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x5red · 5 years

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Sixty fun & fascinating facts about the classic Supergirl (2 / 4)

Welcome to part two of a fun four part series to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the classic Kara Zor-El’s debut in DC Comics in May 1959 -- sixty fascinating facts, one for each year since her introduction.

Compiled below is the second set of surprising or unusual trivia super snippets about the original intrepid Argo City teen who leapt from that crumpled Midvale rocket ship. Covering her original Silver and Bronze Age incarnation, in comics and on screen, each factoid is calculated to intrigue and delight – hopefully even seasoned Kara fans will find a few morsels of trivia that had previously escaped their attention.

Enjoy…

16. She has a criminal record.

One of the nice things about being a superhero is that you get to smash up entire city blocks, throw large vehicles around with gay abandon, and generally cause billions of dollars worth of mayhem to major public infrastructure – all without consequence. That is, assuming you don’t do any of those things in San Francisco. In Adventure Comics #399 (Nov 1970) Supergirl detains some fleeing gangsters by using her super-strength to block the ends of a road bridge. At the story’s close, after dealing with urgent matters elsewhere, she returns to the bridge to be met by members of the San Francisco Police Department, who charge her with criminal damage to public property and obstruction of traffic. (The cops do at least thank her for capturing the gangsters, but only after they insist she fixes the bridge..!)

17. Her mother didn’t originally have a name.

The bond between Kara and her deceased Kryptonian mother is a big part of modern Supergirl mythos, but surprisingly when Supergirl was first introduced Kara’s mom played such a small role in her origin that writer Otto Binder didn’t even give her a name. In the original telling (and subsequent re-tellings) of Kara’s origin story, Kara’s mom was simply “Zor-El’s wife”. The name “Alura” first crops up in Action Comics #291 (Aug 1962), but subsequent stories couldn’t decide on a consistent spelling: one L or two(?) When reader Glen Chihara complained in Adventure Comics #384 (Sept 1969), DC standardised the name as Alura with one L. Readers then had to wait until Krypton Chronicles #3 (Nov 1981) for Alura’s full family name, Alura In-Ze, to be revealed in a Roots-inspired mini-series dealing with Superman’s family origins.

18. She was originally intended to be a major character in the Superman III movie.

Flushed with the success of the Christopher Reeve Superman movie, and with a sequel close to completion, producer Ilya Salkind started to sketch out a potential future direction for the movie franchise. His initial story outline for Superman III, penned in November 1980 then updated in March 1981, envisioned a tale centred squarely around romance -- romance between Superman and Supergirl..!

A flashback reveals another escapee from Krypton, a young Kara Zor-El, crash landing on Brainiac’s planet (”all black and sinister”), where she is raised to be his future bride. Preferring to seek romance elsewhere, the adult Kara flees to Earth, where her attempts to blend in among the locals are unsuccessful, drawing the attention of the Man of Steel. Kal-El falls in love with Kara, but their courtship is cut short when -- inevitably -- Brainiac shows up to claim his bride. Of course Superman wins the day, with help from Supergirl, and the movie ends with the suggestion that the cousins will likely marry.

19. It is against the law for her to marry Superman.

Around the world the law varies regarding whether cousins can marry, but Krypton law, it seems, has no such ambiguity. Action Comics #289 (June 1962) saw a young Kara play cupid by trying to find a love-match for her cousin. Naturally all her attempts fail. “If I ever did marry, it would be to someone super and lovable like... you!”, announces Kal-El as he looks deep into Kara’s eyes, “We can’t marry because we’re cousins! [...] We’re both from the planet Krypton, where the marriage of cousins was unlawful!”

(It is worth pointing out that, at the time the aforementioned tale was published, DC claimed Kara was only sixteen years old.)

20. Her Supergirl costume is super-flexible.

As the 1960s wore on, and DC allowed the Girl of Steel to age from a schoolgirl into a college student, Kara’s Linda Danvers identity took on a more contemporary look. Thanks to 60s fashions, this meant short sleeves and even shorter skirts. Inevitably fans started to ask how Kara could conceal her superhero attire beneath her increasingly diminutive mod wardrobe, prompting one of DC’s trademark ad hoc and post hoc explanations in Action Comics #342 (Oct 1966.) Her costume, it seemed, was super-flexible -- the sleeves could be rolled up tight to fit snugly under whatever swinging 60s threads Kara happened to be wearing at the time, even t-shirts.

21. She liked her men to be rugged.

The Silver Age was full of wonderfully strange stories, and the one featured in Action Comics #320 (Jan 1965) was no exception. Laying a trap for the Maid of Might, a genius in robotics named Skoll secretly scans Kara’s mind to create a perfect robot mate. The scans expose her various likes and dislikes, including the fact that young Kara has a thing for rugged looking men. An unwitting Supergirl falls in love with her manufactured mate, of course, but its robot programming is a little too good -- it exhibits genuine affection for Kara, causing it to betray Skoll and sacrifice itself to help Supergirl.

22. She owned two cats, both named Streaky.

Streaky the Super Cat arrived in the Supergirl canon just a few short months after the Girl of Steel’s comicbook debut. Readers had already begun to write in to DC to ask when Linda (Supergirl) Lee would be getting her own super pet like Superboy’s Krypto, and in Action Comics #261 (Feb 1960) DC obliged. The oft-impetuous Streaky was Kara’s faithful companion throughout her 1960s adventures, last appearing in Adventure Comics #394 (June 1970), after which writers simply forgot about him. What happened to the Feline of Fortitude is a mystery, but by Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #6 (Apr 1983) Kara seemed to be referring to Streaky in the past tense. During this issue Linda adopts a new stray cat (or was it the other way around?), christening her Streaky because, "she reminds me of a cat I used to own!"

23. Helen Slater auditioned for the role of Supergirl wearing a home-made costume.

As a test of invention and imagination, director Jeannot Szwarc asked all potential Supergirls to improvise a costume that symbolised their own idea of the Maid of Might. Slater rose to the challenge, quickly pulling together a basic superhero outfit that apparently wowed Szwarc: “She had improvised a costume with tights and sort of cloak. I just looked into those blue eyes, with that jaw-line and everything. She had it. There was just no contest with anyone else.”

24. Technically, she’s a cyborg.

In the early 1970s Supergirl narrowly dodged death when a treacherous boyfriend tricked her into drinking a potion that stole her super-powers, then lead her into an ambush of a hail of bullets. The Girl of Steel survived, but as a consequence she suffered from sporadic bouts of super-powerlessness for months afterwards. In Adventure Comics #402 (Feb 1971), scientists from the Bottle City of Kandor -- ever keen to help -- devised various bionic replacements to compliment Kara’s unreliable abilities, including an external exo-skeleton for strength, jet-powered boots for flight, and surgical implants to replicate some of her other former abilities. Eventually the effects of the potion wore off, and Kara’s true Kryptonian abilities returned, but there’s no record that she ever had the bionic surgery reversed.

25. Superman didn’t trust her with his secret identity.

Many fans agree that the Silver Age Superman was not always be nicest of guardians to the teenage Kara Zor-El, but even by the cruel standards of the time, the tale that unfolded inside Action Comics #258 (Nov 1959) was particularly harsh. Superman had thus far not trusted the secret of his dual identity to Kara. When Kara reveals her own identity to Krypto the Super Dog, Superman punishes her with banishment to an asteroid for a year. (Yes, a year!)

A crisis back on Earth, however, saw Kara return temporarily to help her cousin, after which Kal-El arranges a test to prove definitively that Kara can’t be trusted to keep her own (and therefore his) secret identity. His plan backfires, however, as not only does Kara manage to successfully protect her own dual identity, but in the process she exposes Kal-El’s own secret. Her cousin admits defeat, and Supergirl’s asteroid exile is rescinded.

26. She was a great student, but a lousy employee.

Kara’s everyday life during the Bronze Age can best be summed up as restless and volatile. She tried her hand at a variety of careers, but usually stormed out spectacularly after clashing with her bosses. Kara sought employment as a news camera operator in San Francisco, a student councillor in Santa Augusta (Florida), and a daytime soap actress in New York. Each time she quit in a fury, often uprooting herself to a new location to start afresh in the aftermath.

In-between her failed career attempts Kara returned to education. After quitting her camera operator job she enrolled on a Drama course at Vandyre University (San Francisco), and then after spectacularly abandoning her acting career she became a mature student majoring in Psychology at Lake Shore University (Chicago.) These bouts as a student seemed to be the only times that Kara was content with her life as Linda Danvers, although she never quite mastered balancing her private life with her duties as Supergirl.

27. The flying effects in 1984′s Supergirl movie were superior to the Superman movies.

Despite them wowing audiences, and making a whole generation believe that a man could fly, Jeannot Szwarc wasn’t happy with the flying effects done on the first two Superman movies. Szwarc, who directed Helen Slater’s Supergirl, recalled in a 1999 interview with Scott Michael Bosco: “They were very much in love with this guy who had worked on Superman, but I felt that what we wanted to do, the image quality was not sharp enough. It looked too fuzzy. The whole system relied on being able to use zooms and I don’t like zooms. I wanted to achieve a more graceful flying style.”

Szwarc instigated a re-engineering how the effect worked, and, after a lot of experimenting, was able to devise a new system of screen trickery to make his Girl of Steel swoop majestically over the Midvale landscape. The end result was so impressive, it even drew plaudits from Superman director Richard Donner according to Szwarc: “I know that when Sidney Furie was going to do Superman IV: The Quest For Peace he called Dick Donner for advice, who told him to talk to me because he thought the flying in Supergirl was unbelievable.“

28. She inspired the writing of the Wizard of Oz.

In a magical tale published in Adventure Comics #394 (June 1970), at a time that marks the borderlands between the Silver and Bronze Ages, Kara and Streaky are whisked by a tornado into a strange land. There they meet three other stranded characters: a robot, a cowardly monster, and a creature without any memory. To get home the five must journey into the Emerald Pyramid to find the Mysterious Motr of Doom. In the pyramid they encounter a human who was transported into this strange dimension from 1898′s Chicago. It is only after the adventure is over, and everyone is returned to their rightful time and place, that Kara reflects that the human she saved was likely L. Frank Baum, the author who would go on to write the Wizard of Oz books.

29. Her creation was inspired more by Fawcett Comics‘ Mary Marvel than Superman.

DC and Fawcett had famously engaged in a long and bitter legal battle during most of the 1940s over the character Captain Marvel (no, not Carol Danvers -- the character today known as Shazam!) At one point the lawsuit even threatened to see DC Comics stripped of its Superman copyright thanks to a legal slip-up by the syndicate handling Superman’s newspaper strips. By 1959 DC had come out on top and Fawcett had ceased to publish the so-called Big Red Cheese and all his spin-offs, including the character Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel’s superheroine sister.

But DC couldn’t help but note how popular the Marvel Family had been with both girls as well as boys -- at its height outselling even Superman. So, while looking for ways to revive flagging superhero sales, DC took a leaf out of Fawcett’s book by introducing their own version of Mary Marvel. They even assigned the former Fawcett Comics writer who had created Mary Marvel, Otto Binder, to work on her. The result was, of course, Supergirl !

30. She was actually created by Mort Weisinger.

The names most closely associated with the creation of Supergirl are, as every fan knows, writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino -- but are these two DC contributors the true originators of the Girl of Steel..? Interviewed in fanzine Comic Crusader #15 (1974), Otto Binder gave Martin Greim a glimpse into the true origin of the Maid of Might. “Mort [Weisinger] kept pooh-poohing Captain Marvel, saying it was a bunch of junk. Mary Marvel was a crazy idea! So, a couple of years went by and one day Mort said to me, ‘I’ve got a great idea! … Supergirl!’ Of course, I didn’t say, ‘You don’t mean Mary Marvel, do you Mort?’ To me, it was like reliving the past.”

So it seems it was Superman editor Mort Weisinger who invented the Girl of Steel -- Binder and Plastino deserve all the plaudits, of course, for turning Mort’s idea into a reality.

We’re half way through the sixty now. Remember to check out part three when it’s published for even more cool Kara content.

#supergirl #superhero #superman #comics #superheroines #dc #dccomics #karazorel #kara zor-el #silver age #bronze age

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socialjusticeartshare · 4 years

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U.S. Border Agents Apprehend 1,000 Migrant Children In 5 Days

U.S. authorities along the border with Mexico apprehended nearly 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children in the span of six days last week, as unauthorized crossings by minors continue to rise, according to government statistics provided to a federal court.

From November 18 to November 23, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processed 997 migrant minors who traveled without parents or legal guardians, the agency’s top official, Mark Morgan, said in a court declaration Wednesday. More than 9,900 unaccompanied children have been taken into custody since September 8, Morgan added.

Within the next 120 days, CBP projects border crossings by unaccompanied minors to increase by 50%, according to the court declaration.

Morgan disclosed the figures as part of a Trump administration request for the D.C. Circuit Court to suspend a lower court order that currently prohibits border officials from expelling unaccompanied migrant children without a court hearing or an asylum screening. The outgoing Trump administration has argued that the policy, which it dubbed the “Title 42” process, is needed to prevent potentially infected migrants from spreading the coronavirus inside holding facilities and elsewhere in the U.S.

Last Wednesday, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. ruled that the public health law being cited by the Trump administration to expel border-crossers does not authorize expulsions or supersede legal safeguards for migrant minors — even during a pandemic. Sullivan ordered officials to stop expelling unaccompanied minors, but did not do the same for families with children or single adults, who continue to be expelled to Mexico or their home countries.

U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a 16-year-old undocumented immigrant minor from Mexico on September 10, 2019 in Mission, Texas.

/ Getty Images

In his declaration, Morgan said the uptick in apprehensions of unaccompanied minors is linked to last week’s court ruling, which he argued will “serve as a pull factor.”

Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who has been challenging the border expulsions, pushed back on Morgan’s statements and predictions.

“The assertion that there will be a sharp increase in border crossings by children this winter is speculative at best, and in any event children can be safely tested and quarantined as needed,” Gelernt told CBS News. “There is simply no basis for the Trump administration’s claim that the cruel and patently unlawful Title 42 policy is necessary to protect public health.”

Apprehensions of unaccompanied migrant children along the U.S.-Mexico border, which plummeted to 741 in April, had been increasing steadily before Sullivan issued his order. In September and October, CBP agents apprehended 3,883 and 4,764 unaccompanied minors, respectively.

The U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, where most unaccompanied migrant children were sent before the pandemic, is now housing more than 2,300 minors in its network of shelters, an increase from a decade-low early in the summer, when the in-custody population dropped below 800.

Migrant minors transferred to the refugee agency stay in shelters or other housing facilities until they are placed with a sponsor, who is typically a family member residing in the country. U.S. law allows them to request asylum or other forms of humanitarian refuge to stop their deportation proceedings.

After receiving 162 children between April and June, the Office of Refugee Resettlement received 1,218 and 1,530 migrant minors from border officials in September and October, respectively.

While the refugee office has space to house approximately 13,000 minors, less than 8,000 beds are available because of Covid-19 mitigation policies, Nicole Cubbage, the agency’s acting director, said in a declaration accompanying the Trump administration’s appeal of Sullivan’s ruling. Cubbage said her office expects shelters along the southern border to reach maximum capacity on December 12, and the entire nationwide bed space for migrant children to be depleted by early January.

If the trend holds, Cubbage said the refugee agency would need to reopen “influx facilities” in Homestead, Florida and Carrizo Springs, Texas, to house hundreds of migrant youth. Cubbage said her office could start receiving between 300 and 400 children daily in “the near future,” a prediction she attributed to Sullivan’s order, “deteriorating economic and political conditions” in Central America, the impact of recent hurricanes, seasonal patterns and even President Trump’s electoral defeat.

“I am concerned that the recent upward trend in referrals noted above could represent the cusp of a major influx of UAC,” Cubbage wrote, using an abbreviation for the government term, “unaccompanied alien children.”

Detention periods for migrant children are also increasing. In September and October, 71 minors spent more than three days in Border Patrol custody, according to government statistics provided to lawyers representing detained migrant children.

According to the data, a three-month-old apprehended with at least one parent was held by CBP for two weeks. In October, a 17-year-old unaccompanied teen was in CBP custody for 18 days. In court declarations filed earlier this week, several children interviewed by a lawyer alleged having limited access to soap and face masks, and denounced lax social distancing measures and crowded conditions in CBP facilities.

“My mask is dirty on the inside. Here, people do not practice social distancing,” an eight-year-old child said, according to one of the declarations.

Another minor, a 15-year-old from El Salvador, said: “I was detained in a room with thirty other minors and we were cramped. I felt uncomfortable because there were so many people in the room. I had to sleep in a sitting position because there were so many people in the room.”

CBP did not address these allegations, citing pending litigation.

A 2008 anti-trafficking law requires CBP and other agencies to transfer unaccompanied minors to the refugee office within 72 hours of apprehending them, absent extraordinary circumstances. “Failing to lawfully transfer these children in time is simply negligent,” Democratic lawmakers led by Hispanic Caucus chairman Joaquin Castro wrote in a letter this week to acting Department of Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf.

Neha Desai, one of the lawyers representing migrant youth in the court case over the Flores Settlement Agreement, which governs the care of minors in U.S. immigration custody, said the government needs to take more steps to quickly transfer children out of CBP custody. “Having children detained in CBP custody for any amount of time exposes them to a dangerous and traumatic environment,” Desai told CBS News. “This was true well before the pandemic and is even more so the case now.”

On Wednesday, CBP announced it would be closing its largest temporary detention facility for migrant families and children until renovations are completed in early 2022. The Central Processing Center in south Texas, opened during the Obama presidency, became notorious for its chain-link sections, which were denounced by advocates as “cages” when the Trump administration systematically separated thousands of migrant families in 2018. The announcement was first reported by The Washington Post.

The increase of border crossings by children, and of overall apprehensions, could prove to be an early and thorny immigration policy test for the incoming Biden administration. President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to discontinue many of Mr. Trump’s border programs, including a policy that has required tens of thousands of asylum-seekers from Central America, Cuba and other Latin American countries to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings.

Mr. Biden’s team has also pledged to review the expulsions policy to ensure border-crossers “have the ability to submit their asylum claims.”

Andrew Selee, president of the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, said ending the “Remain in Mexico” program and the expulsions too quickly could lead to a surge in border crossings. He suggested the incoming Biden administration could end Remain-in-Mexico but temporarily retain the expulsion policy, a scenario that could be complicated by legal challenges and reportingthat shows public health officials were pressured by the White House to authorize the expulsions.

Selee said an influx in border arrests could hurt chances of a divided Congress passing immigration legislation, including one that provides a pathway to U.S. citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries. Republicans lawmakers blamed the DACA program for a surge in border apprehensions of Central American children in 2014, even though the policy, established in 2012, did not benefit new arrivals.

Before completely ending Mr. Trump’s policies, Selee said the incoming Biden administration should deploy more asylum officers, surge resources to the border and expand case management programs that allow migrants to complete their U.S. immigration proceedings outside of detention centers. Otherwise, he added, a sharp increase in unauthorized migration could leave the U.S. government unprepared, worsen conditions in temporary migrant holding facilities and lead to more draconian enforcement policies.

“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place: Either you start releasing people in the general population or you hold them in the middle of a pandemic,” Selee said.

“If you try to be the anti-Trump on day one, you will end up acting like Trump in the end,” he added. “If you try and throw out everything Trump has done on day one, without having an alternative in place, you’ll end up doing the same things Trump did.”

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#migrant children #1000 #U.S. Border Agents Apprehended

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dipulb3 · 4 years

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Florida prosecutor's office stops pursuing most resisting arrest cases, causing concerns for local police

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/florida-prosecutors-office-stops-pursuing-most-resisting-arrest-cases-causing-concerns-for-local-police/

Florida prosecutor's office stops pursuing most resisting arrest cases, causing concerns for local police

Police have used resisting arrest charges to stifle protests and free speech, said State Attorney Aramis Ayala, whose jurisdiction covers almost 1.8 million people in Orange and Osceola counties.

“I would not be surprised if there was an attempt for some type of political gratification, but I’m just defining alternative methods of prosecution,” she told Appradab.

Officers undermine public safety when they bring “the force of our criminal justice system to bear against nonviolent citizens who are simply promoting the change our society so desperately needs,” her policy, announced Tuesday, says.

Abuse of power is another factor, she said. Especially when dealing with African Americans, police too often charge people with resisting arrest as a retaliatory measure or to cover up their own misdeeds, she said.

Under the policy, most people charged with nonviolently resisting will be ordered to watch a 30-minute video on the importance of obeying police. Offenders who have been arrested in the previous six months for resisting arrest will be prosecuted normally, the policy says.

Data shows that between September 2019 and September 2020 police charged Black residents with resisting arrest almost twice as often as other demographics combined, despite African Americans making up less than 21% of the counties’ populations. The contrast could be starker for people of color in general, Ayala said, but her arrest data doesn’t differentiate between White and Hispanic.

Prosecuting the cases encourages disproportionate policing, saps needed resources, creates trauma and long-term economic hardships and fosters distrust in the legal system, the policy says.

While research shows correlations between public trust and public safety, Ayala said, there’s nothing that indicates prosecuting nonviolent resisting arrest charges leads to less crime.

“There is absolutely no research that supports the nexus,” she said, “between a person who is arrested for resisting an officer without violence and future criminality.”

Other cities, including Chicago, New York and San Diego, reportedly have had similar racial disparities in resisting arrest charges, and some prosecutors have taken steps similar to Ayala’s. But Ayala believes hers is the nation’s most sweeping, she said.

‘It’s a bad decision’

Ayala’s team will still pursue cases involving violence or other aggravating factors, but the resisting arrest announcement isn’t sitting well with some of the 21 police agencies in her sprawling Ninth Circuit.

Heads of her circuit’s two largest police agencies say they worry Ayala’s policy was hastily conceived and will create problems if people are emboldened to defy lawful orders, they told Appradab.

“That could start the chain of events that leads to us using more force, where we were just detaining you and had reasons to stop you and just wanted you to get out of the car or come and sit down,” Orange County Sheriff John Mina said. “We just think this is going to confuse our residents.”

It will also encourage drug dealers carrying narcotics to flee, the sheriff said.

“We already have an issue with people, when being stopped by law enforcement, pulling out their phone and refusing to get out of the car,” Mina said. “Police give a lawful command, you need to follow instructions.”

He and Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolón were not consulted before Ayala’s Tuesday announcement. Rolón and Ayala briefly discussed the matter at an event this month, he said.

Ayala provided Appradab a letter she sent to police chiefs and sheriffs the day before the announcement, but Mina didn’t receive it, he said. Only Windermere Police Chief David Ogden responded, Ayala said, asking to see the video.

“It caught many people off guard … In the end, it’s about communication,” Rolón said. “We all want a nation where people feel that they are being policed (justly), and everyone is treated the same with dignity and respect and there is no question about the way law enforcement is performing their duties.”

Without singling out Rolón or Mina, Ayala said some police leaders have declined to support her reforms or issued statements contradicting her vision, she said.

“Seeking the counsel of people who don’t have same vision as me is counterproductive,” she said.

Rolón believes Ayala has good intentions, but he would have liked to share his insights. Ayala previously sought police guidance on her plan to publicly list officers who committed ethical or criminal violations, Rolón said, and he felt police input made officers more amenable to her policy.

He worries Ayala’s office is sending a message that protesters can take over an interstate or block an intersection, and it’s no big deal if they disobey police because they’ll just watch a video and do it again in six months, he said.

“It’s a bad decision,” he said. “When the only consequence of their actions is going to be a 30-minute video, then that is concerning.”

Mina was dismayed he could fast forward through the video, provide a fake name and receive a certificate of completion, he said. Appradab was able to do the same.

The video made good points, the sheriff said, but there “needs to be more deterrence.”

In Orlando, located in Orange County, officers responded to 500,000 calls and made 12,000 arrests last year, Rolón said. Only in about 2% of arrests did officers employ a takedown, pepper spray, Taser, baton, gun or other force, and the numbers are declining annually, the chief said. In Orange County, only 1.7% of arrests list nonviolent resistance as the lone charge, Mina said.

As for Ayala’s assertion that 63% of resisting charges target African Americans, Mina and Rolón did not refute the number but pointed out most reports originate with residents. In Orlando, Rolón said, most of those calls come from communities of color.

‘It tends to be widely abused’

Ayala also based her decision on her decade as a public defender, when she routinely saw trumped-up resisting arrest charges.

Her ex-boss, Ninth Circuit pubic defender Robert Wesley, concurs. He says he has seen clients charged with resisting arrest for “more innocuous” behavior such as walking away, refusing to give a name or recording police during a stop.

Once, a client who was hospitalized on Christmas Eve stepped outside in his gown for a cigarette. When a police officer told him to put it out, Wesley said, he took one more drag before complying and was charged with resisting arrest. The client spent Christmas morning in jail, he said.

“It tends to be widely abused,” the defense lawyer of 36 years said. “It can be used for less serious reasons.”

Wesley declined to say if Ayala’s policy would lighten workloads for his more than 150 staffers. But he said it would allow prosecutors to focus on “violence and other abuses” that injure people and their livelihoods.

The video nonviolent arrestees must watch informs them of their rights and when to comply with an officer’s demand.

“The police are important and so are you,” it says.

It reminds viewers that officers face risks on their jobs and may be apprehensive. The officer also may not have received treatment after a previous violent encounter, it says.

“Defusing the situation might save your life,” the video warns. “Live to tell what happened. You can fight it out in court later if you need to.”

It adds, “While citizens who have been stopped by police should not shoulder the burden of deescalation, the fact is the law does not require police to do it, and the failure to deescalate is dangerous and could even be deadly.”

From Ferguson to San Diego

Ayala’s policy notes racial disparities in resisting arrest charges are not unique to her jurisdiction.

In February, a San Diego television station reported similar differences in resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer over a seven-year period. In 2019 alone, the station reported, African Americans and Latinos accounted for 159 such arrests, compared to 54 for Whites, in a city where two out of three people are White.

The news outlet Slate last year, using data from the police watchdog Invisible Institute, reported that in 60,000 instances between 2004 and 2016 Chicago authorities more frequently used force on Black people, despite Whites being more prone to resist.

New York police were highlighted in a 2014 WNYC report that found in minor drug possession cases, Black residents were arrested for resisting at more than twice the rate of Whites in four of the five boroughs.

A 2015 article in The New York Times showed police in Greensboro, North Carolina — which was 48% white — charged Black and White offenders with resisting, delaying or obstructing at a four-to-one clip (836 Black, 209 White). The Citizen-Times in Asheville cited a University of North Carolina study showing disparities across the state.

And in Ferguson, Missouri — where Justice Department investigators converged after a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown — the agency found African Americans accounted for 92% of resisting arrest charges.

“They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence,” the department said of Ferguson police.

Brooklyn, San Francisco also target resisting

Several agencies have strived to level Lady Justice’s scales. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, then-Police Chief Harold Medlock instructed officers to avoid resisting arrest charges unless there was a more serious crime, The New York Times reported in the Greensboro story.

More recently, the Brooklyn district attorney opted not to pursue resisting charges unless they were accompanied by body camera footage, while also declining to charge protesters unless they were violent or damaged property, spokesman Oren Yaniv said.

As part of an effort “to protect the public — especially Black communities — from police violence,” San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin this summer instituted similar policies, he wrote in an op-ed.

The policy was driven by the George Floyd protests but also by a local case in which a resisting arrest charge was dismissed after a bodycam showed an officer pinning down a suspect’s head with her knee, spokeswoman Rachel Marshall told Appradab.

“This policy was created to ensure that officers are not manufacturing false charges to cover up excessive force,” she said. “Police body camera footage may reveal a very different picture than police reports depict — especially when police officers are worried about protecting themselves from allegations of excessive force or illegal conduct.”

Boudin is pleased with the results, she said, as it “ensures the integrity of filed charges.”

Sheriff Mina in Florida likes the idea of the body camera policy, he said, adding he might have suggested something similar to Ayala had he been consulted.

“I think that’s smart,” he said. “That would be my preference: Let’s watch the video and see if this is a case that needs to move forward.”

Ayala knows she’s a lame duck — voters will decide her successor next month — but she hopes she can convince the next state attorney to maintain her reforms, such as the resisting arrest policy, publicizing the names of bad police officers and her conviction integrity unit.

“I wanted to recognize history, and change in this country comes from people on the ground moving the people in power,” she said. “I was moved by the protests and wanted to protect rights.”

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alloutbailbondsfl · 4 years

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Basic Bail-Related Terms You Should Know in Lee County, FL

A bail bond is a contract between the defendant and the bail bond company with the stipulation to help defendant provisional liberty for the payment of a bond as a guarantee but at the same time ensure appearance during the course of the court trial.

The bail bond company has now the responsibility and accountability to monitor the defendant to make sure that the latter will not evade trial and services, this is part and parcel of the condition to post as a bail bondsman.

In the State of Florida, the bail bondsman guarantees the release of the arrested person by paying a specified amount to the court ensuring the same that the defendant will make his appearance during the trial. Such amount is set by the Judge with the jurisdiction upon the person of the defendant and the case at bar. The condition of the bail bond is to ensure that the defendants will appear for pretrial and trial hearings.

As a rule, the bail bondsman can enter the property of the defendant without committing an unlawful entry. Part of the bail bond agreement is the authority extended to the bounty hunter to enter the real property of the defendant to hinder the latter’s escape. However, the bail bondsman or the bail recovery agent(bounty hunter) is prohibited to enter another’s residential home without a search warrant even if the defendant is inside the house.

On the other hand, bail is returned to the defendant when their trial is completed.

The Department of Financial Services has been lodged with the authority to regulate the licenses of the bail bond agents. Complaints against the said agents may be filed before this afore-cited Department.

However, the motion for a bail bond is not always approved by the court especially if the judge has reason to believe that the accused has a high flight risk. But if the defendant is allowed to post bail, he may be allowed to return to his regular work and home.

The bail bond fee is always referenced to the schedule of fees, which is drawn from the 10% of the bail bond set by the Judge. If the defendant opts to evade appearance to trial, the insurance company that ensures such a bail bond will pay for the full amount of the bond being posted.

A bail bond company exclusively utilizes a cash-only basis. Meaning they do not perform their respective business using credit cards, also allowed are checks or debit cards.

The process of bail bond posting has been carefully undertaken and the dependant’s provisional release can take 4-8 hours, that is, if the process has been smoothly facilitated, otherwise, it can take up to 12 hours.

Under chapter 648.442 of 2019 Florida Statues with the title Collateral Security, the bail bond agent may accept collateral except for promissory notes especially if the bond exceeds $50,000 cash per bond. Other acceptable forms of security may consist of the following:

A promissory note;

An indemnity agreement;

A real property mortgage in the name of the insurer;

Any Uniform Commercial Code filing; or

Any other type of security approved by the department.

Of course, the defendant may post his bail bond but if you need to speed the process of bailing out, you got to hire a bail bond company to make sure that all documentation is carefully attended.

If you need the services of a bail bond company, it is highly recommended to contact All Out Bail Bonds. We will guide you through every step of getting released on bail. We are experts, we can provide fast, discreet, and professional attention to your situation. For a stress-free engagement, please call us now at Fort Myers: 239-599-5088, Punta Gorda: 941-584-4492 and we will lay down our action plan to help you feel relieved.

At All Out Bail Bonds, we comprehend the difficulties and challenges relating to your situation and we can provide you with posting bail quickly.

We can offer the solutions that you may need in order for you, your friend or loved one to feel at ease. Leave the situation to us and we will immediately respond to your needs 24/7.

Visit our official website to learn more details at https://www.alloutbailbonds.info/ or you may visit our service areas at Fort Myers, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte, Florida for a personal consultation.

Summary

We know you have a stressful situation and everything can get confusing. Leave it to us, and our professional bail bondsman will complete the bail bond posting the soonest possible and carry out your release order. All Out Bail Bonds will always be at your service and ensure your utmost satisfaction.

Title Tag

Posting a bail bond should not add more stress, leave this to professionals like us to ensure your prompt release.

Meta Description

Though a number of the defendants have the financial capability to post their respective bail bonds, it would still take a longer time to process your release from detainment due to lack of knowledge as to how the system works. This is the job of All Out Bail Bond and this is part of our regular work. We facilitate the bail bond posting best, as we put our hearts and minds to warrant our clients’ speedy release. Let us help you ensure the fast processing of your release, so you can get back to life!

#Fort Myers Bail Bonds #Punta Gorda Bail Bond #Port Charlotte Bail Bond

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lawofficeofryansshipp · 2 years

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Remove Girlfriend From Florida Home | Florida Unlawful Detainer Lawyers

Remove Girlfriend From Florida Home If you are looking to remove a girlfriend or ex-girlfriend from your Florida home, it is important to understand the legal options that may be available to you. One option, may be to file a Florida unlawful detainer, which is governed by Chapter 82 of the Florida Statutes. It is important to note that this is different from a Florida eviction or ejectment, as…

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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Back in March, as the novel coronavirus started to spread across the U.S., many Americans went shopping for home freezers to help cut down on trips to the grocery store. They quickly discovered there were none to be had. Some might be available by September, major nationwide retailers and smaller appliance dealers told customers, but no one could be sure until a truck full of freezers backed into to the loading dock.

The sudden surge in demand was one problem. But another, appliance retailers say, was that most household freezers, like hundreds of other appliances and household goods like air conditioners, are made in China, where factories were hampered by COVID-19. Even those home appliances still made in America use Chinese-manufactured control panels, circuit boards, and wiring harnesses.

Four months later, while think tanks and government officials debate the possibility of the Trump Administration instigating “a complete decoupling from China,” as the president suggested in June, many American consumers have already deduced that their homes could be casualties of the escalating tensions between the U.S. and China.

Decoupling from the Chinese economy is one in an increasingly long list of threats, sanctions and admonitions that the Trump Administration has directed at Beijing in recent weeks. The worsening confrontation between the two outsized economic powers has come to resemble a wrestling match, the opponents locked together and trying to throw one another off their feet or out of the global ring. For Trump, reining in China is a talking point that has rare bipartisan support during the final stretch of a beleaguered re-election campaign. But as the hard talk from both Democrats and Republicans gets harder, it is increasingly difficult to see where the U.S. will find an off-ramp after both parties have constantly accused one another of being soft on China.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

So far, China has largely confined its responses to rhetoric and symbolic actions, such as barring Republican lawmakers from visiting. Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Russian counterpart in a July 17 phone call that the U.S. government has “lost its mind, morals, and credibility,” according to the South China Morning Post. Earlier this month, FBI Director Christopher Wray called China “the greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property and to our economic vitality,” and on July 14 Assistant Secretary of State David R. Stilwell said “only the gullible or the co-opted can still credit Beijing’s pretense of good global citizenship.”

Following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in China, the imposition of a harsh new security law in Hong Kong, and escalating military jousting in the South China Sea, the Trump Administration has pivoted from its early stance of seeking an extensive trade agreement with China to exploring ways to punish Beijing’s actions.

On June 18, Trump signed legislation imposing sanctions on Chinese officials the U.S. charges have oppressed the country’s Muslim Uighur minority. On July 14, he reversed his position on pursuing a larger trade deal with China, something that had been a major element of his re-election pitch. “I’m not interested right now in talking to China,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News. “We made a great trade deal. But as soon as the deal was done, the ink wasn’t even dry, and they hit us with the plague.”

Observers say that stance has broad support among American voters ahead of the elections. “President Trump’s rhetoric on China continues to become tougher, and I expect that trend will continue until at least November,” says Zack Cooper of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. “The only foreign policy issue on which Republicans and Democrats largely agree is China. There is little political space between now and the election for going easier on the Communist Party.”

If the rhetoric on both sides is tough, the reality is tougher. The two nations’ economies have become so closely wired that the complete decoupling Trump threatened is impossible, experts agree, in part because its effects would be felt far beyond the search for freezers and air conditioners. “No sane policy official would push for a full decoupling,” says Yukon Huang, a senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But, he adds, “there are degrees” of decoupling that could take place if things continue to head in the current direction and could still have a negative impact in both nations.

Most experts agree that the likeliest target for some degree of decoupling may be the most important to both nations’ economies: technology. The U.S. already is having some success convincing allies such as the U.K. and Australia to bar using Huawei 5G infrastructure, which U.S. officials allege poses security threats, and contemplating similar actions against TikTok and other Chinese internet applications. U.S. law enforcement agencies have not publicly presented evidence that Huawei’s systems have been used for spying.

Despite its rapid progress on many fronts, China still suffers from some major technological handicaps, including manufacturing the increasingly compact, complex, and powerful semiconductors that are essential to advanced electronic architecture, says Michael Brown, the Director of the Defense Department’s Defense Innovations Unit. China also lags the U.S. and many of its allies in making the machinery to fashion advanced microchips and must import them, Aaron Klein, a Brookings Institution Fellow in Economic Studies, told a recent Brookings seminar.

More worrisome, the escalating tensions have now extended to military maneuvers in the South China Sea and near Taiwan, the self-governing island over which Beijing claims sovereignty, that could become dangerous if there is an accident or miscalculation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s declaration on July 13 that China’s activities in the South China Sea, most of which China claims as sovereign territory, are “unlawful” opened the door to further U.S. moves to penalize Chinese behavior, particularly its interference with fishing and oil and gas exploration by the other regional claimants, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia, says one U.S. China expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

While the Chinese announce plans to deploy their first new amphibious assault ship, the U.S. has sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the area “to support a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the Navy said in a statement on July 17. The Navy denied that the exercise had any political overtones. “The presence of the carriers was not in response to any specific political or world events,” the statement read.

Such jousting is unlikely to trigger an outright military conflict, several U.S. officials and outside experts say. Beijing, they argue, does not want to challenge the U.S. directly, so it tends to back down when confronted by the U.S. military at sea or in the air.

But others disagree. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, predicted “a clash within the next three to six months” with China in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner. “Knowing China, I think what they would do is ram one of our ships and say it was a mistake,” he told the paper. (While the Chinese navy has no record of targeting U.S. ships in this way, it has been accused by Vietnam of such attacks against its fishing vessels in disputed waters.)

The greatest danger is that an accident or such a miscalculation could rapidly escalate out of control, said three current and former officials. Shortly after George W. Bush took office in 2001, a Chinese J-8 jet fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3E reconnaissance plane. The Chinese plane crashed and its pilot was later declared dead. The U.S. plane made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island, where its 24 crew members were detained and questioned. They were released 10 days later, after the Bush Administration issued a letter saying it was “very sorry” for the incident.

“The question as things get nastier is whether a more muscular China and the current American administration would be ready, willing, or able to defuse a similar situation today,” says one former official who served in several Republican administrations. “If they aren’t, or if hardliners like Pompeo take the opposite tack to what (former Secretary of State Colin) Powell did then, we could get a war nobody wants.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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lodelss · 4 years

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ACLU: Civil Liberties Never Sleep: The ACLU in the Pandemic

Civil Liberties Never Sleep: The ACLU in the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed down many businesses, but the work of preserving civil liberties and civil rights continues, as essential as ever. Reports of courts closing down can be misleading. While public trials that require jurors and in-person testimony have been suspended, most courts and lawyers can do their work remotely. The filing of legal briefs continues, and oral arguments and hearings are being held remotely. The work of securing justice continues. At the ACLU, our most immediate focus has been on civil liberties and civil rights issues arising from the government’s response (or lack thereof) to the pandemic. We and our affiliates have filed nearly 40 lawsuits across the country on a range of civil liberties and civil rights issues. Our top priority right now is to secure the release of individuals who held in government detention centers, jails, and prisons. Detention should not be a death sentence, and most prisons, jails and detention centers cannot ensure that those in their charge are held under the social distancing guidelines the CDC urges all of us to follow. Many are held without posing any danger to the community, and should be released if they cannot be held safely. So far, we have filed over 13 cases in the immigration cases, and another 16 cases focused on prisons and jails. Through our litigation and advocacy, we have secured the release of over 10,000 individuals from prisons and jails, and dozens of immigrants from the detention centers. In each one of these instances, we may have very well saved human lives. We have also been pushing back against states that have exploited the pandemic to further their anti-abortion agendas. In Alabama and Ohio, we obtained court orders barring state officials from denying people access to abortions during the crisis and following an ACLU affiliate lawsuit in Iowa, the government walked back its threat to issue a blanket abortion ban. Because we must preserve our democracy even as we engage in social distancing, we’ve been advocating — and suing — to expand access to no-excuse absentee voting. This crisis may well still be with us in November, and we are committed to ensuring that everyone has the right to vote and that they do not have to risk infection to exercise the franchise. We’re in court in Georgia, Montana, Ohio, and Texas to expand absentee voting. We are monitoring state public health guidelines for the allocation of scarce ventilators to ensure that they do not authorize discriminatory denials to people with disabilities. And we have questioned plans to use location data from our cellphones to address the pandemic in ways that would not be effective and would impinge on rights. We have also raised concerns about the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 has had on Black and brown communities — and the consequent need for governments to respond. We are just as committed as the rest of the country to defeating the virus and limiting its spread in the meantime, but we know from experience that in times of crisis, governments often overreach. But even as we focus on pandemic-specific challenges, our ongoing work to defend civil rights and liberties continues. This past week, we filed a brief in the Supreme Court supporting a challenge to President Trump’s order authorizing businesses with religious or moral objections to deny insurance coverage for contraception to their female employees. Our brief reminded the court of a long history — going back to slavery — of religious justifications for discrimination on the basis of race and sex, and urged the court not make that mistake again. We also filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the Trump administration’s attempt to undermine the birth control benefit of the Affordable Care Act. If the administration’s policy is allowed to stand, millions would lose coverage — as well as the ability to make crucial decisions about their lives, their families, and their economic futures — because employers and universities can impose their religious beliefs on their employees and students. We are preparing for a trial in Florida challenging the legislature’s effort to gut Amendment 4, which sought to end felony disenfranchisement in that state. We obtained a preliminary ruling that the state’s effort to deny people the right to vote if they haven’t paid all their fines, even where they cannot afford to pay, is unconstitutional. But we are seeking final relief well in advance of the November presidential election. In Idaho, we are preparing a challenge to a new law that bars transgender students from competing in college or high school sports on the teams associated with their gender identity — even in the case of collegiate athletes who are eligible to compete under the NCAA’s guidelines that have been in effect since 2011. We expect rulings any day in our Supreme Court cases arguing that firing workers because they are LGBTQ violates federal civil rights law. And we are beginning to brief a new Supreme Court case, to be argued next fall, in which Catholic Social Services asserts a constitutional right to obtain a government contract from Philadelphia to certify families for foster care parenting — even though Catholic Social Services refuses to certify same-sex couples, in violation of Philadelphia’s nondiscrimination rules. We continue to fight Trump’s use of an unlawful emergency declaration to divert funds to build his border wall, after Congress repeatedly refused to appropriate funds to support that precise project. We have been successful in the lower courts, but each time the administration identifies another pot of money to unlawfully reallocate to the wall, we are back in court. We’re suing to get access to the Trump administration guidelines on use of lethal force abroad, which are secret but reportedly have been substantially loosened from the guidelines that President Obama put in place. And our work to ensure justice in military trials at Guantanamo continues, nearly two decades after the first detainees were brought there. Women’s labor keeps our country running, now more than ever. We are therefore forging full steam ahead in our cases on behalf of workers who were unfairly pushed out of the workforce because of their pregnancies. We are in active discovery in a case against AT&T Mobility, the company’s wireless division, for its so-called “no-fault” attendance policy, which penalizes workers for absences no matter the reason, even if it is because of pregnancy and even if it is excused by a doctor’s note. And we are preparing for mediation in our twin class action cases against Frontier Airlines on behalf of pilots and flight attendants who were banned from flying because of their pregnancies — even when it was medically safe to do so — and sent home without any way to earn a paycheck. The war on immigrants has not let up with the pandemic, and neither has our work defending the rights of immigrants from Trump’s xenophobic policies. This month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed our injunction against Trump’s effort to detain automatically persons seeking asylum — a victory made all the more important by the COVID-19 risks that such detention now poses. On March 25, the Montana Supreme Court ruled for us in our challenge to Montana state officials’ authority to arrest immigrants for federal immigration violations. And we are actively briefing our challenge to Trump’s order denying asylum to immigrants from so-called “safe third countries” like Guatemala if they haven’t first applied for asylum in the very country they are fleeing because of fear of persecution there. On April 9, we filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit challenging Baltimore’s use of high tech aerial surveillance to monitor its citizens without a warrant or probable cause. Two years ago, we convinced the Supreme Court that the government had to obtain a warrant to use cell phone location data to track suspects. We are arguing that they can’t avoid the warrant requirement by using high-tech aerial surveillance to do the same thing. Like so many others in this pandemic, our attorneys, paralegals, and other staff are all working remotely, from their home computers, or at laptops perched on their kitchen tables. But thanks to the Internet, the work continues, as lawyers file briefs, conduct discovery, and argue cases online. Judges are similarly participating online from their homes. The pandemic has upended our daily lives in countless and unimaginable ways. But the need to defend our country’s most fundamental values, and its most vulnerable populations, cannot take a respite. We continue to fight for you every day — virtually, but in real time and with real-world effects. Civil rights and civil liberties do not evaporate in times of crisis, but they will be preserved only with our — and your — continued engagement.

Published April 10, 2020 at 07:54PM via ACLU https://ift.tt/2RpSjEH from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Rv9l4m via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

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nancydhooper · 4 years

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Civil Liberties Never Sleep: The ACLU in the Pandemic

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/civil-liberties-never-sleep-the-aclu-in-the-pandemic via http://www.rssmix.com/

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rolandfontana · 5 years

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Immigrants Sue After Marriage Interview Deportations

Alyse and Elmer Sanchez seemed to survive their “green card” interview, a crucial step in obtaining lawful status in the U.S., the Associated Press reports. She texted her family from the immigration office as relief washed over her: The officer had agreed that their marriage is legitimate. Moments later, Elmer was in shackles, detained pending deportation to his native Honduras, leaving her alone with their two little boys. “We feel it was a trap, a trick, to get us there,” Alyse said. The Sanchezes have joined five other couples in a class action accusing federal agents of luring families to marriage interviews in Baltimore, only to detain the immigrant spouse for deportation. Federal regulations allow U.S. citizens like Alyse to try to legalize the status of spouses like Elmer, who has been living in the country illegally. Records show the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 23,253 provisional unlawful presence waivers, the final documents spouses, children or parents of citizens need before leaving the U.S. and applying to rejoin their families legally.

The American Civil Liberties Union says a growing number of officers have “cruelly twisted” the rules by detaining immigrant spouses following marriage interviews. The ACLU is pursuing a similar complaint in Massachusetts and says dozens of detentions also have happened at field offices in New York, Virginia, Florida, Illinois and California. The Maryland case is assigned to U.S. District Judge George Hazel, who already reversed the deportation of a Chinese man detained after a successful marriage interview in Baltimore. Ruling before Wanrong Lin landed in Shanghai last November, Hazel said the government can’t use the process “as a honeypot to trap undocumented immigrants who seek to take advantage of its protections.”

Immigrants Sue After Marriage Interview Deportations syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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ufcw · 5 years

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Protecting your constitutional rights during a workplace raid

In the United States, every person — whether documented or undocumented — has the constitutional right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions of the police, FBI, or ICE, whether on the street, in a car, or at home.

Under the law, ICE must have proof you are not from the United States to deport you. They can use the following information against you:

If you run and ICE catches you

If you tell ICE where you were born or that you don’t have papers

If you carry false documents

If you carry papers from your country

If you are questioned by ICE, you are NOT required to reveal any information, such as your name, address, or home country. If you are questioned or detained, however, it usually is a good idea to give your name so that friends, family, or your attorney can locate you.

What you can do now

The targets of the mass raids are individuals who have been ordered deported. Any individuals that were issued deportation orders because of failure to appear in court, should contact a reputable immigration lawyer, nonprofit, or immigrant rights organization to help them file a motion to reopen their order of deportation.

Gather and keep important documents in a safe place, make copies, and make them accessible to a trusted person.

Identify reputable immigration, family, and defense lawyers for rapid response. Speak to a family law attorney about the need to sign a power of attorney for the caretaking of children and handling finances.

Obtain travel documentation for all family relatives.

Carry a Know Your Rights card with contact information of reliable attorney and other emergency contacts. Memorize important phone numbers.

If you are stopped by ICE or if ICE comes to your home

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR if an immigration agent is knocking on the door.

DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you. You have the right to remain silent.

DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING without first speaking to a lawyer. You have the right to speak with a lawyer.

If you are outside of your home, ask the agent if you are free to leave and if they say yes, leave calmly.

GIVE THIS CARD TO THE AGENT. If you are inside of your home, show the card through the window or slide it under the door. The cards read:

“I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States Constitution unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door. I do not give you permission to search any of my belongings based on my 4th Amendment rights. I choose to exercise my constitutional rights.”

These cards are available to citizens and noncitizens alike.

During a workplace raid

To report a raid use United We Dream National Raid Hotline 1-854-363-1423 or send a text message to 877877.

ICE must have a judicial warrant (a warrant SIGNED BY A JUDGE) or the employer’s permission to enter the workplace.

ICE can enter a public place without a warrant.

Workers should stay calm.

Workers should not run. Union representatives should not warn workers that immigration has arrived or urge them to run.

A union observer should document (write, not film) events taking place during a raid.

Workers have the right to remain silent.

Workers have the right to an attorney.

Workers have the right to refuse to sign anything without talking to an attorney.

ICE is not supposed to take someone’s fingerprints unless ICE already has a reason to arrest them. Workers should NOT consent to being fingerprinted, and if they are, they should say out loud that they do not agree with being fingerprinted.

If ICE arrests you, you have the right:

To remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Anything you say may be used against you.

To understand the charges against you. If you need an interpreter, ICE must provide one.

To be represented by an attorney (at your own expense) and to receive a list of agencies offering free legal services before answering questions.

To refuse to sign documents, such as for voluntary departure. It is particularly important to consult with an attorney before signing if:

You are afraid to return to your home country

You have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years

Your family members have amnesty or other papers

You already have a pending ICE case

You are accused of using false documents

To make a telephone call to an attorney, family member, consulate of your home nation, friend, or the union (memorize their phone numbers).

To be released on bond and to have a hearing to reduce your bond if you cannot afford it.

To have a hearing before an immigration judge and to appeal any adverse decision by the judge. You have the right to stay in the U.S. while you appeal.

How can the UFCW help workers during workplace raids?

The union should enforce employer obligations on issues that affect immigrant members. The union could be liable for failing to represent members if it fails to challenge employer abuse. The union has no reason to determine the immigration status of a worker; unions must represent all workers regardless of status. However, a union representative must not assist a worker in presenting documents that the representative knows are false.

The union may request information about and bargain over employer I-9 audits.

Request information about the reason for and the scope of the audit, and request copies of any documents the employer received from any government agency.

The union may represent workers in reverification of work authorization documents.

Employers are only allowed to reverify identity and work authorization documents for expired documents, such as an expired work permit or visa, but not for a lawful permanent resident card with an expiration date. If the reverification is based on the expiration of the employee’s work permit, bargain for an unpaid leave of absence. Object to unlawful reverification of current workers such as non-citizen nationals, lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, or individuals with temporary protected status. Weingarten allows a union representative or steward to be present if an employer seeks to meet with a worker regarding employment authorization or other immigration issues. Grieve any adverse actions against workers based on unlawful reverification attempts.

If an employer gets a SSN “no-match” letter, the union can remind them that:

A “no-match” letter does not provide authority for an employer to terminate, suspend, lay off, or impose other discipline on an employee, and an employer who does may violate federal labor law.

The purpose of a “no-match” letter is to notify an employer when a reported employee’s name or social security number does not match Social Security’s records. The SSA has no authority to enforce the immigration laws, and the employer should give employees an opportunity to update their documents and information.

Ensure that contracts have provisions that state: “The Company will not discipline, discharge or otherwise act against any worker who is absent from work for up to [NUMBER] days because of arrest, detention or incarceration, and those days will not count against the worker’s time and attendance record.”

Engage with employers about immigration enforcement to establish protocols for their interaction with ICE in the workplace. (E.g. confirm that ICE may not enter private property without a warrant signed by a judge.)

Train members, stewards, and staff on the basic rights of individuals during an immigration enforcement action, the union’s rapid response plan, and family safety plans.

Establish relationships with local community leaders, allies, non-profits, immigrant rights groups, and legal service providers to be in communication during raids and mobilize the community to support workers and families.

Additional Resources

United Latinos of the UFCW Know Your Rights Resources

United Latinos App Available in the App Store and Play Store

Additional Know Your Rights Resources from CLINIC are available here:

Rapid Response Toolkit

Emergency Planning for Families

Know Your Rights

Additional Know Your Rights materials in various languages from the ILRC are available here

A Know Your Rights video is available here.

Here is a list of local organizations that can support you and your community if you are impacted by a raid or other immigration enforcement activity:

Baltimore, MD

CASA Hotline 1-855-678-2272

Chicago, IL

Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights: 1-855-435-7693 (1-855-help-my-family)The Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP): 773-471-8208 ext 120 The Resurrection Project: 312–666-3062 National Immigrant Justice Center: 1-855-435-7693 (1-855-help-my-family) West Suburban Action Project (Proyecto de Acción de los Suburbios del Oeste): 708-410-2000

Houston, TX

For Families and Their Education (FIEL Houston): 1-713-364-3435

Miami, FL

Americans for Immigrant Justice: (305) 573-1106 Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC): (305) 571-7254

New York, NY

New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC): 212-627-2227 Make the Road NY: Brooklyn: 718-418-7690

Queens: 718-565-8500 Staten Island: 718-727-1222 Long Island: 631-231-2200 Westchester: 914-948-8466

BAJI New York, NY — Telephone: (347) 410-5312 New Sanctuary NYC https://www.newsanctuarynyc.org/

Newark, NJ Make the Road NJ: 908-368-1196

San Francisco, CA SIREN: Text this number for rapid response: 201-468-6088 SF Rapid Response Network: 415-200-1548 Alameda County Rapid Response: 510-241-4011 San Mateo County Rapid Response: 203-666-4472 (203-NOMIGRA) Santa Clara Rapid Response: 408-290-1144 Marin County Rapid Response: 415-991-4545

Southern California: CHIRLA: 888-6CHIRLA (888-624-4752)

Atlanta, GA Los Vecinos de Buford Highway: 770-715-7200 Asian Americans Advancing Justice: 404-890-5655 Coalicion De Lideres Latinos (CLILA): 706 529 9216 GA Latino Alliance for Human Rights: 770-457-5232

Denver, CO Colorado Rapid Response Network: 1-844-864-8341 Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition: 303-922-3344

New Orleans, LA New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice: Message them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NOWCRJ/

Washington, DC DMV Immigration Crisis Hotline 202-335-1183 CASA: 1-855-678-2272

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years

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Pakistan fails to meet 25 of 27 motion factors prescribed by FATF to curb terror funding; downgrading by IMF, World Financial institution could proceed

http://tinyurl.com/yxdhu4mj New Delhi: Pakistan has failed to finish 25 of the 27 motion factors given by the worldwide terror financing watchdog FATF to examine funding to terrorist teams equivalent to LeT and JeM and frontal teams like Jamat-ud-Dawah and Falah-e-Insaniat Basis. With this, multilateral lenders just like the IMF, the World Financial institution and the EU could proceed downgrading Pakistan, making its monetary scenario extra precarious. Representational picture. AFP The Paris-headquartered Monetary Motion Process Drive has requested Pakistan to elucidate whether or not it has launched any investigation into the USD seven million allotted to keep up colleges, madrasas, clinics and ambulances initially operated by terror teams like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and LeT fronts Jamat-ud-Dawah and Falah-e-Insaniat Basis. JuD and FIF are based by terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed. LeT is liable for various terrorist strikes in India, together with the 2008 Mumbai assaults and the hijacking of an Indian Airways plane to Afghanistan in 1999. Most not too long ago, it attacked a CRPF bus in Pulwama in February this yr, killing 40 troopers. Pakistan is in serious trouble on the FATF assembly starting Sunday in Florida within the US, individuals conscious of the event stated. “It has been unable to finish 25 of its 27 motion factors. It has one final probability, until its 15-month deadline ends in October 2019, when the FATF Plenary might be held,” one among them added. In June 2018, Pakistan was positioned within the ‘Grey’ listing and given a 27-point motion plan by FATF. This plan was reviewed on the final plenary in October 2018 and for the second time in February this yr, when the nation was once more put into the ‘Grey’ listing after India submitted new details about Pakistan-based terrorist teams. The FATF persevering with Pakistan within the ‘Grey’ listing means its downgrading by IMF, World Financial institution, ADB, EU and in addition a discount in danger ranking by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. This can add to the monetary issues of Pakistan, which is looking for assist from all doable worldwide avenues. In a bid to bluff the monetary watchdog, Pakistani authorities have proven arrests of LeT, JeM, JuD and FiF cadres. However all have been apprehended below its Upkeep of Public Order Act and never below the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Underneath the MPO Act, authorities can’t maintain a detainee past 60 days. Pakistan has detained JeM founder Masood Azhar and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed largely below the legal guidelines that present for detention for apprehension of breach of peace; they’ve by no means been prosecuted below anti-terror legal guidelines. The FATF implements UN designations, which don’t warrant arrest. They ask just for freeze of funds, denial of entry to weapons and journey embargo. The monetary watchdog additionally desires nations to impose penalties which can be proportionate and dissuasive. The MPO Act isn’t seen as satisfying both of the 2 situations. Subsequently, none of those arrests will fulfill the FATF or the UN Designations Committee. Pakistan has additionally seized a number of hundred properties of LeT, JuD, FiF and JeM, together with colleges and madrasas. Nonetheless, these properties at the moment are being run by its provincial governments.The Punjab provincial authorities has allotted USD 2 million (Pakistani Rs 30 crore or Indian Rs 14 crore) every year for his or her repairs. Equally, different provinces have allotted USD 5 million. The annual expense allotted by Pakistan totals USD 7 million (Pakistani Rs 105 or Indian Rs 49 crore). The FATF has now requested Pakistan to elucidate whether or not there are any terror-funding investigations to unearth the sources and entities that funded these organisations with USD 7 million every year for the previous a number of years. The FATF at the moment has 35 members and two regional organisations — European Fee and Gulf Cooperation Council. Within the final assembly of the FATF in Paris, the FATF stated Pakistan ought to proceed to work on implementing its motion plan to handle its strategic deficiencies, together with by adequately demonstrating its correct understanding of the fear financing dangers posed by the terrorist teams and conducting supervision on a risk-sensitive foundation, demonstrating that remedial actions and sanctions are utilized in instances of Anti-Cash Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism violations and that these actions impact AML/CFT compliance by monetary establishments. Pakistan, it stated, ought to exhibit that competent authorities are cooperating and taking motion to establish and take enforcement motion towards unlawful cash or worth switch providers, demonstrating that authorities are figuring out money couriers and implementing controls on illicit motion of foreign money and understanding the chance of money couriers getting used for terror financing (TF), bettering inter-agency coordination together with between provincial and federal authorities on combating TF dangers apart from others. Your information to the most recent cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, experiences, opinions, dwell updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Comply with us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates all through the continuing occasion in England and Wales. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); window.fbAsyncInit = function () { FB.init({appId: '1117108234997285', version: 2.4, xfbml: true}); // *** here is my code *** if (typeof facebookInit == 'function') { facebookInit(); } }; (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); function facebookInit() { console.log('Found FB: Loading comments.'); FB.XFBML.parse(); } Source link

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scfop3 · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://scfop3.org/police-interaction-with-homeless-persons/

Police Interaction with Homeless Persons

Police Interaction with Homeless Persons: An Update on Recent Developments

Introduction

Begging, Solicitation, and the First Amendment

Camping Out and Living in Vehicles

Property and Pets

Feeding the Homeless

Use of Force

Liability for Crimes by the Homeless?

Resources and References

Introduction

Ten years ago, in the fall of 2008, this journal published two articles focusing on some significant case law on police interaction with homeless persons. See Police Interaction with Homeless Persons – Part I – Sleeping and Possessions, 2008 (7) AELE Mo. L.J. 101 and Police Interaction with Homeless Persons – Part II – Panhandling and Use of Force, 2008 (9) AELE Mo. L.J. 101. In the intervening decade, there have been a number of significant lawsuits asserting various claims on behalf of homeless persons.

In a number of such cases, various courts have sometimes taken an expansive view of the rights of such persons, entertaining some claims that may earlier have been dismissed out of hand. This brief article attempts to update the earlier two articles. Clearly, the social, economic, and law enforcement issues arising from homelessness continue to be challenging and unresolved. At the conclusion of this article, there is a listing of some useful and relevant resources and references.

Begging, Solicitation, and the First Amendment

While courts have generally upheld law enforcement efforts to curtail “aggressive” panhandling/begging, there have been a number of instances in which a uniform ban on all such solicitation has been viewed as potentially running afoul of the First Amendment.

An example of this is Speet v. Schuette, #12-2213, 726 F.3d 867 (6th Cir.2013), finding that a Michigan state anti-begging statute under which two homeless adults were arrested violated the First Amendment. The statute was facially invalid since begging was a form of solicitation protected by the First Amendment and the law prohibited a substantial amount of solicitation by beggars but allowed other solicitation based on its content.

One arrestee had been holding signs saying “Cold and Hungry, God Bless” and “Need Job, God Bless.” The second arrestee, a veteran who needed money for bus fare, asked another person on the street whether they could “spare a little change.” While there was a substantial state interest in preventing duress and fraud, the law was not narrowly tailored to serve those interests, the court concluded.

Similarly, in Reynolds v. Middleton, #13-2389, 779 F.3d 222 (4th Cir. 2015 ), a homeless man who supports himself by soliciting donations filed a federal lawsuit challenging a county ordinance prohibiting solicitations on county roadways. A federal appeals court found that the county had the burden of showing the constitutionality of the ordinance, which the plaintiff showed limited his ability to collect donations because he was forced to move to locations where it was more difficult for drivers to give him money.

The court further ruled that the county failed to show that the ordinance was content neutral and was a narrowly tailored time, place, and manner restriction on free speech, or that it left open ample alternative channels of communication. While the county showed that the ordinance materially advanced its interest in roadway safety, it failed to show that it had tried to improve safety by prosecuting those roadway solicitors who actually obstructed traffic or had thought about barring solicitations only at certain locations where it could not be done safely.

On the other hand, in Thayer v. City of Worcester, #13-2355, 755 F.3d 60 (1st Cir. 2014), a federal appeals court ruled that a trial court properly denied a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of most provisions of an ordinance aimed at

aggressive panhandlers, other solicitors, and demonstrators seeking the attention of motorists (other than a ban on nighttime solicitation). The ordinance was challenged by homeless people who solicited donations from city sidewalks and a person who displayed political signs near traffic during election campaigns.

The restrictions in the ordinance were not aimed at the content of speech, the court found, and did not appear to violate the First Amendment. And as homelessness and wealth were not suspect classifications for equal protection purposes, the ordinance would only have to survive rational basis scrutiny.

In The Contributor v. City of Brentwood, #12-6598, 726 F.3d 861 (6th Cir. 2013), First Amendment claims by homeless persons resulted in a modification of an ordinance restricting solicitation. The case was filed by a street newspaper devoted to educating people about homelessness, which used homeless people as street vendors. It challenged an ordinance that two of its vendors were cited for violating that barred using any part of the city street, alley, sidewalk, or public right of way to sell any goods or materials.

The city altered the ordinance so that it did not bar the sale or distribution of publications or handbills. Under the revised ordinance, those activities were prohibited, however, on any portion of the street. The revised ordinance also barred handing such materials to an occupant of a motor vehicle on the street or taking action reasonably intended to cause a vehicle occupant to hand anything to the person selling or distributing the materials. The federal appeals court upheld a determination that the ordinance, as revised, did not violate the First Amendment and left open adequate available alternative channels of communication.

Camping Out and Living in Vehicles

Where to sleep is a constant issue for homeless persons. A good number of prior cases upheld restrictions on camping out overnight on public property or sleeping on city sidewalks, as illustrated by Foley v. Kiely, #09-1250, 602 F.3d 28 (1st Cir.

2010). In this case, a homeless man claimed that he was unlawfully detained and arrested by two Massachusetts state troopers and a state police officer for trespassing in a public park after it closed at night. Upholding summary judgment for the defendants, a federal appeals court found that it was reasonable for them to suspect, at 10:30 p.m., that the plaintiff was in a restricted area and therefore trespassing, based on signs designating the closing time of the park.

Additionally, the area was known by the defendants to be one in which crimes had been reported, and the plaintiff’s attempts to avoid contact with the officers, combined with his inability or unwillingness to provide his Social Security number, gave the officers reasonable grounds to investigate his past criminal history. This reasonable suspicion justified his one-hour detention for a warrant check, and the Florida state warrant found was sufficient to give them probable cause for his arrest.

The case of Allen v. City of Sacramento, #C071710, 234 Cal.App.4th 41, 183 Cal.Rptr.3d 654, 2015 Cal. App. Lexis 116, however, involved the consented use of private property. The owner of this private property agreed to let 22 homeless persons and two persons providing services to them camp on his lot, located in a light industrial area of the city. Police then informed all concerned that the camping was in violation of a city ordinance that required a permit for extended camping on public or private property. Police removed camping gear from the site and issued two citations for an ordinance violation.

When the campers brought in more gear and continued their activities, they were arrested. An agreed judgment was entered against the plaintiffs’ challenge to the ordinance as unconstitutional, in order to facilitate an appeal. The federal appeals court found that the plaintiffs had stated a triable claim for declaratory relief challenging the ordinance as applied on the basis of equal protection. The plaintiffs forfeited, however, their claims for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, violation of substantive due process, and impermissible vagueness.

Some homeless persons have attempted to live in a vehicle. In Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles, #11-56957, 754 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2014), a federal appeals court found that an ordinance prohibiting the use of a vehicle as living quarters was void for vagueness in violation of due process since it offered no guidance as to what conduct was prohibited and failed to clearly divide criminal and innocent conduct. As written, it could be broad enough to apply to any driver who transported personal belongings or ate in his vehicle, but it apparently was only applied to homeless persons, opening the door to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Summary judgment for the defendants was reversed and further proceedings were ordered.

Property and Pets

To the extent that homeless persons manage to acquire any possessions, retaining and safeguarding them is a difficult proposition. In Lavan v. City of Los Angeles,

#11-56253, 693 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir. 2012), homeless persons sued a city, claiming that it violated their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments by routinely seizing their unabandoned personal property temporarily left on public sidewalks and immediately destroying it. A federal appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction against these practices granted by the trial court.

The injunction required that unabandoned personal property seized could not be destroyed without giving the owners a prior meaningful notice and opportunity to be heard. The homeless persons’ property was protected from unlawful seizure by the Fourth Amendment and could not be destroyed without complying with due process requirements.

What about animals, including pets? In Recchia v. Los Angeles Dept. of Animal Services, #13-57002, 889 F.3d 553 (9th Cir. 2018), a homeless man was living on the streets of Los Angeles, and caring for 20 birds when animal control officers showed up at his tent to investigate complaints about the animals. Officers found 18 pigeons, a crow, and a seagull in boxes and cages in his home on a sidewalk, all in various states of health. The city decided to seize all of the animals, giving the man 10 days to request a hearing to regain custody.

But before that deadline was up, a city veterinarian euthanized all the pigeons, claiming they could’ve been carrying pathogens without ever testing their blood. The man sued the city, and his case was dismissed by a trial court. But a federal appeals court revived some his claims, saying his constitutional rights might’ve been violated.

It upheld a grant of summary judgment on the Fourteenth Amendment due process claim against the officers and dismissal of the state law claims, but vacated the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on the Fourth Amendment claim challenging the seizure of the birds because there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether plaintiff’s healthy-looking birds posed any meaningful risk to the other birds or humans at the time they were seized.

It further instructed the trial court to consider whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because any constitutional violation was not clearly established at the time it was committed.

Feeding the Homeless

A number of municipalities have taken actions designed to limit the public feeding of homeless persons on public property by charitable groups. In First Vagabonds Church of God v. City of Orlando, #08-16788, 638 F.3d 756 (11th Cir. 2011), a federal appeals court upheld the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance that limits the number of feedings of large groups that any person or organization can sponsor in parks within a two-mile radius of City Hall.

The court rejected the argument of an organization calling itself “Food Not Bombs” that it had a First Amendment right to feed large groups of homeless people in any park as often as it likes. The court found that the ordinance was a reasonable time, place, and manner regulation, assuming, for purposes of argument, without deciding, that such feedings were expressive activity.

Use of Force

The use of force, deadly and otherwise, by the police against homeless persons has led to a number of lawsuits. In Tchayou v. City of Los Angeles, #CV16-06073, (May 10, 2018, U.S. Dist Court, C.D. Calif.), the city of Los Angeles, California on May 10, 2018, reached a $1.9 million settlement with the plaintiff family in a federal lawsuit brought over the police shooting and killing of a homeless man. The shooting took place in 2015 and was viewed online by many in a YouTube video.

A jury in the federal lawsuit, just before the settlement, found that two officers were liable for the death of the 43-year-old decedent, Charley “Africa” Keunang. The jury found that the shooting officer used excessive force and that his supervising sergeant was also liable for failing to intervene. A third officer present was found not liable. The decedent was shot as he “scuffled” with the officers as they responded to a report of an attempted robbery outside of a rescue mission. The county district attorney’s office declined to charge the three officers, and in a 2016 report stated that they were justified in using lethal force because the homeless man had nearly gotten hold of an officer’s holstered gun as they fought. The decedent reportedly had a history of violent, erratic behavior, and had served time in prison for bank robbery.

See also Williams v. DeKalb County, #07-14367, 327 Fed. Appx. 156,2009 U.S. App. Lexis 9839 (Unpub. 11th Cir.), in which a homeless arrestee claimed that he was picked up by an officer for loitering, and then taken to a wooden area where the officer beat and stabbed him. A federal appeals court ruled that a claim by the arrestee that the county was liable for his injuries because it has an unwritten policy that homeless people should be relocated to other counties should have survived summary judgment because evidence was presented of five officers who allegedly knew of the policy.

Additionally, there was expert testimony that such a policy made violations of the rights of homeless persons foreseeable. A claim against the county for negligent hiring of the officer was rejected because the only violent act in the officer’s record was the shooting of a home invader. The appeals court also rejected a claim against the county for inadequate training or supervision.

There was evidence that revealed that the county investigated reports concerning the officer’s handling of arrests, provided the officer with counseling and retraining, and subjected him to discipline, which did not show “deliberate indifference” to a known problem.

Liability for Crimes by the Homeless?

What about potential liability for crimes committed by homeless persons? Ordinarily, under federal civil rights law, there is no liability on the part of police or other governmental actors for failure to prevent private violence by third parties.

Rare exceptions may be found where there is a “state created danger,” when arguably the government’s actions enhanced the danger to the injured party, or in which a “special relationship” was created imposing a duty to project, such as when explicit promises of assistance are made in a manner that is relied on and which may encourage those who receive such promises of assistance to stop seeking other assistance.

In Doe v City of New York, 2008-09461, 67 A.D.3d 8542009 N.Y. App. Div. Lexis 8419 (2nd Dept.), a woman sued a transit authority and railroad, seeking damages for an attack she suffered on their property when she was attacked by a group of homeless men living there. The basis of her complaint was the failure of the defendants to remove the homeless encampment from the property, and the alleged failure to consider safety problems that could arise from their “homeless outreach” program.

Rejecting liability, an intermediate New York appellate court found that the defendants made a discretionary governmental policy decision in enacting a “social outreach” program rather than using force to oust the homeless group from the premises. As a result, there could be no liability under state law for the allegedly resulting attack.

See also Alava v. City of New York, #3807, 103339/04, 54 A.D.3d 565, 2008 N.Y. App. Div. Lexis 6546 (A.D. 1st Dept.), in which an employee working for a private company providing data entry services for a city department of homeless services was allegedly assaulted by a person she was registering for services as a prospective client of a homeless shelter.

She sued the city, but an intermediate New York appeals court ruled that the city was entitled to summary judgment because it had not assumed any special duty to protect the employee, nor had the plaintiff shown that she had reasonably relied on any direct promise to provide her with such protection. While security officers who were usually outside the intake office were not present on the day of the incident, there was no evidence that they were ever in the intake office with the employee.

Resources

The following are some useful resources related to the subject of this article.

City of San Diego Homeless Outreach

City of Wichita Homeless Outreach

Fort Lauderdale Police Department Policy on Homeless Persons.

HOMELESS OUTREACH TEAM: ANOTHER WAY TO FIGHT CRIME Houston Police Department, Houston, Texas

Homeless Persons. AELE Civil Case

Homelessness: Litigation and Policy: Civil Rights Claims, University of Missouri School of Law. (online bibliography).

Los Angeles Police Department Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement Team Special Study.

Opposing the Criminalization of Homelessness; Building a Human Rights Network (Listing of Law Review articles and other publications).

Police Department Homeless Outreach Programs.

Relevant Monthly Law Journal Articles

Police Interaction with Homeless Persons – Part I – Sleeping and Possessions, 2008 (7) AELE Mo. L.J.

Police Interaction with Homeless Persons – Part II – Panhandling and Use of Force, 2008 (9) AELE Mo. L.J. 101

References: (Chronological)

A Cruel and Unusual Way to Regulate the Homeless: Extending the Status Crimes Doctrine to Anti-Homeless Ordinance, by Hannah Kieschnick, Stanford Law Review, Vol 70 Issue 5, page 1569 (May 2018). (Abstract, with downloadable .pdf of full text).

New policing division focuses on homelessness, neighborhood issues, by Gary Warth, San Diego Union Tribune (March 13, 2018).

Almost No Choice. Homelessness and the Law, Harvard University Civil Rights Civil Liberties Law Review (Dec. 4, 2017).

Law Enforcement is a Critical Component of the Coordinated Effort to End Homelessness, Community Policing Dispatch (December 2015).

A Homeless Bill of Rights (Revolution) by Sara Rankin, Seattle School of Law Digital Commons Faculty Scholarship 45 Seton Hall Law Review 383 (2015).

Police role with homeless population: enforcers or helpers? by Marielle Segarra, WHYY (March 19, 2015)

Readers may download, store, print, copy or share this article, but it may not be republished for commercial purposes. Other web sites are welcome to link to this article.

The purpose of this publication is to provide short articles to acquaint the reader with selected case law on a Articles are typically six to ten pages long. Because of the brevity, the discussion cannot cover every aspect of a subject.

The law sometimes differs between federal circuits, between states, and sometimes between appellate districts in the same state. AELE Law Journal articles should not be considered as “legal ” Lawyers often disagree as to the meaning of a case or its application to a set of facts.

#Legal Updates

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citizentruth-blog · 6 years

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BREAKING: FBI Gave Killer The AR 15 Used In Waffle House Shooting - CONSERVATIVE, U.S. NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/breaking-fbi-gave-killer-the-ar-15-used-in-waffle-house-shooting/

BREAKING: FBI Gave Killer The AR 15 Used In Waffle House Shooting

Yet again another mass shooting has happened, and the shooter was known to authorities prior to the murders. It is becoming as routine as the predictable cries for gun control, before any of the facts are known, by extremist liberals bent on removing the Constitutional right to bear arms.

Six people were shot on Sunday morning, four of whom died, at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee by a gunman who appeared to randomly pick his targets. But the shocking truth of why he had a gun to begin with is just as infuriating as what he did with it.

In July 2017 the suspect in Sunday’s shooting, Travis Reinking, told a Washington D.C. Metropolitan police officer that he had to speak to the president and that he was a “sovereign citizen” and allowed to inspect the White House grounds, CNN reported.

The officer repeatedly told Reinking to move but Reinking started to walk past the officer, daring him to arrest him. “Do what you need to do. Arrest me if you have to,” he said.

Reinking was detained but would not leave the grounds and was arrested and charged with unlawful entry, according to the police report, cited by CNN.

After he was released from custody he was interviewed by the FBI in Illinois where authorities revoked his firearm authorization and seized four weapons. One of the weapons that the FBI took from him was the AR 15 used in Sunday’s shooting.

For some unknown reason authorities returned the firearms to Reinking’s father, who gave them back to his son. A man that he and authorities should have suspected had mental issues based on his actions.

On Sunday Reinking took the AR 15 that the FBI gave back to him, via his father, and murdered two people outside of the Waffle House. He then went inside and shot more people, killing a third at the scene. A fourth victim died later at a hospital.

The shooting only stopped when a hero named James Shaw Jr. wrestled the gun from Reinking.

Metro Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said that Shaw “saw the gunman looking at his rifle. At that point, the shots had stopped.”

“So he decided to rush the gunman, actually wrestled that assault rifle away, tossed it over the counter. At that point, the gunman then fled,” Aaron said.

In doing that, God only knows how many lives Shaw saved. More lives that would have been taken because the FBI thought it was a good idea to give Reinking his guns back Blaming the guns is simple but getting to the root of why people like this have access to guns is a more complex issue. In too many cases authorities are aware that these shooters were a danger long before they committed their heinous acts.

In the Parkland, Florida shooting, the Pulse Nightclub shooting, San Bernardino shooting and countless others, authorities were aware of the danger and did nothing., When will there be a march on that?

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benrleeusa · 7 years

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[Eugene Volokh] Short Circuit: A roundup of recent federal court decisions

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice written by John Ross.

New Minnesota regulations will soon force salons offering low-cost eyelash extension services to shut down. A good-faith effort to protect the public or a sinister plot to outlaw competition? There is some evidence of the latter, explains IJ Senior Legislative Counsel Lee McGrath on Minnesota Public Radio. New on the Short Circuit podcast: School uniforms, wedding venue permits, and qualified immunity.

Pursuant to 2008 court order, Treasury officials agree -- by 2018 at the latest -- to issue new paper currency with tactile features that enable blind individuals to detect different denominations. Treasury officials (now): This is actually harder than we thought; we'll have them by 2038 at the latest. District court: Fine. D.C. Circuit: Maybe not.

Feds: A district court order temporarily blocking us from excluding transgender individuals from serving in military shouldn't be allowed to take effect until we've had a chance to appeal it. D.C. Circuit: Both sides can start briefing the appeal, but the preliminary injunction remains in effect for now.

Standard probation condition: Released offenders or their probation officers must disclose to third parties their criminal records, personal histories, and characteristics that may pose "risks." Probation officer: Offender once lied to the TSA that his girlfriend was trafficking drugs; now he has to disclose his romantic relationships to me so I can warn them. Sixth Circuit: Not so fast. This standard probation condition is too vague, so it violates due process.

Ferndale, Mich. officer shoots, kills fleeing motorist who posed no threat to officers or the public. Which is unconstitutional, says the Sixth Circuit, but the officer is entitled to qualified immunity. It's clearly established that officers are not to shoot nonthreatening motorists as they attempt to initiate flight, but here the chase had been underway for several minutes before he fired. Dissent: "[T]he degree of factual similarity that the majority's approach requires is probably impossible for any plaintiff to meet."

Minneapolis police shoot, kill burglary suspect they'd cornered in a basement. Police say he grabbed an officer's submachine gun, shot and wounded two officers, and then was shot himself. Allegation: The officers' account is inconsistent with video filmed from across the street. Eighth Circuit (over a dissent): No qualified immunity. (Related: The killing led to protests in the city.)

Hawaii officials: The President's latest order blocking foreign nationals from six countries from visiting the U.S. or getting immigrant visas is unlawful. Feds: This case isn't ripe because no one's actually been denied entry yet; and besides, decisions on whether to issue or withhold a visa are nonreviewable. Ninth Circuit: The third time is not a charm for the gov't. Travel Ban 3.0 is unlawful because it exceeds the President's immigration authority delegated by Congress.

In 2009, EPA officials grant request to rewrite lead paint rules so as to better protect the public. Petitioners: It's been years. Where are the new rules? EPA: Might take another four years to draft something and a couple more to implement. Ninth Circuit (over a dissent): Propose a rule in 90 days and get it finalized a year later -- or give a good reason why you can't.

Plaintiffs, who are potentially criminally liable for writing bad checks, sue DA's private contractor who used prosecutors' letterhead to threaten them with criminal prosecution unless they pay fines and fees as part of California's Bad Check Diversion Program. Contractor: Plaintiff who regrets signing up for diversion program cannot sue us in court because she agreed to arbitrate any claims. Ninth Circuit: The case can proceed in court.

Allegation: U.S. Border Patrol detains individuals caught crossing into Arizona in overcrowded, inhumane conditions for up to three days before processing them. District court: While the class action proceeds, the Border Patrol shall provide clean mats and blankets, some means to attend to personal hygiene (but not necessarily showers), and medical screenings. Border Patrol: That's too much. Plaintiffs: That's too little. Ninth Circuit: Then the district court got it just right. Affirmed.

New Mexico state police officer fires upon a minivan full of kids as their mother flees a traffic stop. He misses (tires and people). District court: No qualified immunity. Tenth Circuit: Reversed. The family was fleeing, and so were not seized, and so have no excessive force claim. (Video here.)

In known video blind spot, corrections officer punches restrained, compliant inmate in the stomach, knocking him down but apparently causing little damage. The officer is fired. North Carolina appeals court (over a dissent): Reinstate him. North Carolina Supreme Court: Affirmed. (Hat tip: Michael C. Byrne.)

And in en banc news, the Third Circuit will reconsider its decision allowing a landlord not to renew the lease of a family on rent assistance. (Hat tip: CA3blog.com.) The First Circuit has declined to reconsider its ruling that two union leaders who threatened to picket Boston-area businesses are not guilty of extortion.

December was an eventful month at the Institute for Justice: A Wyoming judge ordered the state to return $91,800 cash seized from a musician during a roadside stop. A Maryland trial court ordered Baltimore to stop enforcing its food truck ban. An Illinois appeals court upheld Chicago's food truck ban. An Indiana trial court temporarily halted a private developer's land grab. A federal judge in Oregon declined to dismiss an engineer's free speech case. A Florida appeals court upheld a school choice program that benefits 100,000 students. A Texas appeals court upheld a scheme that forces craft brewers to give up millions of dollars in distribution rights to distributors. And we filed a challenge to Nashville's ban on home-based businesses. Here's to a bustling 2018!

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