The post Pittsburgh cops investigate video appearing to show protesters clash with diners appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Authorities in Pittsburgh, Pa., said they were investigating a newly released video that appeared to show protesters confronting outdoor diners in the city’s downtown on Saturday, a report said.
One of the videos that were posted online appeared to show a man holding a megaphone calling diners at the establishment an “embarrassment.” Some of the diners can be seen getting up from their seats.
DINESH D’SOUZA SAYS RECENT RIOTS, POLITICAL UNREST COULD LEAD TO ‘RISE OF CITIZEN MILITIAS’
Another protester could be seen giving an elderly couple the middle finger before someone else walks over to the pair, takes what appears to be a full glass of beer and drinks the entire glass. Another protester reportedly smashed a wine glass.
GRAPHIC LANGUAGE WARNING
The apparent protester who gave the couple the middle finger laughed during the interaction. The marchers in the street were chanting “no justice, no peace” and “f— the police.”
The scene was reminiscent of the videos of Black Lives Matter Protesters who screamed at people dining in Washington, D.C., late last month over the shooting of James Blake in Kenosha, Wis.
Frederick Kunkle, a Washington Post staff writer, posted a video Tuesday on Twitter that showed a crowd of protesters gathering closely around a woman, identified as Lauren Victor, as she sat outside on a sidewalk. The group demanded she raise her fist in solidarity as they chanted at her, “White silence is violence,” and, “No justice, no peace!”
WTAE.com, a Pittsburgh station, reported late Sunday that authorities are looking into the video from the restaurant and another that apparently showed a man carrying a bike who was hit by a demonstrator.
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]]>The post Grand jury to investigate US ‘spit hood’ death appeared first on Virus Reports.
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Image copyright
We The People/ GoFundMe
Daniel Prude died a week after he was restrained by police
New York’s attorney general has said a grand jury will be formed to investigate the death of Daniel Prude, an unarmed black man who suffocated after being restrained by police.
Mr Prude – who suffered from mental health issues – died after officers put him in a “spit hood”, designed to protect police from detainees’ saliva.
Protests have been held after footage of the incident in Rochester emerged.
Seven police officers have been suspended.
The 41-year-old died in March however his death has only just been reported.
Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement: “The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish. My office will immediately move to empanel a grand jury as part of our exhaustive investigation into this matter.”
The move has been welcomed by Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. But a spokeswoman for the Rochester Police Department declined to comment.
Mr Prude’s brother, Joe, told the New York Times: “I am ecstatic about this. But right now I’m still waiting on seeing the indictment and them being prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
What happened to Daniel Prude?
Joe said he called police on 23 March as Daniel was showing acute mental health problems. When officers arrived, he had been running naked through the streets.
In body camera footage obtained from the police by Mr Prude’s family, he can be seen lying on the ground as officers restrain him. While sitting on the road, he becomes agitated, alternately asking for money or a gun.
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He began spitting on the street, but does not appear to offer any physical resistance, according to the footage. An officer says that Mr Prude told them he had Covid-19, and they place the spit hood on him.
One officer can be seen pressing down on Mr Prude’s head with both hands, saying “stop spitting”. Mr Prude stops moving and goes quiet, and officers note he feels cold.
Paramedics are called and Mr Prude is taken to hospital. His family took him off life support a week later.
The medical examiner ruled his death as a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint”, with intoxication by the drug PCP, a contributing factor.
Image copyright
Reuters
Protests in Rochester have taken place nightly following the release of the footage
Mayor Warren said the city police chief had failed to inform her of the case until the beginning of last month.
But police chief La’Ron Singletary denied that his department had been trying to keep the details out of public view, and Michael Mazzaeo, president of the Rochester Police Locust Club, said the officers had followed their training “step by step”.
The officers were only disciplined after the footage was released, five months after Mr Prude’s death. Protests in the city have taken place nightly since the release of the footage.
Mr Prude’s death came two months before that of George Floyd, whose killing while in police custody sparked widespread outrage and incited national and international demonstrations against police brutality and racism.
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]]>The post Colorado DA to investigate after Black women, girls ordered to ground in mistaken stolen-car stop appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>A Colorado district attorney said Friday she will investigate the actions of Aurora police who drew their guns and ordered Black girls and women to get on the ground face-first after mistaking the minivan they were in for a stolen vehicle.
“If our investigation determines that the officers involved committed a crime, I will not hesitate to file charges and prosecute them,” District Attorney George Brauchler, who has jurisdiction over Aurora, said in a statement. “I intend to investigate this matter thoroughly and with appropriate haste.”
The officers have not been publicly identified.
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The girls, ages 6 to 17, were with Brittney Gilliam, 29, mother to one of them, aunt to others, as well as Gilliam’s sister when police stopped them in a parking lot Sunday based on the belief that the minivan they were in was stolen, according to family, police and Gilliam’s lawyer.
The girls were headed to get their nails done when they were ordered face down on the ground by officers with guns drawn, Gilliam said. A bystander, Jennifer Wurtz, used a cellphone to capture video of the stop.
One of the girls cries, “I want my mother.” Another says, “Can I have my sister next to me?”
Two of the children and Gilliam were restrained even after the group was allowed to get off the ground, said David Lane, a civil rights attorney representing the family. Gilliam was put in a police vehicle.
Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson said in a statement Friday that she shares “the concern over what transpired, which is why I immediately ordered an internal affairs investigation.”
The department said in an earlier statement to NBC News that officers believed the minivan was stolen because it shared the plate number of a stolen motorcycle.
When the officers realized the stolen motorcycle had plates from a different state, they “unhandcuffed everyone involved, made efforts to explain what happened, and apologized,” public information officer Faith Goodrich said in the statement.
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]]>The post Police investigate shooting at Austin protest appeared first on Virus Reports.
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Image copyright
Reuters
Footage of the shooting was posted on social media
Police in Austin, Texas are investigating the fatal shooting of a protester at an anti-racism march.
Garrett Foster was pushing his fiancée’s wheelchair at the protest when a car drove into the crowd, his mother Sheila Foster told US media.
As demonstrators approached the car, someone inside the vehicle opened fire on the group.
Mr Foster was taken to hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly afterwards. Police have arrested a suspect.
Tributes were paid to Garrett Foster on social media, and by Sunday afternoon an online fundraiser had raised more than $67,000 (£52,400).
Protests against racism and police brutality, and in support of Black Lives Matter, have been held across the US since the killing of George Floyd in May.
Portland, Oregon in particular has seen 58 consecutive days of protests, which have been exacerbated by the deployment of federal agents by the Department of Homeland Security. Officers have frequently used tear gas, flash bang grenades and impact munitions on demonstrators.
On Saturday, marches were held in a number of cities in solidarity with activists in Portland – Austin; Seattle; Louisville, Kentucky; Aurora, Colorado; New York; Omaha, Nebraska; Oakland and Los Angeles in California; and Richmond in Virginia.
Sheila Foster told ABC’s Good Morning America on Sunday that her son and his fiancée, Whitney Mitchell, had been participating in protests against police brutality for more than 50 days.
“He was doing it because he felt really strongly about justice and he was very heavily against police brutality, and he wanted to support his fiancée,” she told the programme “His fiancée is African-American.”
In a statement shortly after the shooting, a police spokesperson did not identify the victim but said he had been seen carrying a rifle. The New York Times later reported that he had been carrying an AK-47, as had other protesters.
Carrying rifles is common at protests in Texas, which has liberal gun laws.
Ms Foster added that it “wouldn’t surprise” her if her son had been carrying a gun, as he had a licence to carry and “he would have felt the need to protect himself”.
Before the shooting, Mr Foster spoke to independent journalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia about carrying the rifle at the protest.
“They don’t let us march in the streets anymore, so I got to practice some of our rights,” he said, on a social media live stream. “(But) if I use it against the cops, I’m dead.”
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]]>The post Can Congress investigate Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence? appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., last week vowed to investigate President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his longtime associate Roger Stone.
“President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and attacked the rule of law,” Nadler said.
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Trump on Friday commuted Stone’s sentence, sparing him from having to report to a federal prison in Georgia to begin serving 40 months behind bars. In November Stone was convicted of lying to Congress during the investigation into Russian election meddling.
But can Congress investigate a president’s grant of clemency?
As recently as last week, in its decision in the Trump congressional subpoena case, the Supreme Court said Congress’ power to investigate is tied to its power to make laws. It can demand information only if “it is related to, and in furtherance of, a legitimate task of the Congress,” and its investigations must serve a “valid legislative purpose.”
The court has ruled on this limitation of congressional power repeatedly, a conclusion it first expressed in 1927: that each House of Congress has the power “to secure needed information” in order to legislate. It made the same point in a different way in a 1957 case, ruling that “there is no congressional power to expose for the sake of exposure.”
Because the Constitution gives the president unlimited power to grant clemency for federal crimes, there’s no legislative hook allowing Congress to investigate.
This same issue came up in 2001 when Republicans in Congress wanted to investigate President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardons. As former House general counsel Stan Brand said at the time, “It’s none of Congress’ business.”
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]]>The post Authorities in U.K. Will Investigate English Park Stabbing As A Terrorist Incident appeared first on Virus Reports.
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Forbury Gardens in Reading, England was the site of a stabbing attack on the evening of June 20. Police officials have formally declared it a terrorist incident.
Alastair Grant/AP
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Alastair Grant/AP
Forbury Gardens in Reading, England was the site of a stabbing attack on the evening of June 20. Police officials have formally declared it a terrorist incident.
Alastair Grant/AP
A stabbing in an English park that killed three people and injured several others on Saturday is being investigated as a terrorist incident, authorities in the U.K. announced on Sunday.
The attack took place in Forbury Gardens, a public park in the town of Reading, England, about 40 miles west of London. According to the Thames Valley Police, a man attacked park-goers with a knife around 7 p.m., leaving three people dead and three with “serious injuries.” Officers detained a 25-year-old man from Reading on the scene and arrested him for suspicion of murder.
In a statement released Sunday, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing Neil Basu said the individual remains in custody and is thought to have acted alone. Security sources told the BBC the man is thought to be a Libyan national.
“From our enquiries undertaken so far, officers have found nothing to suggest that there were any other people involved in the attack, and presently, we are not looking for anyone else in relation to this incident,” Basu said.
He added that the stabbing was unrelated to a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest that had taken place in the park earlier that day and concluded hours before the attack.
One eyewitness, Lawrence Wort, told the BBC that groups of people were drinking and enjoying the park when a man suddenly started shouting and darting around a circle of about eight to 10 people. Wort said he saw him stab several people with a “massive” knife, which he estimated to have been at least five inches long. As people started screaming and running away, he said, the attacker stabbed at least one more person in a different cluster.
“Incidents of this nature are very rare, though I know that will be of little comfort to those involved and understand the concern that this incident will have caused amongst our local community,” said John Campbell, the chief constable of the Thames Valley Police.
National leaders also reacted swiftly to the attack. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled and sickened” by the incident, and thanked local police for bravely “tackling” the suspect.
I’m appalled and sickened that people should lose their lives in this way. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims.
Thank you to Thames Valley Police for their bravery in tackling the suspect. pic.twitter.com/BWgyODoIWM
— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) June 21, 2020
“My heart, prayers and thoughts are with all of those affected and to the people of Reading who will be deeply shocked and concerned by this terrible incident,” said Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Counterterrorism officials are encouraging members of the public who witnessed the attack or have other pertinent information to contact the police, and to refrain from sharing any images or videos of the attack on social media.
While the United Kingdom has weathered a series of terror attacks over the last several years, the location of Saturday’s attack was unusual, as most attackers have targeted locations in London for political symbolism and maximum publicity.
According to M15, the national threat level to the U.K. from terrorism remains designated as “substantial.” Within the security agency’s five-level classification system indicating the likelihood of a terrorist attack, “substantial” falls squarely in the middle.
Frank Langfitt contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Oakland to investigate nooses found in trees as hate crime | TheHill appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Oakland, Calif., is investigating nooses that were found hanging on trees as a hate crime, Mayor Libby Schaff (D) said Wednesday.
Schaff said several nooses were found on trees around Lake Merritt and were removed. She said reports that the nooses were part of exercise equipment “do not remove nor excuse their torturous and terrorizing effects.”
“We are all responsible for knowing the history and present day reality of lynchings, hate crimes and racial violence,” Schaff said in a tweeted statement. “Objects that invoke such terror will not be tolerated in Oakland’s public spaces.”
Several nooses found on trees around Lake Merritt were removed and will be investigated as hate crimes. pic.twitter.com/JW8TvY6pi4
— Libby Schaaf (@LibbySchaaf) June 17, 2020
Oakland resident Porchia Freeman shared a video on Facebook Tuesday after she saw a string hanging from a tree that she identified as a noose at Lake Merritt.
“I posted it because it was very disturbing to me and I thought I would bring awareness to the situation,” Freeman said in a video posted to Facebook on Wednesday.
She said she saw a string swinging as she was walking by the lake.
“Apparently the guy who put the rope up there, he said it was for a swing,” Freeman said. “Mind you, I’ve never seen a swing set that resembles a noose. It looks like a noose, swings like a noose. I thought it was a noose.”
During an initial investigation, residents claimed the ropes were used for exercise, CNN reported, citing a press release from the Oakland Police Department.
“One community member claimed ownership of the ropes and stated that he intentionally placed the ropes on the tree limbs for exercise and games several months ago,” police reportedly said in a release.
Police reportedly said extra patrols have been assigned to Lake Merritt.
The investigation into the nooses comes after federal authorities said they will review local investigations into the hanging deaths of two black men in Southern California, The Associated Press reported earlier this week.
The review is over investigations of the deaths of Robert Fuller in Palmdale and Malcolm Harsch in Victorville.
Los Angeles County officials on Monday walked back a ruling of suicide in Fuller’s death. Fuller, 24, was discovered hanging from a tree last Wednesday, less than two weeks after Harsch, 38, was found dead in a similar manner.
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]]>The post Police investigate hanging death of black man in California; 2nd in 2 weeks appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) — Authorities in the Southern California city of Palmdale are investigating the death of a 24-year-old black man found hanging from a tree near City Hall, which they originally described as an apparent suicide, prompting outrage in the community.
A passerby reported seeing Robert Fuller’s body around 3 a.m. Wednesday. Emergency personnel responded and found that he appeared to have died by suicide, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials said.
Fuller’s death has generated intense scrutiny, especially after nationwide protests rebuking the police killing of George Floyd. In a surprising turn, the case brought to light the death of another black man found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Palmdale.
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Palmdale, a city of 150,000, marching from the park where Fuller’s body was found to the sheriff’s station. Many carried signs that said “Justice for Robert Fuller.”
More than 100,000 people signed an online petition demanding a full investigation into Fuller’s death. Community members confronted city officials at a contentious news briefing Friday, asking why they were quick to label his death a suicide and demanding an independent autopsy.
“I have doubts about what happened,” Marisela Barajas, who went to the press conference and joined a crowd gathered at the tree where Fuller’s body was found, told the Los Angeles Times.
“All alone, in front of the City Hall — it’s more like a statement,” she said. “Even if it was a suicide, that in itself is kind of a statement.”
Lt. Kelly Yagerlener of the county medical examiner-coroner’s office said a decision on the cause of death is deferred pending an investigation. A full autopsy is planned.
Residents demanded surveillance video around the time and place where Fuller’s body was found. The city said there were no outdoor cameras, and video recorders on a nearby traffic signal could not have captured what happened.
Sheriff’s Capt. Ron Shaffer said homicide detectives were investigating the circumstances leading to Fuller’s death to determine if foul play was involved. He urged members of the public to contact detectives if they have relevant information, particularly about where Fuller had been and who he had been with in recent weeks.
Palmdale officials wrote in a statement that investigators have been in contact with Fuller’s family. A statement posted on the city website said it supports calls for an independent investigation and independent autopsy.
KPCC-FM reports that at the march Saturday, Fuller’s sister Diamond Alexander insisted her brother was not suicidal.
“Robert was a good little brother to us and it’s like everything they have been telling us has not been right … and we just want to know the truth,” she said.
In neighboring San Bernardino County, authorities there said they were still investigating the cause of death of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch, whose body was found hanging in a tree near the Victorville City Library. A sheriff’s spokeswoman, Jodi Miller, told Victor Valley News foul play was not suspected in Harsch’s death but the man’s family said they were concerned it will be ruled a suicide to avoid further attention.
In a statement to the publication on Saturday, the family said a few people who were at the scene told them there was blood on his shirt but no indication of a struggle. They said Harsch didn’t seem to be depressed and had recent conversations with his children about seeing them soon.
“The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible,” the statement said. “There are many ways to die but considering the current racial tension, a black man hanging himself from a tree definitely doesn’t sit well with us right now. We want justice not comfortable excuses.”
Messages seeking comments from Miller and the coroner’s office have not been returned.
Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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]]>The post Barr says FBI was ‘spring-loaded’ to investigate Trump campaign, ignored ‘exculpatory evidence’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>In an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Attorney General Bill Barr faulted the FBI for taking a “very aggressive” approach to investigating suspected Trump campaign ties to Russia and continuing to push forward even when, he says, their evidence was “falling apart.”
Barr alleged the bureau was eager to investigate President Trump’s team both before the election and after he won in November 2016.
FLYNN JUDGE EMMET SULLIVAN SET TO EXPLAIN WHY HE HAS NOT DISMISSED CASE
“I think before the election, I think we were concerned about the motive force behind the very aggressive investigation that was launched into the Trump campaign without — you know, with a very thin, slender reed as a basis for it,” Barr said in the two-part interview. The second part will air Tuesday at 6 p.m. EDT on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier.”
“It seemed that the bureau was sort of spring-loaded at the end of July to drive in there and investigate a campaign,” Barr added.
Barr went on to say that “there really wasn’t much there to do that on, and that became more and more evident as they went by, but they seemed to have ignored all the exculpatory evidence that was building up and continued pell-mell to push it forward.”
WATCH PART 2 OF ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR’S INTERVIEW TONIGHT AT 6PM ET ON ‘SPECIAL REPORT’
The attorney general said that effort remained intense following Trump’s election, even as – he said – it became “painfully obvious” there was little basis.
“The other area of concern is that after the election, even though they were closing down, some of it as we’ve seen in the [Michael] Flynn case and say there’s nothing here, for some reason they went right back at it, even at a time where the evidentiary support or claimed support, like the dossier, was falling apart,” Barr said, referencing the dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele as part of Democratic opposition research.
“And it’s — it’s very hard to understand why they continued to push and even make public in testimony that they had an investigation going, when it was becoming painfully obvious, or should have been obvious to anyone, that there was nothing there,” he continued.
The question of when senior FBI officials knew about the weaknesses of the dossier has been a focus of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, who has been investigating the Russia probe’s origins. On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” this past weekend, Graham pointed to how Steele’s sub-source had said during an FBI interview that the dossier was not accurate, even though it ended up being used to support a warrant application to conduct surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“I believe it goes to the very top, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it and that means Sally Yates and Rosenstein, and McCabe and Comey are all going to come before the committee and they’re going to be asked, ‘What did you know and when did you know it?’” Graham said.
Meanwhile, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham continues his probe into the Russia investigation’s origins, which could potentially result in criminal charges.
Barr, for his part, has been under fire from Democrats, including for the decision to drop the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. The DOJ, though, has since challenged the basis for the FBI interview that led to the guilty plea.
During part one of Barr’s interview, which aired Monday evening, the attorney general addressed recent calls from some Democrats to defund police forces in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
“I think defunding the police, holding the entire police structure responsible for the actions of certain officers is wrong and I think it is dangerous to demonize police,” Barr said.
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The attorney general did indicate that the federal government should help set standards that abolish the use of police chokeholds and similar techniques. This is one of several aspects of a sweeping police reform bill that Democrats unveiled Monday.
The “Justice in Policing Act of 2020” would also establish a registry of police misconduct and lower the bar for officers to face legal consequences for their actions. The federal standard currently requires that officers “willfully” violate constitutional rights in order to face prosecution, but the new bill would broaden that to include “reckless” violations as well.
Fox News’ Bret Baier, Andrew O’Reilly, and Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Barr taps U.S. attorney to investigate ‘unmasking’ as part of Russia probe review appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Bash was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2017 to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. He previously served as a special assistant to the president in the Trump White House and as an associate White House counsel.
Bash’s new investigative role with the Justice Department comes as the president and congressional Republicans have escalated their attacks on former senior officials within President Barack Obama’s administration who might have been involved in efforts that unmasked Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.
Bash will be “looking specifically at episodes both before and after the election,” Kupec said. “The frequency, who was unmasking whom, all of these circumstances and events can shed light and give us a better understanding of what happened with respect to President Trump, his campaign and, of course, what happened after he was elected, as well,” she added.
Trump has claimed those Obama officials were complicit in a vast government conspiracy, which he has dubbed “Obamagate,” to target Flynn and wound his incoming administration during the presidential transition period before he assumed office. But the White House and its conservative allies have struggled to provide any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the previous administration. Former U.S. officials have said they did nothing wrong, and that it was entirely appropriate to analyze Americans’ conversations with foreign officials.
Requests by national security officials to reveal the identity of individuals involved in conversations subject to government surveillance are common. For example, last year alone, U.S. spy agencies were asked 7,724 times to reveal the identities of Americans mentioned in those intelligence intercepts. In the case of Flynn, former FBI officials have indicated that his conversations with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, were caught up in the bureau’s surveillance — not the National Security Agency’s work.
“Obviously, we know that unmasking inherently isn’t wrong, but certainly the frequency, the motivation and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic,” Kupec said Wednesday. “And when you’re looking at unmasking as part of a broader investigation like John Durham’s investigation, looking specifically at who was unmasking whom can add a lot to our understanding about motivation and big-picture events.”
Flynn served as national security adviser for just 24 days before he was dismissed in February 2017 for a lack of candor about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition period. He reportedly misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about the details of those talks.
Flynn later became ensnared in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, pleading guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian envoy.
The Justice Department abandoned its prosecution of Flynn earlier this month after the release of FBI records that disclosed details about the origins of the bureau’s criminal case against him and suggested internal deliberation over how to approach the politically explosive investigation. In a motion that was not signed by any career prosecutors, who withdrew from the case, the department argued the Flynn probe lacked an investigative predicate and was therefore invalid.
Barr’s interventions in the Flynn case and the sentencing of Trump’s longtime informal political adviser Roger Stone — as well as his commission of Durham’s review of the Russia probe — have provoked intense criticism from congressional Democrats and former Justice Department officials who charge that the attorney general is abusing his office to settle the president’s partisan vendettas.
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