Following a tragic accident involving a 13-year-old girl who was struck and killed during a police pursuit, the city of Cleveland, Ohio, has agreed to a $4.8 million settlement with the victim’s family, marking the end of legal battles and investigations since then. . the tragedy happened in December 2019.

A police pursuit was initiated after an armed car theft of a 72-year-old woman outside a local food market. reported via CNN.

Tamia Chappman was walking on the sidewalk with friends when a vehicle fleeing Cleveland officers struck and killed her during a high-speed chase.

Stanley Jackson, an attorney with the Cochran Firm in Cleveland, criticized the city of Cleveland for its negligence after the settlement. “The city of Cleveland failed to follow its own policies, failed to follow its own procedures, failed to exercise common sense during the pursuit or decency while engaged in it,” Jackson said in a statement.

In May 2020, the Chappman family filed a wrongful death lawsuit to treatment an “extremely reckless and unnecessary pursuit that resulted in a tragic death,” citing several police violations of state law.

According to the lawsuit, police acted with a “conscious disregard or indifference to known or obvious risk of harm” that was unreasonable under the circumstances. The lawsuit also alleged they violated Ohio law and the Cleveland Police Department’s “standard operating procedures” by failing to operate their vehicles “with due regard for the safety of all persons and property” on the highway.

police chase began with carjacking on cleveland’s west side, according to WKYC. The chase ended near Euclid and Lakefront avenues in East Cleveland when the vehicle driven by the suspect collided with Tamia while she was on the sidewalk. A police pursuit on Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland reached speeds of greater than 90 miles per hour.

East Cleveland police said that at the time of the incident, Tamia was walking to the library after school along with her siblings and cousins ​​who witnessed the tragic event. In the aftermath, Tamia’s family and her legal representative criticized the Cleveland Police Department for the selections made by its officers on that fateful day.

“I miss my daughter. We’ll never get her back,” Tamia’s mother, Sherrie Chappman, said at a press conference in Cleveland on Monday. public media Ideastream reported. “I don’t want anyone’s children or elderly people (to get hurt) during these chases. I hope they stop.”

The lawyers argued that the defendants violated Ohio law and standard procedures by failing to “cease pursuit when the pursued vehicle was traveling at speeds” well above “safe limits based on road and traffic conditions,” allegedly demonstrating a “gross disregard for the safety of others.” vehicles or pedestrians.”

However, as WHIO-TV reported, there aren’t any standard laws governing police pursuits in Ohio, prompting debates and calls for motion to establish standard laws governing police pursuits. For example, each of the 29 law enforcement agencies in Montgomery County sets its own rules regarding pursuits.

Still, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office provides a set of guidelines for pursuit policies, but they’re only suggestions, not enforceable regulations, WHIO-TV added.

The perpetrators who escaped from the police were quickly arrested and convicted for his or her involvement in each incidents. As Cochran Firm noted, the driver of the stolen vehicle that hit Tamia, then-15-year-old D’Shaun McNear, was sentenced in October 2021 to a prison term of 26 to 31 years, with a minimum sentence of nine years . .

“The $4.8 million settlement is believed to be the largest pursuit-related wrongful death settlement in the state of Ohio,” it claims Cochran Companylegal group representing the Chappman family.

However, according to several media reports, the city rejected claims of any misconduct or policy violations during the pursuit, describing the decision to settle the case with Chappman’s family as “extremely difficult.”

“The city had to consider all relevant factors before making a decision, including the potential for a lawsuit and additional costs,” spokesman Tyler Sinclair said. “We want to make it clear that there aren’t any winners or losers in a case as tragic as this, and while it is straightforward to point fingers a technique or one other, the fact stays that if the armed carjacker had never committed this crime, Tamia would still be here with us.

“What he has done and will continue to do leading up to the speech is to listen very carefully to all the concerns that are raised and make sure that he raises them in the speech or separately and beyond the speech,” said Stephen Benjamin, senior adviser to President Biden and director of the Office of Engagement Public White House. He added: “The war is clearly a very important topic of dialogue… across the country. This is maybe most evident on college campuses now.

Because Morehouse President David A. Thomas announced President Biden as keynote speaker at the all-male college’s a hundred and fortieth commencement on May 19, many students, faculty and alumni expressed opposition to the Biden administration’s policy of supporting Israel’s military operation in Gaza against Hamas, a U.S.-designated organization terrorist attack that killed over 34,000 Palestinians.

Outrage at the war and Biden’s role in it was expressed at a campus town hall between Morehouse students and President Thomas, and a letter was circulated amongst Morehouse graduates calling the president’s invitation “a moral disaster and an embarrassment to the university.” “

“The president is also concerned about civilian casualties, the Palestinian people and their safety,” added Richmond, who noted that the president has “criticized” the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is conducting the ground operation in Gaza and has “dedicated significant resources” to Palestinians in Gaza.

A former Biden White House adviser said the president will “continue efforts” for a “long-lasting peace and two-state solution” between Israel and Palestine.

Despite the Biden administration’s actions and campaigns to bring a few peaceful resolution in the Middle East, some alumni see the president’s visit as a direct conflict with the legacy of Morehouse’s most enlightened alumnus: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Dr. King was famous not only for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement, but also for risking his reputation (and) relationships to speak out against the Vietnam War at the end of his life,” said Edward Mitchell, Morehouse alumnus and deputy director nationally at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “The legacy of speaking out against an unjust war is one that students across the country are living today.”

Mitchell, who signed the letter sent to Morehouse graduates, said that while he understands why the university would normally welcome the president of the United States to deliver the commencement address, the timing is “horrible.”

“When I was at Morehouse, there was no way they would have invited George W. Bush to speak after Hurricane Katrina or at the height of the Iraq War,” he explained. “So why is this acceptable?”

Mitchell said the Biden administration is “living in an alternate reality if it thinks it can speak out” at Morehouse and is “not facing serious criticism from young black men who overwhelmingly oppose the genocide ongoing in Gaza.”

He said that until Biden stops “enabling an unjust, genocidal war,” Morehouse “is not the place he should be,” adding: “His presence is an actual distraction from what ought to be a student- and parent-centered celebration, without the specter of protest or disruption.”

He added: “I know students are angry and frustrated and may decide that speaking up is more important than a peaceful ceremony. The decision is theirs alone.”

Controversy aside, Benjamin and Richmond, two of the most distinguished Black men advising Biden in the White House and on the campaign, say the president selected to attend Morehouse’s graduation ceremony to honor HBCUs’ wealthy history in developing Black male leaders.

“When a president agrees to speak at a school, he is recognizing the value of the school, the value of the students, and in Morehouse’s case, the impact and legacy that the school has had on the history of this country,” said Richmond, an authority on former U.S. congressman from New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Whether it’s being a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer, a doctor, or being Secretary of Homeland Security like Jeh Johnson. At school, we educate people who change communities and the world.”

When President Biden delivers his speech on the Morehouse campus in the heart of Atlanta, he’ll develop into the second sitting U.S. president to accomplish that. The first was President Barack Obama, the country’s first black commander-in-chief, for whom Biden was his vice president.

“I think it raises the profile of Morehouse again,” Richmond said of President Biden’s upcoming visit.

While some critics dismissed the president’s Morehouse speech as a campaign stoppage intended to shore up Black voters in the battleground, Biden officials rejected that suggestion. Instead, they argue that the president has a real relationship with the campus and understands its legacy.

“He considers Dr. King his personal hero … and his bust is only on display with a few other people in the Oval Office,” said Benjamin, who also noted that “several” Morehouse graduates work in the White House executive office, in the one in the West Wing. He added: “He considers the Morehouse connection to be genuine.”

Richmond, who remembers talking about Morehouse with Biden during his 2020 campaign, said the Biden-Harris administration “respects” Morehouse and the larger Atlanta University Center, which incorporates Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown. Richmond said that’s why the president delivered one among “his most important civil rights and voting rights speeches” on campus in 2022, and why Vice President Kamala Harris last yr invited Morehouse to her “Fighting for Our Freedoms” campus tour.

A Biden campaign official said the president saw the inaugural address as a chance to remind 2024 graduates of “all the things he accomplished specifically for the Black community” because “(they) were involved” in the last presidential election.

“It’s more about making sure they understand the impact that they have had, that they will have and that we need,” Richmond noted, “and not necessarily in a political context, but in a community context, a national context.”

Benjamin said President Biden’s upcoming address to a whole lot of Black male graduates will give attention to students and their families.

“When the president speaks, it will be a memory for a lifetime,” he said. “I have the impression that he will talk about what unites us rather than what divides us.”

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A federal judge sentenced a Massachusetts lawyer to 10 years in prison for paying a hitman to murder his ex-wife.

Allen Gessen, 49, was convicted of murder for hire after evidence revealed he tried to hire an undercover FBI agent, whom he believed to be a contract killer, to murder his former partner and mother of his two children, Priscilla Chigariro.

He and Chigariro were embroiled in a long-running dispute that led to a contentious custody proceeding, federal prosecutors said.

Gessen’s murder plot began to take shape in the summer of 2022, when he began dating the undercover agent and sharing details of his failing co-parenting relationship. He thought the agent was an assassin with extensive government connections that he wanted to use to get rid of Chigariro and gain full custody of his children.

Gessen originally planned to illegally deport Chigariro from the U.S. and wanted to pay the agent $100,000 to arrange the deportation. He then realized that murder was a “cheaper way to get rid of her” and a more everlasting solution.

He admitted to the agent that he had already tried to hire someone to kill Chigariro once. Prosecutors said he paid a hit team from a foreign country to go to Massachusetts, conduct reconnaissance and surveil her. When the team told him it might cost one other $210,000 to commit the murder, Gessen called it off.

Gessen paid the secret agent a deposit of $25,000 in the form of a $2,000 gold coin and an amount of $23,000 by wire transfer to a checking account in San Francisco. He planned to pay one other $25,000 after carrying out the murder. He entered into a written agreement with the agent detailing false “advisory services” to mask the true nature of the funds, after which sent the agent details of his former partner’s whereabouts, schedule and lifestyle.

A federal grand jury indicted Gessen in July 2022. He was a licensed attorney in New York at the time. Chigariro said she was shocked when FBI agents arrived at her home after Gessen was charged.

“I can’t even describe how I felt in that moment,” Chigariro said in January 2023. a series of videos on YouTube tells the story of his marriage. “I just remember this feeling… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like I stopped feeling anything. I was very confused. I couldn’t digest it. I couldn’t understand it. You didn’t want to sink into it.”

In the five-episode vlog series, Chigariro said that she and Gessen lived in Zimbabwe, where she was a model for a time, and in Russia after they were together. She indicated that there was violence on this relationship and recalled one time when Gessen hit her so hard that she “passed out.” There were also longer periods when Gessen kept her son away from her.

After a week-long trial in May 2023, a federal jury found Gessen guilty. After serving his sentence, he’ll spend three years on supervised release.