Defense attorney for one of the 3 former Minneapolis officers charged in George Floyd's death said Chauvin called 'all of the shots' in the fatal police encounter

homeowners insurance - #1:Defense attorney for one of the 3 former Minneapolis officers charged in George Floyd's death said Chauvin called 'all of the shots' in the fatal police encounter 

A defense attorney for an officer charged in George Floyd's death said Derek Chauvin called "all of the shots."
Three ex-MN officers are standing trial on civil rights charges of depriving Floyd of his constitutional rights.
Former Minneapolis officer Chauvin was convicted of Floyd's murder in June 2021.
A defense attorney during the trial of the former Minneapolis police officers charged in connection to George Floyd's death said convicted fellow former officer Derek Chauvin called "all of the shots" in Floyd's arrest, the Associated Press reported.

Three former officers Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J. Alexander Kueng face civil rights charges of depriving Floyd of his constitutional rights during the fatal police encounter on May 25, 2020. The trial began on Monday, January 24.
Thao and Kueng are also being charged with failing to intervene in the use of unreasonable force.
The three officers pleaded not guilty.
During opening statements, prosecutor Samantha Trepel accused the three men of standing by as Chauvin "slowly killed George Floyd right in front of them."
"They chose not to protect George Floyd, the man they had handcuffed and placed in their custody," Trepel continued.
A defense attorney representing Kueng claimed Chauvin called "all of the shots" during the arrest, as he was the senior officer at the scene, adding that Chauvin served as his client's field training officer and had "considerable sway" over his future.
"You'll see and hear officer Chauvin call all of the shots," attorney Tom Plunkett said, also saying there was a lack of training at the Minneapolis Police Department, specifically on the intervention against unreasonable use of force.
A representative for the Minneapolis Police Department did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
In May 2020, Floyd died after Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for 9-and-a-half minutes while he was handcuffed. Kueng, who is Black, was seen pressing on Floyd's back, and Thao, who is Hmong American, supervised the crowd, according to the AP report.
Video footage showed Lane, who is white, holding Floyd's feet, and at times he was holding one of Floyd's calves. In some instances, Lane's hands were not on Floyd at all and he appeared to be just nearby him, the AP reported.
In June of last year, Chauvin was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter in the murder of Floyd. He was sentenced to 22-and-a-half years in prison. Chauvin also faces additional charges related to violating Floyd's constitutional rights during the fatal encounter. He also pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Trepel said videos show Thao standing next to Chauvin and taunting Floyd for using drugs, telling bystanders "this is why you don't" use drugs. She added that Kueng "never once" told Chauvin to get off Floyd. Kueng's attorney said his client was the one who told Chauvin he could not detect a pulse in Floyd.
Attorney Earl Gray, who is representing Lane, said his client suggested using a hobble restraint to allow Floyd to be on his side, but claimed Chauvin refused, the AP reported. Gray added that Lane called an ambulance for a cut on Floyd's lip and gave the instruction to elevate the urgency of the call as the incident escalated.

READ MORE - Defense attorney for one of the 3 former Minneapolis officers charged in George Floyd's death said Chauvin called 'all of the shots' in the fatal police encounter

How Indians in Jersey City fought back against the terror of 'Dotbusters' in the 1980s

compare car insurance - #1:How Indians in Jersey City fought back against the terror of 'Dotbusters' in the 1980s

 

 Navroze Mody left Hoboken's Gold Coast Café around 11 the night of Sept. 27, 1987. It would be the last minutes of his life.
The Jersey City resident was walking back home with a friend when he heard the taunts of “Kojak” and “Baldy.” The teenagers pursuing yelled racial slurs, too, then beat Mody unconscious with bricks and other objects.
His white friend, William Crawford, was unharmed. Mody was taken to a nearby hospital. He died four days later.

His death came during a dangerous time for Indian immigrants and people of Indian descent who settled in Jersey City. But it also rallied those newcomers in a way that could be instructive today, as Asian Americans face a new wave of attacks sparked by racist rhetoric and the coronavirus pandemic. Three days before Mody was beaten, Kaushal Saran, a 30-year-old physician, was walking out of an office building in the Jersey City Heights when a group of men beat him with a baseball bat.
The previous month, two men beat Bhered Patel with a metal pipe while he was sleeping in his Jersey City apartment.
In the six months from June to December of 1987, a dozen incidents against Indians were reported to police in the state's second largest city.
And the attacks continued into the next year, including a New York City taxi driver killed on a Jersey City street and a 28-year-old man beaten after being chased by youths, both happening in June 1988.
Many of these attacks were carried out by the "Dotbusters," a group of assailants, primarily white, who announced themselves in a letter to the Jersey Journal in the summer of 1987. The letter detailed how they planned to terrorize the new residents.

The fear prompted some Indians to change their daily habits.
"We would not go out after 6 p.m. ... We did not know how to handle the situation," said Dr. Vijaya Desai, a pediatrician who came to Jersey City with her husband in 1976. "We were new to this country and scared of what would happen to you or your family or your friends."
However, the recent immigrants — many of them spurred by Mody's death — soon banded together to protect each other, to protest for better protection from the police and to send a message that they would not be bullied.
The attacks subsided within a few years. Yet, they left a legacy of racist aggression that continues to be felt years later by Indians and other Asian immigrants.
A reference to the Dotbusters' campaign of terror was mentioned in coverage about racist signs that sprung up in protest of a Hindu temple proposed in an Atlanta suburb last year.

In March, six women of Asian descent were killed by a white man, Robert Aaron Long, in shootings at three nail salons in the Atlanta area that claimed eight victims. Long pleaded guilty in four of the fatal shootings and is on trial for four others.
The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate reported more than 10,000 anti-Asian incidents nationwide from March 2020 to June 2021. Those incidents included attacks on an 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco who died after being shoved to the ground and a 61-year-old Filipino American who was slashed on a New York subway.

READ MORE - How Indians in Jersey City fought back against the terror of 'Dotbusters' in the 1980s

Father dying of Covid regrets not getting vaccine in heartbreaking texts

insurance companies - #1:Father dying of Covid regrets not getting vaccine in heartbreaking texts 

Shortly before dying of Covid-19, a father in Los Angeles texted family members to express his regret over not getting vaccinated.
Christian Cabrera, 40, tested positive for the coronavirus around Christmas. Not long afterward, he was in an emergency room with pneumonia in both lungs.

“I can’t breathe again,” he texted his brother, according to KTLA. “I really regret not getting my vaccine. If I can do it all over again I would do it in a heartbeat to save my life. I’m fighting for my life here and I wish I [had] gotten vaccinated.”
On 22 January, Mr Cabrera died. His family shared the tragic news on a GoFundMe raising money for his three-year-old son, Noel.
“We are very sad to announce that our beloved brother Christian Cabrera … has lost his battle with Covid pneumonia and passed away tonight,” Mr Cabrera’s brother, Jino Cabrera, wrote in the fundraiser. “He touched so many people’s lives because he was a very loving, kind, generous, caring person with a beautiful heart and soul.”
Even before Mr Cabrera’s death, his brother said, he worried he might not survive.
“He keeps saying, ‘Please take care of my son,’” Jino told KTLA last Thursday. “He knows he might not make it. He might die in there.”
Covid cases in Los Angles are currently dropping from their Omicron-era peak, but they’re still extremely high. As of 24 January, the city was facing an average of almost 33,000 new infections per day. And on 20 January, just two days before Mr Cabrera died, LA County reported 102 deaths from the virus in a single day – the highest number in a year.
As in the rest of the country, the worst outcomes have been among the unvaccinated. According to LA’s Department of Public Health, unvaccinated LA residents have been six times more likely to end up in an ICU than someone fully vaccinated, and 25 times more likely than a fully vaccinated person who’d also received a booster.
“Our hearts go out to everyone mourning the loss of a loved one as we are once more witnessing the utter misery caused by COVID,” Dr Barbara Ferrer, the city’s public health director, said last week. “Let’s not fool ourselves by not recognizing the danger presented by the Omicron variant, which is capable of spreading with lightning speed and causing serious illness among our most vulnerable residents.”

READ MORE - Father dying of Covid regrets not getting vaccine in heartbreaking texts

Bunch of Idiots’: Grown Man Accused of Spitting on and Shoving Kids for Wearing Masks

house insurance - #1:‘Bunch of Idiots’: Grown Man Accused of Spitting on and Shoving Kids for Wearing Masks

 

 A middle-age Southern California man is accused of lying in wait outside local schools for children wearing masks—and then following them around so he can cough at them, spit on them, and taunt them for being “stupid” enough to don the face coverings.
The man, captured on video wearing a “Your mask makes you look stupid” T-shirt, has allegedly been continuing his anti-mask harassment campaign for a month in suburban La Crescenta, with a string of alleged incidents under his belt. Fed-up parents finally had enough this week and gathered at the Crescenta Valley Station to demand police take action.

“[The kids] were obviously getting scared. He was getting three to five inches away and coughing in their faces,” one parent who witnessed the alleged harassment, identified only as Ned, told CBS Los Angeles.
The Crescenta Valley Station, part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, issued a statement Monday promising a “thorough investigation” into the man after one incident was captured on camera.
“Crescenta Valley Station is aware of a video circulating on social media regarding a dispute between an anti-mask adult and others over the masking of children. The incident appears to have occurred off school grounds sometime last week,” police said.
In the video, the man can be seen apparently harassing a group of middle schoolers in a mall parking lot, yelling: “Stay scared. Keep your masks on that don’t even work!”
One of the kids in the group can be heard shouting back, “We’re 13!”
The anti-masker then launches into an expletive-laden tirade at an adult who tried to intervene, screaming, “Look at this grown man with a mask on. What a fricken coward. What a total p—y… Where’d you buy your mask? The stupid store?”
He storms off after calling the group a “bunch of idiots.”
The anti-masker has allegedly been involved in several similar incidents near schools, with the sheriff’s department saying some of the kids who were targeted reported that the man also spit on them, according to local outlet KTLA. He has also been accused of shoving children in some cases.
The man has not yet been publicly identified, but Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Lt. Robert Hahnlein told reporters that police know who he is and are working with police in Glendale to investigate the incidents.
Officers were called to at least one incident under investigation, but the deputy who responded scolded the kids and “decided to lecture [them] about freedom of speech instead of taking their names and writing an incident report,” Emily Lanigan, one of the parents affected, told CBS LA.

READ MORE - Bunch of Idiots’: Grown Man Accused of Spitting on and Shoving Kids for Wearing Masks

This dad's pictures of inadequate school lunch went viral. A registered dietitian says parents can make a difference in school nutrition.

auto insurance - #1:This dad's pictures of inadequate school lunch went viral. A registered dietitian says parents can make a difference in school nutrition

 

. Chris Vangellow's four children were complaining of bland lunches and small portions.
When Vangellow posted a picture of the school lunch, it went viral.
Now he and his son are working to change things. A dietitian says parents should speak up.
When Chris Vangellow's four children returned to in-person learning after being remote for much of the COVID-19 pandemic, they noticed something different about school lunches. Now that lunches were free for everyone — a federal policy during the 2021-22 school year — the kids reported that portion sizes were getting smaller and smaller, and the food was becoming less and less appetizing.

Vangellow encouraged his kids, ages 13, 14, 15, and 16, to pack snacks from home to supplement school lunch, especially on days they had sports. But he couldn't let go of what they had said.
"It got me wondering how bad it really was," he told Insider.
On January 12, Vangellow's son sent him a picture of school lunch: four scrawny chicken nuggets, white rice, and a handful of dried-looking carrots. Vangellow couldn't keep quiet, so he posted the picture to his Facebook, and it quickly went viral.
"This was never about my own children not being fed properly by the school. This is about all of the kids," Vangellow said.
Many kids in his New York town are from low-income households and rely on school meals for the bulk of their nutrition. What's being offered now isn't enough to get kids through the school day, let alone sports practices and extracurriculars, Vangellow said.
The ideal school lunch
Elysia Cartlidge, a registered dietitian and owner of Haute and Healthy Living, said that having well-balanced, nutritious meals is critical to kids' health and success in school.
"Children are growing and developing and therefore require sufficient energy and nutrients in order to fuel their bodies and brains," she said.
Technically, the lunch that Vangellow posted a picture of meets regulatory requirements because it has a protein, grain, vegetable, and dairy. In practice, it's a different story.
"I don't think most adults would want to eat that lunch, let alone children," she said.
In order to establish healthy eating patterns that last a lifetime, kids need appetizing healthy food. Ideally, a school lunch will be vibrant, tasty, and colorful, with at least three food groups, Cartlidge said. Although research has shown that the nutritional quality of school lunches has improved over the past 10 years, recent changes by the US Department of Agriculture have allowed schools to serve meals that have more sodium and less nutritional value, Cartlidge said.
Solutions for better school meals
After Vangellow's post, the school district issued a response saying that students are "allowed one more serving of fruits or vegetables and one additional nugget than appeared in the photograph."
But the district also acknowledged that clearly Vangellow's message resonated, and parents and students were not satisfied with school-meal options. The district has decided to convene a panel of parents, students, and others to come up with solutions for making school lunches more appealing and appetizing. Vangellow and his son both plan to serve on it.

READ MORE - This dad's pictures of inadequate school lunch went viral. A registered dietitian says parents can make a difference in school nutrition.

Why Brockton's Thomas Koonce has had his first-degree murder sentence commuted

dental insurance - #1:Why Brockton's Thomas Koonce has had his first-degree murder sentence commuted

 

 BROCKTON — Thomas Koonce has been serving a life sentence in prison for nearly 30 years. It's easy for him to remember how long he's been there, because he was incarcerated one month after his son was born.
Now, after decades of no hope, 54-year-old Koonce has a chance at freedom.
Earlier this month, Gov. Charlie Baker commuted his sentence. The commutation still has to be approved by the Governor's Council, but if approved, he can apply for parole. If he is approved for parole, he'd be out of prison on parole for life.

The Governor's Council began its commutation hearing on Wednesday morning. Witnesses testified to Koonce's character, and Koonce was expected to testify Wednesday afternoon. Should the Governor's Council vote to commute his conviction from first-degree murder to second-degree, several steps remain before Koonce would be a free man. He must also go before the parole board. The various steps could take four or five months.
Koonce was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Mark Santos of New Bedford as a result of an incident in June 1987. Koonce and Santos were part of altercations between two groups of men from Brockton and New Bedford.

Eventually, Koonce shot Santos from the passenger seat of a car in New Bedford. He claims he meant to shoot the gun upward so as not to hit anyone.
Koonce was originally tried in 1990, but it resulted in a mistrial when the jury could not reach a verdict. In 1992, he was tried again and found guilty.
"I don't lose sight of the fact that somebody died and it was a reckless act, even if it was self-defense," Koonce's lawyer, Timothy Foley, said.
But Foley, who has represented Koonce since 2019, said he believes that Koonce shouldn't have been found guilty of first-degree murder, nor should he spend his life in prison.
Back-to-back Brockton commutations: 'Redemption and mercy': Why so many people fought for Brockton man's freedom
Koonce was raised in Brockton. Foley said his goal growing up was to attend Northeastern University and study to become some sort of law enforcement officer. But without the money to do so, Koonce joined the military in the hope that it would help him pay for college.
Koonce enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after he graduated from Brockton High School in 1985. He served two years in the Marines before coming home for an extended period of time. It was during that time home that the altercation with Mark Santos occurred.

Koonce was incarcerated in 1987 for a few months, but in January 1988, his family posted bail. He continued serving in the Marine Corps, having been transferred to the Weymouth Naval Base, until he was incarcerated again in 1992 after the second trial.
'Helping people help themselves'
Since then, Koonce has had a stellar prison record, Foley said. In his nearly three decades, he's only had to face disciplinary action twice, and the last one was 20 years ago.
In 1994, Foley said, some older inmates asked him to take over the Second Thoughts program — a program in which prisoners mentor at-risk youth to try to prevent them from going down the same path as they did.

READ MORE - Why Brockton's Thomas Koonce has had his first-degree murder sentence commuted

Dad sees ex-wife and her boyfriend at son’s soccer game and kills them, Texas cops say

life insurance - #1:Dad sees ex-wife and her boyfriend at son’s soccer game and kills them, Texas cops say

  A man killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend while at soccer game in Texas, officials said, sending players running off the field for cover.

The 42-year-old man was watching one of their sons play soccer when he spotted his pregnant ex-wife and her boyfriend , according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Armed with a silver revolver, he approached and shot them both multiple times in a parking lot near Matías Almeyda Training Center, northwest of Houston, authorities said.

“I was on the bench. I was watching the game. I heard the first gunshot. I looked around to see what was happening,” Angel Guerro told KPRC. “I thought it was like a car crashing or a wheel exploding or something like that. That’s when I saw the guy pick up the gun and started shooting again (at) both the woman and the man.”

A chaotic scene of players scurrying off the field and leaping over a fence for safety was captured on video obtained by KPRC.

The 35-year-old boyfriend died at the scene and the 28-year-old woman died at a hospital, officials said. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office initially said the woman was pregnant, but that had not been confirmed by a medical examiner as of Monday, KHOU reported.

Less than two hours after the shooting, the suspected shooter died in an apparent suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said. He was found with a silver revolver was next to his body, officials said.

The medical examiner identified him as Lucio Estrada Molina, KHOU reported. The woman and man killed in the shooting had not been identified Monday.

“I’m just surprised things happen like this,” Guerro told KPRC. “You don’t really expect it at a soccer game.”

READ MORE - Dad sees ex-wife and her boyfriend at son’s soccer game and kills them, Texas cops say