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The federal government’s strategy for charging riot defendants continues to prove successful. “Quite obviously, there were many avenues for Defendants to express their opinions about the 2020 presidential election, or their views about how Congress should perform its constitutional duties on January 6, without resorting to the conduct with which they have been charged,” Kelly, wrote in Tuesday’s 43-page opinion. That conduct includes trespassing, destruction of property, and interference with law enforcement, per Bloomberg. “Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests,” Kelly wrote. “Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever First Amendment protection it may have had.” The four leaders of the Proud Boys are not the only riot defendants that the U.S. government has charged with obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors have relied on the statute—which carries a maximum imprisonment of 20 years—to charge hundreds of people involved in the January 6 riot, many of whom have challenged its legality in court, according to CNN. Kelly on Tuesday became the fourth D.C. District Court judge to allow prosecutors’ use of the law to stand, writing that the “Court is not persuaded” by defendants’ claim that Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote was not an “official proceeding.” The Proud Boys’ case is one of the most serious conspiracy cases against Capitol riot defendants, and Kelly siding with the Justice Department gives “momentum to prosecutors as they prepare for the first wave of U.S. Capitol riot-related trials beginning in February,” CNN notes. The government’s win comes a week after two members of a different right-wing group, the Oath Keepers, tried and failed to get Judge Amit Mehta, also presiding in D.C.’s federal court, to throw out the obstruction charge against them in another pivotal January 6 case. In that case, the defendants were also unsuccessful in arguing that Congress’s certification of the electoral results was not an “official proceeding” and that their alleged activities were protected free speech. As prosecutors win support for their use of the obstruction charge against January 6 defendants, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has raised the prospect of Donald Trump himself facing possible obstruction charges depending on what new evidence the panel finds. Cheney, the vice-chair of the House committee investigating the insurrection, referenced the criminal statute earlier this month at a House panel hearing where she pushed for Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, to be held in contempt for refusing to cooperate. (The House eventually did hold him in contempt. ) Meadows’s testimony, Cheney said, “will bear on a key question in front of this Committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’s official proceeding to count electoral votes?” Meanwhile, the panel has been ramping up in recent days and is potentially turning to other members of Trump’s inner circle, such as Rudy Giuliani, to gain more insight into Trump’s involvement in the insurrection.
That was the first killing. Splain went on to fatally shoot three more people in separate incidents, an extraordinary tally for an officer responsible for patrolling largely rural areas with low rates of violent crime. All four who died were troubled, struggling with drugs, mental illness or both. In two cases, including that of the man with the Uzi, family members had called police for help because their relatives had threatened to kill themselves. The most recent death was last month, when Splain shot an unarmed man in his Volkswagen Beetle. After learning that the officer had previously killed three other people over nearly 15 years, the man’s sister, Autumn Krouse, asked, “Why would that person still be employed?” Splain is an outlier. Most officers never fire their weapons. Until now, his full record of killings has not been disclosed; the Pennsylvania State Police successfully fought a lawsuit seeking to identify him and provide other details in one shooting. In the agency’s more than a century of policing, no officer has ever been prosecuted for fatally shooting someone, according to a spokesperson. That history aligns with a long-standing pattern across the country of little accountability for police officers’ use of deadly force. Prosecutors and a grand jury concluded that Splain’s first three lethal shootings were justified, and an inquiry into the most recent one is ongoing. Rather than have independent outsiders look into the killings, the police agency has conducted its own investigations — which were led by officers from his unit — raising questions about the rigor of the inquiries. “When a police officer has shot at and potentially killed a civilian, the public will never trust the police agency to investigate itself and be unbiased,” said Tom Hogan, former district attorney of Chester County, Pennsylvania. A Republican, he helped write recommendations by the state prosecutors association for independent investigations — a reform that many departments resist but one sought by the national prosecutors association and major policing groups. In its review of Splain’s killings, The New York Times found inconsistencies between the evidence of what occurred and what state police said had happened. The officer appeared to have departed from police protocols in several of the fatal confrontations, according to interviews and an examination of investigative and court records. In three of the encounters, the people killed were in vehicles. The trooper shot two unarmed drivers because they were allegedly using their vehicles as weapons, a frequent rationale, the Times found in an earlier investigation that uncovered hundreds of seemingly avoidable killings by police — often with impunity. Many large police departments ban shooting at moving vehicles because it is often dangerous, ineffective and unnecessary. Splain, who is on desk duty until the pending inquiry is completed, did not return calls or reply to a letter seeking comment. The other troopers who were involved in the shootings or who led the investigations declined to comment or did not respond to messages. David Kennedy, president of the state troopers union, responded on Splain’s behalf to written questions, saying he had acted with courage and “was forced to make split-second decisions no one hopes they ever have to make.” Cpl. Brent Miller, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police, said, “We are confident we have the resources to investigate such incidents thoroughly and objectively.” He referred questions on the killings to district attorneys. Asked whether Splain had ever faced disciplinary action, Miller said that any such records were confidential. All troopers involved in shootings must attend specialized training to assess their physical and mental fitness before returning to active duty, he said, adding that in some cases, troopers may also be required to undergo use-of-force training at the police academy. Darrel W. Stephens, a former longtime police chief who now helps run a policing research institute at Florida State University, called the four shootings a “red flag.” “Four is incredibly unusual,” he said. “That is out there on the edge.” Even if the shootings can be legally justified, he said, the pattern needs to be “examined very closely” to determine why the same officer repeatedly resorted to deadly force. “Because they can, it doesn’t mean they should,” he said. It’s not clear how common it is for police officers to fatally shoot multiple people during their careers. No database keeps track. In 2012, an officer in Scottsdale, Arizona, retired after his sixth fatal shooting. In 2015, a sheriff’s deputy in Broward County, Florida, was involved in his fourth fatal shooting. Both officers belonged to SWAT teams, called into dangerous situations where gunfire is most common. Splain, 41, is a patrol officer who works in largely rural swaths of Pennsylvania, where state police rarely kill anyone. During his time on the force, he has been responsible for four of the nine fatal shootings by troopers in the three counties where they occurred, according to a Times analysis of cases identified by research group Fatal Encounters. The killings by Splain were reported by local news outlets, although he was mentioned by name only in one case. From a young age, Splain seemed inspired by the military. The son of a radiologist and a nurse, he grew up in Allentown and attended the elite Hill prep school outside Philadelphia. He belonged to the school’s gun club. His senior yearbook page pictured him holding a rifle, cited the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps and quoted Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, twice. He went on to the Virginia Military Institute, where Jackson had once been an artillery instructor. Splain enrolled in a military officer training program, joined the school’s competitive rifle team and the Semper Fi Society, and referred to his “warrior image” in his college yearbook bio. But in 2004 Splain became a state trooper, with duties like making DUI arrests, tracking down thieves and, on one occasion, catching a suspect in “a paintball incident,” state police newsletters show. His former college roommate, Army Lt. Col. Nicholas Shallcross, said that Splain’s ambitions had shifted during college from the military to law enforcement. Splain, the lieutenant colonel said, saw himself as “a protector.” A call for help In July 2007, Joseph Rotkewicz, 37, who had bipolar disorder, took two of his brother’s guns into a room of his family’s home in Washington Township, Lehigh County, and repeatedly threatened to kill himself, pointing a gun at his head. His father had recently died, and his girlfriend had had an affair with his best friend. For an hour, his sister, Linda Hunsicker, and a friend, Hans Frendt, tried to talk him down, Hunsicker recalled. Then Rotkewicz fired at least two shots at the ceiling. Hunsicker said her brother never threatened her or Frendt. "He just kept begging me not to call the cops," she said. "I wish I would have listened." Emergency operators told her to go outside; the two men stayed indoors. Rotkewicz used electrical tape to strap an Uzi to his neck and chest, so the barrel pointed up at his chin, Frendt later said. About 5 p.m., at least a dozen state troopers showed up, Hunsicker recalled; a specially trained SWAT-style negotiating team typically responds to such situations. Police tried once to call the house, but Hunsicker had brought the cordless phone out with her. With a person threatening to harm only himself, “the overarching principle is, slow things down and don’t force a confrontation,” said Ashley Heiberger, a consultant to police departments and a former captain in Bethlehem. Entering a house to challenge someone threatening suicide “is not consistent with generally accepted law enforcement practices,” he added, “and good officers and good agencies have been emphasizing these concepts and principles for decades.” Pennsylvania State Police regulations call for troopers dealing with someone who is mentally ill to “take steps to calm/de-escalate the situation, when feasible,” and to “assume a quiet, nonthreatening manner.” Hunsicker said no one had used a bullhorn or tried other ways to resolve her brother’s crisis peacefully. Instead, Splain and another trooper eventually entered the house. Frendt, still inside, later told the deputy coroner that the troopers ordered him to leave, the coroner’s report said. On his way out, he heard one of them demand that Rotkewicz drop his weapon, followed by two gunshots, the report said. Splain shot Rotkewicz twice in the chest, records show. Pennsylvania State Police later said that Rotkewicz had pointed the Uzi at Splain. For this, his unit named him trooper of the year. In a letter later nominating Splain for the Lehigh County officer of the year, his commanding officer wrote that Rotkewicz had a “history of mental disease” and was “threatening his life and the lives of others.” Splain had seen Rotkewicz holding the Uzi beneath his chin, the letter said, but it did not mention any electrical tape. The letter then said Rotkewicz “ignored repeated orders from Trooper Splain to stop and drop the firearm” and “lowered the gun forward” toward the trooper. In a court filing years later, a lawyer for state police acknowledged that Rotkewicz had affixed the Uzi “to his chest and neck by means of the black-colored electrical tape.” Although it’s possible Rotkewicz broke the tape, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy wrote, “The tape has been wrapped several times about the neck and is kinked in several areas.” The Pennsylvania State Police typically assign a lead investigator from the same troop’s major case team to lead the criminal inquiry. At the time, Splain worked out of the headquarters of Troop M — the same barracks as the lead investigator. Joseph Kuhns, a criminologist at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte who did a study for the Major Cities Chiefs Association on investigations of police shootings, called it “highly unusual” to assign officers from the same unit to examine a shooting. For almost 10 years, state police resisted Hunsicker’s efforts to obtain the police investigative report so she could find out what happened to her brother. In a court filing, her lawyer said the police’s refusal to provide the report was an effort to “cover up wrongful conduct.” She didn’t know the name of the officer who killed her brother until a Times reporter told her. James B. Martin, a Republican who is the longtime district attorney of Lehigh County, said that, after meeting with the lead investigator, he had ruled the shooting justified — a decision he called a “no-brainer.” He said he did not recall any claims that the gun had been taped to Rotkewicz. Martin saw nothing wrong with allowing police to investigate themselves. “The Pennsylvania State Police is a troop of 4,500 very well-qualified police officers who do an excellent job, and their integrity, as far as I’m concerned, is beyond reproach,” he said. A different choice On a Saturday in May 2017, Anthony Ardo threatened to kill himself by blowing his head off with an explosive in Lower Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County. Addicted to drugs for years, the 47-year-old was reeling after a breakup and being evicted by his mother, Jean Monaghan. After she called 911 seeking help for him, Splain and a junior trooper, Eddie Pagan, came to her family farm and persuaded her to lure him back. Ardo pulled up but then appeared to reverse his Buick Reatta, according to the officers’ accounts. Rather than let him go, the troopers ran out the back door and got in their two patrol cars, hidden from view. They trapped the Buick between their cruisers, hopped out and drew their firearms, the troopers told police investigators. Within seconds, the troopers began shooting, according to Monaghan. Lawyers for Monaghan said they believe that Splain, who fired nine times, killed Ardo with the last three bullets. The troopers later said they feared for their lives, according to court filings, as Ardo, sitting in the driver’s seat, appeared to be lighting something around his neck. That turned out to be a common aerial firework. In an interview, the dead man’s mother wondered why the officers hadn’t tried to de-escalate the situation by stepping away. “They rushed him and didn’t even give him a chance,” said Monaghan, who said she watched the confrontation from her window and later filed a wrongful death lawsuit. She added, “They were in no way in harm’s way if they would have just backed up and left him alone.” Within an hour of Ardo’s shooting, a state police lieutenant called John Morganelli, the district attorney in Northampton County at the time and a Democrat, to ask how the prosecutor wanted to handle the investigation, according to a grand jury report later made public. Morganelli decided his office would take the lead and assigned a county detective. But the lieutenant soon told Morganelli that his bosses “would not yield the criminal investigation,” the report said. Apparently because of that dispute, no one interviewed either trooper for about a month. During that time, the two men talked to each other and watched dashcam videos of the shooting, they acknowledged later. Law enforcement experts warn that allowing officers to share information before interviews can lead them to align their stories. Splain disclosed his earlier fatal shooting to Pagan, both men said in depositions. “Most of the conversations revolved around him giving me advice as to how to handle the stress,” Pagan said. State police assigned an investigator from Troop M’s major case team to lead the inquiry. Superior officers later told the grand jury that they rely on investigating troopers to report any potential conflicts of interest. Trooper Michael Everk, the lead investigator, declined to comment for this article. He had worked with Splain on a marijuana bust, state police newsletters show. While interviewing the troopers, Everk referred to Pagan as “Eddie” several times instead of speaking more formally, as he did in other interviews. Morganelli brought the case to a grand jury, which concluded that the shooting was justified. But the jurors also issued a second, public report accusing state police leaders of a “somewhat arrogant view of superiority” over other law enforcement agencies. The panel also found investigators gave troopers “special treatment” that is “not generally afforded to others who are the subject of a criminal investigation.” The next year, Splain was moved to Troop L in Lebanon County. ‘The gravest of situations’ Pier Hess Graf, the Lebanon County district attorney, hosts an annual fundraiser, “Back the Blue,” for a Pennsylvania nonprofit that helps the families of slain officers. Her husband is a state police corporal. Advocates of reform say such apparent conflicts of interest highlight the need for independent, arm’s-length criminal investigations into killings by police. Some police departments now call in district attorneys from neighboring counties; others have independent units to investigate fatalities. In recent years, states including California, New Jersey and New York shifted many of these investigations to the state attorney general’s office. But last year, Graf oversaw an investigation into another fatal shooting involving Splain. At the time, her husband was based in the same barracks. Early on March 16, 2020, Charity Thome, 42, who had mental illness and drug addiction, fled officers after she was caught trying to break into her former home, records show. Officer Ryan Haase of the North Lebanon Police Department started pursuing her Honda Accord; he soon told dispatchers he was ending the chase because, with few cars on the road at that hour, the woman was not endangering the public. But then Splain and a rookie, Trooper Matthew Haber, joined him. Thome led police on a “lengthy high-speed chase,” Graf said later, with “no regard for traffic lights, signs, police sirens, other vehicles on the roadway or the safety of the general public.” Many police departments ban high-speed pursuits of nonviolent offenders, especially if officers know who they are and can find them later. Instead, records show, Splain performed a risky maneuver to force Thome to stop. The Accord spun out into a field. Thome then drove into Haase’s SUV. The two troopers jumped out of their vehicle, guns drawn. “Stop, stop, get out of the car, show me your hands,” Splain recalled shouting, according to a police interview quoted in a lawsuit filed by Thome’s family. He fired first, followed by the rookie. Thome, hit seven times, died almost instantly, according to the lawsuit. In an April 2020 news release describing the killing, Graf said Thome “accelerated forward and drove into” the officer’s vehicle. The release also described Splain and Haber as saying they feared multiple outcomes, including Thome reversing and running over officers or continuing “to ram” the SUV. But Haase estimated her speed to be 5 mph, adding that he was more worried about damage to his vehicle than about his safety, according to his interviews with police included in the lawsuit. Neither vehicle’s air bags deployed, the lawsuit said; a photograph showed that the SUV suffered minimal damage. No police commands could be heard in a dashcam video. Splain told police 30 seconds had elapsed between his leaving the car and shooting. The video, included in the lawsuit, shows it took only a few seconds. “Their job was to talk her out of the vehicle and into safety,” said Thomas Kline, a lawyer for Thome’s family. “And instead, they did just the opposite, which was to fire multiple rounds of bullets into her pinned-down vehicle, leaving her defenseless and tragically dead.” Agency policy says Pennsylvania state troopers should not shoot at moving vehicles unless the driver “poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury,” or if shooting is the last resort to prevent a suspect in a violent felony from escaping. In the release, Graf said she had assigned her detective bureau to oversee the investigation, which involved several agencies. It drew on the state police inquiry, which was led by an investigator based out of the same troop as Splain, the Times found. Graf had determined that the shooting was justified after about a month — a relatively fast conclusion compared with similar inquiries reviewed by reporters. In response to questions from the Times, Graf didn’t address any potential conflict of interest and said she stood by her decisions. “Law enforcement involved in this case committed the most serious human act — they took a life,” Graf said in the news release announcing her ruling. She added, “They did so knowing the use of deadly force is necessary in only the gravest of situations.” The 4th killing Andy Dzwonchyk, a 40-year-old metal worker who had once been named “loudest laugh” and voted president of his high school class, was unraveling by November. Amy Hastings, his girlfriend of 20 years, had left, weary of his drug use. She obtained a protection order after he badgered her to come back and talked of killing himself in front of their two sons if she did not return. “Andy never threatened me or the kids,” Hastings said. About 10:40 p.m. Nov. 7, Hastings called 911 because Dzwonchyk kept texting, in violation of the order. Two troopers showed up, including Splain. While Hastings talked to them, Dzwonchyk, who was caring for their sons, texted again, saying he needed a thermometer for one boy, who was sick, Hastings recalled. She went inside because it was cold. Then Dzwonchyk, who lived down the road from where she was staying, drove up. The troopers tried to arrest Dzwonchyk in his car, but a struggle ensued, according to a police spokesperson at a news conference the next morning. Trooper David Beohm said one officer had gotten caught inside the vehicle, which advanced and reversed, dragging him, although he was not injured. “It wasn’t like a real fast back-and-forth,” Beohm said. Dzwonchyk’s 1999 Beetle was a stick shift, making it difficult to go forward and backward quickly. Attempts to subdue Dzwonchyk with a Taser didn’t work, according to the spokesperson. Only then, he said, did the other officer fire his weapon. That was Splain.
Missouri congresswoman says she was sent to Washington to disrupt the political order that had long stopped working for people like herself But as the St Louis congresswoman sees it, she was sent to Washington to disrupt a political order that had long ago stopped working for people like herself – a nurse, pastor and activist who has worked for minimum wage, once lived out of a car and raised two children as a single mother. And she says she is only just getting started. “I ran and I lost and I ran and I lost. I kept running because there was a mission behind it,” Bush said in an interview. “It wasn’t about me wanting to be somebody in Congress – I know some people have those aspirations – but, for me, it was more about the mission. And I have not completed that mission yet.” Halfway through an extraordinary first term, and gearing up for reelection, Bush is one of the most recognizable – and quotable – members of the House. Part of the progressive “Squad”, she believes deeply that her own personal hardships make her a better and more responsive representative. Her personal story is what connects her to her constituents and what sets her apart in Congress. When her colleagues left Washington for their weeks-long summer recess without securing an extension of the federal eviction moratorium, Bush stayed behind. Having experienced the pain of poverty and eviction, she couldn’t fathom leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans vulnerable to homelessness as the coronavirus ravaged the US. In an instant, she decided to stage a sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol. Her protest on the Capitol steps drew widespread national attention and effectively shamed party leaders into finding a solution where they had insisted there was none. Eventually, the White House extended the temporary ban on evictions. The hard-won victory was an important moment for Bush and her team. She said it proved to her constituents in St Louis that she would always put them first, even if it put her at odds with Democrats, party leadership, even the president of the United States. “For us, winning that extension of the eviction moratorium was a huge part of the story of who we said that we would be in Congress, we said we would do the work, do the absolute most, and that was the absolute most we could do.” Now, she continued, “the White House knows that about us, too.” Bush describes herself a “politivist” – part politician, part activist. In her view, the roles are complementary, not oppositional. “Oftentimes people expect you, because you hear it in your communities, that when you go to Congress, you’re going to change. That is the expectation,” she said. “I think that we’ve already been able to show that St Louis is first…. St Louis is the heart of every single thing that we do.” Bush rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson, Missouri, where the movement was born after the 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr was shot and killed by a white police officer. The daughter of a local alderman, Bush said it wasn’t until the protests that she considered running for public office. In 2020, Bush became the first Black woman to represent the state of Missouri when she was elected to Congress after two unsuccessful campaigns – first for Senate in 2016 and again in 2018 for Congress. To win, she unseated the Democratic incumbent, William Lacy Clay. Clay had held the seat for 20 years, having succeeded his father, William Clay Sr, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, who was first elected in 1968. She was sworn in three days before the Capitol was attacked by a pro-Trump mob. “We were still moving into our office when the insurrection happened,” she said. “We didn’t have a panic button yet.” “So that was our introduction to Congress,” she continued. “Since we started off in such an unexpected place, a horrible place, for us, it was just like, ‘OK, dig in.’” While locked in their office, Bush and her staff drafted a resolution to “investigate and expel” any member of Congress who attempted to overturn the election results and “incited a white supremacist attack”. The resolution reflected the increasing hostility between members of Congress. At times, Bush has said she feels targeted by her own colleagues. Shortly after the attack, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ordered the relocation of Bush’s office, after she asked to be moved away from congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene out of concern for her staff’s safety. Earlier this month, Bush joined House progressives in pressuring the party’s leaders to strip congresswoman Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments over her Islamophobic comments targeting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim. At a press conference, she unloaded on Boebert, calling her a “lying, Islamophobic, race-baiting, violence-inciting, white supremacist sentiment-spreading, Christmas tree gun-toting elected official” who is a “danger” to her country and her colleagues. Like her colleagues in the “squad”, Bush has been unafraid to challenge Democratic leaders, even the president. “I am who I am,” she said. “I don’t take off my activist hat to be able to legislate in Congress. And so that has been the guiding force this entire time.” During a tense standoff over Biden’s agenda earlier this year, Bush charged Democratic leaders with breaking their promise to progressives by decoupling two pieces of Biden’s agenda – a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping social policy package. In a word, she captured progressives’ sense of betrayal: “Bamboozled.” TV network chyrons snapped to reflect the comment and soon Bush was on TV arguing their case. House leaders delayed the vote. A month later, Bush was one of just six House Democrats to vote against the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law last month. Not because she opposed the legislation, which would spend billions upgrading Missouri’s bridges and highways, but because she feared that passing the bill without the larger social policy that was a priority for progressives would sap them of their leverage. Bush now fears she was correct. After a months-long effort to appease conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin announced that he could not support the $2.2tn social safety net bill, dooming its chances in the evenly divided chamber. Bush, who previously denounced Manchin’s opposition to the package as “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant”, laid the blame squarely on party leadership. “Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator. No one should have backed out of our initial strategy that would have kept Build Back Better alive,” she tweeted. Tagging the president, she said: “You need to fix this. Still, the activist in Bush is not done fighting for the measure, which passed the House in November. “We cannot spend the next year saying, ‘the House did its part, and now it’s the Senate’s turn,’” she said recently. “We need the Senate to actually get this done.” Bush is also working to elevate issues of racial justice that she said the party does not do enough to prioritize. Efforts to pass police reform collapsed earlier this year, and voting rights legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The supreme court will soon decide the future of abortion access. Bush said her Capitol protest was inspired by the moment, but she does not rule out future action. “If I feel led to move in that way, based upon whatever is happening, it is never off the table for me,” she said. Some lawmakers are critical of her legislative style. They call it divisive at worst and naive at best. The suggestion is that she will eventually have to learn to compromise and play by the rules. But in light of Manchin’s opposition, Bush is even more certain of her approach. “If that were the gold star, we would be a lot further in this country,” she said. “There’s more than one way to get things done.”
Tony Timpa died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for 14 minutes. A court originally denied his family the right to sue. But earlier this month, the Fifth Circuit issued a decision in a case, Timpa v. Dillard, that offers renewed hope that people whose constitutional rights have been violated can get justice in court. Tony Timpa called the Dallas police in August 2016 to ask for help. The 32-year-old, white, college-educated executive was off the medication he usually took for anxiety and schizophrenia, as he told the police dispatcher. But when five Dallas police officers arrived on the side of the road where Timpa was, they did not give him the help he needed. Instead, they handcuffed him behind his back, zip-tied his feet, and Officer Dustin Dillard put his knee and bodyweight on Timpa’s back. The officers’ body cameras recorded Timpa crying for help, pleading with them, saying “you’re gonna kill me!” over and over again. After nine minutes under Officer Dillard’s knee, Timpa stopped moving. After 11 minutes, Timpa went limp, then silent. The officers joked and laughed that Timpa had fallen asleep. All of this was caught on the officers' body cameras. They had been trained that keeping someone in a prone position under an officer’s bodyweight was dangerous. But Dillard kneeled on Timpa for more than 14 minutes. When an ambulance arrived, Dillard can be heard in the body camera video saying, “I hope I didn’t kill him.” More laughter. Once Timpa was in the ambulance, paramedics announced that he wasn’t breathing and performed CPR. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Timpa’s family sued. In July 2020, just five weeks after George Floyd was murdered under the knee of Derek Chauvin, a judge in Texas granted qualified immunity to the officers who killed Timpa in almost exactly the same way. Judge gave officers qualified immunity Qualified immunity is a defense to civil liability for police officers and other government officials, even if they have violated the Constitution, if they have not violated “clearly established” law. The Supreme Court’s decisions have repeatedly made clear that the law is not clearly established unless there is a prior court decision with nearly identical facts. The judge hearing Timpa v. Dillard assumed that the officers violated the Constitution, but granted them qualified immunity from a civil lawsuit because there was no prior court case holding that it was unconstitutional to hold an unarmed person in a prone position for more than 14 minutes. A court found in a previous case that officers used excessive force when they hogtied a person – restraining his hands and feet behind his back – and placed him face down, killing him. But the judge concluded that the prior case did not “clearly establish” that what the officers did to Timpa was unconstitutional. Although the officers handcuffed Timpa's wrists, zip-tied his ankles and placed him face down in a prone position, the officers did not attach ankle and wrist restraints. So, he was not hogtied. Based on that minor factual distinction, the judge concluded the law was not clearly established and dismissed the lawsuit. On Dec. 15, the Fifth Circuit reversed the trial court’s decision making clear that officers violated the Fourth Amendment and are not entitled to qualified immunity when they use force on someone who is “restrained and subdued.” The appeals court also said that Timpa's family did not need to find a prior court decision where force was used under the same circumstances to get past qualified immunity. Court rules family can file lawsuit Perhaps the judges were compelled by a recent Supreme Court decision that made clear that keeping someone in a prone position can violate the Constitution, or the similarities to Floyd’s case. Perhaps the judges were persuaded by wide-ranging criticisms of qualified immunity doctrine, or to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Taylor v. Riojas that determined prior similar cases were unnecessary when a constitutional violation is obvious. Whatever the reason, the Timpa case is an important decision for people whose rights have been violated in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. This decision is the Timpas only hope for justice. Unlike Chauvin, who was prosecuted, convicted and sent to prison for more than 22 years, the officers who killed Timpa did not face criminal penalties. A grand jury indicted three of the officers, but the Dallas district attorney dropped the charges. The Dallas Police Department gave a written reprimand to the officers and sent them back to work. The Timpas have not won their lawsuit – they only won the right to go to trial. And juries are notoriously hostile to plaintiffs in civil rights cases. But the Fifth Circuit’s decision is a step in the right direction – for the Timpas and for the Constitution.
According to the report, at least three of the killers are residing and working in villas operated by the Saudi State Security Agency, in a compound in Riyadh. Family members are reportedly allowed to visit the men, and the "seven-star" housing units include gyms and offices. The Guardian reported that Salah al-Tubaigy, the forensic expert who dismembered Khashoggi, was seen inside the compound. Mustafa al-Madani, the man who posed as Khashoggi's body double, and Mansour Abahussein, the lead operative, were also spotted in sightings between 2019 and 2020. Over the last two years, witnesses saw caterers, family members, and gardeners visiting the men, the Guardian reported. Khashoggi, a prominent commentator and columnist for The Washington Post, was once within the Royal family's circle, but their opinion of him soured once his work became critical of the family's dealings. Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 after he went to the consulate to pick up marital documents needed to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. Turkish officials, along with UN and US officials, corroborated the allegations that Khashoggi's body was dismembered with a bone saw. His remains have yet to be found. In February, the Biden administration declassified a CIA intelligence report, which directly implicated the Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi's murder. "We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi," said the report, provided by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A UN report issued after Khashoggi's killing seconded the claim, saying that "Assessments of the recordings by intelligence officers in Turkey and other countries suggest that Mr. Khashoggi could have been injected with a sedative and then suffocated using a plastic bag." A Turkish court is currently trying 26 Saudi nationals connected to the murder in absentia, with the next trial date set for July 8. The Saudi government, after a series of excuses, admitted that Khashoggi was killed in a "rogue operation," and placed 11 individuals on trial. Five people were sentenced to death in December 2019 by the Riyadh Criminal Court for "committing and directly participating in the murder of the victim" while three others were handed prison sentences. The Guardian reported all of the men spotted in the complex were tried and sentenced as part of the trial, which was heavily criticized around the globe. Ahmad Asiri and Saud al-Qahtani, two high-ranking officials close to MBS, scraped by with no charges. After the ruling, Cengiz said, "The ruling handed down today in Saudi Arabia again makes a complete mockery of justice." Khashoggi's murder ignited a global pressure campaign against the Saudi regime, prompting officials in the US and abroad to briefly question their diplomatic relationships with Saudi Arabia. After President Biden's first meeting with MBS in early March, he reportedly refused to sanction the Saudi regime over Khashoggi's killing.
National security police said they charged two men, aged 34 and 52, with one count each of conspiracy to publish a seditious publication but did not identify them. According to local media reports, the two are Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, who were editors at Stand News, an online pro-democracy news outlet. Police also said they would prosecute the company for sedition. Chung and Lam were being taken to West Kowloon court on Thursday, police said in a statement. The other arrestees have been detained for further questioning. Apart from Chung and Lam, four other former Stand News board members, including singer Denise Ho and former lawmaker Margaret Ng, were arrested on Wednesday. Ho was released from police custody on Thursday afternoon. Chan Pui-man, a former editor at the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper and Chung's wife, was also arrested. The seven were arrested under a crime ordinance that dates from Hong Kong's days as a British colony before 1997, when it was returned to China. Those convicted could face up to two years in prison and a fine of up to 5,000 Hong Kong dollars ($640). Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said at a news conference Thursday that the arrests were not targeted at the media. "Journalism is not sedition, but seditious acts and activities and inciting other people through other acts and activities could not be condoned under the guise of news reporting," she said. "It should be very clear what is reporting of news, and what is seditious acts or activities to undermine national security." Her comments came after U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called on Hong Kong authorities to release the detainees. "Freedom of expression, including media freedom, and access to information provided by an independent media are critical to prosperous and secure societies. These freedoms enabled Hong Kong to flourish as a global center for finance, trade, education, and culture," Blinken said in a statement. "By silencing independent media, (Chinese) and local authorities undermine Hong Kong's credibility and viability. A confident government that is unafraid of the truth embraces a free press." The United States has also sanctioned five Hong Kong-based Chinese officials following legislative council elections in the city earlier this month for reducing Hong Kong's autonomy and freedoms. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing Thursday that China will respond by imposing countermeasures on five Americans, including former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission President Carolyn Bartholomew. Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly tweeted on Wednesday that her country is "deeply concerned by the arrests in Hong Kong of current and former board and staff members from Stand News, including Canadian citizen and activist Denise Ho." "Freedom of media and expression remain cornerstones of democracy and essential to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms," she said. "We will continue to speak out and denounce violations of these freedoms, in partnership with our international allies." Stand News said Wednesday that it is ceasing operations and had laid off all its staff. The arrests and raid on Stand News come as authorities crack down on dissent in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. Hong Kong police previously raided the offices of the now-defunct Apple Daily, seizing boxes of materials and computer hard drives to assist in their investigation and freezing millions in assets that later forced the newspaper to cease operations.
Eko, a Malayan tiger, was 8 years old. The man, who was left seriously injured from the attack, is in his 20s and is employed by a third-party service responsible for cleaning the gift shop and restrooms, according to the Collier County Sheriff's Office. He was not authorized to be near the tiger enclosure. Police said that the man had been attempting to either pet or feed the animal when he put his arm through a second fence barrier. The tiger then grabbed the man's arm and pulled it into the enclosure, the sheriff's office said. When the first deputy arrived on the scene, attempts to get the tiger to release the man's arm from its mouth failed, said authorities, and "the deputy was forced to shoot the animal." The zoo has a trained shoot team and lead darter for daily crisis activity when the zoo is open, but the incident occurred when the zoo was closed, Courtney Jolly, Naples Zoo director of public relations and marketing, told reporters Thursday morning. "At the end of the day, if a person is in imminent danger, they have to take that action," Jolly said, "and we support CCSO [Collier County Sheriff's Office] and the officer had to, unfortunately, do his job." Police released bodycam footage of the incident on Thursday. Jolly said that the zoo has never had an incident like this before, and no one has ever breached the barrier fence and put themselves in that situation. The zoo decided to close on Dec. 30 as investigations continue. "We're giving our staff some time to process what has happened, but also give them some time to start the grieving process and healing process," Jolly said. "It is a very sad day at the zoo."
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