Saturday, July 4, 2020

Daily Kos Recommended: Trump 'furious' at Kushner over polling; Republicans giving Trump till Labor Day to right the ship






A white Michigan woman who reportedly bumped into a Black teen was shown on viral video pulling out a pistol on the child's mother in an encounter Wednesday evening that led to assault charges for the armed woman and a man she was with. The encounter began when the child identified by The Detroit News as Makayla Green asked the woman to apologize for bumping into her outside of a Chipotle restaurant about 40 miles northwest of Detroit in Orion Township. 
“Before I could walk into Chipotle, this woman was coming out, and I had moved out the way so she can walk out," Green said. “She bumped me, and I said, 'Excuse you.' And then she started cussing me out and saying things like I was invading her personal space.”
Green told the newspaper she called her mother, Takelia Hill, over because she was afraid. “I walked up on the woman yelling at my daughter," Hill said. “She couldn’t see me because her back was to me, but she was in my daughter's face."
Early video of the encounter picked up more than 11 million views before extended footage of the incident was released Thursday on YouTube.
WARNING: This video contains profanity and offensive language.
It started with Hill and another woman on the scene asking the suspect in question to apologize. She didn’t at that point in the video, and instead responded by challenging the women to “call the police.” “We will, but you’re not gonna sit there and violate a 15-year-old,” one of the women said.
The encounter escalated to profanity and accusations of racism soon after, and the assault suspects got into their SUV. “You can not just walk around calling white people racists,” the passenger said. “This is not that type of world. White people aren’t racist. No one’s racist. I care about you. I care about you, and I’m sorry if you had an incident that has made someone make you feel like that. No one is racist.”
Video shows the SUV rolling backward at one point, and a loud thump sounded. At that point, Hill accused the suspects of trying to hit her, and both the man and woman inside the vehicle got out and produced guns, the video showed.
“Get the f—k back!” the man yelled, holding a gun. The woman he was with pointed her gun toward the women and told them to “get away.” She also instructed the man she was with to call police. Hill agreed to the police being called and instructed another person off-camera to get the woman’s license plate. “Oh, both of y’all pulling guns out on me, OK,” she said at one point. The two went back and forth before the armed woman eventually shouted, “get the f—k back!” and got into the SUV.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said during a news conference Thursday that both the minivan's driver and passenger were arrested and are facing felonious assault charges.
Oakland County Executive David Coulter said in a statement posted on the township's website that he was "deeply disturbed" by the encounter. "This behavior is unacceptable," he said. "I wholly expect the prosecutor to bring charges that reflect the severity of the incident.”
Hill said in a Facebook post: “So this is America....I’ve never in my life had a gun pulled out on me let alone two and while I had my three daughters I’ve never felt so helpless in my life I’m so shaken up.”
WARNING: This video contains profanity and offensive language.


A Florida police chief is defending officers shown on newly released body cam video cursing and laughing after shooting demonstrators with rubber bullets at a George Floyd protest May 31. “Did you see me f--k up those motherf----rs?” one of the officers is shown asking after firing at demonstrators. “I got the one f---er,” the other responded with laughter audible in the video.
To make matters worse, Det. Zachary Baro, who’s in charge of the Fort Lauderdale SWAT team, encouraged officers and even said “beat it, little f---er” when a protester threw back a tear gas canister police lobbed at demonstrators. At one point in the encounter, Baro was seen telling officer Jamie Chatman, who had asked him about it, that his body camera wasn’t recording. 
“Thankfully they were WRONG — and now we know how they actually feel about protestors,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said Thursday on Twitter.
Still, when given the chance to comment by the Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione only criticized the paper.
“Your story shows less than 3 minutes of an 8 minute and 43 second long video,” the police chief said. “The entire video clearly demonstrates our officers were under attack by a group of people who chose to use violence instead of peace to antagonize the situation. Although the language is extreme, and offensive to some, our officers were dealing with the chaos of a developing situation.“
Even though the footage the Miami Herald obtained seemed to support protesters’ claims that any violence on their part was in response to “police aggression,” Maglione did not respond to the Herald’s questions regarding whether the officers would be disciplined or investigated.
One officer, who the newspaper identified as Steven Pohorence, was shown in another viral video clip pushing a woman in the head as she kneeled, and when protesters threw plastic water bottles in response, police launched tear gas. “Please I am begging you, we’re peaceful,” one protester can be heard screaming.
Poherence was charged with misdemeanor battery, the Herald reported, and within about 15 minutes of his pushing encounter, Baro had fired so many rubber bullets he had to reload his six-chamber launcher, the Herald reported. “If you need it, give me a target,” Baro screamed to other officers.
Robert Drago, a retired lieutenant colonel at the Broward Sheriff’s Office, told the Miami Herald: “If you’re not seeing a threat, why are you asking for a threat? That would almost lead you to believe that they were indiscriminately firing.”
George Kirkham, a former police officer, told the newspaper: "This is serious misconduct." He said he’s been in riot situation and knows what it’s like to have your adrenaline pumping, but that “does not excuse that kind of verbiage and behavior.”
"This is people with badges acting like thugs," Kirkham told the Herald. "It's like a cancer. If you let it go, it will spread."
ICYMI: Here are the top stories of the week so far:














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