Month: November 2021

Fatalities have been confirmed after a driver of an SUV plowed through a Christmas parade in a Milwaukee suburb. A live video feed of the Holiday Parade from the City of Waukesha showed a red SUV breaking through barriers and speeding into the roadway where the parade was taking place.  Waukesha is located about 15 miles from Milwaukee.

Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said the SUV struck more than 20 people, including children. Fire Chief Steve Howard said that 11 adults and 12 “pediatric patients” were transported to nearby hospitals. Police chief Thompson and fire chief Howard declined to comment on the number of fatalities until families of the victims could be notified. Several social media reports claim shots were fired from the SUV; however, Thompson clarified during a press conference that the shots were fired by a police officer attempting to stop the SUV. No one was injured by the gunfire.

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly called the incident a “horrible, senseless tragedy,” adding, “My heart goes out to those injured as well as to their families My heart goes out to those who are witness to these events. My heart goes out to those who lost a loved one tonight.” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers tweeted that he and his wife, Kathy were “praying for Waukesha tonight and all the kids, families, and community members affected by this senseless act. I’m grateful for the first responders and folks who acted quickly to help, and we are in contact with local partners as we await more information.”.”

The FBI will assist local authorities, who are currently leading the investigation. Thompson said it is a “very fluid investigation” and that one person of interest is in custody in the case.

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Two of the 17 people taken hostage in Haiti last month have been freed, their church organization said Sunday. According to the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, both members are “safe” and “in good spirits,” No further information, including the identities of those freed or how their release was secured, was given. The church group said: “While we rejoice at this release, our hearts are with the fifteen people who are still being held.”  The FBI, which is helping Haitian authorities recover the captives, declined to comment.

The missionaries were kidnapped by the ‘400 Mawozo’ gang on Oct. 16. There are five children in the group of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, including an 8-month-old. Their Haitian driver also was abducted, according to a local human rights organization. The leader of the 400 Mawozo gang has threatened to kill the hostages unless his demands are met. Authorities have said the gang was demanding $1 million per person, although it wasn’t immediately clear that included the children in the group.

The release comes as Haiti has seen a spike in gang-related violence and kidnappings. The U.S. government recently urged U.S. citizens to leave Haiti, and on Friday, Canada announced it was pulling all but essential personnel from its embassy. Haiti also is trying to recover from the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck in mid-August, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt granted Julius Jones clemency ahead of his scheduled execution Thursday, commuting his sentence to life without parole following public outcry based on doubts over whether he committed the 1999 murder for which he was convicted.  The last-minute executive order by Gov. Stitt came mere hours before Jones was scheduled to be executed, and follows public outcry among advocacy groups, on social media, and from celebrities like Kim Kardashian West, a prominent criminal justice advocate who called Jones’ case a “tragic miscarriage of justice.”  Several other celebrities joined in calls for his clemency, including NBA players Blake Griffin, Trae Young and Russell Westbrook, and rappers Common and J Cole.  Criminal justice advocacy groups have criticized the court’s handling of the case, claiming jurors had shown signs of racial bias and that prosecutors had withheld crucial evidence.

Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board recommended Jones’ sentence be commuted in September, and again voted for clemency earlier this month, voicing doubts about his guilt in the crime.  Governor Stitt said in a statement he commuted Jones’ sentence “after prayerful consideration and reviewing materials presented by all sides of this case.” As a condition of granting clemency, Stitt ordered that Jones will never be eligible to apply or be considered for parole, pardon or commutation for the rest of his life.  Jones’ attorney, Amanda Bass, said in a statement his legal team had hoped Stitt would adopt the board’s full recommendation to grant him the possibility of parole, but she added they are grateful “the governor has prevented an irreparable mistake.”

Jones has maintained his innocence for decades. He was sentenced to death in 2002 after he was found guilty of killing Paul Howell in a suburb of Oklahoma City.  Criminal justice advocates have criticized Jones’ legal team for failing to present his alibi during the trial, and have argued that racial discrimination played a role in his conviction.

Travis McMichael returned to the witness stand on Thursday, and under cross-examination from the prosecutor repeated that Ahmaud Arbery never verbally threatened him or pulled a weapon on him during the five minutes he, his father and their neighbor chased Arbery before the 35-year-old McMichael fatally shot him.  Travis McMichael, his 65-year-old father, Gregory McMichael, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 53, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.

Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski attempted to get McMichael to concede to inconsistencies between what he told police the day of the shooting and what he told the Brunswick, Georgia, jury during his direct testimony on Wednesday. McMichael acknowledged that in none of his statements did he tell police that he and his father were attempting to make a citizens’ arrest of Arbery. He also conceded that he had suspected another individual of stealing a pistol from his truck on Jan. 1, 2020, and that he had also surmised that person, not Arbery, was the one responsible for a spike in crime in his Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick.

During his direct testimony on Wednesday, Travis McMichael testified that he walked out of his house with his shotgun and saw a neighbor pointing in his direction as if signaling where he saw the young Black man running. He testified on Thursday that at no time did he go and speak to the neighbor about what had occurred before he and his father jumped in his truck with their guns and set out after Arbery.  He said he drove close enough to Arbery on three separate occasions to ask him to stop running so he could speak to him, but in each instance, Arbery kept running, never said a word to him and altered his course in an apparent attempt to get away from the McMichaels.

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The U.S. House on Wednesday voted to censure Rep. Paul Gosar for tweeting an animated video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being killed. The chamber voted 223-207 in favor of the resolution, with two Republicans — Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. — siding with Democrats. A censure is the most serious action the House can take to punish a lawmaker short of expulsion from Congress. Gosar, R-Ariz, will be stripped of his committee assignments but will remain a House member. The last time the House voted to censure one of its members was in 2010, against former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., over ethics violations. It was the 24th time the House had censured a lawmaker in its history.

The tweet, since-deleted showed Gosar and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., as the protagonists of the Japanese anime series Attack on Titan in an altered version of the series’ opening credits as they fly through the air and use swords to fight against Titans, on whom Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden’s faces were photoshopped. “Any anime fans out there?” Gosar wrote on the video.  Gosar was defiant about being censured: “I do not espouse violence against anyone. I never have. There is no threat in the cartoon other than the threat that immigration poses to our country.”

Ocasio-Cortez said: “It is a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong. The glorification of the suggestion of the killing of a colleague is completely unacceptable. And I think that it’s a clear violation of House rules. I think it’s a sad day. But I think that it’s really important for us to be very clear that violence has no place in our political discourse. 

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Jacob Chansley, the self-styled “QAnon shaman” who became one of the faces of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, has been sentenced to nearly three and a half years in prison for his role in the riot. At a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Chansley to 41 months in prison, although he will be given credit for the roughly 10 months he has already served.

Photographs of a bare-chested Chansley carrying a bullhorn and a spear adorned with the American flag in the halls of the Capitol became some of the iconic images of that day.  The Justice Department says Chansley was among the first 30 rioters to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6 as the crowd overwhelmed police and pushed into the building.  Chansley was arrested days later and indicted on six charges, two of which were felonies, and ordered detained pending trial. He ultimately struck a deal with the government and pleaded guilty in September to a single count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Chansley addressed the court for around 40 minutes, saying he has spent much of the time he’s been locked up reflecting on his life and his actions on Jan. 6, adding: “Men of honor admit when they’re wrong. Not just publicly but to themselves. I was wrong for entering the Capitol. I have no excuse. No excuse whatsoever. The behavior is indefensible.” Chansley admitted that he was guilty, but also said “I am not a violent man. I am not an insurrectionist. I am certainly not a domestic terrorist. I am a good man who broke the law. And I’m doing everything I can to take responsibility for that.”

Before announcing his sentence, Judge Lamberth told Chansley he believes that his remorse is genuine and heartfelt, but he also told Chansley that “what you did was terrible.” He said Chansley had made the right decision to plead guilty and take responsibility for his actions, instead of going to trial where he faced a much longer possible sentence.

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