Crime

Racism of Rioters Takes Center Stage in Jan. 6 Hearing

Published

5 years ago

July 27, 2021

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell left, and U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn stand after the House select committee hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 27, 2021. (AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik, Pool)

WASHINGTON (AP) – It had only been hinted at in previous public examinations of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection: Scores of rioters attacked police officers not just with makeshift weapons, stun guns and fists, but with racist slurs and accusations of treason.

Four officers, two from the U.S. Capitol Police and two from the D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, on Tuesday detailed the racism and bigotry they encountered during the violent assault on the Capitol. Their direct, harrowing accounts laid out the hours when the pro-police sentiment of Trump’s supporters was pushed aside, consumed by the fury of wanting to keep him in the White House.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told lawmakers about an exchange he had with rioters, who disputed that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in the last presidential election. When Dunn, who is Black, argued with the rioters that he voted for Biden and that his vote should be counted, a crowd began hurling the N-word at him.

“One woman in a pink ‘MAGA’ (Make American Great Again) shirt yelled, ‘You hear that, guys, this n——— voted for Joe Biden!’” said Dunn, who has served more than a dozen years on the Capitol Police force.

“Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, joined in, screaming “Boo! F——— n—— !” he testified. He said no one had ever called him the N-word while he was in uniform. That night, he sat in the Capitol Rotunda and wept.

Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a member of the panel, said the Capitol and D.C. officers would provide insight into “what it was like to be on the front lines.”

However, Dunn was also speaking to the experience of being an African-American police officer, who make up 29% of roughly 2,300 officers and civilians serving on the Capitol Police force.

Dunn said another Black male officer told him that, while confronting the rioters on Jan. 6, he was told to “Put your gun down and we’ll show you what kind of n—— you really are!”

The panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, pressed Dunn further about how he felt being an African-American officer facing down racists and enduring racial slurs in the halls of democracy.

“It’s just so disheartening that people like that will attack you just for the color of your skin,” Dunn replied. “Once I was able to process it, it hurt. My blood is red. I’m an American citizen. I’m a police officer. I’m a peace officer.”

While Black Americans make up roughly 13% of the U.S. population, they were roughly 11% of all police officers in 2016 across a sampling of 18,000 local law enforcement agencies in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Over 71% of officers were white in 2016.

It’s this kind of treatment endured by Black men and women in law enforcement that policing experts say makes recruitment and diversity among U.S. police forces challenging. The law enforcement profession has also struggled with its origins in America, dating back to the slave patrols in the early 1700s formed to capture people who escaped slavery and terrorize the enslaved into submission. Although many African-Americans have served valiantly on local and federal police forces since the Civil Rights movement, data shows Black Americans are still arrested in disproportionate numbers and more likely to be fatally shot by police.

Another Capitol Police officer, Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, wiped away tears as he recalled the story of his immigration to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, only to face fellow Americans who considered him a traitor for defending the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“It was very disappointing,” Gonell said. “I saw many officers fighting for their lives against people, rioters (and) citizens, turning against us.”

Gonell, an Iraq War veteran, also called out the disparate law enforcement response to the overwhelmingly white crowd of rioters and the response to racial justice protests in 2020 that followed the murder of George Floyd and the police involved deaths of other Black Americans.

“As America and the world watched in horror what was happening to us at the Capitol, we did not receive timely reinforcements and support we needed,” he said. “In contrast, during the Black Lives Matter protest last year, U.S. Capitol Police had all the support we needed and more. Why the different response?”

Indeed, law enforcement agencies in dozens of cities last year showed overwhelming force toward BLM demonstrators. Many used chemical dispersants, rubber bullets and hand-to-hand combat with largely peaceful crowds and some unruly vandals and looters. By the end of 2020, police had made more than 14,000 arrests.

In January, as images and video emerged from the attacks on the Capitol, a racist and anti-Semitic element among the rioters became apparent. One man was pictured inside of the Capitol building carrying a Confederate battle flag.

And in the nearly seven months since the attacks, more video investigations revealed several rioters had flashed white supremacist gang signs and “white power” hand signals during the insurrection.

Gonell also called out the hypocrisy he perceived from many of the rioters who profess to support law enforcement — “the thin blue line” — but did not agree with those protesting over Floyd last summer.

“There are some who expressed outrage when someone simply kneeled for social justice during the national anthem,” Dunn said. “Where are those same people expressing outrage to condemn the violent attack on law enforcement officers, the U.S. Capitol, and our American democracy?”

“I’m still waiting for that,” he said.

Black lives

Former Louisville Cop Pleads Guilty in Breonna Taylor Case

Published

4 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

4 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

4 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.