Live Updates
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A suspect in the shooting deaths of two officers in California had symbols linked to the extremist Boogaloo movement, a loosely knit group of heavily armed, anti-government extremists, US Attorney David Anderson said.
Steven Carrillo, 32, faces a federal murder charge in the May 29 drive-by shooting of David Patrick Underwood, a federal protective services officer, in Oakland, Anderson said. At the same time, a protest against police brutality was taking place nearby.
Carrillo, an active-duty staff sergeant stationed at Travis Air Force Base at the time of the shooting, is also the suspect in the June 6 death of a Santa Cruz sheriff’s deputy, Sheriff Jim Hart said last week.
“The Boogaloo term is used by extremists to reference a violent uprising, or impending civil war in the United States,” Anderson said.
“Pat Underwood was murdered because he wore a uniform,” Anderson said.
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After meeting privately with US President Donald Trump, Wanda Cooper, the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, told CNN’s Don Lemon that Trump’s executive order doesn’t go far enough.
Cooper added that she “didn’t have high expectations” going into the meeting but wanted to learn more about the executive order.
Trump signed the executive order on Tuesday, enacting some reforms to train police and reduce the use of excessive force
Steven Gaynor, the President of Cobb County Fraternal Order of Police, said that the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks was justified under Georgia law.
Brooks, 27, was killed by an Atlanta police officer outside a Wendy’s restaurant after failing a sobriety test, fighting with two officers, taking a Taser from one and running away.
“I think you can justify this case by Georgia law. It specifically gives the right based on the aggravated assault and the threat he poses to the public and the officers there,” Gaynor told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “It specifically gives them by law the right to shoot him. He chose to make those actions. He chose to do what he did. He could have been like 100 other DUIs that night – got arrested, bonded out, and brought home to his family.”
Officer Garrett Rolfe was fired after footage showed him shooting at Brooks multiple times from the back as Brooks fled. The second officer, Devin Brosnan, is on administrative duty.
Gaynor said that a Taser is not a deadly weapon when used by a trained individual, because a “trained individual knows where to aim it,” but “an untrained individual does not and then it becomes a deadly weapon at that point.”
Of the officer’s decision to shoot and not just let Brooks run away, Gaynor said, “now we know what the criminal history is, but we didn’t know at the time.”
“Could he carjack somebody? Could he be scared so much that he’s going to kidnap somebody in another car? Is he going to hurt a civilian? There’s a lot of things that come into play that you have to play out and go ‘I am responsible for this person I was going to arrest’ and he now has a weapon that I provided him because he took it from me,” he said.
Gaynor said that Brooks’ actions when he was placed under arrest “causes what occurs in his death, not the previous action where they are all compliant.”
“They go to put the handcuffs on him – a lawful arrest with detention – and he chooses to fight. That causes all of these things to then spiral. So you’ve got to take those into account,” Gaynor said.
Watch:
Embattled Las Vegas Mayor Pro Tem Michele Fiore announced Tuesday she was stepping down – a decision taken after she came under fire for allegedly making “racially charged” comments during the Clark County Republican convention earlier this month.
The Clark County Republican Party had said in a statement that, “Ms. Fiore’s remarks were clearly inappropriate and ran counter to the beliefs of the Clark County Republican Party.”
The statement described her remarks as “irresponsible, insensitive and inaccurate” and called on her “to issue an apology to those in attendance as well as to the community at large.”
Fiore told reporters at a news conference she wanted “to be clear on stating that there is no room for racial division, social justice is a human right, for all.”
“And I say this because I’ve spent the last eight years working tirelessly to give equal opportunity, and an equal voice to all the focus of our community needs to be on healing, not hatred. And I would hope that we could all come together and focus on justice, not chaos,” Fiore said.
Fiore went on to say her “time would be better spent on a course of action that will help repair that many hurting communities who have been affected by this deep divide.”
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman came to Fiore’s defense during the news conference, saying she believes the former mayor pro tem should not be “considered or have been considered a racist or a bigot. She has just been loyal and giving to every community all the time, and I believe she has the best of intentions. And always, the biggest heart.”
Fiore’s announcement comes as the city has been the scene of protests over George Floyd’s death and to condemn systemic racism and police brutality.
New concrete street barriers that allow some vehicle access into Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest are being installed in the six-block occupied zone, a sign of cooperation between protest organizers and city leaders after a week of protests.
The new barriers, which are made of wood and concrete and can be painted, will replace the makeshift barricades put in place by protesters that have blocked street access, the city said.
On Tuesday, crews from the Seattle Department of Transportation were seen installing the new barriers in the protest zone.
A news release from Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office says the barriers will allow for traffic to resume throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood as well as “ease access for residents of apartment building(s) in the surrounding areas, and help local businesses manage deliveries and logistics.”
The changes happened after a Sunday meeting held with protest organizers. Work on the changes began early Tuesday morning.
Police, meanwhile have still not returned to Seattle’s East Precinct station, which is located inside the occupied zone. On Monday, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said officers would only be responding to calls in the zone for life-threatening emergencies, as the occupation shows no signs of waning.
“If you ask me about the current situation, it’s not one that I like, but we do have to make sure that we balance public safety with our ability to engage with the people,” Best said Monday. “We have to thread the needle there and we have to make sure people are safe, but we don’t want to have a confrontation that ends up with more people hurt.”
A lawyer for the family of Rayshard Brooks said on Tuesday he’s been flooded with calls from people in the community, who have had negative interaction with former Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe.
Rolfe was fired after footage showed him shooting at Brooks multiple times from the back as Brooks fled.
Stewart added that he will be following up on all the complaints and looking into why nearly 12 of them were dismissed.
On Monday, Atlanta police released the disciplinary records for the two officers involved in the fatal shooting.
Rolfe’s record shows a use of force complaint from September 19, 2016, which resulted in a written reprimand the following year. It also included several citizen complaints, all with notes that no action was taken.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr. is weighing charges for both officers. He expects to make a decision as soon as Wednesday.
Senator Tim Scott and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will introduce the Republican police reform bill Wednesday morning in a 9:30 a.m. ET news conference.
They, along with Senators Shelley Moore Capito, John Cornyn, Lindsey Graham, James Lankford and Ben Sasse will detail the Just and Unifying Solutions to Invigorate Communities Everywhere (JUSTICE) Act.
They say the JUSTICE Act “provides long-term solutions focused on police reform, accountability and transparency,” according to a news release from Scott’s office.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller condemned the violence that led to a shooting at yesterday’s demonstration and announced at a news conference today that the city will be removing the statue that sparked the protest.
“The shooting last night in Old Town at the Oñate sculpture was a horrific and unacceptable act of violence,” Keller said today at a news conference provided to CNN by affiliate KOAT.
The protest was over a statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate.
Both the mayor and city’s police chief also reiterated that the violence was the result of a small minority of “agitators.”
“The continued involvement of agitators, whether the single individual or group of vigilantes is resulting in this violence,” Police Chief Mike Geier said today.
“Our officers gathered more than 20 guns from just four individuals,” Geier explained.
Keller also echoed the reports from protesters that the man arrested for shooting and seriously injuring a protester was harassing the crowd.
Steven Ray Baca, 31, was arrested in connection with the shooting, according to Albuquerque police. Baca is accused of aggravated battery.
“It appears that the perpetrator was agitating at the protest well before the shooting took place,” Keller said.
The investigation into the shooting has been handed off to the state police “to make sure that this is an independent investigation,” Keller said.
A couple of hundred people rallied at the Christopher Columbus statue in South Philadelphia on Tuesday, calling for the city to reinstate Philadelphia Police Department Captain Lou Campione, according to CNN affiliate KYW.
The department removed Campione from his command following “a volatile and chaotic situation” at the statue over the weekend.
A small group of activists gathered Tuesday on the other side of the fence surrounding the statue, calling for further action on the captain, KYW reported.
Sen. Kamala Harris said “we don’t need empty promises” after President Trump signed a police reform executive order, addressing a growing national outcry over police brutality.
“We need to fix the system, and to do that, it’s not about commissions,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “It’s not about conversations. It’s literally about requiring accountability and consequence of the system and those in the system who break the rules and break the law.”
The senator tweeted Tuesday evening that Trump’s policing executive action was “meaningless.”
“The package of bills that I put together with Sen. Cory Booker and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus put together, the Justice in Policing Act would require real accountability,” Harris said.
The bill will include: “Things like an independent investigation of police departments. It would require that there would be pattern and practices investigations by the United States Department of Justice, looking at patterns and practices of discrimination in law enforcement agencies. It would require that we have a national standard for the use of excessive force by police officers,” she said.
Watch full interview here:
Asked by CNN’s Erin Burnett why Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, didn’t meet with President Trump today, Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family, said they didn’t “want to talk politics.”
In the interview, Floyd told Burnett the family wants to see Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s bill, H.R. 7120, supported on Capitol Hill.
The bill would bring reform and oversight to policing, including a ban on chokeholds, a registry of police officer conduct complaints and ending police protections that make it hard for people to sue them for excessive force.
“All I was saying was that Philonise Floyd just got from testifying before the United States Congress where he made a passionate plea that this is our opportunity to get meaningful systematic reform to stop this police brutality, these police killings, unjustifiable killings of black people in America,” Crump said.
He continued: “And he’s testifying before the United Nations tomorrow. And he wholeheartedly supports the legislation that has been put forth by the Congressional Black Caucus because they have been dealing with this issue for decades, and they know what meaningful legislation needs to be passed that they can attach George Floyd’s name to. And they don’t want to do anything unless it’s meaningful.”
Watch full interview here:
Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said her private meeting with President Trump and other victims’ families today was “very, very emotional.”
Talking to reporters on Capitol Hill this afternoon, she described Trump as “very compassionate.”
“He did assure each family member that we would and should expect change,” she continued.
Cooper-Jones also said Trump “showed major concerns for all families, not just one family.”
On Trump’s executive order on policing, she said, “I don’t think that’s enough, but I do think that is a start.”
More on this: At the signing of a new policing executive order, Trump said he held a meeting earlier today with several families of victims of police shootings and racially-motivated violence.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, a union representing nearly 10,000 L.A. sworn personnel, said the move to replace some LAPD officers with non-law enforcement agencies would help improve outcomes between police and the communities they serve.
In a statement to CNN Tuesday, the union said the motion, introduced by Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson Jr., would help to ensure more safe and appropriate outcomes in non-violent situations.
“We agree with Councilmember Wesson that not every call our city leaders have asked us to respond to should be a police response,” said Tom Saggau, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Protective League. “We are more than willing to talk about how, or if, we respond to non-criminal and non-emergency calls so we can free up time to respond quickly to 911 calls, crack down on violent and property crime, and expand our community policing efforts.”
Saggau said LAPD could do better to meet their mandated response times for emergency calls if other professionals responded to matters like mental health crisis situations, homelessness, loud music complaints and neighborhood disputes.
“We only go where policymakers say to go, and they always say ‘let’s send the police to these situations,’” Saggau said. “For years, we’ve asked why are you first dealing with the systemic issues that contribute to homelessness and mental health on the front end and why aren’t you sending folks that are trained to manage these types of situations that aren’t violent?”
This comes just days after police unions in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose unveiled a collective agenda calling for national police reform and pledging to root out racist officers.
“Unfortunately, there is racism in our communities and that means across our country there are some racist police officers,” the unions said in a joint statement. “Police unions must root out racism wherever it rears its ugly head and root out any racist individual from our profession.”
The family of Robert Fuller, the 24-year-old black man found hanging from a tree in Palmdale, California, on June 10, is seeking an independent investigation and autopsy to determine the cause of his death, the family’s attorneys said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The Sheriff’s Department immediately declared his death a suicide without completing a full and thorough investigation. The lack of investigation and dismissal of this as a potential murder or hate crime has enraged Mr. Fuller’s family and the entire Antelope Valley community,” attorney Jamon R. Hicks said.
“To rush to the conclusion that this was a suicide and not a homicide is extremely disturbing,” Hicks added. “For African-Americans in America, hanging from a tree is a lynching. Why was this cavalierly dismissed as a suicide and not investigated as a murder?”
Fuller’s family is asking for the independent autopsy to be paid for by the city, according to the statement.
“We want complete transparency. To that end, the family should choose the pathologist to conduct the independent autopsy,” Hicks said.
The city declined to comment on details at this time.
Watch here:
The Philadelphia police captain has been removed from command following “a volatile and chaotic situation” at the Christopher Columbus statue in South Philadelphia over the weekend, according to a statement from the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police.
The Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that Capt. Lou Campione’s change of command was one of several changes made Monday, according to Staff Inspector Sekou Kinebrew.
On Monday, Philadelphia police also confirmed an active investigation by their internal affairs division in reference to the incident.
“The Police Department has removed Captain Lou Campione from his command in the 1st District following his diffusion of a volatile and chaotic situation. A 43-year veteran of the department Captain Campione is well respected by his officers, fellow commanders, and most importantly the community he has served tirelessly. Captain Campione’s dedication to the community he serves is second to none and is the Gold Standard in Police Commands,” the statement read. “The mayor and police leadership are more concerned with appeasing the anarchist mobs descending upon our city and are less concerned about our citizens, our neighborhoods and the overall public safety of our great city.”
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced plans on Monday to initiate a public process to consider the future of the Christopher Columbus statue located in Marconi Plaza. Barriers have been installed around the statue on Tuesday in order to preserve it while the process is followed.
In his statement on Monday, Kenney said he hopes “that by initiating this process, the current tensions in Marconi Plaza can end. I urge all South Philadelphians attempting to protect the statue to stand down and have your voices heard through the public process.”
CNN has attempted to reach Campione for comment.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has directed the New York State Police Hate Crimes Task Force to investigate a noose found in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem on Monday.
“New York is no place for hate, and the progress we’ve made as a society will not be undone by the work of a few cowards,” Cuomo said. “We will continue to stand united and condemn hateful acts that target and threaten people because of their race, religion or sexual orientation.”
The noose, which was hung on a bell tower structure inside the park in the area of Mount Morris Park and East 122nd Street, was removed and collected as evidence, according to the New York City Police Department.
The New York City Parks Department filed a complaint report for aggravated harassment after they were alerted to the noose’s presence on Monday.
“We are dismayed by this incident. NYPD was immediately notified, and we removed the rope from the tree,” NYC Parks spokesperson Crystal Howard said.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney announced Tuesday that the city’s chief of police, William C. Smith, resigned after protests following the death of George Floyd.
“As of this morning, I requested Chief Smith’s resignation and he has tendered it,” Stoney said at a news conference.
“Chief Smith is a good man, he has served this city for a very long time…and I thank him for his service,” he added.
Major Jody Blackwell has been appointed as the interim police chief.
“He will lead our healing and trust building within our community,” the mayor said.
Stoney stressed that Richmond has a “good” police department, but said “we can be better.”
Michelle Kenney, the mother of Antwon Rose II, issued a statement today, after President Trump mentioned her son, who was shot and killed by an East Pittsburgh Police officer, in a speech about police reform.
Kenney said, “Contrary to reports, I did not meet with the President today at the White House.”
She continued: “I came to Washington with one sole intention – to meet and speak with the senators that are devoted to establishing legislation that will encourage better police practices. While my family and I appreciate that the President referenced Antwon’s name in his speech, we wanted to clarify that we never met with the President under any circumstances and do not plan to.”
What is this about: At the signing of a new policing executive order, Trump said he held a meeting earlier today with several families of black Americans who have been killed by police — including Rose’s family.
Trump said relatives of Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver and Cameron Lamb and Everett Palmer were all in attendance.
Relatives of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia, were also at the White House, Trump said.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott said his police reform proposal does not include an outright ban on chokeholds but argued “we get very, very close to that place” by blocking federal grant funds to departments that don’t ban chokeholds themselves.
“It eliminates the possibility of getting grants from those departments that have not banned chokeholds,” he said, describing it as “similar” to both the House Democratic plan and President Trump’s executive order. “We believe that gets you to the same outcome.”
Scott, the chief author of the GOP Senate police reform bill that could be released this week, also said his bill’s requirement that states maintain a system for sharing records of law enforcement officers will work effectively with Trump’s executive order announced Tuesday that includes a national database of officers with a history of excessive force.
“Having the opportunity to pay attention to the president’s executive order for the past several days, realizing that he was bringing the national database of officers who have poor conduct, our ability to preserve the records, makes it easier for that seamless transition to happen, and so I think we are in a better place because we worked on legislation that allows those records to flow up,” Scott said.
Scott was asked if he has any Democratic support for his bill, something that would be needed for it to get 60 votes to advance in the Senate.
“My understanding is that the Democrats have been told they are not allowed to get on this bill,” he replied, suggesting the bill might never be fully debated or amended on the Senate floor.
Families of victims of police and racially motivated shootings did not join the President at the podium in the Rose Garden Tuesday because of a “mutual decision” between them and the White House, an administration official said.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Ja’Ron Smith, deputy assistant to the President, said that the families and the administration agreed they didn’t want the moment to look like the photo op. President Trump signed his executive order on policing after a Rose Garden ceremony, surrounded by members of the law enforcement community.
“It was a mutual decision, because it really wasn’t about doing a photo opportunity,” Smith said. “We wanted the opportunity to really hear from the families and protect them.”
Smith accused “some civil rights groups” of attacking families that participated, calling that, “really unfortunate.”
“I don’t want to speak too much of what happened in that interaction,” Smith said of the private meeting the President and members of the administration held with families prior to the Rose Garden event, “because the President really wanted to listen to them, and have a safe place, and make it more about listening to them than having a photo opportunity.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the meeting left the President “devastated.”
“It was a very important meeting, a very emotional meeting,” McEnany told reporters Tuesday. “The President, it was an opportunity to hear one-on-one from these families, the painful and tragic, deeply personal stories of their loss of children. In most cases children, sometimes siblings.”
“There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of emotion, and the President was devastated. I was just in the Oval Office before I walked out and he said to me, ‘these were devastating stories. I love these families, and I will be helping these families,’” she said.
During the announcement of the arrest of 15 members of an organized criminal group based in Boston on Tuesday morning, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Andrew Lelling said the concept of defunding police is “kind of ridiculous.”
“The way you maintain that level of peace and safety on the streets, is you fund your police departments, you don’t defund them,” he said.
He added the idea that governments “should slash police budgets by some material amount, just because, I think is kind of ridiculous.”
“Taking money away from police departments because of a vague, unanalyzed accusation that all police departments are systemically racist, I think is misguided,” Lelling added.
Lelling said he agrees with the idea that adding funding to other types of programs such as mental health, drug addiction and programming for at risk kids is a “fantastic idea,” but defunding police budgets is not.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced Tuesday that he’ll propose making Juneteenth, a day that marks the end of slavery in the US, as an official state holiday.
“I will propose legislation to make Juneteenth a paid state holiday,” Northam said. “I hope our local governments will observe this holiday for their workers as well.”
The governor added that while Virginia and 44 other states commemorate the holiday, his action will seek to formalize the observance.
“It’s time we elevate this, not just a celebration by and for some Virginians, but one acknowledged and celebrated by all of us,” he said.
This commemoration will start Friday, June 19, with a paid day off for executive branch state employees, Northam said.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer criticized President Trump’s executive order on policing reform, saying, “this executive order will not deliver comprehensive, meaningful change and accountability in our nation’s police departments that Americans are demanding,” adding: “We cannot merely make some changes around the margins.”
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju if Democrats would allow debate on GOP police reform legislation and try to amend it rather than blocking it, Schumer said that Democrats “haven’t made any decisions,” adding, “We’re waiting to see Tim Scott’s bill.”
Schumer did not directly answer when asked if it would be okay with him if Democrats came out and co-sponsored the Senate GOP legislation.
“We’re all waiting I think as a caucus to see what’s in the bill,” he said.
“We haven’t even seen the bill yet, so it’s premature to comment,” Schumer said of the GOP policing proposal, which is expected to be formally unveiled soon. But he sounded a note of skepticism, saying, “I will say this, we heard from President Trump that he was going to have a very strong executive order and it’s weak tea. It’s a very, very weak bill. It doesn’t have the things that we need.”
Schumer continued: “On the things they said they might have, getting rid of chokeholds, it doesn’t, it’s more voluntary. Putting a national registry, it doesn’t, it’s more voluntary. So it’s premature to comment. Let’s wait and see what Tim Scott’s bill is. I have no idea what’s in it.”
Read more about the GOP and Democrat police reform plans in Congress here.
Watch here:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation Tuesday requiring State Police officers to wear body cameras and legislation to create a law enforcement misconduct investigative office in the state.
Body cameras: The body camera legislation requires all State Police patrol officers to use body-worn cameras and begin recording immediately before the officer exits their patrol vehicle, Cuomo announced.
Misconduct investigative office: The independent Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office will “review, study, audit and make recommendations to police agencies in the State with the goal of enhancing the effectiveness of law enforcement; increasing public safety; protecting civil liberties and civil rights; ensuring compliance with constitutional protections and local, state and federal laws; and increasing the public’s confidence in law enforcement,” according to Cuomo.
“The Office will also handle misconduct complaints statewide about any local law enforcement agencies. Unlike the Special Prosecutor, which is triggered only upon a law enforcement related death, this will allow for an independent review of complaints of misconduct for any local law enforcement agency.”
Here’s some of CNN’s previous reporting on police reform laws that have recently passed in New York.
Sheriff Alfonzo Williams of Burke County, Georgia, said the shooting of Rayshard Brooks was “completely justified” and that the case cannot be compared to deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.
“We saw in the video that Brooks is engaged in a fight with the officers. They were on the ground. We know that when we’re on the ground, we have a very high likelihood of being hurt or killed,” Williams told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.
Lethal force used by the police officer was “very necessary and the Fourth Amendment allows it,” Williams said.
“There’s nothing malicious or sadistic in the way these officers behaved,” he added.
Williams also said that it’s “unfortunate” that law enforcement leaders in Georgia have not come out and stood together on the case.
“I think it’s political and it’s senseless. We’re sending the wrong message to our black youth. We’re telling them that it’s okay, that they can run from the police, they can take a weapon from the police, they can fight with the police and point a weapon at the police and expect nothing to happen. That is a wrong message to send to black youth,” Williams said.
Former Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned promptly after Brooks’ death and the officer who shot him, Garrett Rolfe, was fired after footage showed him shooting at Brooks multiple times from the back.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has said that Brooks’ death doesn’t seem justified and announced that she will sign executive orders on police reform. Bottoms said that after Brooks was killed, it “became abundantly clear very quickly that there is a need for us to take an immediate look at our training policies.”
Watch here:
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said that trust between the public and law enforcement needs to be restored.
“That’s what the President is taking on with the executive order here,” he said in an interview on Fox today.
“And we need to restore that public trust,” Wolf added. “And again, the President is doing that through a number of initiatives.”
Wolf later said: “We need to make sure we give law enforcement the resources, the leadership, the training that they need to do the job to protect American communities. This is not about defunding the police or law enforcement. This is about giving them the tools and resources they need to change their culture, to reform if we see that and need to do that.”
An effort is underway in Los Angeles to replace Los Angeles Police Department officers with unarmed, non-law enforcement agencies who will be responsible for responding to “non-violent calls of service,” Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson Jr. announced Tuesday.
“We need to reimagine public safety in the 21st century. One which reduces the need for armed police presence, especially when the situation does not necessarily require it,” Wesson said in a statement about the motion he and his colleagues introduced today.
Wesson, the first African American president of the Los Angeles City Council, said police have gone from part of the solution to part of the problem and “may not be best equipped” to respond to non-emergency situations.
“These calls need to be directed to workers with specialized training who are better equipped to handle the situation,” Wesson said. “My colleague Nury Martinez and I are calling for a systematic crisis-response plan to replace police presence in non-criminal situations with unarmed service providers including medical professionals, mental health workers, homeless outreach workers and others with specialized training.”
Read Wesson’s tweet about the motion:
Some background: At least seven Los Angeles police officers were removed from their field duties after using excessive force during recent protests, the police department told CNN on June 10.
The move comes as police across the nation have come under fire for violent responses to demonstrators protesting police brutality. Critics have pointed to the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and in several cases, physical actions as examples of excessive force.
“The Los Angeles Police Department continues to investigate allegations of misconduct, violations of Department policy, and excessive force during the recent civil unrest,” police said in a statement.
The department has assigned 40 investigators to “look into every complaint thoroughly” and “hold every officer accountable for their actions,” the department said. Fifty-six complaints are currently being investigated, with 28 involving alleged uses of force, Los Angeles police said.
House Democrats and Senate Republicans are on a collision course over policing reform, despite a bipartisan consensus that action is necessary amid nationwide protests and civil unrest in response to high-profile episodes of police misconduct.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came out firmly against a Democratic plan to overhaul policing on Tuesday, saying that Democrats want to “federalize all of these issues. That’s a non-starter. The House version is going nowhere in the Senate.”
McConnell dismissed the Democratic proposal as “typical Democratic overreach to try to control everything in Washington. We have no interest in that.”
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have reacted critically to the emerging legislation bill being that Senate Republicans are coalescing around being led by GOP Sen. Tim Scott.
McConnell declined to answer CNN’s Manu Raju question on systemic racism in policing and whether he agrees with President Trump’s earlier comments on the “tiny” number of bad police officers. He instead discussed Senator Tim Scott’s policing reform plan.
Pressed further on addressing systemic racism, McConnell contended: “There is still obviously racism in America.”
On removing Confederate from military assets, McConnell said “Whatever is ultimately decided, I don’t have a problem with.”
However, he said that the removal of Confederate statutes in the Capitol is a “bridge too far.”
“What I do think is clearly a bridge too far is this nonsense we need to airbrush the Capitol and scrub out everybody from years ago who had any connection to slavery,” he said.
McConnell said he would wait until Wednesday morning to announce whether he would bring the Scott police bill to the floor ahead of the two-week July 4 recess.
President Trump signed an executive order on policing this afternoon in the Rose Garden.
The order is relatively muted when it comes to sweeping police reforms that have been discussed by members of both parties recently. Ultimately, substantive police reforms will require new laws.
Here’s what we know about the executive order:
What happens now: Congress will try to pass legislation on police reform. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are working to advance two competing bills, with the Democratic legislation going further in several respects by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
Trump suggested Tuesday he was supportive of legislative efforts in the Senate led by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the chamber’s sole black Republican.
Watch here:
Sen. Mike Braun, a Republican from Indiana, said he walked his colleagues through a proposal he is working on to amend qualified immunity — which has been a key sticking point between Democrats and Republicans in policing legislation.
Qualified immunity protects public figures — including police and members of Congress — from being sued for actions they take in the course of their official work.
Braun’s idea, discussed at a GOP lunch today, is not to eliminate qualified immunity, but to reform it. It would not go nearly as far as the Democrats’ proposal, which seeks to end it, but it signals that some Republicans are interested in making some small changes.
The comments from Braun prompted a robust discussion within the party about how, or even if, to tackle this issue.
The 15-minute or so discussion about qualified immunity was just part of a broader conversation about the GOP’s agenda for the summer.
“We all know it’s an issue. It’s a complicated issue that needs more than a knee jerk response,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said of the discussion.
Speaking to reporters, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would wait until Wednesday morning to announce whether he would bring the Tim Scott police reform bill to the floor ahead of the two-week July 4 recess.
He said they are weighing whether to bring that bill or the defense authorization bill before July 4 as the Senate works on confirming judicial nominees.
McConnell made similar remarks to GOP senators at lunch today, senators said. The Senate leader also told reporters that the Scott bill is almost finished.
GOP senators after lunch are indicating they believe most, if not all, of the Senate GOP conference will back the plan.
Some context: As President Trump moves on an executive order on police reform, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are working to advance two competing bills, with the Democratic legislation going further in several respects by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
White House officials have been coordinating with Scott, the sole black Republican senator, who is spearheading the GOP’s legislative effort.
Martin Gugino, the 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground by two Buffalo, New York police officers earlier this month, has a fractured skull and is not able to walk, his lawyer said in a statement provided to CNN Monday evening.
“I am not at liberty to elaborate at this time other than to confirm that his skull was fractured. While he is not able to walk yet, we were able to have a short conversation before he became too tired. He is appreciative of all of the concern about him but he is still focused on the issues rather than himself,” Gugino’s attorney Kelly Zarcone said.
CNN has not been able to speak with Gugino directly, but in her press statement, Zarcone passed along a message from the senior protester: “I think it’s very unnecessary to focus on me. There are plenty of other things to think about besides me.”
Gugino is focused on getting better and he remains in the rehabilitation, Zarcone tells CNN Tuesday afternoon.
“Barring something unusual and unforeseen, I don’t expect much change at all this week,” she said.
Watch here:
President Trump signed an executive order today for police reform that he says will encourage police departments nationwide to adopt the “highest professional standards to serve their communities.”
This measure, however, comes after past efforts in his administration to scale back programs to reform police departments.
In September 2017, the Justice Department, then led by Jeff Sessions, announced that it was significantly scaling back a program created during the Obama administration to help reform police departments after controversial incidents such as police-involved shootings. Read more about that move here.
WATCH:
Speaking before signing an executive order on police reform, President Trump touted black unemployment rates.
“We achieved the lowest black and Hispanic and Asian unemployment rates in American history, and we will do it again,” he said. “A great jobs market and thriving economy is probably the best thing that we can do to help the black, Hispanic, Asian communities.”
Some context: Earlier this month, Trump invoked George Floyd’s memory to tout the jobs report, which showed a drop in overall unemployment — but also highlighted lingering racial disparities in the US economy.
“Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, ‘There’s a great thing that’s happening for our country,’” Trump said on Friday. “There’s a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody. There’s a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”
Facts First: Trump’s comment about “equality” is out of sync with reality — the jobs report says white unemployment dropped, but black unemployment ticked up slightly, and was already at a disproportionately high level. As for Trump’s comments regarding Floyd having a “great day,” activists and pundits have already begun weighing in on the wisdom and propriety of that comment. Floyd died on May 25, killed in police custody in what has been ruled a homicide.
President Trump said he just held a meeting with several families of black Americans who have been killed by police.
Relatives of Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver and Cameron Lamb and Everett Palmer were all in attendance he said.
Relatives of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia, were also at the White House, Trump said.
President Trump said he will be signing an executive order that encourages “police departments nationwide to adopt the highest professional standards to serve their communities.”
“These standards will be as high and as strong as there is on Earth,” Trump said. “The vast majority of police officers are self-less and courageous public servants and they are great men and women.”
The President then went on to defend police officers.
“Nobody needs a strong trustworthy police force more than those who live in distressed areas and no one is more opposed to the small number of bad police officers — and you have them — they are very tiny. I use the word tiny. It’s a very small percentage, but you have them. But nobody wants to get rid of them more than the overwhelming number of really good and great police officers,” Trump said.
WATCH:
President Trump is about to sign an executive order on police reform in the White House’s Rose Garden.
The following individuals were expected to attend, according to the White House:
The White House
The Trump administration
Members of Congress
Other attendees
President Trump said that he “strongly” opposes efforts to defund or dismantle police departments during his Rose Garden announcement of a new executive order on policing.
He called those efforts “radical.”
“Americans know the truth. Without police, there is chaos. Without law, there is anarchy and without safety, there is catastrophe.”
WATCH:
President Trump is expected to soon sign a modest police reform order.
The executive order is expected to establish a national certification system for law enforcement agencies and a database to better track excessive uses of force by police officers nationwide, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The key provisions in a current draft of the executive order included modest directives with broad-based support intended to encourage higher standards among police departments while leaving the prospect of more significant police reform to Congress.
A source briefed on the text of the order said it is relatively muted when it comes to sweeping police reforms that have been discussed by members of both parties recently. The order mainly leans on lawmakers to do the heavy lifting, as the President has privately expressed caution about alienating police officers by going too far.
Remember: Trump has yet to comprehensively address issues of police reform or even acknowledge systemic racism in America and has not been heavily involved in drafting the executive order. Instead, the President has directed his energy on delivering a tough-talking law-and-order message and falsely portraying peaceful protesters as mostly violent.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill: Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are working to advance two competing bills, with the Democratic legislation going further in several respects by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants. White House officials have been coordinating with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the sole black Republican senator, who is spearheading the GOP’s legislative effort.
Breonna Taylor family attorney Sam Aguiar released a strongly worded statement Tuesday morning saying that all of Taylor’s family has been asking from the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) is for them to “Tell Us the Truth.”
Taylor was killed in March after officers forced their way inside her home and exchanged shots with her boyfriend, according to a lawsuit filed by her mother. The officers were executing a search warrant in a narcotics investigation, the Louisville Metro Police Department has said, when they entered Taylor’s apartment just before 1 a.m. on March 13.
Aguiar points out that LMPD has denied the family’s repeated open records requests and that open records requests filed into the matter are being denied pending an appeal with the attorney general’s office.
“For months, we have pursued the truth surrounding what took place leading up to, during and following the murder of Breonna Taylor. And for months, LMPD and Mayor Fischer have covered it up,” the statement says.
Aguiar says that last Friday marked the deadline for the Louisville Metro Coroner’s Office to produce an autopsy in regards to Taylor’s death and the deadline for the mayor to produce all of his communications in regards to the investigation surrounding Taylor’s death.
Aguiar accuses the mayor’s office of providing all requested information regarding Taylor’s death investigation to counsel for the city and withheld it from Taylor’s family legal representation.
Aguiar continues by calling these actions taken by mayor Greg Fischer’s office “above the law” and says they’ve gone on far too long in this administration, “contrary to the mayor’s office’s beliefs, the city is not exempt from the rules governing our justice system.”
The attorney says that Louisville ignored the Taylor’s family’s requests for an independent investigation and “only succumbed after national outrage and urging” by Gov. Andy Beshear.
Aguiar ends the statement by saying Taylor’s mother, Tamika, “deserves the truth” and that “the city deserves the truth.”
CNN has reached out to city of Louisville officials, Louisville Metro Police for comment and the Kentucky Attorney General’s office for comment.
Former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns said she gets “concerned” after conversations with white business leaders.
“It’s like speaking to the people who are the oppressed and asking them … to lead to the undoing of the oppression,” she said.
“What you have to do is not only speak to us. You have to speak to yourselves,” Burns told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. “You are the architects and you’re the beneficiaries of a system today that you can undo.”
There are only four black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, none of which are women.
Burns said companies can immediately make their boards more diverse.
African American women, in particular, she said can “diversify the thought, diversify the language, diversify the culture, everything about the companies,” she said.
Burns said that corporations in the United States have been left to monitor themselves to diversify, but they have continuously failed.
“How many more years do you say to the people who have been excluded ‘Just hold on?’” Burns said.
“How long do you wait? … There are fewer women CEOs today than when I was CEO. And there are significantly fewer black CEOs than when I was CEO. So we’re not making a lot of progress here.”
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing for as broad of support as possible within the Senate GOP Conference for the emerging police overhaul bill that will be offered by Republican Sen. Tim Scott, two GOP sources tell CNN.
This comes after more than 220 House Democrats signed onto their police reform bill, a strong sign of Democratic support that ensures it will pass that chamber next week.
Scott said Monday evening that he’s had talks with some Senate Democrats but said he’s been told that Democratic leadership has urged their members not to sign onto his emerging measure.
Democrats are pushing back on this, arguing that there’s no bill text yet to sign onto. Though Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders have expressed skepticism to the drafts of the bill.
Vince Champion, southeast regional director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said he believes the Fulton County District Attorney weighing charges for both officers involved in the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks at an Atlanta Wendy’s on Friday is a rush to judgement and politically expedient.
“For the DA to start acting as if he’s going to charge without a complete investigation done by the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation] which they’re in the process of doing, I think it’s premature,” Champion told CNN. “I feel that he’s just trying to cater to the rioters and I think he’s doing it for his own political gain.”
Champion said that if Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard does charge the officers, the union will provide their legal representation.
The district attorney has said he would announce charges against the officers on Wednesday, at the earliest.
Some background: Atlanta Police Department officer Garrett Rolfe has since been fired for his involvement in the shooting. Officer Devin Brosnan was placed on administrative duty. Champion also called the firing of Rolfe premature. “There was no investigation into what happened. His due process was violated,” he said.
Brooks was shot twice in the back, according to a release by the Fulton County, Georgia, Medical Examiner’s Office. Brooks died from organ damage and blood loss from the two gunshot wounds, according to the office.
The autopsy, performed on Sunday, lists Brooks’ cause of death as gunshot wounds to the back. The manner of death is listed as homicide.
According to the Atlanta Police Department and the Atlanta Police Foundation, a total of eight officers have resigned since June 1. The foundation did not have an exact reason for the resignations, but indicated a low moral throughout the department.
Champion said that the Brooks incident and the charging of six Atlanta police officers in the tasing of two college students in May have had a negative impact.
“[The officers] don’t know how to do their job now because if they do their job and they do what they’re trained and they do and do what their policies and procedure say, it doesn’t matter because if the mayor doesn’t like the way it looks, she fires. If the District Attorney doesn’t like the way it looks, he charges,” Champion says. “When it comes to the time that you have to act. The officers now are deciding whether they’re going to or not. And the sad part about that is if those officers think a little longer than they should, we’re going to start seeing a lot of police officers hurt and injured.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new policy today that immediately requires the city’s police department to release body cam video and audio footage of incidents in 30 days.
The mayor said the police must release all video and audio that meet the following criteria:
In those cases, the obligation will be for the New York City Police Department to release all pertinent video and audio footage within 30 days. Previously, disclosure had been at the discretion of the commissioner and for narrow purposes.
“Body warn cameras are only as powerful as the transparency that comes with them,” the mayor said.
He called this a step toward an “accountable” system. He noted that there are 24,000 body worn cameras in the police force, “by far” the largest in the country, he said.
The mayor also noted police gun discharges have gone down steadily
The mayor said the footage will be first shown to family members involved and then be available online for the public.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio remarked Tuesday on what he said was the “very powerful” announcement by the NYPD yesterday to reassign plainclothes officers from its anti-crime unit and change to a more “modern, community based approach.”
He called it a “crucial decision to disband that unit and move us forward, deepening neighborhood policing.”
Beginning his remarks Tuesday, the mayor said we are at a moment in time where “change is not optional.”
Albuquerque police have arrested Stephen Ray Baca, 31, in connection to a shooting at a protest on Monday, according to a release from Albuquerque police.
Baca is facing charges of aggravated battery.
Last night Albuquerque police said the protester who was shot was transported to the hospital and is in critical but stable condition. The protest was over a statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate.
Social media video from the scene shows a fight breaking out before shots can be heard.
President Trump is expected to sign an executive order today at noon to establish a national certification system for law enforcement agencies and a database to better track excessive uses of force by police officers nationwide, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The executive order is still being finalized, but the key provisions in the current draft of the executive order include modest directives with broad-based support intended to encourage higher standards among police departments while leaving the prospect of more significant police reform to Congress.
A source briefed on the text of the order said it is relatively muted when it comes to sweeping police reforms that have been discussed by members of both parties recently.
The order mainly leans on lawmakers to do the heavy lifting, as the President has privately expressed caution about alienating police officers by going too far.
The executive order is also expected to direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to encourage police departments to embed mental health professionals in their response to calls related to mental health, homelessness and addiction as well as to find resources to help police departments hire mental health co-responders, the source said.
Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the President, confirmed Monday morning that the executive order will look to incentivize police departments to include mental health professionals as co-responders.
“Co-responders would allow for police to do their job but bring in social workers and experts that deal with mental health and deal with issues such as drug addiction or alcohol addiction or even other issues like homelessness,” Smith said on Fox News Channel.
The executive order is also expected to include language acknowledging that some law enforcement officials have misused their authority and will urge Congress to pass legislation on police reform.
While Trump signaled last week that he may support outlawing chokeholds, the executive order is not expected to direct an outright ban.
Trump has yet to comprehensively address issues of police reform or even acknowledge systemic racism in America and has not been heavily involved in drafting the executive order. Instead, the President has directed his energy on delivering a tough-talking law-and-order message and falsely portraying peaceful protesters as mostly violent.
Measures in Congress: Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are working to advance two competing bills, with the Democratic legislation going further in several respects by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
White House officials have been coordinating with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the sole black Republican senator, who is spearheading the GOP’s legislative effort.
Rayshard Brooks’ family attorney Justin Miller said the family wants to see charges for the officers who were involved in Brooks’ killing, but there is uncertainty over whether that will happen.
The family is struggling after Brooks’ death, Miller said.
“They’re just trying to get to the point where they understand what’s going on. They’re not even to the healing stage yet,” Miller said to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota.
Miller said the death of Brooks is personal for him.
“I’m Rayshard Brooks, I’m George Floyd; it’s happened to me, it’s happened to my friends and it’s happened to my father and every other black person I know. So we’re all the same. So when we fight these battles, we’re fighting them from a place of knowledge and really from the heart,” he said.
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In the wake of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks, Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said that today he is releasing a version of the legislative draft for a hate crimes bill.
“We want to send a very clear message: that Georgia is going to be the worst state to commit a hate crime in, and I think that is a great opportunity to start building a strong relationship all across the state,” he said.
Duncan, a Republican, said the bill has bipartisan support and “empowers communities.”
“At the end of the day, I don’t want my legacy to be that … I supported the weakest hate crimes bill in the country. I want to put policy over politics,” said Duncan, a Republican.
Georgia is one of only four states in the US that does not have a hate crime law.
Duncan said while the bill is a step in the right direction, there needs to be a broad approach to fighting racism.
“A simple bill does not make this go away. It has to be relationships. It has to be reaching out for your neighbor. … It’s not enough to just not be racist. You’ve got to be anti-racism, which means you’re proactive, you’re looking for ways to root it out,” Duncan said.
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At a moment of profound national tension over race, California may be lighting a pathway toward greater racial reconciliation as America grows irreversibly more diverse in the years ahead.
The California state legislature is moving toward approving legislation this month that would place on the November ballot a referendum to repeal a ban on affirmative action for racial minorities in hiring and higher education admissions that the state’s voters backed in 1996.
That ban came midstream in a rapid-fire sequence of racially inflammatory ballot initiatives that state voters approved, typically by big margins, in the 1990s, including Proposition 187 to deny public services to undocumented immigrants, and measures to toughen criminal penalties on repeat offenders and juveniles and to ban bilingual education in public schools.
All of those initiatives passed against a backdrop of racial transition, when whites were falling below a majority of the state’s population and California was experiencing an expanding “cultural generation gap” between a preponderantly white senior population and increasingly diverse younger generations.
But two decades later, with people of color now firmly established as a majority of the state’s residents, those tensions have diminished to the point where it has become possible to build multi-ethnic coalitions to reverse some of the hardline legislation passed during the 1990s era of maximum tension.
While racial inequities in the state persist, the move to undo the affirmative action ban, which overwhelmingly passed the state Assembly last week, follows a series of legislative and ballot initiatives in recent years that have rolled back some of the earlier era’s harshest measures.
Read more here.
Protests against police brutality and institutional racism have swept the world in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. Here’s what you need to know about the demonstrations:
New Mexico shooting: Unrest in Albuquerque has led to a shooting in the city. The victim is in a critical but stable condition in hospital. There was also unrest in Portland, Oregon, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Five charged with hate crimes in Virginia: The group are accused of attacking a black pastor. Officers initially arrested the pastor for pulling a gun during the incident but he is no longer facing charges.
Ban on French police chokeholds overturned: The ban has been overturned until September after police unions protested the restriction.
UK leader faces criticism over race inequality commission: Boris Johnson has been criticized by an opposition politician over his planned commission into inequality in Britain.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticized after appointing a controversial adviser to help lead a commission examining inequality in the UK.
Munira Mirza, head of Johnson’s policy unit, has a leading role in overseeing the project, according to a report from The Guardian.
Johnson announced the commission on Sunday, in a Daily Telegraph article about the demonstrations over racial inequality in the UK.
“It is no use just saying that we have made huge progress in tackling racism. There is much more that we need to do; and we will,” Johnson wrote.
“It is time for a cross-governmental commission to look at all aspects of inequality – in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life.”
Mirza has previously written articles questioning the existence of structural racism. Her role in the commission has generated strong criticism from opposition politicians.
In 2017 Mirza wrote in The Spectator magazine that “a lot of people in politics think it’s a good idea to exaggerate the problem of racism.”
“The most anyone could reasonably say about institutional racism is that the evidence is far from conclusive,” she added.
In 2006, Mirza also wrote a piece on diversity policies for Spiked, a politics website, where she described such measures as “often appear[ing] as the flipside of old racial thinking, making us see people’s ethnicity first and their (often diverse) talents and interests second.”
“This [appointment] further undermines Boris Johnson’s race commission,” Labour MP David Lammy wrote on Twitter after reports emerged about Mirza’s role.
Lammy previously led a review into the treatment of the UK’s ethnic minorities in the country’s criminal justice system. Mirza criticized the review in a Spiked piece written in 2017.
“My review was welcomed by all parties: Corbyn, Cameron and May. But Munira Mirza went out of her way to attack it,” Lammy tweeted.
“Johnson isn’t listening to Black Lives Matter. He’s trying to wage a culture war,” he added.
Downing Street did not comment on Mirza’s appointment. A senior government source told CNN that the Prime Minister had set up the commission and that it would have an external chair.
The head of France’s national police has said officers can still use chokeholds “with discernment” until September 1, overturning an immediate ban on the technique less than a week after it was announced.
On June 9, France’s interior minister Christophe Castaner announced that the use of the chokehold technique, deemed dangerous by a police director general working group, would be banned.
The French police describes the technique as “squeezing the neck for a long time in order to reduce the influx of oxygen and limit muscle response,” as published in a French interior ministry press release.
Castaner’s speech was in response to nationwide protests against police violence and racism which followed George Floyd’s death in the US.
The minister said there would be “zero tolerance” on racism within the French police force.
But his remarks caused anger among police unions, who protested the speech and demanded the right to keep using the chokehold technique.
Frédéric Veaux, the head of the French police, informed forces that the method could still be used, until September 1, in specific cases such as when arresting large or violent individuals, an interior ministry spokesperson told CNN.
The spokesperson said a new working group was being put in place to find alternate methods to the chokehold technique by September 1 and added that teaching of the technique had already ceased.
Protests in three states Monday night resulted in a shooting, arrests and the closure of one city’s downtown.
Portland, Oregon: Police declared a civil disturbance and closed part of downtown, police said, after some protesters lit a fire, looted a store and injured an officer with a rock.
Albuquerque, New Mexico: Vigilantes may have instigated violence that led to a shooting, according to officials. The victim was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital and is in a critical but stable condition, authorities said. Police detained individuals involved in the shooting after using chemical irritants and flash bangs to protect officers at the scene near the Albuquerque National History Museum.
Nashville, Tennessee: Tennessee state troopers detained 21 protesters who refused to vacate the Capitol grounds.
Read the full story:
Five people have been charged with hate crimes in Virginia and the black pastor they are accused of attacking is no longer facing charges for pulling out a gun during the incident.
Leon McCray Sr. was arrested and charged with brandishing a firearm during a June 1 incident in the town of Edinburg in Shenandoah County, a news release from the Shenandoah County sheriff said.
McCray, a 61-year-old pastor at Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International, told CNN affiliate WHSV that the incident started when he noticed two people dragging a refrigerator toward the dumpsters at an apartment building he owns in Edinburg.
When he confronted them and asked them to leave they “got irate” with him before leaving and then returned with three more people who began to threaten him and use “all types of racial slurs,” McCray told WHSV.
McCray pulled out his weapon after the group surrounded him and one man began headbutting him, he told WHSV.
However, when deputies arrived they arrested McCray and no one else.
Now: Two supervisors in the sheriff’s office have been placed on unpaid administrative leave and an administrative review has been launched into their handling of the incident, Sheriff Timothy Carter said in a video message.
All five people accused in the attack were arrested Thursday and face a variety of charges, including hate crime charges, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
Police in Portland, Oregon have declared a civil disturbance in the city’s downtown area “due to criminal activity.”
“Downtown is now closed from SW Naito to Broadway and SW Lincoln to Harvey Milk. Please leave to the North–toward Burnside. We are advising crowd to leave now or be subject to arrest or use of force,” the police tweeted.
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said protesters were pointing lasers at officers who are protecting the Justice Center.
“We are advising the crowd to stop shaking the fence and throwing projectiles. We are here to protect the people who work in the Justice Center and the adults in custody who are living inside…Slingshots are launching objects and additional projectiles are being thrown at deputies. Stop throwing items, stop pointing lasers…” the sheriff’s office said.
The Portland Police said the “Crowd continues to throw projectiles at officers. Downtown is closed,” and police are working to disperse the crowd.
Tennessee state troopers detained 21 protesters after they refused to vacate the Tennessee State Capitol grounds late on Monday night, the state Highway Patrol said.
Troopers warned the demonstrators at 10:30 p.m. local time that anyone remaining on the Capitol grounds at 11 p.m. would be arrested.
According to Tennessee Highway Patrol, the protesters refused to leave after several warnings and sat down, locking legs and arms.
After the deadline passed, the troopers arrested 21 protesters – 19 received citations and two people were arrested for public intoxication, the highway patrol said.
Oklahoma State head football coach Mike Gundy said he’s “looking forward to making some changes” after his star running back called him out for wearing a T-shirt branded with the logo of a right-wing news outlet.
The comment came just hours after Chuba Hubbard, Oklahoma State’s running back, called out Gundy on Twitter for wearing a One America News network (OAN) T-shirt.
“I will not stand for this,” Hubbard tweeted on Monday, linking to a photo of Gundy in the shirt. “This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society, and it’s unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State until things CHANGE.”
The network offers viewers right-wing conspiracy theories and pro-Trump commentary mixed in with wire video news packages that are sometimes skewed to fit its editorial viewpoint.
In a follow-up tweet Monday, Hubbard posted a video of him and Gundy addressing the public.
“In light of today’s tweet with the T-shirt I was wearing, I met with some players and realized it’s a very sensitive issue with what’s going on in today’s society,” Gundy said.
Read the full story:
Anti-racist protests continue to spread following the death of George Floyd, leading to calls to defund police departments and take down historic statues.
If you’re just joining us, here are the latest developments:
The Albuquerque police and its emergency response team have detained “individuals” after a person was shot during a protest in Albuquerque’s Old Town, the police said.
“Police used chemical irritants and flash bangs to protect officers and detain individuals involved in the shooting. The individuals were disarmed and taken into custody for questioning. At this time, additional police teams have been deployed to ensure all officers can safely end the situation. APD investigators are also on standby. We will release additional information as it becomes available,” according to the Albuquerque Police Department in a news release.
Police say the shooting victim is in critical but stable condition.
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said the shooting “was a tragic, outrageous and unacceptable act of violence and it has no place in our city.”
The protest took place near the Albuquerque National History Museum and the city’s police chief said he believes vigilante groups could have helped to instigate the violence.
“We are receiving reports about vigilante groups possibly instigating this violence. If this is true will be holding them accountable to the fullest extent of the law, including federal hate group designation and prosecution,” Albuquerque Police Chief Michael Geier said in a news release.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham statement on Twitter, “The heavily-armed individuals who flaunted themselves at the protest, calling themselves a ‘civil guard’ were there for one reason: To menace protesters, to present an unsanctioned show of unregulated force.”
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to police chokeholds as “a lynching” Monday evening and said she’s confident Republican lawmakers will agree to ban them.
Her comments come as Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are working to advance two competing police reform bills, with the Democratic legislation going further in several respects by banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
White House officials have been coordinating with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the sole black Republican senator, who is spearheading the GOP’s legislative effort.
“I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have a ban on chokeholds. Let’s get reasonable,” Pelosi told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“A chokehold is a lynching. That’s a strangulation. It’s a lynching. I think that is almost like the lowest common denominator, but again I will leave it up to my negotiators, because as you know in a negotiation, it’s not what’s in or out, it’s the sum total of the different impact that the legislation will have in justice and policing,” she said.
The negotiations over police reform follow weeks of national unrest over police brutality and racism that began after the death of George Floyd.
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The US Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, has removed a large banner for the Black Lives Matter movement after a request from State Department leadership and taken down a rainbow flag that celebrates LGBTQ pride.
Senior State Department leadership asked the embassy in Seoul to take down the Black Lives Matter sign that Ambassador Harry Harris had hung from the building’s façade Saturday, according to a source familiar with the issue. A spokesman for the embassy confirmed to CNN that the large Pride flag has also come down.
The request from the department’s 7th floor – where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s offices are located – cited as its reason the fact that Black Lives Matter is a non-profit organization and that the US government does not encourage contributions to the group or promote any specific organization, the source said. It is not clear why the Pride flag – which was hung in late May, according to the embassy’s Facebook page – was removed and no explanation has been offered yet.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is consulting senior military commanders and department officials about what steps need to be taken to address racial inequality in the military and how to improve representation and opportunities for black service members, several administration officials tell CNN.
Although Esper and other top officials have served in various positions for years, they have been taken aback by some of the videos and messages posted by black service members in recent weeks, officials say. The problem, one official said, is simply, “How do we make the force better?”
It is not yet clear, officials said, how Esper plans to make any meaningful changes and whether changes in policy are needed to deal with potential institutional bias. All the officials confirmed that Esper wants to take a broader look beyond renaming military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals and banning displays of the Confederate flag.
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A man has been shot at a protest event near the Albuquerque National History Museum, according to Albuquerque Police Director of Communications, Gilbert Gallegos.
The man has been transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital and his condition is unknown at this time.
This is an active scene that officers are securing and detectives will be investigating.
Hallandale Beach Police Chief Sonia Quinones appeared on CNN after kneeling in solidarity with activists at a protest – an act that prompted 10 South Florida police officers to resign from their city’s SWAT unit.
Quinones said she knelt because she saw that it was, “an opportunity to stand with them, to kneel with them.”
“This is our community that we protect and serve and personally I felt it was important for us to show them we’re together,” Quinones said. “This is not us against them. This is us working together, collaborating and it was in reverence to our police department, our community working together.”
The officers had sent a letter to Quinones, saying they were “minimally equipped, under trained and often times restrained by the politicization of our tactics to the extent of placing the safety of dogs over the safety of the team members.”
Quinones said the claims of underfunding are “not accurate.”
“We provided increase in training hours, we’ve provided over $100,000 over the past two years in Swat-specific equipment,” she said.
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Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said the city is “not under siege” and that the police are “still responding to every single call in every area of the city.”
Protesters have occupied a six-block zone around a downtown precinct, with some calling it CHAZ for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHOP for the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.
Best said the occupied area is a “delicate situation” but “not a situation where there is lawlessness.”
“The last thing I want to do is have any issue of violence occurring in the area, so we are very judicious about how we do it and how we go in,” she said.
Last week, the police department pulled officers out of the precinct as tensions between officers and protesters boiled over. The abandoned precinct has been spray painted with a sign that says: “Seattle People Department East Precinct.”
Best said that they are working with the protesters to try and resolve the situation.
“What we have is a situation where people have occupied an area, and we are working with them. The city is working with them, and has negotiators to work with them to have a peaceful resolution,” she said.
Best also said that the barricades are preventing them from “going in as quickly and efficiently as we would like to” and the fact that officers are not in the precinct has increased response times “across the entire East precinct area.”
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Atlanta police have released the disciplinary records for the two officers involved in Rayshard Brooks’ shooting on Friday night.
Officer Garrett Rolfe’s record shows a use of force complaint from September 19, 2016, that resulted in a written reprimand the following year.
Rolfe’s record also included several citizen complaints, all with notes that no action was taken.
Officer Devin Brosnan has two firearm discharges on his record, both entered on the record this month. An Atlanta Police Department spokesman tells CNN that one of the cases is from a March 20 incident and the other is from Friday night’s shooting.
The Brooks’ incident notes maltreatment or unnecessary use of force, the record shows.
Rolfe was fired on Saturday and Brosnan has been placed on administrative duty.
CNN has reached out to the Atlanta police for more information on the officer’s records.
The Fulton County District Attorney is weighing charges for both officers involved in the Rayshard Brooks shooting, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr., told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Howard said that he understands Brooks’ widow and the community who are calling for one system of justice.
“If this had been civilians, charges would have been lodged already,” he said. “People around this country want one system of justice so that both the police and citizens are treated equally. That is what we are hoping to do by making a decision Wednesday.”
Howard said that when he watched the video already knowing that Brooks died, he was expecting to see someone who was resisting and not cooperating with the police.
“That was the exact opposite of what happened with Mr. Brooks. He was very compliant,” Howard said. “There is no reason for Mr. Brooks to end up dead because he fell asleep in a drive-thru or that he was intoxicated.”
Howard said the video evidence in this case would be very important to determine what happened at the exact moment of the shooting
“Was it necessary to shoot Mr. Brooks to save his life or to save someone else’s life. Because if Mr. Brooks was shot for some other reason, then it’s not justified,” Howard said.
Justin Miller, attorney for the family of Rayshard Brooks, said the officer who shot Brooks in the back “was already going to use legal force.”
Brooks, 27, was shot dead by an officer Friday night at a fast-food restaurant after he scuffled with police who were trying to handcuff him, took one of their Tasers and ran. Brooks was suspected of driving under the influence.
Miller said that video released of the incident shows that “the officer dropped his Taser and put his hand on his gun before Mr. Brooks turned around with that Taser and just randomly shot it in the air.”
“He was already going to use legal force. He was already going to shoot him in the back, before any of that stuff with Mr. Brooks happened,” Miller told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
Miller also said that officers should have to complete “100 hours at least of community service” before policing a community “so you know the people.”
“I think they’re trained to be more militarized than they need to be, and then they are placed in communities with people they don’t know,” Miller said.
In an interview with ESPN, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that he supports a team if it makes the decision to sign Colin Kaepernick.
“Well, listen, if he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then obviously it’s going to take a team to make that decision,” Goodell said. “But I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that.
Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who started kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in 2016, has been unsigned to a team since 2017.
Earlier this month, Goodell said the league should have listened to players earlier about racism.
“If his efforts are not on the field but continuing to work in this space, we welcome (him) to that table and to be able to help us, and guide us, help us make better decisions about the kinds of things that need to be done in communities,” Goodell told ESPN.
“We have invited him in before, and we want to make sure that everybody’s welcome at that table, and trying to help us deal with some very complex, difficult issues that have been around unfortunately for a long time.”
Goodell said he hopes, “we’re at a point now where everybody’s committed to making long-term, sustainable change.”
The ESPN special, called “The Return of Sports,” will air on ESPN starting at 9 p.m. ET.
The FBI, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and the US Attorney’s office for the Central District of California are reviewing investigations into the recent deaths of two black men in Southern California to determine if foul play or civil rights violations played a role.
The deaths of the two men, Robert Fuller, 24, and Malcolm Harsch, 38, occurred in the cities of Victorville and Palmdale 10 days and 50 miles apart. Both deaths were initially reported as suspected suicides by the Los Angeles and San Bernardino sheriff’s departments and are now under further investigation by the local departments.
“The FBI, US Attorney’s office for the Central District of California and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division are actively reviewing the investigations into the hanging deaths of two African American men in the cities of Palmdale and Victorville to determine whether foul play or civil rights violations played a role,” a spokesperson for the FBI Los Angeles Field Office said in a statement.
Fuller was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale on the morning of June 10. Nothing but the rope, contents of his pockets, and a backpack that he was wearing were found on the scene, Los Angeles County Homicide Capt. Kent Wegener said Monday.
Investigators are researching Fuller’s medical history and looking for the witness who reported Fuller’s body as well as searching for contacts in Arizona and Nevada. Sheriff’s investigators will also analyze Fuller’s cell phone and are also looking for neighborhood surveillance video.
About 50 miles away, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is also investigating Harsch’s death near a homeless encampment on May 31. Investigators there have not recovered evidence of foul play, the sheriff’s department said.
An upcoming executive order on policing will create new incentives for “best practices” in police departments, senior administration officials said on Monday.
The order, which is set to be unveiled on Tuesday, will create a nationwide certification process for police departments and rely on incentives to steer local forces towards federal guidelines, including on use of force standards that prohibit chokeholds outside of situations where deadly force is allowed.
During a call with reporters, one senior administration official said the team worked closely with “law enforcement professionals and their representatives, as well as with families and people who are killed by law enforcement and, and also their representatives” to craft the document.
“The goal of this is to bring police closer together with the communities,” the official said. “We’re not looking to defund the police, we’re looking to invest more and incentivize best practices.”
The official said the executive order has three main components, focusing on new, national credentialing and certification for officers and departments, “information sharing” on excessive use of force complaints against officers, and incentivizing a “co-responder program” to deal with issues like mental health and homelessness.
But there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of federal mandates. Asked how the Department of Justice would enforce the components of the order, the official answered that “a lot of the law enforcement is local.”
The order won’t mandate that federal funding be tied to meeting those best practices, another official said later, but it will make departments more “competitive” for federal grants if they meet those standards.
“It’s creating the ecosystem that rewards good behavior. One of those good behaviors, if I’m applying for federal grants, maybe you want to look at an accreditation that makes you more competitive,” the official said.
US President Donald Trump has yet to comprehensively address issues of police reform or even acknowledge systemic racism in America and has not been heavily involved in drafting the executive order. Instead, the President has directed his energy on delivering a tough-talking law-and-order message and falsely portraying peaceful protesters as mostly violent.
In a 911 call released by Atlanta police from Rayshard Brooks’ fatal shooting Friday, a Wendy’s employee told the operator she thought a man was drunk in his vehicle parked in her drive-thru causing other cars to drive around him.
The employee told the dispatcher she went to his window.
“He woke up, looked at me and I was like ‘you’ve got to move out the drive-thru’ because people can’t – they’re going around him, he’s in the middle of the drive-thru just right there,” she said, according to the audio.
“And I asked him to pull over. If he had too much to drink to pull over and go to sleep,” she said.
The dispatcher asked the caller if she thought the man had a weapon.
“No, no. I think he’s intoxicated,” she said.
Some background: Brooks, 27, was shot and killed by police in a Wendy’s parking lot Friday night. His death sparked protests this weekend, and prompted the sudden resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields. The officer who shot Brooks, identified by police as Garrett Rolfe, has been fired, and a second officer involved in the encounter, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on administrative duty. CNN has reached out to the officers and police union for comment.
Plenty of questions are unanswered, perhaps chief among them whether the officers will face charges.
A concerned dispatcher watching the death of George Floyd on surveillance cameras felt it was necessary to alert a supervisor about the use of force applied by the officers involved, according to an audio recording released by the Minneapolis Police Department on Monday.
The audio stamp on the recording indicates the call was made at 8:30 p.m. local time on May 25, around the time Floyd was being transported by ambulance to the Hennepin County Medical Center.
“I don’t know, you can call me a snitch if you want to, but we have the cameras up for 320’s call, and…I don’t know if they had to use force or not, but they got something out of the back of the squad, and all of them sat on this man, so I don’t know if they needed you or not, but they haven’t said anything to me yet,” the dispatcher said on the audio call.
The Minneapolis Police Department also released two 911 transcripts, including one from an unidentified off-duty city firefighter who witnessed the incident and said, “I’m on the block of 38th and Chicago and I literally watched police officers not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man, and I am a first responder myself, and I literally have it on video camera… I just happened to be on a walk so, this dude, this, they (expletive) killed him so…”
The off-duty firefighter offered to speak to a supervisor but when the 911 dispatcher tried to connect him, the call was disconnected, according to the transcript.
In another 911 transcript, an unidentified caller mentioned how an officer “pretty much just killed this guy that wasn’t resisting arrest.” The caller is then offered a chance to speak to a supervisor at the Minneapolis Third Precinct.
