Letter to the Editor – His long, dirty toenails! – kra PUBLISHED IN THE WILMINGTON NEWS JOURNAL 11/28/21
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/2021/11/24/ahmaud-arbery-case-demonstrated-systemic-racism-our-legal-system/8751585002/
Click on this link to read my Letter, PUBLISHED in our state’s Largest Newspaper! 🙂 🙂
Letter: Racism — as we saw in Ahmaud Arbery’s case — in our legal system must be eliminated
Delaware News Journal Letters to the Editor
The three men charged in the Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty on Wednesday,
Regardless, their trial will linger in the annals of the history of racism in our courts for a very long time.
Arbery’s father, Marcus, embraces Ben Crump and Rev. Al Sharpton outside the courtroom.
I would have been surprised and outraged if the verdict had been anything but guilty. I have reviewed all information available to the public, and no other verdict makes sense in light of the evidence.
I have read dozens of articles about racism — overt and subconscious — in our courts. But this trial takes the prize. One of the defense lawyers, Kevin Gough, made numerous racist remarks and was admonished by the judge, and continues to try to defend his hateful remarks. Another, Laura Hogue, referred to Arbery’s “long, dirty toenails.”
Arbery’s mother never saw this day coming
What!? If Arbery did have long, dirty toenails, that is totally irrelevant. Moreover, I have taken part in more than 700 trials, viewed or read about thousands more, and never have seen such a blatant attempt to evoke racial hatred of the victim.
Both lawyers should be censured or even disbarred for such conduct.
You, the public, should voice similar concerns about racism — and lawyers who foster it — poisoning the system.
— Ken Abraham, Dover
The Next Covid Variant
The next deadly variant no doubt will be called: “The You Humans Are So Friggin’ Stupid; All You Had To Do Was Wear Your Masks Variant”!
The Numbers:
https://www.google.com/search?q=latest+coronavirus+numbers&oq=latest+coronav&aqs=chrome.2.0i131i433i512l3j69i57j0i512l2j0i131i433i457i512j0i402l2j0i512.10301j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
It is important to maintain a sense of humor, especially in trying times.
N.Y. prosecutors set sights on new Trump target: Widely different valuations on the same properties
Prosecute this life long Con Man!
Excerpts from the Article:
The Trump Organization owns an office building at 40 Wall Street in Manhattan. In 2012, when the company was listing its assets for potential lenders, it said the building was worth $527 million — which would make it among the most valuable in New York.
But just a few months later, the Trump Organization told property tax officials that the entire 70-story building was worth less than a high-end Manhattan condo: just $16.7 million, according to newly released city records.
That was less than one-thirtieth the amount it had claimed the year before.
That property is now under scrutiny from the Manhattan district attorney and New York attorney general, along with several others like it for which the Trump Organization gave vastly different value estimates, according to public records and people familiar with their investigations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing inquiries.
After the indictment of the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer this summer for income tax fraud, prosecutors now appear to be examining whether the company broke the law by providing low values to property tax officers, while using high ones to garner tax breaks or impress lenders. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) has said she is considering a lawsuit, and prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have also convened a new grand jury, which could vote on criminal charges, according to the people familiar with the investigations.
Among the other properties under scrutiny: former president Donald Trump’s California golf club, for which he valued the same parcel of land at $900,000 and $25 million depending on the intended audience, and an estate in suburban New York, for which Trump’s valuations ranged from $56 million up to $291 million. The valuations were all given in the five years before Trump won the presidency.
Prosecutors appear to have dug deeply into these properties, according to court papers and people familiar with the investigation. They have compiled reams of emails, planning documents and financial data, even seeking the initiation fees Trump charged golf club members as far back as a decade ago. In Los Angeles, they have asked for geology reports on the rock layers under Trump’s course — where the value was affected by a history of landslides.
They have also sought detailed records from two outside companies that worked with the Trump Organization to formulate these valuations: appraisal firm Cushman & Wakefield and law firm Morgan Lewis. In court filings, prosecutors have referred to emails in which they said Trump executives or a Morgan Lewis lawyer pushed appraisers to change their findings. Neither Morgan Lewis nor Cushman & Wakefield responded to questions.
Real estate appraisers said it was highly unusual for any property owner to give such widely different values for the same property during the same time period.
“This is way, way beyond anything that’s believable,” said Norm Miller, a professor of real estate finance at the University of San Diego who has appraised properties for 50 years. “I’ve never seen anything with a gap that extreme.”
But extreme is not the same as illegal. Legal experts said that if prosecutors wish to prove a crime, they will need to do more than simply prove Trump’s valuations were wrong.
“Is it an overly optimistic? Is it an enthusiastic perception?” said Robert Masters, a former top aide to the district attorney in Queens. “Does that make it a lie?”
Masters said prosecutors would probably need to show that the figures were wrong on purpose — falsified deliberately, with an intent to deceive a lender or the government. Masters said that may require a witness on the inside, who could explain the decision-making behind the numbers.
“Is there somebody there who can translate the books?” he said.
The Trump Organization said in a statement on Monday that prosecutors should focus on other problems in New York. Eric Trump, the former president’s son and a top Trump Organization executive, also called the investigations an example of the “weaponization of political prosecutors.” “It is eroding Americans’ confidence in the legal system and it has to stop,” Eric Trump wrote in a statement.
This summer, Trump’s longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg and two Trump companies were indicted on charges of felony tax fraud. Prosecutors allege Weisselberg deceived income tax authorities by hiding some of the pay and benefits that he and other company executives received.
Trump himself was not accused of wrongdoing in that case. Weisselberg and the two companies have pleaded not guilty, and a trial is not expected until late next year. Now, the investigations into Trump’s company appear to be undergoing a shift — both in leadership and in focus.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), who led the criminal side of the investigation for three years, declined to run for reelection. He will be replaced at year’s end by Democrat Alvin Bragg.
James, who is running a civil investigation of Trump’s company and assisting with Vance’s criminal probe, is staying. For now. She already has entered the governor’s race for 2022.
In recent months, investigators have looked beyond the income tax issues that were the focus of Weisselberg’s indictment, according to public records and people familiar with the investigation.
They have appeared to focus on allegations about the values of Trump’s properties that were first raised publicly by former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen in his testimony to Congress in 2019. Cohen said Trump used these values to deceive, inflating or deflating the same asset to get advantages he didn’t deserve. “Mr. Trump is a cheat,” Cohen said then. Trump responded by noting that Cohen had pleaded guilty to providing false testimony to Congress in the past.
James’s office has even commissioned its own appraisals of some Trump properties, to provide a standard to which they could compare Trump’s valuations, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
Investigators seem focused on the valuations of at least four Trump properties, according to court filings and people familiar with the investigation.
One is the office building at 40 Wall Street. Another is in California, where Trump owns a golf course atop oceanfront cliffs in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Palos Verdes. The cliffs have a history of landslides: In 1999, when somebody else owned the course, a 2,000-foot slide pulled the 18th hole into the ocean. After Trump bought the land in 2002, he sought to make extra money by building homes along the course — but city officials blocked those plans in one section of the course, saying a layer of slippery ash inside the cliffs made it vulnerable to slide again.
After that, records show, Trump’s company seemed to tell two divergent stories about the same land. In filings with property tax authorities — when it was advantageous for the land to be worth less — Trump seemed to bow to the difficulty of developing the land. In 2013, he told the county tax assessor that the entire 17-acre parcel was worth just $900,000, less than a single home in that neighborhood. But when it was advantageous for the land to be worth more, Trump’s company said it was. Twenty-seven times more.
That valuation came in 2014, as Trump’s company sought to get a “conservation easement” on that same parcel, formally giving up the right to build homes there.
For tax purposes, an easement works like a charitable donation: Instead of donating money, Trump was donating value — the money that the land would have brought him, if he’d built homes on it.
The bigger that value was, the bigger the tax deduction could be. In that case, Trump’s company, relying on an appraisal from Cushman & Wakefield, said the plot was worth at least $25 million.
Also in Westchester County, investigators have examined Trump’s golf club in the town of Briarcliff Manor. In 2015, his company sued the local property tax authorities to lower that club’s valuation, saying the property was worth just $1.4 million. If the town had agreed, that would have reduced the club’s tax bill by 90 percent. But in the same year, when Trump filed his financial disclosures as a candidate for president, he listed the club’s value as being more than 35 times higher: “Over $50 million.”
Jeffrey Dugas, who later appraised that club on behalf of Trump’s company, said neither number was accurate in his opinion. But, Dugas said, the huge gap between the two numbers was not — to him — evidence of a crime. He said the two numbers were probably prepared for different audiences, with different methodologies.
The $1.4 million figure, he said, may have been a lowball estimate from Trump’s lawyer, a kind of opening offer to start a negotiation with local tax authorities. And the $50 million figure may have been Trump’s own guess as to what the course would be worth, if he ever got approvals to build homes on it. “Neither of them go together,” Dugas said, calling them “apples and oranges.” Trump’s lawyer in that property tax case did not respond to a request for comment. The New York Times reported last month that Westchester County District Attorney Miriam “Mimi” Rocah (D), is also investigating that course, but Rocah’s office has not commented.
The full scope of the investigations into the Trump Organization’s valuations is unclear, hidden by the secrecy of a grand jury.
New York law makes it a felony to falsify business records, to file false documents with the government or to make false statements on a sworn document.
But in every case, those laws require proof of intent: Prosecutors have to show that someone made the false statements knowingly, in an effort to deceive or to cover up a crime.
Legal experts said prosecutors could face an especially high burden when applying these laws to the real estate industry — where the value of any property is always somewhat subjective, and where some amount of self-serving puffery is the norm. That opens the door to an everybody-does-it defense.
“I’m doing what was expected. I’m not fooling anybody. I’m working within a system where this is the norm,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a former prosecutor and a professor at New York Law School, playing out a hypothetical argument.
Another possible defense: Trump’s company could say he didn’t set these valuations himself but relied on outside experts such as appraisers, accountants or lawyers. In this case, prosecutors have seemed to focus on what Trump or his executives told those experts, and when they pushed them to change their original opinion.
Samuel W. Buell, a law professor at Duke University, said prosecutors often look for evidence that their targets misled their own experts. That negates the “gatekeeper” defense, he said, and may show evidence of an intent to mislead. “You lied to the gatekeeper, and that’s the only reason they let you through,” Buell said.
Parkland families reach $127.5 million settlement with Justice Dept. over mass shooting
Hardly enough, but better than nothing.
Excerpts from the Article:
The federal government has reached a tentative $127.5 million settlement with the families of victims of a 2018 mass shooting at a Florida high school, who sued over the FBI’s failure to act on warnings that the gunman was planning an attack, a person familiar with the agreement said.
The U.S. Justice Department filed a notice in federal court Monday saying the parties are “working to finalize additional details before submission for final approval by the appropriate Department of Justice official.”
The exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because all of the details were not finalized, said the agreement was for about $127.5 million, distributed among the families of the victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla.
The settlement comes a month after the Justice Department agreed to pay $88 million to the families of those killed at a 2015 shooting at a historic Black church in Charleston, S.C. — which occurred after the FBI did not conduct a thorough gun-purchase background check of that gunman.
“The word ‘closure’ is not a word I like to use in these instances, because there’s no such thing as closure for these families who have suffered the way they did,” said Kristina Infante, of the law firm Podhurst Orseck, who was lead counsel for the 40 Parkland families suing the Justice Department. “It’s something different than that . . . it’s turning the page.”
The Florida gunman, Nikolas Cruz, now 23, pleaded guilty last month to killing 14 students and three faculty members in the February 2018 Parkland massacre. A jury trial is planned to determine whether he should face the death penalty or life in prison.
A day before Cruz’s guilty plea, families of his victims and dozens of others who were injured or traumatized reached a $25 million settlement with the Broward County school district, settling most of the negligence suits filed against local officials in connection with the shooting.
The FBI’s failure to investigate a January 2018 tip before the Parkland massacre was one of numerous warning signs that authorities failed to pursue. On at least three other occasions, including multiple calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, authorities were told that Cruz was a potential school shooter.
Those lapses continued until the day he opened fire. A state commission found that there were security lapses at the school and failures by law enforcement officers who responded.
Days after the attack, the FBI acknowledged that it did not follow its own rules for investigating tips related to Cruz.
Officials have said a person close to Cruz called the FBI’s tip line to warn the agency of concerns about Cruz’s “gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting.” The FBI, however, failed to pass the tip along to its local field office for further investigation, officials have acknowledged.
The Parkland shooting prompted widespread protests against gun violence and calls for stricter gun control laws, but those efforts so far have not led to significant changes.
Men Found Guilty of Killing Arbery Head to Federal Court in 10 Weeks on Hate Crime Charges
Good. They deserve everything the law can throw at them!
Excerpts from the Article:
After a Georgia jury found Travis and Greg McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery on Wednesday, the three men are set to head to federal court in less than three months to stand another trial on federal hate crime charges.
After roughly ten and a half hours of deliberation, jurors in Glynn County found all three men guilty of felony murder. Travis McMichael was convicted on nine charges, Greg McMichael was convicted on eight charges and Bryan was convicted on six charges.
Arbery was fatally shot by Travis McMichael on February 23, 2020 after McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and Bryan chased the 25-year-old Black jogger down with their pickup trucks while conducting what they claimed to be a citizen’s arrest in the Satilla Shores neighborhood.
Despite the verdict in the Georgia court, the legal saga will continue in federal court in 10 weeks when the trial is scheduled to begin on February 7, 2022.
Last spring, the Justice Department (DOJ) charged all three men with interfering with Arbery’s civil rights and attempted kidnapping of Arbery.
The McMichaels were also charged with using, carrying and brandishing a firearm.
The DOJ is alleging that the three men “used force and threats of force to intimidate and interfere with Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race.”
In an eight-page indictment, federal prosecutors also alleged that “the three defendants chased Arbery through the neighborhood, using their trucks—and in the case of the McMichaels, firearms—in an attempt to restrain Arbery, restrict his free movement, corral and detain him against his will, and prevent his escape.”
If convicted of these federal charges, the defendants could face up to life in prison.
The suspects were indicted by a grand jury after the state was unable to bring hate crime charges against the defendants at the time of Arbery’s death due to Georgia law, which did not have a hate crime statute.
However, Arbery’s death led state lawmakers to pass a new hate-crime law months after. The new statute allows for extra penalties for those who commit crimes against others based on race, gender, sexual orientation and other identities.
Under state law, all three men were charged with the same nine counts: one count of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal intent to commit a felony.
The three defendants had each pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The state trial concluded on Tuesday and the jury reached their verdict after less than two days of deliberation on Wednesday.
Jury finds all 3 men guilty of murder in Ahmaud Arbery’s death
YES! They did the right thing, and the split verdicts indicate that they gave each charge and each defendant a lot of thought.
Excerpts from the Article:
Jurors have found all three men guilty of murder in the killing Ahmaud Arbery.
The decision was read to the court shortly after 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday, Jurors asked to review video of the deadly encounter between Arbery and the men charged with murder in his killing as deliberations entered their second day here in coastal Georgia.
The jury also asked the court to play a recording of the 911 call that one of the defendants placed on Feb. 23, 2020, just before his son fatally shot Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man. Their verdict in this nationally watched case —follows 10 days of witness testimony .
Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were charged with murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and attempt to falsely imprison.
The panel deliberated for more than six hours Tuesday before returning Wednesday morning. Less than an hour later, they asked to review cellphone video at the heart of the case.
The cellphone video — shot by Bryan — which was leaked in May 2020, drew public outcry and prompted national outrage. The footage shows Arbery running ahead of Bryan, toward the McMichaels and their parked truck. Both McMichaels are armed.
Arbery eventually passes the truck and then runs toward Travis McMichael; the truck obscures their movements as a first shot rings out. The two men struggle, and Arbery falls to the ground.
Prosecutors say the men were dangerous vigilantes who jumped to conclusions about an unarmed “Black man running down the street” and violently confronted him. The defense said the accused suspected Arbery of break-ins and were attempting to make a legitimate “citizen’s arrest” that turned deadly when Travis McMichael shot in self-defense.
Travis McMichael testified that he fired after Arbery struck him and grabbed his gun. The prosecution has accused him of lying from the stand and noted discrepancies with his early statements to police.
Man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery says he feared for his life in struggle for gun
The jury also listened to a 911 call that Greg McMichael made toward the end of what prosecutors say was a five-minute chase. Prosecutors have repeatedly highlighted his first words to the dispatcher: “I’m out here at Satilla Shores. There’s a Black male running down the street.”
The dispatcher asks for more information, but then Greg McMichael appears to command Arbery to stop. “Travis!” he yells. Shots are fired.
The jury received the case shortly before noon Tuesday, following a final rebuttal from prosecutors of the defense’s closing arguments.
Lawyers for Arbery’s family said Wednesday that the jury’s verdict will reverberate around the country. The case drew comparisons to a lynching last year and accusations that authorities had brushed a Black jogger’s death aside. It garnered attention just before the police killing George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, sparked a broader reckoning with racism in America.
“This is a very consequential day, not just for Ahmaud Arbery but for families all over America,” said Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights lawyer who represents the family. “We have to show that America must be better than what we saw in that video.”
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who attended court with Arbery’s family, criticized the trial itself — saying it featured the “most racist language” he had ever witnessed in a court case and that he prays the jury “will show this is the 21st year of the 21st century and we are not back in the days of Jim Crow.”
He said he returned to Brunswick to comfort the family, including Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. Arbery’s family accused the defense of desperation this week after Laura Hogue, an attorney for Greg McMichael, used her closing argument to blame Arbery for his own death, saying he ran away “instead of facing the consequences” and “chose to fight.”
A Woman to Watch – Zaire Rothwell – kra
Right now she is “just a waitress”, but watch out for this future lawyer! She’s smart, she’s personable, and she’s driven to become the best dang lawyer she can be! Now in the Dover, DE area, she probably will take the Delaware Bar Exam when she finishes her studies… and here is a tip for you: if you see her name as an attorney who can help you with your issue … HIRE THAT GIRL! 🙂
Federal judge orders pro-Trump lawyers to pay almost $187,000 for their ‘abuse of the legal system’
I have been waiting for this! Such lawyers are fools and should know better.
Excerpts from the Article:
In December 2020, Colorado-based attorneys Gary D. Fielder and Ernest John Walker filed a class-action lawsuit making the false, totally debunked claim that the presidential election had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump — and now, a federal judge is ordering them to pay almost $187,000 to help offset the legal costs of the groups they sued in a meritless lawsuit.
Judge N. Reid Neureiter, according to Washington Post reporter Rosalind S. Helderman, was vehemently critical of Fielder and Walker, saying, “As officers of the court, these attorneys have a higher duty and calling that requires meaningful investigation before prematurely repeating in court pleadings unverified and uninvestigated defamatory rumors that strike at the heart of our democratic system and were used by others to foment a violent insurrection that threatened our system of government. They are experienced lawyers who should have known better. They need to take responsibility for their misconduct.”
Fielder and Walker filed their December 2020 lawsuit on behalf of 160 million Trump voters, who they claimed had been wronged by an elaborate plan to steal the election — and those targeted in the lawsuit included Facebook (including founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan), Dominion Voting Systems and elected officials in four states. And Neureiter declared that they needed to pay a financial price for wasting the court’s time with so frivolous a lawsuit. Fielder and Walker, according to Helderman, are appealing Neureiter’s ruling.
Helderman notes, “Their case was dismissed in April. In August, Neureiter ruled that the attorneys had violated their ethical obligations by filing it in the first place, arguing that the duo had run afoul of legal rules that prohibit clogging the courts with frivolous motions and lodging information in court that is not true. At the time, he called their suit ‘the stuff of which violent insurrections are made,’ alleging they made little effort to determine the truth of their conspiratorial claims before filing them in court.”
Following the 2020 election, pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell made the bogus claim that Dominion’s voting technology was used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the election from then-President Donald Trump just as it was used by supporters of the late leftist President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Major problem for Powell: Dominion responded that its voting technology was never even used in Venezuela, thus making it physically impossible for Dominion to have helped the Chavez regime in any way. Dominion has sued Powell, Fox News, pro-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and others for promoting lies and conspiracy theories against the company.
Neureiter declared that Fielder and Walker need to pay a financial price for their frivolous lawsuit, which he described as “an abuse of the legal system and an interference with the machinery of government.”
Helderman reports, “Neureiter said the lawyers should pay just over $11,000 to cover the legal fees of the states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, both defendants in the suit, a dollar figure the duo had agreed was fair. The two lawyers had balked, however, at far higher fees requested by three other entities: Facebook, Dominion Voting Systems and the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), an election reform advocacy group that has received funding from Zuckerberg and Chan. In a 21-page order (on November 22), Neureiter ordered that Fielder and Walker pay $50,000 to Facebook and $62,930 each to Dominion and CTCL, arguing that billing records submitted by the group showed the fees were reasonable given the prominence of the lawyers who worked on the case and the amount of time they spent.”
More than 20 injured after car drives into Christmas parade in Wisconsin: Police – Updated 11/23/21
No doubt when a suspect is arrested, he/she will have MH issues. It is a huge problem that there is no good MH system in our nation. We simply lock up mentally ill people; more than half of our inmates have 1 or more MH diagnoses.
Excerpts from the Article:
More than 20 people were injured when a car sped into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Sunday, police said. At 4:39 p.m. local time, a red SUV drove into the town’s Christmas parade, Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson said at a press conference Sunday evening.
The police department has recovered a vehicle allegedly associated with the incident and investigators are looking into a possible person of interest.
“The FBI Milwaukee field office is aware of the reporting of an incident in Waukesha. The local and state authorities are leading the response,” an FBI spokesperson told ABC News.
Victims have been transported to hospitals via ambulances, police officers and family members, Thompson said.
The Waukesha Police Department sent an emergency alert Sunday night saying: “If you are within a 1/2 mile radius of the 5 points downtown, shelter in place now. Wait for an all clear message.”
“Kathy and I are praying for Waukesha tonight and all the kids, families, and community members affected by this senseless act,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers wrote on Twitter. “I’m grateful for the first responders and folks who acted quickly to help, and we are in contact with local partners as we await more information.”
The investigation is ongoing.
UPDATE
After SUV slammed into Wis. parade and killed 5, driver to be charged with homicide
Excerpts from the Article:
The driver accused of plowing his SUV through a Christmas parade in this suburban Milwaukee city on Sunday will face five counts of intentional homicide, police said Monday, after the crash left five dead, 48 injured and a community reeling in a violent end to a cherished holiday celebration.
Before driving into the crowd, the suspect, Darrell E. Brooks Jr., had been at the scene of an alleged altercation involving a knife, but sped away in the red SUV when police arrived, a law enforcement official said.
Brooks, 39, was allegedly behind the wheel when it drove into the parade route. At a news conference Monday afternoon, authorities said that Brooks, who was arrested Sunday, was the “lone subject” and that he “drove right through the barricades and the officers” at the scene.
Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson identified those killed as Tamara Durand, 52; Jane Kulich, 52; LeAnna Owen, 71; Virginia Sorenson, 79; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81.
Four dozen others were injured, including two children who were in critical condition, Thompson said.
The Waukesha County District Attorney’s Office said it expected to file the charges Tuesday afternoon.
Thompson said police are “confident” that the suspect acted alone, and he said there is “no evidence this is a terrorist incident.” Police have “no information that Brooks knew anybody in the parade,” he said.
Officials have not commented on a possible motive. The FBI said it was assisting local authorities in the investigation.
Brooks had a criminal record that began long before Sunday’s havoc, including charges of domestic abuse, violent behavior and an allegation that he used a vehicle as a weapon weeks before the parade. He had been in jail because of that case, and he was released on bail last week, which has prompted an internal review at the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office.
The law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the initial stages of the investigation, told The Washington Post that investigators have not found anything tying the parade incident to terrorism or ideology. It appears that the main intent was to escape the police from the prior incident, the official said.
Officials said 22 people were taken by fire crews to six hospitals. Police and bystanders transported others to medical facilities. One hospital said Monday that 18 children, ages 3 to 16, had been brought to its emergency department, some suffering from “serious head injuries.” Ten were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit, and the patients include three sets of siblings.
“Our community needs to heal from physical injury and emotional trauma and what was taken from us by this senseless act,” Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly said during the Monday briefing. “What we do today and in the days ahead is what will define us as a city, and I know we will come together and help Waukesha heal.”
The violence shook the city of 70,000 days before Thanksgiving as residents exulted in their first Christmas parade since 2019, partaking in what Reilly described as a “Norman Rockwell type” of holiday tradition that goes back nearly six decades.
“Last night, that parade became a nightmare,” he said.
Some of the victims were performing with the Milwaukee Dancing Grannies, a group of grandmothers with pompoms and sparkly costumes who participate in parades throughout the region.
Sorenson, a registered nurse and grandmother of six, was a longtime member and the group’s instructor, her husband told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Durand, who watched her grandchild four days a week so her daughter could attend college classes, had recently joined and was dancing in her first parade, according to her husband. Kulich was a mother of three and grandmother of three who was passing out candy and walking alongside a float for the bank where she worked, her husband said.
On the morning after the parade, remnants of the chaos littered the city’s streets. Stray gloves, overturned chairs and wrapped candy were scattered on the grassy parkway where families had gathered to take in the parade, with its “Comfort and Joy” theme. An image from the aftermath showed a jogging stroller, decorated with red and silver tinsel, abandoned and missing a wheel.
Yellow crime tape snapping in the wind was unfurled for blocks past the worst of the destruction. Local and state police officers walked the area, which includes several apartment buildings and residences above the Main Street businesses.
Later Monday evening, a candlelight vigil in frigid temperatures drew hundreds of mourners to a downtown park. Among them was Bob Salb, whose 9-year-old granddaughter belongs to Xtreme Dance Team, a troupe that had at least one member hit by the SUV.
Salb said watching the car barrel into the crowd was like “seeing evil manifested.” His family members scattered into stores, seeking safety. Some carried wounded attendees with them. He said he’s still processing “seeing so many bodies on the ground.”
“The vigil is helping counteract the pure evil,” Salb said.
Mary LaChappelle, 57, and her daughter Jennifer, 23, said they wanted to be at the vigil to hear words of comfort and be with others who were processing grief.
Jennifer LaChappelle had a link to one of the victims: Tamara Durand, a 52-year-old therapist at Rogers Behavioral Health. Jennifer, who had received treatment at Rogers, described Durand as a buoyant spirit who was quirky and positive.
“We had recently played two truths and a lie. Her truth was that she was going to be one of the Dancing Grannies,” she said.
Durand was making her debut in the beloved troupe when she was killed Sunday.
As the LaChappelles held red tapered candles for the vigil, mother and daughter agreed that Sunday’s tragedy makes them reflect on how fragile — and precious — life is.
About 20 miles east, at a two-story white frame home in Milwaukee — Brooks’s last known address — no one answered a knock at the door earlier Monday.
Out-of-state rental cars lined the street as reporters and photographers flocked to the residence. A neighbor who declined to be named said that he’d seen a red SUV like the one in the parade footage parked outside the house on occasion but that he didn’t know who drove it or much about who lived at the home.
A person who answered the phone at a number associated with Brooks’s address hung up Monday when a reporter identified herself. It is unclear whether Brooks has an attorney in the Waukesha case, and a lawyer representing him in other cases said he will not do so in this case.
Brooks’s past leading to the parade on Sunday includes run-ins with police and the justice system dating back more than two decades.
His criminal history apparently stretches to at least 1999, when he was charged with battery and later convicted, court records and filings show. Following years brought more cases, including two that apparently remain open against Brooks in Milwaukee, both accusing him of acting violently.
He has pleaded not guilty in both. Joseph Domask, Brooks’s attorney for both cases, declined to comment on them.
The most recent came just weeks before the parade, when Brooks was accused of domestic abuse and using his car as a weapon.
A 31-year-old woman who had a child with Brooks had told authorities that he showed up at her Milwaukee motel on Nov. 2, yelled at her and took her phone before driving off, according to a criminal complaint. The woman walked toward a gas station and Brooks followed her, the complaint said. After she refused to get in his car, the complaint said, Brooks “struck [her] in the face.” When the woman walked away, Brooks “ran [her] over with his vehicle” while she was in the parking lot, the complaint said. Officers later said the woman had dried blood on her face, a swollen lip and “tire tracks on her left pants leg,” according to the complaint dated Nov. 5.
Brooks was charged with second-degree recklessly endangering someone’s safety, battery and disorderly conduct. All three counts, the complaint said, were acts of domestic abuse, which can include offenses against someone who had a child with the defendant.
The office of John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County district attorney, said Monday that it was “conducting an internal review” of the bail recommendation it made in Brooks’s case. That bail recommendation “was inappropriately low in light of the nature of the recent charges and the pending charges against Mr. Brooks,” the office said in a statement Monday.
Chisholm’s office did not immediately respond to questions about who decided the bail amount and whether officials were reviewing any other bail recommendations as a result of this case.
Brooks is also facing charges in a pending case from July 2020, when he was charged with two counts of second-degree recklessly endangering someone else’s safety and another count of possessing a gun despite being convicted of a felony.
Court documents describing police officers’ past encounters with Brooks say he was seen in a maroon, 2010 model Ford Escape — a vehicle that matches the description of the car used in the parade crash.
On Sunday in Waukesha, an SUV broke through barricades about 4:40 p.m. local time, about 40 minutes after the event began. Several witnesses described how the festivities turned terrifying in an instant.
Dan Schneiderman, owner of the Vinyl Vault record store, said he was standing at the window when he said he heard “the thud, thud, thud.” It was the car hitting people, a sound he said he’ll never forget.
Dozens of onlookers huddled inside his tiny shop, he said, waiting in silence for the danger to pass.
“There was no conversation. Every single one of them had a look of fear on their face I’ll never forget,” he said. “That was more fear [than] I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The most scared I’ve ever seen of a human being.”
First responders would later describe a terrible scene. Some of them were at the parade with their families, Waukesha Fire Chief Steven Howard said, and they left to tend to victims. Others were military veterans, and they compared what they saw on the street to their time in combat.
“Just carnage, likening it to a war zone,” Howard said. “There were adults, children that were injured. … But what stands out in my mind from conversations is we have people with military backgrounds who likened it to a war zone.”
‘Now fire DeJoy’: Biden moves to replace Trump-picked postal board members
Thank God! At last some action toward getting rid of DeJoy! He has been a disaster for Americans.
Excerpts from the Article:
President Joe Biden won applause Friday for moving to replace Ron Bloom and John Barger, two members of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors who’ve shown unwavering loyalty to scandal-plagued Postmaster General Louis DeJoy even as he’s dramatically worsened mail delivery performance.
But replacing Bloom—a Democrat and the USPS board’s current chairman—and Barger, a Republican, is just the first step toward rescuing the mail service from the ongoing right-wing assault, progressive advocates and Democratic lawmakers stressed Friday.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) called Biden’s decision to replace Bloom “great news,” slamming the outgoing postal board chair as DeJoy’s “chief enabler and cheerleader.” “Now fire DeJoy,” Pascrell added.
On Friday, Biden nominated former General Services Administration official Daniel Tangherlini and Derek Kan—a Republican and the former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget—to replace Bloom and Barger. If Biden’s picks are confirmed by the Senate, his nominees will have a majority on the nine-member postal board—enough votes to remove DeJoy.
Bloom and Barger were both nominated to the postal board by former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly attempted to sabotage the USPS ahead of the 2020 presidential election, which relied heavily on mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic.
DeJoy—a Trump donor—was selected to head the USPS by the postal board in May of 2020. Upon taking charge of the agency in June, DeJoy wasted little time moving to overhaul mail service operations and slow package delivery.
Last month, DeJoy’s decade-long plan for the USPS took effect as experts and Democratic lawmakers warned the changes would ensure the continued decline of Postal Service performance for years to come.
Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research, told Common Dreams on Friday that Bloom and Barger “disqualified themselves from serving in positions of public trust by their enthusiastic support for Trump donor Louis DeJoy despite all the ways DeJoy has harmed the American people through his dictates, including charging people more for slower and less reliable mail.”
“They failed to object to his ‘ten-year’ plan to weaken the service standards or to DeJoy continuing to receive millions each year from an arrangement he has with his former company, a contractor of the Postal Service that got a $100+ million contract to outsource postal work, among other things,” Graves noted. “It’s affirmatively good to remove Bloom and Barger from the board, men who said they were ‘tickled pink’ with DeJoy’s actions.”
The Post noted that at least four members of the Senate Democratic caucus—Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—have pointed to Bloom’s enthusiastic support for DeJoy as a reason to oust him from the postal board.
“We need a Postal Service board of governors that is committed to replacing Mr. DeJoy with a postmaster general who will protect and strengthen the Postal Service, not undermine and sabotage it,” Sanders told the Post.
In a statement on Friday, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said he’s “tickled pink that two DeJoy enablers” are on the verge of being replaced. “This action is a good thing fo r the Postal Service and, most importantly, a great thing for the American people,” he added.
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