NEW YORK
"NY mayor calls police shooting unacceptable" by Tom Hays Associated Press October 19, 2016
NEW YORK — The mayor of New York castigated a police sergeant Wednesday for killing a mentally ill, 66-year-old woman in her home, saying her death was ‘‘tragic’’ and ‘‘unacceptable’’ and her shooting violated department policy.
‘‘Deborah Danner should be alive right now, period,’’ Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference. ‘‘If the protocols had been followed, she would be alive. It’s as simple as that.’’
Officers were responding to a 911 call about an emotionally disturbed person around 6:15 p.m. Tuesday when they encountered Danner in her seventh-floor apartment in the Bronx, police said.
Police had been called to Danner’s home several times before to take her to the hospital during psychiatric episodes, the mayor said. Each of those times, she was taken away safely. This time, something went wrong, the mayor said.
Sergeant Hugh Barry, an eight-year veteran of the force, persuaded Danner to drop a pair of scissors she had been holding, but when she picked up a baseball bat and tried to strike him, he fired two shots that hit her torso.....
Danner is black. Barry is white. That's a switch.
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If were the only time I'd say okay, mistake.
"Deadly police response to medical alert focus of trial" Associated Press November 07, 2016
NEW YORK — When Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.’s medical alert pendant accidentally went off five years ago, the 68-year-old told police who showed up that he was fine, barred them from entering his apartment, and repeatedly asked them to go away.
They didn’t. That set off a tense 90-minute standoff that ended with the mentally ill, former Marine, being shot to death.
What lived on is a dispute over whether the black victim was an armed threat when a white officer fired his gun; the question is central to a federal civil case set to go to trial this week. Opening statements are scheduled for Wednesday.
The deadly 2011 encounter at Chamberlain’s apartment in suburban White Plains — much of it captured on audiotape that will be played for jurors — was a precursor to the national debate over use of force by police in communities of color and in response to calls involving emotionally disturbed people.
Chamberlain’s case combines both issues, said his son, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., whose family filed a $21 million wrongful death lawsuit that went forward after a grand jury declined to indict the shooter.
The son calls his father a victim of ‘‘systematic racism’’ by law enforcement.
In deep blue New York?
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Related: New York City to Pay Up to $75 Million Over Police-Realted Lawsuits
Even the thieves are cla$$y.
Also see: DNA leads to arrest in strangling of NY jogger
"Police responding to a call about a robbery at a deli Sunday shot and killed the suspect after he pointed what looked like a firearm at them. Authorities say Sergio Reyes, 18, of Brooklyn, pointed a black firearm — which later was determined to be an imitation gun — toward the officers, who fired at him. He was hit multiple times and pronounced dead at the hospital. In South Carolina on Sunday, an officer responding to a hostage siege shot a man who pointed a gun at deputies after leaving the home. In Houston, two men were fatally shot during a large fight at a strip club just before 6 a.m. Sunday. Police say the brawl broke out at a club called Fantasy Island and escalated to gunfire when two men pulled out guns and started shooting. About 30 people witnessed the shootings. The two men were dead at the scene....."
Related:
Copping Out: Southern Swing
Copping Out: Deep in the Heart of Texas
Watch where you step down there -- and up here.
"MS-13 gang members indicted in slayings of 3 New York teens" by Frank Eltman Associated Press March 02, 2017
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Federal agents said Thursday that they have caught the members of a violent street gang who killed three teenagers last year, including two girls who were inseparable best friends at their Long Island high school.
Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were slaughtered in a residential neighborhood near an elementary school in a Sept. 13 attack that came amid a national conversation about illegal immigration. Last December, Donald Trump referenced the killings in Brentwood during a profile for his Time magazine ‘‘Person of the Year’’ award after being elected president.
Within a few weeks of the girls’ deaths, the remains of three other Brentwood teens were found hidden in secluded areas. The victims included Jose Pena-Hernandez, 18, who had vanished in June.
Thirteen members of the MS-13 gang are facing federal charges in connection with the investigation, though not all are being charged in the killings, local and federal officials announced Thursday.
The identities of the suspects, including their immigration statuses, were not immediately released. US Attorney Robert L. Capers and local police officials scheduled a midday press conference to discuss the charges.
Probably illegals and ones that should have been deported, but that would make the state look bad.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the suspects include people who will be charged with the deaths of Mickens, Cuevas, and Pena-Hernandez. That official was not authorized to release information and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Gang violence has been a problem in Brentwood and some surrounding Long Island towns for more than a decade, but Suffolk County police and the FBI began pouring resources into a crackdown after the killings of the high school girls sparked outrage.
Some people complained that police, school officials, and others were not doing enough to stem the violence. Since then, police have arrested more than 125 suspected MS-13 gang members in Brentwood and elsewhere. MS-13 has been blamed for at least 30 other killings on Long Island since 2010.
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Also see:
"A star battalion chief of the New York Fire Department was killed Tuesday when a house explosion rocked a Bronx neighborhood, jolting residents out of their beds, authorities and witnesses said. Investigators were working to determine whether the location was a marijuana grow house, said police Commissioner James O’Neill....."
‘‘He was a star on the rise.’’ Hmmm.
Time to put an end to the legal and medical weed, too.
Uses too much water:
"N.Y. bets big on aging nuclear plants" Associated Press January 30, 2017
OSWEGO, N.Y. — When the Nine Mile Point reactor first went online, Richard Nixon was president, the Beatles were still a band, and Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima weren’t yet bywords for the hazards of nuclear power.
Almost 50 years later, New York state is betting big on the future of Nine Mile Point, one of the nation’s two oldest nuclear plants.
Oooooh, GREAT!
The state is putting up $7.6 billion in subsidies to ensure that the plant and two other upstate nuclear plants stay open, part of New York’s strategy to lean on nuclear energy as it ramps up renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric.
But even as Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration embraces nuclear power upstate, it’s moving to shut the Indian Point nuclear plant some 30 miles north of New York City.
To critics, Cuomo is making a political calculation that favors jobs and energy upstate, and safety and the environment downstate.
‘‘These things have an expiration date, and they’re really pushing it,’’ said Sue Matthews, who worked for contractors building Nine Mile Point’s second reactor in the 1980s.
She said her opposition to the plant makes her the ‘‘most hated’’ woman in town. ‘‘Everyone here depends on that place — the jobs, the property taxes. They can’t afford to close it.’’
Nuclear plants around the nation are at a similar crossroads, with more closures likely as owners become reluctant to spend increasingly large sums operating aging plants.
On the shores of Lake Ontario, Nile Mile Point is a wonder of Cold War-era engineering, with miles of colored pipes and wires snaking through long corridors to a cathedral-sized turbine room.
Anyone getting close to the reactor is fitted with a small dosimeter to monitor exposure and must step inside a phone-booth-sized radiation scanner before and after.
The plant’s first reactor went online in 1969, sharing the nation’s-oldest honor with the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey.
Immediately adjacent to Nine Mile Point is a 42-year-old nuclear plant, FitzPatrick, which was slated to close before Cuomo’s nuclear bailout package was approved. A third, the 47-year-old Ginna nuclear power plant, is located just east of Rochester.
Closing the plants would devastate an upstate community that, like most of upstate New York, has struggled over the decades. Oswego County has one of the state’s highest unemployment rates — 6.7 percent last month, compared with 4.5 percent statewide. The two plants here employ 1,600 people and pay far above the area’s average salary.
‘‘These aren’t just normal jobs,’’ said Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow, a Republican. ‘‘These are high-paying jobs, the people who eat in our restaurants, shop in our stores, who make our community what it is.’’
Nuclear plants are costly to operate, making it increasingly hard to compete with natural gas and other cheaper forms of energy. Both Nine Mile Point and FitzPatrick faced the possibility of closure before the state agreed to the subsidies.
Maybe they should face up to nuclear having had its day and stop subsidizing a dying industry when the money could be better used elsewhere. Of course, that would make sense and that's the last thing government does.
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NEW JERSEY
"Beachfront owners reject US help, pay for own storm barrier" Associated Press January 23, 2017
BAY HEAD, N.J. — Oceanfront homeowners in this wealthy New Jersey shore enclave have so little faith in the government’s ability to protect them from catastrophic storms that they’ve spent $5 million of their own money on boulders placed between their homes and the ocean.
Good for them.
Members of the group, which includes a national Republican fund-raising powerhouse, wants a judge to exempt them from a plan by Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, to erect protective sand dunes along New Jersey’s entire 127-mile coastline. Their homes lie in an area that was devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, but they claim that parts of the town that had a rock wall underneath the sand fared better than those that didn’t. And they are deeply skeptical of the ability and willingness of the federal and state governments to pay to maintain the dunes for the next 50 years. On Feb. 6, they will go before the same Superior Court Judge who has already ruled in favor of Christie’s administration.
Judge Marlene Lynch Ford ruled last year that the state Department of Environmental Protection has the legal right to use eminent domain proceedings to seize strips of land from oceanfront homeowners who don’t voluntarily sign easements allowing the US Army Corps of Engineers to carry out the work on their land. The homeowners want her to allow them to opt out of the project, asserting that what they have done privately offers as much protection, if not more, than what the government proposes.
Doesn't look very "voluntary," does it?
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Related: Oceanfront owners ask judge to block Jersey shore dunes
What do you mean I can't swim here?
"Hurricane Sandy, of all things, has helped open access to Jersey Shore" by Nick Corasaniti New York Times May 30, 2017
MANTOLOKING, N.J. — As the federal Army Corps of Engineers replenishes this town’s beach and builds dunes, one of the obligations of benefiting from taxpayer-funded beach reconstruction is ensuring that the beaches can be used by, well, taxpayers.
A battle over beach access has raged for generations along the Jersey Shore as wealthy enclaves have fought to keep their beaches uncrowded and free of day-trippers. Restrictive tactics include imposing parking permits, adding parking meters, creating private beach clubs, limiting facilities for bathers, and raising fees for badges that allow access to the beach.
21st-century D-Day.
But the destruction that Hurricane Sandy caused nearly five years ago has produced a bit of a silver lining. The sand and construction provided by the Corps of Engineers comes with a catch: They will be made available only to public beaches, and parking and pathways to the beach must be accessible.
It must be me, because I just don't see it. If you are talking about destruction, you can count me out.
So up and down the 127-mile coastline, in areas hit the hardest by the storm, beach access for the first time in years is slowly becoming easier.
Not every town is welcoming an influx of day-trippers to their glistening shores.
In the tony enclave of Deal, where the beach bungalows of Asbury Park give way to mansions, residents have been battling to keep beaches to themselves, despite work by the Corps of Engineers.....
Hey, it's a richer's world.
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They ask for your rebuilding money back yet?
Good luck getting out of New Jersey:
"Chris Christie’s mentor avoids prison in bribery scandal" Associated Press March 06, 2017
NEWARK — The former head of a powerful transportation agency and a mentor to Governor Chris Christie was sentenced Monday to four years’ probation and home confinement for pressuring United Airlines to reinstate a money-losing flight route to give him easier access to his weekend home.
Many in the courtroom sat stunned as US District Judge Jose Linares imposed the sentence.
It will allow David Samson, 77, ex-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, to serve his year of home confinement at the South Carolina residence that was the object of the scheme that landed him in court.
While Linares called Samson’s crime ‘‘a complete abuse of power,’’ he said Samson ‘‘is entitled to some credit for a lifetime of good work and public service.’’
OMFG!!!!
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Going to be stuck here a while, I'm afraid:
"3 tracks to be closed at Penn Station during repairs" by David Porter Associated Press May 25, 2017
NEW YORK — Three tracks at a time will be closed at Penn Station as part of extensive repair work there that is expected to inconvenience thousands of rail commuters this summer, an Amtrak official said Thursday.
Michael DeCataldo, the national passenger railroad’s vice president of operations, offered details on the repair work, which Amtrak announced last month after two derailments and other major service disruptions highlighted the station’s aging infrastructure.
It isn’t known yet how train schedules will be affected because final details haven’t been released. This week, Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie unveiled a plan to divert some of NJ Transit’s lines to Hoboken, while Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has predicted a ‘‘summer of hell’’ for commuters....
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Related: Suspect killed, officer wounded in New Jersey robbery case
Next stop.....
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PENNSYLVANIA
"Note against police found at scene of deadly rampage" by Megan Trimble Associated Press September 17, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — A note expressing hatred for police was found after a man opened fire on a Philadelphia police officer then went on a shooting rampage, injuring a second officer, killing a woman, and wounding three other people before he was killed by police, authorities said Saturday.
Nicholas Glenn, 25, had a criminal record, and was ‘‘hell-bent.’’ Police believe Glenn acted on his own and not as part of a group. Police Commissioner Richard Ross described the violent events as ‘‘completely bizarre’’ and said he would have no difficulty believing mental illness was involved in Glenn’s actions.....
He was shot by a man who investigators say told them he was ‘‘following Allah.’’
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"Philadelphia officers fired upon 2nd night in a row" Associated Press September 18, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — For a second night in a row, Philadelphia police officers came under fire, although this time no one was injured.
Officers patrolling a central city district packed with restaurants, shops, and clubs shortly before midnight Saturday said they detected a strong odor of marijuana from a passing group. When they called out to the group, a man fled.
Officers pursued him to a nearby street, where he opened fire, discharging at least three shots, authorities say. The officers didn’t return fire.
The 19-year-old suspect later was found hiding behind a building and was taken into custody. He was taken to a hospital ‘‘for treatment for a severe sprain to his right ankle that was the result of jumping over fences of the rear yards of homes,’’ police said.
The shooting came almost exactly 24 hours after a police sergeant was shot and wounded in her car in west Philadelphia and a University of Pennsylvania police officer and four other people were shot and wounded before the gunman was killed. A 25-year-old woman among those shot later died.
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"Gunman kills officer, self; woman found dead after fight" AP November 11, 2016
CANONSBURG, Pa. — A gunman with a history of domestic abuse fatally shot a police officer and wounded a second Thursday before he and a woman were found dead following a reported fight at their apartment, authorities said.
Officer Scott Bashioum and the other officer were responding separately to a 911 call from neighbors at around 3:15 a.m. when they were ‘‘ambushed upon their arrival’’ and immediately shot, State Police Trooper Melinda Bondarenka said. The officers had arrived almost simultaneously, though authorities said other details of the initial confrontation weren’t immediately clear.
Attorney David Wolf identified the dead couple as Michael Cwiklinski, 47, of nearby Houston, Pa., and his girlfriend, Dalia Sabae. Wolf said he had known the couple since November 2015, when Cwiklinski was charged with simple assault and harassment for swinging a bag of merchandise and hitting Sabae in the eye.
The case was resolved with the assault charge being dropped and Cwiklinski pleading guilty to harassment. He was sentenced to anger management classes and required to have a mental health evaluation, Wolf said. Neighbors said police were called to the couple’s duplex frequently, and Canonsburg Police Chief Al Coghill confirmed the gunman was known to authorities, without naming him or providing details.
Sabae obtained a protection-from-abuse order last month, after dropping one she had last year, Wolf said....
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"Pennsylvania professor under fire for ‘white genocide’ tweet" Associated Press December 26, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — A Drexel University professor has been summoned to a meeting with school officials after he tweeted a Christmas Eve message that appeared to support ‘‘white genocide.’’
George Ciccariello-Maher, who is white and an associate professor of politics at the Philadelphia university, said Monday that his Christmas Eve message to nearly 11,000 Twitter followers — ‘‘All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide’’ — was meant to be satirical.
Drexel was not amused, condemning Ciccariello-Maher’s tweet and saying it was ‘‘taking this situation very seriously.’’
‘‘While the university recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher’s comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the university,’’ Drexel said.
Thanks for helping shut down free speech, provocateur prof.
Ciccariello-Maher, whose online biography says his academic specialties include ‘‘race and racism,’’ said Drexel apparently didn’t understand ‘‘the content or the context’’ of his tweets.
So he was just trying to create a buzz and increased enrollment?
The professor said he was mocking what he called the ‘‘imaginary concept’’ of white genocide, which he says was invented by white supremacists. ‘‘It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I’m glad to have mocked it,’’ he said.
Like, you know, Vietnamese skiff boats shooting at USS warships or Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators or sitting on WMD? That kind of figment of imaginations?
Ciccariello-Maher followed up his initial tweet by praising the ‘‘massacre’’ of whites in Haiti during the country’s slave uprising and revolution more than two centuries ago.
I don't praise any massacre.
Though his Twitter account is private, he is a prolific tweeter, and his weekend messages spread quickly online. He said he has received hundreds of death threats.
Why waste your time?
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It's the Wild West on Pennsylvania's campuses, 'eh?
"Former mayor’s Wild West dream heads for courthouse showdown" Associated Press January 23, 2017
HARRISBURG, Pa. — An obsession with the Wild West compelled then-mayor Steve Reed to scour the country for artifacts and plan for a museum to house them all in the unlikely location of Harrisburg, Pa.
The museum never came close to being built, and on Monday prosecutors and his lawyers will begin to pick a jury for Reed’s trial on 112 counts of receiving stolen property.
Investigators say they recovered some 1,800 artifacts, many from his home, and jurors will hear about dozens of them. They include stagecoach equipment, saddles, a dice game, and a gun collection that includes a ‘‘Whorehouse Box w/pin fire revolver.’’
His lawyer, Henry Hockeimer Jr., said Reed, who is dealing with what he described as serious health issues, denies the allegations.
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"Prosecutor, bishop reach plan to curb clergy abuse in Pennsylvania" Associated Press March 07, 2017
PITTSBURGH — Western Pennsylvania’s top federal prosecutor and the Catholic bishop in a diocese where two former bishops allegedly helped cover up sexual abuse of children announced a plan Monday aimed at curbing such abuse.
Acting US Attorney Soo Song and Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak called the changes a “collaborative framework to protect the children of the diocese from sexual abuse.’’
The plan includes creation of an oversight board to ensure that new procedures are implemented.
A year ago, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a report based on secret diocesan records and other evidence that detailed abuse by more than 50 priests and clergy against hundreds of children.....
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Yeah, you see what she got for her trouble of overturning the rock of pedophilia that runs throughout Pennsylvania?
"Ex-attorney general sentenced to jail" Associated Press October 25, 2016
NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Former state attorney general Kathleen Kane, once a rising star in state politics, left a courtroom in handcuffs on Monday to start serving a 10- to 23-month sentence for a retaliation scheme a judge attributed to her all-consuming ego.
So the judge is in on it, too.
Kane, 50, also was sentenced to eight years of probation by a Montgomery County judge, who said Kane’s need for revenge led her to break the law and then lie to a grand jury. Kane, who was accused of leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor, was convicted of perjury and obstruction.
Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy said Kane assumed an ‘‘off with your heads’’ mentality as she ran the state’s top law enforcement agency. The judge called Kane a political ‘‘neophyte’’ who failed to make the transition to public servant when she took office in 2013.
Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected as the state’s top prosecutor, will remain in custody unless she posts $75,000 cash bail, higher than she had previously posted. She could then remain free while her legal team appeals her conviction.
‘‘I really don’t care what happens to me,’’ Kane told the judge. ‘‘There is no more torture in the world than to watch your children suffer and know you had something to do with it.’’
That's how they get people like KLM to "confess"; that and scores of rides on the waterboard.
Kane had been a stay-at-home mother in the Scranton area and a former assistant prosecutor in Lackawanna County before using $2 million of her husband’s trucking fortune to run for statewide office in 2012.
She looked under rocks you shouldn't look under, and paid the price.
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They should be serving time next door:
"Police storm prison, end hostage standoff; guard found dead" Associated Press February 03, 2017
SMYRNA, Del. — Using a backhoe to smash through a barricade of footlockers, authorities stormed Delaware’s largest prison early Thursday and ended a nearly 24-hour hostage standoff involving inmates armed with sharpened objects. One hostage — a guard — was found dead.
A second hostage, a female counselor, was safely rescued minutes after the tactical teams forced their way into the all-male, 2,500-prisoner James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. Some inmates had shielded her from harm, officials said.
Governor John Carney called the uprising a ‘‘torturous’’ ordeal. In a statement, he said authorities will hold accountable those responsible and ‘‘make whatever changes are necessary to ensure nothing like it ever happens again.’’
One inmate told a local newspaper via phone that they were demanding better education and rehabilitation programs and were also upset over President Trump and ‘‘all the things that he’s doing now.’’
OMFG!
Now he is to blame for how the state of Delaware treats its prisoners!
What's next, he farts in elevators?
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Also see:
Guard killed at prison warned co-workers, saved lives
Knife-wielding man dies after being shot
That would get you into D.C., and that's too far south.
"A local police officer shot a distraught 46-year-old woman who refused to drop a knife late Sunday morning outside a unit in the Tammy Brook Apartments complex, authorities said. The woman, who was not identified, survived the shooting and was under arrest at South Shore Hospital, Weymouth police said in a statement. She has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. The woman was “hysterical,” police said....."
Isn't that term considered sexist these days?
"A Mississippi deputy killed in a shooting rampage had worked in Christian ministry before going into law enforcement and liked doing puppet shows to deliver uplifting messages to children. William Durr, 36, was one of eight people killed in a shooting rampage at three different homes, an outbreak of violence that has shaken the county of 34,500 residents....."
"An argument over a parking space in a crowded tourist district escalated into two fatal shootings, including one involving police officers, authorities said on Monday. Two Miami-Dade County men suffered gunshot wounds in the parking dispute Sunday along Ocean Drive in popular South Beach, according to Miami Beach Police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez. A white BMW fleeing the scene crashed into two police cars several blocks away, but it didn’t stop completely until a confrontation with two officers who fired at it, Rodriguez said. One suspect in the car was shot and died at a hospital. Three other suspects in the car were detained, including one apprehended by a K9 officer. One victim from the shooting on Ocean Drive died at a hospital. Miami-Dade Police will investigate the shooting involving the two officers, according to a Miami Beach Police policy requiring an outside agency to investigate shootings involving officers."
Also see: Copping Out: Southern Swing
The protests have already started:
"Tension about immigration policy boils over in Texas" by Meredith Hoffman and Will Weissert Associated Press May 29, 2017
AUSTIN, Texas — Hundreds of protesters opposing Texas’s tough new anti-sanctuary cities law launched a raucous demonstration from the public gallery in the Texas House on Monday, briefly halting work and prompting state troopers to be called in.
Tension over the hard-line immigration policies boiled over, prompting lawmakers on the floor below to scuffle — and even threaten gun violence.
Activists wearing red T-shirts reading ‘‘Lucha’’ or ‘‘Fight’’ quietly filled hundreds of gallery seats as the proceedings began. After about 40 minutes, they began to cheer, drowning out the lawmakers. Protesters also blew whistles and chanted: ‘‘Here to stay!’’ and ‘‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, SB4 has got to go,’’ referring to the bill that Governor Greg Abbott signed into law this month.
Some unfurled banners reading: ‘‘See you in court!’’ and ‘‘See you at the polls!’’
House leadership stopped the session and asked troopers to clear the gallery. The demonstration continued for about 20 minutes as officers led people out of the chamber peacefully in small groups. There were no reports of arrests.
Monday’s protest was organized by activists who canvassed over Memorial Day weekend in Austin. They informed anxious immigrants about the rights they retain despite the law and urged grass-roots resistance against it......
All protest in paper now is staged and scripted controlled opposition, otherwise it wouldn't be there.
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Related: Copping Out: Deep in the Heart of Texas
"In Chicago’s Crisis of Violence, Some Signs of Hope" New York Times News Service May 31, 2017
CHICAGO — Memorial Day weekend often marks the start of a miserable season on the streets of the nation’s third-largest city: the warmest months — and the most violent ones. But over this year’s three-day weekend, shootings in Chicago were fewer than in last year’s, something that people here say they hope is a glimmer of some larger, lasting trend.
The authorities took extra steps to tamp down the gun and gang violence that brought Chicago more homicides than any other US city in 2016. As the holiday weekend began, the Chicago Police Department held raids targeting gangs and illegal nightclubs, making dozens of arrests and seizing guns. They brought on 1,300 extra officers to work the weekend, making their presence obvious on bicycles in city parks and in helicopters above Lake Michigan. And they conducted an elaborate analysis of crime in a few of the city’s most dangerous districts to decide where to send officers.
Police states are safe states.
In the end, at least 46 people were shot and five of them were killed in homicides across the city between Friday evening and the end of a warm night of picnics and parties on Monday, preliminary police reports show.
As long as the cops didn't kill anyone.
Beyond a single holiday weekend, some officials here have said they see modest signs of improvement. As of a week ago, 219 homicides had taken place in 2017, a 6 percent decrease from the same period a year ago, and shootings were down by 13 percent.
A decline in shootings is especially pronounced, officials say, in several of the city’s most violent districts where special police centers were recently created as a way to use more predictive analytics, gunfire data and surveillance footage in real time to decide where to send officers....
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Related: Copping Out: Crazy Chicago
Also see:
Cleveland officer who shot and killed 12-year-old is fired
Copping Out: More Dead in Ohio
Copping In: Now You See Me.....
Copping Out For Today
Copping Out: Baltimore's Bullies
Copping Out: Upper Midwest
Copping Out: West Coast Swing
Acquittal in Tulsa
Related: Justices rule in favor of police in excessive force case
The police reign supreme in AmeriKa.
NDUs:
"Authorities said Wednesday that two bounty hunters and the fugitive they were tracking shot each other dead in a hail of bullets that sent customers and employees fleeing for cover at a Texas car dealership....."
Cincinnati Zoo to provide first look at baby hippo Fiona
"N.H. man sentenced to 7 years for role in Bundy ranch standoff" by James Pindell Globe Staff May 31, 2017
A New Hampshire man who founded that state’s largest Tea Party group and was a prominent Donald Trump supporter was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in federal prison for his role in the Bundy Ranch standoff against the government in Nevada three years ago.
Jerry DeLemus, 62, of Rochester, N.H., is the first person to be sentenced as a result of resisting government officials who acted to move cattle grazing on federally owned land. Others, including members of the Bundy family, have had either mistrials or are awaiting sentencing themselves.
The armed confrontation in Bunkerville, Nev., between members of the Bundy family and agents from the US Bureau of Land Management eventually became a conservative cause....
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