google-site-verification=cXrcMGa94PjI5BEhkIFIyc9eZiIwZzNJc4mTXSXtGRM Ahmaud Arbery’s killers want their hate crime convictions overturned - 360WISE MEDIA
Connect with us

Crime

Ahmaud Arbery’s killers want their hate crime convictions overturned

Published

on

ATLANTA (AP) – Attorneys are asking a U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn the hate crime convictions of three white men who used pickup trucks to chase Ahmaud Arbery through the streets of a county in Georgia before considered one of them killed the fleeing black man with a shotgun.

A panel of judges from the eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was scheduled to listen to oral arguments Wednesday within the case that followed nationwide protests over Arbery’s death. Lawyers for the white men argue that evidence of racist comments they’ve made prior to now doesn’t prove racist intent to harm.

On February 23, 2020, father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and chased Arbery after they spotted a 25-year-old man running through their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery on the street.

More than two months passed with no arrests until Bryan’s graphic video of the killing was leaked onto the Internet and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Charges were soon filed.

All three men were sentenced in a Georgia state court in late 2021.

In legal documents filed ahead of the appeals court hearings, lawyers for Greg McMichael and Bryan cited prosecutors’ use of greater than two dozen social media posts and text messages, in addition to witness statements, showing that every one three men used racial slurs or otherwise disparaged Black people.

Bryan’s attorney, Pete Theodocion, said Bryan’s past racist statements angered the jury while failing to prove that Arbery was prosecuted due to his race. According to AJ Balbo, Greg McMichael’s lawyer, Arbery was pursued since the three men wrongly suspected he was a fugitive.

Greg McMichael gave chase when Arbery ran past his house, saying he recognized a young black man from security footage that in previous months had shown him entering a neighboring house under construction. None of the videos showed him stealing, and Arbery was unarmed and had no stolen property when he was killed.

In written submissions, prosecutors said trial evidence showed “long-standing hatred and prejudice against black people” that influenced defendants to consider Arbery had committed crimes.

Featured Stories

In Travis McMichael’s appeal, attorney Amy Lee Copeland didn’t dispute the jury’s finding that he was motivated by racism. Social media evidence features a 2018 Facebook comment by Travis McMichael on a video of a black man pranking a white person. He used an expletive and a racial slur, writing: “I might kill it…. “

Instead, Copeland based her appeal on legal details. She said prosecutors didn’t prove that the streets of Satilla Shores County, where Arbery was killed, were public roads, as stated within the indictment used to charge the lads.

Copeland cited records from a 1958 meeting of Glynn County commissioners through which they refused to take the streets over to the district’s developer. During the trial, prosecutors relied on service request records and district official testimony to point out that district officials cared in regards to the streets.

Lawyers for the three also presented technical arguments for overturning their attempted kidnapping convictions. Prosecutors said the charge was warranted because the lads used pickup trucks to chop off Arbery from fleeing the realm.

Defense attorneys said the fees were improper because their clients weren’t attempting to capture Arbery for ransom or other advantage and the trucks weren’t getting used as a “tool of interstate commerce.” Both elements are required for attempted kidnapping to be a federal crime.

Prosecutors said other federal appellate districts have ruled that any automotive utilized in the hijacking qualifies as an instrument of interstate commerce. They also said that the profit the lads sought was “the satisfaction of their personal desires and the administration of vigilante justice.”

The trial judge sentenced each McMichaels to life in prison for the hate crimes and an extra sentence – 10 years for Travis McMichael and 7 years for his father – for brandishing a gun while committing violent crimes. Bryan received a lighter sentence for the hate crime of 35 years in prison, partly because he was unarmed and retained a cellphone video that became key evidence.

The three also received 20 years in prison for the attempted kidnapping, however the judge ordered that this time run concurrently with their hate crime sentences.

If either of the federal sentences is overturned by a U.S. appeals court, each the McMichaels and Bryan will remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in Georgia state prisons for murder, and motions for a brand new state trial are pending before a judge.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Crime

Body camera footage shows police leaving an Ohio man handcuffed and face down on the floor of a bar before he died

Published

on

By

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) – An Ohio man who was handcuffed and left face down on the floor of a social club last week has died in police custody and the officers involved have been placed on paid administrative leave.

Police body camera footage released Wednesday shows a Canton police officer responding to a report of a crash and finding Frank Tyson, 53, of East Canton, at the bar of a nearby American Veterans (AMVETS) facility.

As a result of the accident that took place around 8 p.m. on April 18, a power pole broke down. Footage from Officer Beau Schoenegge’s body camera shows that after a passing driver directed police to the bar, a woman answered the door and said, “Please get him out of here right now.”

Police grabbed Tyson and he resisted being handcuffed and repeatedly said, “They’re trying to kill me” and “Call the sheriff,” before putting him on the floor.

They immobilized him – including a knee on his back – and he immediately told officers he couldn’t breathe. A recent Associated Press investigation found that these words – “I can’t breathe” – have been disregarded in other cases of deaths in police custody.

Officers told Tyson he was OK to calm down and stop fighting because he was lying face down, cross-legged, on the carpeted floor. Police joked with passersby and went through Tyson’s wallet before realizing he was having a medical crisis.

Five minutes after body camera footage of Tyson saying “I can’t breathe,” one officer asked one other if Tyson had calmed down. The other replied: “He may be absent.”

Tyson telling officers he couldn’t breathe recalled the events leading as much as George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. According to the coroner’s office, Tyson was black. According to the police department, each Canton Police Department traffic bureau officers who were placed on leave, Schoenegge and Camden Burch, are white.

Tyson didn’t move when the officer told him to stand up and tried to knock him down. They shook him and checked his pulse.

Minutes later, the officer said doctors needed to “step up” because Tyson was unresponsive and the officer wasn’t sure if he could feel a pulse. The officers began resuscitation.

A Canton police report on Tyson’s death released Friday said that “shortly after securing him,” officers “determined that Tyson was unresponsive” and that cardiopulmonary resuscitation was performed. Narcan doses were also administered before the doctors arrived. Less than an hour later, Tyson was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Featured Stories

Chief investigator Harry Campbell of the Stark County Coroner’s Office said Thursday that an autopsy was performed earlier this week and Tyson’s stays were taken to the funeral home.

His niece, Jasmine Tyson, called the video “nonsense” in an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland. “It seemed like forever when they finally checked on him,” Jasmine Tyson said.

According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Frank Tyson was released from state prison on April 6 after serving 24 years for kidnapping and theft and was almost immediately deemed in violation of post-release supervision for failing to report back to his parole officer. .

A Tyson member of the family reached by phone Thursday declined to right away comment.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office of Criminal Investigation said in a statement Thursday that its investigation is not going to determine whether the use of force was justified and that a prosecutor or grand jury will resolve whether use-of-force charges are warranted.

Canton Mayor William V. Sherer II said he personally expressed his condolences to Frank Tyson’s family.

“As we navigate through this difficult time, my goal is to be as transparent as possible with the community,” Sherer said in a statement released Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Justice has warned police officers since the mid-Nineties to perform belly rolls on suspects immediately after being handcuffed because of the risk of positional asphyxiation.

Many police experts agree that somebody can stop respiratory in the event that they are restrained on their chest for too long or with an excessive amount of weight, as this may cause pressure on the lungs and strain on the heart. But if done appropriately, placing someone on their stomach is just not life-threatening.

An Associated Press investigation published in March found that greater than 1,000 people died in the decade after police restrained them with nonlethal measures, including prone restraints.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading

Crime

The sister of George Robinson, who died after police pulled him from his automotive, rejects a $17,000 settlement offer. dollars

Published

on

By

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A lady who sued Mississippi’s capital over her brother’s death has decided to reject the settlement after officials publicly disclosed how much town would pay survivors, her lawyer said Wednesday.

George Robinson, 62, died in January 2019, days after three Jackson police officers pulled him from his automotive while trying to find a murder suspect.

The Jackson City Council on Tuesday approved a $17,786 payment to settle a lawsuit filed by Robinson’s relatives in state court in October 2019, WLBT-TV reported. City documents show the settlement didn’t constitute an admission of liability by town or the three officers named within the lawsuit. Robinson was black, as were the three officers.

The payment to relatives – including Robinson’s sister, Bettersten Wade – was approved unanimously. Wade’s attorney, Dennis Sweet III, released a letter Wednesday saying town of Jackson violated a confidentiality agreement that was part of the settlement. Sweet said that because of the general public disclosure of information and since town “appears to claim a victory or infer some purported victory,” Wade intends to proceed suing town.

Sweet said Robinson’s family has reached a separate “significant settlement” with the ambulance company.

Councilor Kenneth Stokes said he thought the urban settlement was too small, although he voted for it.

“I say it just sends the wrong message about human lives, especially Black lives,” Stokes said. “I think a step in the right direction would be to pay the family a little more.”

Featured Stories

The lawsuit alleged that the three officers “brutally, viciously and mercilessly beat Mr. Robinson by punching and kicking him.”

“Mr. Robinson committed no crime, was not subject to any court order, and posed no threat to himself or anyone in the area,” the lawsuit stated.

Wade said Robinson had been hospitalized with a stroke a few days before the encounter with police and was taking medication. A couple of hours after the beating, he had a seizure, and two days later he died of bleeding within the brain.

The case was dropped with second-degree murder charges against two officers. In August 2022, a Hinds County jury convicted former Detective Anthony Fox of culpable homicide by negligence, after which in January of this yr, the Mississippi Court of Appeals overturned Fox’s conviction. The appeals court majority wrote that prosecutors didn’t prove that Fox “acted in a grossly negligent manner” or that Robinson’s death “was foreseeable under the circumstances.”

Wade is the mother of Dexter Wade, who was hit by an off-duty Jackson police officer in March 2023.

Dexter Wade was buried within the Hinds County Paupers Cemetery. However, it was not until October that his mother learned in regards to the burial.

His body was exhumed on November 13 and an independent autopsy was performed. The wallet present in his jeans pocket contained a state ID with a home address, a bank card and a medical health insurance card, said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Wade’s family.

On November 20, Dexter Wade’s family organized his funeral, and he was buried in a different cemetery.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading

Crime

What do we know about the fatal shooting of Loletha Hall during an Uber concert

Published

on

By

It was an atypical scam that ended with an unusual result – tragically in a driveway in Ohio.

This week, authorities said William J. Brock fatally shot an Uber driver because he wrongly assumed she was participating in a scheme to acquire $12,000 in alleged bail for a relative. Loletha Hall was a victim of the same scam, summoned by the scammers to Brock’s home to select up a supposed package for delivery.

Brock later told investigators he believed Hall got here to get the money the scammers wanted.

Now he faces murder charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Hall’s family is in mourning. Uber helps investigators catch the person behind the fraud attempt.

Experts say the gimmick is widely generally known as a scam or grandparent scam that takes advantage of older people’s love for family. Callers pretend to be anyone from grandchildren to the police, and tell victims that something terrible has happened and that their younger relative needs money.

In this photo from Uber dash cam video, William Brock (right) holds a gun for Uber driver Loletha Hall outside his home in South Charleston, Ohio, on March 25, 2024. (Photo: Clark County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Here’s what we know about the shooting and the investigation thus far:

What exactly happened?

Brock, 81, received the scam calls on the morning of March 25 at his home in South Charleston, a city of about 1,800 people situated between Dayton and Columbus. According to a press release from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the calls were about an imprisoned relative and “continued to make threats and demands for money.”

The sheriff’s office said that while Brock was on the phone, Hall received a request through the Uber app to select up a package from Brock’s home for delivery. Hall, 61, of Columbus, was unaware of the attempted fraud.

“After contacting Ms. Hall, Mr. Brock produced a gun and held it at gunpoint, demanding the identity of the people he spoke to on the phone,” the sheriff’s office said.

The sheriff’s office said Hall was unarmed and never threatened or made any demands on Brock.

The sheriff’s office said Brock took Hall’s cellular phone and would not let her leave. When she tried to get back to the automotive, Brock shot her. In the ensuing fights, he shot her a second and third time.

Brock then called 911 to report that he had shot an individual on his property who was attempting to rob him.

The police body camera footage shows him briefly discussing what he believes happened.

“I’m really happy to see you guys here because I was on the phone for a few hours with this guy who was trying to tell me that I have a nephew in jail and I was in an accident in Charleston but I was just hanging on and they need the bond money,” he said Brock. “And this woman was going to get it.”

The video shows investigators discussing the $12,000 while sitting on a table in Brock’s home.

The video also shows a Clark County Sheriff’s Office detective at Brock’s home talking on the phone to a person who had previously spoken to Brock. He identified himself as an officer and told the detective, “You’re going to get in trouble.”

When the detective introduced herself as an actual police officer, the phone hung up. During a subsequent phone call with the man, the detective told him that the Uber driver had been in a serious accident, was in the hospital and “wasn’t feeling well.”

The man told the detective he could be there in 20 minutes. He was not.

On Monday, Brock was charged with murder, assault and kidnapping. He posted $200,000 bail and was released from the Clark County Jail on Wednesday. His lawyer, Paul Kavanagh, didn’t immediately return an email searching for comment Friday.

How common are these types of grandparent scams?

Grandparent scams have grow to be increasingly common over the past 10 to fifteen years — partly because of the great amount of personal information available about people online, said Anthony Pratkanis, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Criminals search social media for details about relatives and use them to persuade victims their loved one is in trouble, said Pratkanis, whose research includes fraud crimes.

“Basically, the criminal is taking advantage of our human nature,” he said. “You are in a state of panic and high emotional arousal. This is an appeal to fear. And the best way to get rid of that fear is to give the criminal that money.”

Pratkanis said fraudsters typically prefer financial transactions that do not require physical proximity, reminiscent of bank transfers, gift cards or cryptocurrencies. This case is unusual because the fraudsters used Hall as an unsuspecting money mule.

“Most people involved in fraud today don’t actually have any contact with the criminal – there’s a distance,” Pratkanis said. “But if that’s not the case, there’s a chance that the victim’s anger will cause the victim to take action.”

Featured Stories

Uber said Wednesday it was helping investigators look into the account that sent Hall to Brock’s home. The shipping company called Hall’s death a “terrible tragedy.”

“A Bond Like No Other”

Some posthumous Hall described her as the mother of a son and stepson, a loyal member of her church and a talented cook known for her delicious pound cakes.

She retired from the Ohio Regional Income Tax Agency and worked in behavioral health at school and for Uber. She studied horticulture at Ohio State and commenced a cleansing business.

At the memorial service which was broadcast online, her son Mario Hall talked about how close they were regardless that they lived in several states, and infrequently talked on the phone several times a day. He said they’d “a bond like no other.”

“Thank you for all your sacrifices and everything you have instilled in me,” he said. “You are the best mother anyone could wish for. And I promise that I’ll proceed to make you proud.


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending