More proof that New York is pro-crime
How Did a Two-Time Killer Get Out to Be Charged Again at Age 83?
Marceline Harvey is accused of dismembering a woman in Brooklyn. Her life was defined by a tormented relationship with women and herself — and a simmering anger.
By Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Ali Watkins
July 30, 2022
The person before the parole panel in June 2019 was tall and slim, in far better shape than 81 years of life might have suggested. Mild and polite, the supplicant seemed nothing like the murderer who had spent decades in prison, first for shooting a girlfriend dead in 1963, and then for stabbing another in 1985, stuffing her corpse into a bag and leaving it in Central Park.
“I’m no longer that person,” the inmate told the parole board commissioners. Despite misgivings, they would rule in favor of release.
Two and a half years after leaving Cayuga Correctional Facility, Marceline Harvey was accused again, charged with killing Susan Leyden, 68. Parts of Ms. Leyden’s body were found in March inside a shopping cart in East New York, stuffed in a bag. In Ms. Harvey’s apartment, investigators found a bloody mop, a tub full of towels and a box for an electric saw.
For seven decades leading up to her latest arrest, Ms. Harvey navigated New York’s intricate criminal justice bureaucracy: the country’s largest police apparatus, the state’s overlapping welfare agencies, its prisons and the officials charged with deciding who remains in them. She confronted the system in some moments, manipulated it in others. Behind her was a trail of crimes so grisly that for decades, parole officials refused to let her out.
Now Ms. Harvey has pleaded not guilty to murder. Ms. Harvey’s lawyer at the Brooklyn Public Defenders’ office declined to comment on her case. Ms. Harvey, who is being held at Rikers, could not be reached for comment; she declined an interview request.
Decades worth of police documents and court records detail the life of Ms. Harvey, a transgender woman who transitioned at some point after her release from prison. Central to her tale are more than three decades of parole board minutes obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Law. In them, she insists that authorities exaggerated evidence, changes stories about crimes she admitted and veers between contrition and blaming those she killed.
The records include several examples of her harassing or attacking women throughout her life. She was accused of attempted rape at 14; the victim was an 8-year-old girl. Ms. Harvey, who by her own account struggled with her mental health, said she had to choke down rage when women challenged her manliness before she transitioned — making fun of her soft voice, for example.
A homeless shelter worker and people close to Ms. Leyden questioned whether, despite her gender identity, Ms. Harvey should have been placed in a homeless shelter for women, given her history of attacking and murdering them. Speaking from Rikers to The New York Post, Ms. Harvey referred to herself as having two personas: one, a violent male named Harvey Marcelin — the name she used for most of her life and is included in court records — and the other, a soft-spoken woman named Marceline Harvey.
But transgender people are far more likely to become victims of violence, not perpetrators, and data from the National Center for Transgender Equality suggests more than half of transgender people who stay in shelters encounter harassment.
And the crucial question surrounding Ms. Harvey’s case is less complicated: How was someone who had killed twice before allowed the chance to kill again?
“Anger doesn’t dissolve at 84,” said Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. “It wouldn’t surprise me that a person who killed earlier — even 50, 60 years earlier — out of anger, would feel the same compulsion.”
Even so, a spokesman for the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said Ms. Harvey met the criteria for release. Ms. Harvey had completed therapy and coursework, and had letters of support from organizations that work with released offenders, the parole records show. The prison system had deemed her unlikely to commit a violent offense.
Krystal Rodriguez, policy director for the Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the crime of which Ms. Harvey is accused was so bizarre that parole board officials would be unlikely to foresee it.
“Someone committing such a tragic and violent crime at this age is so incredibly rare that it would be very difficult for anyone reviewing this case to even consider,” Ms. Rodriguez said.
A Propensity for Violence
Born in 1938, Ms. Harvey spent her youth in New York, the child of a single mother. Even as a teenager, she displayed a propensity for violence, particularly toward women, and had a complicated gender identity. According to court records and parole board minutes, Ms. Harvey was treated at Catholic Charities, which paired clergy and laypeople with troubled children, after the attempted rape at 14.
As a young adult, Ms. Harvey — described then as a tall, slender man — lived with her mother and earned $75 a week operating copy machines. She had a girlfriend, Jacqueline Bonds, but her life was chaotic: Ms. Harvey drank often, took cocaine, regularly assaulted Ms. Bonds and was in and out of psychiatric care.
In early 1963, Ms. Harvey was again accused of rape, this time as a 24-year-old. (The allegations are referred to by a parole official in a hearing minutes, which offer no further details.)
The accusation set off a spasm of violence: That April, Ms. Harvey killed Ms. Bonds, who had been scheduled to appear before a grand jury considering the case. Ms. Harvey shot her point blank in their crowded Manhattan apartment, chased her as she staggered through the kitchen and living room, and shot her twice more before she collapsed, according to board minutes and a police report.
She was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life.
During two decades behind bars, she repeatedly appealed her conviction in state and federal courts, and tried to persuade the parole board to free her. Skeptical officials as far back as 1984 cited her aggression toward women. Even in prison, one noted, Ms. Harvey had sent inappropriate letters to candy-striper hospital volunteers.
“That is all in the past, and when I became aware that this pattern was creating, I cut it loose,” Ms. Harvey said.
Weeks later, the board freed Ms. Harvey and she returned to New York.
Shopping Carts and Bloody Garbage Bags
In the early morning hours of Oct. 30, 1985, Roberto Romano was in the lobby of the Cambridge Residence Hotel in Harlem where he lived. He was “smoking reefer,” as he later told police officers, when the tenant of room 602 passed, pushing a shopping cart that held a garbage bag.
“The bag ripped on the first step and blood came out,” Mr. Romano told the police, according to investigative reports.
Hours later, a man walking on Manhattan’s Upper West Side saw a dark plastic bag at the entrance to Central Park at 106th Street, dripping blood. He tore it open, revealing a pair of bound legs.
The victim, identified as Ana Laura Sierra in police records, had been stabbed repeatedly, tied up with a rope, and wrapped in plastic. At 29, she had a heroin habit, according to parole board reports, and several prostitution arrests. Police investigators noticed a pattern: She frequented certain addresses, including room 602 at the Cambridge Residence Hotel.
The address belonged to Ms. Harvey.
At the time, Ms. Harvey was unmoored. She had no stable job, was caught up in street life and wanted to be a pimp, she later told parole officials. Ms. Harvey and Ms. Sierra occasionally lived together.
“She was very fiery and provocative,” Ms. Harvey later told parole officials. Ms. Sierra, she said, brought “johns and tricks to the apartment,” and sold Ms. Harvey’s flute for drugs.
Court records suggest Ms. Sierra was stabbed over 30 times, but Ms. Harvey disputed that in her parole board meetings, according to the transcripts. “Some of those were puncture wounds from rats and squirrels,” Ms. Harvey said, noting the body had sat in the park for hours.
Charged with first-degree murder, Ms. Harvey struck a plea bargain with the Manhattan district attorney’s office for first-degree manslaughter and was returned to prison in 1986.
For 35 years and across 15 hearings, parole officials denied Ms. Harvey freedom. But in June 2019, as she entered her ninth decade, she appeared by video before a two-commissioner panel, Otis Cruse and Joseph Crangle.
Mr. Cruse — a former parole officer who joined the board in 2015 — noted Ms. Harvey’s lengthy history of wrongdoing. Ms. Harvey said she had no family to guide her, and that drug and alcohol abuse contributed.
“Many of those who we speak to lack the guidance that they wish they have had in their youth,” Mr. Cruse said, “but very few of them have replicated a criminal history that’s as graphic as yours has been.”
Still, the commissioners noted that internal assessments indicated a low risk for felony violence or arrest.
“I give you my word,” Ms. Harvey told the board members. “I will never reoffend.”
They approved her release.
Mr. Crangle did not respond to a request for comment; Mr. Cruse deferred to the Department of Corrections. Asked whether the commissioners stood by their decision, Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said the transcripts speak for themselves.
On Aug. 7, 2019, Ms. Harvey left prison and reported to her parole officer.
‘Love Personified’
That December, an update popped up on a Facebook page belonging to a Marceline Harvey. It had the caption “Love personified.” It was a picture of Susan Leyden.
Born in 1953, Ms. Leyden had spent most of her life in northern New Jersey. A divorced mother of one daughter, she had run her own jewelry business for years, according to one person close to her.
But facing a downturn, Ms. Leyden decided around a decade ago to relocate to the city, looking to live closer to friends and move around more easily with public transit. It was an affirmative step after a lifetime of loss — her father, two brothers and sister had died, and her marriage had unraveled. She first lived in Queens, and later moved to Brooklyn, where she landed in a supportive housing community for seniors in Fort Greene
It is unclear where her path first crossed Ms. Harvey’s, but at the time Ms. Harvey posted about Ms. Leyden, she was seeking her own placement in city shelters. Immediately after her 2019 release, she sought housing in the Bronx.
Ms. Harvey “presented as a mild spoken, very tall Black man,” said Anne Brennan, the nurse who ran the intake. “I said, ‘Well, why are you in the women’s shelter?’”
Ms. Brennan said she told Ms. Harvey that placing her in a women’s shelter seemed like a bad idea, given her history of killing women. Despite her objections, Ms. Brennan said her supervisors allowed Ms. Harvey entry.
“Apparently his feelings and identity were far more important than all the other women that were terrified of him,” she said.
Julia Savel, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Social Services, said rules were followed.
“Our policy — in accordance with the law — is to place individuals in shelters based on their reported gender identity,” she said. “Being homeless or transgender does not make you inherently violent and are not connected to the crime that was committed.”
Though Ms. Harvey continued to post about Ms. Leyden on social media pages, Ms. Leyden’s friends never knew of Ms. Harvey, and Ms. Leyden never discussed her.
On Feb. 27, according to the police, video showed Ms. Leyden entering Ms. Harvey’s building in East New York.
On March 3 — two and a half years after Ms. Harvey posted the first photo of Ms. Leyden — the New York Police Department got a grisly 911 call: There was a shopping cart outside a pawnshop in a mostly industrial section of East New York. Inside, a bag contained a woman’s torso. It was Ms. Leyden’s.
Alvin Bragg is pro-crime
https://www.yahoo.com/news/manhattan-da-scraps-20k-bail-142908288.html
Manhattan DA scraps $20K bail of Florida woman held for pepper-spraying Asians, results in release
By Carl Samson
July 28, 2022
The Florida woman charged with hate crimes for pepper-spraying a group of Asian women in New York City last month will reportedly be released from Rikers Island after her bail was scrapped.
Madeline Barker, 47, of Florida’s Merritt Island, was arrested nearly a week after the alleged incident at the intersection of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in Chelsea on June 11.
One of the alleged victims, Nicole, told NextShark that it all started when she and her friends, who were walking around the area, stopped to rest near a woman in pink, who then allegedly accused them of “trying to harass me.”
Nicole said the woman told them “Go back to the country you came from” and “You don’t belong here.”
Videos taken with cell phones during the incident show the woman in question holding what appears to be pepper spray. She seemingly threatens those around her, who in turn try to maintain their distance.
Barker, who has been detained since June 17, admitted to being the woman involved in the incident. She was later indicted on eight counts of assault in the third degree as a hate crime, as well as four counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree, which is a misdemeanor hate crime.
However, she is now expected to be freed after being held on a $20,000 bail. On Wednesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michele Rodney approved a new bail application proposed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Office and Barker’s defense attorneys, according to the New York Post.
Barker will reportedly be placed under The Women’s Project (TWP), a community that seeks to permanently decrease the number of women in city jails and state prisons. According to its website, TWP is part of a larger partnership between nonprofits Wildcat and The Fedcap Group, public defenders and district attorney offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
While on release, Barker will be under strict electronic monitoring. She will also receive “supportive housing so that her location will be known, regular check-ins and accompaniment to each court appearance to ensure her return to court,” according to Bragg’s office.
It is unclear whether Barker has already been released. While she admitted to being involved in the incident, she pleaded not guilty and will return to court on Oct. 27.
New York City continues to be pro-crime
https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-city-prosecutor-defends-going-202302868.html
New York City prosecutor defends going easy on teen who brutally attacked cop
By Rebecca Rosenberg
July 28, 2022
New York City prosecutor Alvin Bragg defended his office’s decision to go easy on a 16-year-old caught on video viciously assaulting a cop who confronted him for not paying the subway fare – the teen’s third felony arrest in less than four months.
The teen, whose name is being withheld due to his age, was charged with second-degree assault Saturday after he was captured on a 54-second clip throwing more than 20 punches at an NYPD officer, slamming him into a metal gate and putting him in a chokehold at a subway station in Harlem.
At his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, prosecutors recommended the teen’s release without bail and diversion to family court – where he’ll be tried as a child and face rehabilitation rather than prison.
Once a case is moved to family court, it is handled by a separate city department, and the Manhattan DA no longer has any jurisdiction over the matter.
Just three days earlier, the same troubled teen was arrested and released without bail for allegedly beating and robbing a stranger near Madison Avenue on June 21 when he was 15 – a case that Bragg’s office is prosecuting.
“Our system must respond to children as children,” Bragg spokeswoman Emily Tuttle said in a statement.
“Violence against our police officers is unacceptable, and given his age at the time of arrest, we consented to send the second case to family court as soon as possible, where he would receive the age-appropriate interventions and supports he needs while being held accountable,” the statement continued.
The Manhattan DA was not aware of the teen’s April 12 arrest for possessing a .40 caliber handgun and a crossbow in Brooklyn – a separate jurisdiction, a source told Fox News Digital. Due to his age, the record is sealed.
Under the Raise the Age statute, part of the state’s sweeping criminal justice reforms, 16-and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors and many nonviolent felonies are automatically prosecuted in family court.
But the district attorney can lobby to keep a case in criminal court if the crime involves significant physical injury, the display of a firearm, a sexual offense or “extraordinary circumstances.”
Former Manhattan prosecutor, who is now a criminal defense lawyer, Mark Bederow told Fox News Digital that this teen’s conduct certainly rose to “extraordinary circumstances.”
“The DA clearly knew that they were prosecuting the same offender for a violent robbery,” he said. “If that is not an extraordinary circumstance, what is? If violence against police officers is unacceptable, why ignore the violent robbery arrest. This isn’t accountability. This is lunacy.”
Bragg, the most progressive DA in the five boroughs, has come under fire since he took office in January for his liberal criminal justice policies amid a crime surge in New York City.
His office has stopped prosecuting many low level crimes, routinely downgrades felony charges and has advocated for the limited use of cash bail.
Most recently, Bragg was widely criticized for prosecuting a bodega worker for murder after he stabbed a menacing customer in self-defense. Under mounting pressure from the public, Bragg dismissed the case.
Billboard’s top 5 songs from July 31, 1982. This is my favorite top 5 from any week.
These are Billboard’s top 5 songs from July 31, 1982. This is my favorite top 5 from any week.
https://top40weekly.com/1982-all-charts/
1 Survivor – Eye of the Tiger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
2 Toto – Rosanna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmOLtTGvsbM
3 John Cougar – Hurts So Good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dOsbsuhYGQ
4 Fleetwood Mac – Hold Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0sha1XfHxw
5 The Steve Miller Band – Abracadabra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY8B0uQpwZs
YouTuber Grace King: Green Anole (terrarium build and care)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAyBvkoAGuw
Chickens are self replicating. A hen lays approximately 5 eggs per week. Therefore, the communists who control Cuba would have to be especially incompetent to create a shortage of chickens.
This CNN video is from 2019. It was filmed in Cuba. It shows a large number of people waiting in line, for many hours, all based on the hope that there might, maybe, possibly be one chicken available for them when they finally get to the front of the line. Maybe they’ll get a chicken that day. Maybe not.
Even if they do manage to get a chicken after waiting in line for many hours, the opportunity cost of waiting in line for such a long amount of time is enormous. Imagine all of the things that all of those people could be doing with all of that time if they were living in a country that wasn’t Cuba.
Chickens are self replicating. A hen lays approximately 5 eggs per week.
Therefore, the communists who control Cuba would have to be especially incompetent to create a shortage of chickens.
Skip to 3:09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1OETmSugh8
Bret Stephens in the New York Times, July 21, 2022: “To this day, precious few anti-Trumpers have been honest with themselves about the elaborate hoax – there’s just no other word for it – that was the Steele dossier and all the bogus allegations, credulously parroted in the mainstream media, that flowed from it.”
“To this day, precious few anti-Trumpers have been honest with themselves about the elaborate hoax – there’s just no other word for it – that was the Steele dossier and all the bogus allegations, credulously parroted in the mainstream media, that flowed from it.”
– Bret Stephens in the New York Times, July 21, 2022
Sri Lanka recently chose to ban fertilizers made from fossil fuel. Anyone who’s not an idiot could have predicted the results.
Pretty much every country that participates in the modern, global economy is far better off today than in the recent past. More people have been lifted out of third world poverty in the past 70 years than in the all of the thousands of previous years combined. The only countries that remain in third world poverty are the luddites who choose to reject the modern world. I support using modern technology to give a first world standard of living to every person on earth. Nuclear power, desalination, modern agriculture, thermal depolymerization for recycling all of our trash.
Sri Lanka recently chose to ban fertilizers made from fossil fuel. Anyone who’s not an idiot could have predicted the results.
People make choices. Choices have consequences.
Third wold poverty is a choice. Here’s one real world example:
Fertiliser ban decimates Sri Lankan crops as government popularity ebbs
March 3, 2022
“Last year, we got 60 bags from these two acres. But this time it was just 10,” he added.
The dramatic fall in yields follows a decision last April by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to ban all chemical fertilisers in Sri Lanka
Clay County father’s mic cut off at school board meeting while reading high school library book
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcpRW4ySaG8
https://www.yahoo.com/news/clay-county-father-mic-cut-211133168.html
Clay County father’s mic cut off at school board meeting while reading high school library book
By Jake Stofan
July 19, 2022
A Clay County parent’s dispute with his school board has gotten national attention after he had his microphone turned off while attempting to read a passage out of a book from the Fleming Island High School library, which he considered “pornographic.”
Bruce Friedman is part of a national group called No Left Turn, which keeps a list of books parents have objected to across the country.
He found at least three examples in Clay County Schools he wanted pulled from library shelves, including one book at the Fleming Island High School library, “Lucky” by Alice Sebold.
The book’s description on Amazon characterizes it as a memoir of the author, who was brutally raped at 18 and chronicles her recovery.
Bruce Friedman sees it very differently.
“I don’t know a good parent that wants their child to read porn,” said Friedman.
Friedman took his concerns to the June 30 meeting of the Clay County School Board.
When he attempted to read an excerpt from the book, he was cut off.
“Turn off his microphone please,” said one of the members at the meeting not shown on camera.
The explanation he was given was, “There’s state laws that prohibit, and federal communications laws that prohibit you from publishing these things to a child,” said the person on the microphone.
In a statement provided by a district spokesperson, a similar explanation was given for cutting off Friedman’s microphone.
“When addressing the board, since our meetings are televised, we must abide by FCC laws and regulations,” said the spokesperson.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” said Friedman.
The district informed us an official complaint against “Lucky” was filed after the meeting, and the book has been temporarily pulled from the shelf pending an official review.
Friedman is glad the book is gone, but says he should have never had to complain.
“Why did I have to be the guy who found it? Why am I doing your job? Your job is to protect our children and educate them and send them home safely on the bus. The end,” said Friedman.
According to the district, the book was first purchased in May 2005.
The library had only one copy, which was checked out a total of 14 times since it was purchased.
The last time it had been checked out before being pulled was May 17, 2017.
Indiana police say ‘Good Samaritan’ took out mall shooter in 15 seconds, landed 8 of 10 shots
https://www.yahoo.com/news/indiana-police-apos-good-samaritan-143501980.html
Indiana police say ‘Good Samaritan’ took out mall shooter in 15 seconds, landed 8 of 10 shots
By Michael Lee
July 20, 2022
Police say it took Elisjsha Dicken just 15 seconds to neutralize a man who opened fire on shoppers at an Indiana mall — quick action they believe saved countless lives.
“The time lapse between the moment that Jonathan Sapirman exited the restroom and began shooting, and when he was shot by the civilian was only fifteen seconds, not two minutes,” Greenwood Police Chief James Ison said Tuesday in a statement. “The surveillance video shows Sapirman exit the restroom at 5:56:48pm. He was neutralized by Dicken at 5:57:03 pm.”
The statement corrects a previous police timeline in which authorities said the incident lasted two minutes. Police also revealed that a preliminary autopsy report on the gunman showed that he was struck eight times and died of his wounds, meaning Dicken only missed the shooter twice despite engaging the threat from a distance.
Police say the gunman was armed with two rifles, a Glock pistol, and was carrying at least 100 rounds of ammunition with him. Sapirman killed three people before being quickly neutralized by Dicken, who began closing the distance on the shooter as he waved for bystanders to flee behind him.
Ison said that Dicken’s actions were “heroic” and “very tactically sound” despite him having no police or military background.
“Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen who took action within the first two minutes of this shooting,” Ison said.
Guy Relford, an attorney hired to represent Dicken, said he was proud of his client’s actions at the mall.
“I am proud to serve as Eli Dickens’ attorney and spokesperson,” Relford said in a statement. “He is a true American hero who saved countless lives during a horrific event that could have been so much worse if not for Eli’s courage, preparedness and willingness to protect others.”
In New Jersey, liberal idiots who put men in a woman’s prison are shocked to find out that they impregnated some of the female inmates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
Two women at N.J. prison are pregnant after consensual sex between inmates, DOC says
By Joe Atmonavage
April 13, 2022
Two women incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility — the state’s only female prison — have become pregnant after having sex with a transgender inmate, NJ Advance Media has learned.
It appears the women became pregnant from “consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person,” Dan Sperrazza, the DOC’s external affairs executive director, said.
Although Sperrazza did not identify the inmates in question, Edna Mahan houses 27 prisoners who identify as transgender. He said the investigation is ongoing.
“While DOC cannot comment on any specific disciplinary or housing decisions that may be considered in light of these events,” Sperrazza said, “the Department always reserves all options to ensure the health and safety of the individuals in its custody.”
On Wednesday, NJ Advance Media obtained multiple letters written by the prisoners involved discussing the pregnancies.
The revelation presents a thorny problem for state corrections officials, who have been grappling with the sexual abuse and exploitation of inmates by staff at the prison for the past decade.
The developments follow a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey last year, which stipulates that transgender prisoners should be housed in line with their gender identity.
That settlement stemmed from a lawsuit by a transgender woman who was sent to a men’s prison, where she alleged she received inadequate medical care and was abused by male inmates and staff.
Advocates hailed the agreement as necessary reform that moved New Jersey to the forefront of trans rights along with states like California and Massachusetts that have implemented policies on how transgender prisoners should be housed and medically treated.
The majority of transgender inmates in the United States are housed in prisons according to their gender assigned at birth and are often subjected to violence and harassment, according to an NBC News investigation published in 2020.
On Tuesday, the ACLU of New Jersey did not respond to questions regarding the pregnancies, but its legal director Jeanne LoCicero said the current policy “reflects best practices to ensure the health, dignity, and safety of people in [DOC] custody.”
“(It) is in line with New Jersey’s strong anti-discrimination laws that prevent discrimination and harassment on the basis of gender identity,” she said in a statement.
Union officials, who consistently opposed the move, said the current policy remains concerning for its officers and the incarcerated population.
“We opposed this policy change believing it would be detrimental to the general population of female inmates being housed at Edna Mahan and also bring added stress to our correctional police officers assigned to this institution,” said William Sullivan, president of NJ PBA Local 105, the union that represents the majority of correctional officers.
Even among inmates, there is disagreement over whether some transgender prisoners should be at the facility.
Last year, two Edna Mahan prisoners filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to immediately remove “any and all male pre-operative transgender inmates,” alleging that some had harassed them and engaged in sexual contact with other women.
In an affidavit filed in support of the lawsuit, one transgender prisoner who had gender-conforming surgery before she was incarcerated said the DOC’s current policy is “very questionable.”
“I believe it is highly inappropriate for the NJDOC to place pre-operative male-to-female allegedly transgender inmates in a women’s prison,” said the woman, who has been locked up for more than 20 years.
Under the new policy, when placing a transgender prisoner in a facility, the DOC should consider “all aspects of an inmate’s social and medical transition,” including behavioral history, institutional adjustment, overall demeanor, likely interactions with others, and feelings of safety.
Like with any prisoner, the policy also states that the DOC must consider whether an individual’s placement would present management or security problems in a facility. The placement is reassessed twice a year.
If the committee tasked with housing transgender prisoners has a “substantiated, credible, and non-discriminatory basis” to believe that someone is not sincere, it can ask further questions and allow the person to provide more information before they decide, according to the policy.
The settlement agreement mandated the DOC keep the policy in place for at least one year before it can reassess its effectiveness. It is unclear how this will affect it moving forward.
Longtime prison advocate Bonnie Kerness said the DOC and the newly-formed Edna Mahan Board of Trustees, which supervises the prison, should examine the current policy and find ways to improve it.
“There needs to be an appropriate process that protects the cis women and the trans women already there,” said Kerness, program director for the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee’s prison program, which advocates for prisoners.
An independent monitor continues to oversee the prison under an agreement signed in August between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice after federal authorities found correctional officers had sexually abused female prisoners.
Last year, Gov. Phil Murphy announced plans to close the facility after officials learned that corrections officers had violently extracted women from their cells and brutalized them n the middle of the night. The incident led to filing criminal charges against 15 officers and forced DOC Commissioner Marcus Hicks to resign.
It is unclear when the facility will close.
Police identify armed ‘good Samaritan’ who killed Greenwood mall shooting suspect
Police identify armed ‘good Samaritan’ who killed Greenwood mall shooting suspect
By Dylan Stableford
July 18, 2022
A day after a gunman killed three people at a mall in Greenwood, Ind., officials identified the victims, suspect and armed bystander who fatally shot the gunman before he was able to kill more people.
At a press conference on Monday afternoon, Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison said Elisjsha Dicken, 22, of Seymour, Ind., was shopping with his girlfriend at the Greenwood Park Mall when shots rang out in the food court on Sunday just before 6 p.m. local time.
“His actions were nothing short of heroic,” Ison said. “Many more people would have died last night had an armed citizen not taken action within two minutes of the shooting.”
The first gunman, identified by police as 20-year-old Jonathan Douglas Sapirman of Greenwood, entered a food court restroom with a backpack at 4:54 p.m. ET. He exited the restroom an hour and two minutes later with a rifle and fired 24 rounds, Ison said, killing 30-year-old Victor Gomez, 56-year-old Pedro Pineda and his 37-year-old wife, Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda.
Two other people, including a 12-year-old, were wounded or grazed by bullets or bullet fragments, Ison said.
Dicken confronted the gunman, who was trying to retreat back into the restroom, Ison said, firing 10 rounds from a handgun he was licensed to carry.
“He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun,” Ison said, adding that Dicken is “very proficient” and “tactically sound,” despite having no known police or military training.
According to Ison, Dicken told mall security that he had shot the gunman, and waited for police to arrive. He was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters, where he was interviewed. Officers were able to corroborate his story using footage from security cameras, Ison said.
At the scene, police recovered a second rifle, Glock pistol and over 100 rounds of ammunition purchased legally by Sapirman in Greenwood within the past two years, Ison said. They also recovered the gunman’s cellphone, which they believe he dropped in the toilet.
During a subsequent search of the suspect’s rented apartment, a SWAT team found the oven on with a laptop and butane canister inside.
The cellphone and laptop were turned over to the FBI for analysis, Ison said.
Investigators have not been able to establish a motive for the shooting.
Ison said that the 20-year-old suspect had a juvenile record but no criminal history as an adult. Sapirman resigned from his job at a warehouse in May, and family members told police that they believe he was recently served an eviction notice.
Still, according to Ison, the suspect’s relatives were “just as surprised as anyone” and had no indication he was violent or unstable.
‘Good Samaritan’ Takes Down Gunman Who Killed 3 in Mall Food Court
https://www.yahoo.com/news/multiple-victims-reported-several-injured-230456324.html
‘Good Samaritan’ Takes Down Gunman Who Killed 3 in Mall Food Court
By AJ McDougall
July 17, 2022
Four people are dead and several injured after a man with a rifle walked into a food court at Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana and began shooting, local authorities said Sunday evening.
One of the dead is the suspected shooter, according to Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers. The gunman, an adult male, has not been identified. Police said he had been carrying a long rifle and several ammunition magazines.
“This tragedy hits at the core of our community,” the mayor said in a news release. “Please offer your prayers to the victims and our first responders.”
The gunman, according to Myers, was shot “by an armed individual.” The “good Samaritan,” as Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison identified him at a press conference, was a 22-year-old civilian from nearby Bartholomew County.
“The real hero of the day is the citizen that was lawfully carrying a firearm in that food court and was able to stop the shooter almost as soon as he began,” Ison said, according to the Indianapolis Star.
The armed bystander “appears to be cooperating fully” with investigators, Ison added.
Two people were hospitalized following the shooting. One was a 12-year-old girl, who sustained a “minor injury,” the Star reported.
“We are sickened by yet another type of incident like this, in our city, in our country,” Indianapolis Assistant Chief of Police Chris Bailey said.
Authorities responded to the scene in Greenwood, a city of 60,000 just south of Indianapolis, just before 6 p.m. Witnesses told FOX59 that the shooting began after “a group of teenagers started arguing,” according to a tweet from a channel anchor. Others told 13News that they had heard roughly 20 shots being fired inside the mall’s food court.
Olivia Harding said she was at the mall with her mom when they heard four gunshots go off, telling CNN she thought the mall carousel had broken down.
“Next thing you know, you hear about six more shots and you see everybody running,” Harding said, adding that it would be “a very long time” before she’ll set foot in a mall again.
Chris Roy, a 30-year-old assistant manager at the mall’s Vans store, told the Star that he had been working when he saw people sprinting away from the food court. No one in the store heard gunshots, but the panic outside spoke for itself, he said.
“So I jumped over the counter, locked the door, gathered my associates and other managers at the back door,” he told the newspaper, adding that police arrived and escorted them out of the building after 15 tense minutes.
Then, “I called my mom,” he said.
In addition to the heavily armed officers swarming the area outside the mall, a bomb squad had been dispatched to the area to investigate a suspicious package in one of the mall’s bathrooms, according to BNO News.
The backpack was labeled suspicious and confiscated by investigators but later declared harmless, according to the Star.
“I’ve been a police officer most of my life,” Mayor Myers told The New York Times in an interview on Sunday evening. “Still, this is incredibly shocking, to not only me but our entire community.”
In Minneapolis, evil protestors are upset that the police killed Andrew Sundberg after he fired bullets into a family’s apartment
https://www.yahoo.com/news/minneapolis-mom-confronts-blm-protesters-122418182.html
Minneapolis Mom Confronts BLM Protesters after Apartment Shooting: ‘Not a George Floyd Situation’
By Caroline Downey
July 18, 2022
A Minneapolis mom was captured on video Saturday confronting Black Lives Matter activists who congregated in her neighborhood to protest the fatal police shooting of a gunman who she claimed tried to kill her and her children.
Arabella Foss-Yarbrough called police last Wednesday night after neighbor Andrew “Tekle” Sundberg allegedly fired his gun into her home as she cooked her kids dinner, leaving bullet holes in her front door, walls and above her bathroom sink, photos show.
Two Minneapolis police snipers shot him dead Thursday morning after a long standoff. A pistol with an extended magazine and several bullet casings was found in his apartment, the New York Post reported.
“This is not a George Floyd situation. George Floyd was unarmed. This is not OK,” Foss-Yarbrough launched at the protesters who gathered for a march and rally for the man on Saturday, according to the video. “He tried to kill me in front of my kids.”
https://twitter.com/DeevonRahming/status/1548439171693367301
Ignoring the mom’s pleas for peace on her street, the protesters claimed injustice was done and commemorated Sundberg’s death, leaving candles and flowers around his chalked name on the sidewalk, photos from the Star Tribune indicate.
One protester can be heard telling Foss-Yarbrough “this is not the time” as she recounted the terror she and her children felt as bullets slammed into their home.
The head of BLM Minnesota, Trahern Crews, joined the march to call for transparency from police.
“We’re here to respect life, demand justice, and we’re demanding the release of the body cam footage,” Crews said, according to the Star Tribune.
Foss-Yarbrough was near hysterical with emotion as she confronted the activists, exasperated that they could defend someone who she said attempted murder on her family.
“I can’t get my items because you guys are celebrated his life,” the mom screamed through tears. “This is not ok. My kids have to deal with this and probably have a mental illness now. Because they almost lost their lives. There’s bullet holes in my kitchen because he sat in the f–king hallway watching me move.”
Appealing to her mixed minority race, the mom seemed upset that the protesters were advocating for the gunman’s lost life but not those of her and her children.
“I have Black children; I am a woman of color!,” she declared. “If I would have lost my life, would you guys do this for me?” “Yes, ma’am,” Crews said.
During the mother’s tirade, Sundberg’s parents stood with the protesters. They offered words of concern for her to the Post while still holding that their son’s shooting was unjust. They claimed that Sundberg had been struggling with mental illness when he fired into the home.
“I wish I could wrap my arms around her and tell her I’m so sorry,” Cindy Sundberg said. “I’m so sorry she had to experience that I’m so sorry for her pain.”
“Tekle was an imperfect human as we are all imperfect humans and he did not deserve to be picked off like an animal from a rooftop,” she said.
I solved the May 14, 2022 Quordle in just 5 guesses!
Quordle is like Worldle, except you have to guess 4 words.
I solved the May 14, 2022 Quordle in just 5 guesses.
My first guess was STRAP. That was not one of the correct answers.
My next four guesses were all correct answers. They were LUNCH, STYLE, HORSE, and COYLY.
Here’s a screenshot:
Caught on Cam: Young People Beat Man to Death With Traffic Cone
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/deadly-traffic-cone-beating-north-philadelphia/3293913/
Caught on Cam: Young People Beat Man to Death With Traffic Cone
Philadelphia police revealed video that they say shows a group of 7 young people — believed to be teenagers — attacking James Lambert with a traffic cone on June 24, 2022. The man would die the next day at the hospital
By Dan Stamm
July 8, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWac6z6kEWo
Philadelphia police revealed video that they say shows a group of 7 young people — believed to be teenagers — attacking James Lambert with a traffic cone on June 24, 2022. The man would die the next day at the hospital
A 73-year-old man died the day after a group of young people beat him with a traffic cone in a caught-on-camera attack along a North Philadelphia street last month. Now, Philadelphia Police hope the video of the attack and a $20,000 reward lead them to those responsible.
James Lambert was walking across Cecil B. Moore Avenue near North 21st Street around 2:38 a.m. on Friday, June 24, when he was ambushed, Philadelphia police said.
On Friday, PPD released video on YouTube that shows the deadly attack on the 73-year-old Lambert. They said those responsible appeared to be three girls and four boys believed to be in their early to mid teens.
The first young person to attack Lambert can be seen on video striking the man — who is blurred in the video — with a traffic cone as he walked away from the group to the other side of the street. A short time later, another young person can be seen picking up a cone an throwing it at the man.
Lambert then moves along the sidewalk and is chased down by a young person holding a cone over her head.
“The teens struck the victim several times with objects, knocking the victim to the ground causing injuries to his head,” police said in a web post. “The victim was transported to the hospital where he died of his injuries the following day.”
The video shows the young people leaving the scene, one even hopped on a scooter and appeared to be talking with another young person walking alongside him in the moments after the attack. A young person is also seen running down the sidewalk.
Later, the young people appear to have gathered again. One teen is then seen acting out what appears to be a stumbling person.
Police didn’t give exact descriptions of any of the young people, except to point out a blonde patch of hair on one of them. They hope this photo that shows each person from different camera angles helps identify them.
The City offered a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in this homicide, as they do with any unsolved killing in Philadelphia.
Police urged anyone who spots the teens to call 911 immediately. Anyone with information about the attack is asked to submit tips (which be anonymous) by phone or text to 215-686-(8477) or online.
Lambert’s family told NBC10’s Danny Freeman that he went by “Simmie” and they have been left heartbroken by his death.
This is James “Simmie” Lambert, the man who was killed.
His family tells me they’re heart broken and they saw him just hours before he was attacked.
They’re in disbelief a group of kids did this.
To date, there have been 280 homicides in Philadelphia in 2022, according to police data. That’s down just 2% from the same time last year, which ended up being the deadliest year on record.
Los Angeles public schools training teachers that ‘merit,’ ‘individualism’ rooted in ‘whiteness’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/los-angeles-public-schools-training-161055638.html
Los Angeles public schools training teachers that ‘merit,’ ‘individualism’ rooted in ‘whiteness’
By Jessica Chasmar
July 5, 2022
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is training teachers and staff that “merit” and “individualism” are concepts rooted in “whiteness” that must be challenged in schools.
LAUSD required all employees to undergo “implicit/unconscious bias training” guided by Tyrone Howard, a critical race theory (CRT) advocate and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, prior to the 2021-2022 school year.
The training materials, which were obtained by Fox News Digital through a California Public Records Act (PRA) request, instructed educators to work toward being “antiracist” by challenging whiteness at school, which Howard argued exists in the concepts of “merit” and “individualism.”
“This idea that white is the standard, white is the norm, white is our default has to be challenged,” Howard said in the training video.
Merit, or meritocracy, “assumes that each person operates and achieves based on his or her own personal capacity,” the training handout reads. “It incorporates the notion that the work put forth, the effort invested, explains why some groups and individuals do well and others do not. It does not consider historical factors or account for opportunities, advantages, and privileges to which some groups have access both historically and in the present.”
“The idea of meritocracy,” Howard said in the video, “I think we have to challenge that because we have to recognize that some groups have had much more opportunities, some groups have had far more advantages, and some groups have certain types of privileges that other groups have not had.”
Meanwhile, individualism, according to the training handout, “proposes that each person is responsible for his or her outcomes. It is very much tied to merit, wherein group responsibility and accountability are not goals. Personal success and achievement are the goals. This belief operates from a survival-of-the-fittest approach that stresses singular pursuit and accomplishment.”
Howard argued in the video that “the notion of individualism runs counter” to many LAUSD students’ “own cultural norms, which say ‘it’s not about me, it’s about we.’”
The training handout included a section about dismantling the “myth of meritocracy” that included examples of “microaggressions,” including the statement, “Everyone can succeed in the society if they work hard enough,” and “men and women have equal opportunities for achievement.” The training then offered an intervention example for dealing with the microaggressor, such as, “So you feel that everyone can succeed in the society if they work hard enough. Can you give me some examples?”
LAUSD employees who underwent the training were also required to “identify the specific ways the constructs of privilege, whiteness, merit and individualism may be present in your setting” and “determine the immediate changes you will personally make, small or large, to promote increased racial and cultural sensitivity, inclusiveness and awareness in your work.”
LAUSD mandated the training last May, saying in a memo that its goal was to create inclusive schools and to eliminate bias in the classroom.
After shutting down its nuclear power plants, Germany is rationing its electricity and hot water
In recent years, Germany has been shutting down its nuclear power plants, and is planning to close its last ones by the end of this year. You can read about it in this piece from the Washington Post.
And now, as reported in this new piece from Fortune, Germany is setting limits on people’s use of electricity and hot water. Fortune writes:
‘The situation is more than dramatic’: Germany is rationing hot water and turning off the lights to reduce natural gas consumption
For months, Germany has feared having to ration energy amid Russia’s increasing willingness to turn off the tap. Now those fears are becoming a reality as Germany prepares for a return to 1970s-style energy rationing, when the OPEC oil embargo forced governments to mandate measures like dimmer lights and car-free Sundays.
Only, the energy crisis of 2022 isn’t limited to oil.
Last year, Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its natural gas imports. Germany has since been able to reduce that number to 35%, but with Russia seemingly prepared to further cut gas shipments to Europe, German officials are having to make some difficult choices.
This week, a city official in Hamburg—Germany’s second-largest city—warned that “warm water could only be made available at certain times of the day in an emergency,” forecasting the possibility of a severe natural gas shortage. And on Friday, residents in the eastern German state of Saxony were told by their housing association that they could take hot showers only between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., and 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. each day, the Financial Times reported.
“The situation is more than dramatic,” Axel Gedaschko, a German politician and president of GdW, the federal association of German housing, told the FT.
It isn’t just hot water that’s being rationed. In addition to shorter shower times, officials are asking city councils nationwide to turn off traffic lights at night, stop illuminating historic buildings, and go easy on using air conditioners in a bid to conserve electricity, according to the FT.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court says ballot drop boxes aren’t allowed in the state
The Wisconsin Supreme Court says ballot drop boxes aren’t allowed in the state
By Barbara Sprunt
July 8, 2022
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that most ballot drop boxes aren’t allowed in the state and that a voter can’t have someone else return — in person — their completed absentee ballot on their behalf.
The high court’s ruling Friday, which comes one month before the swing state’s primary elections, is a loss for voting rights groups and disability advocates.
The decision is the latest in a legal battle that began in January, after a Waukesha County judge sided with a conservative legal group in a lawsuit, declaring state law doesn’t allow for unstaffed ballot drop boxes and requires that voters physically return their own absentee ballots.
Although an appeals court temporarily blocked the order for contests in February, the ban was in effect for local elections in April.
“The key phrase is ‘in person’ and it must be assigned its natural meaning,” wrote Justice Rebecca Bradley for the conservative majority, referring to the state statute governing ballot returns. “‘In person’ denotes ‘bodily presence’ and the concept of doing something personally.”
Bradley wrote that absentee ballots must be delivered in person at a clerk’s office and cannot be returned by someone else. The ruling did not address whether someone must physically put their own absentee ballot in the mailbox if voting by mail.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley (no relation to her colleague) wrote that the court’s decision “although lamentable, is not a surprise.”
“It has seemingly taken the opportunity to make it harder to vote or to inject confusion into the process whenever it has been presented with the opportunity,” she wrote. “Without justification, [the majority] fans the flames of electoral doubt that threaten our democracy.”
In a statement Friday afternoon, the group Disability Rights Wisconsin noted the court “declined to address the question of whether an elector may receive assistance with mailing their completed absentee ballot.”
“The right for voters with disabilities to have assistance from a person of their choice is protected by federal law. Nothing in this decision changes federal protections for people with disabilities,” the organization’s Barbara Beckert said in a statement. “Voters with disabilities who need ballot delivery assistance may want to contact their municipal clerk to ask for a disability related accommodation.”
“Applying the law as written”
All eyes were on Justice Brian Hagedorn as the case made its way through the courts. Hagedorn, who sided with the high court’s conservative justices on this case, was elected with the help of the Republican Party but has sided with the court’s liberal justices on several occasions.
In a concurring opinion, Hagedorn stressed that “judicial decision-making and politics are different.”
“This case is about applying the law as written; that’s it,” he wrote.
“Significant questions remain despite our decision in this case, especially as absentee voting has become increasingly common,” he wrote, adding: “The legislature and governor may wish to consider resolving some of the open questions these statutes present.”
The majority’s ruling rebuts guidance from the Wisconsin Election Commission.
“WEC’s staff may have been trying to make voting as easy as possible during the pandemic, but whatever their motivations, WEC must follow Wisconsin statutes,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote. “Good intentions never override the law.”
Rick Esenberg — president of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit — cheered the ruling.
“Wisconsin voters can have confidence that state law, not guidance from the Wisconsin Elections Commission, has the final word on how Wisconsin elections are conducted,” he said in a statement.
Esenberg argued before the high court that the statute governing ballot return is explicit that only voters themselves can return their absentee ballot to the local clerk.
“I think [the court] ought to read the law as it is written, and say that the law means what it says,” he said in an interview with NPR in May.
Esenberg said if people think the law is unfair, it’s up to state lawmakers to change it.
But disability rights advocates have said a strict interpretation of state law leaves many voters with disabilities who rely on ballot return assistance fearful they won’t be able to lawfully vote.
“We heard from people who were concerned, confused and, frankly, shocked by such an extreme restriction,” Beckert of Disability Rights Wisconsin told NPR after the Waukesha County judge’s ruling.
Scott Thompson of Law Forward — which represented the appellants in the case, including Disability Rights Wisconsin — told NPR the initial ruling conflicted with federal protections for voters with disabilities, like the Voting Rights Act, which in part grants voters with disabilities the right to receive voting assistance from a person of their choosing, other than that person’s employer or union representative.
The court’s decision stands to significantly affect the upcoming elections in the swing state, where about 2 million residents voted by absentee in the 2020 general election, a record number.
According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, there were 570 absentee ballot drop boxes being used across the state by last spring.
Manhattan DA Charges Bodega Worker with Murder After Stabbing Violent Ex-Con in Self-Defense (VIDEO)
Manhattan DA Charges Bodega Worker with Murder After Stabbing Violent Ex-Con in Self-Defense (VIDEO)
By Cristina Laila
July 7, 2022
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1545074624127729665
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged a bodega worker with murder when he clearly acted in self defense.
51-year-old Jose Alba stabbed his attacker several times in self-defense and now he’s at Rikers Island jail facing a murder charge.
Alba fatally stabbed Austin Simon, 35, a career criminal who violently attacked him behind the counter last Friday night.
According to reports, Austin Simon’s girlfriend got into an argument with Alba after her EBT card was declined when she tried to purchase a bag of chips.
The disgruntled woman then left the bodega, ran home and returned with her boyfriend – and that’s when the confrontation escalated.
According to Alba’s defense lawyer, the 32-year-old woman took a knife out of her purse and stabbed the bodega worker in the shoulder, the New York Post reported.
She is not facing charges for stabbing Jose Alba – But Jose Alba is facing a second-degree murder charge for fatally stabbing Austin Simon – AFTER the assailants stabbed him and violently attacked him.
Alba’s family says he was in fear for his life and acted in self-defense.
A 16-year-old hero from Mississippi named Corion Evans has just saved four people’s lives!
Mississippi teen hailed as hero after helping rescue 3 girls, officer from river
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die.'”
By Meredith Deliso
July 6, 2022
Corion Evans, 16, jumped in to the Pascagoula River to save four people after a car drove off a boat launch on July 3, 2022, in Moss Point, Miss.
A teenager helped rescue three people whose car drove off a boat launch into the Pascagoula River, as well as a police officer who responded to the scene, on July 3, 2022, in Moss Point, Miss.
A 16-year-old boy is being hailed as a hero after he helped rescue four people when a car drove off a boat launch and into a Mississippi river.
The incident happened Sunday at around 2:30 a.m., when the car, which had three teenage girls inside, drove into the Pascagoula River in Moss Point, floated about 20 feet away from shore and started sinking, the Moss Point Police Department said in a statement.
“The driver of that vehicle stated she was following her GPS and did not realize she was going into the water,” police said.
Corion Evans, 16, said he immediately ran over, took off his shoes and shirt and went into the water when he saw the car sinking and heard the three occupants shouting for help.
“I was just like, ‘I can’t let none of these folks die. They need to get out the water,'” Evans, a Pascagoula High School student, told Biloxi, Mississippi, ABC affiliate WLOX. “So, I just started getting them. I wasn’t even thinking about nothing else.”
One of Evans’ friends also jumped in and helped get the girls to the top of their vehicle, according to WLOX.
“I was behind them trying to keep them above water and swim with them at the same time,” Evans told the station.
Along with Moss Point Police Officer Gary Mercer, who responded to the scene, Evans helped bring the three teens to shore.
At one point Mercer was bringing one person to shore “who began panicking and caused him to go under swallowing some water,” police said.
When Mercer started struggling in the water, Evans helped rescue him, too.
“I turned around. I see the police officer. He’s drowning. He’s going underwater, drowning, saying, ‘Help!'” Evans told WLOX. “So, I went over there. I went and I grabbed the police officer and I’m like swimming him back until I feel myself I can walk.”
The officer and three teens were taken to the hospital following the incident and were recovering, WLOX reported.
“The police department and I commend Mr. Evans’s bravery and selflessness he displayed by risking his own safety to help people in danger,” Moss Point Chief Brandon Ashley said in a statement. “If Mr. Evans had not assisted, it could have possibly turned out tragically instead of all occupants rescued safely.”
On Tuesday, Moss Point city officials presented Evans with a certificate of commendation for his heroism in rescuing the four people. They also recognized Mercer for his “bravery in the rescue.”
Evans’ mother expressed relief and spoke proudly of her son in the wake of the rescue.
“I’m glad nothing happened to him while he was trying to save other people’s lives,” Marquita Evans told WLOX. “I was really proud of Corion because he wasn’t just thinking about himself. He was trying to really get all those people out the water.”
Evans told WLOX he has been swimming since he was 3 years old and didn’t hesitate to jump in the river.
“Twenty-five yards out, so it was a lot of swimming. My legs were so tired after,” he told the station. “Anything could’ve been in that water, though. But I wasn’t thinking about it.”
The Women Who Leave Anti-Abortion Picket Lines to Get Abortions
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-women-who-leave-anti-abortion-picket-lines-to-get-abortions
The Women Who Leave Anti-Abortion Picket Lines to Get Abortions
DO AS I SAY
The rank and file of the so-called pro-life movement is full of people who need reproductive care – even if it means literally leaving a protest outside a clinic to ask for it.
By Patrick Adams
July 2, 2022
A few days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, a woman who described herself as an anti-abortion activist showed up in the waiting room of Dr. Marissa Lapedis, a family-medicine doctor who performs the procedure in Atlanta.
But she wasn’t there to protest—she had an appointment.
“She talked about being in marches, and said she had spent a lot of time volunteering in crisis pregnancy centers—you know, showing patients the ultrasound image and explaining what happens,” Lapedis, a fellow with the group Physicians for Reproductive Health, told The Daily Beast. “She said she had been anti-abortion her whole life, and that her whole family was like her—and yet she was so appreciative of the care she received from us. She literally was like, ‘I’m so grateful that I’m able to make this choice for myself.’”
Lapedis’ experience is remarkable in part because she resides in a state with a looming ban on the procedure after six weeks—though the law has so far been held up in court.
“You sometimes have anti people who are like, ‘Promise me no one’s going to find out, my boss cannot know,’ [because] they work in the Republican legislature or something. Which has happened—but this patient was so appreciative.”
Abortion providers across the country are reeling from the fall of Roe, and some face the prospect of legal reprisal from law enforcement in their own state or even other states where patients need help. Almost inevitably, they are reflecting on the many patients they’ve seen who came in for a service they claimed to fervently oppose—and in some cases actively protested against.
“All of us who do abortions see patients quite regularly who tell us, ‘I’m not pro-choice, but I just can’t continue this pregnancy,’” said Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington. “We’ve even seen people coming into the clinic off the protester lines to get their abortion, then return to protesting outside the clinic.” And to be clear, she added, “These are not people who turn anti-choice after having an abortion, but who simply access this essential service when they need it in spite of their personal beliefs about abortion in general.”
According to Prager, the phenomenon is so common that abortion providers have a name for it: the Me Exception.
“We in the movement often say people believe abortion should be legal in cases of rape, incest and ‘me,’ meaning whatever reason is relevant for that person,” she said. And yet, she noted, of the many surveys describing how Americans view abortion, virtually none reflect that reality.
“Anti-choice people have no incentive to be honest about whether or not they’ve had an abortion, and we as physicians would never leak a story about a patient,” she continued. Doing so is prohibited under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, the federal law that protects confidential health information.
Still, health professionals are permitted to discuss cases in general terms, and when asked about patients with anti-choice views this past week, abortion providers had no shortage of sometimes incredible tales about activists deeming themselves an exception to the rule.
Dr. Portia Jones, a family-medicine physician in Washington, recalled the time a woman “whose sister-in-law was the president of a big right-to-life organization” had asked to be “snuck in the back door” of the clinic where she was working in Philadelphia. Then there was “the picketer who brought her daughter in for a procedure and was back on the picket line the next week,” she recalled. On another occasion, a woman came in “and declared to a full waiting room that they were all sinners and should leave immediately,” she said.
“When I drew her aside, I found out she was there for an abortion, too,” Jones told The Daily Beast.
Jones and other abortion providers attributed many such instances to a sense of exceptionalism on the part of patients who decide their situation entitles them to do what they believe other women should—legally—be unable to. “I’ve done a lot of options counseling with patients who had to do some pretty creative moral jujitsu to justify their behavior to themselves,” she added. “But our role is to give people information, to create a space for them where they can make decisions, and to support them in that process.”
While 13 states with so-called trigger laws are poised to be the first to effectively prohibit almost all abortions, roughly two dozen states in total have laws on the books that could be used to sharply restrict the procedure, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. The laws are, of course, the product of decades of far-right organizing against reproductive rights, with actions ranging from peaceful protest to the election of anti-choice officials to violent attacks.
But providers said the hypocrisy among the rank and file powering the so-called pro-life movement was glaring.
“I’d say about a third of my patients would reveal in their counseling or during the procedure, you know, ‘I want you to know I’m pro-life, but you understand why this has to be,’” said Dr. Nicholas Gideonse, recalling his work as an abortion provider in rural Oregon. “I think in almost all of those cases, they were making that choice in order to be the best parent that they could be.”
There were certainly those pro-life patients who “stridently insisted that their circumstances were particular and special,” Gideonse added. But there were cases, too, of pro-life patients who came to him seeking compassion.
“I’m remembering a soft-spoken younger woman who felt that I, because I had delivered her other unplanned pregnancy, understood how pro-life she really was and that for this reason I was the person who could perform the procedure she needed now,” he said.
Rather than a one-off, stories about anti-choice activists literally coming off the protest line to seek care were rife. That phenomenon may fade in states where clinics are shutting in the face of legal threats, but providers were confident hardcore activists will continue to seek their care.
Several years ago, Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic in New York, provided abortion care to one of the protesters regularly outside of her clinic.
“I treated her with compassion and kindness just like I do everyone, knowing that people come to us with their own lived experiences,” she said. “I don’t know what this person was exposed to, or what her community is like—it may be unsafe for folks to express an alternative view [about] abortion in their communities or their families. But I do know that nobody anticipates this. Nobody thinks they’re going to be in that situation. You can have these fixed beliefs around something that you think will never impact you, and then when you’re in the moment, your thoughts around it can change, and that’s very much the case with abortion. We see it all the time.”
In her book, You’re the Only One I’ve Ever Told, Shah explored the everyday reality of abortion care that mainstream political dialogue mostly fails to capture.
“I think that the anti-abortion movement comes at it with very strong preconceived notions,” she said. “Their lived experience has taught them that abortion is bad, so they just run with that. But what they fail to do is keep an open mind and express empathy for those who are going through it. And that’s what got us here.”
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 