Crime

President Biden Promises Swift and Effective Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

Published

4 years ago

May 4, 2021

An indigenous woman raises awareness of the plight of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Photo courtesy of Gospel for Asia via MissionsBox.org.

WASHINGTON (FNN) – In recognition of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day on May 4, 2021, President Biden signed a proclamation that read in part:

“Today, thousands of unsolved cases of missing and murdered Native Americans continue to cry out for justice and healing. On Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember the Indigenous people who we have lost to murder and those who remain missing and commit to working with Tribal Nations to ensure any instance of a missing or murdered person is met with swift and effective action.

“Our failure to allocate the necessary resources and muster the necessary commitment to addressing and preventing this ongoing tragedy not only demeans the dignity and humanity of each person who goes missing or is murdered, it sends pain and shockwaves across our Tribal communities. Our treaty and trust responsibilities to Tribal Nations require our best efforts, and our concern for the well-being of these fellow citizens require us to act with urgency. To this end, our Government must strengthen its support and collaboration with Tribal communities.”

In 2017, the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI), a tribal epidemiology center, undertook a study of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) aimed at assessing the number and dynamics of cases of MMIWG across the United States. The UIHI looked at three things:

Why is obtaining data so hard
How is law enforcement tracking and responding to these cases
How is the media reporting these cases

A Major Gap Between the Number of Cases and What Gets Reported

The UIHI found that as of 2016, the National Crime Information Center reported 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, while the US Justice Department’s missing person database only had 116 reported cases.

The CDC lists murder as the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women and says that the rates of violence on reservations can be 10 times higher than the national average. But no research has been done on rates of violence among American Indian and Alaska Native women living in urban areas, even though approximately 71 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives live in urban areas.

The 2016 census showed that 50.2 percent of the urban Indian population identified as female. Urban Indian is described as tribal people living off federally-defined tribal lands in urban areas.

There are critical issues regarding the jurisdiction of MMIWG cases on reservations and village lands but a lack of prosecution, poor data collection, prejudice, and institutional racism are factors in urban cases.

The UIHI found that the lack of good data is due to underreporting, racial misclassification, poor relationships between law enforcement and American Indian and Alaska Native communities, poor record-keeping protocols, institutional racism in the media, and lack of substantive relationships between journalists and American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

The UIHI used the Freedom of Information Act to request information from law enforcement, and state and national databases, they gathered information through searches of online media archives and public social media posts, as well as community and family accounts to gather the data for their report.

The UIHI looked at 71 cities in 29 states, including here in Orlando.

The UIHI requested data from 1900 to the present with the oldest case reported being from 1943 and two-thirds of the cases were from 2010 to 2018, suggesting that the actual number of cases is much higher than what the UIHI was able to identify in the study.

506 unique cases were identified, 128 (25 percent) were missing person cases, 280 (56 percent) were murder cases and 98 (19 percent) were unknown. Unknown was defined as when law enforcement gave a total number of cases but did not clarify how many were missing person cases and how many were murder cases or when a case was listed on a missing person database and then removed and the UIHI could not verify if the person was found safe or deceased.

The youngest victim was less than a year old and the oldest victim was 83 years old. 137 (22 percent) of the 506 cases involved girls less than 18 years old.

Of the perpetrators that were identified 83 percent were male and over half were non-native. 28 percent of these perpetrators were never charged or held accountable and as of the date of the report, 30 alleged perpetrators still had charges pending.

Sadly, more than 95 percent of these cases went unreported in the national media. Some were reported in the local media, but many times the coverage was sparse and carried with it language that seemed to blame the victim.

So Where Do We Go from Here?

Tribal nations must have the ability to advocate for their citizens living in urban areas when they go missing or are killed. This is a courtesy extended to all other sovereign nations—when a citizen is killed while living or traveling outside the nation of which they are a citizen, the nation is notified of their death and able to advocate for their citizen’s case and family. This basic respect must be afforded to tribal nations as well, so they are able to fully practice their inherent sovereignty by advocating for the health and safety of all their citizens, regardless of where they reside. Unfortunately, tribal nations are rarely notified if a member goes missing or is murdered so there is no way for them to advocate for their members and their families.

The UIHI discovered a striking level of inconsistency between community, law enforcement, and media understanding of the magnitude of this violence. If their report demonstrates one powerful conclusion, it is that if we rely solely on law enforcement or media for awareness or understanding of the issue, we will have a deeply inaccurate picture of the realities, minimizing the extent to which urban American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls experience this violence. This inaccurate picture limits our ability to address this issue with new policies, programs, and advocacy initiatives.

________________________________________________

Lynn DeJarnette is a contributing writer for Florida National News. | info@floridanationalnews.com

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Black lives

Former Louisville Cop Pleads Guilty in Breonna Taylor Case

Published

3 years ago

August 24, 2022

Willie David

FILE - This undated file photo provided by Taylor family attorney Sam Aguiar shows Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot by police in her Louisville, Ky., apartment in March 2020. A former Louisville police detective who helped write the warrant that led to the deadly police raid at Taylor's apartment has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge. (Courtesy of Taylor Family attorney Sam Aguiar via AP, File)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A former Louisville police detective who helped falsify the warrant that led to the deadly police raid at Breonna Taylor’s apartment has pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge.

Federal investigators said Kelly Goodlett added a false line to the warrant and later conspired with another detective to create a cover story when Taylor’s March 13, 2020, shooting death by police began gaining national attention.

Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was shot to death by officers who knocked down her door while executing a drug search warrant. Taylor’s boyfriend fired a shot that hit one of the officers as they came through the door and they returned fire, striking Taylor multiple times.

Goodlett, 35, appeared in a federal courtroom in Louisville on Tuesday afternoon and admitted to conspiring with another Louisville police officer to falsify the warrant. Goodlett briefly answered several questions from federal judge Rebecca Jennings Grady.

Taylor’s mother, Tamika Palmer, was in the courtroom Tuesday but did not speak after the proceedings.

Three former Louisville officers were indicted on criminal civil rights charges earlier this month by a federal grand jury. Goodlett was not indicted, but charged in a federal information filing, which likely means the former detective is cooperating with investigators.

Goodlett will be sentenced Nov. 22. Grady said there may be “extenuating circumstances” that may move the court to push back the sentencing date. Part of the plea hearing was also kept under seal and was not discussed in open court Tuesday. She faces up to five years in prison for the conviction.

She resigned from the department Aug. 5, a day after U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new federal charges in the Taylor case.

Former officers Joshua Jaynes and Kyle Meany were indicted on charges related to the warrant used to search Taylor’s home. A third former officer, Brett Hankison, was charged with using excessive force when he retreated from Taylor’s door, turned a corner and fired 10 shots into the side of her two-bedroom apartment. He was acquitted by a jury on similar state charges earlier this year. Jaynes, Meany and Hankison have all been fired.

The three former officers face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on the civil rights charges.

Federal prosecutors said in court records that Jaynes, who drew up the Taylor warrant, had claimed to Goodlett days before the warrant was served that he had “verified” from a postal inspector that a suspected drug dealer was receiving packages at Taylor’s apartment. But Goodlett knew this was false and told Jaynes the warrant did not yet have enough information connecting Taylor to criminal activity, prosecutors said. She added a paragraph saying the suspected drug dealer, Jamarcus Glover, was using Taylor’s apartment as his current address, according to the court records.

Two months later, when the Taylor shooting was attracting national headlines, the postal inspector told a media outlet he had not verified packages for Glover were going to Taylor’s apartment. Jaynes and Goodlett then met in Jaynes’ garage to “get on the same page” before Jaynes talked to investigators about the Taylor warrant, court records said.

They decided to say Sgt. John Mattingly, who is identified in the court records as J.M., told them Glover was receiving packages at Taylor’s home, according to prosecutors. Mattingly was shot in the leg during the raid at Taylor’s apartment.

Meany, who signed off on the Taylor warrant and was still a Louisville police sergeant when he was indicted on Aug. 4, was fired by Louisville Police Chief Erika Shields on Friday.

Shields said in a statement that Meany has not yet had his case heard by a jury, but “he is facing multiple federal charges after a lengthy investigation by the DOJ” and should not “expect continued employment under such conditions.”

Hankison was the only officer charged who was on the scene the night of the killing.

Crime

Lawyer’s Group Text Causes 2nd Florida Murder Case Mistrial

Published

3 years ago

August 18, 2022

FNN NEWS

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A prosecutor in a murder case complained about a judge’s ruling in a group text message that included the judge, resulting in a second mistrial for a man charged with killing his girlfriend’s young son. Now the defense wants the case dismissed altogether.

Broward County Judge Peter Holden refused to allow a 911 call as evidence against Corey Gorden, who is accused of killing the 3-year-old in 2015 and returning him in his car seat to his mother as if nothing had happened.

Assistant State Attorney Katya Palmiotto then sent a text complaining about the ruling to a group of current and former homicide prosecutors, the South Florida SunSentinel reported.

“Holden just sustained their objection and wouldn’t let us put the 911 call in as hearsay,” she wrote.

As a former homicide prosecutor who was appointed to the bench in 2018, the judge remained in the group chat. And lawyers are prohibited in criminal cases from talking with the judge if the defendant’s lawyers are not present.

Defense lawyer Michael Gottlieb filed for mistrial on Wednesday, saying in a summary that the 15-year veteran prosecutor had been overheard saying she messed up “real bad.”

“The judge was visibly upset and appeared angry,” Gottlieb wrote.

Holden grilled the prosecutor about the text message before declaring a mistrial.

In May, another judge declared a mistrial when prosecutors asked a witness about Gorden’s refusal to give a statement. Criminal trial jurors are not permitted to consider the defendants silence as proof of guilt.

Holden has not set a hearing on Gottlieb’s motion to dismiss the case.

Crime

Uvalde Schools Look to Fire Chief Arredondo After Shooting

Published

3 years ago

July 20, 2022

FNN NEWS

FILE - Uvalde School Police Chief Pete Arredondo, third from left, stands during a news conference outside of the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas Thursday, May 26, 2022. The district’s superintendent said Wednesday, June 22 that Arredondo has been put on leave following allegations that he erred in his response to a mass shooting at an elementary school that left 19 students and two teachers dead. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Facing massive public pressure, Uvalde’s top school official has recommended the firing of the school district police chief who was central to the botched law enforcement response to the elementary school shooting nearly two months ago that killed two teachers and 19 students.

The South Texas city’s school board announced Wednesday that it will consider firing Chief Pete Arredondo at a special meeting Saturday. Arredondo has been accused by state officials of making several critical mistakes during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.

School officials have previously resisted calls to fire Arredondo. The announcement comes two days after a meeting where the school board members were lambasted for more than three hours by members of the public, who accused them of not implementing basic security at Robb, of not being transparent about what happened and of failing to hold Arredondo to account for his actions.

Confronted with parents’ vociferous demands to fire Arredondo and warnings that his job would be next, Superintendent Hal Harrell said Monday that the police chief was a contract employee who could not be fired at will. The agenda for Saturday’s meeting includes the board discussing the potential firing with its lawyer.

Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has faced blistering criticism since the massacre, most notably for not ordering officers to immediately breach the classroom where an 18-year-old gunman carried out the attack. If fired, Arredondo would become the first officer ousted from his job following the deadliest Texas school shooting in history.

Although nearly 400 officers from various agencies were involved in the police response that took more than an hour to confront and kill the shooter, Arredondo is one of only two known to have faced discipline. His attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The move to potentially fire the chief follows the release of a damning 80-page report by a Texas House committee that blamed all levels of law enforcement for a slow and chaotic response. The report found that 376 law enforcement officers massed at the school, with more than half coming from state and federal agencies, but that they “failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.”

According to the committee, Arredondo told lawmakers he didn’t consider himself the on-scene commander in charge and that his priority was to protect children in other classrooms. The committee report called that decision a “terrible, tragic mistake.”

Body camera footage released by the Uvalde officials shows Arredondo in the hallway trying multiple sets of keys on other classroom doors, but not the one where the massacre took place. The classroom door could not be locked from the inside, but there is no indication officers tried to open the door while the gunman was inside.

“Our thought was: ‘If he comes out, you know, you eliminate the threat,’ correct?” Arredondo told the committee, according to the report. “And just the thought of other children being in other classrooms, my thought was: ‘We can’t let him come back out. If he comes back out, we take him out, or we eliminate the threat.’”

Arredondo, 50, grew up in Uvalde and spent much of his nearly 30-year career in law enforcement in the city. He took the head police job at the school district in 2020 and was sworn in as a member of the City Council in a closed-door ceremony May 31. He resigned from his council seat July 2.