School may remove Lincoln’s name because he didn’t show ‘black lives mattered to him’
San Francisco may remove Abraham Lincoln’s name from a high school, because a district committee says the 16th president — who abolished slavery — did not demonstrate that “black lives mattered to him.”
Lincoln is one of dozens of historical figures who the city school district’s renaming committee argued led lives so rife with racism, oppression or abuse that their names should not grace its buildings, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“The discussion for Lincoln centered around his treatment of First Nation peoples, because that was offered first,” Jeremiah Jeffries, chairman of the renaming committee and a first-grade teacher, told the paper. “Once he met criteria in that way, we did not belabor the point.”
He continued: “The history of Lincoln and Native Americans is complicated, not nearly as well known as that of the Civil War and slavery,” according to the paper.
“Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building,” Jeffries said.
“Uprooting the problematic names and symbols that currently clutter buildings, streets, throughout the city is a worthy endeavor,” he added. “Only good can come from the public being reflective and intentional about the power of our words, names and rhetoric within our public institutions.”
Critics have slammed the district’s effort to rename the 44 sites as amateurish, arguing the committee’s rationales derived from Wikipedia or selective news sources — rather than relying on historical records and exhaustive research.
When the committee released the list of buildings to be renamed, many made sense because Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe were slave owners, and Vasco Núñez Balboa was a vicious conquistador.
But others raised eyebrows, including George Washington, Herbert Hoover and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, whose name was recommended to be removed from an elementary school because she replaced a vandalized Confederate flag in front of City Hall as mayor in 1984.
President Trump slammed the effort to remove Honest Abe’s name on Wednesday.
“So ridiculous and unfair. Will people never make a stand!” he said in a tweet.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also weighed in, writing: “Abraham Lincoln…George Washington…even Diane friggin’ Feinstein: NONE are woke enough for the America-hating radical Left.”
He added: “This will never stop, until Americans say ‘ENOUGH!!’ and call it out for the ignorant nonsense that it is.”
To many, Lincoln is known as the Great Emancipator, and an inspiration to his successors, including President Barack Obama, who used the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration in 2009.
Harold Holzer, a Lincoln scholar and director of Hunter College’s Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, told the Chronicle that Lincoln “saved the country from dividing and ruin. He should be honored for it.”
Lincoln’s involvement with Native Americans is trickier to navigate, the paper noted.
His administration supported the Homestead Act of 1862 and the transcontinental railroad, which led to the loss of their land, according to the outlet, and historians say he largely delegated the sometimes bloody response to Native American conflicts while focusing on the Civil War.
Lincoln also oversaw the hanging of 38 warriors after a Sioux uprising in Minnesota, after he reviewed the legal cases against the 303 men sentenced to death. He saved the lives of 265 of them.
Sherry Black, who worked for more than 40 years in Native American economic and community development, told the paper: “Considering the time period, it’s so difficult to understand how things were at the time. How do you make these decisions?”
Holzer said Lincoln “was more progressive than most people.”
“There was pretty rampant hostility (toward Native Americans) and I think Lincoln rose above it,” he said. “Nobody is going to pass 21st century mores if you’re looking at the 18th and 19th centuries.”
The school board plans to vote on the recommendations early next year.
Meanwhile, Jeffries urged the public to perform its own research, “particularly on Lincoln.”
“There is a lot of scholarship out there,” he said. “I encourage everyone to seek it out. Read.”
The renaming committee is expected to officially recommend scrapping current names of the the 44 schools in January, according to the paper.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/16/san-francisco-may-rename-abraham-lincoln-high-school/
Photo Credit: AP
Man charged with killing wife, kids after being found in bed with bodies
A Texas man allegedly stabbed his wife and their two children to death over the weekend, and lay in bed with the three dead bodies, authorities said.
Officers responded to Bryan Richardson’s home in Copperas Cove on Saturday night on a welfare check, and found him covered in blood lying next to his dead wife, Kiera, and their two young children, WFTV reported.
Copperas Cove police officers asked Richardson what happened and he responded he didn’t know, according to a criminal complaint obtained by KWTX-TV.
Cops also found a blood-covered kitchen knife on a table, an empty six-pack of beer and an empty bottle of prescribed antidepressants, the complaint says.
Officers even saw the family’s dog lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, according to the complaint.
A motive behind the attacks has not been revealed. Richardson has been charged with three counts of murder, and is being jailed on $2.25 million bond.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/16/man-charged-with-killing-wife-kids-after-being-found-in-bed-with-bodies/
Photo Credit: Copperas Cove Police Department
Video shows De Soto, MO officers beating, kicking man in groin at police station
JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. (KMOV.com) — Two officers are accused of assaulting a man brought in for booking at a Jefferson County police station and a third officer is accused of deleting photos showing the assault. Video of the alleged beating was obtained only by News 4.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, officers James Daly, 55, and Bethany Zarcone were on-duty on September 30 when they assaulted a man brought in for booking at the De Soto Police Station. Charging documents say Daly grabbed the man by the hair and throat, pushed him onto a bench and held him down by the neck for a “period of time.” Zarcone is accused of hitting the handcuffed man in his groin with her knees.
Officials said Allayna Campbell deleted photos capturing the assault. Campbell told investigators a supervisor instructed her to delete them. Campbell was charged with tampering evidence; Daly was charged with three counts of assault; and Zarcone was charged with one count assault.
Daly reportedly put a mock graveyard on his lawn as a Halloween decoration last year. Images of it began circulating on social media showing several crosses with names on them that are used as grave markers. The wording on one of the crosses says, “Here lies Michael Brown, a fat ghetto clown.”
The De Soto Police Department released a statement in response to the video:
Tonight on the news was a video that was the subject of the investigation and charges filed against three of our former officers. To our community; the behavior seen on the video is not indicative of the great job many of our officers do every day. There are many good officers at the De Soto Police Department. As Chief, I see the great job many of them do. I also know this through my many contacts with community members who often approach me and report how much things have improved over the last two and a half years. The actions you see in the video are not indicative of our body of work, as we continue the process of rebuilding this department.
One of the things we did as a department, after its near collapse in July 2018 was to put in place policies and procedures in an effort to improve operations. One of the improvements we made was to our use of force review. In the case of the assault in the jail, the incident was caught by that procedure and the improvements made during our recent jail remodel, which included new cameras. After the incident was discovered, it was assigned to an investigator to do an internal investigation. A request for a criminal investigation was then made to the Jefferson County Sheriff. I can speak for all of the officers of the department that we have felt a full range of emotions including anger, embarrassment and disappointment regarding this incident. We are committed to moving forward and making improvements to all facets of our operations.
We definitely want to thank those in the community that have offered support for our efforts. I’m happy to announce that as part of our efforts to improve, we applied in November 2020 for certification of the department, and look forward to improving our operations and standards during that process. The officers that remain are dedicated to these and other efforts to serve our community with strength and professionalism. I also want to thank Dave Marshak, the Jefferson County Sheriff, and his investigators for their quick response to our request for an outside, independent investigation.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/video-shows-de-soto-officer-assault-allegations/article_c04be56a-2f82-11eb-948a-efa6e5beca95.html
Photo Credit: Jefferson County Police Department
Married teachers in Texas die of COVID-19 while holding hands
A married couple who were both teachers in Texas died of COVID-19 complications while holding hands.
Paul Blackwell, 61, and Rose Mary Blackwell, 65, died on Sunday at Harris Methodist Hospital, according to their family.
The couple spent several days in intensive care on ventilators as their conditions continued to worsen and their family made the heartbreaking decision to take them off life support, Paul’s son Christopher Blackwell told CBS 11.
“Two of my other brothers are actually in the room there at the hospital and they wheeled my stepmother in there in the room with my father and at the same time, removed them both from the ventilator,” Christopher said.
“They had them holding hands and they were both gone in a couple of minutes,” he continued. “I’ve never seen anything like that before and it’s hard to even put into words seeing that.”
Both Paul and Rose Mary were longtime teachers within the Grand Prairie Independent School District and had been working until they became sick in December.
Rose Mary was a second-grade teacher at Travis World Language Academy and just reached her 20-year anniversary at the school. Paul was a PE teacher and football coach at Fannin Middle.
It is unclear how the couple contracted the virus.
A GoFundMe campaign set up by the Blackwell family to raise funds for the funeral cost says Paul and Rose Mary are survived by “many, many loved ones,” including their children and 20 grandchildren.
“We are all at a loss for words at this time but want to thank everyone for their continued prayers.”
As of Tuesday, there have been 1,520,038 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and at least 24,890 deaths in the state of Texas.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/married-texas-teachers-die-of-covid-19-while-holding-hands/
Photo Credit: GoFundMe
Man arrested for chasing Maine McDonald’s employees with chainsaw
Employees at a McDonald’s in Maine weren’t lovin’ it when a would-be customer started chasing them with a chainsaw.
Alice Sweet entered a McDonald’s in Portland around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday with a chainsaw and revved the weapon at employees behind the counter, the Westbrook Police Department said in a statement.
Sweet then stole some food and a drink before fleeing the restaurant, police said.
The manager later confronted the madman, but then Sweet began chasing him with the chainsaw, police said.
Cops said the 26-year-old of Portland also damaged two cars that were parked at the fast-food joint.
Officers who responded to the scene ran after Sweet and tracked him down to arrest him.
Alice Sweet entered a McDonald’s in Portland around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday with a chainsaw and revved the weapon at employees behind the counter, the Westbrook Police Department said in a statement.
Sweet then stole some food and a drink before fleeing the restaurant, police said.
The manager later confronted the madman, but then Sweet began chasing him with the chainsaw, police said.
Cops said the 26-year-old of Portland also damaged two cars that were parked at the fast-food joint.
Officers who responded to the scene ran after Sweet and tracked him down to arrest him.
Sweet has been charged with robbery, criminal mischief, refusing to submit to arrest and violation of conditions of release.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/16/man-arrested-for-chasing-mcdonalds-employee-with-a-chainsaw/
Photo Credit: Westbrook Police Department
Doctor used his sperm to father hundreds of babies with patients over four decades
A revered family doctor may have fathered hundreds of children using his own sperm – sometimes without the parents’ knowledge – over four decades, The Sun can reveal.
Dr. Philip Peven is credited with delivering around 9,000 babies during his 40-year career in Detroit, Michigan.
Now a group of siblings who found they were genetically matched after doing an online DNA test have discovered they are related to Peven, who was their parents’ doctor and believe he is their father.
One of the siblings – Jaime Hall – approached Peven in December 2019 and says that he admitted to being her father and to using his own sperm to father a multitude of babies, both as a sperm donor in the late 40s and in his medical practice as an OB-GYN in Detroit, MI.
While both her parents are now dead, Hall said they believed her biological father was a family friend who had given them a sperm sample – and had no idea Peven used his own sperm.
Hall says she has been matched up to five half siblings on the website 23andMe, since she submitted her DNA test, but believes there could be hundreds more Peven siblings out there.
“All of us were born in the same hospital, all of our birth certificates show Peven as our OBGYN, not our father,” Hall, 61, of Traverse City, MI, told The Sun.
“I then discovered one of Peven’s grandsons on there, he came up as a half nephew sharing 12.3 percent DNA with me. That served as the final, undeniable proof. I share more DNA with Peven’s grandson than my sister Lynn’s daughter.”
Hall explained how, in the early 50s, her parents visited Peven at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan for help conceiving.
In 1956, Joyce gave birth to Hall’s elder sister Lynn and in 1959 she gave birth to Hall – both babies were delivered by Peven.
Hall had no reason to doubt her parentage until 2008 when one of their stepsisters told her and Lynn that the man who had brought them up was not their biological father.
So, in 2017, she conducted a paternity test that confirmed this.
In 2019, she traced her family tree using two genetic testing and analysis services – ancestry.com and 23andMe.
She said: “I discovered that I was 50 percent Ashkenazi Jew, but no one in my family is Ashkenazi Jew. It didn’t make sense. My sister Lynn came up as a close match, but she had no Ashkenazi Jew in her DNA analysis…there were also lots of other matches for me as close family, which was exceedingly strange.”
“As far as I knew I only had one sister, Lynn.”
Over the next year Hall undertook a rigorous analysis of her genetic history, meticulously piecing together a series of half-siblings that she never knew she had.
“I started messaging everyone who appeared as a close match to me,” Hall, who runs a company called Laser Pain Relief Center of America with her husband Todd, 51, said.
Over the next year, Hall claims she has received numerous calls and emails from people who all share high proportions of DNA with her and who were all delivered by Peven, who is currently the oldest living graduate of the University of Michigan’s medical school.
In January of 2020, Hall teamed up with one of the half-sisters she had discovered through DNA analysis, who has asked not to be named and decided to finally meet Peven in the flesh.
They found Peven, now 104, who is still living independently in Southfield, Michigan.
He explained to them he would inseminate his patients with a fresh sperm sample – either his own or one of his doctors – in a simple procedure using a pipette while the woman lay down in surgical stirrups.
“We just turned up at his door and walked right in there,” she said.
“He was all hunched and had a walker, he said he has neuropathy, but his brain was very sharp.”
“Initially we just said ‘You knew our parents, you delivered us’ and he invited us in and we got talking. I showed him a picture of my parents and he zoomed in on the baby, me. He sat on a chair and we both sat on the floor at his feet, like his two little daughters.”
“He said: ‘I was a pioneer you know, I was the first to ever be doing anything like this.’
“We said ‘you not only delivered us… we want to thank you for fathering us. Without you, we wouldn’t be here.’ He asked how we knew and we told him about the DNA tests. He told us that he was not the only doctor at the hospital who was donating sperm – there was a group of doctors and between them, they fathered many children.”
“He said he had been donating sperm since 1947, since he was doing research in Chicago. I said ‘Did you ever think that DNA would be around to bring all these children back to you? He said: ‘I never thought this would be possible. It’s like a fairy-tale isn’t it?’ My daughter thinks I could have fathered thousands of children.’”
Hall’s sister, Lynn Neher, 63, told The Sun she did similar DNA tests online and discovered her father was one of Peven’s resident doctors. She has also been matched to half-siblings who she has contacted.
Despite the shocking revelations, Hall and Lynn feel positive about the whole experience.
“I don’t look at it in a negative way. These women, my mother included, came to him desperate and he gave them something that they all wanted,” Hall said.
“There wasn’t the same regulation then as there is now. I really think he was trying to help people and without him, I wouldn’t be alive today.”
“Some of the people that have called me feel like they’ve been cheated, they are having existential issues about it, but I don’t see it that way. I’m just happy I’m here and I have nothing but gratefulness to be alive.”
She does, however, feel that people have the right to know the truth about their parentage.
“When I was conceived my mother actually brought in a donor sample with her, one of her friends, she said ‘My friend gave your father and I the most precious gift that a person could give another, he gave us you,’” Hall said.
“And I thought, ‘That’s beautiful’. So I actually befriended this friend’s family. I called them and became close with them and they accepted me as their own. It was beautiful until the DNA came back and I found out ‘Oh my gosh, Peven is my dad.’”
“When I asked Peven about this story, he said, ‘I know she brought in a donor.’”
“He admitted he discarded the donor and when I asked why, he said it wasn’t tested. He said he knew that if I kept it to himself and the other doctors, they knew it was viable so they didn’t have to worry about it.”
“So, yes, we know he was deceiving women – or at least not telling them the full truth. I think people have the right to find out the truth – not everyone wants to know the truth, but if they choose to pursue it, they should be allowed to know.”
“There are huge health and ethical implications for knowing who your real father is. You have to realize that Peven was practicing in a small, close-knit community – people could have married relatives without knowing. There is a very high likelihood of certain diseases that run in Ashkenazi heritage.”
Hall’s sister, Lynn added: “Without Peven and his fertility clinic and everything that they did, I would not be here. So consequently, I have nothing but gratitude to them for everything that happened. I cannot be angry or resentful in any way for that.”
“But do I think that all of the ways that Peven did what he did were ethical? No, absolutely not. The fact that he didn’t tell women that he was using his own sperm sample is not right. That would be profoundly unethical by today’s standards.”
“Do I think that he had some kind of egotistical God complex going on? I don’t. I think they were practicing medicine and doing it as best they could back then when there really weren’t many options. It was all new.”
One of the other siblings, Jean Landes, 55, said she found out Peven was her father after she did a DNA test and was linked to many more people than the two siblings she had grown up with.
After being matched to Hall and others as a half-sibling, she also went to visit Peven who confirmed he was her biological father during a videotaped meeting.
“I spent a good hour and a half talking to him. He denied it at first, but into the conversation, I just kept on talking and asking questions and his guard went down,” she said.
“He was just clinical about it. He wasn’t emotional about it. He just told the technique how he did it. But it was a great meeting.”
She added: “To be honest it was a tremendous relief, I felt like a big puzzle and a big mystery of my life was solved. As far as my feelings towards him, I don’t think his intentions were anything but to help childless couples conceive.”
“He’d learned the technique when he was an intern and he took it to his clinic and he just could not have ever imagined that there would be any ability to be able to trace it. The thought probably didn’t even cross his mind.”
“He just thought ‘These people can’t have children. They want children’. And I know for a fact that my mother was just so wanting to be a mom, that she would do anything.”
Jean’s non-biological father, Oleh Kostetsky, 85, told The Sun he knew that he and his wife had conceived using a donor but had no idea that Peven had used his own sperm until Jean told him recently.
“I didn’t know anything about what went on behind the scenes, I only found out very recently,” he said. “But I don’t object to it.”
He added he was grateful that Peven had helped his wife conceive and had always seen himself as his children’s real father.
Peven was not well enough to answer questions when approached by The Sun.
However, his daughter Kari confirmed that her father had donated sperm as a medical student and also when he ran his own practice.
“There’s a group of hospital doctors that donated sperm and when he couldn’t get hold of a proper doctor – one that he liked – I think he had used his own sperm” she said.
“We’re very healthy and intelligent people.”
When asked if her father ever inseminated women with his sperm without their knowledge, she said: “If they had asked, they would have been told, he had no reason not to tell them. They were begging to be helped… and they didn’t ask, all as they wanted was a baby, a healthy baby.”
“And they trusted him to find someone intelligent and healthy.”
“Usually he would only use his own sperm if he couldn’t get a fresh sample, there was no cryogenics in those days. But my father would have told anybody who asked. And there are lots of reasons, a mother also might say, ‘Well, I didn’t have any idea’, even though they did.”
She said she “had no idea” how many children her father could have fathered.
Three of the other siblings declined to comment and asked not to be named. Another was unavailable for comment prior to publication.
It comes after it emerged Dr Quincy Fortier, the subject of HBO documentary Baby God, fathered at least 24 children using his own sperm.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/doctor-used-his-sperm-to-father-hundreds-of-babies-with-patients-over-four-decades/
Photo Credit: Jaime Hall/SWNS
2019 Police Body Camera Video Shows Moments Police Handcuff Innocent, Naked Woman During Wrong Raid
CHICAGO (CBS) — For the first time, police body camera video reveals what an innocent woman said happened to her nearly two years ago: police officers wrongly entered her home with guns drawn and handcuffed her naked as she watched in horror.
Last year, Anjanette Young filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the video to show the public what happened to her that day. CBS 2 also filed a request for the video. But the Chicago Police Department denied the requests.
Young recently obtained the footage after a court forced CPD to turn it over as part of her lawsuit against police.
“I feel like they didn’t want us to have this video because they knew how bad it was,” Young said. “They knew they had done something wrong. They knew that the way they treated me was not right.”
Hours before the TV version of this report broadcast, the city’s lawyers attempted to stop CBS 2 from airing the video by filing an emergency motion in federal court.
The video reveals on Feb. 21, 2019, nine body cameras rolled as a group of male officers entered her home at 7 p.m. Not long before, the licensed social worker finished her shift at the hospital and had undressed in her bedroom.
That’s when she said she heard a loud, pounding noise.
Outside, officers repeatedly struck her door with a battering ram. From various angles, the video captured the moments they broke down the door and burst through her home.
“It was so traumatic to hear the thing that was hitting the door,” Young said, as she watched the video. “And it happened so fast, I didn’t have time to put on clothes.”
As they rushed inside with guns drawn, officers yelled, “Police search warrant,” and “Hands up, hands up, hands up.” Seconds later, Young could be seen in the living room, shocked and completely naked, with her hands up.
“There were big guns,” Young remembered. “Guns with lights and scopes on them. And they were yelling at me, you know, put your hands up, put your hands up.”
Young looked terrified and confused as she watched officers search the home. An officer put her hands behind her back and handcuffed her as she stood naked.
“What is going on?” Young yelled in the video. “There’s nobody else here, I live alone. I mean, what is going on here? You’ve got the wrong house. I live alone.”
“It’s one of those moments where I felt I could have died that night,” she said. “Like if I would have made one wrong move, it felt like they would have shot me. I truly believe they would have shot me.”
And like so many other wrong raids CBS 2 uncovered, the one on Young’s home could have been avoided.
Using body camera video and police and court records, CBS 2 pieced together – moment by moment – not only how Young was treated during the raid, but also how police failed to check the bad tip that led them there.
Young recently agreed to an interview to discuss the body camera video after she first spoke to CBS 2 last year. CBS 2 blurred portions of the video in which Young was unclothed.
With her hands bound behind her back, the video shows an officer wrapped a short coat around her shoulders. But the coat only covered her shoulders and upper back – leaving her front completely exposed as she stood against the wall. Officers stood around her home – in the kitchen, the living room and the hallways – while she remained naked.
“It felt like forever to me,” she said. “It felt like forever.”
About two minutes after police entered the home, an officer found a blanket and wrapped it around Young as she sobbed and repeatedly asked officers who they were looking for.
“They just threw something over me, and my hands are behind me and I’m handcuffed,” Young said in an interview. “So there’s no way for me to secure the blanket around me.”
The blanket continued to slide open and expose her body. One video clip shows an officer stood in front of Young but made no attempt to cover her. Another officer walked over and held the blanket closed.
Young continued to beg police for answers.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she cried in the video.
“You’ve got the wrong house, you’ve got the wrong house, you’ve got the wrong house,” Young repeated.
“There’s no one else who lives in this apartment?” the sergeant asked.
“No, no one else lives here,” Young said.
Young told police at least 43 times they were in the wrong home. She repeatedly asked them to allow her to get dressed and told them she believed they had bad information.
“Oh my God, this cannot be right,” Young said during the raid. “How is this legal?”
Police did have bad information, CBS 2 Investigators uncovered, and they failed to do basic checks to confirm whether they had the correct address before getting the search warrant approved.
According to CPD’s complaint for search warrant, one day before the raid, a confidential informant told the affiant – or lead officer on the raid – that he recently saw a 23-year-old man who was a known felon with gun and ammunition.
The document said the officer found a photo of the suspect in a police database and showed it to the informant, who confirmed it was him. The officer then drove the informant to the address where the informant claimed the suspect lived.
Despite no evidence in the complaint that police made efforts to independently verify the informant’s tip, such as conducting any surveillance or additional checks as required by policy, the search warrant was approved by an assistant state’s attorney and a judge.
But CBS 2 quickly found, through police and court records, the informant gave police the wrong address. The 23-year-old suspect police were looking for actually lived in the unit next door to Young at the time of the raid and had no connection to her.
CBS 2 also found police could have easily tracked the suspect’s location and where he really lived because at the time of the raid, he was wearing an electronic monitoring device.
“That piece of paper [search warrant] gives them the right to, you know, that says you can do X, Y, Z based on what’s on that paper,” Young said. “So if you get it wrong, you are taking 100 percent control of someone else’s life and treating them in a bad way.”
The body camera video also raises questions about the approval of the warrant. In one clip, officers in a squad car reviewed their notes and can be heard talking. CPD wouldn’t comment when CBS 2 asked what the conversation meant.
“It wasn’t initially approved or some crap,” one officer said.
“What does that mean?” the second officer asked.
“I have no idea,” the first officer said. “I mean, they told him it was approved, then I guess that person messed up on their end.”
Citing an ongoing investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), CPD also wouldn’t comment when CBS 2 asked about the raid or why officers acted solely on an informant’s tip.
But the video shows Young made multiple attempts to ask CPD some of those same questions.
“Who are you looking for?” Young asked.
“I’ve been living here for four years and nobody lives here but me,” she yelled.
“I’m telling you this is wrong,” Young continued. “I have nothing to do with whoever this person is you are looking for.”
This is not the first time police failed to do basic checks that would have contradicted bad information given by an informant. Last year, CBS 2 interviewed the Blassingame family who were wrongly raided by police in 2015. Jalonda Blassingame’s young sons said officers pointed guns at them, leaving them traumatized, like dozens of other children CBS 2 interviewed as part of its two-year investigative series.
“I felt scared for my life,” said her son Jaden, who was 10 at the time of the raid.
CBS 2 quickly found the suspect police were looking for had no connection to the Blassingames and had been in prison at the time of the raid for years.
That trauma experienced by innocent children and families as a result of wrong CPD raids was the subject of CBS 2’s half-hour documentary, “[un]warranted.” It also examines how Black and Latino families are disproportionately affected.
“They are adding trauma to people’s lives that will be with them the rest of their lives,” Young said. “Children have to grow up with that for the rest of their lives. The system is broken.”
Many of the families interviewed, including Young, filed lawsuits against police. Keenan Saulter, Young’s attorney, said he believes wrong raids are violating families’ constitutional rights.
“If this had been a young woman in Lincoln Park by herself in her home naked, a young white woman — let’s just be frank – if the reaction would have been the same? I don’t think it would have been,” Saulter said. “I think [officers] would have saw that woman, rightfully so, as someone who was vulnerable, someone who deserved protection, someone who deserved to have their dignity maintained. They viewed Ms. Young as less than human.”
Young said the way officers treated and spoke to her during the raid amplified the trauma she experienced. The video shows she was visibly upset and afraid as she asked police questions, but did not immediately receive any answers about why officers were there.
“OK, OK, you don’t have to shout,” the sergeant said.
“I don’t have to shout?” Young yelled. “This is f****** ridiculous. You’ve got me in handcuffs. I’m naked, and you kicked my house in. I keep telling you, you’ve got the wrong place.”
Young cried during her interview when she remembered how police treated her.
“When I asked them to show me, when I asked them to tell me what they are doing in my house, and their response to me was just, shut up and calm down, that’s so disrespectful,” she said.
About 13 minutes into the raid, a female officer who later arrived walked Young to her room so she could get dressed, but put the handcuffs back on afterward. Police continued to question Young while she was clothed.
“Ma’am, there’s no firearms in this place?” the sergeant asked.
“There’s no gun in this place…no, no, no,” Young answered. “I am a social worker…I’ve been a social worker for 20 years. I follow the law. I don’t get in trouble for anything. I don’t do illegal stuff. I’m not that person. You’ve got the wrong information.”
The sergeant then told the affiant officer – the cop who got the warrant – to step outside.
“I want to have a conversation with you, let’s go talk outside,” the sergeant said.
But moments later, the officer’s body camera turned off. CPD did not respond to questions about why the camera was turned off – a pattern CBS 2 found both during wrong raids and in CPD’s every day interactions with civilians.
After nearly 20 minutes, police finally removed the handcuffs. Toward the end of the raid, the sergeant apologized to Young, the video shows.
“I do apologize for bothering you tonight,” the sergeant said. “I assure you that the city will be in contact with you tomorrow.”
“Is there anything I can do right now?” the sergeant also asked.
“Just leave and let me move on, this is so crazy,” Young said, still in tears.
“Again, I do apologize for meeting you this way,” the sergeant said. “I will do everything I can do to get the door fixed.”
Officers then attempted to fix her door with a hammer. When that didn’t work, they tried to wedge an ironing board in between the door.
Young said it was “surreal” watching the body camera video of what happened to her nearly two years later.
“It’s almost like a bad movie,” she said. “I feel like I’m watching a movie, but those are no actors, I’m no actor, but this is my life and it happened to me.”
In response to the city’s emergency motion and efforts to stop CBS 2 from airing the body camera video, CBS 2’s attorneys filed a response in federal court Monday night. They said the city’s action is unconstitutional and an attempt to suppress CBS 2’s reporting. While the report was being broadcast, a judge denied the city’s motion.
Even though the incident happened in February of 2019, COPA did not open the investigation or contact Young until nine months later when CBS 2 first broke the story online.
On Nov. 25, 2020 – more than a year since COPA began investigating – COPA said it “is still in the process of serving allegations and conducting all necessary officer interviews.”
While Young continues to live with trauma – that feeling of safety at home, she said, is lost – she leans on her church for healing and support. She believes she has a responsibility to use her voice to help protect others.
And if police don’t make sure they have the correct address before conducting search warrants, she said, their actions will continue to traumatize innocent families.
“The work is warranted – they need to do the work,” Young said. “But they need to do it right. They can’t just callously do it and leave people’s lives in ruins because they got it wrong.”
via: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/you-have-the-wrong-place-body-camera-video-shows-moments-police-handcuff-innocent-naked-woman-during-wrong-raid/
Photo Credit: reason.com
2-year-old boy abandoned at Mississippi Goodwill store with change of clothes and note: “child abandoned…no phone number from mom” Suspect in custody
Southaven police posted on social media Monday about the boy, who they believe is about 2 years old. They told WREG he had a change of clothes, some food and a note written on a paper towel that read, “child abandoned … no phone number for mom.”
Southaven is just south of Memphis across the Mississippi border.
The boy was unable to give his name or the names of any parents or relatives to officers, and they posted to social media asking the public for help identifying any relative or possible suspects.
Later Monday afternoon, police said they received numerous tips in addition to surveillance video.
“Southaven Police received numerous tips, and with the assistance of F.B.I. offices in both Mississippi, and Tennessee, along with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department a suspect related to this case was taken into custody in Memphis at approximately 15:30 hours. At this time the investigation is still on going, no suspect information or charges are being released,” they posted on Facebook.
via: https://www.pix11.com/news/national/toddler-abandoned-at-goodwill-with-note-and-change-of-clothes-suspect-in-custody
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Wannabe Instagram star allegedly ripped mom’s heart, lungs and intestines out in shocking murder
A young medical student and Instagram star wannabe allegedly ripped out her mother’s heart, lungs and intestines – then calmly washed the blood off in the shower and met up with her boyfriend, according to a report.
Anna Leikovic, 21, of Comrat, Moldova, initially used a kitchen knife to stab her mother, Praskovya Leikovic, 40, who remained alive after the barbaric attack at her home, East2West News reported.
The crazed daughter then carved up her dying mom’s innards, according to the outlet.
Leikovic is “suspected of a terrible crime,” the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported, citing police. “She stabbed her mother with a knife and then cut out the heart of a living woman.”
It added: “It is hard to believe but she cut out the heart in the most literal sense of the word.”
The medical student, who has 9,400 followers, appeared in court, where she was asked by a reporter whether she had mutilated her mother in a savage attack.
“Goodbye,” Leikovic replied, laughing.
According to local reports cited by East2West, the mother had returned from a work stint in Germany and believed her daughter was taking drugs, so she arranged treatment for her.
Anna reportedly got angry.
“This was a very good family,” said Anna’s uncle Vladimir, who denied that she had been put in rehab.
“Praskovya loved her daughter so much, and she spent as much time with her as she could,” he said. “It took two hours for the police to tell me Anna is the main suspect. I could not even imagine this.”
Police spokeswoman Lyubov Yanak said: “The detainee is the main suspect. There is no likelihood of other suspects.”
The investigation into the motive in the shocking murder is ongoing.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/wannabe-instagram-star-killed-mom-with-kitchen-knife-report/
Photo Credit: PRO TV
Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church received $4.4M COVID-19 PPP loan
Multimillionaire televangelist Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Texas netted $4.4 million in bailouts through the federal COVID-19 relief program, records show.
The Houston megachurch, the largest in the nation with 52,000 weekly congregants, received the forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loan in late July, the Houston Business Journal reported Sunday.
The loan was the third-highest in the Houston area during all of July and August, the outlet noted, citing federal data.
Lakewood’s PPP check went to 368 full- and part-time employees, spokesman Donald Iloff told the Houston Business Journal.
He said in-person services that were suspended from March 15 through Oct. 18 due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted “its ability to collect substantial donations during those services.”
“Believing the shutdown would only last a few weeks, Lakewood did not initially apply for PPP assistance during the first half of the program,” Iloff said in a statement. “However, as the shutdown persisted month after month, given the economic uncertainty, Lakewood finally applied for the PPP loan and has been able to provide full salaries and benefits including health insurance coverage to all of its employees and their families.”
He added, “It is important to note that, since 2004, Pastors Joel and Victoria Osteen have not received salaries from Lakewood Church, and the PPP funds do not provide any personal financial benefit to them, whatsoever.”
Osteen — whose sermons are seen around the world — is worth an estimated $100 million. He took the helm of Lakewood Church following the death of his dad, founding pastor John Osteen, in 1999.
The toothy televangelist had teamed up with Kanye West to host Lakewood Church’s virtual Easter Sunday service in April — but West’s appearance fell through due to social distancing issues, TMZ reported.
The service, however, was still star-studded, with performances by Mariah Carey and words from Tyler Perry.
The best-selling author came under fire in 2017 following accusations that he refused to open up his megachurch to Tropical Storm Harvey victims.
The Small Business Administration said it’s approved more than 5 million loans through the $525 billion program, which ended in August.
Recipients included small businesses — as well as thousands of churches and other religious organizations and private schools.
About 1,500 religious organizations in the Houston area were approved for PPP loans, with 20 receiving loans of more than $1 million, the Houston Business Journal said.
A slew of businesses that received PPP loans — designed to help keep small businesses in operation — opted to return them, including Shake Shack, news website Axios and more than a dozen publicly traded companies.
Iloff didn’t immediately return a message from The Post.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/15/joel-osteens-megachurch-received-4-4m-covid-19-ppp-loan/
Photo Credit: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal