18 May 22
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As part of the plea deal, Thomas Lane will have a count of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder dismissed. Lane, along with J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, has already been convicted on federal counts of willfully violating Floyd's rights during the May 2020 restraint that led to the Black man's death.
The state is recommending a sentence of three years for Lane and has agreed to allow him to serve the time in a federal prison.
Their former colleague, Derek Chauvin, pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of violating Floyd's civil rights and faces a federal sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years. Chauvin earlier was convicted of state charges of murder and manslaughter and sentenced to 22 1/2 years in the state case.
Lane's plea comes during a week when the country is focused on the deaths of 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York, at the hands of an 18-year-old white man, who carried out the racist, livestreamed shooting Saturday in a supermarket.
Floyd, 46, died May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck, as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe. Lane and Kueng helped to restrain Floyd, who was handcuffed. Lane held down Floyd's legs and Kueng knelt on Floyd's back. Thao kept bystanders from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint.
Lane, who is white, was convicted along with Kueng and Thao of federal charges in February, after a monthlong trial that focused on the officers' training and the culture of the police department. All three were convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the killing, which was caught on video and sparked protests around the world.
After their federal conviction, there was a question as to whether the state trial would proceed. At an April hearing in state court, prosecutors revealed that they had offered plea deals to all three men, but they were rejected. At the time, Lane's attorney, Earl Gray, said it was hard for the defense to negotiate when the three still didn't know what their federal sentences would be.
Kueng, who is Black, and Thao, who is Hmong American, also scheduled to go to trial in June on state charges.
"Hopefully, this plea helps usher in a new era where officers understand that juries will hold them accountable, just as they would any other citizen," family attorneys Ben Crump, Jeff Storms and Antonio Romanucci said. "Perhaps soon, officers will not require families to endure the pain of lengthy court proceedings where their criminal acts are obvious and apparent."
Chauvin pleaded guilty last year to a federal charge of violating Floyd's civil rights and faces a federal sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years. The former officer earlier was convicted of state charges of murder and manslaughter is currently serving 22 1/2 years in the state case.
Lane's plea comes during a week when the country is focused on the deaths of 10 Black people in Buffalo, New York, at the hands of an 18-year-old white man, who carried out the racist, livestreamed shooting Saturday in a supermarket.
3 former officers were convicted in a federal trial
Lane, Kueng and Thao were convicted of federal charges in February, after a monthlong trial that focused on the officers' training and the culture of the police department. All three were convicted of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care and Thao and Kueng were also convicted of failing to intervene to stop Chauvin during the killing.
After their federal conviction, there was a question as to whether the state trial would proceed. At an April hearing in state court, prosecutors revealed that they had offered plea deals to all three men, but they were rejected. At the time Gray said it was hard for the defense to negotiate when the three still didn't know what their federal sentences would be.
Under state sentencing guidelines, a person with no criminal record would face a sentence ranging from just under 3 1/2 years to four years and nine moths in prison for second-degree unintentional manslaughter, with the presumptive sentence being four years. Lane's recommended sentence of three years, which still must be approved by the judge, would be less. Prosecutors served notice back in 2020 that they intended to seek longer sentences for Lane, Kueng and Thao.
If Lane had been convicted of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, he would have faced a presumptive 12 1/2 years in prison.
"That's a very sweet deal," John Baker, a former defense attorney who teaches aspiring police officers at St. Cloud State University, said of Lane's agreement. "I don't know how much sweeter the state could've been in an offer for a plea deal."
Baker said a guilty plea makes sense since Lane was looking at much more time if convicted at trial, and is likely going to serve time in federal prison anyway. He said he assumes the same offer has been extended to Thao and Kueng, and he would not be surprised if at least one of them decides to take it.
Lawyers for 2 other officers decline to comment
An attorney for Thao, Robert Paule, was in the courtroom for Lane's plea hearing. When asked if his client would also plead guilty, he replied "No comment."
Kueng's attorney, Tom Plunkett, also declined to comment.
Storms, one of the Floyd family attorneys, said the deal with Lane happened "very quickly." When asked if he knew of any other possible negotiations with Thao or Kueng, he said: "I think the family is hopeful, now that a state and federal jury have spoken, that the other officers will voluntarily be held accountable."
Barring any additional pleas, Kueng, who is Black, and Thao, who is Hmong American, are still scheduled to go to trial in June on state charges. They remain free on bond as they await trial.
3 years versus at least 12 1/2 - it's a no brainer.
As with other cases, were it not for the bystander video, these thugs might not have been convicted.
If the previous complaints against CHAUVIN had been addressed and his brutality curbed, maybe GEORGE FLOYD's death could have been prevented. We'll never know what the failure to act caused.
excerpts:
As part of the plea deal, Thomas Lane will have a count of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder dismissed.
The state is recommending a sentence of three years for Lane and has agreed to allow him to serve the time in a federal prison.
If Lane had been convicted of aiding and abetting second-degree murder, he would have faced a presumptive 12 1/2 years in prison.
Matthew DePerno speaks to supporters of former president Donald Trump on Oct. 12, 2021, at the Michigan Capitol to demand an audit of the 2020 election. (photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
The confirmation of the meeting provides new evidence of the success that the president’s allies had in gaining access to top administration officials
The meeting came as Trump’s allies were pressing theories that election machines had been hacked by foreign powers and were angling for Trump to employ the vast powers of the national security establishment to seize voting machines or even rerun the election.
Robert A. Destro, a law professor at Catholic University of America then serving as an assistant secretary of state, confirmed to The Washington Post he met with the two men — Colorado podcaster Joe Oltmann and Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno — in the midst of the tumultuous day.
The two men have previously claimed to have huddled on Jan. 6 with State Department leaders, who Oltmann has said were sympathetic to the claims that a “coup” was underway to steal the presidency from Trump. They have not identified with whom they met. Destro’s acknowledgment is the first independent confirmation that they successfully gained the high-level audience. It is unclear whether the meeting led to any action.
Oltmann and DePerno played important behind-the-scenes roles in crafting the baseless allegations that the election was stolen from Trump, a review of emails and public statements from Trump allies shows. The State Department meeting provides new evidence of the success that activists spreading false claims about the election had in gaining access to top administration officials. Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows was in close contact with activists pushing false fraud narratives, as were high-level officials at the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Little is known about the origins of the session at the State Department. The department is responsible for international diplomacy, and former officials said meetings that revolve around domestic elections would be highly unusual.
In response to questions from The Post, Destro confirmed in an email that he met with Oltmann and DePerno, now the Republican nominee for attorney general in Michigan. But Destro declined to answer other questions, including what was discussed that day, whether other officials took part and whether anyone took action as a result.
“I met with hundreds of American citizens and foreign nationals during my time at State, all of whom had foreign-focused issues to discuss,” wrote Destro, who served as the assistant secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from September 2019 to the end of Trump’s term. “I won’t talk about any of the details of those meetings, either.”
Before joining the State Department, Destro was a law professor who specialized in religious liberty and had served as an adviser to religious organizations. He has appeared on a podcast hosted by Tony Perkins, president of the socially conservative Family Research Council.
Oltmann and DePerno did not respond to questions about the meeting.
As part of his candidacy to become Michigan’s top law enforcement officer, DePerno described the meeting on a questionnaire from a pro-Trump interest group. “On January 6, 2021, I was in the State Department briefing Mike Pompeo’s staff on how the election was stolen,” DePerno wrote. He added in parenthesis: “NOTE to reader: don’t tell the Feds!"
In various podcasts and on social media, Oltmann has also described the meeting, suggesting he had a series of high-level meetings with officials at the State Department and asserting that they were impressed by information he presented that he claimed proved the election was stolen. He has been coy about naming the officials.
“I was actually in the State Department meeting with leadership,” he said in one podcast appearance on Jan. 11, 2021. He said he had not “been cleared” to name the officials with whom he met but added: “I met with leadership at every level. Every level. Bar none.”
Oltmann also described being taken to a secure area of the building that was “cherry wood lined” with “pictures of past presidents and people who have served.” The description appears to match the area of the State Department’s seventh floor known as Mahogany Row, where the offices of the secretary and his top aides are located. The assistant secretary position then-held by Destro does not typically have an office on Mahogany Row.
In a social media post, Oltmann wrote that he had met with “the right people” at the State Department, and, in another podcast appearance, he described how department officials reacted with shock to the information he shared.
“They said, ‘If this is true, this is a coup,’ ” Oltmann recounted. “I said, ‘Well, that’s exactly, that’s what I would call it.’ ”
A spokesman for then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to comment about the meeting, including whether the secretary attended the session or had been aware of it. Pompeo’s public schedule indicates that he was attending meetings in Washington that day.
A Trump loyalist, Pompeo expressed sympathy for the then-president’s refusal to concede the election before Jan. 6. Asked by reporters a week after the election whether the department was engaging in a “smooth transition” to Joe Biden’s administration, Pompeo responded that there would be “a smooth transition to a second Trump administration, all right” — a remark that some of his aides later characterized as a joke.
But Pompeo was also one of the first Trump Cabinet members to forcefully denounce the Jan. 6 attack, tweeting at 6:16 that evening that the storming of the Capitol had been “unacceptable.”
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has expressed interest in the origin and weaponization of false claims that elections machines were hacked.
Trump’s outside supporters sought out potential allies across the government, including officials whose normal portfolios did not include elections. At the Justice Department, for instance, Trump allies worked closely with a mid-level official named Jeffrey Bossert Clark who was otherwise responsible for environmental civil litigation. Clark has said his communications were lawful.
The State Department’s designated point person on a White House deputies group that dealt with the possibility of foreign interference in the 2020 election was then-Deputy Secretary of State Steve Biegun.
In an interview, Biegun said that by Jan. 6, top government officials were convinced that theories such as those circulated by Oltmann and DePerno that held that foreign forces had hacked voting machines were “just complete and utter nonsense.”
“The information that has been at least disclosed by advocates of this theory has absolutely zero correlation with anything that was available to senior government officials, who had access to every bit of information within the United States government,” Biegun said.
Biegun said that, because of the coronavirus pandemic and street closures in Washington as a result of the events at the Capitol, he was one of the few employees working at the State Department on Jan. 6. He said he was not aware of Oltmann and DePerno’s meeting.
Virginia Bennett, a former career Foreign Service officer who was Destro’s predecessor as acting assistant secretary at the start of the Trump administration, said the job generally involves meeting with foreigners, as well as American activists involved in human rights advocacy overseas. But, she said, it would be atypical for the assistant secretary to hold meetings about U.S. elections.
“I cannot understand why anyone who was examining U.S. election practices and who was not foreign would have had a meeting at the State Department,” she said. “The Department of State has no authority from statute or other mandate over U.S. elections. Period. End of sentence.
“I don’t understand how anybody could have thought that was a good idea,” she added.
The department previously faced scrutiny when two State Department officials in the Obama administration met with former British spy Christopher Steele in October 2016 to discuss his opposition research alleging ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Steele’s work came on behalf of a subcontractor for the Clinton campaign, and his claims were ultimately not substantiated.
In that case, the Justice Department inspector general later found that one of the State Department officials quickly detailed the meeting to the department’s liaison to the FBI, which has responsibility for investigating foreign interference in elections, including flagging a piece of information provided by Steele that she knew to be incorrect.
How Oltmann and DePerno reached Destro is not clear. But the path the two men took to the inner sanctum of the State Department provides insight into how Trump’s desperate desire for evidence to prop up his false claims helped elevate previously unknown characters into national prominence when they asserted evidence of a stolen election.
A Kalamazoo-area attorney, DePerno had run once unsuccessfully for local office when he filed a lawsuit in November 2020 that argued a quickly corrected election night tabulation error in Michigan’s Antrim County provided evidence of a vast conspiracy to hack voting machines made by the company Dominion Voting Systems.
In December 2020, a judge agreed to give DePerno’s team access to voting machines for review. They produced a report that argued the machines showed signs of manipulation. Experts quickly denounced the report as riddled with errors — a finding later confirmed by a Republican-led state legislative committee in Michigan, and DePerno’s lawsuit was dismissed. But as Jan. 6 approached, Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani and others used the document to argue the election was rigged.
Oltmann was a businessman and activist little-known outside of Colorado when he stepped forward on his daily podcast with a wild claim days after the election. He alleged that weeks earlier, he had infiltrated a secret meeting of “antifa journalists” and overheard a man identify himself as Eric “the Dominion guy” and then tell the others: “Don’t worry about the election. Trump is not going to win. I made f---ing sure of that.”
Oltmann went on to name a Dominion employee who he alleged had made the promise to rig the election: Director of Strategy and Security Eric Coomer. Oltmann then circulated anti-Trump writings Coomer had posted to his friends on Facebook. Coomer has denied taking part in a call like the one Oltmann described or promising that Trump would not win the election. In December 2020, Coomer filed a defamation lawsuit against Oltmann in Colorado. A judge has fined Oltmann for refusing to name the person he claims gave him access to the meeting. On Friday, Colorado District Court Judge Marie Avery Moses declined to dismiss the case, ruling that Coomer has a reasonable likelihood of prevailing.
In the heated weeks after the election, Trump supporters seized on Oltmann’s story of a supposed high-level Dominion official who had pledged to swing the election, and Oltmann’s profile quickly rose. He appeared on numerous pro-Trump national media programs and filed a sworn statement in lawsuits to overturn the election that were spearheaded by the lawyer Sidney Powell, a Trump ally. Oltmann’s claim was also cited by Powell and Giuliani during a joint news conference at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in November 2020.
Oltmann was also a featured speaker at a rally at Washington’s Freedom Plaza on the evening of Jan. 5. During his speech, he presented a chart that he claimed proved Dominion machines had been hacked and concluded, “God will protect us, and God will make sure that President Trump is in office for another four years.”
Social media posts and emails produced in the litigation show that Oltmann and DePerno had joined forces by the morning of Jan. 6 and were working to spread their information to other Trump loyalists and, ultimately, to the president himself.
“I am publishing the Dominion audit raw data from Antrim County machines… Sitting with Matt DePerno and his information overlays this diagram.. perfectly,” Oltmann wrote in an email at 7:46 that morning to several people, including a reporter for the pro-Trump outlet Newsmax.
At 9:11 a.m., an Oltmann employee tweeted, “We are in DC and can explain exactly how Dominion fixes it. No one will pass the truth up to @POTUS Joe Oltmann and Matt DePerno can explain it all perfectly. We are in Trump Hotel. Bob Destro won’t give us an audience with anyone. Whats going on?” He added: “#WWG1WWA,” a variation on a hashtag standing for “Where We Go One We Go All,” the motto of adherents of QAnon conspiracies.
At some point after the tweet, Destro met with the two men, he told The Post.
Destro, who was confirmed to his job in 2019, was in charge of the bureau that produces an annual report on the state of human rights around the world. He was also named a special representative for Tibetan issues, a role in which he was critical of the Chinese government.
From 2004 to 2006, Destro had also served as a special counsel on election issues to the Republican secretary of state of Ohio, Ken Blackwell. But Destro’s State Department role had no responsibilities for U.S. elections.
In a post on Parler, a social media platform then popular with Trump supporters, Oltmann wrote on Jan. 6 that he had met with the “right people” at the State Department.
“They get it, and then this was shared with me there,” he wrote.
Attached was a photo of a document signed by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, in which McInerney claimed he had evidence that results from the Georgia Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5 had been manipulated by China to allow Democrats to win. “This is 100% true. Share,” Oltmann wrote.
A Trump supporter and associate of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, McInerney had endorsed some of the most fantastical claims about the 2020 election in the weeks before Jan. 6. He said that U.S. Special Forces had violently seized computer servers in Germany where the CIA had been holding election data. And he had called on Trump to declare martial law, set up military tribunals, prevent the electoral college from meeting to confirm Biden’s victory and cancel the Inauguration.
While in Washington that week, Oltmann has said he had a series of other high-level meetings, including huddling with Trump lawyers Giuliani and John Eastman. Oltmann said in a podcast appearance last year that on the evening of Jan. 6 — after the Capitol had been stormed — he met with Giuliani at the Trump legal team’s war room at the Willard hotel. Giuliani remained interested in his information about the stolen election, Oltmann said.
“I was like, ‘Look, just put me in front of President Trump and I’ll walk through it,’ ” Oltmann recounted.
Other Trump aides intervened, Oltmann said, and a meeting planned for Jan. 7 with Trump never took place.
The whole bunch of the Dim Wits are like children repeating and embellishing gossip and rumors and delusions.
As a post script: PARLER is mentioned. Funded by MERCER.
MERCER stashes their cash offshore to avoid supporting government.
Interesting article:
REBEKAH MERCER RAISED SPECTER OF “ARMED CONFLICT” IN 2019 BOOK
The billionaire heir has been financing a host of right-wing individuals and groups involved in the storming of the Capitol.
COMMENTS:
Do you know that Robert and Rebekah Mercer also financed Steve Bannon as well as neo nazis Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin (founder of The Daily Stormer) right up until the Mueller investigation was starting to cast light on them as well. Then they pulled back from underwriting the most blatantly fascistic individuals ...for a time anyways. Clearly they're still at it.
The US has come to this: a vicious inherited aristocracy out to destroy any hope of social justice in the USA.
https://theintercept.com/2021/01/27/rebekah-mercer-book-capitol-riot/
Key Trump campaign donor steps back from supporting president’s 2020 election bid
Robert Mercer, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, donated $15.5m with his wife, Diana, to a number of organisations that supported Mr Trump in 2016
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/donald-trump-2020-election-campaign-robert-mercer-republican-donor-a9637021.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parler
Company has already reportedly pushed back by trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers from supporting the union. (photo: AP)
Company has already reportedly pushed back by trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers from supporting the union
Target has long opposed unionization, with anti-union videos to discourage workers from unionizing. Earlier this year, Target training documents for managers to prevent unionization within stores were leaked.
Target has already reportedly pushed back on the union organizing effort in Virginia, trying to use union dues as a tactic to deter workers.
But workers are seeking to capitalize on a surging energy in the US labor movement after recent union victories at dozens of Starbucks stores and the first Amazon warehouse in the US.
The last union election to be held at a Target store in the US was on Long Island, New York in 2011, where workers voted 137 to 85 against unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers.
An administrative law judge ruled in 2012 that during that union organizing campaign, Target violated labor law by interrogating and threatening workers over their unionizing efforts. The union election results were overturned by the National Labor Relations Board in 2013, but the UFCW opted against re-running the election due to long delays.
A pharmacy department at a Target store in Brooklyn, New York, became the first to unionize at Target in 2015, joining the UFCW, but Target sold off their pharmacy business to CVS shortly after the election win.
In 2018, another Target store on Long Island voted against unionizing.
Adam Ryan, who has worked at the Target store in Christiansburg for five years, founded Target Workers Unite in 2018, after organizing a strike against an abusive manager in 2017.
Ryan and his co-workers recently decided to collect union authorization cards to formally submit a union election petition to the National Labor Relations Board after he says Target corporate and management ignored their petition to enact seniority pay – specifically a $2 an hour increase for workers with five years at the company and an additional $2 an hour for workers with 10 or more years at Target.
The workers are affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World as a bargaining representative, while remaining independent in their organizing efforts.
“It just came to a point where co-workers said, well, this is just a waste of time. They’re just having us going in circles and not giving us an answer,” said Ryan.
“They’re not legally obligated to have to talk to us or provide a yes answer to this petition, even though they tell us they have an open door policy, but there is a way that we can force them to the negotiating table, through collective bargaining.”
The workers collected over 30% of the required support through union authorization signature cards to file a petition for a union election, and submitted it after their request for voluntary union recognition from Target received no response.
A hearing is currently scheduled for 1 June to determine the size of the bargaining unit ahead of the election, which Ryan predicts Target will use to try to delay and stall an election date, a tactic that Starbucks attempted several times at the first few stores that filed for union elections.
Ryan also explained that Target’s frequent responses to worker complaints has been to cite that wages of workers range from $15 to $24 an hour, with benefits and a tuition program, but argued the tuition program is limited, that he doesn’t know anyone at Target making $24 an hour, and that the benefits that he is supposed to qualify for are virtually non-existent.
“I average about 25 hours a week and I’ve always had open availability and requested more than that,” said Ryan, who argued he’s received no paid time off aside from maybe a couple hours here and there in his five years at Target.
A spokesperson for Target said in a statement in response to the union election filing, “At Target, our team members are at the heart of our strategy and success, and we have a deep commitment to listening to our team and creating an environment of mutual trust where every team member’s voice matters.”
They added: “We want all team members to be better off for working at Target, and years of investments in our culture of care, industry-leading starting wage range of $15 to $24 per hour, expanded health care benefits, debt-free education assistance, personalized scheduling and opportunities for growth have been essential to helping our team members build rewarding careers.”
Nina Jankowicz headed the Biden Administration's Disinformation Governance Board. (photo: AP)
We sorely need a voice in speaking out against the irrational DISINFORMATION.
NYC recognized during the pandemic that it was necessary to address DISINFORMATION in order to get more people vaccinated and to address opposition to mandates in order to keep more people safe and healthy.
We have all witnessed the horrifying and unnecessary death toll caused by a poorly educated population and a great deal of hysteria.
FOX NEWS = FAKE NEWS promoted ANTI-VAXXERS even as employees were mandated to be vaccinated. Areas of the nation that voted for tRump had the highest rates of COVID hospitalizations and death tolls. There is a connection.
How many traveled to TEXAS to await the return of JFK JR?
Jewish SPACE LASERS?
Microchips in vaccines?
Who can keep up with the Whack-A-Ding Marjorie Train Wreck?
AMAZON promoted a book filled with DISINFORMATION - they lost their court battle:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9989339/amp/Elizabeth-Warren-demands-Amazon-stop-promoting-books-COVID-misinformation.html
Contrary to the common perception, unhoused people are far more likely to be victims of homicides than perpetrators. (photo: Matthew Woitunski)
Homelessness is one of the most grotesque horrors of US capitalism. And even worse, according to new reporting by Jacobin, the rate of murders of homeless people has spiked to appalling new highs.
Jerome Price, fifty-six, had died after Maceo allegedly shot him five times from a car. (Price’s family learned of it on TV.) A second victim barely survived. A third attack (and second homicide) was linked.
Police gathered evidence. Mayors and police brass crowded podiums. Maceo’s gun, it emerged, had been confiscated by police but subsequently returned. Maceo’s social media accounts revealed a “dapper” real estate agent hawking pastel mansions, aquamarine seas, and palm trees.
In mid-January, the focus switched to homeless suspects. In widely covered murders in the nation’s two largest cities, Michelle Go was pushed in front of a New York City subway train by a homeless man; three days later, Sandra Shells was attacked and killed by a homeless man at a Los Angeles bus stop. Then, in March, the narrative flipped again. A balaclava-clad man was suspected of shooting five sleeping homeless people in New York City and Washington, DC. After an interstate manhunt, the suspect, Gerald Brevard III, was captured.
This string of stories connected homelessness and homicides. But what do they mean? Are killings of unhoused people getting worse? Do we have any data on this terrible trend?
Jacobin reached out to leading researchers Matt Fowle and Fredianne Gray, the Los Angeles Police Department (which has the best readily available data among police departments on homelessness), and eleven other police departments in the US cities with the largest homeless populations. Looking across the data, we see three big-picture trends: One, killings of homeless persons have been on the rise since 2010. Two, the pandemic era has brought a new surge in homicides involving homeless people. And three, contrary to the common perception, unhoused people are far more likely to be victims of homicides than perpetrators.
More Than One Thousand Homeless Homicide Victims
Since 2010, in fifteen large US cities, there have been more than a thousand killings of people classified as homeless, data compiled by Fowle and Gray show. Homicide deaths are only a fraction of overall homeless deaths, which total nearly 25,000 in those fifteen cities since 2010. But these killings are growing.
The rate of such homicides has been rising since 2010, when the total in all cities for which data is available sat in the low single digits. In 2020 and/or 2021, cities like Washington, DC, San José, New York City, Las Vegas, and Seattle saw double-digit unhoused homicide victims. In 2018, LA County recorded the highest one-year figure for any city, seventy-eight; in 2019, the most recent year available, it was seventy-three. All these deaths, Fowle writes, “should be considered an undercount.”
The jump in the homeless homicide rate over the last five years appears to outpace US population growth. The most recent available homicide rate among homeless people also outpaces cities with the highest overall homicide rates, such as Saint Louis. Las Vegas, Portland, and Miami have 2020 murder rates among unhoused people of roughly 200 per 100,000. That’s astronomically higher than the national average of nearly eight per 100,000.
If we look at the percentage changes between 2015 and 2020, we see increases of 514 percent in Santa Clara County (San José); 281 percent in Washington, DC; 110 percent in Miami-Dade County; and 93 percent in New York City. Maceo’s and Brevard’s alleged victims are hardly isolated cases.
Brian Davis, director of grassroots organizing at the National Coalition for the Homeless, says that violent attacks on homeless people are worse now than they’ve ever been. Davis’s organization has been documenting violence against people experiencing homelessness for decades, in 165 cities.
“Right now, sixty-five cities” — the highest number in decades — “are conducting sweeps on encampments, which only escalates the level of violence for those without housing,” Davis wrote in an email. There was a “significant decline in attacks” in 2020, Davis noted, but that was followed by a 2021 return to previous levels, then a higher surge.
More Victims Than Suspects
While limited, the police data we have confirms what medical examiners have found — and clarifies the picture of perpetrator and victim.
Figures from the Los Angeles Police Department show that people experiencing homelessness are roughly twice as likely to be victims as suspects. According to the city’s open data portal, which goes back to 2010, unhoused people have been victims in about two-thirds of homicides in which someone was identified as homeless (417) versus suspects in about a third (215).
Tellingly, an LAPD public records request for data since 2017 shows, if you remove homicides where both the victim and suspect are homeless — likely leaving more of the oft-sensationalized “stranger danger” cases — the proportion of houseless victims to suspects tilts further: 171 to 51, more than three to one.
The public-records request data confirms a rapid rise in annual totals of homicides involving a “homeless/transient” victim and/or suspect: from thirty-eight in 2017 to forty-four in 2018, fifty-two in 2019, seventy-one in 2020, and 106 last year — likely an all-time high. Going back further, to 2010, the portal’s data shows a similar recent spike: for 2010–19, the total homicides including a homeless victim and/or suspect was 364. Already this decade, it’s 268.
Two agencies shared numbers with me that seem to confirm a recent surge: In Denver, a police spokesman notes, fifteen of the ninety-six homicide victims in 2021 were homeless. In San Diego in 2020, Lt. Andra Brown notes, unhoused people were victims of four and committed three homicides; last year, they were victims in eight but committed just one.
The Crisis of Homelessness
Economic shocks like the 2007–8 Great Recession tend to drive up violence against homeless people. The current pandemic-era environment is “way worse,” Davis says, the worst in thirty years.
The tone set by elected officials also matters, says Eric Tars, legal director of the National Homelessness Law Center. That includes New York mayor Eric Adams “telling people he’s afraid to go on the subways,” California governor Gavin Newsom proposing courts that are likely to increase involuntary commitments, and lawmakers proposing bills that criminalize homelessness.
“I really see all of this coming from a place of demonizing and othering of people experiencing homelessness,” Tars says. “We’ve let the crisis of homelessness get as bad as it has, and so people are just kind of desperate for any solution to get people off the streets.”
On one newspaper’s website, the NYC/DC serial shooter was cheered in the story’s comment section, the killings justified as a “solution” or “purge.” In Miami, Maceo’s tutorials on “3 Great Reasons to Buy a House” stand next to his alleged killings of houseless humans as a twisted monument to capitalist violence.
For now, those seeking solace can perhaps find a little in Maceo’s social media ratios: “I will have the homeless come back as Frankensteins and go after you, Mr. Willy,” one commenter writes.
Republican tax codes incentivized the rental vultures that gobble up housing in entire neighborhoods, don't maintain the properties and hold renters hostage.
Building material companies have in essense monopolized the market driving up costs.
There are solutions!
Not everyone needs or wants a McMansion.
This is one potential solution - there are photos and a video on the link:
excerpt:
Arnold Schwarzenegger played Santa Claus to homeless vets and their pets.
The former governor of California celebrated the holiday season by donating 25 tiny homes to veterans.
The 74-year-old paid $250,000 to purchase the structures, located in West Los Angeles, according to Fox11.
On Dec. 23, Schwarzenegger took to social media to explain the project dear to his heart.
“Today, I celebrated Christmas early. The 25 homes I donated for homeless veterans were installed here in LA. It was fantastic to spend some time with our heroes and welcome them into their new homes,” Schwarzenegger wrote.
“I want to thank @villageforvets for arranging the homes and being a fantastic partner, @secvetaffairs, @amvetshq and everyone who worked with us and made this possible. We proved that when we all work together, we can solve any problem.”
Village for Vets told The Post that there were “just under 4,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles at the last count in 2020.”
“The tiny shelter project to which Governor Schwarzenegger so generously donated is a partnership with the VA and is designed to be a transitional respite for homeless Veterans between living on the street and entering a higher level of care – ultimately permanent housing,” the said in a statement.
https://nypost.com/2021/12/30/arnold-schwarzenegger-donates-25-tiny-houses-to-homeless-vets/
Russian army Sergeant Vadim Shishimarin, 21, is seen behind a glass during a court hearing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 18, 2022. (photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Sgt. Vadim Shishimarin could get life in prison for shooting a a 62-year-old Ukrainian man in the head through an open car window in the northeastern Sumy region on Feb. 28, four days into the invasion.
Shishimarin, a captured member of a Russian tank unit, was prosecuted under a section of the Ukrainian criminal code that addresses the laws and customs of war.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova previously said her office was readying war crimes cases against 41 Russian soldiers for offenses that included bombing civilian infrastructure, killing civilians, rape and looting.
It was not immediately clear how many of the suspects are in Ukrainian hands and how many would be tried in absentia.
Prosecutors plan to continue presenting evidence against Shishimarin following his guilty plea, although the trial is like to be shorter.
As the inaugural war-crimes case in Ukraine, Shishimarin’s prosecution was being watched closely. Investigators have been collecting evidence of possible war crimes to bring before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Venediktova’s office has said it was looking into more than 10,700 potential war crimes involving more than 600 suspects, including Russian soldiers and government officials.
With help from foreign experts, prosecutors are investigating allegations that Russian troops violated Ukrainian and international law by killing, torturing and abusing possibly thousands of Ukrainian civilians.
Shishimarin’s trial opened Friday, when he made a brief court appearance while lawyers and judges discussed prosecedural matters. After his plea on Wednesday, the proceedings were continued until Thursday, when the trial is expecgted to resume in a large courtroom to accomodate more journalists.
Ukrainian authorities posted a few details on social media last week from their investigation in his case.
Shishimarin was among a group of Russian troops that fled Ukrainian forces on Feb. 28, according to Venediktova’s Facebook account. The Russians allegedly fired at a private car and seized the vehicle, then drove to Chupakhivka, a village about 200 miles east of Kyiv.
On the way, the prosecutor-general alleged, the Russian soldiers saw a man walking on the sidewalk and talking on his phone. Shyshimarin was ordered to kill the man so he wouldn’t be able to report them to Ukrainian military authorities. Venediktova did not identify who gave the order.
Shyshimarin fired his Kalashnikov rifle through the open window and hit the victim in the head, Venediktova wrote.
“The man died on the spot just a few dozen meters from his house,” she said.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, posted a short video on May 4 of Shyshimarin speaking in front of camera and briefly describing how he shot the man. The SBU described the video as “one of the first confessions of the enemy invaders.”
“I was ordered to shoot,” Shyshimarin said. “I shot one (round) at him. He falls. And we kept on going.”
Russia is believed to be preparing war crime trials for Ukrainian soldiers.
A man pours water over his face during an extreme heatwave in New Delhi on May 14, 2022. (photo: Getty Images)
Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean temperatures and ocean acidification all hit their highest recorded levels, a U.N. report found.
Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean temperatures and ocean acidification all hit their highest recorded levels in 2021, leading to “harmful and long-lasting ramifications” for humans and nature, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
It said extreme weather supercharged by climate change last year had led to billions of dollars in economic losses and triggered shocks to global food and water supplies that were reverberating into 2022.
The WMO State of the Global Climate report found that the past seven years were the seven hottest on record and that temperatures in 2021 were 1.11 Celsius (2 Farenheit) above pre-industrial baseline levels.
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said the assessment showed “the dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption” and called for governments to accelerate their transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels.
Guterres said countries needed to make genuine progress towards decarbonizing their economies this century in order to stave off the worst impacts of climate change and limit heating to 1.5C. That is the most ambitious temperature goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Despite a record drop in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 due to lockdowns and other restrictions linked to Covid, the WMO said that concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all hit record levels.
Atmospheric CO2 levels reached 413.2 parts per million (ppm) globally, or 149 percent of pre-industrial levels. It said it expected concentrations to continue upward, with the Mona Loa observatory in Hawaii measuring 420.23 ppm in April 2022.
Oceans absorb up to a quarter of the CO2 emitted by human activity and play a vital role in regulating global weather patterns. The WMO said that the upper 2,000 meters of ocean had continued to warm, breaking the 2020 temperature record.
It warned that this impact would be "irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales."
CO2 reacting with seawater leads to ocean acidification, which poses a threat to sealife, coastal areas and to the food and tourism industries reliant on health seas.
The WMO concurred with a recent U.N. climate science panel report that warned pH levels in the world's oceans were now at their lowest in at least 26,000 years.
Sea levels hit record levels in 2021, after rising an average of 4.5 mm each year since 2013, largely driven by melting ice sheets. The WMO warned that sea-level rise posed a threat for "hundreds of millions of coastal dwellers," putting them at risk of more powerful and frequent floods and storms.
2021 was a particularly punishing year for Earth's frozen spaces, with the Greenland ice sheet, which contains enough frozen water to raise sea levels some six metres, undergoing "an exceptional melt event" in August and the first ever recorded rainfall at Summit Station, at an altitude of 3,216 m.
Some inland glaciers, upon which around two billion people rely as the main source of drinking water, have already reached the point of no return, the assessment showed.
While 2021 itself was not the hottest year on record (2020 and 2016 are currently tied as the warmest) this was due to the mild cooling brought by the La Nina weather event at the star of the year.
WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said it was "just a matter of time" before Earth witnessed another record hottest year.
"Our climate is changing before our eyes. The heat trapped by human-induced greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come," he said.
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