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Category: Law/Crime

After two mass shootings, Americans ask: Is this what a return to normal looks like?

After two mass shootings, Americans ask: Is this what a return to normal looks like?

NBC News reports: Spring has arrived, and the American disease that lay dormant during the pandemic — deprived of oxygen by the intense national focus on the presidential election — has made a bloody return. In less than a week, two gunmen separated by 1,400 miles have taken 18 lives. And experts who study and chronicle mass killings warned Tuesday that there could be more as the nation reverts to a more normal way of life. “This is a moment…

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Extremists in police ranks spark growing concern after Capitol riot

Extremists in police ranks spark growing concern after Capitol riot

USA Today reports: Charges against police officers, public safety workers and military veterans in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol have reignited concerns among lawmakers and law enforcement officials about violent extremists infiltrating government agencies. Out of 324 arrests in the Capitol riot so far, 43 are current or former first responders or military veterans, according to USA TODAY analysis. At least four police officers and three former officers face federal charges. Two have been fired, one resigned and…

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Bringing Assad to justice after a decade of war in Syria

Bringing Assad to justice after a decade of war in Syria

In an editorial, The Observer says: He turned his country into a graveyard. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, including 25,000 children. Millions more have been forced to flee. Terrible crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, widespread torture, indiscriminate bombing, chemical attacks – have been committed in his name, and continue to this day. Syria lies in ruins. So why, 10 years after the war began, is Bashar al-Assad still in power? It’s a question with many…

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White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, are targeting critical infrastructure for sabotage

White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, are targeting critical infrastructure for sabotage

The Intercept reports: As the Biden administration turns its attention to an infrastructure system beset with problems, a strange new issue has emerged: conspiracy theorists. That’s according to a detailed intelligence report, produced by the New York Police Department and obtained by The Intercept, which finds that cellphone towers and other critical infrastructure have become an attractive target for conspiracy theorists, especially in the weeks and months following the presidential election. Conspiracy theorists, joined by far-right white supremacist groups, “increasingly…

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Your face is not your own

Your face is not your own

Kashmir Hill writes: In May 2019, an agent at the Department of Homeland Security received a trove of unsettling images. Found by Yahoo in a Syrian user’s account, the photos seemed to document the sexual abuse of a young girl. One showed a man with his head reclined on a pillow, gazing directly at the camera. The man appeared to be white, with brown hair and a goatee, but it was hard to really make him out; the photo was…

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Fulton DA’s comfort with racketeering law could influence Trump probe

Fulton DA’s comfort with racketeering law could influence Trump probe

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: Frustrated that their successes were limited to the loyal underlings who committed crimes and not the Mafia bosses who orchestrated them, prosecutors developed legal remedies that allowed them to go after the Vito Corleones of the world in addition to the Luca Brasis. Now, nearly 50 years into their existence, it’s not just organized crime figures who find themselves ensnared by the widening reach of racketeering laws. [Continue reading…]

Georgia voting rights activists pressure big corporations to oppose GOP-backed ballot restrictions

Georgia voting rights activists pressure big corporations to oppose GOP-backed ballot restrictions

CNBC reports: Civil rights and activist groups are turning up the pressure on large Georgia companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines to oppose sweeping voting restrictions proposed by Republican state legislators. “We’ve got the power of organized people. They’ve got the power of organized money. And between us and them, we could put pressure on these legislators or, worst case scenario, the governor to kill these bills,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told CNBC. Groups including Black Voters…

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Police shrugged off the Proud Boys, until they attacked the Capitol

Police shrugged off the Proud Boys, until they attacked the Capitol

The New York Times reports: A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video. But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who…

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Capitol rioter boasted he could access powerful weapons to ‘take back’ country, prosecutors say

Capitol rioter boasted he could access powerful weapons to ‘take back’ country, prosecutors say

Politico reports: A Texas man who joined a mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6 told two rioters he had set up a security company as a front to access law enforcement-grade weaponry that could be used to “take back our country,” according to private, encrypted messages revealed Saturday by prosecutors. Guy Reffitt, who drove from Texas to Washington, D.C., also said in recorded conversations that he and others were carrying firearms during the siege of the Capitol. He also…

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Can Cyrus Vance, Jr., nail Trump?

Can Cyrus Vance, Jr., nail Trump?

Jane Mayer writes: On February 22nd, in an office in White Plains, two lawyers handed over a hard drive to a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, who, along with two investigators, had driven up from New York City in a heavy snowstorm. Although the exchange didn’t look momentous, it set in motion the next phase of one of the most significant legal showdowns in American history. Hours earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered former President Donald Trump to comply with a…

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John Dean warns Trump that prosecutors are closing in: ‘Only a matter of days’

John Dean warns Trump that prosecutors are closing in: ‘Only a matter of days’

HuffPost reports: John Dean, the White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon who was once dubbed the “master manipulator” of the Watergate scandal, says he knows legal trouble and former President Donald Trump is in it deep. Dean shared a report on former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, who has been meeting with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is investigating Trump for potential fraud, including tax fraud. It was Cohen’s seventh meeting with the DA’s office. Dean pointed…

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Resignation demands grow as police get Cuomo groping report

Resignation demands grow as police get Cuomo groping report

The Associated Press reports: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s grip on power appeared increasingly threatened Thursday as a majority of state legislators called for his resignation, Democrats launched an impeachment investigation and police in the state capital said they stood ready to investigate a groping allegation. The firestorm around the Democrat grew a day after the Times Union of Albany reported that an unidentified aide had claimed Cuomo reached under her shirt and fondled her at his official residence late…

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Des Moines Register reporter acquitted in trial stemming from arrest as she covered George Floyd protest

Des Moines Register reporter acquitted in trial stemming from arrest as she covered George Floyd protest

Des Moines Register reports: Andrea Sahouri says her acquittal Wednesday on two criminal charges sends an important message about recognizing the rights of journalists to do their jobs. “The jury made the right decision,” said Sahouri, a reporter for the Des Moines Register. “They made the decision to uphold democracy, a just democracy, the freedom of the press, First Amendment rights, the list goes on.” Sahouri was arrested while covering the George Floyd protests in May 2020, and charged with…

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The new Republican war on voting rights, explained

The new Republican war on voting rights, explained

Vox reports: President Joe Biden is the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state of Georgia in nearly three decades. He’s the first Democrat to win Arizona in nearly a quarter of a century. And both of these former Republican strongholds just sent two Democrats to the United States Senate. So it’s probably not surprising that GOP lawmakers in these states and elsewhere want to rewrite election laws to prevent Democrats from repeating Biden’s success in the future. According…

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Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was in direct contact with rioters before and during Capitol breach, U.S. alleges

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was in direct contact with rioters before and during Capitol breach, U.S. alleges

The Washington Post reports: U.S. prosecutors alleged Monday that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was in direct contact before, during and immediately after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach with members since charged with plotting to prevent Congress from confirming the results of the 2020 presidential election. In a late-night court filing, prosecutors alleged that Rhodes directed the right-wing anti-government group to rally during the riot to the southeast steps of the Capitol, after which several members forcibly entered the east…

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Trump has now officially lost all of his postelection challenges in the Supreme Court

Trump has now officially lost all of his postelection challenges in the Supreme Court

BuzzFeed News reports: Former president Donald Trump has officially lost all of his postelection legal challenges in the US Supreme Court, after the court announced Monday that the justices had refused to take up his final case out of Wisconsin. Trump and his Republican allies lost more than 60 lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging President Joe Biden’s wins in Wisconsin and a handful of other key states. They petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a small number of…

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