vitale and Attanasio and driven to a garage. En route, Attanasio shot Bonventre twice in the head but only wounded him; he would kill Bonventre with two more shots when they reached their destination. The task of disposing of Bonventre's corpse was handed to Gabriel Infanti, who promised Vitale that Bonventre's remains would disappear forever. However, after a tipoff, the remains were discovered on April 16, 1984, in a warehouse in Garfield, New Jersey, stuffed into two 55-gallon glue drums.
For his part in the hit, Massino had Vitale initiated into the Bonanno family.
1986 conviction and 1987 acquittal
Through Gotti associate Angelo Ruggiero, Massino was able to meet with defense attorney John Pollok in 1984 to negotiate his surrender. He finally turned himself in on July 7 and was released on $350,000 bail. That year, Massino and Salvatore Vitale secured no-show jobs with the Long Island based King Caterers in exchange for protecting them from Lucchese extortion.
In 1985, Massino was indicted twice more, first as a co-conspirator with Rastelli in a labor racketeering case for controlling the Teamsters Local 814, then with a conspiracy charge for the Pastore murder that was added to the original three capos indictment. The second indictment also charged Vitale as a co-conspirator in the hijacking cases.
The labor racketeering trial began in April 1986, with Massino as one of 12 defendants including Rastelli and former underboss Nicholas Marangello. While Massino protested in confidence to other mobsters he never had the opportunity to profit from the racket, he was implicated by both Pistone and union official Anthony Gilberti, and on October 15, 1986, was found guilty of racketeering charges for accepting kickbacks on the Bonannos' behalf. On January 16, 1987, Massino was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, his first prison term. Rastelli, also convicted and in poor health during the trial, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Around this time, Massino was believed to be the Bonanno family's official underboss. With Rastelli in declining health, Massino was also reckoned as the operating head of the family, though consigliere Anthony "Old Man" Spero was nominally acting boss.
In April 1987, Massino and Vitale went on trial for truck hijacking and conspiracy to commit the triple murder, defended by Samuel H. Dawson and Bruce Cutler respectively. Prosecutor Michael Chertoff, describing Massino's rise in his opening statements, would characterize him as the "Horatio Alger of the mob." Raymond Wean and Joseph Pistone testified against Massino, but both proved unable to conclusively link Massino with any of the murder charges. On June 3, while both men were convicted on hijacking charges, they were cleared of the murder conspiracy charges. Further, the only proven criminal acts took place outside the RICO act's five-year statute of limitations; without evidence that the "criminal enterprise" was still active in this timeframe the jury returned a special verdict clearing Massino and Vitale of these charges as well.
During Massino's imprisonment at Talladega Federal Prison for his 1986 conviction, Vitale functioned as his messenger, effectively becoming co-acting boss alongside Spero. On Massino's orders, Vitale organized the murder of Gabriel Infanti, who had also botched a 1982 hit on Anthony Gilberti and was suspected of being an informant.
Bonanno boss
The family regroups
During his meetings with Massino in prison, Vitale, on behalf of the Bonannos' capos, urged his brother-in-law to become boss in name as well as in fact. Rastelli had spent all but two years of his reign behind bars, and many felt Massino would bring the family stability. Massino was reluctant to take over as long as Rastelli was alive. Not only was he respectful of Rastelli's sponsorship of his Mafia career, but Mafia tradition dictates that a boss keeps his title for life unless he abdicates. However, in the spring of 1991, Massino ordered Vitale to "make me boss" as soon as Rastelli died; Rastelli died on June 24, 1991. A few days after his funeral, Massino instructed Vitale to call a meeting of the family's capos, and Massino was acclaimed as boss.
Massino was granted two years' supervised release on November 13, 1992. During that time, he could not associate with convicted mafiosi. To get around this restriction, Massino named Vitale underboss and retained him as his messenger for the duration of his supervised release. While the FBI suspected Vitale was a mafioso, he had never been convicted of a Mafia-related crime. The FBI would thus have no reason to be suspicious of him associating with Massino since they were brothers-in-law. He returned to his job at King Caterers, and in 1996 became co-owner of Casablanca, a well-reviewed Maspeth Italian restaurant.
Massino was 48 years old at the time of his accession, and knew that he potentially had a long reign ahead of him. With this in mind, he was determined to avoid the pitfalls that landed other Mafia bosses in prison. Inspired by Genovese boss Vincent Gigante, Massino forbade his men from saying his name out loud due to FBI surveillance. Instead, they were to touch their ears when referring to him. Massino gained the nickname "The Ear" because of this. Massino took a great number of precautions in regards to security and the possibility of anything incriminating being picked up on a wiretap. He closed the family's longtime social clubs. He also arranged family meetings to be conducted in remote locations within the United States. In some cases, he held meetings in foreign countries, and had his capos bring their wives along so they could be passed off as vacations. Remembering how Pistone's infiltration had damaged the family, he also decreed that all prospective made men had to have a working relationship with an incumbent member for at least eight years before becoming made, in hopes of ensuring new mafiosi were as reliable as possible. Unusually for bosses of his era, he actively encouraged his men to have their sons made as well. In Massino's view, this would make it less likely that a capo would turn informer, since if that happened the defector's son would face almost certain death.
To minimize the damage from informants or undercover investigations Massino decentralized the family's organization. He created a clandestine cell system for his crews, forbidding them from contacting one another and avoiding meeting their capos. He would instead create a new committee that would relay his orders to the crews. In contrast to his contemporaries, particularly the publicity-friendly Gotti and the conspicuous feigned insanity of Gigante, Massino himself was also able to operate with a relatively low public profile; both Pistone and mob writer Jerry Capeci would consequently refer to Massino as the "last of the old-time gangsters."
A side effect of these reforms was the reduction of Vitale, in his own words, to "a figurehead." By the time of Massino's release the Bonanno family had grown tired of Vitale, regarding him as greedy and overstepping his authority. In the new structure of the family, Vitale lost the underboss's usual role as a go-between for the boss, as well as the share of the family's profits those duties entailed, and Massino made it clear to Vitale his unpopularity was a factor in these changes. Vitale remained loyal, however, and helped Massino organize the March 18, 1999 murder of Gerlando Sciascia. Massino indicated to fellow mobsters that Sciascia was killed for feuding with fellow Massino-confidant capo Anthony Graziano, accusing him of using cocaine, while in his own testimony Massino claimed Sciascia was killed for killing another mobster's son. Sciascia's body was not covertly buried but instead left to be discovered in a street in the Bronx, an attempt to make the hit look like a botched drug deal rather than a Mafia-ordered hit, and Massino had his capos attend Sciascia's funeral.
Shortly after becoming boss, Massino announced that his men should no longer consider themselves as part of the Bonanno family. Instead, he renamed it the Massino family, after himself. Like many mafiosi, he was angered at family namesake Joseph Bonanno's tell-all autobiography, A Man of Honor, and regarded it as a violation of the code of omertà. He told Vitale that in his view, "Joe Bonanno disrespected the family by ratting." The new name was first disclosed after Massino was indicted in 2003 and did not catch on outside the Mafia.
Relations with other families
Before Massino became boss, John Gotti was one of his closest allies. Massino had backed Gotti in his plot to take over the Gambino family, and as Gambino boss, Gotti tried to get Massino a seat on the Commission as the Bonannos' acting boss. Gotti was reportedly infuriated that Massino had been officially promoted without him being consulted, and Massino would later testify he believed Gotti conspired with Vitale to kill him. Gotti, however, was marginalized by his 1992 racketeering and murder conviction and consequent life imprisonment. Massino, for his own part, was angered at Gotti's high public profile and later criticized Gotti for killing Gotti's predecessor, Paul Castellano. Massino also had a poor relationship with Vincent Gigante, who had backed the opposition to Rastelli and blocked Gotti's attempts to bring Massino onto the Commission.
The Bonanno family had been in decline for the better part of the last quarter century since Joe Bonanno's ouster in the 1960s, and it was kicked off the Commission altogether following Pistone's infiltration. By the late 1990s, the situation was reversed and the Bonanno family was now reckoned as the most powerful crime family in New York and the nation, in no small part because Massino was the only full-fledged New York boss who was still on the streets. As it turned out, being thrown off the Commission actually worked in the Bonannos' favor; they were the only family whose leadership wasn't decimated in the Mafia Commission Trial. Wary of surveillance, Massino generally avoided meeting with members of other Mafia families and encouraged his crews to operate independently as well. In January 2000, however, Massino did preside over an informal Commission meeting with the acting bosses of the other four families. As the most powerful Mafia leader in both New York and the nation, Massino was in a position to make general policies for the Five Families. Under his direction, the Commission tightened qualifications to become a made man, requiring candidates have full Italian descent (previously having an Italian-American father was the minimum requirement) and imposed restrictions on initiating associates convicted on drug charges.
According to Capeci, the murder of Sciascia soured relations between the Bonanno and Rizzuto families. Originally considered merely a Canadian Bonanno crew, the Rizzutos responded by taking even less heed from New York.
Run-up to prosecution
At the beginning of his reign as boss, Massino enjoyed the benefit of limited FBI attention. In 1987, with the Bonannos weakened, the FBI merged its Bonanno squad with its Colombo family squad, and this squad was initially preoccupied with the Colombos' third internal war. Another dedicated Bonanno squad would be established in 1996.
The Bonanno squad's chief, Jack Stubing, was well aware of the measures Massino had taken to avoid scrutiny. He therefore decided to go after Massino with a rear-guard action. He convinced his bosses to lend him a pair of forensic accountants normally used in fraud investigations, believing that they could easily pinpoint conspirators in the family's money laundering schemes. Stubing believed that the threat of long prison sentences would be sufficient to get any conspirators to turn informer, and thus make it easier to trace how the money flowed to Massino. In the meantime, the FBI also targeted other members of the Bonanno administration. In 1995, consigliere Anthony Spero was sentenced to two years' imprisonment after being convicted of loansharking, then to life imprisonment in 2002 for murder. Graziano would assume Spero's duties, but he too plead guilty to racketeering charges in December 2002 and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Vitale would also plead guilty to loansharking charges in June 2002. Vitale was not immediately sentenced, and was placed under house arrest in the interim, but the relatively low maximum sentence he was eligible for led Massino to wrongly suspect he was cooperating with law enforcement. He secretly ordered that, if he was arrested, Vitale was to be "taken down"—demoted or killed.
Until 2002, the Bonannos had been the only family in the modern history of the New York Mafia (i. e., since the Castellammarese War) to have never had a made man turn informant or government witness. Massino used this as a point of pride to rally his crime family. That year Frank Coppa, convicted on fraud and facing further charges from the FBI's forensic accounting investigation, became the first to flip. He was followed shortly by acting underboss Richard Cantarella, a participant in the Mirra murder, who was facing racketeering and murder charges. A third, Joseph D'Amico, subsequently turned state's evidence with the knowledge that Cantarella could implicate him for murder as well. All of these defections left Massino, at last, vulnerable to serious charges.
2004 conviction
On January 9, 2003, Massino was arrested and indicted, alongside Vitale, Frank Lino and capo Daniel Mongelli, in a comprehensive racketeering indictment. The charges against Massino himself included ordering the 1981 murder of Napolitano. Massino was denied bail, and Vincent Basciano took over as acting boss in his absence. Massino hired David Breitbart, an attorney he had originally wanted to represent him in his 1987 trial, for his defense.
Three more Bonanno made men would choose to cooperate before Massino came to trial. The first was James Tartaglione; anticipating he would shortly be indicted as well he went to the FBI and agreed to wear a wire while he remained free. The second was Salvatore Vitale. In custody Massino again put out the word, to a receptive Bonanno family, that he wanted Vitale killed. After learning of Massino's earlier plans to kill his brother-in-law from Coppa and Cantarella, prosecutors informed Vitale. Vitale was already dissatisfied by the lack of support he and his family received from Massino after his arrest. On the day he was arraigned with Massino, Vitale decided to flip as soon as it was safe to do so; he formally reached a deal with prosecutors in February. He was followed in short order by Lino, knowing Vitale could implicate him in murder as well. Also flipping was longtime Bonanno associate Duane Leisenheimer, concerned for his safety after an investigator for Massino's defense team visited to find out if he intended to flip.
With these defections, Massino was slapped with a superseding indictment charging him with seven additional murders: the three capos (this time for participation in the murder itself rather than conspiracy), Mirra, Bonventre, Infanti and Sciascia. Of particular interest was the Sciascia hit, which took place after a 1994 amendment to racketeering laws that allowed the death penalty for murder in aid of racketeering.
Massino's trial began on May 24, 2004, with judge Nicholas Garaufis presiding and Greg D. Andres and Robert Henoch heading the prosecution. He now faced 11 RICO counts for seven murders (due to the prospect of prosecutors seeking the death penalty for the Sciascia murder, that case was severed to be tried separately), arson, extortion, loansharking, illegal gambling, and money laundering. By this time, Time magazine had dubbed Massino as "the Last Don", in reference to his status as the only New York boss not serving a prison sentence at that point. The name stuck.
Despite a weak start, with opening witness Anthony Gilberti unable to recognize Massino in the courtroom, the prosecution would establish its case to link Massino with the charges in the indictment through an unprecedented seven major turncoats, including the six turned made men. Vitale, the last of the six to take the stand, was of particular significance. He had spent most of his three decades in the Mafia as a close confidant to Massino, and his closeness to his brother in law allowed him to cover Massino's entire criminal history in his testimony. Brietbart's defense rested primarily on cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, with his only witness being an FBI agent to challenge Vitale's reliability. His defense was also unusual in that he made no attempt to contest that Massino was the Bonanno boss, instead stressing the murders in the case took place before he took over and that Massino himself "showed a love of life...because the murders ceased." Vitale had admitted to 11 murders, but for his cooperation, was sentenced to time served in October 2010, and entered the witness protection program.
After deliberating for five days, the jury found Massino guilty of all 11 counts on July 30, 2004. His sentencing was initially scheduled for October 12, and he was expected to receive a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. The jury also approved the prosecutors' recommended $10 million forfeiture of the proceeds of his reign as Bonanno boss on the day of the verdict.
Turning state's evidence
Immediately after his July 30 conviction, as court was adjourned, Massino requested a meeting with Judge Garaufis, where he made his first offer to cooperate. He did so in hopes of sparing his life; he was facing the death penalty if found guilty of Sciascia's murder. Indeed, one of John Ashcroft's final acts as Attorney General was to order federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Massino. Massino thus stood to be the first Mafia boss to be executed for his crimes, and the first mob boss to face the death penalty since Lepke Buchalter was executed in 1944.
Massino subsequently claimed he decided to turn informer due to the prospect of his wife and mother having to forfeit their houses to the government. Mob authors and journalists Anthony D. DeStefano and Selwyn Raab both consider the turning of so many made men as a factor in disillusioning Massino with Cosa Nostra, the former also assuming Massino had decided to flip "long before the verdict". Massino was the first sitting boss of a New York crime family to turn state's evidence, and the second in the history of the American Mafia to do so (Philadelphia crime family boss Ralph Natale had flipped in 1999 when facing drug charges). It also marked the second time in a little more than a year that a New York boss had reached a plea bargain; Gigante had pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in 2003 after prosecutors unmasked his long charade of feigning insanity.
At his advice, that October the FBI revisited the Queens mob graveyard where Alphonse Indelicato's body was found, and unearthed the bodies of Trinchera and Giaccone as well. They also hoped to find the body of John Favara, who accidentally killed Gotti's son, and the body of Tommy DeSimone. Massino also reported that Vincent Basciano, arrested in November, had conspired to kill prosecutor Greg Andres, but after failing a polygraph test regarding the discussion he agreed to wear a wire when meeting the acting boss in jail. While Massino was unable to extract an unambiguous confession regarding Andres, he did record Basciano freely admit to ordering the murder of associate Randolph Pizzolo.
By the end of January 2005, when Basciano was indicted for the Pizzolo murder, Massino was identified by news sources as the then-anonymous fellow mobster who secretly recorded his confession, to the public disgust of Massino's family. Further confirmation of Massino's defection came in February as he was identified as the source for the graveyard, then in May when the Justice Department dropped the threat of the death penalty regarding the Sciascia case. In a hearing on June 23, 2005, Massino finalized his deal and pleaded guilty to ordering the Sciascia murder. For this and his 2004 conviction he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, with a possible reduction depending on his service as a witness. That same day Josephine Massino negotiated a settlement to satisfy the forfeiture claim, keeping the homes of herself and Massino's mother as well as some rental properties while turning over, among other assets, a cache of $7 million and hundreds of gold bars both of which were kept in his Howard Beach home, and the Casablanca restaurant.
Massino was not replaced as Bonanno boss until 2013 when Michael Mancuso, who had replaced Basciano as acting boss, was reported to have formally assumed the title.
Massino's testimony and release
Massino was conspicuously absent from the prosecution witnesses at the 2006 racketeering trial of Basciano, the prosecution deciding he was not yet needed; he was also expected to testify against Vito Rizzuto regarding his role in the three capos murder, but the Montreal boss accepted a plea bargain in May 2007 before Rizzuto's case went to trial. He finally made his debut as a witness at Basciano's trial for the murder of Randolph Pizzolo in April 2011; Massino's testified both during the trial itself and, after Basciano was convicted, on behalf of the prosecution's unsuccessful attempt to impose the death penalty. During his testimony Massino noted, as a result of his cooperation, "I’m hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel."
Massino testified again in the 2012 extortion trial of Genovese capo Anthony Romanello, primarily to provide background as an expert on the American Mafia. While Massino had not worked closely with Romanello, prosecutors decided to use him after another mobster-turned-witness was dropped; the case ended in an acquittal. Massino had also been considered as a witness in the 2013 murder trial of Colombo acting boss Joel Cacace, but was dropped after he was unable to fully remember the meeting where he claimed Cacace indicated his involvement in the murder of NYPD officer Ralph Dols.
In June 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a request to Judge Garaufis for a reduction of Massino's sentence; prosecutors cited both the impact of Massino's unprecedented cooperation and his failing health as reasons for a reduction of his sentence. Garaufis granted their request on July 10, resentencing Massino to time served and supervised release for the remainder of his life.
References
Sources
External links
Joseph Massino – Biography.com
The Bonanno Family – Crime Library
1943 births
American Mafia cooperating witnesses
American crime bosses
American gangsters of Italian descent
American money launderers
American people convicted of murder
Bonanno crime family
Bosses of the Bonanno crime family
Capo dei capi
Gangsters sentenced to life imprisonment
Federal Bureau of Investigation informants
Living people
People convicted of murder by the United States federal government
People convicted of racketeering
People from Maspeth, Queens |
1220101 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Maxwell | Joseph Maxwell | Joseph "Joe" Maxwell, (10 February 1896 – 6 July 1967) was an Australian soldier, writer, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of British and Commonwealth armed forces. Often described as Australia's second most decorated soldier of the First World War, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 8 February 1915, and served at Gallipoli before being transferred to the Western Front. In just over twelve months he was commissioned and decorated four times for his bravery.
An apprentice boilermaker before the war, Maxwell returned to Australia in 1919 and worked as a gardener. In 1932, he published Hell's Bells and Mademoiselles, a book written in collaboration with Hugh Buggy about his war experiences. Attempting to enlist for service during the Second World War, Maxwell was rejected on the grounds of his age before enlisting under an alias in Queensland; his identity was discovered, and after a short period in a training position, he sought discharge. In 1967, aged 71, he died of a heart attack.
Early life
Maxwell was born in the Sydney suburb of Forest Lodge, New South Wales, on 10 February 1896 to John Maxwell, a labourer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Stokes. A member of the Senior Australian Army Cadets for three years, he worked as an apprentice boilermaker at an engineering works near Newcastle upon leaving school. For two years, he served as a member of the Citizens Military Forces, and on 6 February 1915, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force enticed by the prospects of better pay.
First World War
Training, February 1915 to Western Front, May 1917
Having received his initial training at Liverpool Camp, Maxwell was allotted to "B" Company of the 18th Battalion as a lance corporal, and embarked for Egypt aboard HMAT Ceramic on 25 May 1915. The 18th Battalion trained in Egypt from mid-June until mid-August, before proceeding to Gallipoli, where they landed at Anzac Cove on 22 August. The battalion fought its first battle on the same day, staging an attack on the Turkish-held Hill 60. The engagement lasted until 29 August, with half of the battalion becoming casualties, and Maxwell briefly assuming the duties of a stretcher bearer.
Maxwell served at Gallipoli with his unit until 2 December, when he was admitted to 5th Field Ambulance and evacuated from the peninsula suffering from jaundice. Admitted to 3rd Auxiliary Hospital, Heliopolis, he remained there until 11 December, when he was posted to a convalescent camp at Ras el Tin. He rejoined the 18th Battalion on 5 January 1916, which had been evacuated from the Gallipoli Peninsula on 20 December the previous year and posted to Egypt. On 4 February, Maxwell was admitted to the Australian Dermatological Hospital, Abbassia with venereal disease. He returned to his battalion four days before it embarked for France, and the Western Front on 18 March.
Arriving in Marseilles, France, Maxwell was admitted to 7th Australian Field Ambulance and then transferred to the 3rd Canadian General Hospital following wounds sustained during battle. He was moved to the 1st Convalescent Depot on 2 May, and then discharged to Base Details eleven days later. He was later found guilty of breaking ranks at the 07:30 parade on the same day and being absent without leave from 08:00 until 13:00 on 24 May; for this transgression, he was reduced to the ranks. Rejoining his battalion on 1 June, he took part in the Battle of Pozières and received a promotion to sergeant in October.
Suffering synovitis to his right knee, Maxwell was hospitalised for two days and posted to a training battalion in England on 28 November 1916. He stayed there for five months before embarking for France on 9 May 1917 and rejoining the 18th Battalion five days later. Maxwell was only briefly in France before being selected for officer training. Shortly after arriving in England, he attended a boisterous party with a group of soldiers. The military police raided the party and called the local police for assistance after confronting Maxwell's group. Maxwell was fined £20 and sent back to his unit for his actions.
Western Front: May 1917 to August 1918
Maxwell was again selected for officer training, and on 5 July, he was posted to No. 6 Officers' Cadet Battalion. He was promoted to company sergeant major on 7 August, before rejoining the 18th Battalion on 11 September. Nine days later, he was engaged in action near Westhoek during the Third Battle of Ypres when he performed the deeds that earned him the Distinguished Conduct Medal. In the battle, the commander of a platoon was killed; Maxwell took command and led it into attack. Noticing that one of the newly captured positions was under heavy fire, Maxwell dashed to it and led the men to a safer and more tactically secure position, thus minimizing casualties.
Commissioned in the field as a second lieutenant on 29 September 1917, Maxwell took part in the engagements around Poelcappelle, Belgium, the following month. He earned promotion to lieutenant on 1 January 1918 and was admitted to the 7th Australian Field Ambulance on 10 January suffering scabies. Having been discharged from the hospital, he rejoined the 18th Battalion on 17 January.
On 8 March 1918, Maxwell commanded a scouting patrol that was operating to the east of Ploegsteert. Having obtained the required information, he ordered the patrol to withdraw. He and three of his men were covering the withdrawal of the main body when he noticed about thirty Germans nearby. Recalling the patrol, he led an attack against the party, which had sheltered in an old trench; the Germans quickly withdrew, leaving three dead and one wounded prisoner of war. Maxwell was awarded the Military Cross for his actions during this engagement, news of which was published in a supplement to the London Gazette on 13 May 1918.
Throughout the spring of 1918, the 18th Battalion was involved in operations to repel the German offensive. Maxwell took part in these actions until he was granted leave and went back to England on 17 July. He returned to France and rejoined the 18th Battalion on 1 August, before taking part in the Battle of Amiens where he was to earn a Bar to his Military Cross. On 9 August, the battalion was preparing to attack near Rainecourt. Maxwell took command of the company after all of its other officers became casualties. Under his leadership, the company was able to attack on time, despite being subjected to heavy fire. A tank that preceded the advance immediately became the object of enemy fire and was knocked out by a 77 mm gun. Maxwell, who was in close proximity, rushed over and opened the hatch, allowing the crew to escape. After escorting the tank commander to safety, Maxwell returned to lead the company in the attack, which succeeded in reaching and consolidating their objective. The award of the bar was published in a supplement to the London Gazette on 1 February 1919.
Victoria Cross, October 1918 to repatriation, August 1919
On 3 October 1918, the 5th Brigade—of which the 18th Battalion was part—became engaged in its last battle of the First World War when breaching the Hindenburg Line close to Beaurevoir and Montbrehain. While taking part in this battle, Maxwell was a member of the attacking party along the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme line when he performed the acts for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Early in the advance, Maxwell's company commander was severely wounded, resulting in Maxwell assuming control. Reaching the German barbwire defences under intense machine-gun fire, the company suffered heavy casualties, including all of the officers except Maxwell. Pushing forward alone through a narrow passageway in the wire, Maxwell captured the most dangerous machine gun, killed three Germans and took another four as prisoners; thereby enabling the company to move through the wire and reach their objective. Shortly afterwards, it was noticed that the company on their left flank was held up and failing to advance. Gathering a party of men, Maxwell led the group in an attempt to attack the German force from the rear. They soon came under heavy machine gun fire, and, single-handedly, Maxwell dashed forward and attacked the foremost gun. Firing his revolver, he managed to shoot five of the crew and silence the gun.
Later in the advance, Maxwell learnt from an English-speaking prisoner that a group of Germans in the adjacent post wished to surrender, but were afraid to give themselves up. Accompanied by two privates and the prisoner—who was to act as an interpreter—Maxwell approached the post. The three Australians, however, were immediately surrounded by a group of twenty German soldiers and disarmed. They seemed set to become prisoners themselves, before an artillery barrage fell on the position. Taking advantage of the resulting confusion, Maxwell pulled out a concealed revolver and shot two of the Germans before escaping with his men under heavy rifle fire; one of the privates was subsequently wounded. Organising a party of men, he immediately attacked and captured the post.
The full citation for Maxwell's Victoria Cross appeared in a supplement to the London Gazette on 6 January 1919, it read:
The 18th Battalion was training away from the frontline when the Armistice was declared on 11 November 1918. On 8 March 1919, Maxwell was invested with his Victoria Cross by King George V in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace. He headed for Australia on 1 May aboard HT China, disembarking at Melbourne on 8 June and proceeding to Sydney, where he was discharged from the Australian Imperial Force on 20 August.
Later life
Following demobilisation, Maxwell worked as a gardener in Canberra, Moree and the Maitland district. Having described himself as a reporter, Maxwell married 19-year-old tailoress Mabel Maxwell (unrelated) in a Catholic ceremony at Bellevue Hill, Sydney on 14 February 1921. The marriage produced a daughter, Jean, before being dissolved in 1926 upon Mabel's instigation.
On 11 November 1929, Maxwell attended the New South Wales Dinner for recipients of the Victoria Cross in Sydney, and 1932 saw the publication of Hell's Bells and Mademoiselles, a book written in collaboration with Hugh Buggy about his experiences in the war. At the time, Maxwell was working as a gardener with the Department of the Interior in Canberra. The book was a success, but Maxwell soon spent what money he made from it. In the late 1930s, he wrote the manuscript for a second book entitled From the Hindenburg Line to the Breadline. The book was never published and the manuscript was lost when it was lent to someone to read.
In 1933, Maxwell acted as a defence witness in the trial of Alfred Jamieson, who was accused of housebreaking. Maxwell was Jamieson's former platoon commander and testified that Jamieson had been of good character but had been strongly affected by the war.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, Maxwell made several attempts to enlist, but was unsuccessful due to his age, and deteriorating health. He eventually travelled to Queensland, where he enlisted under the alias of Joseph Wells on 27 June 1940. However, his identity was soon discovered and he was given a training position; dissatisfied, he took his discharge on 9 September 1940.
In 1952, Maxwell joined the contingent of Victoria Cross recipients invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. On 6 March 1956, describing himself as a journalist from Bondi, Maxwell married widow Anne Martin, née Burton, in Sydney. Three years later, he attended the Victoria Cross centenary celebrations in London, before later re-visiting the battlefields in France. In 1964, together with his wife, Maxwell attended the opening of the VC Corner in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. He was determined that his Victoria Cross would not wind up in the collection, believing that the award would be devalued by "lumping" them together.
On 6 July 1967, Maxwell collapsed and died of a heart attack in a street in his home town Matraville, New South Wales. He had been an invalid pensioner for some time. His funeral service took place with full military honours at St Mathias Anglican Church, Paddington. Having been cremated, his ashes were interred at the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium in Botany. Anne Maxwell presented her husband's medals to the Army Museum of New South Wales at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, and subsequently the medals, together with a portrait and a brass copy of his VC citation, were unveiled by the Minister of Defence, Allan Fairhall. In 2003, Maxwell's medals were presented to the Australian War Memorial on a permanent loan basis.
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
1896 births
1967 deaths
Australian Army officers
Australian boilermakers
Australian Army personnel of World War II
20th-century Australian non-fiction writers
Australian recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal
Australian World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross
People from New South Wales
Recipients of the Military Cross
Burials at Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park |
1241553 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%20Jackson%20%28colonial%20administrator%29 | Henry Jackson (colonial administrator) | Sir Henry Moore Jackson, (bapt. 13 August 1849 – 29 August 1908) was a British army officer and colonial governor.
Biography
Jackson was born in Barbados to Walrond Jackson, who became the Anglican Bishop of Antigua, and Mary Shepherd. He received his education in England at Clifton College and the Royal Military Academy. After his education, Jackson went into the military, serving for the Royal Artillery from 1870 to 1885, reaching the rank of captain. In 1880 while still in the Royal Artillery he was also appointed commandant of the Sierra Leone police.
It was after his military service that he became involved in the rule of British colonies. Starting with his appointment as commissioner for Turks and Caicos Islands from 1885 to 1890 and later Colonial Secretary of the Bahama Islands from 1890 to 1893. His next appointment came in 1894 when he was appointed as Colonial Secretary of Gibraltar from 1894 to 1901. Here his education in science proved useful in implementing a plan to construct a new harbour. In August 1901 he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, but his tenure there was short as in June the following year he was appointed Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, combined with the position of Consul-General for the Western Pacific Islands. He arrived in Fiji to take up the position in September 1902, and is credited as having promoted the idea of British rule to the natives of Fiji. The last position he held was Governor of Trinidad and Tobago, which he held until his death on 29 August 1908.
Jackson received several honours, including: Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1899, promoted to Knight Grand Cross in 1908, and member of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1904.
Family
In 1881, Jackson married Emily Shea, daughter of Sir Edward Dalton Shea. He was the father of Basil Jackson, chairman of BP.
References
|-
1849 births
1908 deaths
People educated at Clifton College
Governors of Fiji
Royal Artillery officers
Governors of Trinidad and Tobago
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Commissioners of the Turks and Caicos Islands
British colonial police officers
Grenadian people of British descent
Grenadian emigrants to England
High Commissioners for the Western Pacific
Colonial Secretaries of the Bahamas
Colonial Secretaries of Gibraltar |
3558437 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Magliocco | Joseph Magliocco | Joseph Magliocco (born Giuseppe Magliocco; ; June 29, 1898 – December 28, 1963), also known as "Joe Malayak" and "Joe Evil Eye", was an Italian-born New York mobster and the boss of the Profaci crime family (later to become the Colombo crime family) from 1962 to 1963. In 1963, Magliocco participated in an audacious attempt to kill other family bosses and take over the Mafia Commission. The attempt failed, and, while his life was spared, he was forced into retirement. Soon after, he died of a heart attack on December 28, 1963.
Background
Magliocco was born in Portella di Mare, a frazione in the comune of Misilmeri, in the province of Palermo, in Sicily. Magliocco's nickname, "Joe Malayak," came from the word Maluk, which meant "ruler". Despite weighing over 300 pounds, Magliocco was described as being very energetic and decisive in his work and physical gestures, someone who exuded danger and confidence.
Magliocco lived on a six-acre waterfront estate in East Islip, New York. He was the silent partner in a liquor company, Alpine Wine and Liquor, and a linen company, Arrow Linen Supply. In 1963, it was suspected that Magliocco was using his clout to force bars and restaurants to buy from both companies. According to Joseph Bonanno, Magliocco was an excellent Italian chef and loved to eat.
Magliocco's son, Ambrose Magliocco, was a capo. Magliocco's second cousin and brother-in-law was mob boss Joseph Profaci, founder of the Profaci crime family. Magliocco was an in-law of consigliere and underboss Salvatore Mussachio, related by marriage to Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, and uncle to the wife of Bonanno crime family founder Joseph Bonanno.
Early years
As a young man, Magliocco became involved in illegal gambling and union racketeering.
On December 5, 1928, Magliocco and Profaci attended a meeting of New York mobsters at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. The main topic was dividing the Brooklyn territory of the recently murdered boss Salvatore D'Aquila without causing a gang war. By the end of the meeting, Profaci had received a share of the open territory, and named Magliocco as his second-in-command—a post he would hold for the next 34 years. When the Cleveland Police raided the meeting, Magliocco was briefly detained on an illegal weapons charge.
In 1931, the Castellammarese War began in New York between two powerful Italian-American gangs. Both Profaci and Magliocco attempted to stay neutral during this conflict. By the end of 1931, the war was over and the New York gangs were divided into five crime families supervised by a Mafia Commission. Profaci and Magliocco were confirmed as boss and underboss, respectively, of what was now known as the Profaci crime family.
Colombo War
In 1957, Magliocco was arrested with 60 other mobsters who were attending the Apalachin Conference, a national mob meeting in Apalachin, New York. On January 13, 1960, Magliocco and 21 others were convicted of conspiracy and he was sentenced to five years in prison. However, on November 28, 1960, a United States Court of Appeals overturned the verdicts.
On February 27, 1961 the Gallos led by Joe Gallo, kidnapped four of Profaci's top men: underboss Magliocco, Frank Profaci (Joe Profaci's brother), capo Salvatore Musacchia and soldier John Scimone. Profaci himself eluded capture and flew to sanctuary in Florida. While holding the hostages, Larry and Albert Gallo sent Joe Gallo to California. The Gallos demanded a more favorable financial scheme for the hostages' release. Gallo wanted to kill one hostage and demand $100,000 before negotiations, but his brother Larry overruled him. After a few weeks of negotiation, Profaci made a deal with the Gallos. Profaci's consigliere Charles "the Sidge" LoCicero negotiated with the Gallos and all the hostages were released peacefully. However, Profaci had no intention of honoring this peace agreement. On August 20, 1961 Joseph Profaci ordered the murder of Gallo members Joseph "Joe Jelly" Gioielli and Larry Gallo. Gunmen allegedly murdered Gioilli after inviting him to go fishing. Larry Gallo survived a strangulation attempt in the Sahara club of East Flatbush by Carmine Persico and Salvatore "Sally" D'Ambrosio after a police officer intervened. The Gallo brothers had been previously aligned with Persico against Profaci and his loyalists; The Gallos then began calling Persico "The Snake" after he had betrayed them. the war continued on resulting in nine murders and three disappearances. With the start of the gang war, the Gallo crew retreated to the Dormitory.
Family boss
On June 6, 1962, Profaci died of liver cancer and Magliocco became the family boss. However, the Mafia Commission did not endorse him as the new family leader.
Afraid that the other New York families viewed him as weak, Magliocco increased the tempo of violence against the Gallo faction. In turn, car bombs, drive-by shootings, and other murder attempts were made against Magliocco men such as Carmine Persico and his enforcer, Hugh McIntosh. In 1963, with the jailing of Gallo and several associates, the hostilities temporarily ended.
Commission plot
In 1963, Joseph Bonanno, the head of the Bonanno crime family, made plans to assassinate several rivals on the Mafia Commission—bosses Tommy Lucchese, Carlo Gambino, and Stefano Magaddino, as well as Frank DeSimone. Bonanno sought Magliocco's support, and Magliocco readily agreed. Not only was he bitter from being denied a seat on the Commission, but Bonanno and Profaci had been close allies for over 30 years prior to Profaci's death. Bonanno's audacious goal was to take over the Commission and make Magliocco his right hand man.
Magliocco was assigned the task of killing Lucchese and Gambino, and gave the contract to one of his top hit men, Joseph Colombo. However, the opportunistic Colombo revealed the plot to its targets. The other bosses quickly realized that Magliocco could not have planned this himself. Remembering how close Bonanno was with Magliocco (and before him, Profaci), as well as their close ties through marriages, the other bosses concluded Bonanno was the real mastermind.
The Commission summoned Bonanno and Magliocco to explain themselves. Fearing for his life, Bonanno went into hiding in Montreal, leaving Magliocco to deal with the Commission. Badly shaken and in failing health, Magliocco confessed his role in the plot. The Commission spared Magliocco's life, but forced him to retire as Profaci family boss and pay a $50,000 fine. As a reward for turning on his boss, Colombo was awarded the Profaci family.
Death
On December 28, 1963, Joseph Magliocco died of a heart attack at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip, New York. Magliocco is buried in Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.
In 1969, the authorities exhumed Magliocco's body to determine if he had been poisoned. This action was taken based on FBI phone tapings in which DeCavalcante crime family boss Sam DeCavalcante suggested that Joseph Bonanno poisoned Magliocco. However, no traces of poison were found in the body and it was re-interred at Saint Charles.
In popular culture
Magliocco was portrayed by Michael Rispoli in the second season of the 2019 TV series Godfather of Harlem.
References
Further reading
Bonanno, Bill, Bound by Honor: A Mafioso's Story. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
Capeci, Jerry, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002.
Cirules, Enrique The Mafia in Havana: A Caribbean Mob Story. Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2004.
Bureau of Narcotics, U.S. Treasury Department, "Mafia: the Government's Secret File on Organized Crime, HarperCollins Publishers 2007
1898 births
1963 deaths
Bosses of the Colombo crime family
American gangsters of Sicilian descent
People from Castellammare del Golfo
Colombo crime family
People from East Islip, New York
Burials at Saint Charles Cemetery |
3646886 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason%20Jones%20%28actor%29 | Jason Jones (actor) | Jason Pierre Jones (born June 3, 1967) is a Canadian actor and comedian. He was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from 2005 to 2015. From 2016-2019, Jones starred in the TBS comedy series The Detour, which he created with his wife, Samantha Bee.
Personal life
Jones was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. He attended Hill Park Secondary School and then Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto. Jones is married to Samantha Bee, the host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and fellow former The Daily Show correspondent, with whom he has three children: daughter Piper Bee-Jones (born 2006), son Fletcher Bee-Jones (born 2008), and daughter Ripley Bee-Jones (born 2010). In 2014, he became a United States citizen.
Career
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
In September 2005, Jones joined The Daily Show cast as a contributor. When his wife left the show in late December for family leave, Jones was promoted to a full-time correspondent. Thereafter, he won a significant following at The Daily Show, thanks to a few pieces on the Denmark cartoons, Carl Monday, and Laguna Beach. Before Rob Corddry left The Daily Show, he said: "Jason Jones has raised the bar too high. I just can't say the things he says to people." His exposé on the real values of Wasilla, Alaska remains one of the most popular pieces on the Daily Show website. In 2014, Jones temporarily left The Daily Show to appear in a pilot for the sitcom Love Is Relative.
In June 2009, Jones was sent to Tehran just prior to the controversial 2009 presidential election. Jones' reports in Iran included an interview with Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari, who was arrested after the disputed June 2009 presidential elections. During Bahari's time in prison, his interrogators charged him with espionage and used Jones' interview as evidence against him. It was later clarified by Bahari that the charges were fabricated. Jones appeared as himself in the film version of Bahari's ordeal, Rosewater, encountering Bahari prior to taping their interview. The film was written and directed by Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Another segment in Iran poked fun at Iranians' greater knowledge of the United States compared with Americans' knowledge of Iran. That segment, along with a 2011 piece in which he invited cameras to his vasectomy, are regarded by TV Guide as his signature segments on the program.
On October 7, 2014, he co-hosted The Daily Show with his wife Samantha Bee, in the absence of Jon Stewart. He also disclosed on that episode that he had recently become an American citizen.
Jason Jones announced that he would leave The Daily Show in 2015 to begin work on The Detour, a TBS show which he co-wrote and will executive produce with wife Samantha Bee.
2014 Sochi Olympics
Jones was sent as a mock reporter to cover the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Through his visit, he often lampooned Russian culture and its perceived police state. For example, in one episode, Jones attempted to find a protest area in Sochi and was forced to drive well outside of the city to an abandoned parking lot which was designed as the zone for protesters; however, even then he was approached by police officers and asked to leave due to not having appropriate documentation. During his interview with opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the crew's cameras and other electronic equipment were jammed as they entered an apartment to conduct the interview. Jones also managed to hold a mock interview with Mikhail Gorbachev where he insisted Gorbachev put up the wall, a play on president Ronald Reagan's plea to Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall. Alexei Navalny was arrested several days after conducting the interview with Jones, which was also satirized by Jon Stewart. Jones was able to interview Sergey Markov, a prominent Russian politician and academic. During the interview, Jones questioned Markov about Russia's stance on gay rights, to which Markov responded that there are no issues with gay rights in Russia and that "you are absolutely free to make sex with this table." The statement has since achieved notoriety with regards to Russia's stance on LGBT rights. During the program Jones also described Russia as a conservative paradise, noting the nation's relatively low flat tax, pro-gun stance, opposition to gay marriage, and the powerful influence of the Orthodox church. He also remarked that Russia may be the "ultimate red state."
Other work
Jones has also done various television work with his Canadian sketch comedy troupe The Bobroom, and was the host of Craft Corner Deathmatch on the Style Network in 2005. He also co-wrote, co-starred in, and co-produced the 2004 film Ham & Cheese with fellow Bobroom alumnus Mike Beaver; the film was nominated for six Canadian Comedy Awards in 2005. He has also had minor roles in numerous feature films, such as the 2002 Syfy original film Terminal Invasion and the 2003 film Public Domain, the latter of which also starred Don McKellar, Nicole DeBoer, and Beaver.
He appeared in the TV show Queer as Folk, as well as appearing on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother as "Tony". Jones has appeared twice on the NBC series Law & Order as Len Pewels, host of the fictional Len Pewels' America. In 2008, Jones worked on a CBS sitcom about a celebrity chef (to be played by Jones), with his wife (to be played by Samantha Bee). Jones and Bee starred as husband and wife in a movie entitled Coopers' Camera (USA Cooper's Christmas), in which their Christmas was recorded on a brand new (1985, at the time) camera.
Jones did further work in a series of television advertisements, including a series for beer brand Molson, and appearing as Greg Gregger in Budweiser's short films The Best Man and The Company Man, as well as in some 30-second commercials. Jones had a supporting role in the 2009 movie All About Steve. In early 2010, he starred in a sitcom pilot for ABC called How to be a Better American, but it was not picked up as a series. He also made cameo appearances in the 2012 film Pitch Perfect, its 2015 sequel Pitch Perfect 2, the 2013 film The Art of the Steal and the 2015 films Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and The Night Before. In 2014, Jones starred in the pilot for the sitcom Love is Relative as the character "Nate".
He worked with his wife, Samantha Bee, on development of a show for TBS, The Detour. TBS ordered the pilot, written by Jason Jones and Samantha Bee in October 2014. The show is based on the real life couple's own experience with family vacations. It was picked up for ten episodes in February 2015. On April 6, 2016, the show was renewed for a second season, ahead of the first-season premiere the same month. The second season premiered on February 21, 2017. On April 25, 2017, TBS renewed the series for a third season, which premiered on January 23, 2018. The fourth and final season premiered on June 18, 2019.
References
External links
1973 births
21st-century Canadian male actors
21st-century American comedians
American humorists
American male comedians
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American television writers
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian expatriate male actors in the United States
Canadian humorists
Canadian male comedians
Canadian male film actors
Canadian male television actors
Canadian male voice actors
Canadian satirists
Canadian television personalities
Living people
Male actors from Hamilton, Ontario
People with acquired American citizenship
Ryerson University alumni
Writers from Hamilton, Ontario
American male television writers
21st-century American screenwriters
Canadian sketch comedians
21st-century Canadian comedians
Comedians from Toronto
21st-century American male writers |
5384103 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Joseph%20Mathews | John Joseph Mathews | John Joseph Mathews (November 16, 1894 – June 16, 1979) (Osage) became one of the Osage Nation's most important spokespeople and writers, and served on the Osage Tribal Council during the 1930s. He studied at the University of Oklahoma, Oxford University, and the University of Geneva after serving as a flight instructor during World War I.
Mathews' first book was a history, Wah'kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man's Road (1929), which was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club as their first by an academic press; it became a bestseller. His second book, Sundown (1934) is his most well known, an exploration of the disruption of the people and their society at the time of the oil boom, which also attracted criminal activities by leading whites in the county and state, including murder of Osage. In 1951 Mathews published a biography of E. W. Marland, noted oilman and governor of Oklahoma in the 1930s. His book The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961) was a life work, preserving many collected stories and the oral history of the Osage.
In 1996 Mathews was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame. The cabin in the Osage Hills where he did much of his writing was acquired about 2014 by the Nature Conservancy of Oklahoma. His gravesite is next to it. Both will be preserved within the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
Early life and education
Mathews was born at Pawhuska, Oklahoma as the only surviving son of five children of William Shirley and Eugenia (Girard) Mathews. His banker father was part Osage, the son of John Allan Mathews, a noted trader, and Sarah Williams, the mixed-race daughter of A-Ci'n-Ga, a full-blood Osage, and "Old Bill" Williams, a noted missionary and later Mountain Man who lived with the Osage. Because the Osage had a patrilineal kinship system, the Mathews descendants were excluded from belonging to one of the tribe's clans, as their Osage ancestry was through the maternal line of A-Ci'-Ga, rather than through a direct male ancestor.
Mathews' paternal grandparents had met in Kentucky, where "Old Bill" Williams had sent his daughters for school after his wife A-Ci'n-Ga had died. John Joseph Mathews' mother was Pauline Eugenia Girard, whose family had immigrated from France. The family had an "active interest in Osage culture." The Mathews children were one-eighth Osage by ancestry, as well as Anglo-Scots-Irish and French; they all attended local schools in Pawhuska.
John had three sisters and one brother. His brother was killed as a child by a mountain lion that attacked him near their family home. Two of his sisters, Lillian and Marie Mathews, did not marry and lived in the family home at 911 Grandview Avenue in Pawhuska until their deaths.
Service in World War I came before college, and John Mathews became a flight instructor and second lieutenant after time in the cavalry. Afterward, he went to the University of Oklahoma, graduating with a degree in geology. He studied (at his own expense) at Oxford University in England, graduating in 1923 with a degree in natural science. He also studied international relations at the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International Studies. In addition, he traveled in Africa before returning to the United States, determined to study the culture and traditions of the Osage.
Marriage and family
In 1924 in Geneva, Mathews married an American woman, Virginia Winslow Hopper. They first settled in California, where their two children were born: John and Virginia. The couple divorced.
Mathews returned to Oklahoma in 1929, where he lived for the rest of his life. Years later, in 1945, he married Elizabeth Hunt. She worked with him on much of his research related to the Osage and their forced migration from Missouri to Oklahoma. He treated her son John Hunt, from her first marriage, as his stepson.
Mathews died in 1979 and was buried at his request near the cabin in the Osage Hills where he did much of his writing. He had five surviving great nieces and nephews: Fleur Feighan, William Feighan, Major (U.S. Army, Retired) Howard J. Schellenberg, III; Jeanne (Schellenberg) Hulse, and Maria Schellenberg.
Career
After his return to Oklahoma in 1929, Mathews began writing in the late 1920s. As a member of the tribe, he had headrights and received money from leases for oil wells, which enabled him to buy land, build a stone cabin, and pursue his writing career.
He published his first book, a work of literary non-fiction, Wah'kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man's Road (1932), with the University of Oklahoma Press. This was the first work by an academic press to be selected by the new Book-of-the-Month Club, and with that secondary publication, the book became a bestseller.
His most well-known work is Sundown (1934), his only novel. Mathews is described as introducing "the modern American Indian novel", a pattern for future works by Indians. It is marked by its realism, as Mathews wanted to represent the Indian in a way that had not been recognized in European-American cultural stereotypes.
The semi-autobiographical work is about Challenge "Chal" Windzer, a young Osage man of mixed-blood ancestry. After leaving home to study at the University of Oklahoma and serve in the military, Chal feels estranged when he returns to his tribal community. He suffers from alienation and hopelessness as his life takes a downward swerve. The novel is set during the turbulence of the oil boom that took place on Osage land in Oklahoma in the early 1920s, which generated great wealth for the many Osage enrolled citizens who had headrights. It depicts the frictions and disruption within the tribal community that accompanied this bonanza of wealth. In addition, it portrayed the swindles and numerous outright murders of Osage during the 1920s, a period they termed the "Reign of Terror", as white opportunists tried to get control of the Osage headrights.
(Note: see Osage Indian Murders. Failing to get relief from local law enforcement, the Osage appealed to the federal government for help, as their people were still being killed. Extensive local and corruption has been documented in conspiracies to get control of Osage headrights, involving state many leading whites of the region: ranchers, lawyers, judges, doctors, police, undertakers, and more. Agents of the new Federal Bureau of Investigation were assigned to investigate the murders and successfully prosecuted three men, but many more crimes passed without investigation.)
During the 1930s and the Great Depression, when Mathews was still living in his cabin, he was very politically active within the Osage Nation. As the people took advantage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act, Mathews helped the Osage Nation restore its self-government. He was elected to the Tribal Council, serving from 1934 to 1942. He helped found the Osage Tribal Museum, which opened in 1938 in Pawhuska, and donated numerous artifacts to it.
From 1939 to 1940 Mathews lived and studied in Mexico on a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1940, Mathews served as the United States representative to the Indians of the Americas Conference at Michoacan, Mexico.
Later, Mathews concentrated again on his writing. His work Talking to the Moon (1945) is a retrospective account of the ten years he spent in the "blackjacks" of his homeland, observing nature and reflecting on the influence of the environment on Osage culture. He wrote much of this in the stone cabin that he built in the Osage Hills in 1929. This area is now preserved as part of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. The book is a combination of autobiography, philosophical treatise, and observations by an amateur naturalist. Some critics compared it to Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Lee Schweninger noted that Mathews used irony to create distance between the narrator and himself as the subject of autobiographical reflection. He also wrote about himself as a settler, and critiqued European-American culture, while committing actions similar to those of other settlers who disrupted the natural balance.
Mathews's Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland (1951) was his only biography; it explores the life of a multi-millionaire Oklahoma oilman and politician, who also served as governor of the state in the 1930s. He created a social scandal by marrying his much younger adoptive daughter, Lydie Marland.
Based on years of collecting information from tribal elders through the oral tradition, in addition to conducting historical research, Mathews wrote The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961). It has been described as "his magnum opus and a pioneering achievement for both its reliance on the oral tradition and presentation of a particular tribal history from an Indian point of view." His book was the produce of his working with tribal elders to preserve and interpret their common culture.
Two books of Mathews have been published posthumously, in efforts to bring his work to a wider audience. Another autobiography, Twenty Thousand Mornings was published in 2012, edited by Susan Kalter.
In the 1960s Mathews wrote a number of short stories, some drawing from folk traditions of the Osage and other cultures, including Scotland. Selected stories from these unpublished manuscripts were published in 2015 as Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and Extinction. Mathews told these stories from the point of view of bird and animal protagonists, an act of imagination that decenters human life.
Works
Wah'kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man's Road (1929)
Sundown (1934)
Talking to the Moon (1945),
Life and Death of an Oilman: The Career of E. W. Marland (1951)
The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (1961)
The following were published posthumously:
Twenty Thousand Mornings (2011), autobiography, ed. Susan Kalter
Old Three Toes and Other Tales of Survival and Extinction (2015), short stories, ed. Susan Kalter
Legacy and honors
1996, Mathews was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame.
In 2017, a biography, John Joseph Mathews: Life of an Osage Writer, by Michael Snyder was published by the University of Oklahoma.
The stone cabin where Mathews did much of his writing is in the Osage Hills. The cabin and gravesite were acquired about 2014 by the Nature Conservancy of Oklahoma and added to its Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, which it administers. The cabin and gravesite will be preserved.
Notes
References
, November 2005, Air Force Museum
Native American Authors Project, Internet Public Library (accessed 6 March 2008)
Fredrick W. Boling, "Tribute to John Joseph Mathews: Osage Writer", Western Writers of America ROUNDUP Magazine, at Frederick Boling's website
"John Joseph Mathews", Enotes.com
Guy Logsdon, "John Joseph Mathews", Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture
Further reading
Bob L. Blackburn, "Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame John Joseph Mathews," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 74 (Fall 1996).
Bob Foreman, "Mathews' New Book Will Be Whopper," Tulsa (Oklahoma) Tribune, 3 November 1958.
Guy Logsdon, "John Joseph Mathews: A Conversation," Nimrod 16 (Spring/Summer 1972).
Michael Snyder, "Friends of the Osages: John Joseph Mathews's 'Wah'Kon-Tah' and Osage-Quaker Cross-Cultural Collaboration," The Chronicles of Oklahoma 88.4 (Winter 2012-11).
Michael Snyder, John Joseph Mathews: Life of an Osage Writer, University of Oklahoma Press, 2017,
External links
Book about Osage writer will be released Thursday
John Joseph Mathews, Western American Literature Research
1894 births
1979 deaths
People from Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Osage people
Native American novelists
American military personnel of World War I
University of Oklahoma alumni
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
Alumni of the University of Oxford
University of Geneva alumni
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni
20th-century American male writers
Alumni of Merton College, Oxford |
7040085 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel%20Joseph%20May | Samuel Joseph May | Samuel Joseph May (September 12, 1797 – July 1, 1871) was an American reformer during the nineteenth century who championed education, women's rights, and abolition of slavery. May argued on behalf of all working people that the rights of humanity were more important than the rights of property, and advocated for minimum wages and legal limitations on the amassing of wealth.
He was born on September 12, 1797, in an upper-class Boston area. May was the son of Colonel Joseph May, a merchant, and Dorothy Sewell, who was descended from or connected to many of the leading families of colonial Massachusetts, including the Quincys and the Hancocks. His sister was Abby May Alcott, mother of novelist Louisa May Alcott. In 1825, he married Lucretia Flagge Coffin with whom he had five children. Author Eve LaPlante, who wrote several books about his sister Abby May Alcott and a book about Sewall ancestor Judge Samuel Sewall, is one of his direct descendants.
Education and early career
May was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1797 to Joseph May and Dorothy May (née Sewall). When he was four years old his six year old brother Edward died while they were at play in their barn. May claimed that the loss of his brother and the dreams he had following the fatal accident led him to devote his life to God and inspired his passion to "rectify the world's wrongs." He started attending Harvard in 1813 at the age of fifteen; during his junior year he chose to become a minister. In addition, while he was at Harvard and afterwards, he taught school in Concord, Massachusetts. During this time, he met many prominent Unitarians and activists, including Noah Worcester, who instilled in May the idea of peaceful opposition. He was in a party that was one of the first to travel on the Crawford Path, opened in 1819 by Abel and Ethan Crawford as a route to the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and today considered to be the oldest White Mountains trail in continuous use.
May graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1820 and became a Unitarian minister. (See Harvard Divinity School and Unitarianism.) Following his graduation, he considered preaching in New York City and Richmond, Virginia, prior to accepting a position in Brooklyn, Connecticut, as the only Unitarian minister in that state. He came to the forefront of the Unitarian movement and became well known throughout New England as he attempted to make reforms and establish Unitarian churches.
In 1825, he married Lucretia Flagge Coffin, with whom he had five children: Joseph May, John Edward May, Charlotte Coffin (May) Wilkinson, Rev. Joseph May and George Emerson May. Their eldest son named Joseph died young. They also named a later son Joseph, in honor of him and May's father, Colonel Joseph May.
Early reform
May began a biweekly publication, The Liberal Christian, in January 1823; its main goal was to explain the Unitarian theology. He helped in the formation of Windham County Peace Society in 1826; in 1827, May organized a statewide convention for school reform in Connecticut, and he started a series of lectures in 1828. Meanwhile, he also belonged to the American Colonization Society, whose purpose was to send free blacks to (not "back to") Africa. May's belief in perfectionism through imitation of the life of Jesus Christ strongly influenced his involvement in reform movements. A pacifist, he actively participated in establishing peace societies, speaking out against the death penalty, and advocating nonresistance. He practiced this last belief to the extent of rejecting self-defense. He became a leader in the temperance movement, believing it to be a form of abolitionism, since he saw men as "slaves" to drink. He was perhaps most renowned for his work in education reform, as he sought to improve facilities, teachers, and curriculum in public elementary schools. May believed schools should be racially integrated and coeducational, and he advocated the philosophy of Swiss theorist Johann Pestalozzi. He spent time tutoring his sister Abigail May in philosophy and the humanities and wrote in a letter to her, "What you say relative to the need for universal education is certainly true. Nothing is of unimportance in the formation of the mind."
Involvement in abolitionism
In 1830, May happened to meet and create a strong friendship with Wm. Lloyd Garrison, which pushed him into the abolitionist movement. Although his abolitionist views alienated his family, friends, and other clergymen, he remained true to his beliefs. He helped Garrison found the New England Anti-Slavery Society, the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the New England Non-Resistance Society, in addition to working for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He served as one of the writers for the constitutions of some of these societies, and as a lecturer and general agent for the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Fighting for racial equality and better schools, May assisted Prudence Crandall in the 1830s when residents of Canterbury, Connecticut, through the state legislature, made it illegal for her to run her Canterbury Female Boarding School for "young Ladies and little Misses of color".
This experience caused him to abandon his support for the colonization movement, since Andrew T. Judson, Connecticut's leading colonizationist, led the attack on Crandall's school. May was one of the delegates from the United States who attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840.
May became pastor of the Unitarian Church of the Messiah of Syracuse, New York, in 1845, serving until 1868. He fought the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 by making announcements during his sermons of fugitive slaves in the area and taking collections on their behalf, as well as aiding escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad. As a prominent abolitionist in the city, May, with the help of many Liberty Party members, including Gerrit Smith and Samuel Ringgold Ward, planned and successfully executed the rescue of Jerry McHenry, a man arrested as a fugitive slave, from the police. In addition to fighting for the abolition of slavery, he fought for the equality of free Blacks in his congregations by allowing them to sit in the front as opposed to the segregated rear pews. This act resulted in his reproach by white congregation members and also in his quitting some of his parishes. These actions, particularly late in the 1850s and immediately after Lincoln was elected President in 1860, led abolitionism's opponents to violently attack May as well as burn him in effigy.
Work for women's rights
In addition to speaking and writing pamphlets and articles concerning abolitionism, May was a leading advocate in women's rights and suffrage. Most notably, he wrote The Rights and Condition of Women in 1846 in favor of giving women the right to vote and allowing them equality in all aspects of life. May's work with the women's movement prompted him to move towards socialist economic views including redistribution of the nation's wealth, overhaul of the legal system, and a "soak-the-rich" income tax. He published a variety of other writings including "Education of the Faculties" (Boston, 1846); "Revival of Education" (Syracuse, New York, 1855): and "Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict" (Boston, 1868).
Final years and legacy
By the time of the American Civil War, May had long been torn between his commitment to pacifism and his growing belief that slavery could not be destroyed without violence. He felt that the use of force against the Southern rebellion was necessary. Following the war and success of emancipation, May continued his work for racial, sexual, economic, and educational equality until the end of his life, including service as president of the Syracuse public school district.
Samuel Joseph May died on July 1, 1871, in Syracuse, New York. He is buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Syracuse, New York.
The May pamphlet collection
May donated a collection of more than 10,000 works to the Cornell University Library in 1870. These included pamphlets, leaflets, and other local, regional, and national anti-slavery documents. Abolitionists Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Gerrit Smith issued an appeal for additional contributions to the collection so that the literature of the anti-slavery movement would be "preserved and handed down, that the purposes and the spirit, the methods and the aims of the Abolitionists should be clearly known and understood by future generations."
In 1999, the Cornell University Library received a $331,000 grant "to catalog, conserve, and digitize the collection." This has been completed, and the collection is available online..
Legacy
In 1885, the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, in Syracuse, was renamed in May's honor to May Memorial Unitarian Church; it is now the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society (MMUUS).
See also
Fugitive Slave Convention
Unitarian Meetinghouse
References
Notes
Further reading
Mumford, Thomas J. (1873). Memoir of Samuel Joseph May. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Yacovone,Donald. (1991). Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Yacovone, Donald. (2000, February). "May, Samuel Joseph," American National Biography Online. Available by subscription: http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-00454.html.
External links
Samuel Joseph May. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, September 12th, 1797. Died in Syracuse, New York, July 1st, 1871. Syracuse: Syracuse Journal Office, 1871.
Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell Library
Collection Description
May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society
Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
1797 births
1871 deaths
Harvard Divinity School alumni
Abolitionists from Boston
Activists from Syracuse, New York
19th-century Unitarian clergy
Underground Railroad people
Clergy from Boston
Burials at Oakwood Cemetery (Syracuse, New York)
Sewall family
Quincy family
Alcott family
American temperance activists
American suffragists
Underground Railroad locations
African-American history of Connecticut
People from Brooklyn, Connecticut
Religious leaders from Connecticut
Religious leaders from Syracuse, New York |
12176602 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter%20Joseph%20Marm%20Jr. | Walter Joseph Marm Jr. | Walter Joseph "Joe" Marm Jr. (born November 20, 1941) is a retired United States Army colonel and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor, the Medal of Honor, for his actions in the Vietnam War.
Early life
Marm was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, to Walter and Dorothy Marm, a Pennsylvania State police officer and retail clerk, respectively. He graduated from Duquesne University with a business degree in 1964. He then joined the United States Army from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from Officers Candidate School, and attended Ranger School.
Military career
By September 1965, Marm was serving in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). On November 14, he was a second lieutenant and platoon leader of 2nd Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). On that day, during the Battle of Ia Drang, he single-handedly destroyed an enemy machine-gun position and several of its defenders, suffering severe wounds in the process. Marm survived his wounds and was subsequently promoted to first lieutenant; on December 19, 1966, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.
Marm reached the rank of colonel before retiring from the army in 1995. Marm is a Life Scout.
Medal of Honor citation
First Lieutenant Marm's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
Political endorsement
Marm, a conservative Republican, endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016. Marm traveled with Trump to election rallies and appeared on stage with him at numerous locations including Selma, North Carolina on November 3, 2016.
See also
List of Medal of Honor recipients for the Vietnam War
References
External links
Walter Marm at the Congressional Medal of Honor's channel on Vimeo
1941 births
Living people
People from Washington, Pennsylvania
United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War
United States Army Medal of Honor recipients
United States Army colonels
Vietnam War recipients of the Medal of Honor
Pennsylvania Republicans
Military personnel from Pennsylvania |
13354590 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric%20Harrison | Eric Harrison | Sir Eric John Harrison, (7 September 1892 – 26 September 1974) was an Australian politician and diplomat. He was the inaugural deputy leader of the Liberal Party (1945–1956), and a government minister under four prime ministers. He was later High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 1956 to 1964.
Harrison was born in Sydney and left school at the age of 13. He served with the Australian Army during World War I, and after the war's end became the manager of a textile factory. Harrison was elected to the House of Representatives in 1931, representing the United Australia Party (UAP). He served briefly as Minister for Interior in 1934, under Joseph Lyons, and returned to the ministry in 1938. Over the next three years he held positions in the governments of Lyons, Earle Page, Robert Menzies, and Arthur Fadden.
In 1944, Harrison replaced Billy Hughes as deputy leader of the UAP. When the new Liberal Party was formed the following year, he was elected to the same position. In Menzies' second government, Harrison held various defence-related portfolios. He was also made the inaugural Leader of the House in 1951. Harrison left politics in 1956 to become High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. He retired in 1964, and suffered from Parkinson's disease in later years. His daughter, Shirley Walters, followed him into politics, becoming the first woman to represent Tasmania in the Senate.
Early life
Harrison was born in Surry Hills, Sydney, New South Wales, to Elizabeth Jane (née Anderson) and Arthur Hoffman Harrison. His mother was born in Ireland, while his father – who worked as a painter and decorator – was born in England. Harrison attended the Crown Street Superior Public School until the age of thirteen, when he left school to work in the textile industry. He eventually became the manager of one of the factories owned by James Anderson Murdoch. In October 1916, Harrison joined the Australian Imperial Force and served on the Western Front from December 1917 in the 5th Field Artillery Brigade. He was promoted to sergeant in May 1918, and rowed in the Royal Henley Peace Regatta in 1919. After returning to Australia and taking his discharge, Harrison married Mary Cook McCall in 1920.
Political career
1930s
Although Harrison had not previously been politically active, in 1931 he established a branch of Joseph Lyons' All for Australia League in the Sydney suburb of Auburn, within Jack Lang's electorate, with police protection. In the December 1931 general elections he defeated Walter Marks for the House of Representatives seat of Wentworth, although both had been endorsed by the United Australia Party (UAP). He was appointed Minister for the Interior from 12 October 1934 in Lyons' second ministry, but lost the position on 9 November 1934 in Lyons' third Ministry, created to accommodate the Country Party. During this period he banned the entry of the Czechoslovakian anti-fascist campaigner, Egon Kisch into Australia.
In November 1938, Harrison became Minister without portfolio administering External Territories, and in April 1939 was appointed Postmaster-General and Minister for Repatriation in Robert Menzies' first ministry, when the Country Party left the coalition.
World War II
When the Country Party returned to the Coalition in March 1940, Harrison was again left out of the ministry. He became Minister for Trade and Customs in Menzies third ministry in October 1940. He is notable for making available a newsprint ration for Ezra Norton's Daily Mirror in 1941, while tightening overall newsprint rationing.
Harrison was a strong supporter of Menzies, as he continued to be after World War II. He went into opposition with the defeat of the Fadden government in October 1941 and almost lost his seat to suffragette and Australian Labor Party candidate Jessie Street in December 1943.
Harrison was commissioned as an officer in the Militia in 1940 and in 1942 and 1943 he was a full-time liaison officer with the United States military forces in Australia. On one occasion he wore a uniform in Canberra, causing Eddie Ward to denounce him as a fake soldier and to accuse him of having been a member of the New Guard.
His wife died in 1941 and in October 1944 he married Linda Ruth Yardley, née Fullerton, a widow and a businesswoman.
He became deputy leader of the UAP in April 1944. When the UAP was folded into the Liberal Party of Australia in late 1944, Harrison became its first deputy leader, holding the position until 1956. He was the longest serving Liberal Party Deputy Leader until his record was broken by Peter Costello in 2006.
He was a vocal critic of the Curtin and Chifley governments.
Post-war
Following the Liberal Party's win in the December 1949 election, Harrison became the third-ranking member of the government, behind Menzies and Country Party leader Arthur Fadden.
He served as Minister for Postwar Reconstruction (until March 1950) and Minister for Defence in the Menzies ministry. From April 1950 until March 1951 he was resident in London, and in October 1950 he moved from the Defence portfolio to become Minister for the Interior. In May 1951, he became Minister for Defence Production and Vice-President of the Executive Council in Menzies' fifth ministry and the inaugural Leader of the House. From November 1955 to February 1956, he was also Minister for the Army and Minister for the Navy.
Harrison was acting prime minister for two weeks in June 1954, when Menzies was in New Zealand and Fadden was recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident.
Later life
Harrison resigned from parliament in 1956 and became Australian High Commissioner in London, where he was an outspoken advocate of the "Old Commonwealth".
The Harrisons returned to Australia in September 1964 and moved to the Sydney suburb of Castle Cove. He died at Chatswood of Parkinson's disease and was survived by his wife and the three daughters of his first marriage. One of his daughters was Shirley Walters, a Senator for Tasmania 1975–93.
Honours
Harrison was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1954 as a result of being minister in charge of the royal visit of Queen Elizabeth II. This was an honour within the Queen's personal gift. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1961 for his service as High Commissioner to the UK.
Notes
1892 births
1974 deaths
Liberal Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia
United Australia Party members of the Parliament of Australia
Members of the Australian House of Representatives for Wentworth
Members of the Australian House of Representatives
Leaders of the Australian House of Representatives
Members of the Cabinet of Australia
Australian members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Australian Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
Australian Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
Australian politicians awarded knighthoods
High Commissioners of Australia to the United Kingdom
Permanent Representatives of Australia to the International Maritime Organization
Defence ministers of Australia
20th-century Australian politicians |
13632876 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Macleod | Joseph Macleod | Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod (1903–1984) was a British poet, actor, playwright, theatre director, theatre historian and BBC newsreader. He also published poetry under the pseudonym Adam Drinan.
Biography
Macleod was the son of Scottish parents, and was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. He passed his bar examinations, though never practised as a barrister, preferring a career as an actor, and also had aspirations as a poet. At Rugby he was a close friend of Adrian Stokes, and at Oxford he became a close friend of Graham Greene.
From 1927, he was an actor and producer at the experimental Cambridge Festival Theatre. In 1933 he became the theatre's director and lessee. Five of his own plays were staged there, including Overture to Cambridge (1933) and A Woman Turned to Stone (1934). Under Macleod, the theatre became famous throughout Europe for its avant-garde productions, and staging of lesser known works by great playwrights. Macleod staged some of Ezra Pound's Noh plays, and also some Ibsen and Chekhov (his company, The Cambridge Festival Players, was one of the first in the UK to stage Chekhov's play The Seagull). The theatre was forced to close due to financial difficulties in June 1935, and has remained so ever since. He was intermittently involved in theatre production after this, and in 1952 won the Arts Council Silver Medal for his play Leap in September.
The Ecliptic, Macleod's first book of poetry – a complex book divided into the signs of the zodiac – was published in 1930. It was approved for publication by T. S. Eliot at Faber and Faber after a strong recommendation from Ezra Pound, who thought highly of Macleod's abilities as a poet. A long-running correspondence was thus begun between the two poets. Macleod's first book was published alongside W. H. Auden's first book, Poems, and the Poetry (Chicago) editor Morton Dauwen Zabel hailed these two poets as "a Dawn in Britain" in his editorial. However, Macleod's next book, Foray of Centaurs, was considered "too Greek" for publication by Faber and Faber, and although this gained publication in Paris and Chicago, it was never to be published in the UK during his lifetime. Basil Bunting was an admirer of this early poetry, and claimed Macleod was the most important living British poet in his 'British' edition of Poetry (Chicago).
In 1937 Macleod became secretary of Huntingdonshire Divisional Labour Party and stood as a parliamentary candidate, but failed to gain election.
In 1938, Macleod became an announcer and newsreader at the BBC, and he began to write and publish poetry under the pseudonym "Adam Drinan". These poems dealt with the Highland clearances, and described the Scottish landscape in rich detail, using Gaelic assonances. He was one of the first to succeed in rendering the qualities of Gaelic poetry in English. These poems and verse plays won praise from many Scottish writers – Naomi Mitchison, Norman MacCaig, Edwin Muir, Compton Mackenzie, George Bruce, Sydney Goodsir Smith, Maurice Lindsay, and many more. Macleod's "Drinan" poetry was in much demand in both England and Scotland, as well as Ireland and the US. Editors such as Tambimuttu (of Poetry (London)), Maurice Lindsay (Poetry (Scotland)) and John Lehmann (Hogarth Press and New Writing), all requested and published many of his poems in the 1940s. Both "Drinan" and Macleod are included in Kenneth Rexroth's New British Poets anthology (1949), published for New Directions. The "Drinan" pseudonym was not publicly revealed until 1953, after which Hugh MacDiarmid commented it was "so long one of the best-kept secrets of the contemporary literary world". Adrian Stokes received and dealt with Macleod's 'Drinan' correspondence.
Macleod moved to Florence in 1955, where he lived until his death in 1984. His work was re-discovered in the late 1990s, and Cyclic Serial Zeniths from the Flux: Selected Poems of Joseph Macleod, edited and with an introduction by Andrew Duncan, was published by Waterloo Press in 2008.
Poems
From 'Cancer, or, The Crab', a section of The Ecliptic (London: Faber and Faber, 1930)
Moonpoison, mullock of sacrifice,
Suffuses the veins of the eyes
Till the retina, mooncoloured,
Sees the sideways motion of the cretin crab
Hued thus like a tortoise askew in the glaucous moonscape
A flat hot boulder it
Lividly in the midst of the Doldrums
Sidles
The lunatic unable to bear the silent course of constellations
Mad and stark naked
Sidles
The obol on an eyeball of a man dead from elephantiasis
Sidles
All three across heaven with a rocking motion.
The Doldrums: ‘region of calms and light baffling winds
near Equator.’
But the calms are rare
The winds baffling but not light
And the drunken boats belonging to the Crab Club
Rock hot and naked to the dunning of the moon
All in the pallescent Saragosso weed
And windbound, seeking distraction by the light of deliverance
For
What are we but the excrement of the non-existent noon?
(Truth like starlight crookedly)
What are we all but ‘burial grounds abhorred by the moon’?
And did the Maoris die of measles? So do we.
But there is no snow here, nor lilies.
The night is glutinous
In a broad hearth crisscross thorn clumps
Smoulder: distant fireback of copse
Throws back silence: glassen ashes gleam in pond
The constellations which have stopped working (?)
Shimmer. No dead leaf jumps.
On edge of a glowworm
Hangs out its state-recognized torchlamp
Blocks of flowers gape dumb as windows with blinds drawn
And in the centre the rugate trees
Though seeming as if they go up in smoke
Are held like cardboard where they are.
Bluehot it is queer fuel to make the moon move.
[...]
We trap our goldfinch trapping our souls therewinged
Sacrifice our mad gods to the madder gods:
We hymn the two sons of Leda and Zeus Aegis-bearer
We don’t. We drink and drivel. My
poor Catullus, do stop being such a
Fool. Admit that lost which as you watch is
gone. O, once the days shone very bright for
you, when where that girl you loved so (as no
other will be) called, you came and came. And
then there were odd things done and many
which you wanted and she didn’t not want.
Yes indeed the days shone very bright for
you. But now she doesn’t want it.
Don’t you either,
booby. Don’t keep chasing her. Don’t live in
misery, carry on, be firm, be hardened.
Goodbye girl: Catullus is quite hardened,
doesn’t want you, doesn’t ask, if you’re not
keen – though sorry you’ll be to be not asked.
Yes, poor sinner . . . what is left in life for
you? Who’ll now go with you? Who’ll be attracted?
Whom’ll you love now? Whom may you belong to?
Whom’ll you now kiss? Whose lips’ll you nibble?
- Now you, Catullus, you’ve decided to be hardened.
How can I be hardened when the whole world is fluid?
O Aphrodite Pandemos, your badgers rolling in the moonlit corn
Corn blue-bloom-covered carpeting the wind
Wind humming like distant rooks
Distant rooks busy like factory whirring metal
Whirring metallic starlings bizarre like cogwheels missing teeth
These last grinning like the backs of old motor cars
Old motor cars smelling of tragomaschality
Tragomaschality denoting the triumph of self over civilisation
Civilization being relative our to Greek
Greek to Persian
Persian to Chinese
Chinese politely making borborygms to show satisfaction
Satisfaction a matter of capacity
Capacity not significance: otherwise with an epigram
Epigrams – poems with a strabismus
Strabismus being as common spiritually as optically the moon
The moon tramping regular steps like a policeman past the
houses of the Zodiac
And the Zodiac itself, whirling and flaming sideways
Circling from no point returning to no point
Endlessly skidding as long as man skids, though never moving,
Wavers, topples, dissolves like a sandcastle into acidity.
Is there nothing more soluble, more gaseous, more imperceptible?
Nothing.
Riddle-me-ree from An Old Olive Tree (Edinburgh: M. MacDonald, 1971)
I was afraid and they gave me guts.
I was alone and they made me love.
Round that wild heat they built a furnace
and in the torment smelted me.
Out of my fragments came design:
I was assembled. I moved, I worked,
I grew receptive. Thanks to them
I have fashioned me.
Who am I?
Bibliography
Poetry
The Ecliptic (Faber and Faber, 1930)
Foray of Centaurs (Sections published in This Quarter, Paris, 1931, The Criterion, 1931, and Poetry (Chicago), 1932)
The Cove (French & Sons, 1940)
The Men of the Rocks (Fortune Press, 1942)
The Ghosts of the Strath (Fortune Press, 1943)
Women of the Happy Island (MacLellan & Co., 1944)
The Passage of the Torch: A Heroical-Historical Lay for the Fifth Centenary of the Founding of Glasgow University (Oliver and Boyd, 1951)
Script From Norway (MacLellan & Co., 1953)
An Old Olive Tree (M. Macdonald, 1971)
Literary Criticism
Beauty and the Beast (Chatto and Windus, 1927; Viking Press (USA), 1928; Haskell House (USA), 1974)
Novel
Overture to Cambridge (Allen & Unwin, 1936)
Prose
People of Florence (Allen & Unwin, 1968)
Theatre History
The New Soviet Theatre (Allen & Unwin, 1943)
Actors Cross the Volga (Allen & Unwin, 1946)
A Soviet Theatre Sketchbook (Allen & Unwin, 1951)
Piccola Storia del Teatro Britannico (Sansoni (Florence), 1958. Reissued 1963)
The Sisters d'Aranyi (Allen & Unwin, 1969)
The Actor's Right to Act (Allen & Unwin, 1981)
Autobiography
A Job at the BBC (MacLellan & Co., 1946)
References
External links
Joseph Todd Gordon Macleod – with audio recordings
Joseph Macleod Collection at the University of Stirling Archives
BBC newsreaders and journalists
1903 births
1984 deaths
Scottish dramatists and playwrights
20th-century British poets
20th-century British dramatists and playwrights
British male poets
British male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century British male writers
Scottish Renaissance |
16823001 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%20Young%20%28Canadian%20politician%29 | Robert Young (Canadian politician) | Robert Young (November 11, 1834 – February 3, 1904) was a businessman and political figure in Canada who was significant in the economic and political development of the city of Caraquet and in the province of New Brunswick.
Personal background
Young was born in Tracadie, New Brunswick, the son and grandson of Scottish immigrants. He was the oldest of James Young and Ann Ferguson's eleven children. Young was educated in Chatham, where in 1857 he married Sarah Hubbard. The Young family was part of a ruling class of powerful English-speaking capitalists in majority French-speaking Gloucester County. His sister Helen married pioneer physician Dr. Alfred Corbett Smith and his brother James Young also became a political figure.
Business activities
Young took over the operation of the Caraquet branch of his father's fishing and canning business, James Young and Sons, in 1851. The firm was one of the largest exporters of dried fish and they also canned fish, lobster, and blueberries. After his father's death in 1866, Young took over the operation of the company and expanded the firm's activities in lobster traping and canning. In 1882 he owned a lobster cannery at Caraquet and another at Black Point in Shippagan. When he retired, his son Frederick Temple Blackwood Young took over the business.
Political career
Young held various offices in the provincial administration both before and after Canadian Confederation. Young represented Gloucester County in the Legislative Assembly of the Colony of New Brunswick from 1861 to 1867. He was commissioner of lighthouses and buoys for the port of Caraquet and represented Gloucester County on the Board of Agriculture. Despite being an anti-confederate, in 1867 the government of George Edwin King appointed him to the Legislative Council, for which he served as President until 1883.
Because most of his constituents were Acadian, Young supported translating the proceedings of the provincial assembly into French. He also presented a study to the house examining the feasibility of publishing public notices in French newspapers. As a legislator, Young opposed the Common Schools Act of 1871. The act established a non-secular English public education system that was supported by a province-wide tax. The Acadian population considered the bill a threat to the French Catholic education system and to their cultural traditions. Young supported the establishment of lazarettos in the province. In 1849 and in 1853, he and his father had built the first two lazarettos in New Brunswick on land that his father later sold to the province. Young also regularly advocated for the business interests of Gloucester County.
Young was initially a Liberal Party member, but later affiliated with the Liberal-Conservative Party and the Conservative Party.
Caraquet riots of 1875
Despite having opposed passage of the Common Schools Act, as the President of the Executive Council, Young had to implement and enforce the law and found himself on the other side of the issue.
In November 1874, members of the Acadian population in Caraquet, most of whom boycotted the school tax, held a meeting to elect parish officials. The minority Protestant population was not included in the meeting and thus questioned the legality of the vote. In political retaliation, Young convened a meeting on January 4 where three Protestants were elected instead. Young's appointments, rather than the Acadian appointments, were then quickly approved by the quarter sessions of Gloucester County.
Soon following, a January 14 public meeting about the school tax ended with a scuffle between attendees.
The next day, an Acadian mob, many of whom were intoxicated, caused significant property damage in a riot in Caraquet. The mob also went to Young's store and then to his home where they threatened the lives of Young's employees and his wife (Young was in Frederickton at the time).
On January 26, Young ordered 10 constables to arrest those involved in the January 15 riot. Additionally, the police were joined by 20 more volunteer militiamen who were recruited by Young and dubbed "Young's Army". When the militia attempted to force entry into an Acadian home on January 27, an exchange of gunfire resulted where Constable John Gifford and Acadian Louis Mailloux were both shot and killed.
Calm was subsequently restored, and nine of the Acadian protesters were arrested for being responsible for the death of Gifford. After two highly publicized trials, the accused Acadians were freed. The Acadians eventually received political concessions. Many in the Acadian community fault Young for the conflict.
Local political dynasty
Young continued to sit as a member of the Legislative Council until it was abolished in 1892. Young ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons of Canada in 1896. He died of heart disease at home in Caraquet at the age of 69.
Young's son, F.T.B. Young, represented Gloucester County in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick as did his grandson, Frederick C. Young. Young is also the great uncle of Doug Young who served in the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, in the Canadian House of Commons, and as Minister of several of the ministries in the Cabinet of Canada in the 1990s.
References
1834 births
1904 deaths
People from Gloucester County, New Brunswick
Businesspeople from New Brunswick
New Brunswick Liberal Association MLAs
New Brunswick Liberal Association MLCs |
17135970 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason%20Jones%20%28defensive%20end%29 | Jason Jones (defensive end) | Jason Duane Jones (born May 23, 1986) is a former American football defensive end. He was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the second round of the 2008 NFL Draft and also played for the Seattle Seahawks, Detroit Lions, Miami Dolphins and New Orleans Saints. He played college football at Eastern Michigan.
Early years
Jones attended Southfield-Lathrup High School in Lathrup Village, Michigan and enjoyed an outstanding prep career as a football and basketball player. He was named first-team All-Oakland Athletic Association as a senior, recording 27 tackles, six sacks, four forced fumbles and seven interceptions, three of which were returned for touchdowns. He also caught 25 passes for 395 yards and eight touchdowns as a receiver. The Detroit News named him the 44th-best player on the Blue Chip list in the state of Michigan, as he also added All-Metro North honors. Jones is the younger brother of retired American Professional Basketball Player Brian LaWan Alexander. Also, Jones older brother, Michael, played football at Alabama State and other brother, Jamar, works at the White House as a Secret Service uniformed police officier.
College career
Jones played college football for Eastern Michigan University. As a senior (2007), Jones received third-team All-American and first-team All-Mid-American Conference honors. He played in all 12 games with 11 starts and finished fourth on the team with 70 tackles. He tied for seventh in the NCAA with a career-high 19.5 stops for losses. He added 10 quarterback pressures, a fumble recovery and a forced fumble while breaking up three passes and blocking a kick. Selected to play in the 2008 Senior Bowl All-Star Game and finished with three tackles, one sack for 14 yards and one forced fumble. Jones was named the recipient of the Harold E. Sponberg Award as the team's top down lineman scholar-athlete.
Professional career
Tennessee Titans
Jason Jones was drafted in the second round (54th overall) by the Tennessee Titans in the 2008 NFL Draft. He started against the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 16 of the 2008 season as a result of injuries to Albert Haynesworth and Kyle Vanden Bosch. In thirteen games during the regular season, Jones totaled 31 tackles and 5 sacks. He was particularly impressive in his week 16 game against the Steelers when his 3.5 sacks, 5 tackles, and 3 forced fumbles made him a candidate for Defensive Player of the Week. Jones got ejected from a Week 2 game versus the Houston Texans. Jones was placed on injured reserve on December 9, 2009 due to a shoulder injury.
Seattle Seahawks
On March 17, 2012, Jones signed a one-year deal with the Seattle Seahawks.
Detroit Lions
On March 13, 2013, Jones signed a three-year deal with the Detroit Lions. On September 22, 2013 (Week 3 of the 2013 NFL Season), Jones suffered a season ending knee injury.
Miami Dolphins
Jones had signed a one-year deal with the Miami Dolphins on May 13, 2016. He was suspended for two games on November 21, 2016 for violating the NFL Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse. On January 6, 2017, Jones was released by the Dolphins.
New Orleans Saints
On August 12, 2017, Jones was signed by the New Orleans Saints. On August 29, 2017, he was released by the Saints.
Charity work
Jones is affiliated with the 501c3 Non-Profit Team Alexander Athletics Colorado Club Basketball Program. The organization is exclusively for charitable and educational purposes addressing its mission through programs and events. T.A.A. encourages a cross-cultural environment to stimulate conversation with the purpose of overcoming racial barriers, relations and networking to promote unity through athletics and sports.
References
External links
Eastern Michigan University Athletic Page
Tennessee Titans bio
Team Alexander Athletics
1986 births
Living people
African-American players of American football
Players of American football from Detroit
American football defensive ends
American football defensive tackles
Eastern Michigan Eagles football players
Tennessee Titans players
Seattle Seahawks players
Detroit Lions players
Miami Dolphins players
New Orleans Saints players
21st-century African-American sportspeople
20th-century African-American people |
23083710 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Pride%20of%20Jesse%20Hallam | The Pride of Jesse Hallam | The Pride of Jesse Hallam is a 1981 American made-for-television drama film starring Johnny Cash and Brenda Vaccaro. It originally aired March 3, 1981 on CBS.
Plot
Jesse Hallam is a coal miner in Muhlenberg, Kentucky, whose wife has recently died and who has also recently lost his job. His daughter Jenny is in need of an operation on her back, and the nearest hospital that can successfully perform the procedure is in Cincinnati, Ohio. He sells the family farm to his brother-in-law Charlie, receives $15,000 in cash, packs up Jenny and his son Ted, and piles their belongings high on a pickup truck as they head to Cincinnati to start a new life.
Upon arrival in Cincinnati, Jesse checks Jenny into the hospital, paying the $14,000 for her operation in cash from the money he received from Charlie. After getting Ted registered at Harding High School, Jesse sets out to find work. However, his behavior is peculiar...as he is presented with a job application to fill out, he backs off and leaves. His efforts seem futile until he witnesses a vendor trying to cheat an elderly fruit grocer by selling him inferior apples. Jesse intervenes and stops it. The grocer, an Italian immigrant named Sal Galucci (Eli Wallach), is impressed enough to offer Jesse a job immediately.
Soon afterwards, Jesse learns his driver's license has expired after he runs a stop sign and is stopped by a police officer. One day, as Jesse is helping Sal set up a stand at a farmer's market, Sal rebukes him for setting their wares on a spot marked with another name. In his anger, Sal says, "What's'a matter, don't you read good?" When Jesse turns away to hide his shame, Sal comes to realize the truth—that Jesse is illiterate. He manages to convince Jesse to allow Sal to have his daughter Marian, who is also Ted's principal, teach him. Marian is reluctant at first, but gives in when Sal tells her how much he wants Jesse to continue working for him.
Throughout all this is a subplot that involves Jesse's son, Theodore "Ted" Hallam. Though his athletic abilities land him a spot on the track team, Ted is struggling academically, especially with reading—a parallel similar to his father. Because of this, he also struggles socially, leading him to hang out with a group of wild friends from school. This culminates in a police officer bringing Ted home to Jesse after Ted is found to be consuming alcohol.
Jesse continues to progress well with his reading, to the point where Marian offers him a copy of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", which further inspires Jesse. She suggests a summer reading program at the high school that would bring him to a higher grade level. However, after Jesse fails the written portion of his driver's test, he becomes discouraged and decides to return to Kentucky, which pleases Ted.
After the school year ends, Ted brings home his report card, and when probed by Jesse, Ted says he received an A in gym and a D in math, but says nothing about his other grades, expressing excitement at going back to Kentucky, where he would be enrolled as a junior at his old high school. Jesse learns that Ted actually flunked out of school...failing all of his other subjects, which require him to know how to read.
The final scene shows Jesse and Ted showing up at the high school for the remedial reading class that Marian had suggested to Jesse earlier. She watches them with delight as they pull up in front of the school. However, the class is out of control before it even starts, with all the students (with the exception of Jesse and Ted) talking and playing loud music. Jesse gets up from his desk and sits down each of the rowdy students, and grabs the radio and shuts it off. The class quickly quiets as he addresses them:
"You want to do what I've been doin' my whole life? Running away from words?" He then goes on to call it 'a poverty trade' and that they're in danger of digging deeper into their disabilities by not taking advantage of the opportunity they have in front of them. He says the choice is theirs, but no one is going to stop him and Ted from learning to read. The teacher, Mr. Parker, then calls roll, with Jesse and Ted proudly stating 'here' when their names are called.
Production notes
This movie was filmed entirely on location in Cincinnati, Ohio and rural Kentucky.
The 1987 made-for-television film Bluffing It, which starred Dennis Weaver, also dealt with adult illiteracy, which was Jesse Hallam's main problem.
References
External links
1981 television films
1981 films
1980s drama films
American films
American drama films
CBS network films
Films set in Cincinnati
Films directed by Gary Nelson |
40901659 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Andy%20Lopez | Killing of Andy Lopez | The fatal shooting of Andy Lopez by Sonoma County sheriff's deputy Erick Gelhaus took place on October 22, 2013, in Santa Rosa, California. 13-year-old Lopez was walking through a vacant lot and carrying an airsoft gun that was designed to resemble an AK-47 assault rifle. Gelhaus opened fire on Lopez, presumably mistaking the airsoft gun for a real firearm. The shooting prompted many protests in Santa Rosa, and throughout California.
On November 4, 2013, the Lopez family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit at the U.S. District Court.
On July 7, 2014, District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced no charges would be filed against Gelhaus. On July 1, 2015, the FBI announced no criminal charges would be filed against Gelhaus, due to lack of evidence to prove that he violated Lopez's civil rights.
Backgrounds
Andy Lopez (June 2, 2000 – October 22, 2013) was a 13-year-old boy who attended Cook Middle School in Santa Rosa. He was raised in the Moorland Avenue neighborhood in southwest Santa Rosa. He transferred to Lewis Opportunity School from Cook Middle School one week prior to his death.
Erick Gelhaus is a Sonoma County sheriff's deputy, and has worked with the agency for 24 years. He is also an Iraq War veteran. Gelhaus is a firearms instructor and is a contributing writer to gun publications. He was an instructor for ten years at Gunsite Academy, an Arizona-based company that teaches gun-handling, marksmanship, and law enforcement to "elite military personnel, law enforcement officers and free citizens of the U.S." He specialized in teaching pistol, carbine, shotgun and rifle lessons. He accidentally shot himself in the leg in 1995 while on duty with the sheriff's office, reportedly while holstering a gun during an attempt at searching a teenager for weapons. In his 24 years in law enforcement, he had never shot a suspect until the shooting of Lopez.
Shooting
According to Santa Rosa Police Lieutenant Paul Henry, two Sonoma County sheriff's deputies (Gelhaus and Michael Schemmel; Schemmel was driving the patrol car) were patrolling the Moorland Avenue neighborhood when they spotted Andy Lopez approximately ahead carrying an airsoft replica of an AK-47 assault rifle while he was walking on Moorland, just past the corner of West Robles Avenue. The rifle appeared to be a real weapon, since its orange tip has been previously broken off. As the sheriff's deputies approached the child from behind, Gelhaus radioed an observation of "Code 20, two units" at 3:13:58 p.m. Schemmel activated the light bar and briefly sounded the siren as he parked the patrol vehicle, and Gelhaus exited the passenger's side, calling out to demand that Lopez drop the weapon. Lopez turned to his right, towards the deputies and the barrel allegedly began to ascend.
At 3:14 p.m., Gelhaus fired eight shots at Lopez from his department-issued 9mm handgun. The deputies broadcast "shots fired" to dispatch at 3:14:17 p.m., indicating the total time from initial contact to the shooting was seventeen seconds. By Gelhaus's own testimony, he opened fire "a couple seconds" after issuing the command for Lopez to drop the airsoft gun. Seven bullets hit Andy within six seconds. Two of the shots delivered fatal wounds, with one round hitting Lopez on his side while he was turning to face the police, at least four entering from the rear, according to an autopsy. The deputies remained in defensive position until backups arrived, then approached Lopez with guns drawn; after separating the airsoft gun from Lopez he was handcuffed. He was pronounced dead by medical personnel on the scene. Lopez was found to be under the influence of marijuana after an autopsy.
The missing orange tip is a US legal requirement for all toy guns for import. However, airsoft and pellet rifles are exempted from the marking requirements. It is also a violation of California law to "openly display or expose any imitation firearm in a public place unless the entire exterior surface of the imitation firearm is painted with a specified color". The 13 year old friend from whom Andy had borrowed the replica later reported that he felt responsible "because he allowed Andy to borrow the gun even though the orange tip of the barrel was broken off making it look real, although he'd told his friend not to take it since it was broken."
Investigation
On October 26, 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation started to conduct an independent investigation in Lopez's death. Sonoma County Sheriff Steve Freitas announced in a statement on October 25 that he will cooperate fully with federal investigators. It is the first time the FBI has investigated an officer-involved shooting in Sonoma County since the 1997 shooting death of Kuanchung Kao in Rohnert Park.
Investigators said Gelhaus feared for the safety of himself and his partner, and had to make an immediate decision to shoot when Lopez turned around and allegedly began raising the apparent assault weapon in their direction. The gun was later found to be an AK-47 replica air-soft pellet gun with the orange barrel tip marking, required to help distinguish it from a real weapon, broken off, and most witnesses believed it was real or might be real. Witnesses testified that Gelhaus had by then once or twice loudly called upon Lopez to drop the weapon. Gelhaus was in a deputy sheriff's uniform and marked sheriff's patrol car; however, Lopez would not have seen the uniform or patrol car since the officers approached him from behind;
In the autopsy, Lopez was found to have significant levels of THC in his blood, consistent with smoking marijuana 60 to 75 minutes previously; he was also found to have a joint in his pocket. 'A 13-year-old boy high on marijuana would likely have suffered "impaired judgment, slowed decision making and increased mental processing time, particularly when having to deal with performance of a sudden, unanticipated tasks, including decisions that needed to be quickly responded to.'"
Gelhaus was cleared to return to duty on December 9, 2013, but was able to work at his desk and not on patrol. On July 7, 2014, District Attorney Jill Ravitch announced no charges would be filed against Gelhaus. In August 2014, Gelhaus was allowed to return to patrolling the streets.
The district attorney, Jill Ravich, referred the completed investigative report to the Sonoma County Grand Jury, but the civil Grand Jury declined to review it, citing lack of expertise.
On July 1, 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would not file criminal charges of violating one's civil rights against Gelhaus. According to a Justice Department spokesman, the decision to not file charges against Gelhaus was due to insufficient evidence that he willfully used excessive force that resulted in Lopez's death. A group of federal prosecutors and FBI agents reviewed the case and determine there was a lack of evidence Gelhaus violated Andy Lopez's civil rights.
Aftermath
Civil action
Arnoldo Casillas, the lawyer representing Lopez's family, said that the shooting was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourth Amendment's limits on police authority. On November 4, the Lopez family filed a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claiming that Deputy Erick Gelhaus shot Lopez "without reasonable cause."
The civil action trial was initially scheduled to start in April 2016. In February 2016, the trial was delayed by Sonoma County's challenge to the January ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Jean Hamilton that allowed the case brought by the parents of Andy Lopez to go forward. Hamilton had dismissed three of the five claims that Gelhaus violated Lopez's civil rights but said she would leave it to a jury to decide whether he acted unreasonably. Steven Mitchell, the attorney who would have defended Sonoma County in the federal lawsuit filed by Lopez's parents, committed suicide two weeks after the decision to delay the case was made.
On June 25, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Sonoma County's petition, clearing the way for the case against the Sonoma County sheriff's deputy to proceed toward a trial. In December 2018, the lawsuit was settled for $3 million.
Protests
A series of protests were organized and held following Lopez's death. The protests were mainly organized by immigrant, religious and community groups and activists. Many protesters have stated that Lopez's shooting was a case of police brutality, and that Lopez, who was Latino, was a victim of racial profiling by the deputies. On October 25, 2013, more than 100 people, consisting mostly of middle school and high school students, protested at the Santa Rosa City Hall. On October 29, over 1,000 people attended a protest in downtown Santa Rosa, in the form of a mass march. The march initiated in the Courthouse Square in downtown Santa Rosa, and ended at the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. Lawyer John Burris, who represented the family of police shooting victim Oscar Grant, gave a speech at the rally. Attendees traveled from all over the San Francisco Bay Area to attend the event. Many protesters held picket signs demanding justice. Up to 200 people attended a march in Santa Rosa on November 5, 2013, including activist Cindy Sheehan. They also demanded that District Attorney Jill Ravitch issue an arrest warrant for Gelhaus or put together a grand jury, but she declined to do either until the fact gathering investigation was complete, stating that the investigation would take time.
Rallies were held statewide on November 9, 2013, in Santa Rosa, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Merced.
On November 26, 2013, several people were detained during protests in Santa Rosa. A dozen demonstrators were cited for blocking traffic, and one demonstrator was
arrested and booked for resisting arrest. There were 80 people attending that protest, consisting of local middle and high-school students, and several members of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), a Bay Area-based civil rights group.
On December 3, 2013, protesters targeted Ravitch at her re-election fundraiser.
On December 9, 2013, Gelhaus was cleared to return to duty, which resulted in additional protests.
A 31-year-old man was arrested for battery on a police officer for allegedly punching a police officer and hitting another officer with a picket sign during a protest at the Santa Rosa City Hall on December 10, 2013. Charges were dropped against him in May 2014. A second person was arrested for obstructing a police officer and violating probation. Multiple protesters vandalized the front door of the Sonoma County Jail, breaking its glass.
On February 17, 2014, protesters for Andy Lopez gathered at the Santa Rosa Plaza food court to eat lunch while wearing shirts displaying "RIP Andy Lopez". Several mall security guards came up to them and asked them to remove their T-shirts or leave the mall. The attorney for Simon Malls, owner of Santa Rosa Plaza, apologized in a letter issued to relatives of Andy Lopez, stating that they were disappointed that the security guards did not comply with the mall's policies and procedures. The head of security for Santa Rosa Plaza was fired one month later in connection with the incident.
On July 12, 2014, more than 100 protesters held a rally at the Old Courthouse Square in Santa Rosa, demonstrating their disapproval with prosecutors' decision to not file charges against Erick Gelhaus. A small group of protesters marched onto northbound Highway 101, blocking traffic.
On June 2, 2020, a memorial and march was held in Santa Rosa in Lopez’s honor, on what would have been his 20th birthday, and coinciding with the George Floyd protests.
Tributes
A memorial park was created for Lopez in December 2013, located near the site of his death.
In March 2016, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved an additional $1.2 million of fund money for the park and a name for it. The park is named "Andy's Unity Park" and encompasses 4.22 acres. The park's estimated cost was $4 million, with $3 million for the construction. The park was opened in June 2018 with a final cost of $3.7 million. LandPaths, a Sonoma county non-profit, helped create Andy’s Unity Park Community Garden and maintains the park along with community involvement.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, October 2013
Police misconduct
Shooting of Michael Brown and the subsequent 2014 Ferguson unrest
Shooting of Tamir Rice
Shooting of Akai Gurley
Shooting of John Crawford III
Shooting of Ezell Ford
Death of William Corey Jackson
Shooting of Kuanchung Kao
Death of Eric Garner
Entertech shooting deaths
Emmett Till
References
External links
2013 in California
Deaths by firearm in California
History of Santa Rosa, California
History of Sonoma County, California
Latino people shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Incidents of violence against boys
Protests in the United States
Law enforcement in California |
43798827 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%20Young%20%28musician%29 | Robert Young (musician) | Robert "Throb" Young (19 November 1964 – 9 September 2014) was a Scottish musician. He was a member of the alternative rock band Primal Scream from 1984 to 2006.
Career
Young met Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie when they were both studying at King's Park Secondary School in Glasgow, and he joined the band in 1984. He performed on every Primal Scream album until his departure in 2006. He was originally the bass player. Primal Scream's debut album, Sonic Flower Groove, was released in 1987. After the album was released, guitarist Jim Beattie left the band and Young took over that role. Following 2006's Riot City Blues, Young left the band. According to Gillespie, this was to deal with "problems in his personal life".
Young also played bass on Felt's 1989 album Me and a Monkey on the Moon.
Personal life
Young was married twice, divorced from his first wife Anita Laugharne. He had two sons, Brandon and Miles, with a former partner. At the time of his death, he was married to his second wife, Rachel.
Death
Young was found dead in his flat in Hove, East Sussex on the afternoon of 9 September 2014. His death was announced two days later on 11 September. At the time of his death, Young was 49 years old. A police spokeswoman stated that his death was not being treated as suspicious.
Primal Scream's Gillespie and Andrew Innes wrote:
We have lost our comrade and brother Robert Young. A beautiful and deeply soulful man. He was an irreplaceable talent, much admired amongst his peers. In the words of Johnny Marr, "Throb with a gold top Les Paul – unbeatable". He was a true rock and roller. He walked the walk. He had "Heart & Soul" tattooed on his arm and I'm sure on his heart too. He once said to me, "When we go onstage, it's a war between us and the audience". He never let go of that attitude.
A cause of death has not been officially announced. However, Alan McGee, who was a manager for Primal Scream, has suggested that it was a result of drug or alcohol abuse:
He was the wildest of them all and he was the strongest so it's ironic that we all ended up sober and he fought his demons. Bobby [Gillespie] and me ended up sober, [Andrew] Innes is practically sober and even Tim Abbot is sober but unfortunately the strongest one didn’t end up sober and it’s ironic and heartbreaking that the strongest one physically, died at 49.
He was a truly beautiful, gentle person. I guess it's that old cliche of live fast die young…
References
1964 births
2014 deaths
Primal Scream members
Musicians from Glasgow
Scottish rock guitarists
Male bass guitarists
Scottish bass guitarists |
45577002 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Allen%20Red%20Dog | James Allen Red Dog | James Allen Red Dog (February 1, 1954 – March 3, 1993) was a mixed Sioux and Assiniboine serial killer from Fort Peck Indian Reservation who was executed at his own request for murdering Hugh Pennington and who had previously been convicted twice of armed robbery. As a result of his crimes, Joe Biden introduced legislation that required states to be notified by federal officials when dangerous criminals were placed in their jurisdictions.
Early life
Red Dog's heritage was a mix of Sioux and Assiniboine. He was a member of the Lakota tribe, and grew up on Fort Peck Reservation in Poplar, in northeast Montana. He blamed poverty on his reservation for his crimes later in life; he said that there were no jobs and he could only make a living on crime. According to a family acquaintance, who asked not to be named, at age 8 or 10 Red Dog tried to emulate the lifestyle of an older half-brother whom he admired, who as of 1993 was in a federal prison. The acquaintance also said that life had "very little" to offer Red Dog.
Delaware deputy attorneys Steven P. Wood and Peggy J. Hageman, who prosecuted Red Dog, tried and failed to find a motive. According to Wood, attributing Red Dog's behavior to his upbringing is too easy: "There is no denying the privation Native Americans are subjected to on reservations, but the simple fact is there are hundreds of thousands of Native Americans raised in those conditions, and precious few become multiple murders", he said, as well as that his killings were "essentially motiveless".
Six of his eight sisters, however, said that he was not a "multiple and motiveless killer". They also said that "[the] people of Delaware should be thankful that our brother [...] is willing to give his life, like a man, instead of spending thousands and thousands of the taxpayers' money on appeals".
Later life
Red Dog once told a television interviewer that since his first serious crime, an armed robbery in 1973, he had been "prepared to die". Along with another man, he robbed a liquor and pizza store on the reservation in 1973. The owner was killed and Red Dog was sentenced to prison.
In 1977, while on furlough from jail to attend a Native American ceremony, he escaped and fled with a companion to Los Angeles, where they met two Native American men in a bar who offered to lodge them for the night; they stabbed the men to death in their sleep. Red Dog pleaded guilty to two counts of second degree murder, but was given a sentence concurrent with armed robbery; Wood said it was "mind-boggling" that he served no extra time for the murder. In 1983, while in an Illinois prison, he provided heroin to kill Joe Ortega, a prison gang member who had offended other inmates.
In exchange for testifying against the other inmates and being a witness in an investigation about prison gangs and the militant American Indian Movement, Red Dog was placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program, and released on parole on June 27, 1990. After his release, he was relocated to Delaware, where he would murder Hugh Pennington. less than eight months later. Before the murder, Red Dog taught Sioux traditions to Delaware's Nanticoke Indians.
At the time he killed Hugh Pennington, a 30-year-old motel night auditor and friend of Red Dog's wife Bonnie Red Dog, he was living outside Wilmington with Bonnie who worked as a secretary; Pennington and his mother lived nearby. Pennington also worked at the Tally Ho Motor Lodge with Bonnie.
In February 1991, Red Dog drove north to Pennington's suburban Wilmington home in New Castle County. He appeared in Pennington's kitchen on February 9, 1991, after a day spent drinking. He woke Pennington, still in pajamas, and forced him into a basement workshop. According to Wood, Pennington said or did "something very minor" that in Red Dog's homicidal state was enough to enrage him. Red Dog tied his wrists and ankles with duct tape and electrical cord, and forced him to lie on his back on the floor, then cut his throat. According to prosecutors he took off his boots so they wouldn't be stained with blood. He nearly decapitated Pennington with his knife; the wound was 6 inches deep.
During the next 12 hours, he kidnapped a 52-year-old female witness, raped her in her home, then forced her to drive him to southern Delaware where he raped her again, a total of four times. She escaped and called police.
He had earlier told companions that he was a "terminator". He also said "I hurt people", according to court records.
This murder led to his being sentenced to death in April 1992. Four days later, police caught Red Dog 100 miles from where he was last seen, walking across Winchester Bridge in Wilmington. He had a strange odor; he later told his lawyer that he had smeared himself with deer feces to divert police dogs. When charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping and four counts of rape, he pleaded no contest, saying he had been so drunk that he did not remember the killing. He could not think of a motive either, blaming childhood poverty and life in prison. He suggested in the television interview that Pennington might have done something to trigger hate he developed in prison.
Execution
Red Dog requested a death sentence and refused to appeal it, as it would violate his warrior's code. He told a judge he wanted "no appeals or motions for stay of execution". Red Dog's family supported his decision not to fight the sentence. His relatives said he was going to his death with dignity and was "proud that he's giving in return for what he took: a life".
Red Dog became the second convict to be executed since Delaware reinstated executions in 1992. Steven Brian Pennell, executed in March 1992, was the first; prior to that, none had taken place since 1946. Red Dog decried the "festive" atmosphere of the Pennell execution and said he hoped "that my execution will be conducted with more solemnity than a circus act!"
Edward C. Pankowski Jr., Red Dog's lawyer and a former prosecutor who joined the public defender's office, tried in vain to convince Red Dog to appeal the sentence. At the hearing to determine Red Dog's sentence he told Pankowski not to present mitigating evidence.
The Delaware Superior Court judge rejected motion by lawyers to block his execution. His lawyers, who were public defenders, filed a motion asking the court to order psychiatric and psychological tests to determine if he was mentally competent to request execution; Judge Norman A. Barron said that he found "no substantial showing that Red Dog is currently incompetent" and that the court would respect Red Dog's "rationally based wishes".
Red Dog wrote in court papers in 1992 that he "[wanted] to expedite this for the families", both his and those of his victims. The defense attorney said he did not have a trial because he expressed a lot of remorse and wanted to spare the Pennington family the "whole trial stage".
He was to have received his lethal injection in July 1992, as ordered by Judge Barron, but under Delaware law the death sentence was automatically appealed to the State Supreme Court, so Judge Barron's ruling wasn't upheld until November; the case was rescheduled for March 3.
Red Dog sent for John H. Morsette, 52, a tribal medicine man he said he met almost a decade before at a Native American purification ceremony in Montana. Prison officials were initially reluctant to have Morsette inside the chamber, saying only a prison chaplain was allowed there, but they approved it on Thursday. Morsette, also from Poplar, Montana, said he did not remember meeting Red Dog but would come to pray with him to prepare him for the Sioux afterlife. He conducted Native American rites over Red Dog for about two minutes and placed a necklace over his head.
Red Dog was executed by injection on March 3 at the State Correctional Center in Smyrna, Delaware, 15 miles north of Dover. He was 39 years old at the time.
After receiving last rites from Morsette, Red Dog said "I'd like to thank my family and friends and [attorney Edward] Pankowski for supporting me and all others who treated me with kindness". As the drugs were administered, he choked and told his wife "I'm going home, babe".
At about 10 am, his final words were to thank his supporters and curse the rest of the witnesses. According to witnesses he died with his left eye open. He was pronounced dead at 10:28 am. Red Dog's body was released to be transported by Amtrak train in Wilmington, Delaware to Wolf Point, Montana shortly thereafter. Because of the special circumstances, Amtrak I. A. Supervisor Kenneth Wilson was delegated to accompany the remains back to the final destination.
Aftermath
Steven Wood, Delaware state prosecutor, said that an earlier execution would have saved the lives of four of Red Dog's victims.
As a result of Red Dog's crimes, Joe Biden introduced legislation that required federal officials to notify states when dangerous criminals were placed in their jurisdictions.
See also
Capital punishment in Delaware
Capital punishment in the United States
List of people executed in Delaware
List of serial killers in the United States
References
Executed Native American people
1954 births
1993 deaths
1991 murders in the United States
20th-century executions by Delaware
American people convicted of murder
Executed people from Montana
People convicted of murder by Delaware
People executed by Delaware by lethal injection
People from Poplar, Montana
20th-century executions of American people
Lakota people
People executed for murder
American serial killers
Male serial killers
Executed serial killers |
48644641 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder%20of%20Laquan%20McDonald | Murder of Laquan McDonald | The murder of Laquan McDonald took place on October 20, 2014, in Chicago, Illinois. McDonald was a 17-year-old African American youth who was fatally shot by a white Chicago Police Officer, Jason Van Dyke. Police had initially reported that McDonald was behaving erratically while walking down the street, refusing to put down a knife, and that he had lunged at officers. Preliminary internal police reports described the incident similarly, leading to the shooting being judged a justifiable and Van Dyke not being charged at the time.
On November 24, 2015, thirteen months after the shooting, a court ordered the police to release a dash cam video of the shooting. It showed that McDonald was walking away from the police when he was shot 16 times by Officer Van Dyke. That same day, Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder and initially held without bail at the Cook County Jail. He was released on bail on November 30. The city reached a settlement with McDonald's family for $5 million in April 2015. On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder, as well as 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.
Protests followed the shooting of McDonald, demanding changes in police and judicial procedure, and for the dismissal or resignation of city and county officials. Rahm Emanuel won a second term in 2015 as Mayor of Chicago (prior to the release of the dash cam video), but Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez lost her bid for reelection in 2016.
At the request of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the United States Department of Justice initiated a civil rights investigation into McDonald's death and the activities of the Chicago Police Department. It released its report in January 2017, describing the police as having a culture of "excessive violence", especially against minority suspects, and of having poor training and supervision. DOJ and city officials signed a consent decree for a plan for improvement to be overseen by the courts. Moreover, three Chicago police officers were tried for allegedly attempting to cover up events related to the shooting and were found not guilty by the Cook County Circuit Court on January 17, 2019.
Profiles
Laquan McDonald
Laquan Joseph McDonald (September 25, 1997 – October 20, 2014) was from the 37th Ward of Chicago. According to NBC Chicago news, McDonald earned $1,100 working after school in the Youth Advocate Program in 2014. His final report card showed that he had earned an A in personal finance and music, a B in world studies and reading, and Cs in biology and algebra. He had a younger sister and brother. One of McDonald's teachers described him as "very respectful and reserved". The teacher added that McDonald "was not aggressive".
Toxicology reports later revealed that McDonald had PCP in his blood and urine at the time of the encounter with police. Defense expert pharmacologist James Thomas O’Donnell testified that the amount found was enough to suggest he had taken the drug on the day of the shooting and that it could cause "significant bizarre behavior".
Jason Van Dyke
Jason D. Van Dyke (born 1978) was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, and graduated from Hinsdale South High School in 1996. He earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from St. Xavier University in Chicago. A 14-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department and earning a salary of $78,012, Van Dyke is married and has two children. Since 2001, some 20 citizen complaints have been filed against Officer Van Dyke, but none resulted in disciplinary action. Ten of the complaints allege he used excessive force, and two involve the use of a firearm. A jury awarded a Chicago man $350,000 after determining Van Dyke employed excessive force during a traffic stop. One complaint involved verbal abuse by Van Dyke, who used a racial slur. Van Dyke was involved in preparing questionable documentation of a separate shooting in 2005.
According to CNN, "the Chicago Police Department has about 12,000 officers. Like Van Dyke, 402 officers have 20 or more complaints on file in the database. The most complaints against any officer, according to the database, is 68. The database shows that of the 20 complaints against Van Dyke none resulted in discipline. Five complaints in the database were "not sustained", five were unfounded, four resulted in exoneration, five had unknown outcomes and one resulted in no action taken."
Events
Shortly before 10:00 p.m., police were called to investigate McDonald at 4100 South Pulaski Road, responding to reports that he was carrying a knife and breaking into vehicles in a trucking yard at 41st Street and Kildare Avenue. When officers confronted McDonald, he used a knife with a blade to slice the tire on a patrol vehicle and damage its windshield. McDonald walked away from police after numerous verbal instructions from officers to drop the knife, at which point responding officers requested Taser backup, according to radio recordings released December 30, 2015, to Politico and NBC Chicago in response to Illinois Freedom of Information Act requests.
Video of the shooting shows that Van Dyke was advancing on McDonald, while McDonald was walking away from Van Dyke when the first shot was fired. The first shot hit McDonald, who spun and fell to the ground. As McDonald lay on the ground, still holding the knife, Van Dyke fired more shots into him. In total, Van Dyke fired 16 shots at McDonald in 14–15 seconds, expending the maximum capacity of his 9 mm semi-automatic firearm. Van Dyke was on the scene for less than 30 seconds before opening fire and began shooting approximately six seconds after exiting his car. The first responding officer said that he did not see the need to use force, and none of the at least eight other officers on the scene fired their weapons.
Laquan McDonald was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m.
Initial police report
The initial police portrayals of the incident, consisting of about 400 pages of typed and handwritten reports, prompted police supervisors to rule the case a justifiable homicide and within the bounds of the department's use of force guidelines. The reports did not say how many times McDonald was shot and said McDonald was acting "crazed" and lunged at officers after refusing to drop his knife. Michael D. Robbins, one of the attorneys representing the McDonald estate, said his initial thoughts were that "I didn't think there was a case if he had lunged at a police officer", adding, "The police narrative, without exception, is that the use of force is justified and necessary, which it sometimes is."
One police report described that McDonald "raised the knife across chest" and pointed it at Van Dyke. Van Dyke told investigators that he feared McDonald would rush him with the knife or throw it at him, and he also recalled a 2012 Police Department bulletin warning about a knife that was also capable of firing a bullet, as well as throwing knives and also spring-loaded knives capable of propelling the blade. One report noted that McDonald's knife "was in the open position" but, when announcing charges against Van Dyke, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said the knife was found folded at the scene.
Medical report
According to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office's autopsy report, which was revealed by journalist Jamie Kalven through a public records request, McDonald was shot in his neck, chest, back, both arms, right leg and a graze wound to his left scalp. Nine of the 16 shots hit McDonald's back, and he was shot as he lay on the ground. His death was ruled a homicide.
Dash-cam video
Five police videos of the incident are known to exist, including the view from a camera mounted in the marked police SUV that Van Dyke was riding in as he and his partner responded to the scene. The videos show that at least eight police vehicles responded to the scene, but no video has been released from the other three vehicles. Chicago police officers are required to make sure that their video systems are working properly, and that they should "submit a ticket if they are unable to download digitally recorded data." There were no repair tickets requested by any of the three vehicles missing video on the scene that night.
When video footage was initially released, it did not contain audio, although Chicago Police dashboard cameras should automatically record audio when the video recording is activated. According to a CPD video, "The in-car camera system automatically engages both the audio and the video recording when the vehicles' emergency roof lights are activated" and each vehicle has a front and rear camera and microphone. City officials initially blamed a technical problem. It was later revealed that the audio recording equipment in officer Van Dyke's vehicle had been "intentionally damaged" according to records from police technicians. Another car's audio was disabled because the microphones were in the glove compartment with the batteries inserted backwards. For another, a mobile start-up recorder was corrupted, and a third was processing other video at the time. The Sun-Times published that a sergeant reported officers throwing their microphones on the roof of the Jefferson Park police station to the Internal Police Review Authority a month and a half before the release of the Laquan McDonald dashcam video in an apparent protest against being recorded. Fraternal Order of Police president Dean Angelo defended officers in an interview, saying that operator error could be any number of accidents, adding, "Things always trickle downhill so it winds up the responsibility of the beat officer—God forbid it's the responsibility of the agency."
Burger King surveillance video
There was also a security camera at a nearby Burger King restaurant that may have captured the shooting, but during the time of the shooting there is a gap of 86 minutes in the recording. The manager of the restaurant said that on the night of the shooting, five Chicago police officers gained access to the video and passwords on the equipment, and that by the time the Independent Police Review Authority requested to view the footage the next day, it had been erased. The Tribune later obtained footage showing a Chicago police employee working on the restaurant's computers after the shooting. However, according to FBI sources, the video taken from the Burger King surveillance camera was not altered, and there were gaps throughout the surveillance video because the system at Burger King was a "mess".
$5 million settlement
Attorneys for the estate of Laquan McDonald entered into negotiations with the City of Chicago to settle claims arising out of his death. The Chicago City Council approved a $5 million settlement to McDonald's family on April 15, 2015, although the family had not yet filed a wrongful-death lawsuit. Emails from the mayor's office surrounding the case later revealed the settlement deal was finalized the day after the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, secured his second term by a run-off election. Part of the settlement agreement required that the video be sealed until investigations were completed, which could have delayed the release of the video for years. Aldermen were not shown the dash-cam video before approving the settlement, although city Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton said the existence of the video influenced the council's decision to settle before a lawsuit, and details about the video were given to the Finance Committee during a hearing. The decision took only "5 seconds out of a two hour, 45 minute meeting" to approve. Dick Simpson, a UIC political scientist and former Chicago alderman, said "It's odd not only in this case but maybe in others that there isn't more debate on the floor because that's where the public gets informed."
Legal proceedings
Requests for documents
Reporters noted inconsistencies between the narrative police told reporters, the autopsy, and an anonymous eyewitness account before the video was publicly released. A whistle-blower expressed concern over the handling of the McDonald shooting a few weeks after the shooting, revealing "that there was a video and that it was horrific", to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman. The pair issued a statement calling on Chicago police to release the dash-cam video of the incident. The city of Chicago denied at least 15 requests for its release.
Brandon Smith, a freelance journalist, and William Calloway, a community activist, filed a request for the video under the Freedom of Information Act in May 2015. When the request was denied, Smith filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago in Cook County Circuit Court. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sent a letter to the Police Department the day before a court hearing, stating that they cannot withhold the video. She said that they had not substantiated their claim that releasing the video would interfere with an ongoing investigation or jeopardize a fair trial if any officer was charged. On November 19, Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama denied the city's request for a stay, ordering the video to be released to the public no later than November 25. The city did not appeal the judge's decision. On November 24, after a press conference, the video was released that showed an officer fatally shooting McDonald.
Investigations
A criminal investigation also began weeks after the shooting, when the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) forwarded the case to the state's attorney's office and the FBI. The U.S. attorney's office confirmed on April 13, 2015, that they had been conducting a federal criminal investigation of the McDonald case in conjunction with the state attorney's office, after contradictions were found between the initial police report and the dash-cam video. The police report said that McDonald had lunged at an officer, but the video footage showed that McDonald made no lunges. The video does show that McDonald was swinging the knife in his right hand in a wide, but aimless manner as he walked down the street, and also appears to show that McDonald turns slightly to look briefly at Van Dyke and another officer who are pointing guns at him, but that he continues to walk away from both officers at the moment Van Dyke opens fire on him.
On December 2, 2015, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch a separate civil rights investigation of Chicago police tactics. DOJ enlarged the scope of their investigation based on early findings, issuing a report in January 2017. (See later section on this).
Van Dyke's trial
On November 24, 2015, the same day the video was released, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder, and Van Dyke turned himself in to authorities. He was initially held without bail at Cook County Jail for six days. Crowd funding website GoFundMe shut down a page that was set up to raise funds for his legal defense shortly after it had raised just over $10,000. On November 30, Van Dyke was granted bail, set at $1,500,000. He posted $150,000—ten percent of the bail—and was released from jail.
On December 16, Van Dyke was indicted by a grand jury on six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct. The six counts of first-degree murder were:
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure With Firearm,
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure With Firearm,
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm,
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm,
Murder/Intent to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm Proximately, and
Murder/Strong Probability to Kill/Injure Discharge Firearm Proximately.
On December 29, 2015, Van Dyke pleaded not guilty to the charges. Van Dyke's attorney, Daniel Herbert, said that his client fears for his life. Protesters yelled at him and called him names as he approached the courthouse for his arraignment. Van Dyke had a history of complaints in his police career but was cleared in most cases. After the arraignment, Herbert said he was looking for evidence to clear his client's name.
On January 29, 2016, Herbert accused Chicago's mayor of tainting possible jurors, as he considered an effort to move the trial outside of Cook county:
It's been dozens and dozens of comments where [Rahm Emanuel] essentially indicted my client. He's characterized my client's actions as being heinous without even seeing the videotape. So when the mayor of the city in which the pool of jurors is drawn from has taken such an adamant stance, it makes it extremely difficult for us to get a juror in here who is not predisposed to a finding of guilt.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Van Dyke would have faced a prison sentence of 20 years to life. The case marked the first time in nearly 35 years that a Chicago police officer had been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality.
On March 23, 2017, the charges against Van Dyke were six counts of first degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each shot fired at Laquan McDonald. Jury selection began on September 5, 2018, and the trial commenced on September 17.
On October 5, 2018, Van Dyke was found guilty of second degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, but was found not guilty of official misconduct. On January 18, 2019, Van Dyke was sentenced to 6.75 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction alone instead of the other more serious charges, which was contrary to Illinois Supreme Court precedent. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul filed a request with the Illinois Supreme Court to vacate Van Dyke's sentence for second-degree murder and impose a sentence on each of the 16 aggravated battery counts. A majority of Illinois Supreme Court Justices voted to deny this request without a hearing or explanation. Two Justices authored dissenting opinions stating that the decision of the sentencing judge had been unlawful.
The Illinois Department of Corrections refused to disclose the state prison where Van Dyke was initially incarcerated to serve his sentence, citing safety reasons. He was transferred on February 5, 2019, to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. During his first week at this facility, he was assaulted by other inmates while in the general population. Sometime after the assault, he was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville in Otisville, New York. In November 2019 he was moved from the Otisville federal prison to a state prison outside Illinois.
On February 3, 2022, Van Dyke was released from prison after serving 39 months of his 81-month sentence. He was eligible to be released early due to good behavior in prison. He was subsequently on mandatory supervised release, i.e. parole.
Trial of March, Walsh, and Gaffney
On June 27, 2017, three current or former Chicago police officers were charged with conspiracy, official misconduct, and obstruction of justice connected with a coverup of the shooting. Those charged were David March, the lead detective in this case, Joseph Walsh, Van Dyke's partner on the night of the shooting, and Thomas Gaffney. Their bench trial began on November 27, 2018, and a verdict was expected by January 15, 2019. On January 17, 2019, Cook County Judge Domenica Stephenson found them not guilty of the charges.
Reactions
Protests
November protests
After the release of the video on November 24, 2015, a few hundred people blocked the intersection of Roosevelt and Michigan Avenue in protest. On November 25, 2015, more protests were held. On the second night of protest, marchers tore off lights from a public Christmas Tree in Daley Plaza and multiple marchers were arrested.
On Friday, November 27, a major day for Christmas shopping in the U.S., a group of protesters chanted "sixteen shots" and other slogans while marching on Michigan Avenue, the city of Chicago's central shopping district. This caused some businesses to shut their doors and the police closed Michigan Avenue, a six-lane street.
December protests
A 16-hour sit-in at the Cook County building on December 3, 2015, proceeded after Alvarez refused to resign on December 2. Protests erupted in the Loop after Mayor Emanuel called a special council meeting to apologize for his slow reaction to fix problems within the Chicago police department. On December 24, a month after the video had been published, protests disrupting Christmas-season shopping were again held on Michigan Avenue. Protesters also stood in the alley behind Emanuel's home the last three days in a row in December, promising to continue for 13 more days—to symbolize the 16 shots McDonald took from police—in an effort to force Emanuel to resign. On New Year's Eve, protesters temporarily took over parts of City Hall and a Hyatt hotel lobby, chanting "Rahm gotta go."
January protests
Over 100 African-American pastors boycotted the 30-year tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Breakfast, hosted by Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel. The breakfast was attended by Rev. Matthew Ross, who interrupted the proceedings when he stood up and began to chant "16 shots and a cover-up" during a musical performance. The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, about 200 Black Youth Project 100 Chicago Chapter members, dressed in black T-shirts with the words "Fund Black Futures" written across them, blocked the entrance of the Chicago Patrolmen's Federal Credit Union in an effort to protest the Fraternal Order of Police's advocacy of the Chicago police department. City officials continue to deal with the aftermath of the McDonald shooting and are working to change the long-standing policy of keeping police shooting video under wraps. Protesters chanted "16 shots and a cover-up!" as Officer Van Dyke walked into court for a status hearing on January 29, 2016.
February protests
Laquan McDonald protesters hijacked a rally to support Apple's decision to fight back in the FBI–Apple encryption dispute in front of the Apple store on Michigan Avenue on February 24, 2016. Protesters started chants against Alvarez and Emanuel, but the crowd dispersed after several in the crowd got into a shoving match with police.
March protests
A rally started at State and Jackson consisting of "less than 50 people" on March 2, 2016, to mark 500 days since the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Other protesters were arrested for blocking the flow of traffic on Adams near Michigan Avenue.
Other reactions
On November 25, 2015, Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders released a statement sending condolences to McDonald's family and criticizing the Emanuel administration and Chicago's police force.
On November 29, 2015, Jabari Dean, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, posted an online threat to kill 16 unspecified white males—one for every shot fired at McDonald, plus any white police officers who might intervene—at the University of Chicago. The university announced that classes would be cancelled the next day. The same day, the FBI arrested Dean, who was charged with "transmitting in interstate commerce communications containing a threat to injure the person of another." Federal prosecutors stated they did not believe Dean had the means to carry out the attack he had threatened. The federal charge was later dropped against Dean.
Chance the Rapper referred to the shooting on Saturday Night Live on December 12, 2015. He would refer to the shooting again on his second appearance on the show with Kanye West on February 13, 2016.
On June 2, 2016, Vic Mensa released a song entitled "16 Shots", referring to McDonald's death.
Aftermath
Chicago Police Accountability Task Force
On December 1, 2015, Rahm Emanuel created the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, led by then-President of the Chicago Police Board Lori Lightfoot, "to review the system of accountability, oversight and training that is currently in place for Chicago's police officers." The Task Force's final report, published April 13, 2016, found racism and systemic failures in the city's police force, validating complaints made for years by African-American residents.
Firing of Superintendent Garry McCarthy
Emanuel fired Superintendent Garry McCarthy on December 1, 2015, under political pressure from protesters. McCarthy knew of the dash-cam video a few weeks after the shooting and stripped Officer Van Dyke of his police powers. Due to the IPRA investigation under way, McCarthy could not fire the officer, nor discipline him or put him on a "no pay" status. McCarthy refused to resign, so Emanuel fired him.
Calls for Anita Alvarez's resignation
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez was criticized by political challengers and others for the delay in the release of the dash-cam video, which she viewed weeks after the shooting, and the long wait to charge Van Dyke for McDonald's death. This took more than a year and was completed only hours before the court-ordered release of the video. She faced a difficult primary election in March 2016. Calls for her resignation came from within her own party, including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
As of December 2, 2015, Alvarez had refused to resign, which prompted a 16-hour sit-in by protesters at the Cook County building on December 3, 2015. Alvarez said she had been cooperating with the FBI investigation since November 2014, and asked her critics why she would call in the FBI if she was attempting a cover-up. She also defended Mayor Rahm Emanuel's comments that it would be premature to release the dash-cam video in light of the investigation, saying it "was in the best interest of the investigation". Kim Foxx, a former prosecutor running against Alvarez with support by Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders, disagrees:
By waiting so long to press charges in this case, State's Attorney Alvarez has done the McDonald family and the entire criminal justice system a heinous disservice. She waited until her hand was forced by intense political and media pressure surrounding the release of this painful video. She waited even after City Hall was prepared to pay the McDonald family $5 million in damages.
In the 2016 election for Cook County State's Attorney, Alvarez was the subject of an activist campaign (sometimes referred to as "#ByeAnita") that criticized her for her handling of the Lacquan McDonald and Rekia Boyd cases, along with her broader role in the criminal justice system. Alvarez lost her bid for reelection in the March 2016 primary, earning 29 percent of the votes. Challenger Kim Foxx, who ran on a platform of criminal justice reform, won with 58 percent of the votes, and went on to win the general election.
Calls for Rahm Emanuel's resignation
McDonald's killing occurred four months before Emanuel faced a difficult campaign for reelection in February 2015. (He failed to win the majority and was elected by 56 percent in a runoff election—the first in Chicago's history— against Jesús "Chuy" García). The delayed timing of release of the video, the Chicago City Council's awarding the family $5 million within weeks of McDonald's death, and Emanuel firing Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, prompted some commentators to accuse the city of cover-up.
Journalist Ben Joravsky wrote in the Chicago Reader:
Just imagine [if] Mayor Emanuel had released the video in, say, November [2014]—without being forced to by a lawsuit.... But of course, he didn't do the right thing. He buried the video. He allowed officials to mislead the public. He hid the tapes because most likely he [...] assumed it would hurt his reelection campaign. Thus he not only did the immoral thing, he did the politically stupid thing. Cook County state's attorney Anita Alvarez probably would've quickly responded with an indictment—just like she did earlier this week, when the tape actually was released. I mean, it's really hard to look at that tape and not call for an indictment. If the mayor had done that, he wouldn't be the villain in this sordid story. He'd be the hero. Or at least the guy who finally, for once in his life, did the right thing.
Emanuel subsequently created the Task Force on Police Accountability to review current training and oversight for Chicago's police officers. He also maintained he never saw the dash-cam video until it was publicly released and would not resign. Emanuel's image received a blow when U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang accused city attorney Jordan Marsh, an attorney who handled cases in the office that represents the city in police misconduct lawsuits, of hiding evidence in a fatal police shooting.
There was no legal mechanism to force Emanuel's resignation. State representative La Shawn K. Ford filed House Bill 4356 to set up the mechanism for a recall election, but it was not passed. Illinois Republican governor Bruce Rauner said he would sign such a bill.
Video released of shooting of Ronald Johnson III
On December 1, 2015, the city announced that there was a video of a fatal police shooting that took place on October 12, 2014. Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez's office investigated possible criminal charges against Officer George Hernandez (whose name was revealed on December 7), who shot Ronald Johnson III in the back during a foot chase. The officer opened fire seconds after arriving on the scene, when Johnson was moving away from police. Johnson was allegedly a known gang member and also allegedly armed; a gun was recovered at the scene. The attorney for Johnson's family contends police planted the weapon. The city fought to keep the video of the incident secret so as not to jeopardize the officer's right to a fair trial should he be indicted. As in the McDonald case, the video lacks audio. The city released the video on December 7 due to pressure for transparency prompted by the McDonald case. No charges have been filed against Hernandez.
De-escalation and Taser training
On December 30, 2015, Emanuel announced sweeping reforms within the police department, including new police training for handling tense situations and equipping every officer with a Taser, to be used to control suspects. All officers were to be equipped and trained by June 2016. Officers at the McDonald scene were waiting for a Taser to arrive before Van Dyke shot the suspect. At that time, 21.5 percent of officers had been trained to use a Taser.
Dean Angelo, president of the Chicago chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said on the subject: "I know there are people on the job for 9 or 10 years who have not been trained. I can't say they have all requested training, but I am sure some have. It's very hard to get the proper training as a Chicago police officer and that's something that has been going on for a very long time. There is certainly a percentage of my members who believe that the Chicago Police Department doesn't offer the same level of training, or the same opportunities to obtain training, as many other police departments in the country. I think the general attitude is that's just 'Welcome to the Chicago Police Department.'"
Emails from the mayor's office released
On December 31, 2015, 3,085 pages of emails split across seven PDFs regarding the McDonald case and other police-related matters were obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The timing of the release (on New Year's Eve) has been described by reporters as "strategic". The exchanges show that the mayor's staff had been communicating with both the IPRA and the office of the Cook County state attorney since the October 2014 shooting. They document fact-gathering and news-monitoring, to crafting a unified "message" on how to respond to media inquiries regarding the McDonald shooting. The emails included several highly redacted speech drafts to use if the video was released, prepared nearly a year before the release of the dash-cam video, which Emanuel's top aides knew existed. The emails also cover the topics of discrepancies between the police reports and dash-cam video, the lack of audio on the dash-cam videos (which senior mayoral adviser David Spielfogel noted: "The number of malfunctions seems a bit odd."), express exasperation with statements made by the IPRA, note the missing Burger King footage, and reports on protests and social media activity—all of which is highly redacted.
The media characterized the emails as calling into question the "independence" of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), an agency approved by Chicago City Hall in 2007 to investigate allegations of police misconduct and made up entirely of civilian members. Aides to the mayor have responded that the communications were routine and did not interfere with the IPRA's investigation.
Scott Ando, the former head of the IPRA who was fired by Emanuel in December, concurred that the mayor's office never interfered in the agency's investigations. He said: "We were generally asked to clear every messaging or release to the press ... I really think if I'd been allowed to be more responsive to the questions that were posed, it would have cleared the air a lot sooner." Adam Collins, a spokesperson for the mayor, has defended the mayor's office to the media, saying, "The mayor's office obviously does not direct investigations, nor are any employees involved in those investigations."
In a May 26 email to Janey Rountree, Deputy Chief of Staff for Public Safety, Collins wrote: "Against my recommendation, IPRA has already provided this response that was a little antagonistic. I've asked that they follow up with this as well to soften and reinforce their message." The emails also reveal communication from the mayor's office with influential religious leaders Reverend Jesse Jackson and Father Michael Pfleger, asking them to soften their critical remarks on the case and explain the city could not fire Officer Van Dyke due to the IPRA investigation.
Several persons, including Streetsblog Chicago reporter Steven Vance, Chicago Teachers Union member Luke Carman, and Twitter user "natalie solidarity", and others, collaborated on an effort to catalog the documents for easier access by readers.
Request for emails from Van Dyke and other police officers
In January 2016, CNN submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for emails regarding the McDonald case from Van Dyke, his partner, and other police officers. CNN requested emails from both official CPD email accounts and personal email accounts. However, after CNN appealed to the Public Access Counselor, CPD officials revealed that they had not attempted to look through the officers' personal email accounts, arguing that personal emails are not public records subject to disclosure.
In August that year, Attorney General Lisa Madigan ruled that emails on personal accounts that pertain to public business must be disclosed to the public. Her ruling was a binding opinion, requiring CPD to search the officers' email accounts and comply with the decision within 35 days. CPD appealed the ruling in court, and lost in September 2017. Ultimately, CNN never received the emails that it had requested. Each of the officers, individually or through their attorneys, either refused to provide emails, ignored the request, or denied having any relevant emails.
Documents from 2005 Incident
In May 2016, CNN revealed documents of a 2005 incident, in which Van Dyke had written a police report without speaking to any of the personnel or witnesses at the scene of another police shooting. Records of the investigation indicated that Van Dyke had also inappropriately thrown out the original documents pertaining to the case.
Two recommendations that officers be fired
On August 16, 2016, inspector Joseph Ferguson recommended that 10 officers be fired, followed up by Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson's recommendation on August 18, that 7 police officers be fired for false or misleading statements made about the incident.
2017 DOJ Report and agreement for oversight of city police
DOJ announced the completion of their investigation and issued a "scathing report" in early January 2017, noting problems in a police culture of excessive violence, especially against minorities; and lack of training and oversight. DOJ and the city have a preliminary agreement to undertake broad reforms for improvement, with the goal of increasing the safety of both citizens and officers. It noted the department's improvements, such as training in de-escalation to avoid use of force, issuance of Tasers, officers wearing body cameras, and the reshaping of a police oversight body.
Also in January 2017, the city and DOJ signed "an agreement in principle to work together, with community input, to create a federal court-enforceable consent decree addressing the deficiencies uncovered during the investigation. An independent monitor, who has yet to be chosen, will oversee compliance."
In February 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions signaled that the Trump administration would "pull back" on federal civil rights probes of local police departments. He would not commit to enforcing the consent decree signed by Chicago and the Department of Justice.
In June 2017, Mayor Emanuel backed off his commitment to enter a court-enforced agreement with the federal government. He said that an independent monitor selected by the city could work with the Justice Department to pursue police reforms without court oversight. Later that month, a group of civil rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit seeking court enforcement of police reforms. Also in June, Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, and Jesús "Chuy" García, another member of the Cook County Board, advocated for judicial oversight, as did Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson. In August 2017, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit in federal court requesting that a judge oversee police reform in Chicago.
In July 2018, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan announced a proposed court settlement that was the first draft of a consent decree that would eventually serve as a court-enforced mandate governing reforms of the Chicago Police Department.
Documentary film
16 Shots is a documentary film about the shooting of Laquan McDonald and the subsequent police cover-up. It was directed by Richard Rowley, and produced by Jacqueline Soohen and Jamie Kalven. Originally titled The Blue Wall, it premiered on May 1, 2018, at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto. Rowley subsequently updated the film to include later events, and re-titled it 16 Shots. The revised documentary premiered on June 14, 2019, on the Showtime network.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, October 2014
Skullcap Crew
Dismissal of Robert Rialmo
References
External links
External video dashcam footage
Catalog of emails from the mayor's office regarding the case
2014 in Illinois
2015 in Illinois
2010s in Chicago
2014 murders in the United States
African-American-related controversies
Black Lives Matter
Chicago Police Department
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Murder in Chicago
Police brutality in the United States
Protests in the United States
Articles containing video clips
October 2014 events in the United States
October 2014 crimes in the United States
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Murders by law enforcement officers in the United States
Incidents of violence against boys |
50778662 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizwan%20Farook%20and%20Tashfeen%20Malik | Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik | Syed Rizwan Farook (June 14, 1987December 2, 2015) and Tashfeen Malik (July 13, 1986December 2, 2015) were the two perpetrators of a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, on December 2, 2015. In the attack, they killed 14 people and injured 22 others. Both died in a shootout by law enforcement later that same day.
Backgrounds
Rizwan Farook
Farook was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a U.S. citizen. His parents had immigrated from Pakistan.
Personal life
According to sources, Farook had a "troubled childhood" and grew up in an abusive home in which his father was often violent towards his mother. Farook grew up in Riverside, California, and attended La Sierra High School, graduating in 2004, one year early. He attended California State University, San Bernardino, and received a bachelor's degree in environmental health in either 2009 or 2010. He was a student for one semester in 2014 at California State University, Fullerton in their graduate program for environmental engineering, but never completed the program.
Farook had a profile on the dating website iMilap.com, in which he listed backyard target practice as a hobby. A lawyer for Farook's family also said that he would go to firing ranges by himself.
Farook worked as a food inspector for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health for five years before the shooting. From July to December 2010, he was a seasonal employee for the county. He was hired as an environmental health specialist trainee on January 28, 2012, and became a permanent employee on February 8, 2014. Coworkers described Farook as quiet and polite, and said that he held no obvious grudges.
Religious views and travels
According to family members and coworkers, Farook was a devout Sunni Muslim, and traveled to Saudi Arabia several times, including to complete the hajj in 2013. Farook attended prayers at the Islamic Center of Riverside twice a day, in the mornings and the evenings, according to an interview in The New York Times with Mustafa H. Kuko, the center's director. According to the Times, Farook stood out as especially devout and "kept a bit of a distance" from other congregants. During that time, according to friends, he never discussed politics. Farook abruptly stopped going to the mosque in 2014 following his marriage.
The Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that Farook's father said that his son "shared the ideology of Al Baghdadi to create an Islamic state" and that he was fixated with Israel. A spokesperson for the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) later claimed the father did not recall making these statements about his son.
Tashfeen Malik
Malik was born in Pakistan, but lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia. Her original hometown was Karor Lal Esan, southwest of Islamabad, Pakistan. Her landowning family was described as politically influential in the town.
Studies in Multan
Malik returned to Pakistan to study pharmacology at Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, beginning the program in 2007 and graduating in 2012. Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour Al-Turki denied reports that Malik grew up in his country, saying that she visited Saudi Arabia only for a few weeks in 2008 and again in 2013. The city of Multan has been linked to jihadist activity.
While in Multan, Malik attended the local center of the Al-Huda International Seminary, a women-only religious academy network with seminaries across Pakistan and branches in the U.S. and Canada that was founded in 1994. The school is aligned with the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam. According to school records, Malik enrolled in an eighteen-month Quranic studies course with Al-Huda on April 17, 2013, and left on May 3, 2014, telling administrators that she was leaving to get married. Malik expressed an interest in completing the course by correspondence, but never did so.
According to experts, Al-Huda "draws much of its support from women from educated, relatively affluent backgrounds." Faiza Mushtaq, a Pakistani scholar that studied the organization, said that "these Al-Huda classes are teaching these urban, educated, upper-middle-class women a very conservative interpretation of Islam that makes them very judgmental about others around them." According to the Los Angeles Times, Al-Huda seminaries promote anti-Western views and hard-line practices in a fashion that "could encourage some adherents to lash out against non-believers." The New York Times reported that the institute "teaches a strict literalist interpretation of the Quran, although it does not advocate violent jihad." An Al-Huda administrator from the head office in Islamabad said that terrorism "is against the teachings of Islam" and that the school's curriculum did not endorse violence.
Marriage and entry into United States
According to one of Farook's coworkers, Malik and her husband married about a month after he traveled to Saudi Arabia in early 2014; the two had met over the Internet. Malik joined Farook in California shortly after their wedding. A U.S. marriage certificate reported their marriage in Riverside on August 16, 2014. At the time of her death, Malik and Farook had a six-month-old daughter.
Malik entered the United States on a K-1 (fiancée) visa with a Pakistani passport. According to a State Department spokesman, all applicants for such visas are fully screened. Malik's application for permanent residency (a "green card") was completed by Farook on her behalf in September 2014, and she was granted a conditional green card in July 2015. Obtaining such a green card would have required the couple to prove that the marriage was legitimate. As is standard practice, as part of her visa application with the State Department and application for a green card, Malik submitted her fingerprints and underwent "three extensive national security and criminal background screenings" using Homeland Security and State Department databases. Malik also underwent two in-person interviews, the first with a consular officer in Pakistan and the second with an immigration officer in the U.S. after applying for a green card. No irregularities or signs of suspicion were found in the record of Malik's interview with the Pakistani consular officer.
Malik reportedly had become very religious in the years before the attack, wearing both the niqab and burqa while urging others to do so as well. Pakistani media reported that Malik had ties to the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad, but a cleric and a spokesman from the mosque vehemently denied these claims, saying that they had never heard of Malik before the shooting. Malik's estranged relatives say that she had left the moderate Islam of her family and had become radicalized while living in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Al-Turki rejected this claim, stating that Saudi officials received no indication that Malik was radicalized while living there.
Internet activities
On December 16, 2015, FBI Director James Comey said, "We can see from our investigation that in late 2013, before there is a physical meeting of these two people [Farook and Malik] resulting in their engagement and then journey to the United States, they are communicating online, showing signs in that communication of their joint commitment to jihadism and to martyrdom. Those communications are direct, private messages."
Early reports had erroneously stated that Malik had openly expressed jihadist beliefs on social media, leading to calls for U.S. immigration officials to routinely review social media as part of background checks, which is not part of the current procedure. Comey subsequently clarified that the remarks were "direct private messages" that were not publicly accessible and that "So far, in this investigation, we have found no evidence of posting on social media."
Comey said that the FBI's investigation had revealed that Farook and Malik were "consuming poison on the Internet" and both had become radicalized "before they started courting or dating each other online" and "before the emergence of ISIL." As a result, Comey said that "untangling the motivations of which particular terrorist propaganda motivated in what way remains a challenge in these investigations, and our work is ongoing there."
Planning of the attack
A Senate Judiciary Committee testimony given on December 9, 2015, FBI Director James B. Comey said that the FBI investigation has shown that Farook and Malik were "homegrown violent extremists" who were "inspired by foreign terrorist organizations." Comey also said that Farook and Malik "were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom," before their engagement and as early as the end of 2013. They reportedly spent at least a year preparing for the attack, including taking target practice and making plans to take care of their child and Farook's mother. Comey has said that although the investigation has shown that Farook and Malik were radicalized and possibly inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, there is no indication that the couple were directed by such a group or part of a broader cell or network.
The FBI has said that there were "telephonic connections" between the couple and other people of interest in FBI probes. Comey said that the case did not follow the typical pattern for mass shootings or terrorist attacks. A senior U.S. law enforcement official said that Farook contacted "persons of interest" who were possibly tied to terrorism, although these contacts were not "substantial." A senior federal official said that Farook had some contact with people from the Nusra Front, the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and Shabaab of Somalia, but specifics were unclear.
Weapons
Farook and Malik used two .223-caliber semi-automatic rifles, two 9 mm caliber semi-automatic pistols, and an explosive device in the attack. The rifles used were variants of the AR-15: one was a DPMS Panther Arms A15, the other was a Smith & Wesson M&P15.
The two rifles were purchased by Enrique Marquez Jr., a next-door neighbor of Farook's until May 2015 who is related to him by marriage. After their purchases, the rifles were illegally transferred to Farook. The two pistols were legally purchased by Farook from federally licensed firearms dealers in Corona, California, in 2011 and 2012. One of the handguns was a Llama Model XI-B and the other was a Springfield Armory XD Bi-Tone.
The couple altered the guns: there was a failed attempt to modify the Smith & Wesson rifle to fire in fully automatic mode, they made a modification that defeated the ban on detachable magazines, and they used a detachable high-capacity magazine. California laws limit magazines to a maximum of ten rounds, and the magazine must be fixed by a recessed button mechanism to the rifle and require a tool such as a bullet, pen, or other implement to remove it, thereby creating a delay in the rate at which spent magazines can be replaced. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the modifications made the guns illegal assault weapons. The couple also taped magazines together to make switching them out easier. They had a total of 2,363 rounds (1,879 for the rifles and 484 for the handguns) with them at the time of the shootout.
The explosive device left at the Inland Regional Center comprised three explosive devices connected to one another. It was contained inside the backpack left by Farook during the departmental event. The devices were described as pipe bombs constructed with Christmas lights and tied together, combined with a remote controlled car that was switched on. The poorly constructed devices failed to explode.
The large stockpile of weapons used by Farook and Malik led investigators to believe that they intended to carry out further attacks. An examination of digital equipment recovered from their home suggested that the couple was in the final planning stages of a much larger attack.
Shooting range video
After law enforcement sources confirmed that Farook spent time on November 2930, 2015, at the Riverside Magnum Shooting Range, about away from the couple's Redlands home, the FBI obtained surveillance video from the range. During these visits, one lasting several hours, Farook shot an AR-15 and a pistol, which he had brought to the range. One of the paper torso silhouette targets used in the video was later recovered from the couple's SUV following their deaths.
Bank transaction
Two weeks before the shooting, Farook took out a loan of which was deposited in his bank account. The San Francisco-based online lender Prosper Marketplace made the loan to Farook; Prosper evaluates borrowers and the loans are originated by a third-party bank, the Salt Lake City-based WebBank.com. On or about November 20, 2015, Farook withdrew in cash, and later on two transfers were made to what appears to be Farook's mother's bank account. Investigators were exploring the possibility that the was used to reimburse someone for the purchase of the rifles used in the shooting. WebBank said that it was fully cooperating with the investigation.
Terrorist attack
On the morning of the December 2 attack, Farook and Malik left their six-month-old daughter with Farook's mother at their Redlands home, telling her that they were going to a doctor's appointment. Farook then attended a departmental event at the banquet room of the Inland Regional Center. The event began as a semi-annual all-staff meeting and training event, and was in the process of transitioning into a department holiday party/luncheon when the shooting began.
Farook arrived at the departmental event at about 8:30am and left midway through it at around 10:30am, leaving a backpack containing explosives atop a table. Coworkers reported that Farook had been quiet for the duration of the event. He posed for photos with other coworkers.
At 10:59am PST, Farook and Malik armed themselves and opened fire on those in attendance. During the attack, they wore ski masks and black tactical gear. The entire shooting took less than four minutes, and Farook and Malik fired between 65 and 75 bullets. The couple departed the scene before police arrived. The explosive devices placed by Farook were later detonated by a bomb squad.
The attack was the second-deadliest mass shooting in California after the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre. It was also the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, until the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting six months later. Malik was one of a small number of female mass shooters in the U.S.; women constituted only 3.75 percent of active shooters in the U.S. from 2000 to 2013.
Deaths
After the attack, a witness recognized Farook and identified him to police. When officers responded to Farook and Malik's Redlands home, both fled in a sports utility vehicle (SUV), resulting in a police pursuit. At least one fake explosive was thrown at the police during the chase.
The chase ended in a suburban neighborhood about away from the scene of the initial attack. There, Farook and Malik exchanged gunfire with officers. The gunfire lasted for around five minutes before both Farook and Malik were killed by police bullets. Farook died from 26 gunshot wounds, sustained mostly in the legs and including one in the chin where the bullet fragmented into his neck. Malik died from fifteen gunshot wounds, thirteen to the body and two to the head.
Aftermath
After Farook and Malik's corpses were released by law enforcement, local Islamic cemeteries refused to accept the remains. It took a week to find a willing cemetery, and the burial ultimately took place in Rosamond, California. According to two members of the mosque, many of the city's Muslim community refused to attend the funeral on December 15, 2015, which was attended by around ten mourners including relatives of Farook.
Farook and Malik's corpses were buried per traditional Muslim rituals at an Islamic cemetery, according to Reuters.
In one Arabic-language online radio broadcast, ISIL described Farook and Malik as "supporters" following the attack. During the police investigation into the attack, The New York Times reported that this language indicated "a less direct connection" between the shooters and the terrorist group. In a December 5, 2015, English-language broadcast on its Bayan radio station, ISIL referred to Farook and Malik as "soldiers of the caliphate," which is a phrase ISIL uses to denote members of the terrorist organization. The New York Times reported that it was unclear why the two versions differed.
On February 9, 2016, the FBI announced that it was unable to unlock one of the mobile phones they had recovered from Farook and Malik's home because of the phone's advanced security features. The phone was an iPhone 5C owned by the county and issued to Farook during his employment with them. When asked by the FBI to create a new version of the phone's iOS operating system that could be installed and run in the phone's random access memory to disable certain security features, Apple Inc. declined due to its policy to never undermine the security features of its products. The FBI responded by successfully applying to a United States magistrate judge to issue a court order under the All Writs Act of 1789, mandating Apple to create and provide the requested software. Citing security risks posed towards their customers as a result of such software, Apple announced their intent to oppose the order, resulting in a dispute between the company and the FBI. The dispute eventually ended on March 28, 2016, when the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had unlocked the iPhone.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department released autopsies for the 14 victims on May 27, 2016. In the fall of 2020 in response to a Denver radio program's public records request the department released the autopsies for Farook and Malik.
On May 31, 2016, federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against Farook's family. This lawsuit would allow them to seize both the proceeds of two life insurance policies (and the policies themselves) held by Farook, both of which listed Farook's mother as the beneficiary. One policy worth was taken out by Farook in 2012 when he started working for the county, while the other, worth , was taken out the following year. According to NBC News, "Under federal law, assets derived from terrorism are subject to forfeiture. A federal judge must approve an application before the government can seize the money." In the six-page lawsuit, the life insurance company claimed that Farook's mother was aware of her son's intentions to carry out the attack, and reasoned that she should not be entitled to the benefits as a result. On September 2, 2016, government officials said they wanted to give the money to the victims' families.
On March 3, 2020, Farook's mother, Rafia Farook, agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal charge of intending to impede a federal criminal investigation by shredding a map. On February 11, 2021, she was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
In October 2020, Sayeed Farook's confidant, Enrique Marquez Jr., received a 20-year federal prison term for helping acquire the semiautomatic rifles.
See also
List of rampage killers (religious, political, or ethnic crimes)
Notes
References
American mass murderers
American Muslims
American people of Pakistani descent
American people of Punjabi descent
Criminal duos
Deaths by firearm in California
Islamist mass murderers
Married couples
Pakistani emigrants to the United States
Pakistani expatriates in the United States
Pakistani mass murderers
Pakistani Sunni Muslims
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States |
51841197 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Joseph%20Mann | Killing of Joseph Mann | On July 11, 2016, Randy Lozoya and John Tennis, two Sacramento police officers, attempted to run over, and later shot and killed Joseph Mann, a 51-year-old mentally ill and homeless African-American man armed with a knife.
Incident
Police received 9-1-1 calls about a man standing in the street waving a knife. Dispatchers told police that Mann had a knife and gun, and that he was acting erratically. Mann was carrying a 4-inch knife when police encountered him, but no gun was ever found.
Mann did not cooperate with the first officers who arrived at the scene. Mann's family describes him as "doing karate moves and zigzagging back and forth across the street as he tried to walk away from the officers." The initial responding officers ordered Mann to drop his knife, and get on the ground. He did not comply, and instead threw a thermos at the police cruiser, and shouted threats as he walked down Del Paso Boulevard.
When Lozoya and Tennis arrived, their cruiser's dash cam audio recorded one of them as saying, "Fuck this guy. I'm going to hit him." The other officer replies, "Okay. Go for it. Go for it." They missed Mann the first time, and attempted again to try to hit him with their cruiser. As they accelerated toward Mann, one officer said, "Watch it! Watch! Watch", as Mann jumped into the median strip to avoid the cruiser. After missing Mann the second time, the other officer said, "We'll get him. We'll get him." They stopped the cruiser, exited it, and chased Mann on foot. The officers fatally shot Mann moments later. Police fired 18 shots, 14 of which hit Mann. The Sacramento Bee suggested that Mann was about 27 feet from the officers when he was shot. Mann died at the scene.
Aftermath
The shooting led to protests by local religious leaders and Black leaders. Black Lives Matter demanded the release of the dash cam videos, and criticized the police for escalating the situation. The Sacramento Police Department initially did not release the videos, but later released three dash cam videos, a surveillance camera video, and two 9-1-1 call audios after pressure from city officials, including Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, as well as The Sacramento Bee, obtaining cellphone footage from a citizen showing the shooting of Mann. The audio of the dash cam videos was enhanced by The Sacramento Bee.
A toxicology report found that Mann had methamphetamine in his system.
Police spokesperson Bryce Heinlein told reporters that using a vehicle as a deadly weapon is something covered in use of force training. According to Heinlein, Lozoya and Tennis were placed on "modified duty". Mann's family has filed both a claim against Sacramento, and also a federal lawsuit. In addition to other shootings by police officers around the country, Mann's shooting prompted the Sacramento City Council to propose a use-of-force policy change which restricts the use of lethal force, and examines the use of police vehicles.
On January 27, 2017, the Sacramento County District Attorney cleared the two officers of any legal wrongdoing, concluding that they were justified in shooting Mann, but after an internal investigation by the Sacramento Police Department, neither Tennis nor Lozoya remain on the force.
Gallery
See also
Shooting of Stephon Clark – an African-American man shot by the Sacramento Police Department
Gidone Busch – a mentally disturbed man shot by the New York City Police Department
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
Police brutality in the United States
References
2016 in California
Black Lives Matter
Deaths by firearm in California
Deaths by person in the United States
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Law enforcement in California
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
July 2016 events in the United States
Sacramento, California |
56352643 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Maskell | Joseph Maskell | Anthony Joseph Maskell (April 13, 1939 – May 7, 2001) was an American Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry because of sexual abuse toward female students at Archbishop Keough High School between 1969 and 1975. He served the Archdiocese of Baltimore as a counselor from 1965 to 1994. The Netflix documentary series The Keepers alleges Maskell's involvement in the murder of Catherine Cesnik in 1969, after a former Keough student and alleged abuse victim, Jean Hargadon Wehner, claimed he showed her Cesnik's body to threaten Wehner into silence. Maskell denied all accusations until his death in 2001.
Early life
Anthony Joseph Maskell was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Joseph Francis Maskell and Susie Helen Jenkins, and grew up in Northeast Baltimore. He preferred to be called Joseph in deference to St. Joseph. After graduating from Calvert Hall College High School, Maskell went to St. Mary's Seminary in Roland Park for priesthood training. His father died in 1963.
Maskell was ordained on May 22, 1965, at the age of 26. His peers described him as "deeply intelligent" and "fascinated with psychology". In 1972, Maskell earned a master's degree in school psychology from Towson State University, and then a certificate of advanced study in counseling from Johns Hopkins University.
Career
After his ordination, Maskell worked at Sacred Heart of Mary in Baltimore from 1965 to 1966, then transferred to St. Clement Church in Lansdowne, where he worked from 1966 to 1968, and then to Our Lady of Victory from 1968 to 1970. He simultaneously worked at the all-girls Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore from 1967 to 1975 as a counselor and chaplain, but was removed from the school by a new headmistress after she received complaints about him from parents. Maskell was transferred to the Division of Schools from 1975 to 1980, and served at Annunciation from 1980 to 1982. He transferred to Holy Cross from 1982 to 1992.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore sent Maskell for treatment at The Institute of Living, a psychiatric facility in Connecticut, from 1992 to 1993 over allegations of sexual abuse. He was finally sent to St. Augustine Roman Catholic Church in Elkridge as a pastor from 1993 to 1994, before being "prohibited" from the ministry after further abuse allegations surfaced in 1994.
Maskell had also concurrently in his career served as chaplain for the Maryland State Police, the Baltimore County Police Department (BCPD), the Maryland National Guard, and the Air National Guard where he was a lieutenant colonel. He kept a police scanner and a loaded gun in his car.
Abuse allegations
Prior to accusations of sexual abuse against female students at Keough High School, Maskell was first accused of forcing an altar boy at St. Clement Church, Charles Franz, to drink wine before sexually abusing him. Franz and his mother came forward in 1967. The next year, instead of charging or removing Maskell from the ministry, the Archdiocese of Baltimore simply removed him from St. Clement and sent him to a neighboring parish, Our Lady of Victory. There, his duties included acting as the moderator of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO). During CYO dances, Maskell frequently left a BCPD auxiliary officer to act as security while he went on ride-alongs with other BCPD officers. When sent to Our Lady of Victory, he was also assigned the position of chaplain/counselor at the all-girl Keough High School. While there, his alleged abuse continued and became progressively worse.
Archbishop Keough High School
Jean Hargadon Wehner, a student at Keough, alleged she first confided in Father E. Neil Magnus (1937–1988) in 1968 about sexual abuse she allegedly was subjected to at the hands of her uncle when she was a child, beginning at age 14, and continuing from 1968 to 1972.
Wehner alleges Magnus then sexually abused Wehner and blamed her for being promiscuous. Later, Wehner alleges Maskell joined in the abuse. Wehner stated she was far more frightened of Maskell, who she found to be more intimidating and threatening. Wehner alleges Maskell repeatedly called her a "whore" and forced her to swallow his semen, claiming she was "receiving the Holy Spirit."
Wehner has stated these memories of abuse had been recovered after twenty years. Repressed memories are very controversial.
Teresa Lancaster, another alleged victim at Keough, stated that on Halloween of 1970, Maskell drove her to a popular location where students gathered. Two police officers arrived and directed other students to leave, then raped Lancaster while Maskell waited outside the car.
It is believed that approximately 30 people claim Maskell was sexually abusive towards them.
Murder of Catherine Cesnik
In 1969, toward the end of the school year, Wehner allegedly confided about the abuse to Catherine Cesnik, a popular nun among the students. Cesnik promised she would help, but was then transferred along with her friend, Sister Helen Russell Phillips, to Western High School for a public school outreach teaching program. Cesnik disappeared on November 7, 1969, and her body was eventually discovered on January 3, 1970. Four days after her disappearance, 20-year-old Joyce Malecki also disappeared in a nearby region. Wehner alleged that shortly after Cesnik's disappearance, Maskell took her to a wooded area to see Cesnik's decomposing body and stated, "You see what happens when you say bad things about people?"
After his death Maskell was exhumed. His DNA did not match; he was not ruled out as a suspect formally.
Lawsuit
In 1992, the first sexual abuse allegation against Maskell was made public by Wehner. He was removed from the ministry that year, and sent for evaluation and "treatment" at The Institute of Living. Maskell was reinstated in 1993 after the Archdiocese claimed it was unable to corroborate the allegation through an internal investigation. However, on September 8, 1993, criminal charges regarding Wehner's allegation were filed through Maryland Deputy Attorney General Ralph S. Tyler III. The lawsuit was dropped after the court rejected repressed memories as a scientifically proven memory mechanism. In 1994, another lawsuit was filed by Wehner, this time with Lancaster and four others, included allegations against gynecologist Christian Richter, who engaged in abuse with Maskell. Lawyers representing the Archdiocese were able to have the second lawsuit dropped due to the statute of limitations.
Maskell was removed from the ministry on July 31, 1994. That same year, following the abuse allegations, Maskell fled to Wexford, Ireland, and was placed on "temporary leave". He was ordered not to perform any of his priestly duties. However, Maskell continued to practice psychology. According to Lancaster, "We do have word that there are two victims coming forward in Ireland."
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns was not made aware of Maskell's presence in Ireland by the Archdiocese and it was only discovered after Maskell performed Mass without approval. Ferns Diocese kept a file on Maskell dating from April 19, 1995, to September 22, 1998. On June 25, 1996, Ferns Diocese, after requesting information from Baltimore regarding Maskell, was informed that he was placed on leave following accusations of sexual abuse and that his whereabouts were unknown to the Archdiocese.
Death
He claimed his innocence until his death due to a stroke on May 7, 2001. Maskell's body was exhumed on February 28, 2017, prior to the release of the Netflix documentary series The Keepers, for DNA testing involving the murder of Cathy Cesnik. Maskell's DNA did not match the forensic profile from 1970, although investigators noted that this did not definitively rule him out as a suspect. Though never formally charged, the Archdiocese of Baltimore had settled with sixteen of Maskell's possible victims for a total of $472,000.
HSE investigation in Ireland
In July 2017, the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland opened an investigation into the employment of Maskell. As of October 2019, the HSE refused to offer any timeframe for the investigation. Abbie Schaub, a former student of Cesnik, expressed frustration that the HSE refused to release documentation to her concerning how Maskell was hired by the Eastern Health Board in 1995. She said: "Fr Maskell’s employment, working with youngsters for the Irish health board, after he fled a trial for sexual abuse of minors in America, is cause for public concern. If there were problems in the background check system, these should be discussed and corrected."
References
External links
1939 births
2001 deaths
Religious leaders from Baltimore
St. Mary's Seminary and University alumni
Towson University alumni
Johns Hopkins University alumni
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore
School sexual abuse scandals
Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals in the United States
20th-century American Roman Catholic priests
United States Air National Guard |
56940497 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph%20Marie%20Pi%C3%A9tri | Joseph Marie Piétri | Émile Joseph Marie Piétri (25 February 1820 – 4 January 1902), known as Joachim Pietri, was a French lawyer and public servant who was prefect of several departments, a repressive police chief of Paris in the last years of the Second French Empire and Bonapartist Senator of Corsica from 1879 to 1885.
Early years
Joseph Marie Piétri was born in Sartène, Corsica, on 25 February 1820.
His parents were Angelo Francesco Pietri (1784–1848) and Giulia Pietri (1786–1853).
His family was not wealthy.
His brother was Pierre-Marie Piétri(fr), who later became prefect of the police of Paris from January 1852 to January 1858.
Piétri studied law in Paris, then practiced as an advocate in Sartène.
By ordinance of 31 August 1838 he was appointed justice of the peace in the Corsican canton of Rogliano.
He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Revolution of 1848.
On 9 August 1848 thanks to the support of his brother he was appointed sub-prefect of Argentan.
He then became a supporter of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.
On 29 April 1850 Piétri married Palma de Rocca Serra (1830–1885) in Sartène.
They had several children including Marinette (c. 1843–1941), Pomponne (1855–1880) and Louis (born 1872).
Piétri was appointed sub-prefect of Brest on 9 May 1852.
He became Prefect of Ariège on 3 April 1853.
He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour on 3 January 1855 for his dedication during an outbreak of cholera.
He became Prefect of Cher on 6 November 1855, Prefect of Hérault on 5 January 1861 and of Prefect of Nord on 12 November 1865.
He became known for his administrative qualities and support of the Bonapartist regime.
Prefect of Police
On 21 February 1866 Piétri was appointed Prefect of Police of Paris in place of Symphorien Boittelle.
He was aged 46.
By decree of 19 December 1866 he was made a member of the Imperial Commission of the Exposition Universelle of 1867.
On 13 August 1867 he was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.
Piétri was energetic in repressing unrest.
On 2 November 1867 he surrounded Montmartre Cemetery in Paris where 1,500 Republicans had gathered at the grave of the deputy Jean-Baptiste Baudin, who had been killed on a barricade on 4 December 1851 after the coup d'état of 2 December 1851 that brought Napoleon III to power.
He also suppressed the demonstration in honour of Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, who had defended Ernest Renan in the senate.
Piétri did not moderate the violence of his agents, and in December 1867 sent a circular to the police commissioners "to guard against any hesitation or failure."
At the same time, he declared that "individual liberty has never been, under any regime, better guaranteed or better respected."
During the general elections of 1869 Piétri took a tough line with men who were hostile to the regime, and in a report to Napoleon on 28 November 1869 attacked powerful men such as Rouher and Persigny.
After discovery of the plot that was judged at Blois in 1870 he encouraged the demonstrations on the boulevards of Paris in favour of war with Prussia.
A decree of 27 July 1870, which was not published, made him a senator.
After the defeat of France at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War he left France hastily on 4 September 1870 and joined Napoleon III in exile.
Later career
In 1872 Piétri applied to the government of Adolphe Thiers for a retirement pension.
Although he did not qualify on age or years of service, a decree in April 1873 fixed his pension arrears at 6,000 francs.
Léon Renault, the prefect of police, reported in January 1875 that Piétri was one of the most active members of the Bonapartist committee.
He became a general councilor of Corsica.
On 22 June 1879 Piétri was elected Senator of Corsica on an imperialist platform by 256 votes against 227 for his opponent, Tomasi.
He sat on the right with the Appel au peuple group.
He voted against the application of laws to religious congregations, against changes to the judicial oath, against reform of the magistrature and against restoration of divorce.
He left office on 24 January 1885.
In the general election of 25 January 1885 he failed to be reelected, winning only 212 out of 744 votes.
He was defeated by Paul de Casabianca, who won 477 votes.
Piétri retired from politics after this.
He died on 4 January 1902 in Sartène at the age of 82.
Notes
Sources
1820 births
1902 deaths
19th-century French lawyers
Prefects of Ariège (department)
Prefects of Nord (French department)
Prefects of police of Paris
French Senators of the Third Republic
French general councillors
Senators of Corsica
Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur |
58077523 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting%20of%20Bijan%20Ghaisar | Shooting of Bijan Ghaisar | On November 17, 2017, Bijan C. Ghaisar, a 25-year-old American, was fatally shot by US Park Police officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya after a vehicular chase that followed a traffic collision along the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Northern Virginia. Ghaisar was unarmed and died ten days later in a hospital. A video of the shooting was released by Fairfax County Police, who had assisted with the chase.
The incident was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In December 2019 Fairfax County prosecutors announced that they would seek an indictment for the killing that occurred in their jurisdiction but the assumption of a new prosecutor to that office resulted in further review. In October 2020, Vinyard and Amaya were charged with one count of manslaughter and one count of reckless discharge of a firearm. In court filings, they stated they acted in self defense.
Persons involved
Bijan C. Ghaisar was born at Inova Fairfax Hospital in 1992 to Iranian immigrants. After graduating from Langley High School and Virginia Commonwealth University, he worked for his father's accounting firm in Tysons Corner, Virginia. He was single with no children and had no criminal record. He had attended a Buddhist temple and made a Facebook post opposing guns.
Alejandro Amaya is a US Park Police officer.
Lucas Vinyard is a US Park Police officer.
Shooting
Ghaisar was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee southbound along the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Alexandria City to his parents' house for dinner. When he suddenly stopped in traffic he was rear-ended by an Uber driver in a Toyota Corolla with a female passenger in the back seat. The driver and the passenger both reported the incident to 911. According to a report of the accident, Ghaisar pulled away without giving his information to the Uber driver, an action that would have been a misdemeanor. A lookout for his vehicle was announced and a Park Police car followed in pursuit with Fairfax County Police assisting. The Park Police pulled Ghaisar over with Ghaisar stopping his vehicle. He was approached on foot by a Park Police officer with his gun drawn. As Ghaisar drove off the officer banged on the car with the butt of his gun, dropping his weapon. The pursuit continued at 57 miles per hour.
Ghaisar was stopped a third time in the Fort Hunt area. Park Police parked a vehicle in front of Ghaisar's Jeep to prevent him from fleeing again. As his vehicle slowly rolled away a few feet, Park Police fired ten shots in three different bursts. It was initially reported that there were nine shots fired, but after almost two years the FBI clarified that there were 10 shots. All four fatal shots were fired by the officer who was driving during the pursuit.
Following the shooting, Bijan Ghaisar was hospitalized for ten days in intensive care and he died ten hours after he was taken off a respirator on November 27, 2017.
Aftermath
In January 2018, Fairfax Police released a five-minute video of the chase filmed from one of their vehicles. Fairfax police were involved in the chase but not in the investigation.
The shooting was being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has not released any information about the case. The probe was being overseen by the Department of Justice. The FBI has refused to release any information about the case. Seven months after the shooting, FBI crime scene investigators returned to the intersection with agents using metal detectors to search for additional evidence.
The Ghaisar family organized protests to draw more attention to the slaying and to the fact that few details had been released.
Signs erected on the spot of the shooting have been taken down multiple times. After a sign that read "One year, zero answers" was removed twice, a larger and sturdier sign was constructed near the stop-sign where Ghaisar had been shot. This sign had permission from the landowner to be erected there and was built with the help of a Virginia state delegate. It was, however, also removed by persons unknown.
Park Police
The Park Police have limited jurisdiction in 5 states, including the Maryland and Virginia counties that surround Washington DC plus the city of Alexandria, Virginia, but have no authority to follow a vehicle outside their jurisdiction unless a felony has been committed. According to Park Police policy, lethal force can be used only when there is "imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm" and that “Officers shall not fire at a moving vehicle nor fire from a moving vehicle except when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”
Park Police have provided almost no information about the incident. According to a lawsuit filed by the family, it was twelve hours following the incident before the family learned that Park Police were involved. Two days after the shooting, Park Police Chief Robert MacLean met with the family. MacLean offered condolences but provided no information about what had happened.
The Ghaisar family was not allowed to touch their son for three days following the incident, when he was guarded by the department’s officers. According to the family, when a doctor arrived to examine Ghaisar for organ donation, the Park Police denied access, declaring the brain-dead man "under arrest" and his body "evidence".
For 16 months, Park Police refused to identify the officers involved in the shooting. In response to a wrongful death lawsuit by the family, Park Police identified the shooters as officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard. Both officers were placed on paid administrative duty after the fatal shooting, and after their indictment in state court in October 2020, the officers were placed on paid leave. The Park Police had not launched an internal investigation into the matter, saying that it would not do so until the conclusion of the criminal case.
Recordings of the 911 calls fielded by Arlington’s public safety communications center were transferred to the Park Police, who are keeping the calls and their recordings secret.
Sometime after the shooting, the Park Police changed their pursuit policies. The policies had remained largely unchanged since the late 1990s and the changes were made public in February 2020.
Civil lawsuit
In August 2018, Ghaisar's parents filed a civil lawsuit in federal court, naming the United States as a defendant and seeking $25 million in damages. The parents alleged that the Park Police's pursuit and killing of Ghaisar was improper, and that the Park Police treated the family insensitively in the hours and days immediately after the shooting, including by failing to promptly inform the family, barring the parents from accessing and touching their mortally wounded son, and declaring the brain-dead Ghaisar "under arrest" and his body "evidence."
As part of the proceedings the two sides in the lawsuit filed a list of uncontested facts stating that Amaya and Vinyard have each been the subject of three separate complaints and investigations (dating from 2008 for Vinyard and 2013 for Amaya). The nature of the complaints or how the complaints were resolved was not disclosed. The stipulation of facts also states that on the night of the shooting marijuana and a pipe were found in Ghaisar’s vehicle. In June 2019, the officers made a court appearance in the civil lawsuit and stated they acted in self defense. The officers invoked Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The officers sought to deny that they were federal agents operating under federal law, as police officers often have greater legal protection. In September 2020, the officers' lawyers in the Ghaisar family's civil suit released some documents from the two-year FBI investigation. These documents included Amaya and Vinyard's statements from that investigation and the information that Ghaisar's autopsy showed marijuana in his system.
In 2021, the civil suit was close to trial, but the proceedings were stayed by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton pending the resolution of a parallel case involving the Park Police officers' claims of immunity from state prosecution.
Criminal investigations and prosecution
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated the incident for two years, but decided in November 2019 that it would not bring federal charges against the two U.S. Park Police officers, Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard.Tom Jackman, Justice Dept. will not allow FBI to testify in Fairfax investigation of Bijan Ghaisar killing, ''(February 14, 2020).
State prosecutors in Fairfax County, Virginia, separately investigated, and in December 2019, Fairfax county prosecutors announced that they would seek an indictment for the two officers responsible for shooting Ghaisar and had tried to empanel a grand jury. Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond F. Morrogh obtained documents from the FBI investigation in December 2019, although the FBI withheld about 260 documents from the prosecutor's office.Tom Jackman, FBI withholds hundreds of documents from Fairfax in probe of Bijan Ghaisar killing, Washington Post (June 5, 2020). Testimony was delayed as the FBI considered whether to allow its officers to testify. In February 2020, the DOJ announced that it would block the FBI agents who investigated the Ghaisar killing from testifying before a Fairfax County grand jury. Eric Dreiband, the head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, said in a letter to Fairfax prosecutors that allowing the FBI agents to testify would create a conflict of interest if DOJ ultimately decided to defend the officers in the civil lawsuit, and also invoked the legal precedent that "a federal officer may not be prosecuted by a State for actions undertaken in the course of performing the officer’s official duties" if the officer's actions are “objectively reasonable." Newly elected Fairfax prosecutor Steve Descano responded that his office's investigation would continue and that they "continue to request and expect the Department's future cooperation when necessary."
In October 2020, the two officers were indicted in Fairfax County Circuit Court by a special grand jury conveyed by Descano. The indictment charged the officers with manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm. The officers were booked in Fairfax County jail and later released on $10,000 bond. As part of Virginia's legal proceedings, radio conversations between police dispatch and the two officers were released in August 2021 which showed that Amaya and Vinyard were told by dispatch that Ghaisar's vehicle was not at-fault in the rear-end accident. Recordings of the communications were included in the 320-page expert witness report on the incident authored by City University of New York criminal justice professor Christopher Chapman for the prosecution.
The officers argued that the Supremacy Clause blocked their prosecution in state court, while Descano and Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring argued that the Supremacy Clause did not bar the indictment. Under the Supremacy Clause, federal agents are immune from prosecution in state court if their actions are "necessary and proper" and undertaken as part of official duties. In November 2020, the officers removed the case to federal court, specifically the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Tom Jackman, Park Police officers who killed Bijan Ghaisar seek to move their cases to federal court, Washington Post (November 17, 2020). A hearing was held in August 2021 to consider whether the two officers are entitled to immunity. Vinyard and Amaya did not testify at the hearing. In October 2021, U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton dismissed all criminal criminal charges against Vinyard and Amaya, ruling that the officers were entitled to immunity because under the circumstances, "The officers' decision to discharge their firearms was necessary and proper under the circumstances and there is no evidence that the officers acted with malice, criminal intent, or any improper motivation." The Virginia Attorney General's Office and the Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney are appealing the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Legislative and public response
In January 2018, the Washington, D.C. representative to the U.S. Congress, Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, introduced a bill to require uniformed federal police officers to wear body cameras and have dashboard cameras in marked vehicles. The legislation was directly in response to Ghaisar's death. Park Police Chief Robert MacLean backed out of a scheduled meeting with Holmes Norton to discuss the matter, prompting Holmes Norton to make a statement to "express our astonishment" at his absence".
Following the release of the video, U.S. Senators (both D-VA) Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and U.S. Representative Don Beyer called on the FBI for more transparency. Beyer unsuccessfully requested a meeting with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke refused requests to release the names of the Park Police involved in the shooting.
In multiple letters to the FBI, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) requested information about the killing. Three months after his first letter, the FBI provided a short response that offered no new information and said the matter remained under investigation.
Following the FBI's November 2019 announcement that Vinyard and Amaya would not be charged for their actions, Beyer stated that the announcement was "not justice". Grassley and Warner also issued statements expressing disapproval. Holmes Norton, Beyer, and U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), called for the release of 911 tapes related to the shooting. Norton said she believes that U.S. Park Police violated their department policies during the incident.
The National Iranian American Council released a statement asserting that the facts of the case "strongly suggests that the police's shooting was not justified or proportionate."
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, November 2017
References
External links
Official Fairfax County Police Department Video of the US Park Police Shooting of Bijan Ghaisar
2017 deaths
2017 in Virginia
Deaths by firearm in Virginia
Deaths by person in the United States
November 2017 events in the United States
Law enforcement in Virginia
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Crimes in Virginia
History of Alexandria, Virginia
Police brutality in the United States
Protests in the United States
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Fairfax County, Virginia
George Washington Memorial Parkway |
60914429 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Hunter%20Gray | John Hunter Gray | John Hunter Gray (born John Salter Jr., February 14, 1934 – January 7, 2019) was a sociologist, professor and an American activist and community organizer in the civil rights movement. He was best known for his participation in the 1963 Jackson, Mississippi Woolworth's department store's lunch counter sit-in. The iconic photo of Gray and Tougaloo College students earned Gray national attention and the nickname "Mustard Man" when a group of whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over his head during the sit-in.
On May 28, 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi, Gray joined white and black Tougaloo College students in a sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter to protest segregation. Tougaloo students included white student Joan Trumpauer and black student Anne Moody who sat at the front counter instead of at the segregated section for black citizens and requested service. Gray, a professor at the college, joined the students sitting at the counter and was viciously attacked by a white mob who struck him with brass knuckles and broken glass. In Anne Moody's autobiography, Coming Of Age In Mississippi, she said that once Gray sat down he was immediately hit by brass knuckles and with blood gushing from his face salt was thrown into his open wounds.
Shortly after the Jackson sit-in, during a protest march, Gray was severely beaten unconscious and taken to a fairgrounds where demonstrators were held. Gray was also involved in a suspicious car accident where he and a chaplain sustained serious injuries. He was often followed by the local police and also under surveillance by the FBI who had compiled thousands of pages about him and his activities.
Grays' act of defiance and the Jackson sit-in greatly aided the Civil Rights Movement. Just two weeks after the Jackson sit-ins, on June 11, President John F. Kennedy publicly called for a national civil rights bill. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed a year later by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Early life
John Hunter Gray was born John Randall Salter Jr. in Chicago, Illinois, on February 14, 1934. Commonly perceived as white, Salter, as he was formerly known, changed his name to John Hunter Gray to honor his Native American heritage. He grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona with his Native American father who was an artist and a college professor and his mother, a teacher. After graduating high school in 1951, Gray joined the United States Army for a short time before attending Arizona State University. He graduated in 1958 with his undergraduate degree in social studies. He attained his master's degree in sociology two years later. While pursuing his degrees at Arizona State University, Gray organized and volunteered for many student groups including the International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. In 1961, Gray and his wife, Eldri Johanson, were married. The two met while Eldri was a social worker in Duluth, Minnesota. She herself being from Moose Lake, Minnesota, and had graduated from Augsburg College with a degree in sociology. She stayed loyally to her husbands side, traveling with him to fight in the Civil Rights Movement together. After marriage the couple moved to Jackson, Mississippi. During an interview later in life he told Loki Mulholland, filmmaker and son of Joan Trumpauer, that "We decided to go south because things were happening".
Career and activism
Gray played a large role in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. His home became an unofficial headquarters for civil rights activists. While Gray was a sociology professor at Tougaloo College he became very involved with the NAACP, and grew close with Medgar Evers, who was the NAACP field secretary. In addition to the Jackson sit-in, he taught tactics of nonviolence, organized an NAACP youth council, and conducted a study of poverty in Mississippi as well. While involved in civil rights activities in Mississippi, Gray was monitored by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.
After leaving Mississippi, Gray moved to many other states where he continued his civil rights activities and teaching. In North Carolina he worked on voting rights and for the Southern Conference Educational Fund. He also did human rights work in Chicago serving as director of the Chicago Commons Association from 1969 to 1973. From 1976-1978 he served as director of the Office of Human Development of the Catholic Diocese of Rochester, New York. From 1978 he taught sociology at many colleges around the country including the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, and Navajo Community College, Tsaile, Arizona. Gray also held teaching positions at the University of Iowa; Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont; Superior State College in Wisconsin; and Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Gray worked from 1981-1994 at the University of North Dakota as a professor and was a chair in the American Indian Studies Department. In 1988, Gray recalled, without hypnotic regression techniques, that both he and his son were abducted by aliens, an experience he personally viewed as positive insofar as he considered the intentions of his captors as benificent.He retired from the University of North Dakota in 1994 and moved to Pocatello, Idaho where he continued his involvement in civil rights activities.
Death
Gray died of natural causes on January 7, 2019, at the age of 84, at his home in Pocatello, Idaho. He is survived by two sons and two daughters.
References
1934 births
2019 deaths
American civil rights activists
Arizona State University alumni
University of North Dakota faculty |
62050220 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Atatiana%20Jefferson | Killing of Atatiana Jefferson | Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, a 28-year-old woman, was shot to death in her home by a police officer in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, in the early morning of October 12, 2019. Police arrived at her home after a neighbor called a non-emergency number, stating that Jefferson's front door was open. Police body camera footage showed officers walking outside the home with flashlights for a few minutes while one of them yells, "Put your hands up! Show me your hands!", while discharging his weapon through a window. Police stated that they found a handgun near her body, which according to her eight-year-old nephew, she was pointing toward the window before being shot. On October 14, 2019, Officer Aaron Dean, the shooter, resigned from the Fort Worth Police Department and was arrested on a murder charge. On December 20, 2019, Dean was indicted for murder. Jefferson was black and the officer who shot her is white, prompting news outlets to compare Jefferson's shooting to the September 2018 murder of Botham Jean in nearby Dallas.
People involved
Atatiana Jefferson
Atatiana Koquice Jefferson, a 28-year-old African American woman, was a pre-medical graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana. Relatives said she worked in human resources. She lived in the house to care for her mother and nephew.
Aaron Dean
On October 14, 2019, Interim Police Chief Ed Kraus identified Officer Aaron Dean as the shooter. Dean was commissioned as an officer with the Fort Worth Police Department in April 2018 after completing the Fort Worth Police Academy in March, 2018. At the time of the shooting, Dean had been with the department approximately 18 months. Prior to the shooting, the only substantial entry in his Fort Worth police personnel file was about a traffic collision.
In 2004, Dean received a citation from the Arlington, Texas police for assault by contact, a class C misdemeanor, while at the University of Texas at Arlington for touching a woman's breast in the campus library. The incident was discussed during his videotaped job interview with the Fort Worth Police. He pled no contest and paid a fine. According to the Fort Worth Police Department, a Class C misdemeanor would not prevent employment with their department as a police officer.
Dean's training records from his first year on the job note concerns from supervisors. These concerns included that he had "tunnel vision" and "needs improvement on communicating with the public and fellow officers." Dean's most recent performance evaluation was made in spring 2019, where he received high marks from a supervisor.
Shooting
Welfare call
Just prior to 2:30 a.m on the morning of October 12, 2019, police received a "welfare call" from the neighborhood of Hillside Morningside, noting that the front door to someone's home was open. According to Jefferson's family, prior to police arriving at her home, she was playing video games in her home with her nephew.
Body camera footage
Body camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department shows that two officers had walked quietly around the side of the home. Officer Aaron Dean had walked into Jefferson's backyard. Seeing Jefferson in the window of her home, the officer yelled "put your hands up! Show me your hands!" and then fired a single shot through Jefferson's window.
Describing the video, the BBC wrote that Dean fired "within seconds" of seeing Jefferson. The BBC also wrote that the footage does not appear to show police identifying themselves or whether she was armed. The footage also does not show any indication if Dean could see the gun that Jefferson held, as the view through the window was obstructed by the reflection from his flashlight. The officer partnered with Dean told authorities that she could only see Jefferson's face through the window.
Nephew's account
Jefferson's eight-year-old nephew told the authorities that while playing video games they heard noises outside the window. Jefferson took her gun from her purse and pointed it at the window, before she was shot. The nephew's account was used as the basis for the arrest warrant. Interim Chief Kraus stated that it, "makes sense that she would have a gun if she felt that she was being threatened or there was someone in the backyard." According to the Jefferson family attorney Lee Merritt, the firearm was lawfully owned and Jefferson had a concealed carry license.
Death
Jefferson was killed by the shot and pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m at the scene. Police officers stated that they attempted to provide emergency medical care to Jefferson and were unsuccessful.
Investigation
Police officials stated that the officer fired after perceiving a threat. Fort Worth Police Chief Ed Kraus stated that Dean resigned before he could be fired for what Kraus said included violating departmental policies on use of force, de-escalation, and unprofessional conduct. The separation paperwork for Dean was to be sent to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, and it would reflect that he was dishonorably discharged from the department.
Manny Ramirez, the president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, said Dean has never been the subject of a police investigation. Kraus said Dean has refused to cooperate with investigators and has not allowed Kraus to question him. Dean has not given an oral or written statement to investigators. Ramirez said he and other officers with knowledge of the situation were dumbfounded as to why Dean would have fired his weapon in this situation. Ramirez also said there was no way to explain Dean's actions.
Arrest, indictment and trial
Based on footage from Dean's body camera which captured the shooting, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was arrested at his attorney's office on October 14, 2019, and charged with murder. He was given a $200,000 bond, which he posted, and was released about three hours later. Kraus said that Dean had not provided a written statement or answered questions.
On October 25, 2019, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said evidence will also be presented to a grand jury for a formal indictment. Dean is the only officer to face a murder charge in Tarrant County for a shooting committed while on duty. He was indicted by a grand jury on a murder charge on December 20, 2019.
In October 2020, a Tarrant County judge set a tentative date of August 2021 for Dean's trial. After being initially delayed due to a backlog in the courts stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic the trial rescheduled in November 2021 to begin on January 10, 2022. A month later, the trial was delayed again due to two defense witnesses being unavailable in January. The trial is now set to begin in May 2022. Dean's defense attorneys have filed a motion for a change of venue, claiming that local media coverage has made it impossible for their client to receive a fair and impartial trial in Tarrant County.
Reactions
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price called the event "tragic" and promised a "complete and thorough investigation" by police chief Ed Kraus. CBS News reported that the investigation would then be forwarded to the Law Enforcement Incident Team for the Tarrant County District Attorney.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called Jefferson's death unacceptable. The neighbor who called for the welfare check told reporters that he never intended for an aggressive law enforcement response. He stated: "No domestic violence, no arguing. Nothing that they should have been concerned with, as far as them coming with guns drawn to my neighbor's house. There wasn't any reason for a gun shot that I know of."
Jefferson's funeral was paid for by two professional athletes; former Dallas Mavericks player Harrison Barnes and Philadelphia Eagles player Malik Jackson. A GoFundMe was also created by the family lawyer on behalf of the family.
The case has been cited as a cause of loss of trust in law enforcement. During a press conference in the days following the shooting, Kraus became emotional as he compared the erosion of public trust to ants working to build an anthill, when “somebody comes with a hose and washes it away and they just have to start from scratch.”
References
2010s in Fort Worth, Texas
2019 controversies in the United States
2019 in Texas
African-American history of Texas
African-American-related controversies
Black Lives Matter
Deaths by firearm in Texas
Deaths by person in the United States
Fort Worth Police Department
Law enforcement in Texas
October 2019 events in the United States
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
History of women in Texas |
64266465 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%20Jones | Prince Jones | Prince Carmen "Rocky" Jones Jr. (1975–September 1, 2000) was an African-American man killed by an African-American police officer in September 2000 in Virginia. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates attended Jones' memorial service, and later wrote at length about Jones' life and death in his 2015 book Between the World and Me, noting that the tragedies of racism are impossible to escape for Black people, even those well-off.
Biography
Jones was the son of Prince C. Jones Sr. and Dr. Mabel Jones, a physician and the daughter of a sharecropper. He attended Howard University, was a personal trainer at a suburban Washington D.C. gym, and was set to enlist in the Navy. He had an infant daughter, Nina, with his fiancé Candace Carson. He was described as upstanding, religious, and a health food fanatic.
Killing by police
On 1 September 2000, Prince Jones was unarmed and driving his Jeep Cherokee to meet his fiancée. Undercover police officer Carlton Jones (no relation) of Prince George’s County, Maryland, followed Prince Jones for 15 miles in an unmarked vehicle into Fairfax County, Virginia. Officer Jones displayed his gun and announced he was police (though he was not in uniform and did not display his badge). According to the officer, Prince Jones rammed the police vehicle with his Jeep, leading the officer to shoot at Jones' Jeep 16 times, striking him six times (including five times in the back). Two witnesses contradicted the officer's account; one testified that Prince Jones's vehicle was not moving when the shots were fired.
Carlton Jones later explained the killing as a case of mistaken identity, and in October 2000 the county prosecutor, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., declined to file criminal charges against Officer Jones. This decision aggrieved Prince Jones' family, friends, and local civil rights leaders, who noted Prince George’s County's documented history of police brutality and decried the continued failure of the criminal justice system to hold police accountable for serious misconduct. The county prosecutor's inaction was tantamount to "legitimizing murder", they said. The Prince George's Fraternal Order of Police lauded the prosecutor's decision, and of Officer Jones said "it's clear that he was defending himself."
A memorial service for Jones was held at Howard University. Prince Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Carlton Jones had all spent their undergraduate years at Howard, although none of the men ultimately graduated from the university.
In January 2006, a Prince George’s County Circuit Court civil jury determined that Prince Jones's death at the hands of the Prince George County police was wrongful, and awarded $2.5 million in damages to Prince Jones' daughter.
References
African-American history of Virginia
African-American-related controversies
Law enforcement in Virginia
Law enforcement controversies
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Police brutality in the United States
Post–civil rights era in African-American history
Race-related controversies in the United States
1975 births
2000 deaths |
65551181 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Alvin%20Cole | Killing of Alvin Cole | On the evening of February 2, 2020, Alvin Cole, a 17-year-old black male, was shot by a Wauwatosa, Wisconsin black male police officer Joseph Mensah, outside Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa. The shooting occurred after Cole refused a command from the police to drop the stolen gun he was holding and Cole fired a bullet as he tried to flee. Two shots were fired when Cole was on his hands and knees, and the remaining three shots were fired by Mensah while Cole was face down on the ground. Mensah was the only officer among the five other officers at the scene who fired his weapon.
The demonstrations played out against a backdrop of protests worldwide over the murder of George Floyd.
Death
Black Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah shot 17-year-old Cole outside Mayfair Mall on February 2 after police responded to a call of a reported disturbance at the shopping center. Police said Cole fled from the scene carrying a stolen 9 mm handgun. They cited squad car audio evidence, along with testimony from Mensah and two police officers, that Cole had fired a shot at the police while fleeing and refused commands from the officers to drop the gun. It was determined that Mensah fired his weapon five times.
Cole was the third person Mensah had fatally shot in the five years since he became a police officer, and his death sparked protests in Wauwatosa. Mensah is the only officer who has shot and killed anyone since 2010 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The teenager's death sparked protests throughout the summer in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, a city located west of Milwaukee.
Cole's family is being represented by the prominent attorney Kimberley Motley. Motley is also representing the families of the two other men shot and killed by Mensah: 25-year-old Jay Anderson Jr. on June 23, 2016; and 29-year-old Antonio Gonzales on July 16, 2015.
Video
There is video of the shooting. Police videos and video evidence from the nearby businesses seem to show police shouting "drop the gun," before shots are fired.
Reactions
On October 7, 2020 Milwaukee County District Attorney John T. Chisholm announced that Officer Mensah would not be charged because he had reasonable belief that deadly force was necessary. Governor Tony Evers announced earlier on October 7 that he had activated Wisconsin National Guard members as a precaution, which were later confirmed to be "hundreds" of troops. Wauwatosa Police Chief announced on social media that his police department agreed with the decision not to charge Officer Joseph Mensah with a crime.
Also on October 7, 2020, an independent investigator, Steven M. Biskupic, a former federal prosecutor, released an 81-page report that stated officer Mensah should be fired. One of the reasons the report recommended termination: the investigator concluded that Mensah made less than truthful statements. The report went on to say that keeping Mensah on as a police officer would be "an extraordinary, unwarranted and unnecessary risk".
Subsequent protests
Protests have occurred each day since the announcement that Officer Mensah would not be charged. The Wauwatosa Police Department and Wisconsin National Guard have been the main agencies present at each protest since October 7.
The city of Wauwatosa issued a nightly 7:00 p.m. curfew on October 7. Some people ignored the curfew and started marching peacefully in the city. Later that evening and past the curfew, a group of protesters confronted a police line. Police said some people were throwing rocks at law enforcement and buildings and that they used tear gas to disperse the protesters. Local media reported windows were broken at several businesses on the city's north side, including a pharmacy, coffee shop, wall coverings store, cleaners and fitness centre.
In additional protests on October 8, among the most prominent people arrested were 17-year-old Alvin Cole's mother, Tracy Cole and his three sisters who claimed that they were assaulted and arrested by police according to Attorney Kimberley Motley, who is representing the family. Mrs. Cole and her daughter were taken to the hospital and 24 people were arrested for peacefully protesting, according to police. Police and the National Guard were both actively working to patrol the city. On October 10, Rapper/entertainer Jay-Z and his company Team ROC, offered to pay fines for those arrested during the Wauwatosa protests. The rapper also called for the termination of Officer Mensah. The rapper posted bond for several protesters including the mother of Alvin Cole, Tracy.
In a further escalation of protests on October 9, 28 protesters were arrested in a third night of clashes between police and protesters. Police deployed tear gas to stop peaceful protestors. Two arrests were on felony charges, one was a misdemeanor arrest, and 25 were municipal arrests.
An unspecified number of protesters were arrested in the fourth night of demonstrations, October 10, after the usual 7:00 p.m. curfew began. According to police, protesters occupied the Wauwatosa City Hall lawn and blocked traffic on the fourth night of demonstrations. The protests began in Washington Park where demonstrators marched to City Hall where a group of hundreds had assembled to protest. The crowd dispersed at 8 pm when National Guard troops police warned the protestors that they were violating the 7:00 pm curfew. The Wauwatosa Police Department released a statement describing incidents from the fourth night of protests and stating that no property damage was reported.
On October 11, at 5:30 pm protestors gathered near 69th and North Avenue in Wauwatosa. The police arrived at 7:00 pm and told the crowd to disperse. Several protestors refused to leave and were arrested. The curfew expired on October 12.
See also
2020–2021 United States racial unrest
George Floyd protests
George Floyd protests in Wisconsin
Kenosha unrest
References
External links
Edited video of police shooting of Alvin Cole
Video from protests and unrest in Wauwatosa
2020 controversies in the United States
2020 in Wisconsin
2020 riots
2020–2021 United States racial unrest
Black Lives Matter
Deaths by firearm in Wisconsin
February 2020 events in the United States
Law enforcement controversies in the United States
October 2020 events in the United States
Post–civil rights era in African-American history
Protests in Wisconsin
Protests |
65653548 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Marcellis%20Stinnette | Killing of Marcellis Stinnette | Marcellis Stinnette, a 19-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by a Hispanic police officer in Waukegan, Illinois, United States shortly before midnight on October 20, 2020. He was the passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by police, who were attempting to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. According to police, the officer opened fire when the vehicle moved in reverse towards the officer. The driver, Tafarra Willams, was also wounded but survived. The officer has been fired, and another officer has been placed on administrative leave. Body camera, dashboard camera, and surveillance video of the incident has been publicly released, and the Illinois State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation have opened investigations. Demonstrations were held in Waukegan in the ensuing days.
Initial stop
On the evening of Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 19-year-old Stinnette and his 20-year-old girlfriend Williams, who had a child together, were in their parked car outside Williams's mother's house in Waukegan, Illinois, a suburb of about 86,000 people north of Chicago. According to police, a suspicious vehicle was reported shortly before midnight, and when a Waukegan police officer approached the car to investigate, it unexpectedly fled.
In an October 27 statement to reporters from her hospital room, Williams disputed the official police account. According to Williams, while she and Stinnette were sitting in their parked car, an officer pulled up without activating his car's lights or siren. Williams said she opened the window and turned on her car's interior lights. The officer referred to Stinnette by name, saying "I know you from jail", and referred to Williams as Stinnette's "baby mother". According to Williams, when Williams asked the officer if they were free to leave, the officer stepped back from the car, and Williams drove away slowly; the officer did not activate his car's lights or follow Williams.
Body camera footage of the initial stop by the White police officer released on October 28 shows the officer telling Stinnette that he is under arrest three times, the second time stating that Stinnette had an outstanding warrant for his arrest. The officer has his hand on the car and tells Stinnette to exit the vehicle, when the car "speeds off".
It is unclear from the footage whether the car made contact with the officer.
The officer does not immediately pursue Williams, instead he calls for backup, identifying Williams and Stinnette by name.
Second stop
A short time later, a different police officer, who was Hispanic, stopped the car about a half-mile away. According to police, when the officer approached the car, it reversed towards the officer, and the officer opened fire into the car with his semiautomatic pistol.
In her October 27 statement, Williams disputed the police's account, telling the press, "There was a crash, and I lost control. The officer was shooting at us. The car ended up slamming into a building."
According to Williams, she told the officer she was unarmed, but the officer "kept shooting" and told her to get out of the car. Shot and bleeding, she exited the car. According to Williams, the police covered Stinnette with a blanket while he was still breathing.
According to NBC News, dashboard camera footage from the officer's vehicle released on October 28 shows Williams's car, with an officer in pursuit, turning in front of the second officer's car, before stopping on a grass embankment about twenty seconds later.
According to CNN, Williams passed another police car, failed to stop at a stop sign, drove onto the opposite shoulder, and hit a telephone pole guy wire.
The second officer pulled up next to Williams's car. It is unclear whether the officer exited his vehicle before yelling "get out of the fucking", at which point Williams's car begins to reverse. The car cannot be seen in the dash camera footage at this point, but the audio can be heard of an engine roaring and six or seven gunshots, followed by tires squealing and a crash.
Two surveillance videos released on October 28 show Williams's car reversing and crashing into a building, but do not show the officer in the frame. The officer's body camera was not activated at the time of the shooting, and no video released on October 28 shows the shots being fired.
Both Stinnette and Williams were taken to the local hospital. Stinnette died shortly thereafter. Williams survived wounds to her stomach and hand. Police said no weapons were found in the car.
Investigation
The Hispanic officer, who had been with the department for five years, was fired on October 23 for "multiple policy and procedure violations", including failing to activate his body camera, according to the police chief. The White officer, who also had been with the department for five years, was placed on administrative leave. Neither officer had been identified as of October 28.
The Illinois State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the shooting.
Lake County State's Attorney Michael Nerheim pledged to release the investigative file to the public if his office decides not to file criminal charges.
Williams is represented by civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who also represented the families of George Floyd and Daniel Prude. The attorneys said the officer's firing was "a first step in police accountability" but that they would press ahead with their own investigation.
Protests
A rally was held on October 22; demonstrators demanded release of the video footage and federal investigations. The mayor of Waukegan, Sam Cunningham, who is African-American and close friends with the family of the victim, asked for calm.
Members of the family of Jacob Blake, who was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, north of Waukegan, attended the demonstration. The shooting occurred just days after third-degree murder charges for Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd, were dismissed. Another protest had been planned for October 24.
Clyde McLemore, head of the Lake County chapter of Black Lives Matter, was among those calling for a federal investigation and the release of police video of the shooting. He also said the protest and march were planned to demand a special prosecutor and the release of the name of the officer involved. He also called for the officer to be arrested and prosecuted to face murder and attempted murder charges.
References
2020 controversies in the United States
2020 in Illinois
2020–2021 United States racial unrest
African-American-related controversies
Black Lives Matter
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
Deaths by firearm in Illinois
Deaths by person in the United States
Deaths in police custody in the United States
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Law enforcement controversies in the United States
October 2020 events in the United States
Waukegan, Illinois |
66862513 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Christian%20Hall | Killing of Christian Hall | Christian Joseph Hall (October 31, 2001 – December 30, 2020) was a 19-year-old Chinese American man from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania who was shot and killed by Pennsylvania State troopers on December 30, 2020. The police had been responding to a report about Hall, who was suspected to be suicidal and found with a firearm. Though he appeared to surrender, Hall was shot while his hands were up.
Background
Hall was born Chen Zhi Bo on October 31, 2001, in Shanghai, Mainland China. Shortly before age one, he was adopted by Gareth J. Hall and Fe Hall, who are of African-American and Asian-American descent respectively. He had his name officially changed to Christian Joseph Hall.
Incident
On December 30, 2020, Pennsylvania State Police arrived on the Pennsylvania Route 33 overpass above Interstate 80 responding to a call about a distraught man, later identified as Christian Hall. Footage of the scene showed him pacing around and clutching what appears to be a gun. Initial reports said Hall placed it on the ground after being ordered to do so, and began negotiating with the officers, but soon picked it back up. Around 1:38 p.m., Hall was shot seven times by the troopers. Hall was carrying a pellet gun with his hands raised when he was shot. He was taken to the Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono in East Stroudsburg, where he later died from his injuries.
Investigation
Initial reports from authorities stated that when the officers told Hall to put the gun on the ground, he complied, but at one point during negotiations, he picked up the gun and pointed it in the direction of the police, causing them to shoot him. A video of the incident with evidence contradicting the claims surfaced in February 2021. The video shows Hall raising his hands before he is shot and falls.
Hall's adoptive parents reported that he had been experiencing a mental health problem. Fe Hall told WNEP-TV, "He needed help. He was looking for help, but instead of getting help, he was killed in cold blood by those who were supposed to help him." Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump also stated that Hall was in need of help and seemed to be contemplating suicide.
Hall's family has started a petition to reopen the investigation of his shooting, with a goal of 150,000 votes. On February 12, 2021, Hall's death was protested by people outside the Philadelphia City Hall. Twitter users have demanded #JusticeforChristian after the video of the incident emerged.
In March 2021, Michael Mancuso, an assistant district attorney, called Hall's death a "classic suicide by cop scenario" at a news conference.
In November 2021, a new video was released which shows Hall holding the pellet gun with his hands raised at the time of his killing. The video is unblurred, unlike video previously released by the Monroe County district attorney, and was obtained through subpoena by a lawyer representing Hall's parents.
References
2020 deaths
2020 in Pennsylvania
2020–2021 United States racial unrest
Asian-American-related controversies
Deaths by firearm in Pennsylvania
Deaths by person in the United States
December 2020 events in the United States
Filmed killings by law enforcement
Filmed deaths in the United States
Law enforcement controversies in the United States
People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States |
69983847 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing%20of%20Amir%20Locke | Killing of Amir Locke | Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black American man, was fatally shot on February 2, 2022, by a SWAT officer of the Minneapolis Police Department inside an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota where police were executing a no-knock search warrant in a homicide investigation.
The shooting is under review by the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the Hennepin County attorney's office, and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey imposed a moratorium on most no-knock warrants on February 4.
Background
Persons involved
Amir Locke was a 22-year-old Black man born in Maplewood, Minnesota, and raised in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul suburbs. According to his mother, Locke was starting a music career and planned to move to Dallas the following week.
Mark Hanneman has been a police officer in Minneapolis since 2015. He is a member of the Minneapolis Police Department's SWAT team. According to personnel records released by the department, Hanneman had three past complaints, all closed without disciplinary action. Prior to working with the police department, Hanneman was employed as a police officer in Hutchinson, Minnesota, starting in 2010.
Search warrant
Locke was shot while police were executing a search warrant in relation to a homicide that occurred in nearby Saint Paul, Minnesota, in January 2022. The Saint Paul Police Department applied for a "knock and announce" warrant, and the Minneapolis police department insisted on a no-knock warrant, according to the St. Paul Police Department. Police also had "probable cause pick up and holds" for three people. Amir Locke was not named in the search warrant and was not a target of the homicide investigation.
Incident
On February 2, 2022, police unlocked and opened a door to an apartment at approximately 6:48 a.m. Police body camera footage reviewed by reporters "showed several officers quickly rushing into the apartment at the same time", several yelling "Police! Search warrant!", one officer yelling "Hands, hands!", and another yelling "Get on the ground!" Locke was lying on a couch wrapped in a blanket, and an officer kicked the couch. Locke then sat up and turned toward the officers while holding a gun, and in a still image released by police, his trigger finger is along the barrel of the gun. He was then shot twice in the chest and once in the wrist by Hanneman. The time from when police entered the unit, to when Locke was shot, was less than 10 seconds.
Locke was treated at the scene and transported to Hennepin Healthcare, where emergency medics pronounced him dead at 7:01 a.m.
Investigations
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension opened an investigation and Hanneman was placed on paid administrative leave.
An autopsy report published on February 4 by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner classified the manner of Locke's death to be homicide due to gunshot wounds.
The office of the Attorney General of Minnesota will work with the Hennepin County attorney's office to review the case. Prosecutors will determine whether to bring criminal charges against Mark Hanneman.
No-knock warrant policy moratorium and review
Following the killing of Amir Locke, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey imposed a moratorium on no-knock warrants on February 4, with an exception for "an imminent threat of harm to an individual or the public and then the warrant must be approved by the Chief", such as hostage situations or extreme domestic violence. Racial justice activist DeRay Mckesson and professor of police studies Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University will work with the city to review possible changes to the no-knock warrant policy during the moratorium.
On February 7, the Minneapolis City Council Policy and Government Oversight Committee began discussion about no-knock warrants. Minnesota legislators also plan to consider a ban on most no-knock warrants, and Governor Tim Walz has indicated he will sign the legislation. The Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review is also reviewing the no-knock warrant policy.
Reaction
Family
The parents of Amir Locke said the death was an "execution". His parents also stated their son did not live at the apartment. The family said Amir was "a deep sleeper" and may have been startled and "grabbed for his gun". The family also said he had a gun license and a concealed carry permit, and had a gun for protection due to his work for DoorDash.
Minnesota attorney Jeff Storms and civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci are representing Locke's family as legal counsel. On February 4, Crump stated, "If we've learned anything from Breonna Taylor, it's that we know no-knock warrants have deadly consequences for Black American citizens." At a press conference on February 7, Crump stated, "Warrants create chaotic, confusing circumstances that put everyone present at risk and those people are disproportionately marginalized people of color."
On February 10, family members of Locke and Breonna Taylor held a press conference with Crump, Storms, and Romanucci, and called for a ban on no-knock warrants.
Officials
On February 3, Minneapolis interim police chief Amelia Huffman said both a knock and no-knock warrant were obtained as part of a St. Paul Police Department homicide investigation so the SWAT team could make its best assessment, and that it was "unclear" if Locke was connected to the St. Paul investigation. A spokesperson for the police department refused to comment due to the ongoing nature of the homicide investigation. Body camera footage was released to the public after Representative Ilhan Omar and members of the Minnesota House of Representatives called for the immediate release of the footage.
Based on a still shot from the body cam footage, Huffman stated "That's the moment when the officer had to make a split-second decision to assess [...] an articulable threat, that the threat was of imminent harm, great bodily harm or death, and that he needed to take action" to protect himself and other officers. Huffman also stated, "Ultimately, that decision of whether that threshold was met will be examined by the county attorney's office that reviews this case." Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison stated "Amir Locke's life mattered" when it was announced that his office will work with the Hennepin County attorney's office in its review.
Minnesota Representative Esther Agbaje, who resides in the building where Locke was shot and was home at the time, said "We need to continue to have a serious conversation about what does policing look like in this city, so it's safe—not only for the police officers but also for the people who live here." Minnesota House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler said, "Minnesotans deserve a thorough and impartial investigation into the events that led to Mr. Locke's death, including the Minneapolis Police Department sharing inaccurate information in the immediate aftermath."
Community groups
On February 2, local civil rights activists held a vigil and asked police and city leaders for more information, including who authorized the SWAT team. On February 4, during a press conference by Interim Chief Amelia Huffman and Mayor Jacob Frey after the body camera footage was released, reporters and community members, including civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, challenged Huffman about her initial description of the body camera footage. Huffman had initially stated officers "loudly and repeatedly announced police search warrant before crossing the threshold into the apartment" and then later encouraged people to "make their own assessment" after the footage was released.
On February 7, the Minneapolis NAACP called for a moratorium on no-knock warrants throughout the state, "pending a determination by the Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Board as to whether the no-knock procedure is an appropriate use of police power". The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted a lack of a police command to Locke to drop the gun or a warning that he would be shot. The ACLU of Minnesota called for a ban on no-knock warrants.
According to Rob Doar, the senior vice president of governmental affairs in the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, "Mr. Locke did what many of us might do in the same confusing circumstances, he reached for a legal means of self-defense while he sought to understand what was happening." According to the Chair of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Bryan Strawser, "Black men, like all citizens, have a right to keep and bear arms. Black men, like all citizens, have the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizure." A statement from the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, the local police union, includes: "Policing, particularly with a SWAT team, is a dangerous, high-stress profession where officers are forced to make important split-second decisions in defense of themselves and fellow officers, especially when weapons are involved".
Protests
In Minneapolis—Saint Paul
On the evening of February 4, protesters in cars began honking outside Minneapolis City Hall and then moved through downtown towards where the shooting occurred, until about 8:00 p.m. On February 5, hundreds of people in Minneapolis protested Locke's death. On February 6, protesters gathered outside Huffman's home in the Cedar-Isles-Dean neighborhood of Minneapolis to demand her resignation.
On February 8, high school students in St. Paul and Minneapolis organized by MN Teen Activists walked out of class in protest and marched to the residence of the governor. Jerome Treadwell, the executive director of MN Teen Activists, stated, "Our message today is that we need to protect young black lives. We are humans, we deserve to live and we have hopes and dreams."
On February 11, a protest of approximately 100 people marched through south Minneapolis during the evening to demand justice over the police killings of Amir Locke and Winston Boogie Smith, who had been killed by law enforcement on June 3, 2021. Along Lake Street, several properties were vandalized and tagged with anti-police and anarchist graffiti. Some demonstrators threw rocks at the Minneapolis Police Department's fifth precinct station building.
On February 16, approximately 40 protesters gathered outside the home of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey to demand justice over Locke's death.
On February 20, protesters gathered outside the Minnesota State Capitol building in Saint Paul for a "Justice for Amir Locke" rally.
Elsewhere
In Chicago, Illinois, a protest over Locke's death was held on February 11—the first protest in that city over his death.
In Portland, Oregon, protesters planned a demonstration for February 19 in response to the police killings of Amir Locke and Patrick Kimmons, who was fatally shot by Portland police officers in 2018. As people gathered for the demonstration, five people were injured by gunfire, and one woman was killed during a nearby shooting in Normandale Park.
See also
List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, February 2022
List of killings by law enforcement officers in Minnesota
2020–2022 United States racial unrest
2020–2022 Minneapolis–Saint Paul racial unrest
Notes
References
External links
Minneapolis public data, "February 2, 2022 officer-involved shooting"
2022 controversies in the United States
2020s in Minneapolis
Filmed deaths in the United States
Minneapolis Police Department
Filmed killings by law enforcement
African Americans shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States
No-knock warrant |