https://www.yahoo.com/news/atlanta-threatens-citations-woman-found-014837503.html

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Atlanta threatens citations for woman who found home was demolished during vacation

Eric Perry

Fri, December 1, 2023

 

ATLANTA - The Atlanta woman who came home from vacation to find an older home on her property demolished without her permission is facing new troubles.

FOX 5 first reported on Susan Hodgson, who found that her home was demolished accidentally by a construction company in early October.

Hodgson recently visited the property to find a notice from the city of Atlanta threatening to issue citations because of the mess and for not filing the proper permits for the structure's demolition.

"Anybody I can think of I have just been reaching out. Everyone wants to play ball, but nobody wants to show up," Susan Hodgson said.

Hodgson says the company that tore down the home claimed they had the wrong address.

The story made headlines across the country, and some criticized her because the house was older.

"I get what they are saying. I get that the house was boarded up and people probably would love to have it down. That's fine, but he didn't have permission to do it. That's the problem," Hodgson said.

A new problem emerges from the ruins.

"Usually, on trash day, I walk around the lot and clean up the yard ,and this bright yellow sign was in the middle of my backyard, and I noticed it said 'Stop Work Order, '" Hodgson said. "It said I had until the 16th to fix it, clean it up, and get it all done, and have the proper permits."

Hodgson says she's been trying to get in contact with the city to explain.

"The house, it was a fun place. We always had a lot of good times here," Hodgson said.

Emotions flood in as it's a reminder of her husband who died years ago.

"It does very much so because he's gone and none this is gone," Hodgson said.

She's stuck with a mess.

"It's still just like, ‘Yes, they tore it down’ and they 'did me a favor,' but this is what I got. This is what I got. This is the 'favor' that they gave me," Hodgson said.

FOX 5 has reached out to Atlanta's Department of City Planning. Officials issued the following statement:

"The Department of City Planning, Office of Buildings issued a Notice of Correction on the property on November 2, 2023, with a correction end date of November 16, 2023. The correction notice affords the property owner the opportunity to bring the property into compliance. No citation has been issued to date. The structure on the property was demolished without a permit which is a violation of city code. The property owner is responsible for their property and for any violations that occur pertaining to that property.

"The demolition of the property without the owner’s consent or knowledge is not a matter for the City of Atlanta. This is considered a civil matter between the property owner and the alleged responsible party."

 

Now, that Carron has moved the goalposts from initially calling it blackface, he thinks he's got him now.

https://boltsmag.org/alabama-parole-board/

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November 28

 

Lauren Gill

 

In late July, Treina Kinder traveled about 200 miles from her home in Huntsville, Alabama, to Montgomery to ask the state’s parole board to release her husband, Richard Kinder. He was 17 when he was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to spend his life in prison for his role in the killing of Birmingham teenager Kathy Bedsole. By the time of his parole hearing this summer, Richard had been incarcerated for nearly 40 years. 

Walking into the hearing in Montgomery, Treina was optimistic. Accompanying Richard’s application was a long list of achievements like college degrees and 40 certificates, including for the completion of drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs. He’d lived in a faith based honors dorm since 2005 and had only one minor disciplinary infraction during his incarceration at St. Clair Correctional Facility, which has at times been the most violent prison in Alabama, a state that in recent years has had one of the country’s highest prison homicide rates. Richard’s furniture and refinishing instructor at the prison supported his release, writing in an affidavit, “I am 1000% convinced that if Richard Kinder were released, he will not violate the law and will become a productive member of our society.”

Importantly, Richard’s application also included a letter from the former lawyer for his co-defendant, David Duren, who said Duren had admitted the plan to kill Bedsole was his alone and that Richard had no idea he was going to shoot her (Duren received the death penalty and was executed in 2000). 

Richard was initially sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, but in 2017, after a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions ruled that imposing mandatory sentences of life without parole on minors was unconstitutional, an Alabama judge reduced Richard’s sentence to life with the possibility of parole. The judge wrote there was “uncontradicted evidence” of Richard’s rehabilitation. Even so, the board denied Richard parole in July 2018, his first hearing after he became eligible.

But Treina hoped this summer would be different. “I thought … that we had a really good chance,” Treina told me of the latest hearing. “There’s nothing else he could have done. I mean nothing.” 

At the hearing, which took place at the parole board’s office, each person was given two minutes to speak in support or opposition of Richard’s release. Treina spoke about Richard’s accomplishments and his plan to live with her and find work in Huntsville. Richard’s brother and one of his lawyers also spoke in favor of his parole application. Bedsole’s sister and father opposed his release, as did a representative from Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office. 

Unlike other states, prisoners aren’t allowed to attend their parole hearings, so Richard sent a letter for board members to review ahead of time. “I realize the severity and seriousness of my offenses, and I understand that granting parole to me may be a difficult decision for you,” he wrote. “My hope is that my record will adequately reflect to you the effort I have put into my personal growth and change I have made in my life during the 40 years of my incarceration.”

His lawyer, Richard Jaffe, said the board conferenced for just “a couple minutes” before denying Richard Kinder parole and telling him he’d have to wait five more years to petition them again. A sheet explaining the reasons for denial shows the board decided against his freedom because of the severity of his offense and opposition from Bedsole’s family and the attorney general’s office.  

Treina says she broke down crying in the parking lot. “I was devastated,” she said. “I really thought he was going to get out.”

Jaffe said every piece of evidence his team gave the board showed that Richard had been rehabilitated and reformed, and that there was no plausible reason for the denial. “To say it was disheartening would not come close to describing this injustice,” Jaffe wrote in an email.

Since Richard’s first hearing in 2018, it has become even more difficult for people to get out on parole in Alabama, a privilege reserved for prisoners who meet a certain set of guidelines, such as showing they’re unlikely to commit another crime. State parole data shows that people who meet that criteria have been denied release at much higher rates over the past five years, blocking an important mechanism for release from the state’s dangerous and overcrowded prisons. Alabama’s parole board, which years ago released more than half of people who applied, approved just 10 percent of applicants last year. Richard was one of 245 people the parole board denied release from prison in July; the board granted freedom to just 11 people that month, a parole grant rate of four percent. 

In many cases, the board points to opposition from the attorney general’s office and a victim’s rights group to support its decision to deny release. Legislative efforts to add oversight and stricter guidelines for the board to follow have failed, even as the board appears to flout constitutional requirements by discriminating against Black applicants.  

State Representative Chris England, a Democrat who represents Tuscaloosa and who has introduced bills to reform the board in the past two legislative sessions, told me the board is not following its own guidelines. “What you see, in my opinion, is an out-of-control board,” England said.

---

Right around the time Richard Kinder first became eligible for release, politics and policies around Alabama’s parole board started to change.

Four days before Richard’s first parole hearing in 2018, a man on parole killed three people. As criticism grew over the board’s decision to grant him parole, Lyn Head, who was chair from 2016 to 2019, says Governor Kay Ivey pressured board members to stop releasing people. Head recounted a meeting in October 2018 led by Ivey and Marshall, who are both Republicans, that set the tone for how the board was expected to vote for people convicted of violent crimes—a category that’s broadly defined in Alabama law to include drug trafficking and third degree burglary and covers approximately 80 percent of people in Alabama prisons. 

According to Head, Ivey was puzzled as to why board members would vote to release people who had committed such crimes. “Why would you even consider letting someone convicted of a violent crime go free?” Ivey asked, according to Head.

Head says she explained to the governor that the parole board is required by the legislature to use a risk assessment tool that helps predict whether someone is likely to reoffend, and that people convicted of violent crimes were often considered low risk based on that available data. According to Head, Ivey “banged her hand on the table and said, ‘But don’t you think these people need to pay a price?’”

Head says she started changing the way she voted on cases because of pressure from Ivey and Marshall. “There were cases where I did not vote to parole even though I knew I needed to because I was afraid of losing my job,” she told me, explaining that she had two children in school at the time. 

A spokesperson for the governor’s office did not return requests for comment on Head’s account. Amanda Priest, a spokesperson for Marshall, declined to comment. 

The legislature passed a bill the next year that gave Ivey even more control over the board. Previously, the governor selected board members from a list provided by a five-person nominating commission that was chaired by the chief justice of the state supreme court; the commission also included the presiding judge of the court of criminal appeals, the house speaker, senate president and lieutenant governor. The 2019 law eliminated the judges from that commission and narrowed it to just the three other leaders of the state legislature. It also gave Ivey power to directly appoint the parole board’s director and added the requirement that at least one member have at least 10 years of experience in law enforcement and “the investigation of violent crimes or the apprehension, arrest, or supervision of the perpetrators thereof.” 

Head resigned in the fall of 2019 and Ivey replaced her with Leigh Gwathney, who was a senior prosecutor in charge of violent crimes and assistant attorney general under Marshall in the AG’s office. 

After Gwathney’s appointment, parole releases began to plummet, from a grant rate of 53 percent in 2018 to 20 percent in 2020. Last year, the grant rate was 10 percent. 

Head attributes the low grant rate partly to Gwathney’s unwillingness to seek training on a risk assessment tool. Under the board’s rules, members are supposed to consider information from a risk assessment as well as an evaluation from a parole officer who looks into people with upcoming hearings. In August, the most recent month with data available, the system found that roughly 80 percent of people met the parole requirements, yet the board granted parole to just five percent of applicants that month. 

The board declined to comment on a list of questions about the low grant rates. 

Kim Davidson, who served on the board from March to June, told me in a text message that those guidelines “have no teeth” because the board doesn’t have to follow them. She recommended that officials make the guidelines for release presumptive rather than advisory, and introduce an appeals process. Davidson, a lawyer, was appointed to fill in for board member Dwayne Spurlock, who retired before the end of his term. During her short tenure, she voted in favor of parole more often than her fellow board members. 

Ivey did not appoint Davidson to another term, however, a snub Davidson blames on Marshall, who she says did not want people to be released on parole. “I could have played the long game and voted more in line with denials and odd set dates,” wrote Davidson. “But, that just isn’t me.” Davidson claimed the attorney general’s influence looms large over the board because of Gwathney, whom she found to mistakenly apply the law at times. “The only thing he needs to do is keep Leigh on the Board,” Davidson said. 

Head says the board’s refusal to release people who have worked to change themselves does not improve public safety. She’d like to see more focus on re-entry programs that support people leaving prison and have been proven to reduce recidivism rates. “They want to show or demonstrate to the public that we’re keeping you safe because we’re keeping these people locked up better than anybody has before us,” she told me. “But the problem is, they’re lying to the public. Because if they would explain to the public, this is how you reduce recidivism.” 

After I interviewed Head, she reviewed an article I wrote in The Appeal in 2019 chronicling Richard’s case after his first parole hearing. She said she did not remember his case and was puzzled as to why she voted against his parole. “Don’t understand and surprised,” she wrote in a text message. Asked whether she regretted voting that way, she replied that she couldn’t say without looking at his file. “But if there is nothing in the file that indicates his record is other than all that you found, yes,” she said. 

---

When researchers from the ACLU of Alabama observed around 260 parole hearings this summer, they found that Gwathney granted parole less frequently than the other two parole board members. She also maintained an allegiance to her old employer, denying parole in every case that the attorney general’s office opposed, according to their final report.

“I think that any parole hearing that the attorney general’s office opposes, Gwathney should recuse herself. She has a conflict of interest,” said Alison Mollman, senior legal counsel for the ACLU of Alabama. “But that has not been her practice. She continues to sit and vote with her former employer in all these cases.”

The researchers discovered another troubling finding. Since Ivey took over control of the board, Black people were far less likely to be granted parole than white applicants. In 2019, Black and white prisoners were granted parole at similar rates, with 34 percent of Black people granted parole compared to 36 percent of white applicants. But that disparity grew by 2020, with 16 percent of Black applicants receiving parole compared to 29 percent of white people, according to their report. 

In the hearings observed by the ACLU of Alabama this summer, white people were granted parole 11.8 percent of the time. Black people had a grant rate of 4.7 percent despite being similarly situated. 

Black people incarcerated in Alabama’s prisons also receive sentences that are on average nine years longer than for white people, and spend significantly longer behind bars before receiving parole. A recent analysis of state court data by AL.com found that nearly half of Black men granted parole over a two month period this year had already served at least 75 percent of their court-ordered sentence. White people granted parole during that same period had served, on average, less than a quarter of their sentence. 

Shrinking parole has also become a barrier to alleviating overcrowding inside a prison system so dangerous that the U.S. Department of Justice has sued the state and the Alabama Department of Corrections after an investigation showed excessive force by correctional officers and “serious risk of death, physical violence, and sexual abuse at the hands of other prisoners.” There were roughly 19,800 people in the state’s men’s prisons at the end of September yet the facilities are designed to hold just around 11,700. 

“I think that when we see how violence has just skyrocketed in Alabama’s prisons, it’s directly related to the lack of hope that people have,” Mollman told me.

Despite these problems, there’s been little movement from the legislature and Ivey’s office to make it easier for people to get out on parole. For the past two years, England, the Tuscaloosa lawmaker, has introduced legislation that would create a panel to oversee the board and create guidelines for members to follow. It would also require the board to issue a written decision when deviating from those guidelines and create an appeals process for prisoners. “They don’t have to follow guidelines and it’s completely discretionary,” England said. “So when you don’t have any oversight, you get systems that are clearly abusing the discretion that they have.”

England’s bill failed to gain traction among other legislators, some of whom deny there are any problems with the parole board. “I’ve spent 25 years with Pardons and Paroles and I just want to say that it’s a hoax that the parole board is not releasing folks,” Representative Jerry Starnes, a Republican who represents Prattville, said in a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the bill earlier this year, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. 

As chances for parole shrink in Alabama, people inside its prisons are confused about what they can do to earn their freedom. 

In a telephone call from St. Clair Correctional Facility, where Richard is incarcerated, he talked about the board’s focus on the crime he was a part of 40 years ago. “Look at the reasons why they turned me down for parole and they’re reasons that I can do nothing about. Capital murder is always going to be a severe offense, I can’t change that,” he said.

He’d followed the parole board since his last hearing and knew it had become much harder to get out, he said. Going into his hearing this summer, Richard said he was hopeful but not optimistic about the board voting in favor of him. “They would have to be willing to really look at our record, you know, what we’ve done in here, and say, ‘Hey, this warrants a chance.’”

Still, he expressed remorse for his role in Bedsole’s death. “I mean, how much time is enough?” he asked. “I don’t know… When I look at myself, personally, I think about a 16-year-old girl that’s lost her life. I don’t know how long she would have lived. You know, she may have lived way older than me. I don’t know how much time is fair for her life. How much time is fair for me to do regardless of who I am in here and how I changed or anything?”

 

I posted this for two reasons:

If the video shows the whole story, then, I'm surprised the student was charged with murder. Seems like a good case of self defense.

The other reason is I can't imagine if he didn't have the knife, the result could have been similar to the murder of the student in Las Vegas. Had the other students ever knocked him unconscious, it's hard to say that they would have stopped.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/health/school-shootings-study/index.html

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By Amanda Musa

 

Mon November 27

 

Many Americans think of school shootings as mass casualty events involving an adolescent with an assault-style weapon. But a new study says that most recent school shootings orchestrated by teenagers do not fit that image — and they are often related to community violence.

The study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, analyzed 253 school shootings carried out by 262 adolescents in the US between 1990 and 2016.

It found that these adolescents were responsible for only a handful of mass casualty shootings, defined as those involving four or more gunshot fatalities. About half of the shootings analyzed — 119 — involved at least one death. Among the events, seven killed four or more people.

A majority of the shootings analyzed also involved handguns rather than assault rifles or shotguns, and they were often the result of “interpersonal disputes,” according to the researchers from University of South Carolina and University of Florida.

“When you look at gun violence across the country, a big subset of that is suicide and community violence, which is largely committed by the use of handguns, not assault rifles and so on,” said Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon and trauma director at Cohen Children’s Medical Center and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at Northwell Health.

Sathya, who was not involved in the new study, says it is important to highlight the difference between a mass shooting at a school and a school shooting brought on by community violence because the perpetrators often look different and are committing these acts of violence for different reasons. Therefore, the respective solutions look very different, as well.

“You’re going to have the classic, very tragic mass shootings where someone comes in with a manifesto, and they want to kill the maximum number of people,” he said. “You’re also going to have gang-related violence, shootings that happen at school but have to do more with interpersonal violence and other drivers of community violence that are actually different than things that might drive these stereotypical mass shootings.”

Researchers analyzed data from the American School Shooting Study, which compiles information about these shooting events from open-source materials.

An overwhelming majority of the 262 adolescent shooters were male, with an average age of 16. But unlike many of the school shootings that make headlines, Sathya said, nearly 60% of the shooters in the study were Black.

About 28% were White, and 8% were Latino. Another 5.7% represented other racial or ethnic groups, including Asian or Pacific Islander and indigenous peoples of the Americas.

More than half of the shooters got the firearm they used from a family member or a relative. About 30% got a weapon from the illegal market, while 22% obtained weapons from friends or acquaintances.

“Parents need to be responsible for the storage of those weapons, because they can often be used for shooting and for other types of violence,” Sathya said. “We know that from prior studies.”

The researchers also looked at economic backgrounds. About 20% of these adolescents lived below the poverty line. About 12% of the households included in the data were characterized as headed by women. About 26% of residents of these households did not have high school diplomas, and 10% were unemployed.

Investing in community violence intervention programs can help reduce this kind of violence in schools, according to Sathya.

“Policies that build up infrastructure in at-risk communities to stop the cycle of violence” he said. “Those include things like green spaces, parks, employment opportunities, food security, other social determinants of health, economic mobility. Those are the kinds of things that get at-risk youth out of the cycle of violence, in addition to that community violence.”

The researchers behind the new study also note that most of the firearms used in the shootings were lower- or moderately powered, meaning they will probably cause less severe damage than a higher-powered weapon.

The use of lower- to moderately powered firearms in school shootings involving adolescents in the US has gone down, with the early 1990s marking the height of such firearm use. The rate at which adolescents use higher-powered firearms has been stable over time, with a modest increase since the mid-1990s.

“Several factors could account for these findings: alterations in firearm manufacturing and availability, increasing adolescent interest in and familiarity with more potent weapons, or changes in documentation methods,” the researchers say adding that the number of shootings in which the firearm’s power was undisclosed in open sources increased during the study period.

They also said there is a need for a standardized national reporting system, as many Americans depend on media sources to learn about school shootings.

“Despite more extensive media coverage, the increase of online publications and social media in the 21st century has not necessarily deepened our understanding of firearms used in shootings,” the researchers wrote. “Future efforts must prioritize consistent reporting procedures, especially for infrequent but significant events, such as school shootings and other notable violent acts.”

Sathya says there also needs to be more research into gun violence.

“There’s been such a paucity of research in this space that, often, research studies like this add a lot to the field,” he said, adding that the only way to address an issue like gun violence is to figure out what drives it.

“This is a public health issue, not a political one. It’s not really about gun ownership,” Sathya said. “It’s about ways to make our environment safer and guns safer. That’s the goal.”

 

https://www.fox8live.com/2023/11/28/orleans-das-office-accused-letting-nearly-1300-felony-defendants-remain-fugitives-without-forfeiting-bonds/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=snd&utm_content=wvue

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By Ashlyn Brothers

Published: Nov. 27, 2023

 

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office has allowed nearly 1,300 felony defendants remain fugitives without having to forfeit their bonds after they failed to appear for scheduled court hearings, the Metropolitan Crime Commission said in a new report.

“This is a system failure,” MCC president Rafael Goyeneche said. “The police arrest, prosecutors accept charges and the defendant just walks away. No one is looking for these offenders.”

It is up to the district attorney’s office to initiate bond forfeiture proceedings against defendants who fail to return to court. The MCC said its analysis found 1.285 fugitives with active warrants but without bond forfeitures, after they absconded following arrests between 2018-2022.

The list included five fugitives booked with attempted murder, 17 accused of rape and other sex crimes, 56 arrested for robbery, 121 accused of battery or assault and 164 facing felony domestic violence cases. The list also includes 126 accused of weapons felonies and 19 with cases pending for failure to register as a sex offender.

The MCC said Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure Article 331 is a tool to compel felony fugitives to appear in court by authorizing prosecutors to seek the forfeiture of a bond if a defendant fails to return to court. Not only does the threat of forfeited bonds incentivize the accused to return to court, but a portion of forfeited bonds can be retained by a district attorney’s office for use in its operating budget, which DA Jason Williams recently told the City Council needed to be increased.

Williams issued a statement thanking the MCC for its work identifying bond absconders and claiming a “historic backlog” had grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“OPDA has conducted a thorough review and has initiated proceedings on eligible cases,” Williams said.

Goyeneche said that number is around 50 cases out of the 1,285.

“Many of these cases are beyond that 60-day window,” Goyeneche said. “That doesn’t mean that they can’t still be arrested. They can. There’s a warrant out for their arrest, so if they get stopped by the police, the police will execute that warrant. But no one is looking for them right now.”

Attorney and Fox 8 legal analyst Joe Raspanti said, “Obviously, this should’ve been done on a continuum from 2022. The upshot of doing this big (number) of bond forfeitures all at one time is going to overload the system and put pressure on everybody, from bondsmen to police to the courts to the jail.”

 

https://deadspin.com/roger-goodell-kansas-city-chiefs-fan-black-face-native-1851048905

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November 27

 

By

Carron J. Phillips

 

 

 

 

It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time.

 

It was as if Jon Gruden’s emails had come to life.

 

The image of a Chiefs fan in Black face wearing a Native headdress during a road game leads to so many unanswered questions.

Why did the camera person give this fan the attention?

Why did the producer allow that camera angle to be aired at all?

Is that fan a kid/teenager or a young adult?

Despite their age, who taught that person that what they were wearing was appropriate?

The answers to all of those questions lead back to the NFL. While it isn’t the league’s responsibility to stop racism and hate from being taught in the home, they are a league that has relentlessly participated in prejudice. If the NFL had outlawed the chop at Chiefs games and been more aggressive in changing the team’s name, then we wouldn’t be here.

There’s no place for a franchise to be called the “Chiefs” in a league that’s already eradicated “Redskins.”

“There’s no pretty way to mascot people,” Amanda Blackhorse, a Native American activist and an organizer of a pre-game protest rally, told USA TODAY Sports, earlier this year.

This is what happens when you ban books, stand against Critical Race Theory, and try to erase centuries of hate. You give future generations the ammunition they need to evolve and recreate racism better than before.

“We are committed to Inspire Change and the social justice work that inspires change for the long-term,” Anna Isaacson, NFL senior vice president of social responsibility, told The Associated Press back in 2021. This was the time when the league was beginning to allow players to wear decals on their helmets that read Stop Hate, Black Lives Matter, Inspire Change, and Say Their Stories, as part of the NFL’s “social justice initiatives.”

Notice how it’s usually referred to as social justice and not racial justice, as a way to soften the hate. It’s an orchestrated way to distract you from the core issue.

However, the ultimate insult from the league can be seen during each game as “End Racism” and “It Takes All Of Us” are sketched in the end zones. Do you know how big your balls have to be to say that racism should be ended when you have a racist past like the NFL? It’s as if Jim Trotter and Brian Flores aren’t actively suing them for alleged racism right now, as the Attorneys General in New York and California are also investigating them for similar allegations.

The idea that it takes all of humanity to end racism is not only asinine, but insulting and infuriating. By doing that, you’re taking away the responsibility and necessity of accountability from the ones who created it and actively participated in it.

It’s also cruel to expect the oppressed to assist their oppressors in the termination of their own oppression.

And if you’re wondering if the NFL is delusional enough to believe that their end zone slogans are making a difference, you’re correct. The league is beyond sensitive when it comes to their “message.” In the preseason, there was a rumor floating around that “Play Football” would be the new motto etched on the field. When Deadspin contacted the league about it, we received a prompt response (12 minutes) saying otherwise.

“There’s been no change from previous years. Beginning with the regular season, clubs will have in end zones stencils featuring “It Takes All of Us” and “End Racism,” wrote Brian McCarthy, the league’s vice president of Communications, to Deadspin in an email exchange. “Play Football’ was featured for preseason as part of a league initiative.”

As of now, the league hasn’t released a statement on what took place in the stands in Las Vegas on Sunday. That photo of that fan floating around on the Internet is beyond a bad look for a league, while simultaneously being what should be expected from the NFL.

“The NFL stands with the Black community, the players, clubs and fans,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell once said. “Confronting systemic racism with tangible and productive steps is absolutely essential. We will not relent in our work and we will redouble our efforts to be catalysts for the urgent and sustainable change that our society and communities so desperately need.”

Three years after Goodell made that comment, the league is worse off than it was when the commissioner was scrambling during America’s “racial awakening” in 2020. He apologized to Colin Kaepernick, “allowed” players to kneel in peaceful protests and promised that things would change. Nothing has. And after what we saw on Sunday, it feels like nothing ever will.

 

2013 National Championship game

1999 Sweet 16 loss to Ohio State

2005 vs LSU

2007 vs LSU

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/26/us/palestinian-students-shot-burlington-vermont/index.html

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By Celina Tebor and Zoe Sottile, CNN

 

Updated 2:45 PM EST, Sun November 26, 2023

 

Three Palestinian college students were shot in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday evening, according to police.

The 20-year-old men are all receiving medical care, according to a Sunday police news release. “Two are stable, while one has sustained much more serious injuries.”

The students were walking on Prospect Street while visiting a relative in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday when “they were confronted by a white man with a handgun,” says the release.

“Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled on foot,” police said.

Police said that two of the victims are US citizens and one is a legal resident.

Two of the three students were wearing keffiyehs, traditional Palestinian scarves, according to the police department. Two were shot in the torso and one in the “lower extremities.”

Authorities said that “there is no additional information to suggest the suspect’s motive.” Detectives recovered ballistic evidence from the shooting, which will be submitted to a federal database, according to Burlington police.

The FBI said Sunday it was “prepared to investigate” the incident.

Police Chief Jon Murad said in an earlier news release that officers responded to a call and found two shooting victims, with the third a short distance away, all close to the University of Vermont campus.

The victims were transported to the University of Vermont Medical Center, the news release said.

The shooter or shooters have not been identified or apprehended, Murad said, and the police department is “at the earliest stages of investigating this crime.”

In a joint statement, the victims’ families urged law enforcement to investigate the attack as a hate crime.

“We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice,” they said. “No family should ever have to endure this pain and agony. Our children are dedicated students who deserve to be able to focus on their studies and building their futures.”

The statement, released by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, identified the students as Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University in Rhode Island; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Tahseen Ahmad, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.

Haverford College in Pennsylvania confirmed in a statement that Abdalhamid, a junior, is recovering from gunshot wounds at a hospital.

The three students had graduated from Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private nonprofit school in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, according to the school.

US Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont described the shootings as “shocking and deeply upsetting” in a post on X. “Hate has no place here, or anywhere. I look forward to a full investigation,” he wrote.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, posted on X about the incident, naming the students and identifying them as “three young Palestinian men.”

“The hate crimes against Palestinians must stop. Palestinians everywhere need protection,” Zomlot wrote on X.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said in a news release that they “have reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced it was offering a $10,000 reward for “information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator or perpetrators” of the shooting.

The shooting comes amid heightened tensions and hate crimes in the US in the weeks since October 7, when Hamas launched a deadly attack in Israel and Israel responded with devastating airstrikes across Gaza. In October, a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy was stabbed to death by his family’s landlord in a case authorities are calling a hate crime.

CNN has reached out to the University of Vermont, the University of Vermont Medical Center, the students’ universities and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/meet-repairman-37-000-student-114601693.html

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Ayelet Sheffey

Thu, November 23, 2023 at 5:46 AM CST

 

 

Chris Fleshren is just a few years away from retirement, and he's sick of dealing with the "bureaucratic" student-loan industry.

When Fleshren, 63, graduated in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in Geographic Information Systems, he did everything he could to get a job in that field — from sending out resumes, going to job fairs, and actively monitoring job boards — but he has not been able to land steady employment using his degree and now works as a kitchen equipment repairman.

After getting an associate's degree in 1983 and working as an airline mechanic for years, Fleshren said that the airline work wasn't stable, and he saw school as an opportunity to further his career and earn a higher income.

"I tried to better myself trying to get an education, trying to get somewhere, but apparently I did it too late in life," he told Insider. "I have no criminal history, nothing but good employment history, and I just couldn't get a job."

Now, Fleshren has just over $37,000 in student debt from his bachelor's degree, according to documents reviewed by Insider, and while he's been able to pay his bill since monthly federal student-loan payments resumed in October, he said he's not sure how much longer he can afford to do so while also juggling thousands of dollars in medical bills for his wife's care.

Millions of borrowers are now dealing with a monthly bill they haven't paid in over three years due to the pandemic pause on student-loan payments. President Joe Biden's Education Department has implemented a 12-month "on-ramp" period during which it won't actively report any missed payments to credit agencies, along with a new SAVE income-driven repayment plan intended to lower borrowers' monthly payments.

However, that relief isn't enough for some borrowers as they struggle to afford basic necessities and other forms of debt.

"I have not defaulted. I have been able to stay up to date on the payments. But I'm not convinced in the least that I'm going to be able to continue to do that," Fleshren said.

"I have about two months worth of bills, maybe three months worth of bills, in my checking account and we have no savings," he continued. "I'm a year or two away from retirement. Are they going to make me pay a fourth of my Social Security to pay off my student loans when I'm 66 years old?"

'There's just too many payments'

The Education Department is currently in the process of crafting its new plan for student-loan forgiveness. At the end of June, the Supreme Court struck down the department's first attempt at broad debt relief. Now, it's using the Higher Education Act of 1965 to tailor a new relief plan that will be more narrow than the first time around.

The law requires the department to undergo a process called negotiated rulemaking, which includes a series of negotiation sessions and period of public comment before publishing the final rule. The department recently asked negotiators to help it define what would qualify as "hardship" for borrowers to get relief, and Fleshren hopes his situation meets the criteria.

"I have to pay for my wife's car, plus food, plus utilities, plus the mortgage, plus the car payment," Fleshren said. "There's just too many payments and if I don't qualify for hardship, I just don't know what I'm going to do."

Negotiators floated a range of ideas for who might qualify for hardship, including Pell Grant recipients, borrowers with a disability, or those dealing with significant childcare or medical expenses. The negotiating committee will meet one more time in December to provide input on Biden's next attempt at relief, and Fleshren said giving all his spare time to caring for his wife, "which keeps me from getting another job to help pay my loans and debts, should be factored in."

"They should consider significant medical bills, if there's significant medical hardship in the household where I'd have to pay Medicaid to get my wife care in addition to the $15,000 in surgical bills that are still outstanding," he said.

'The stress of it all is just ridiculous'

Along with the financial burden his student debt brings, Fleshren also said he's frustrated with the challenges of simply communicating with his student-loan servicer, Nelnet. He said that every time he's sent an email to the company to get assistance with his repayment, he received the automatic response: there is high email and call volume, and Nelnet's ability to respond is delayed.

The hours-long hold times on the phone with customer service doesn't make matters easier.

"I've never gotten a response. It's just been crickets. Absolutely no response, no reply, and the stress of it all is just ridiculous," Fleshren said. "As far as I'm concerned, I should be allowed to not pay them until they respond. And I should not be penalized in any way for for not paying. They want their money, then talk to me about me paying you the money you want from me."

The poor customer service has been an issue across all federal servicers, and the Education Department is aware of the challenges borrowers have been facing. It most recently withheld October pay from another servicer, MOHELA, over failure to properly communicate billing information to borrowers. The department stressed it will take additional oversight measures if it finds other servicers are not performing their basic duties.

"I understand they want me to pay them and I'm willing to pay them," Fleshren said. "But I don't know if it's their ineptitude or lack of staffing. I don't know what the reason is for not talking to me. But if they're not going to communicate with me, why would I continue to put money down a black hole when I have an urgent issue that needs resolving?"

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/police-43-old-habitual-offender-034243286.html

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November 21

Randy Wallace

HOUSTON - The fact that David Velasquez was free from jail on three bonds in Fort Bend County still didn't stop a Harris County Magistrate from granting him a get out of jail free card.

Velasquez could be the poster boy for a violent habitual career offender.

"He's got six felony convictions, three of those involve firearms," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. "He's been to prison three times."

In March, Velasquez walked out of the Fort Bend County Jail after posting three bonds for assault of a pregnant woman, assault family violence, and criminal mischief.

Last June, he was arrested in Harris County for felon in possession of a weapon, a crime he's been convicted of three times.

Still, his lengthy rap sheet, and the fact he's out on three bonds in Fort Bend County, didn't stop Magistrate Joy Thomas from giving Velasquez a huge break.

"He gets a PR bond, a get out of jail free card granted to him by a magistrate," said Kahan.

Earlier this month, police say Velasquez assaulted his girlfriend a second time.

"Pushed her, kicked her, and was just knocking the living you know what out of her," Kahan said.

"There are a lot of factors that are bringing a lot of red flags and are very concerning," said Amy Smith, Senior Director of Operations and Communications with the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council. "I'm just afraid he's going to do something to her or the baby, because nobody is really holding him accountable right now."

"And you think he's a good risk for public safety?" said Kahan. "That makes zero sense. It defies logic, and now she gets assaulted again."

Velasquez remains in jail with no bond until his next court hearing.

 

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxmwe/stuart-seldowitz-halal-cart-harassment

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November 21

 

Manisha Krishnan

 

A lobbying group has cut ties with an ex-adviser to former President Barack Obama after videos surfaced that show the man making Islamophobic comments and threats to a food cart employee in New York City. 

The videos, posted on Twitter by a Columbia University student, shows Stuart Seldowitz asking someone off camera, “Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” and saying that killing 4,000 Palestinian children “wasn’t enough.” 

Seldowitz was acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under Obama and was deputy director/senior political officer in the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. More recently, he served as foreign affairs chair for Gotham Government Relations, which announced his new role in a press release in November 2022. 

On Tuesday afternoon, Gotham announced on Twitter that it had cut ties with Seldowitz. 

“Gotham Government Relations has ended all affiliation with Stuart Seldowitz, an individual who hasn't contributed to our work in years. The video of his actions is vile, racist, and beneath the dignity of the standards we practice at our firm,” the statement said. His page has also been removed from the firm’s website. 

Neither Gotham nor Seldowitz responded to VICE News’ requests for comment.

Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here. 

In one of the two-minute videos, Seldowitz has his phone out and is speaking to a man who appears to be inside a food cart. Seldowitz mentions his “friends in immigration” and says, “the Mukhabarat wants your picture,” seemingly referring to an Egyptian intelligence agency. 

“The Mukhabarat in Egypt will get your parents. Does your father like his fingernails? They’ll take them out one by one,” he continues, as the man he’s addressing repeatedly tells him to leave and says he doesn’t speak English. 

“Tell me why I should go? I’m standing here. I’m an American. It’s a free country. It’s not like Egypt,” Seldowitz responds. He instructs the man to “smile for me” as he holds his phone up. 

Seldowitz then repeatedly asks, “Did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?” When the man again says he doesn’t speak English, Seldowitz calls him “ignorant.” 

“Muhammad, your prophet... He was a rapist,” he says. 

Seldowitz then asks the man if he speaks Arabic, “the language of the Quran.” 

“The holy Quran that some people use as a toilet. What do you think of that, people who used the Quran as a toilet? Does it bother you?” he asks, laughing. 

He then berates the man for not speaking English. 

“That’s why you're selling food in a food cart, because you’re ignorant. But you should learn English, it’ll help you when they deport you back to Egypt and then Mukhabarat wants to interview you.” 

A second video shows Seldowitz holding up two buttons to the food cart’s windows, one says Israel on it; the other is hard to discern. 

“It’s not my fault that you pray to a criminal,” Seldowitz says when the food cart employee opens the windows. The employee asks Seldowitz to leave “please” but Seldowitz refuses. 

“I’m going to put up big signs here that says ‘This guy believes in Hamas,’” Seldowitz says and accuses the vendor of not having a permit or visa. 

When the vendor says he’s an American citizen, Seldowitz asks how he became a citizen and calls him a “terrorist.” 

“You support killing little children. You’re a terrible person,” Seldowitz says. 

The vendor responds, “You kill children, not me.” 

Seldowitz says, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough.” 

Seldowitz was recently interviewed about the Israel-Hamas war in an hour-long podcast. 

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oil-leak-gulf-of-mexico-endangered-species-at-risk/

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By Li Cohen

November 21, 2023

 

The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that an estimated 1.1 million gallons of crude oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico near a pipeline off the coast of Louisiana. Officials are concerned about the oil's potential impact on endangered and threatened species. 

The Coast Guard first reported seeing the spill on Friday, saying that an aircrew had identified the leak. In their last update on Tuesday, officials said the leak is near the 67-mile-long Main Pass Oil Gathering company's pipeline system near Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish. It was not specified when the leak began, but officials said the pipeline was closed down at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday.

"The volume of discharged oil is currently unknown," officials said Tuesday. "...Initial engineering calculations indicate potential volume of crude oil that could have been released from the affected pipeline is 1.1 million gallons." 

On Facebook, the Coast Guard said that oil was "skimmed and sampled" roughly four miles southeast of South Pass, Louisiana on Friday, at which point they retrieved about 210 gallons of "oily-water mixture." More oil was retrieved on Sunday about 13 miles southeast of the parish. 

Photos of the spill show large chunky globules and long slicks of oil floating on the Gulf's surface.

Plaquemines Parish officials wrote on Facebook over the weekend that they are "monitoring the incident," but have not posted any further updates. 

So far, it remains unclear where the oil leaked from. The Coast Guard said Tuesday that remotely operated vehicles have been deployed to survey the pipeline, but that there are "no findings of a source area at this time." 

"The vehicles will continue to survey the pipeline if weather conditions permit," the agency said. "The Unified Command is working diligently to determine the source of the release. There have been no reports of injuries or shoreline impacts at this time." 

Matt Rota, senior policy director for Healthy Gulf, told CBS affiliate WWL-TV that the amount of oil thought to have spilled could still increase. 

"Especially when estimates come from companies...their business interest is to show that the smaller amount is coming out because they are liable for fines," Rota said.

NOAA is helping oversee the incident, and the agency's emergency operations coordinator Doug Helton told WWL that it's not necessarily the amount of oil, but its impact, that is of most concern. 

"There are endangered and threatened species in Louisiana waters. Most of the coastal Louisiana is wetlands and marshes, and that's typically considered really sensitive to oil," he said. "...Even if this doesn't make it ashore, it doesn't mean that this is an incident that we can just ignore. There are a lot of things that live out in the gulf."

Turtles are "probably one of the biggest concerns that we might have," he said. 

Just north of the spill and Plaquemines Parish lies the Chandeleur Islands, where last year, the world's most endangered sea turtle species, the Kemp's Ridley, was found hatching for the first time in three-quarters of a century. This species is the world's smallest sea turtle species that has been considered endangered in the U.S. since 1970. Globally, they're considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, meaning they are at "extremely high risk of extinction in the wild." 

The Gulf is also home to what's considered some of the most endangered whales in the world. 

NOAA revealed last year that Rice's whales, which can grow to be longer than a full-size school bus, are the only baleen whales known to inhabit Gulf waters. They're primarily located between Louisiana and Florida, and NOAA believes that there are fewer than 100 of the whales remaining. Pipelines are a major risk to their existence, scientists have warned. 

"Continued oil and gas development in the Gulf represents a clear, existential threat to the whale's survival and recovery," a group of 100 scientists said in a letter to the Biden administration last year. "The government's Natural Resource Damage Assessment on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill estimates that nearly 20% of Gulf of Mexico whales were killed, with additional animals suffering reproductive failure and disease."

 

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/prince-georges-county/former-college-park-mayor-gets-30-years-for-140-charges-of-possessing-and-distributing-child-sex-abuse-material/3475943/

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By Darcy Spencer, News4 Reporter • Published November 20, 2023

 

The former mayor of College Park, Maryland, was sentenced Monday to three decades in prison, after pleading guilty to 140 charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

Patrick Wojahn was sentenced for possessing and distributing images and videos of children, some of them infants and toddlers, being raped and sexually abused.

Prosecutors say this was not a victimless crime. They say they were able to identify 52 of the hundreds of children depicted in the material. They spoke at length about the horrific abuse and how Wojahn's role in viewing and sharing these videos helped to revictimize the children and to create a market for the material.

"This sentence is instructive. It instructs us that child pornography is not simply about images. It's about the pain behind the images," State's Attorney for Prince George's County Aisha Braveboy said.

The victims are real people who experienced the abuse, Assistant State's Attorney for Prince George's County Jess Garth said.

"They have to live what happened to them for rest of their lives," Garth said. "And also live with the knowledge that other people around the world will continue to view that abuse."

At least one of the known abuse victims died by suicide, prosecutors said.

Wojahn did not create any of the material or have contact with any of the victims.

He pleaded guilty in August to 60 counts of distribution, 40 counts of possession and 40 counts of possession of child sex abuse material with intent to distribute, according to the State's Attorney's Office for Prince George's County. His guilty plea was for 150 years, with all but 30 years suspended.

Forty people wrote letters and expressed support for Wojahn, who was mayor of College Park until his arrest. They spoke of his success as an elected leader and community activist. More than a dozen people spoke of his good character, including his husband, mother and sister.

There was testimony about Wojahn being sexually abused when he was younger as well. Some supporters suggested that 30 years was too harsh.

"His plea was fair; it was within guidelines, and it was appropriate given the harm he caused," Braveboy said.

Wojahn's arrest shook the city of College Park back in early March, after Prince George's county police were informed of suspected child sex abuse materials being distributed in the county. After the tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, police opened an investigation and ultimately arrested Wojahn.

Wojahn resigned from his position as mayor the night before his arrest.

In court Monday, the ex-mayor apologized to those he hurt and let down, saying was still trying to understand what led him down a dark, dangerous and destructive path. He said he knew what he did contributed to the victimization of children.

"From the bottom of my heart, I recognize the damage it caused," he said. "I'm truly, truly sorry."

The judge acknowledged that Wojahn was remorseful and took responsibility. She accepted the defense's request for him to be considered for incarceration at the Patuxent Institution, a treatment-oriented facility.

Prosecutors say because these are nonviolent offenses, Wojahn would be eligible or parole after serving 25% of his sentence. That means he could get out in seven and a half years.

Once Wojahn is released, he'll have to register as a sex offender and will not be allowed to be around children unsupervised.

 

 

 

https://chroniclet.com/news/372324/north-ridgeville-police-north-olmsted-man-lied-about-alleged-hate-crime/

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Nov 15, 2023 3:47 PM

 

The North Ridgeville Police Department announced on Wednesday that it had arrested a North Olmsted man for allegedly falsifying a hate crime, among other charges.

Hesham Ayyad, 20, and his brother Khalil Ayyad, 19, both of North Olmsted, were arrested Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of assault and domestic violence.

Hesham Ayyad also was charged with making false alarms, a felony, falsification and obstructing official business.

According to a news release from North Ridgeville police, Hesham Ayyad called police on Oct. 22 to report that he had been “almost” struck by a vehicle on Cook Road near the border of North Ridgeville and Olmsted Township.

When North Ridgeville officers arrived, Hesham Ayyad had told Olmsted Township officers he had been struck by a vehicle in a racially motivated attack and had already been taken to the hospital.

North Ridgeville police launched an investigation and, according to the department, used video surveillance to determine his claims were false.

“It was found that the alleged victim had lied to investigators about being struck by a vehicle and also lied about the racial slurs that were said to him at the time of the incident,” the release said.

Additionally, the department said its investigation determined that injuries Hesham Ayyad had, which he alleged came from being struck by a vehicle, were actually caused by a physical fight with his brother, Khalil Ayyad.

Both brothers were booked into the Lorain County Jail and were released Wednesday after an initial court appearance regarding their domestic violence charges.

Khalil Ayyad was released on no-cost bail, and Hesham Ayyad posted $10,000 bail.

Hesham Ayyad has another court date set for Tuesday on all charges.

When the incident first was reported, the Council on American Islamic Relations of Cleveland released a statement alleging Hesham Ayyad was struck by a driver yelling anti-Palestinian statements.

The organization called on North Ridgeville police and the FBI to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

CAIR Cleveland was contacted Wednesday afternoon, but interim Executive Director Faten Odeh was unavailable for comment.