During the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on Friday, Police Lt. Richard Zimmerman testified that the use of force applied against George Floyd was “totally unnecessary” and “uncalled for.”
The former officer’s supervisor said Derek Chauvin should have stopped restraining George Floyd earlier. ABC News' Megan Tevrizian has more.
Britons returning from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya and the Philippines will have to go into hotel quarantine from next Friday in a move that will further deter any travel during the Easter school holidays. The four countries are to be added to England’s “red list” of countries under a travel ban amid concerns about the spread of new Covid variants that could undermine the effectiveness of the vaccination programme. The restrictions require British arrivals to quarantine in a Government-approved hotel for 11 days at a cost of up to £1,750 per person. As well as a pre-departure test, they are tested for Covid on days two and eight of their self-isolation. It increases the number of “red list” countries – from which passengers are banned from entering the UK unless they are a British or Irish national or are a resident in the UK – to 39.
A former Florida teacher was convicted Thursday of secretly recording 124 students and an adult teacher undressing over a period of nearly two years. Mark William Ackett, 52, pleaded guilty in Hillsborough County Circuit Court to more than 300 counts of video voyeurism, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Ackett, who taught fashion design and coached girls track at Bloomingdale High School, quit shortly after his 2018 arrest.
Hunter Biden acknowledged recently that a laptop left at a Delaware computer-repair shop in 2019 filled with compromising information “absolutely” could be his. “I really don’t know what the answer is, that’s the truthful answer,” he said in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning set to air this weekend. “I have no idea.” “Certainly, there could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked, it could be that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me,” he added. The acknowledgment comes months after the New York Post first reported on the emails, which suggest Hunter Biden may have made an introduction between his father, then–vice president Joe Biden, and a Ukrainian adviser to Burisma Holdings in 2015. The emails purportedly show that Hunter Biden made the introduction less than a year before his father pushed Ukranian officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the company. The documents, which Rudy Giuliani, then on the legal team of President Trump, gave to the paper, were reportedly recovered from a laptop computer that was dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019 but never retrieved. It was seized by the FBI months later. A senior federal law enforcement official told Fox News in October that the emails are “authentic,” while officials at the FBI and the Justice Department agreed with then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s comments that the laptop is “not part of a Russian disinformation campaign.” According to the New York Post, other emails on the laptop featured Hunter Biden exploring potential business deals with China’s largest private energy company. He called one such deal “interesting for me and my family.” The laptop also reportedly held personal photos and recordings, including a video that purportedly shows Hunter Biden using drugs and engaging in sexual activity. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans concluded their investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings in September, finding that the Obama administration had ignored “glaring warning signs” when the younger Biden joined the board of Burisma. The board position “created an immediate potential conflict of interest” because his father, who was vice president at the time, was involved in U.S. policy toward Ukraine, the report said. However, both President Biden and his son have denied any wrongdoing.
Matt Arnold just spent $5,000 to run help-wanted ads for his company's five trailer factories scattered from Pennsylvania to Utah. "We hired two from the ads," said Arnold, just a fraction of the 125 he needs to get back to full strength of 673 workers. U.S. manufacturers have long grumbled about labor shortages, but the past year has proven particularly frustrating.
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) -A Minneapolis homicide investigator said police officer Derek Chauvin used "totally unnecessary" deadly force when kneeling on George Floyd's neck during an arrest last May in testimony at Chauvin's murder trial on Friday. Chauvin, who is white, was fired by the city's police department the day after he was captured on video on top of a dying Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man in handcuffs, in a scene that sparked protests against police brutality around the world. "Totally unnecessary," Lieutenant Richard Zimmerman told the jury when prosecutors asked him what he thought of Chauvin pressing his knee on Floyd's neck for about nine minutes.
During the entire time that attorney Tony Buzbee has filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit against NFL superstar Deshaun Watson for alleged sexual assault and inappropriate behavior—at last count, the total number of lawsuits was 21—Buzbee has maintained that he would submit evidence backing up these claims to the Houston Police Department in order to seek justice for his clients.
A former intern at New Hampshire’s youth detention center says a supervisor suggested she destroy her notes and lie about a teen’s sexual assault allegation. Mary Goddard spent two days a week at the Sununu Youth Services Center in 2017 and 2018 as part of a master’s degree program at the University of New Hampshire.
Latino activists are pushing to keep former president Barack Obama’s name off a school building in Illinois over his broken promises on immigration as the Waukegan Board of Education looks to rename two of its schools, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Daniel Webster Middle School. The board formed renaming committees for the schools named after Jefferson, who owned slaves, and Webster, who supported slavery. The committees, comprised of community, students, and staff, proposed that Barack Obama and the former first lady, Michelle Obama, be added to a final list of new names being considered for Thomas Jefferson Middle School. District 60 school-board member Edgar Castellanos, who came to the U.S. undocumented as a child, said he would “not be part of renaming a school after someone who did not and does not represent the undocumented community,” according to ABC 7 Chicago. Activist Julie Contreras, who works with a group that operates shelters for undocumented children at the southern border, is organizing protests against naming the school for the former president and first lady, saying President Obama did not follow through on his vows to help the immigrant community. “From the time Barack Obama became president until 2017 when he left, he today is still the highest-ranking president with deportations in our nation,” Contreras said, according to ABC 7. “We feel that Barack Obama did disservice to us. He denied us, and he didn’t stop the deportations, the way he promised.” “If you’re removing the name of Thomas Jefferson — one oppressor — the name of Obama is another oppressor and our families do not want to see that name,” Contreras said. Latino community members protested outside the meeting’s doors on Tuesday. School-board president Brandon Ewing said that while he doesn’t personally object to the Obamas’ name being used he has “to be aware of the concerns.” According to the report, while a final decision on the name has not been made, others at the meeting supported another finalist in the running for renaming the school, the late congressman and civil-rights icon John Lewis.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said during an interview with WABE, an Atlanta-based NPR affiliate, that the state’s recent law limiting access to the ballot box has nothing to do with voter fraud.
A Times report included an allegation that Gaetz used the drug before sexual encounters he paid for. Gaetz has denied the allegations against him.
A 74-year-old woman has been arrested following an assault of a coffee shop manager in Steveston Richmond, Canada. The incident occurred around 3:15 p.m. on Monday when Nikki, a manager at Rocanini Coffee Roasters, was allegedly assaulted with racial slurs and coffee by a couple who failed to follow COVID-19 guidelines of the establishment, reported Global News. In a two-part video series posted on Reddit, a man in a blue sweater can be seen bringing in a patio table from outside of the coffee shop and putting it in a corner of the store, pulling over chairs for him and his wife.
Jurors on Wednesday saw Minneapolis police officers’ body camera footage showing how an initial confrontation over an alleged misdemeanor last year spiraled into George Floyd begging for his life underneath the knee of a police officer as two other officers held him down. In 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department rewrote its use of force policy to emphasize the “sanctity of life,” and began training officers in de-escalation — calming people down to prevent violence. A cashier at Cup Foods told his manager that he believed Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for a pack of cigarettes.
When 14-year-old Brandi Levy didn't make the varsity cut as a freshman cheerleader for the Mahanoy Golden Bears, she sounded off on social media, as teenagers are known to do. Levy's Snapchat post and the punishment that followed are now at the center of a major U.S. Supreme Court case that tests the boundaries of school discipline and the rights of students to free speech. "This is the first time that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to decide whether the rules that apply to kids when they're in school also apply to their speech when they are outside of school," said Sara Rose, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney defending Levy in the case.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s defence team has dismissed the US government’s decision to bring new charges against her as “tactical gamesmanship” and warned she may now not be strong enough to withstand the "stress of trial.” New York federal prosecutors added two new sex trafficking charges in a superseding indictment based on a new victim’s allegations that Ms Maxwell sold her to Jeffrey Epstein when she was 14 years old. She has denied six previous charges of sex trafficking. The British socialite’s lawyer claimed in a response to the court on Wednesday night that making the move “late in the game three months before trial is obvious tactical gamesmanship.” Attorney Bobbi Sternheim said that filing charges that were never launched against her former boyfriend Epstein based on evidence that was in the government’s possession for years was “shocking, unfair, and an abuse of power.”
Filmmaker Ken Burns says in a new interview he'll never make a move for the streaming giants. Rather, he plans to keep the longtime partnership with PBS that affords him total creative control and a lengthy production timeline, he says.
Pool via ReutersFormer Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin did not follow police policy when he held his knee on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes during a May arrest, his former peers have testified in his murder trial.Over the last two days, two current and former Minneapolis police officials have slammed Chauvin’s decision to use a restraint position that they said was not only against police training and wrong—but “totally unnecessary” after Floyd had stopped resisting.Lt. Richard Zimmerman, the longest-serving officer in the Minneapolis Police Department, testified on Friday that officers have never been trained to kneel on a person’s neck while they are handcuffed.“If you knee on a person’s neck, that can kill them,” Zimmerman told jurors in Hennepin County court. “That person is yours. His safety is your responsibility. His safety is your responsibility.”EMT Bystander: I Was ‘Desperate to Help’ Floyd but Cops Wouldn’t Let MeChauvin, 45, is on trial for second and third-degree murder as well as second-degree manslaughter after holding his knee on Floyd’s neck during an arrest over a counterfeit bill. Three other officers—Thao, Thomas K. Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng—have pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder while committing a felony, as well as aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter with culpable negligence.Chauvin’s defense lawyer, Eric Nelson, has argued that Floyd’s death was the result of health issues and drugs—and that his client was simply doing what “he was trained to do throughout his 19-year career.”But Chavuin’s former peers who were involved in the aftermath of Floyd’s arrest disagreed with that assessment, stating that they would never use the kind of force used on May 25—and captured in a video that was shared around the world.“Totally unnecessary. First of all, pulling him down to the ground face down and putting your knee on a neck for that amount of time is just uncalled for,” Zimmerman said when asked about the videos of the incident. “I saw no reason why the officers felt they were in danger. And that’s what they would have to feel to be able to use that kind of force”Minneapolis Police Lt. Richard Zimmerman just testified that the force Derek Chauvin used on George Floyd was "totally unnecessary" and "uncalled for." He said, “Putting your knee on the neck for that amount of time is just uncalled for.” pic.twitter.com/Ntp1FQzG08— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) April 2, 2021 Several bystanders testified earlier this week that during the arrest they repeatedly asked Chauvin to remove his knee and to check Floyd’s pulse. Among the group were an off-duty Minneapolis firefighter and EMT, who was ignored when she repeatedly offered her assistance, and an MMA fighter who tried to explain that Chauvin’s chokehold was cutting off Floyd’s circulation. Several teenagers said they begged the officers to stop as Floyd was “gasping for air.”When paramedics finally arrived at the scene, Chauvin had to be instructed to get off Floyd. Prosecutors state that when Floyd was loaded into the ambulance, he had no pulse.Zimmerman, who has been with the department since 1985, said that officers are trained to turn people on their side or have them sit up after handcuffing them. He added that the training also notes that having a person handcuffed and lying on their stomach might make it difficult to breathe and is considered a “deadly force.”“You need to get them off their chest,” he added. “If you’re lying on your chest, that’s constricting your breathing even more.”During cross-examination, Zimmerman admitted that the department’s training does allow officers to put a knee on a shoulder and bottom of the neck during handcuffing. After that, he insisted, it is unnecessary.George Floyd’s Girlfriend Tearfully Recounts Their Life Together—and Addiction StrugglesWhen asked if people can be dangerous after they are in handcuffs, Zimmerman stressed: “The threat level goes down all the way. They’re cuffed; how can they really hurt you?”“If they become less combative, you may just have him sit down on the curb. The idea is to calm the person down, and if they are not a threat to you at that point, you try to help them so that they’re not as upset as they may have been in the beginning,” he later added.On Thursday, retired Sgt. David Pleoger, a former shift supervisor with the Minneapolis Police Department who received a call about Floyd’s arrest from a concerned 911 dispatcher, also said that Chauvin’s use-of-force went too far.“When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could've ended the restraint,” Pleoger said.Pleoger revealed to jurors that Chauvin did not immediately admit to him that he’d placed his knee on Floyd's neck during the arrest. He said it was not until they were at Hennepin County hospital, where Floyd had been taken, that Chauvin admitted doing it—although he did not say for how long.“I believe he told me that they had tried to put Mr. Floyd... into the car. He had become combative,” Pleoger said. “I think he mentioned that he had injured—either his nose or his mouth, a bloody lip, I think, and eventually after struggling with him, he suffered a medical emergency and an ambulance was called and they headed out of the scene.”He added that, per department policy, Minneapolis police officers are trained to roll people on their side “so they can breathe easier” after they have been restrained in the prone position.Cup Foods Store Clerk Who Disputed Floyd’s $20 Bill Describes ‘Disbelief and Guilt’Minneapolis Police Sgt. Jon Edwards also testified against Chauvin on Friday, though his testimony was focused on how he secured the scene after he was alerted by Pleoger that Floyd “may or may not live.”The Hennepin County Medical Examiner concluded Floyd died of cardiac arrest from the restraint and neck compression, also noting that Floyd had heart disease and fentanyl in his system. An independent report commissioned by Floyd’s family, which will not be shown at trial, concluded that he died of strangulation from the pressure to his back and neck. Both reports determined Floyd’s death was a homicide.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
The White House is trying to craft a series of executive actions for President Joe Biden to sign to try to limit gun violence, hoping they cannot be quickly dismantled in court, according to aides and gun safety groups. Among the measures being considered - and strongly encouraged by activists - is one directing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to reinterpret existing law on untraceable "ghost guns." So-called "ghost gun" kits are self-assembled from parts purchased online or at gun shows and are increasingly associated with crimes https://reut.rs/3gx8YzS.
Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-Fla.) communications director Luke Ball resigned on Friday amid a growing scandal over alleged sexual misconduct, per two sources who spoke with Axios. The resignation was first reported by NBC News.Why it matters: Gaetz is under a federal investigation for alleged sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl. The congressman denies the allegation and says he is a victim of political extortion. Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free"The allegations against me are as searing as they are false," Gaetz told Axios' Jonathan Swan in an interview earlier this week. "I believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to criminalize my sexual conduct, you know when I was a single guy."Yes, but: CNN also reported on Thursday that Gaetz faces a probe into whether any campaign cash was used to pay for girls or women to travel with him. Axios' Alayna Treene reported also earlier this week — before news of the investigation into Gaetz broke — that the 38-year-old representative is considering retirement from Congress in order to become a media personality. Axios has sent a request for comment to Ball, as well as Gaetz's office. More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
MacLachlan realizes "simultaneous releases are kind of the wave of the future."
