MALEAH DAVIS, 4, RAPED & MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD BY HER MONSTER STEP-FATHER DARION VENCE (MALEAH’S LAW):
DARION VENCE DISPOSED OF MALEAH IN A TRASH BAG....HE SHOULD RECEIVE THE DEATH PENALTY.
BOTH CPS & MALEAH’S MOTHER BRITTANY BOWENS ARE TO BLAME FOR HER MURDER.
WHY DID CPS RETURN MALEAH & HER BROTHER FOLLOWING EVIDENCE OF SUBSTANTIATED SERIOUS ABUSE FOUND IN THE HOME??
WHAT KIND OF HEAD INJURY CAUSED MALEAH TO HAVE MULTIPLE BRAIN SURGERIES?
CONGRESS (BOTH PARTIES) NEEDS TO AUDIT & OVERHAUL CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES IMMEDIATELY IN EVERY STATE & WASHINGTON DC.
CONGRESS SHOULD ALSO CREATE NEW CPS LEGISLATION ENTITLED “MALEAH’S LAW”.
MOST CPS SYSTEM SUPERVISORS ARE SORORITY BLACK WOMEN WHO DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT LOW INCOME ABUSED BLACK CHILDREN.
PLEASE FIRE MOST BLACK CPS SUPERVISORS AND REPLACE THEM WITH WHITE WOMEN.
YES I SAID WHAT I SAID.
DON’T LET MALEAH’S PREMATURE DEATH BE IN VAIN.
Post Sources: CBS News, KHOU, USA Today, Youtube
***** Dogs detect human decomposition in car of man arrested in case of missing girl Maleah Davis, 4
Trained dogs detected the scent of human decomposition in the car of a man arrested in connection with the puzzling disappearance of Maleah Davis, 4, outside Houston, a prosecutor said.
Derion Vence was in jail Sunday on a $1 million bond after he was arrested Saturday and charged with tampering with evidence – a human corpse. Vence is set to appear in court Monday.
Vence, 26, lived with Maleah’s mother, Brittany Bowens, and is believed to be the last person to see the girl before her disappearance more than a week ago.
Houston police said Maleah has not been found and the investigation is continuing. Authorities have declined to say whether they believe Vence killed the girl, but prosecutors said in court documents filed Saturday that Vence could face additional charges, including murder.
Police have said blood found in Vence’s apartment was linked to Maleah.
Vence initially told police he was assaulted by three men in a truck after stopping for a flat tire on the way to pick up Bowens at the airport on the night of May 4.
Vence said Maleah and his 2-year-old son were with him and they were all abducted by the three men, who knocked him unconscious.
When he came to the next day in Sugar Land, about 20 miles southwest of Houston, the girl was missing, Vence told police. He also said the Nissan Altima he was driving was stolen.
Police said surveillance video showed Vence getting dropped off at Methodist Sugar Land Hospital in the silver Altima last Sunday.
Police found the car in a parking lot Thursday.
At Vence’s probable cause court hearing Saturday night, Harris County prosecutor Pat Stayton said two dogs trained to find cadavers reacted to the trunk of the car.
“The dogs were responding to the scent of human decomposition in the vehicle,” Stayton said.
Surveillance video from a neighbor had shown Vence carrying a large, blue laundry basket with a large trash bag from his apartment on May 3, Stayton said. Vence returned three minutes later without the basket and later he was seen leaving the apartment with cleaning supplies, including bleach.
In the car, police found a laundry basket that looked like the one Vence took out of his apartment, Stayton said.
Police have described Vence as Maleah’s stepfather, but Bowens said through a spokesman that Vence is her former fiancé.
Child Protective Services removed Maleah and her brothers from the home Vence and Bowens shared in August after the girl sustained a head wound, but the children were returned in February, according to an agency spokeswoman.
The Houston Chronicle reported that Maleah’s grandmother, Brenda Bowens, had tried to get the kids placed at her home instead of in foster care when Child Protective Services conducted an investigation starting in August.
GEORGIA STATE SENATOR NIKEMA WILLIAMS ARRESTED FOR PROTECTING VOTING RIGHTS:
Post Sources: 11Alive, Youtube
@CareInActionUSA
**** BREAKING: @NikemaForSenate just got released from jail after being arrested at today’s #counteveryvote rally at the Georgia Capitol. “I am incredibly proud and will continue to stand with the citizens of Georgia to demand that their votes be counted.”
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7:29 PM - Nov 13, 2018 · Atlanta, GA
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**** GEORGIA SENATE DEMOCRATS TO DISCUSS ARREST OF SEN. NIKEMA WILLIAMS
Georgia Senate Democrats are poised to talk about the arrest of Sen. Nikema Williams during a protest Tuesday at the state Capitol, where demonstrators demanded every vote in Georgia's midterm race be counted.
Georgia Senate Democrats are poised to talk about the arrest of State Sen. Nikema Williams during the protest Tuesday at the state Capitol.
The press conference is happening at 11:30 a.m. at the Senate Press Room.
Sen. Williams was among more than a dozen people who were arrested Tuesday night in the rotunda. The protesters demanded every vote to be counted in several tight races.
In a video provided to 11Alive News, at least one sign in the crowd read, "Stacey Abrams IS GOVERNOR" and another "COUNT EVERY VOTE" as protesters chanted "No justice, no peace."
Police took Williams and the others to the Fulton County Jail, where she later bonded out. She was greeted by a small crowd of supporters outside the jail.
"I joined them down on the floor and I was singled out as a black female senator, standing in the rotunda with constituents in the Capitol, in the body that I serve in, and I was singled out and arrested today for standing with so many Georgians who are demanding every vote be counted," she said.
When asked whether police knew she was a state senator when she was arrested, Williams quipped, "I wear my name tag every day in the Capitol."
The protest at the state Capitol came as federal judges throughout Georgia ruled on several election-related lawsuits, including several filed in relation to the Georgia governor race.
The results of that election has yet to be officially decided, though Republican Brian Kemp has already declared himself the winner. Democrat Stacey Abrams, however, has yet to concede as she vows to make sure every vote cast in the election be counted.
A Mexican citizen who illegally entered the U.S. four times and racked up a long criminal history was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday, more than twice the term suggested under federal sentencing guidelines.
Victor Santos-Ochoa, 45, convicted of more than 20 other crimes in the U.S. since 1992, pleaded guilty Feb. 14 to illegal re-entry following a conviction of an aggravated felony and was facing a prison term of 37 to 46 months under the sentencing guidelines.
“Quite frankly, you are the type of individual U.S. immigration policy is intended to keep out of the United States,” U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson told Santos-Ochoa shortly before imposing the term.
Earlier, Hudson told Nia Vidal, Santos-Ochoa’s lawyer, that he has handled 200 immigration cases as a federal judge.
“I believe this is the worst,” Hudson said.
S. David Schiller, an assistant U.S. attorney, told Hudson, “I have done in excess of 500 of these ... cases. I haven’t seen many that come close to this.”
According to court records, the U.S. attorney’s office said that between 1992 and 2007, Santos-Ochoa was convicted of 18 misdemeanors in California, Georgia and Virginia and spent eight of those 25 years in state and federal prisons.
He was deported, apparently in 2007, and then re-entered the U.S., showing up in Chesterfield County, where in 2008 he was convicted of malicious wounding. Deported again, he was caught re-entering the U.S. in Arizona in 2010, sentenced to 57 months and deported again.
He returned to Chesterfield, where he was convicted of possession of marijuana in 2016. Deported again, he returned and was most recently arrested in Chesterfield in September for assault and battery of a family member — a 5-year-old child — and another drug charge.
Vidal told Hudson on Thursday that the guideline range of 37 to 46 months already took into account his prior illegal entries and relevant criminal history. She asked the judge to sentence him within the guideline range, which was not binding on Hudson.
But Hudson cited the defendant’s long criminal history and disrespect for the law in going over the guidelines.
Presuming he will be deported again after his eight-year prison term, Hudson told Santos-Ochoa, “Needless to say, do not return to the United States without proper authorization, sir.”
A group of Youtube pranksters are facing criminal charges after posting a video of them impersonating Houston police officers.
Christopher Sails, 22, Nyyear Price, 21, Justin Denson, 20 and Devontay Sullivan were arrested Tuesday
after HPD learned of the video that was posted to Sails' and Nyyear's Youtube channels.
According to court documents, the video was filmed on Jun. 13 throughout the course of an afternoon.
The pranksters can be can be heard laughing and following drivers through neighborhoods and residential streets with fake police lights on top of their car.
At one point the group can be seen pulling over a security guard.
"I pulled you over cause you were speeding. I'm just playing, I'm just playing, it's a prank," one of the pranksters can be heard saying.
The men then proceeded to get back in the vehicle and followed another car, pulling it over. The video shows the pranksters exiting the vehicle and approaching a woman, before trying to convince her that they were undercover officers.
"We're undercover police officers. Here's my badge right here. I'm a have to write you a ticket ma'am," the prankster said.
After pulling over a number of drivers, one man warned the pranksters that a police station was nearby and that they should leave the neighborhood.
"Y'all know there's a whole police station down the street; like right there. This is not the right area guys," the man could be heard saying.
Since being posted, the video has close to 200,000 views and over 8,000 likes -- possibly due to the huge following that Sails and Nyyear have on social media.
Sails alone has 1.5 million Instagram followers; Nyyear has 380,000 and Sullivan has 35,000.
Prior to the arrest, Sails was scheduled to host a concert on Jul. 7, at the Underground.
Sails posted a picture of his flyer on Jun. 30, with a caption that read, "Come out to my show July 7th if you in Houston! ❤ click the link in my bio to get your tickets!" Sullivan posted the same photo to his page on Jun. 26.
So, was the arrest a publicity stunt to promote the comedy show and concert?
Many believe so seeing that this wasn't the first time that Sails was thrust into the spotlight due to social media.
Sails became popular by posting Youtube videos with his former girlfriend, Queen Naaija, whom he had a public breakup with over allegedly cheating with McKenna. Sails and Naaija were criticized, accused of sharing the details of their breakup on Youtube to gain followers.
Starbucks shut 8,000 US stores on Tuesday for a racial bias training day with its employees.
The coffee chain has published a booklet staff were given, asking questions about their hair and how often friends of different races come to their home.
It also asked staff to say whether they find it easy or hard to talk about race.
Take a look at the full list questions below.
Starbucks shut 8,000 stores in the US for four hours on Tuesday afternoon to give its employees a racial bias training day.
It came after a scandal which saw two black men arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks after they asked to use to the bathroom without having purchased drinks.
The training, which was provided to some 175,000 employees, included a "personal notebook" for employees to fill out. It encouraged them to become "color brave."
After the training day, Starbucks published the notebook in full. It included questions for employees about their "natural hair" and how often friends of a different race had been in their home.
There were two rounds of questions.
The first asked employees to recall the first time something happened to them. The booklet said that a possible answer was that these things had never happened:
1.The first time you noticed your racial identity.
2.The first time you noticed how your race affected your beauty standards.
3.The first time you felt your accent impacted people's perception of your intelligence or competence.
4.The first time you altered your communication style (dialed it up or down) to avoid playing into stereotypes.
5.The first time you had a friend of a different race who regularly visited your home.
6.The first time you felt distracted at work because of external events related to race.
7.The first time you had a senior role model in your organization with a similar racial identity as your own.
8.The first time you went to work with your natural hair without comments or questions from others.
9.The first time you felt your race affected your ability to build a rapport with your manager.
The second set of questions asked people to rank whether they would find various racially-charged situations easy or hard to deal with.
They were asked to put their answer on a five-point scale, once for dealing with someone of their own race, and once for somebody of their own race.
1. I can talk about race and not make the other person feel threatened.
2. I can comfortably maintain eye contact throughout the conversation and not fear I'm being aggressive.
3. I can talk about race and not make the other person feel threatened.
4. I can use my normal gestures and body language without feeling uncomfortable.
5. I can expect to be respect without having to prove my worth.
6. I can speak with my natural cadence without feeling judged about my intelligence.
7. I can respond to a difficult request directly and not fear my answer wll be questioned.
8. I can share my accomplishments without someone assuming that I did not earn them myself.
9. I can talk about my childhood and not expect others to assume I grew up in poverty.
10. I can voice my dissatisfaction with a situation and not be told I'm "too angry."
~ For Starbucks, the scope of companywide anti-bias training on Tuesday was easy to measure.
Roughly 175,000 employees at 8,000 locations pored over nearly 23,000 iPads, learning about the processing power of unconscious brains and the roots of unconscious bias.
The training — part social justice crash course and part self-reflection exercise — is at the core of a well-choreographed effort by Starbucks to improve its corporate image after a backlash over the arrests of two African-American men in a Starbucks in Philadelphia last month.
Since then, the company has apologized, most recently in full-page newspaper ads. It has changed its guest policy, allowing people to sit without buying anything. And it enlisted a full complement of social justice activists and policy advocates for guidance.
Starbucks is trying to send a statement with the training. It closed most company-owned stores in the United States, leaving caffeine addicts without Frappuccinos and freelancers without office space.
But the company acknowledges that it is trying to tackle systemic racism going back centuries. And there is only so much that can be crammed into a four-hour session.
Pomp and Circumstance
Starbucks infused its training with some star power.
In one video shown to workers via iPad, the artist Common explains that it is sometimes better to embrace differences than to look for only similarities in one another. In another, the documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson Jr. provides an overview of the civil rights era and viral videos of racial incidents in the past. Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reviewed the materials, and Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. gave advice.
The training “is a transformational moment in the history of Starbucks,” said Howard Schultz, the company’s executive chairman.
The company, which spent tens of millions of dollars to bring it all together, needs to put on a show. It is trying to convince customers that it is committed to social justice issues and that it wants to create a sense of community at its stores.
Its image was tarnished after the incident at the Starbucks in Philadelphia, where an employee called the police after two African-American men asked to use the restroom. The men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, who hadn’t made a purchase and were waiting for a business meeting, were arrested on suspicion of trespassing — a charge that prosecutors declined to pursue. Mr. Nelson and Mr. Robinson, both 23, reached a settlement this month with the city and Starbucks.
To design the training program, Starbucks teamed up with Perception Institute, an anti-bias research and advisory group, and solicited input from several social scientists. The questions were based on years of research and on past workshops, the group said, adding that the four-hour time frame was more generous than the one hour typically allotted.
As they developed the materials, Starbucks tested them in select stores in Texas, New York, Indiana and elsewhere, and incorporated feedback from employees. Some said that earlier drafts of the materials were confusing, and that directions needed to be clearer, according to a consultant from SYPartners, a consultancy that also helped come up with Tuesday’s program
A Lesson in Sociology and Science
At the training sessions, employees broke into small groups to guide themselves through 68 pages of materials printed on newspaper print, sure to create ink-stained hands. They watched videos on iPads, some with stands made from a cut-up Starbucks cup.
Many of the exercises had the sort of open-ended approaches that have long been the province of sociology classes and business retreats. In personal notebooks, employees were asked to jot down private responses to vague questions like “What makes me, me? And you, you?” After one of the Common videos, they were asked to pair with a co-worker and list all the ways they were different from each other.
After a brief lesson on brain science, they took the Stroop effect test, quickly reciting the colors that words were written in to show how they form implicit associations. The notebook then took them through what it means to be “color brave” — rather than “colorblind.”
One of the more powerful exercises came toward the end of the training, when the employees listened to recorded audio clips of other colleagues discussing biased decisions they had made. In one instance, an employee said he had hid the tip jar when he saw a group of black men walk in. He became embarrassed, he said, after he gave them their change and they asked if there was a tip jar for them to leave it in.
“The big question was we need to make it much more personal,” said Zarina Masih, a Starbucks employee in Evanston, Ill., alluding to advice she received about how to treat people in the store. “To make sure we’re not making assumptions, that we get to know them.”
Talking About Race
The documentary in the training includes an interview with a bald white man who reflects on how easy he has it when he leaves his house.
“I walk out a free man,” he said. “I just do my thing.”
Going out is much more complicated for a black man with braids, who is also interviewed. He has to be careful of how close he stands to fellow train commuters and how he talks to people in public.
Leaving the house can be so exhausting, the man said, that it sometimes “just keeps you at home.”
The training bluntly shows how white and black people experience the world differently.
To that end, Starbucks is toeing a difficult line. How do you convince white people that they are beneficiaries of the country’s racist history without calling them racists? And if you can convince them, how, then, do you turn that into a more welcoming in-store environment?
This can, expectedly, be a tall task for a company whose work force transcends geographic, socioeconomic, racial and educational lines. Some undoubtedly were familiar with, and had experienced, the concepts in the training. Others found them foreign.
“You’re always talking about a particular percentage that is willing to move off of their narrative,” Ms. Ifill said. “You’re appealing to people who are willing to listen and willing to learn.”
In the training, an exercise of “firsts” could serve to highlight the Rorschach that is race in America.
When was the first time you “altered your communication style (dialed it up or down) to avoid playing into stereotypes?” For African-Americans, that is likely so common that it would be difficult to remember a first.
When was the first time you “went to work with your natural hair without comments or questions from others?” For white people, that’s likely always.
One question in the notebook highlights the efforts of its creators to emphasize that this wasn’t about proving someone to be a racist.
“Upon reflection, do you notice ways in which you treat people differently?” the booklet asked. “The point here is not to judge whether that is a good or bad thing, but merely to notice.”
The booklet also offered definitions of what it called “key terms,” such as bias, confirmation bias, inclusion and stereotype.
The definition given for institutional racism could prove upsetting without further context. “The ways in which institutional policies and practices create different outcomes for different racial groups, creating unbalanced advantages for whites along with oppression and disadvantages for people from groups classified as nonwhite,” it read.
Starbucks and the creators of the training say it is not meant to end bias. Rather, it is about getting employees to start grappling with issues of race. In other contexts, like policing, this might mean thinking twice before pulling a weapon on someone. For Starbucks, it might mean a barista’s thinking twice before accusing someone in the store of nefarious behavior.
If nothing else, Starbucks employees may have to think twice because all the publicity surrounding the training could send a message that messing up on race could cost them their job.
Challenge in History and Logistics
“It always seems to me that they’re doing it to save face. It is, to me, too little too late,” said Doug Brandt, who was sitting at a Starbucks cafe in New York with two other men on Tuesday afternoon, several minutes before the store would close. “But it can’t hurt.”
One of the men, De’Monie Jackson, joined in. “It’s not Starbucks that needs the training,” he said. “It’s the police.”
Not even Starbucks pretends that the training will solve systemic racism and abuse. But the company is trying to start a dialogue.
“We also have to recognize that there will be some customers for some reason or another who are having a bad day, and that’s the moment of truth where we have to perform,” Mr. Schultz said.
“We as a company are systemically dealing with things that are far, far out of the control of Starbucks as a company or the four walls of our stores,” he said.
Putting aside whether a corporation is well equipped to address hundreds of years of racism, Starbucks is also up against a “customer is always right” ethos. And it is putting the burden on employees to rethink their own prejudices to offer better customer service, while doing little to help Starbucks’s nearly half-minority work force address the bias it may face from customers.
Then there are the more logistical concerns. Brian Nosek, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia who was consulted on the training, worried that Starbucks was moving ahead too quickly. Productive sessions, he said, require concrete goals, specific behavioral standards and a clear metric for evaluating performance.
“Training to make a caramel macchiato can be quite effective,” he said. “Training to be unbiased toward your fellow human doesn’t achieve any of those criteria.”
In a mirror image of his days presiding over Hollywood red carpets, the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was led in handcuffs past a gantlet of photographers on Friday as he appeared in court to face charges that he had raped one woman and forced another to perform oral sex.
Mr. Weinstein’s appearance in Manhattan Criminal Court lasted barely 10 minutes, but stood not only as a breakthrough in the investigation into sex-crime claims against him but as a watershed in the larger #MeToo movement. After decades of harnessing his wealth and power to silence women — and after weathering an earlier criminal inquiry into groping allegations — his reign as a film-industry titan suffered a decisive blow in, of all places, the shopworn arraignment courtroom, where he was among the morning cattle call of defendants.
It was 9:25 a.m. when Mr. Weinstein — in a dark blazer, a light-blue sweater and an untucked button-down shirt — was escorted into courtroom AR-1 by Sgt. Keri Thompson and Detective Nicholas DiGaudio, two investigators from the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Division. The unit had been pushing hard for months on Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, to pursue a case against Mr. Weinstein, particularly after Mr. Vance declined to prosecute the groping case of an Italian model, Amber Battilana, three years ago because of what he called a lack of evidence.
As the hearing opened, Mr. Weinstein, still in handcuffs and looking vaguely shellshocked, was led with his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, into the well of the court where he stood in front of Judge Kevin McGrath. The lead prosecutor in the case, Joan Illuzzi, announced the charges against him: first-degree rape and third-degree rape in one case; and first-degree criminal sex act in another.
The criminal sex act count stemmed from an encounter with Lucia Evans, who first told The New Yorker, and then investigators from Mr. Vance’s office, that Mr. Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him during what she expected would be a casting meeting at the Miramax office in TriBeCa in 2004. The victim in the rape case has not been publicly identified, but prosecutors said that that attack occurred on March 18, 2013, at 569 Lexington Avenue, the address for the DoubleTree Metropolitan Hotel.
After noting that the charges had emerged after “months of investigation,” Ms. Illuzzi added that the inquiry had shown “that this defendant used his money, power and position to lure young women into situations where he was able to violate them sexually.”
Ms. Illuzzi also said that the investigation would continue and she asked Judge McGrath to issue an order of protection against Mr. Weinstein on behalf of one of the women, who was not identified. A grand jury remains empaneled in the case and is still looking into whether Mr. Weinstein abused more women and used his vast financial resources to keep them quiet.
Mr. Weinstein said nothing during the hearing, standing with his back to a roomful of reporters. He was not required to enter a plea because he was arrested on a criminal complaint, rather than an indictment. But after the hearing, Mr. Brafman said his client intended to plead not guilty. By Wednesday, Mr. Weinstein will also have to decide whether he plans to testify in front of the grand jury.
As the hearing neared an end, Mr. Brafman, one of New York City’s top defense lawyers, handed Mr. Weinstein’s passport to Ms. Illuzzi and paid his bail with a $1 million cashier’s check. As part of his bail package, he has agreed to wear a monitoring device and restrict his travel to New York and Connecticut. When the proceeding was over, Mr. Weinstein was allowed to slip out of an employee door at the back of the courthouse, where he climbed into a waiting Toyota.
All told, his passage through the courts took about an hour, a far shorter and much less grueling ordeal than most defendants endure.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Brafman told a scrum of reporters that he would “move quickly” to dismiss the charges, calling them “constitutionally flawed and factually unsubstantiated.”
“I anticipate that the women who have made these allegations, when subjected to cross-examination — in the event we get that far — will not be believed by 12 people,” Mr. Brafman said. He continued: “Assuming we get 12 fair people who are not consumed by the movement that seems to have overtaken this case.”
Hinting at a potential line of defense, Mr. Brafman also drew a distinction between bad behavior and criminal conduct. “Mr. Weinstein did not invent the casting couch in Hollywood,” he said. “Bad behavior is not on trial in this case.”
As is the case in many sex crimes prosecutions, whether the charges brought on Friday ultimately stick is likely to hinge on the issue of the complainants’ credibility. It remains unclear how much physical evidence investigators have found to corroborate their stories, and Mr. Brafman in his comment promised “a vigorous cross-examination.”
The day had started early for Mr. Weinstein. Around 7:30 a.m., he walked into the First Precinct station house in Lower Manhattan, flanked by several sex crimes detectives and hounded by another gaggle of reporters and photographers. Toting three large books under his arm, he looked up without saying a word as shutters clicked and onlookers called out, “Harvey!”
He was fingerprinted and formally booked and waited in a holding cell for detectives to finish paperwork. Then, about an hour later, he was led from the station house in TriBeCa and taken to the court at 100 Centre Street, his arms pinned behind him in three sets of handcuffs to accommodate his girth, a law enforcement official said. The books he had been carrying — among them “Elia Kazan: A Biography,” by Richard Schickel, and “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution,” by Todd S. Purdum — were gone.
The charges against Mr. Weinstein followed a wave of accusations that led women around the world — some of them famous, but many of them not — to come forward with accounts of being sexually harassed and assaulted by powerful men. Those stories spawned the global #MeToo movement, and since then, the ground has shifted beneath men who for years had benefited from a code of silence around their predatory behavior.
Mr. Weinstein himself had reigned for decades as one of Hollywood’s top producers, known as much for his bullying and aggression as for his cinematic triumphs. Over the years, journalists and investigators, chasing leads from a whisper-network of women and a handful of complainants, sought to expose the accusations and hold him accountable, but largely came up empty. Mr. Weinstein’s power was after all enormous; his (and his lawyers’) connections were extensive; and he was often able to buy or coerce the silence of any accusers, at times employing an Israeli security firm called Black Cube, many of whose employees were former intelligence operatives.
But everything shifted in October when The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles containing the accounts of several A-list movie stars and employees of the Weinstein Company, his former namesake production firm. The matching articles shattered Mr. Weinstein’s reputation and eventually spurred criminal inquiries in New York, Los Angeles and London.
Mr. Vance’s prosecutors, for example, conducted dozens of interviews in New York and elsewhere and issued hundreds of subpoenas. A similar but separate federal investigation is also being conducted into Mr. Weinstein’s finances and into the question of whether he violated stalking laws in his dealings with women who say he abused them.
The First Police Precinct station house, where Mr. Weinstein was arrested, was not unfamiliar to him or his accusers. Three years ago, Ms. Battilana, the model, accused Mr. Weinstein of groping her during a meeting in his office, and spoke to detectives at the same station house, on Varick Street.
The next day, with detectives watching and recording, Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Battilana met at the TriBeCa Grand, where Mr. Weinstein acknowledged he had touched her breasts and promised not to do so again. But he was not asked about putting his hand up Ms. Battilana’s skirt as she had alleged. Detectives took Mr. Weinstein to the First Police Precinct for questioning, but as soon as the groping allegation came up, he halted the interview and asked for a lawyer, the police said.
Unlike in the case announced on Friday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office decided that time not to charge him.
Lawmakers should continue to study the possibilities of requiring daily arrest logs from the state police and removing or modifying public record exemptions for domestic violence incidents, according to a working group created by a 2016 law.
An overhaul of the state's public records law that Gov. Charlie Baker signed on June 3, 2016 established a pair of panels to study additional measures and gave both deadlines of Dec. 30, 2017. The law also set a ten business day response window for records request responses, required state agencies and municipalities to designate records officers, and limited how much money public entities can charge to fulfill a request, among other measures.
One of the groups the law created — a 14-member commission tasked with examining "the accessibility of information concerning the legislative process" and the constitutionality of extending the public records law to the Legislature, the governor and the Judiciary — has until Dec. 1, 2018 to report findings. Lawmakers last month quietly pushed back the original Dec. 30, 2017 reporting date by adding language to a Cannabis Control Commission spending bill. The co-chairs of the State Administration Committee - Rep. Jennifer Benson of Lunenburg and Sen. Walter Timilty of Milton - are leading that group.
The other group, which filed its final report with the House and Senate clerks on Friday, was charged with exploring the topic of police department records.
"While the group could not reach consensus on proposed legislation, it highlighted areas of concerns in current statutes and recommended further examination of these laws," state supervisor of records Rebecca Murray, who chaired the working group, wrote in a message accompanying the report.
Murray wrote that she hopes the report "sets the groundwork for the Legislature to ensure the laws of the Commonwealth reach the necessary balance between the transparency of law enforcement in Massachusetts and the privacy of individuals."
Specifically, the law instructed the working group to review the exemption to the public records law that covers "investigatory materials necessarily compiled out of the public view by law enforcement," as well as the "the public interest" in releasing police documents such as arrest reports, and related privacy and confidentiality concerns.
The group was deadlocked on whether to recommend adding the state police into the law that requires all municipal police department to maintain a daily log of complaints, crimes and arrests, according to meeting minutes included in the report.
Entries in such logs are considered public records, with exceptions for incidents involving certain handicapped individuals, domestic violence, rape or sexual assault, and arrests for assault against a relative or household members.
Murray, Sen. Joan Lovely, attorney Jeffrey Pyle of Prince Lobel, Foxborough Town Clerk Robert Cutler, and Randall Ravitz, chief of Attorney General Maura Healey's appeals division, voted in favor of extending the log requirement to state police.
Voting against were Shannon Sullivan, a designee of Public Safety and Security Secretary Daniel Bennett; Capt. Michael Lyver, president of the state police Commissioned Officers Association of Massachusetts; Robert Ross, general counsel at the Executive Office of Administration and Finance; Jessica Katon, Sen. Richard Ross's constituent services director; and Salisbury Police Chief Thomas Fowler.
A 2014 law aimed at curbing domestic violence made it so police reports about domestic violence and rape were not deemed public records, and therefore not subject to disclosure requirements. Supporters said the move would increase confidentiality for victims.
The group voted 10-0 to not recommend changes to the disclosure exemption for reports of abuse involving household members, and 10-1 not to recommend changes to the exemption relating to domestic violence, with Robert Ambrogi of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association dissenting.
Instead, the panel suggested that the Legislature should study those issues, as well as the question of whether the state police should be subject to the daily log requirements and how that requirement would be fulfilled if so.
A Columbia Police officer is facing domestic battery charges after he was accused of grabbing, pushing and elbowing his wife in the jaw, according to the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
Charles Starling, 37, is charged with second-degree domestic violence. He is being held at the Lexington County Detention Center, where he awaits a bond hearing Friday afternoon.
Starling was arrested on Thursday after investigators determined he was the primary aggressor in an incident involving his wife, said Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon, in a news release by his agency.
“The victim attempted to avoid an altercation by asking Mr. Starling to leave the residence and a struggle began,” Koon said.
Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal their criminal records.
DC Could Make It Easier to Seal Criminal Records
Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation on Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal criminal conviction records.
Bowser's plan proposes that arrest records that aren't prosecuted or end with a conviction be automatically sealed, wait times for record sealings be trimmed down and some convictions should be reviewed to be eligible for record sealing, according to a statement from her office.
"We know that when we remove barriers to housing, education and employment for some residents by giving them a clean slate, we are actually building a safer, stronger city for all residents," Bowser said in the statement."Through this legislation, we will give more individuals, more families, and more neighborhoods a fair shot at success."
Although sealed criminal records can't be accessed by potential employers during a background check, some employers, including those who work with children, law enforcement officials and courts can see them.Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed legislation Thursday that could make it easier for D.C. residents to seal criminal conviction records.
Bowser proposed that arrests that aren't prosecuted or don't end with a conviction automatically be sealed. The plan also calls for reduced wait times for record sealings, and a review of the types of convictions eligible for record sealing, according to a statement from her office.
"We know that when we remove barriers to housing, education and employment for some residents by giving them a clean slate, we are actually building a safer, stronger city for all residents," the mayor said in the statement."Through this legislation, we will give more individuals, more families, and more neighborhoods a fair shot at success."
Over 40,000 people are arrested every year in D.C., and only one-third of those people are prosecuted.
Brian Ferguson works in the mayor's office helping people who were released from prison assimilate back into regular life. He also was in prison for 11 years before having a conviction for homicide overturned. He said these laws could help people get back on their feet.
"Arrest records are holding them back from being able to potentially obtain employment, professional licensing, education or housing," Ferguson said.
Sealed criminal records can't be accessed by landlords, employers or other third parties during a background check. However, certain employers that serve vulnerable people, law enforcement officials and courts can see them.
Currently, under D.C. law, people must petition to have their records sealed by proving their innocence, which can take from six months to years.
According to Bowser's statement, more than 10,000 people annually ask for help to have their records sealed in D.C. Superior Court from the Public Defender Service.
A former information technology staffer for Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Monday was arrested on charges of bank fraud at Dulles International Airport as he was attempting to travel to Pakistan.
Imran Awan, 37, of Lorton, Virginia, pleaded not guilty to one charge of bank fraud during a Tuesday arraignment at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. According to the court, Awan was granted permission to return to his home under specific conditions, including obeying a strict curfew, wearing a GPS monitoring device, giving up his passports and staying within a 50-mile radius of his home. Awan was fired by office of the former chair of the DNC on Tuesday, according to his attorney Chris Gowen.
Awan is accused of trying to defraud Congressional Federal Credit Union, a popular bank for Capitol Hill staffers, by misrepresenting a home $165,000 home equity loan he attempted to obtain for a piece of rental property. FBI Special Agent Brandon Merriman, who penned the charging document, stated in an affidavit that Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, misrepresented the property for which the loan was to be granted, identifying it as a "principal residence." According to Merriman, the credit union does not normally issue home equity loans for rental properties.
Merriman wrote in the document that Awan was attempting to leave the U.S. and not return. Awan, however, did have a booked returning flight set for January 2018. Merriman also noted that Awan's family, including his wife, designated as a co-conspirator in the charges, left for Pakistan months before him with multiple bags and boxes packed. The affidavit stated that agents followed Awan and her family during their departure in March, and inside their bags, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol found around $12,000 in cash along with "household goods, clothing and food items."
Awan's attorney railed against the charge in a statement to CBS News, saying that was a "modest real estate matter" exacerbated by "ultra-right-wing-media" and "anti-Muslim bigotry." Awan, Gowen said, has been victimized, and the charges against him will not hold up in court. He added that Awan was not trying to flee the country -- he just wanted to visit family members who were staying in Pakistan with other extended family because of financial troubles.
"They will stand and fight whatever charges are presented," Gowen said about Awan and his wife. "Once they have prevailed, we will have a chance to more closely examine the ugly political and media dynamics that have driven this controversy from the beginning."
Gowen said the charge of bank fraud ultimately stems from a previous criminal investigation earlier in the year looking into accusations that Awan and his wife were overcharging members of Congress for technical equipment and pocketing the difference. When the investigation was revealed in February, many of the members of Congress who had contracted with Awan and his wife fired them suddenly. However, Wasserman Schultz, who employed Awan on a full-time basis, retained him until Tuesday.
In a statement to CBS News, Gowen said: "The government spent several months investigating allegations made by the right wing and has not found any wrongdoing by our client. Instead they have charged him with bank fraud with a criminal complaint that's only direct allegation to Mr. Awan is that he did not disclose all of his rental income on his tax returns."
The investigation leading up to the bank fraud charge and eventual arrest of Awan, according to Merriman, included physical surveillance and multiple FBI interviews. Gowen said that Awan right now is distraught from the arrest but is driving for Uber in the meantime to make ends meet. According to Gowen, Awan is in contact with his family in Pakistan, and he is set to be back in court on August 21.
CBS News reached out to Wasserman Schultz. Her spokesperson David Damron confirmed Awan's previous employment and termination on Tuesday.
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS BUYING FAKE IDs (WHERE ARE THE FEDS?):
MEXICAN MAN (HUMBERTO GINEZ-EDMUNDO) CHARGED WITH SELLING FAKE IDs TO NORTH CAROLINA ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.
YET COMPANIES CONTINUE TO HIRE MANY MEXICAN CITIZENS VERSUS LEGAL CITIZENS.
Sources: Charlotte Observer, Fox News, Youtube
***** Man going to prison for selling fake IDs to undocumented immigrants in Carolinas
A Mexican man was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison on Wednesday for providing fake documents to undocumented workers and others in the Carolinas and Georgia.
Humberto Ginez-Edmundo, 27, charged $130 to $600 for the fake Social Security cards, state identification cards, driver’s licenses and permanent residence cards he produced beginning in November 2015, court records show.
Ginez-Edmundo was convicted of fraudulent identification document conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.
Chief U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney sentenced him in federal court in Charlotte.
Ginez-Edmundo will face deportation proceedings after serving his sentence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations led the investigation into the fake documents Ginez-Edmundo produced and sold.
REALITY WINNER - TURNCOAT - SHE WANTS TRUMP WHITE HOUSE BURNED DOWN:
ALSO WANTED TO JOIN TALIBAN LIKE BERGDAHL.
IS REALITY MENTALLY ILL? NO. JUST A MEDIA BRAIN-WASHED TRAITOR.
WILL SHE GO TO PRISON FOR TREASON OR BE REWARDED??
Sources: CBS News, CNN, Fox News, YouTube
***** Reality Winner - NSA leaker wanted to 'burn the White House down'
The woman accused of leaking classified information once wrote she wanted "to burn the White House Down...find somewhere in Kurdistan to live," prompting prosecutors to argue she would flee the country if she was released on bond.
Reality Winner appeared before a judge in Augusta, Ga., on Thursday who ordered her to remain jailed until her trial. Prosecutors argued that the 25-year-old might try to flee the U.S. if she was released on bond. They added that Winner wrote in her notebook plans to set the White House on fire, travel to Afghanistan and pledge her allegiance to the Taliban, WSB-TV reported.
Winner also called her mother while in jail and coached her on what tell the media, telling them that her daughter was "scared."
"Mom, those documents. I screwed up," Winner also confessed to her mom in the recorded jailhouse phone call.
Winner also allegedly told her sister she was "pretty, white and cute" and that Winner believed her bond hearing would play out in her favor, according to the news station.
The former government contractor pleaded not guilty to charges that she illegally retained and transmitted national defense information. Winner, the former Air Force linguist who speaks Arabic and Farsi, is accused of copying and mailing a classified report containing top-secret material to an online news organization, according to prosecutors.
Authorities haven't described the report or named the news outlet. But the Justice Department announced Winner's arrest Monday as The Intercept reported it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report suggesting Russian hackers attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year's presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner is charged with leaking.
Winner's mother and stepfather defended Winner, telling the judge she had no criminal history and that she would not attempt to flee. They added they would use their 20-acre home in Kingsville, Texas, to finance her bond.
"Because my client is a millennial and she knows how to use technology, that's somehow proof of evil intent," said Titus Nichols, Winner's defense attorney. "The government is scraping and clawing to build a mountain out of a molehill."
However, the judge said whether Winner's violent words was "a jest or not, it still concerns" him.
NIKE STANDS BY TIGER WOODS AFTER DUI ARREST (LOYALTY):
TIGER HAS MADE A TON OF $$$ FOR NIKE.
TIGER IS STILL AN AMAZING GOLFER.
Sources: CBS News, Fox News, YouTube
***** Iconic Sponsor NIKE weigh in on Tiger Woods' DUI arrest
Nike is keeping its sponsorship of golf pro Tiger Woods, after his arrest in Florida for driving under the influence.
A spokesman told CBS News, "There is no change in our relationship with Tiger."
The golfer admitted to getting behind the wheel after taking a potent mix of prescription drugs.
Police reports confirm Woods was not drunk, reports CBS News correspondent Manuel Bojorquez.
Two breathalyzer tests showed his blood alcohol level at zero.
Still, officers say Woods slurred his speech and failed field sobriety tests, prompting them to take him into custody.
Around 2:00 am Monday morning police say they found Woods asleep behind the wheel of a black Mercedes.
His car was blocking the right hand lane, its left brake light on and right turn signal flashing. Both drivers' side tires were flat. The rims were damaged.
Once awake, police say Woods was swaying, that his eyes were extremely droopy and seemed as if he was lost. Woods also told officers he had taken four medications, including the painkiller Vicodin.
"I feel bad for him," said Jack Nicklaus at a press conference. The golf great said he hopes Woods will play again. "He needs a lot of support from a lot of people, and I'll be one of them."
Vicodin is a highly addictive opioid often used for post-surgical pain. The FDA warns the drug can impair driving.
Woods, who is recovering from a back operation last month, said: "I understand the severity of what I did and I take full responsibility for my actions."
"Tiger lucked out. He got pulled off the road before he committed an even worse crime -- before he killed somebody, before he injured someone or himself," said Heather Geronemus, a Mothers Against Drunk Driving board member.
Prescription drugs also allegedly played a role in Woods' 2009 crash. The latest incident so far has not cost him any sponsorships.
Bridgestone Golf told "CBS This Morning" it was, "... continuing to monitor the situation."
"It saddens you," said legal analyst and former "60 Minutes Sports" correspondent, Jack Ford.
Ford once played a round of golf with Woods. He says few DUI cases ever go to trial.
"The process has become so sophisticated -- the testing process so sophisticated -- and the penalties are fairly severe. So usually people try to work something out," Ford said.
Jupiter police say they will release dash cam footage of the arrest later today.
Woods received two citations – driving under the influence and illegal parking. His first court appearance is scheduled for July 5.
***** Tiger Woods: ‘Unexpected reaction’ to meds led to DUI arrest
Golfer Tiger Woods spent Memorial Day morning in a Jupiter, Fla., jail charged with DUI following a traffic stop.
Woods was arrested about 3 a.m., according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. He was released on his own recognizance about eight hours later.
Woods on Monday blamed an unexpected reaction to medication as the reason for his arrest.
The 14-time major championship winner, in a statement, insisted alcohol was not a contributing factor.
“I understand the severity of what I did and I take full responsibility for my actions,” Woods, 41, wrote in a statement. “I want the public to now that alcohol was not involved. What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications. I didn't realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly.
“I would like to apologize with all my heart to my family, friends and the fans. I expect more from myself, too.”
Woods, who lives in Jupiter Island, has undergone four surgeries to relieve chronic back pain since 2014. His most recent procedure was in April.
He has not played professionally since February. He has missed three of the last four Masters Tournaments at Augusta National Golf Club.
ANGELO COLON-CORTIZ IS GOOGLE EMPLOYEE VANESSA MARCOTTE'S KILLER (SANCTUARY CITIES):
ANGELO COLON-CORTIZ IS NOT INNOCENT.
HE IS NOT AN INNOCENT IMMIGRANT.
HE BRUTALLY MURDERED VANESSA AND TRIED TO BURN HER BODY.
CORTIZ'S BAIL IS $10 MILLION.
Sources: Daily Mail, MassLive, YouTube
****** Married FedEx worker, 31, accused of raping and murdering Google executive while she jogged appears in court and has bail set at $10million
Angelo Colon-Ortiz, 31, pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault, aggravated assault and battery, and assault with intent to rape.
Prosecutors expected to file murder charges against him in about a month
Colon-Ortiz is accused of raping and killing Vanessa Macrotte, whose naked body was found on August 7, 2016 in Massachusetts.
Police arrested Colon-Ortiz on Saturday after DNA found on her hands was linked to him.
Colon-Ortiz is a recent transplant from Puerto Rico who is married and works for FedEx in the Worceset area.
A suspect accused of raping and murdering a Google executive while she was out jogging near her mother's Massachusetts home last summer was arraigned this morning on assault charges and ordered held on $10million cash
bail.
Angelo Colon-Ortiz, 31, was taken into custody on Saturday in connection to the August 2016 killing of 27-year-old Vanessa Marcotte in Leominster, Massachusetts.
The suspect, a US citizen who had only recently moved from his native Puerto Rico to Worcester, Massachusetts, was led into Leominster District Court on Tuesday morning and used the services of a Spanish-English interpreter to follow the legal proceedings.
Ortiz was arraigned on criminal counts of aggravated assault, aggravated assault and battery and assault with intent to rape.
Prosecutors said they sought the multimilion-dollar bail because they expect to charge him with murder within about a month.
Judge Mark Noonan agreed to set Colon-Ortiz’s bail at $10million and scheduled his pre-trial conference for May 24.
Attorney Edward Ryan Jr representing the 31-year-old suspect, who was described in court as a married FedEx employee, according to the Boston Globe, entered not guilty pleas to the assault counts on Colon-Ortiz’s behalf. He did not argue for lower bail, but reserved the right to seek lower bail later.
Vanessa Marcotte’s father, John Marcotte, and uncle Steven Therrien were present at the arraignment but made no statements to the press.
State police arrested Colon-Ortiz in Worcester after police used DNA found on Marcotte's hands to link him to the killing.
Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr commended Marcotte's bravery at a press conference on Saturday.
'It was through her determined fight and efforts that we obtained the DNA of her killer,' he told the crowd.
Residents from the community applauded as Early confirmed Colon-Ortiz's arrest, which came after police built a DNA profile of Marcotte's killer.
They used that profile - and a report of a dark SUV spotted near the scene of the August 7, 2016 killing - to identify the suspect, Early said.
In a written statement, her parents said: 'After eight long months, we're able to take the first step toward justice for Vanessa.
'She was a beautiful, intelligent, and generous young woman whose passion for giving back to the community will always be remembered.
'As we move forward, her spirit will live on through The Vanessa T Marcotte Foundation that strives to empower women to live boldly and fearlessly.'
According to its website, the foundation's goal is to to help women 'live free from the fear of violence.'
It aims to to that by 'partnering with organizations that deliver educational programs to promote female empowerment, challenge and undermine gender stereotypes, and provide mentorship opportunities [for women].'
Marcotte, a graduate of Boston University, was found near her mom's Princeton, Massachusetts, home on August 7, 2016. Her hands, feet and head had been burned.
The New Yorker, who was visiting her mother at the time, was found dead after she didn't return to their home from a run.
Colon-Ortiz is being held in at the state police barracks in Millbury on $1 million bail.
Early Jr said that a Massachusetts State Trooper saw a dark SUV in Worcester, similar to the one that had been spotted driving from the scene.
The man driving fitted a description of the suspect, he said, so the trooper went to the man's home and was able to take a DNA sample from the man's cheek.
The test results, which came in on Friday, said that the sample matched DNA found on Marcotte's body.
Colon-Ortiz was then arrested, and is set to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday.
Early Jr said that Colon-Ortiz was working near where Marcotte was killed on the day of her brutal death. He has no criminal history.
In February, Early Jr said they had made a DNA breakthrough in the case, and revealed that they were seeking a Hispanic man of average height.
The suspect was also likely to have had scratches or cuts on his face, neck, hands and arms that day, police said.
They added that they believed him to be the same man seen driving a dark colored SUV in the area around the time that the young jogger was killed.
Police have not revealed how they acquired the DNA, saying only that they got it during the course of their investigation, and that it was on Marcotte's hands.
Marcotte vanished on an afternoon run while on a visit to the home of her mom in Worcester from New York.
Her naked body was found at around 8.20pm in woodlands near the home.
It's believed she was killed some time between 1pm, when she left her mom's home, and 4pm.
She had been sexually assaulted, and her hands, feet and part of her head were burned.
Marcotte's shocking murder left her family shattered, they said towards the end of last year.
Her uncle, Steven Therrien, read an emotional statement at a church in the town on December 31, asking for help finding the young woman's killer.
'Not a day goes by that we don't reflect on the enormity of our loss. She had already achieved much but we know she had much more to do.
'She was a loving, caring, intelligent young woman who had her whole life ahead of her.'
Marcotte's parents, Rossana and John Marcotte, stood silent next to Therrien at the news conference, holding back tears.
Her father held a banner that read: 'Justice for Vanessa.'
And at Marcotte's funeral, her best friend, Leah Abrahams, gave a moving eulogy to her slain friend.
'She was so perfect, it was otherworldly,' she said.
'Something about Vanessa always reminded me of the ocean - so breathlessly beautiful, quiet and peaceful.'
She later said: 'You epitomize grace, light, humility, and absolute magic.'
Marcotte was killed just weeks after Queens jogger Karina Vetrano was brutally raped and murdered while she was out for a run. A suspect in her death, Chanel Lewis, admitted murdering her in February.
TRUMP EXPOSES MICHELLE FIELDS-COREY LEWANDOWSKI ASSAULT HOAX: RUINING A MAN'S LIFE & FAMILY FOR DIRTY POLITICS.
MORE ANTI-TRUMP MEDIA THEATRICS
Sources: Daily Mail, WND, Danger & Play, YouTube
Michelle Joann Fields is a very talented, ambitious journalist well-known within the Conservative Media community.
So why did she recently throw Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski under the bus by falsely claiming he assaulted her at a Trump rally when raw uncut video footage shows no clear signs of any assault?
Why did Michelle's story line change after the video footage was released?
Is the Florida Prosecutor (Aronberg) who chose to proceed with charging criminal charges against Corey a Clinton operative?
Has anyone made an offer to Michelle she can't refuse in exchange for helping to stop the Trump Political movement so he can't clinch the GOP nomination in July?
A few years ago, I was punched in the head three times at the British Press Awards in London.
My assailant was a man named Jeremy Clarkson, then presenter of global TV car show Top Gear.
He was severely intoxicated and very, very angry at a story about his personal life which had appeared in the newspaper I ran at the time.
The third flailing blow crashed into my temple, gouging a small hole from which blood flowed profusely.
At this point, I considered my options.
a) Hit him back.
b) Go home.
c) Call the police to press charges, then phone my lawyer to sue Clarkson.
If I’d gone for option c) then I suspect he’d have been convicted of assault and I’d have ended up with a truck load of cash too.
There were, after all, about 1000 witnesses, all of whom were journalists (which is why I didn’t hit him back..).
But I concluded that on balance, I probably deserved my pummelling and so instead, I stumbled outside and caught a taxi home.
(Clarkson, ironically, was fired from Top Gear last year for punching one of his producers in the head after he failed to provide him with hot food)
My point in retelling this anecdote is that journalism’s a rough old game, and the people – male and female - who choose it for a profession tend to be fairly rough too.
‘News,’ as the great press baron Lord Northcliffe once observed, ‘is something someone somewhere doesn’t want printed.’
Gathering news is thus a precarious pursuit which often requires reporters to work in very difficult, dangerous conditions.
This morning I woke in Los Angeles to breaking news that Donald Trump’s campaign manager Corey Lewandowski had been arrested and charged with ‘battery’ over an incident with a female reporter, Michelle Fields.
His alleged crime was to assault Ms Fields as she attempted to interview Trump when he walked away from a news conference in Florida.
Helpfully, the police issued new video of the ‘clash’, illustrating very clearly exactly what happened.
The footage lasts just a few seconds and shows Ms Fields displaying commendable bravura as she approaches Trump to fire questions at him.
Crucially, DailyMail.com has now established from a member of Trump’s Secret Service detail that in the process, she touched Trump twice and was warned by agents to stop.
Lewandowski, walking a few steps behind his boss, saw this happening (he may well have heard the warnings too) and raced forward to prevent her asking more questions and put himself between Trump and the reporter.
At this point, let’s forget the gender of the journalist.
In this glorious age of equality, it shouldn’t matter – right?
Battery is battery – regardless of the sex of the victim.
Lewandowski can be seen putting his arm up to block the journalist. In doing so, he also appears to grab her arm for less than a second as he moves on.
This is all rather different from what Ms Fields herself claimed had happened when she wrote about it for her then employer, Breitbart.com: ‘I was jolted backwards. Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground but was able to maintain my balance. Nevertheless I was shaken. Campaign managers aren’t supposed to try to forcefully throw reporters to the ground.’
Oh puh-lease.
I’ve watched the video multiple times and cannot conceive any sensible interpretation that he is committing any kind of deliberate assault.
Part of Lewandowski’s job is to protect Trump from nosey journalists, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Fields, let me also be very clear, was also doing her job and if I were her editor, I’d congratulate her on getting so close to her prey, especially as repeatedly touching a presidential front-runner in public when he’s surrounded by Secret Service agents is a very risky thing to do.
But my fulsome praise would very rapidly be replaced by utter incredulity if she then informed me she was going to press charges against Lewandowski for battery.
Particularly given that battery, according to the law, means ‘intentionally touching someone without that person’s will’ – the very same thing we now know Fields did to Trump.
This doesn’t mean I take violence against women lightly. But there has to be some kind of harmful intent surely?
Lewandowski wasn’t trying to hurt Michelle Fields, he was trying to stop her getting to Donald Trump. If one of the Secret Service agents had done it, as they had every right to do given her behaviour, they’d have been applauded for doing their job.
Like every journalist I know, I’ve spent much of my career being pushed, shoved, elbowed and barged in crowded places when trying to get near famous people.
It goes with the territory.
Just as for that special breed of journalists who work in war zones, daily life can include dodging bullets, bombs and grenades.
Some of the toughest journalists in America are women.
Would Barbara Walters, Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer have pressed charges if they’d been in Ms Fields’ position?
Of course they wouldn’t.
They’d have all brushed off Lewandowski’s obstruction and chased back after Trump to try and fire more questions at him.
That’s what real reporters do. They don’t take no for an answer.
It’s hard therefore not to escape the sad conclusion that Ms Fields is hell-bent on having her 15 seconds of fame by turning a very innocuous incident into a national scandal to deliberately embarrass and damage a presidential candidate.
After I tweeted about this today, and had the audacity to suggest Ms Fields was being a big wuss, I was instantly bombarded with vicious abuse – notably from other high profile online journalists.
Olivia Nuzzi, a noisy feminist from the Daily Beast led the way with this simple entreaty: ‘Please go f**k yourself.’
Ben Shapiro, a whiny little brat who quit Breitbart over the way they supposedly failed to defend his colleague, was racist: ‘Go screw yourself you prissy sexist Brit.’
Whilst Simon Maloy, an aesthetically displeasing toad from Salon.com, preferred body-shaming me by saying I was a ‘dough-looking, can’t-tell-where-the-neck-stops-and-chin-starts fop.’
Whatever.
Like I said, journalism’s a rough old game. You dish it out, you have to take it.
But this debate boils down to this: if a male reporter cried ‘battery’ after such a trivial incident, he’d be an absolute laughing stock.
Why should a female reporter be taken any more seriously?
By making such a grotesque mountain of such a tiny molehill, Michelle Fields has embarrassed herself and let down her profession.
Toughen up, young lady – or choose a different job.
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Laurel @BLACK POLITICAL BUZZ
LINKS: POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE & INFORMATIONAL SITES
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