Los Angeles and Tacoma announce new steps toward police reform – live

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Men carrying guns and wearing Hawaiian-print shirts, a symbol of the “Boogaloo,” have showed up at protests over the police killing of George Floyd across the country, including in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Philadelphia, the Washington Post reported.

Boogaloo rhetoric often identifies law enforcement officials, especially federal officials, as the enemy. The term “boogaloo” has also spread among a wide spectrum of pro-gun activists, including in the leadup to a massive protest this January against new gun control laws in Virginia.

“The Boogaloo movement is not a defined group,” an FBI agent noted in the affadavit supporting the criminal complaint against Steven Carrillo, who has been charged with murdering two law enforcement officers in Oakland.

“In general, followers of the Boogaloo ideology may identify as militia and share a narrative of inciting a violent uprising against perceived government tyranny.”

Law enforcement officials discovered a ballistic vest with a “Boogaloo” flag on it in a van they said Carrillo had used, and also alleged that Carrillo had written phrases associated with the movement in his own blood on the hood of a car he hijacked, according to the criminal complaint.

Lois Beckett
(@loisbeckett)

“Carrillo appears to have used his own blood to write various phrases on the hood of the Toyota Camry that he carjacked… I recognize the following words and phrases: “BOOG,” “I became unreasonable,” and “stop the duopoly.” From the complaint: https://t.co/Cc9hA1ZZPR pic.twitter.com/KLBkIsdp9o


June 16, 2020

The phases in blood included “Boog,” short for “Boogaloo,” and “I became unreasonable,” a phrase associated with Marvin Heemeyer, an anti-government extremist from Colorado who is frequently cited in Boogaloo social media groups, NBC News reported.

Heemeyer’s attack happened on June 4, 2004, “almost 16 years to the day,” of Carrillo’s alleged attack on sheriff’s deputies in Santa Cruz, NBC News noted.


Lois Beckett
(@loisbeckett)

More context on “I became unreasonable” from @BrandyZadrozny @oneunderscore__ + team https://t.co/J7E3pLUP9o pic.twitter.com/ItRVGT2XuQ


June 16, 2020



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‘Disinfection tunnel’ set up to protect Vladimir Putin from coronavirus

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been protected from the coronavirus by a special disinfection tunnel that anyone visiting his residence outside Moscow must pass through, according to state television.

The special tunnel, manufactured by a Russian company based in the town of Penza, has been installed at his official Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow where he receives visitors, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Demonstration footage of the tunnel, published by RIA, showed masked people passing through it being sprayed with disinfectant from the ceiling and from the side.

РИА Новости
(@rianru)

В резиденции Путина для защиты от коронавируса установили специальный туннель. Он предназначен для дезинфекцииhttps://t.co/jjwWbuZ2EX pic.twitter.com/h62KWARvsr


June 16, 2020

The Russian news agency described the disinfectant as a fine cloud of liquid that covered people’s clothes and any exposed upper body flesh.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said in April that anyone meeting Putin in person was tested for the virus. A month later, Peskov said he had himself been infected.

Russia has recorded over 500,000 infections, the third highest number of cases in the world after Brazil and the United States, something it attributes to a large testing programme.

Russia has registered more than 7,000 deaths so far – fewer than numerous other countries. Critics are dubious about the accuracy of its mortality figures.



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Karamo Brown Opens Up About Education for the LGBTQ Community & Allies


Karamo Brown on the Importance of ‘Empathy, Education and Evolving’ Both Within & Outside the LGBTQ Community | Entertainment Tonight


































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How police killing of Rayshard Brooks could finally empower citizen watchdog panel

The fatal police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta is changing how the city’s citizen watchdog group operates and, after years of criticism that it is a “toothless” body, could further empower it in investigating and recommending disciplinary action against officers.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced a series of administrative orders Monday related to de-escalation and police reform, one of which would send all cases of deadly force by officers to the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, a process that is normally triggered only when someone files a complaint.

An amended ordinance was also presented at a City Council meeting Monday that would, among several other changes, broaden the board’s authority to conduct investigations and hold public hearings; expand the board to include younger members, because their age group often comes into contact with police; and institute an independent “reviewer” who would essentially mediate and make binding rulings when the board and the police department fail to agree on investigations.

Samuel Lee Reid II, the board’s executive director, told NBC News on Tuesday that he supports the measures and believes they can strengthen the board’s guiding purpose, which is to field misconduct and civil rights abuse complaints against police and to open independent investigations. The panel also has subpoena power to interview officers, an important tool that was introduced in 2010, three years after the board was established.

According to the board’s latest data, the Atlanta Police Department has agreed with the board’s findings about 41 percent of the time, but Reid said he believes that should be far higher — at least 75 percent — to show “how serious the department is to address citizen complaints.” (The number was as low as 11 percent in 2015.)

The board received 153 complaints in 2019, a 13 percent increase from 2018. The complaints centered mostly on allegations that officers failed to follow protocol, used excessive force or exhibited questionable conduct. According to board data, the majority of complaints last year were made by Black men over 35, while the majority of law enforcement officers identified in the complaints were Black officers who had more than five years of policing experience.

While the board has four investigators who review complaints before they’re brought before all 13 members for hearings, Reid said, he’d also like the city to hire an analyst to perform audits and conduct studies on why officers might be disciplined only in some cases or not at all, as well as highlight other trends or gaps in reporting.

“We want to dig into that data,” Reid said, adding: “If you want to do this correctly, you need the power and the manpower to do it. We want to catch these issues before it happens again.”

There are about 150 civilian review boards nationwide, most of them associated with larger municipal police agencies and many formed either after high-profile incidents or as responses to patterns of complaints of police brutality or racial bias.

The death of Brooks, 27, during a police encounter Friday night has focused renewed scrutiny on the Atlanta Police Department, which has about 2,000 sworn officers. Chief Erika Shields resigned Saturday night, less than 24 hours after the shooting; Assistant Chief Rodney Bryant is serving as interim chief.

Rayshard Brooks in an undated photo.Stewart Trial Attorneys / via AFP – Getty Images

The city was also roiled by protests in recent weeks following the death last month of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis police custody. On June 2, six Atlanta police officers were charged in connection with the protest-related detainment of a young Black man and woman and the use of stun guns on the man in an incident caught on police bodycam video.

Brooks’ shooting in a Wendy’s parking lot was captured on security and bodycam video. Police responded to a report that a man had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-thru. Two officers encountered Brooks, and a struggle ensued after they administered a field sobriety test and tried to take Brooks into custody.

Video shows Brooks holding a stun gun as he runs away. He appears to turn around and point the weapon before an officer, Garrett Rolfe, fires at him, hitting him in the back, according to investigators. Rolfe, a six-year veteran of the department, was fired, while the second officer, Devin Brosnan, a veteran of nearly two years, was placed on administrative leave.

Neither officer has been charged. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is reviewing the case.

Atlanta police released Rolfe’s disciplinary record, which shows that he was issued a written reprimand in 2016 related to a use-of-force incident involving a firearm. Details weren’t disclosed. In addition, Rolfe was the subject of four citizen complaints during his career, which didn’t result in any disciplinary action, and he was also involved in vehicle accidents, one of which led to a written reprimand and another to an oral admonishment.

There was also an incident involving the discharge of a firearm in 2015, although it’s unclear how it concluded.

Reid said it wouldn’t be surprising that officers with histories of complaints could remain employed in the Atlanta Police Department, particularly if they are cleared internally and aren’t seeking to be promoted.

But Xochitl Bervera, director of the Racial Justice Action Center, an Atlanta-based organization fighting the criminalizing of Black and brown communities, said that even though there’s an independent police oversight agency, it’s apparent that Atlanta officers with complaints can continue operating in communities and that residents may be left in the dark about how many complaints they have and for what, a disconnect she said she believes doesn’t engender trust.

“We need to rethink what community engagement and community control of policing looks like and how we make accountability of the police something transparent,” Bervera said, adding that there is a role for some form of a review board but that “we have to ask ourselves at this point, does this model work?”

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The Atlanta Citizen Review Board was established after the death of Kathryn Johnston, 92, a Black woman who was killed during a police raid on her home in 2006. Officers, dressed in plainclothes and wearing bulletproof vests, were executing a “no-knock” warrant in connection with a man who they claimed was selling drugs from Johnston’s home. After officers forced their way in, Johnston, a resident of one of Atlanta’s most crime-plagued neighborhoods, opened fire on them and was killed in a shootout, according to reports.

The disturbing case enraged residents after one of the officers admitted to having planted bags of marijuana inside the home after Johnston was killed, as well as having based the warrant on falsified records. Three officers were charged with federal crimes and sentenced, which also galvanized the community to demand police reform and paved the way for the Citizen Review Board.

Proposals to abolish the use of no-knock warrants have been revived in recent weeks as part of policing reform efforts in other cities and states following the death of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman who was killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police in her home this year.

Vincent Fort, a former Democratic state senator in Georgia who tried unsuccessfully to get a no-knock bill passed, said subsequent police-involved killings and injuries of Atlantans over the years have resulted in board investigations that appeared only to languish for months without meaningful repercussions.

“The administration and City Council made the review board toothless,” Fort said. “The problem with it is, even as they acquired subpoena power over time, there’s a loophole the police use: If I’m on the board and I ask the police for data, documents or even for the officer to appear, all they say is ‘it’s an ongoing investigation.’ And the case just drags on and on.”

“I once told them: ‘You’re a paper tiger. You’re a joke in the community,'” Fort said of the board.

In 2015, the Citizen Review Board drew heat from activists who demanded an investigation into the death of Alexia Christian, a Black woman who was killed in police custody, and criticized the board’s “Don’t Run” campaign, meant to encourage residents not to flee from police. Bottoms, who was a City Council member at the time, had supported the idea of the campaign but said she also felt it was telling people not to exercise their constitutional rights.

Fort said that now that she’s mayor, Bottoms must go further.

“Right now, Black people believe that the police in their community are tantamount to an occupying force that’s designed to keep Black people and working-class people under control,” he said.

Atlanta police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Bottoms said Tuesday on NBC’s “TODAY” show that more administrative orders involving the police are likely coming.

“We have to objectively look at de-escalation. That’s not very clear in our policies,” Bottoms said. “Shooting at moving vehicles and so many other things — that as we’re peeling back the layers of our standard operating procedures. Some of it’s ambiguous, and some of it is simply not laid out.”

Given the history of Atlanta, a majority-Black city, and its storied place in America’s civil rights movement, the police department has benefited from a reformist-type legacy in the past, with Black officers joining the force and pushing back at Jim Crow restrictions themselves, said Nirej Sekhon, a Georgia State University law professor who studies policing.

But that “hasn’t translated to particularly radical renovation in recent times,” he said. “We have to be careful about celebrating Atlanta’s civil rights history, not because there’s nothing to celebrate or because it’s all a lie, but because it’s still incomplete.”

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Zach Braff to white people: Having a black friend doesn’t excuse you from national conversation about race

Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s stints on TV comedy Scrubs ended in 2010, but the two men — who happen to be of different races — have remained close. Really close. They even co-host a podcast, called Fake Doctors, Real Friends With Zach + Donald.

Still, Braff knows that doesn’t excuse him from the national conversation about race that’s happening as protests erupt all around the country over racial injustice and inequality.

Scrubs co-stars Donald Faison and Zach Braff have been real-life friends for years. (Photo: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)

“As I’m listening to everyone who’s speaking and reading, I know that I too have lots to learn,” Braff said as he appeared alongside Faison on Monday’s episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. “It’s not enough to just say, ‘Oh, my best friend is a black man.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘Oh, I grew up with a diverse population.’ There’s ways that I can be way more proactive than I’m being. I can’t just sit back and be, ‘Oh, no, I’m cool. I have a black best friend.’ That’s b.s.”

Braff, who grew up in the cosmopolitan areas of New Jersey, New York and Los Angeles, said he’s using this time to really listen. He’s learning more about his privilege and the ways he can be more proactive against racism in his own life.

Faison urged anyone who’s not a person of color to do the same.

“It’s very, very scary to be judged by the color of your skin. It’s happened to me quite a bit my whole life,” Faison said. “Even how people describe me on Scrubs. I’m the black guy from Scrubs, you know what I mean? I’m not even one of the actors from Scrubs. I’m the black guy from Scrubs. And so I encourage everyone to just, first of all, educate yourself. That’s most important.”

People who become more educated will see the similarities between all humans, Faison said. “We might do things differently, but we all are the same, and together we can abolish racism, and it’s everywhere.”

The Clueless star explained that when people recognize the pervasiveness of racism, the current movement will make total sense.

“It’s finally coming to a head is what’s happening, but [racism has] been here forever,” Faison said. “Once you … recognize that there’s racism out there, you’ll start checking yourself. You’ll start checking yourself, believe it or not.”

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North Korea rejects South’s offer of envoys, vows to send back troops to border – Firstpost

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By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said on Wednesday it has rejected South Korea’s offer to send special envoys, and vowed to send back troops to demilitarised border units in the latest step towards nullifying inter-Korean peace accords.

The warning was made by state media KCNA one day after North Korea blew up a joint liaison office set up in a border town as part of a 2018 agreement by the two countries’ leaders, amid flaring tension over propaganda leaflets sent by defectors into the reclusive state.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Monday offered to send his national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and spy chief Suh Hoon as special envoys. But Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a senior ruling party official, “flatly rejected the tactless and sinister proposal,” KCNA said.

Moon “greatly favours sending special envoys for ‘tiding over crises’ and raises preposterous proposals frequently, but he has to clearly understand that such a trick will no longer work on us,” KCNA said.

“The solution to the present crisis between the North and the South caused by the incompetence and irresponsibility of the South Korean authorities is impossible and it can be terminated only when proper price is paid.”

There was no immediate comment from Moon’s office.

In a separate dispatch, a spokesman for the General Staff of the (North) Korean People’s Army (KPA) said it will mobilise troops to Mount Kumgang and Kaesong near the border, where the two Koreas had carried out joint economic projects in the past.

Police posts that had been withdrawn from the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) will also be reinstalled, while artillery units near the western sea border where the defectors frequently send leaflets will be reinforced with the readiness alert heightened to the level of “top class combat duty,” the spokesman said.

The North will also restart sending anti-Seoul leaflets across the border, he added.

“Areas favourable for scattering leaflets against the South will open on the whole front line and our people’s drive for scattering leaflets will be guaranteed militarily and thorough-going security measures will be taken,” he said.

The KPA said on Tuesday it had been studying an “action plan” to re-enter zones that had been demilitarised under a 2018 inter-Korean military pact and “turn the front line into a fortress.”

Seoul’s defence ministry has urged North Korea to abide by the agreement, under which both sides vowed to cease “all hostile acts” and dismantled a number of structures along the DMZ.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.



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Victoria records concerning spike in COVID-19 cases

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Gladys Berejiklian is baffled at the SA government decision to lift border restrictions on travellers from Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania – but not NSW – from midnight last night.

Residents of those states and territories will no longer be required to quarantine for 14 days when they arrive in SA for business or holidays.

“None of this makes sense to me,” Ms Berejiklian told reporters this morning.”Yes, we comprise a number of states and each premier has led their state in a different way or (taken) a different approach, but that’s no reason to have internal borders … I can’t see the logic in it. I think it’s crazy.”

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Coronavirus live news: Brazil adds record 34,918 daily cases as infections surge in six US states



















Brazil suffers record increase in cases










Six US states see record case increases












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Madeleine suspect ‘kept children’s swimwear in mobile home’

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Girls’ swimming costumes, children’s clothes and 8,000 child abuse images were found by police investigating Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner, according to German media reports.

rueckner also reportedly boasted a motorhome he owned and drove repeatedly between Germany and Portugal was ideal for hiding “drugs and children”.

German investigators believe Brueckner killed Madeleine soon after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007.

The 43-year-old Brueckner is serving a 15-month prison sentence in Germany for drug dealing, and is appealing a conviction for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman, also at Praia da Luz, for which he was sentenced to seven years in jail.

Germany’s Spiegel TV has revealed in a documentary that police seized the motorhome in May 2016, as part of an investigation into the disappearance of five-year-old Inga Gehricke – the so-called German Maddie.

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Madeleine went missing during a McCann family holiday in 2007 (PA)

The red and white Allegro Bay RV had been bought by Brueckner in Germany in 2010. It was found at a disused factory site near Braunschweig which Brueckner had bought six years earlier at auction.

During a six-day examination of the site, police also found computer memory sticks with more than 8,000 files, mostly containing pictures and videos of child abuse, the documentary said.

The items were in a carrier bag buried beneath the body of Brueckner’s dog.

Brueckner was under suspicion after Inga vanished from the woods near Diakoniewerk Wilhelmshof in Saxony-Anhalt during a family picnic in 2015. He was charged in relation to the child pornography, but not in relation to Inga.

Spiegel TV said police had also found numerous items of children’s clothing, most of them “small swimsuits”, in the motorhome. Brueckner does not have any children.

A friend of Brueckner’s, identified in the documentary as Bjorn R, spoke of Brueckner’s behaviour while he lived near holiday resorts in Portugal.

“Alcohol sometimes loosened his tongue. He said that he was in Portugal and he got in everywhere and stole cameras,” Bjorn R said.

A former ambulance driver who met Brueckner and saw the RV said: “He told me, ‘I can transport children, kids, in this space. Drugs and children, you can transport them in this van, it’s a safe space in the van, nobody can find them. Nobody can catch you’.”

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Inga Gehricke, who vanished from a forest in Saxony-Anhalt near the German town of Stendal, in May 2015 (Police Directorate Saxony-Anhalt North handout/PA)

While living in Braunschweig, Brueckner ran a kiosk between 2013 and 2015.

Bjorn R told the documentary he had been contacted in 2013 by police investigating Madeleine’s disappearance.

He said: “One day I came into the kiosk and he was a little bit distraught and said, ‘Hey, look what I’ve got here’ — and he showed me a subpoena for the Madeleine McCann case.

“You could see it churned him up a bit but he wasn’t panicking and he wasn’t saying ‘they are on my heels’.

“I think he said he had been there but that he had nothing to do with it and that was that.”

Brueckner has racked up 17 convictions across Europe, including for sex offences against children, drug offences, theft and forgery.

He was named prime suspect over Madeleine’s disappearance earlier this month by German police, although his lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, said Brueckner denies any involvement in the case.

Alongside the developments in that case, German investigators have also reopened the file into Inga Gehricke’s disappearance, and the murder of Tristan Brubach in Frankfurt in 1998, media reports claim.

The 13-year-old was reportedly beaten unconscious, strangled, raped and tortured, with the cause of death a long cut to his throat.

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The parents of missing Madeleine, Kate and Gerry McCann (Joe Giddens/PA)

It has also been revealed there is a chance Brueckner could be released from prison on July 17 if the European Court of Justice overturns his conviction for the rape of the 72-year-old American woman in Portugal.

Brueckner’s lawyers are appealing, claiming that German police broke law by extraditing him from Portugal on a drugs charge but then putting him on trial for rape.

The ruling is set to be made in a July 16 hearing which has been fast-tracked because of the nature of Brueckner’s case.

Of the potential outcomes, Portugal could give retrospective permission for the extradition, or the court could order a retrial.

The third possibility is that Brueckner could have his conviction overturned and be released – potentially then fleeing to a country without an extradition treaty with Germany.

German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters, however, has told The Sun newspaper this is a worst-case scenario he does not expect to happen.

Meanwhile, Madeleine’s parents have denied receiving a letter from German investigators “that states there is evidence or proof” she is dead.

Widespread media reports said the correspondence had been sent to the couple, stating German police have “concrete evidence” Madeleine is dead, but cannot reveal what it is.

But Kate and Gerry McCann posted a statement on the Find Madeleine website on Tuesday to deny the claims, saying that the news caused “unnecessary anxiety to friends and family and once again disrupted our lives”.

PA

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Air Force sergeant charged in California shooting

An Air Force sergeant already jailed in the ambush killing of a California sheriff’s deputy was charged Tuesday in the shooting death of a federal security officer outside the U.S. courthouse in Oakland during a protest last month. (June 16)

       

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