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A woman was fatally shot while walking a dog. The suspects gun was a police officers AK-47.

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As Darian Simon was walking his dog with his girlfriend last June, he heard a critical voice yelling at them to not let the dog go to the bathroom in the alley of a Denver apartment building.

The man in the ground-level apartment asked the couple if they were going to train the dog or just command the pet to “go poop,” according to a probable cause statement. Simon ignored the man until he saw him point what Simon believed to be a pellet gun at him and his girlfriend, Isabella Thallas.

But instead of a toy gun, it was an AK-47 and multiple shots rang out from the apartment, police said. Thallas, 21, was killed and Simon was injured in a random shooting that rocked the city. The shooting suspect, Michael Close, 36, faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder, and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Nearly a year later, there’s another wrinkle: The rifle allegedly used to kill Thallas and injure Simon was a personal firearm of a Denver police officer who was a longtime friend of the suspect. The details of who owned the gun involved in the shooting, first reported by KUSA earlier this year, were later confirmed by the Denver Police Department.

Dan Politica, who was a Denver police sergeant, reportedly resigned from the force in March, local media reported this week. Police had previously said that the gun was taken from Politica by Close, a friend of his for roughly 20 years, without his permission, and that the officer had informed the department that the rifle had been missing, reported the Denver Post. In a letter with the subject line, “Letter of resignation,” that was obtained by The Washington Post, Politica did not offer a reason for his exit.

Politica does not face charges related to the shooting and had no open internal investigations at the time he left the department, his attorney, Reid Elkus, told The Post. Elkus said that the sergeant did not resign from the department but retired. “He absolutely was not forced into retirement,” said Elkus, adding that Politica received a retirement party and plaque and is receiving his full pension benefits. He had been with the Denver Police Department since 2005.

News of Politica’s departure has unfolded as the state continues to grapple with what to do about assault-style weapons that have shattered Colorado in mass shootings in recent years. While the state has passed legislation to help prevent gun violence, the push to ban assault-style weapons in Colorado remains difficult for lawmakers.

The city of Denver has had a ban on assault weapons for years that the state Supreme Court ruled in 2006 was allowed to stand. The details of how Politica acquired the weapon and where it was stored remain unclear, and his attorney declined to comment on the matter. Craig Silverman, an attorney representing Simon, said to The Post that Close allegedly fired 24 shots.

One of the Colorado bills signed into law was named after Thallas, who had celebrated her 21st birthday two days before her death on June 10, 2020. The bill signed into law last month by Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis creates penalties for those in the state who fail to report lost or stolen firearms. He was joined by Thallas’s mother, Ana, who fought back tears wondering why it took her daughter’s death to help bring change.

“What saddens me, and what hurts the most, is that it takes a mother of murdered daughter to stand up and speak and try to make a difference in this state,” the mother said at a news conference last month.

Neither the Denver Police Department nor Josh Maximon, an attorney retained by Thallas’s father, immediately returned requests for comment.

It was a late Wednesday morning when the couple took Simon’s dog, Rocco, out for a walk in the Ballpark neighborhood of downtown Denver, according to court documents of a preliminary hearing. The dog had been unable to go to the bathroom for a couple days and the couple was concerned.

Around the time Close started yelling at the couple, he allegedly texted Politica around 11:30 a.m. about how his dog had been recently attacked by other pets and how he was going to murder someone, according to court testimony from Denver Police Detective Joseph Trujillo, the investigating officer. Trujillo, who testified that Close and Politica had been friends for almost two decades, noted that the officer was concerned for his friend’s mental health.

Simon, co-founder of the fashion company and brand Be A Good Person, was taken to the hospital with two nonfatal gunshot wounds to his leg, Silverman said. Thallas was pronounced dead at the scene, and her autopsy concluded she died of a gunshot wound.

After the shooting, Close allegedly left a voice mail for Politica at 11:40 a.m. about how he had “done something really bad.”

“There’s no going back from this now,” Close said, according to Trujillo’s testimony.

When the Park County Sheriff’s Office arrested Close about an hour later, they found him in his car near Pine Junction, Colo., with a rifle and a handgun as well as a gun belt and multiple magazines of ammunition, according to an arrest affidavit. Close did not have any previous arrests in Colorado, according to the Denver Post.

Aside from the first-degree murder charge, Close also faces charges of attempted murder, use of a prohibited large-capacity magazine during a crime and assault. A judge ordered that Close be held without bond.

Thallas’s mother recalled to KDVR that she only learned of her daughter’s fate when she found out that Simon was at the hospital but her child was not.

“Then her sister texted me something from the news. A shooting in the ballpark area, one in surgery and one dead. I saw that and I knew. I felt it. I just fell, I couldn’t breathe,” she told the outlet. “It was like somebody had kicked me in my stomach.”

As the city mourned the loss of Thallas through vigils and a mural, her death sparked questions as to how this young woman went to walk her boyfriend’s dog and ended up dead. The detail of the AK-47 belonging to Politica was first publicly brought to light in a Facebook post from Thallas’s mother in January, reported KUSA, in which she claimed that her daughter was “murdered with an AK-47 that belonged to a Denver Police Sergeant.” The police department acknowledged to the TV station that the rifle was not issued by authorities.

Years before the fatal incident involving his firearm, Politica was suspended for harassing a street performer and starting a brawl that resulted in false arrests in 2016.

But Politica’s resignation has brought even more questions and doubt for the family of Thallas, who was remembered by her father on Silverman’s podcast as having a big heart and wanting to get into the fashion industry. Joshua Thallas, her father, wondered to KDVR why Politica was leaving the force now: “If there was no wrongdoing, why should he leave his job?”

“We’re just looking for an answer. It’s been almost a year, we’ve played by the rules, we’ve stayed quiet when asked to be quiet by the DA, and attorneys, and it’s time to have a voice,” he said. “It’s time to know why. Not just us as a family and friends. Everybody wants to know what the heck has gone on.”

Published : May 23, 2021

By : The Washington Post · Timothy Bella

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Morocco sends tons of humanitarian aid to Palestinian territories and Gaza

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Morocco on Friday delivered emergency humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

The humanitarian aid was handed over by Morocco’s ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Tazi, to the representative of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Fathi Abou Warda.

The Palestinian official expressed his gratitude to King Mohammed VI of Morocco for his continuous support to the Palestinian cause and his defence of the Palestinians’ legitimate right to establish an independent state, according to a Moroccan government handout.

The official also conveyed the greetings and gratitude of the Palestinian Authority to the king and Morocco for this initiative that would help alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Gaza came under severe air attack from Israel in retaliation for rocket attacks. The two sides have accepted a ceasefire.

On Tuesday, two Moroccan Royal Armed Forces aircraft carried 20 tons of the aid and landed at Cairo East Air Base Airport in Egypt.

Last Sunday, two military aircraft carrying humanitarian aid consisting of basic foodstuffs, medicines for emergency care and blankets had landed in Amman, Jordan. The aid was transported to the Palestinian territories by trucks across the border bridge between Jordan and the West Bank.

The 40 tons of humanitarian aid comprised basic foodstuffs (30 tons), emergency medicines and blankets (10 tons).

Morocco had denounced in the strongest terms the violence perpetrated in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Morocco backs a two-state solution, through the creation of a Palestinian State within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Al-Quds, or East Jerusalem, as its capital.

Published : May 22, 2021

By : The Nation

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Biden says he wont allow Justice Dept. to seize journalists phone, email records

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WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Friday declared that he would not allow his Justice Department to seize journalists phone or email records, calling the practice “simply wrong.”

At the White House, a reporter asked Biden about federal law enforcement taking such records and whether the president would “prevent your Justice Department from doing that.” Biden joked with the reporter, then grew serious, saying: “Absolutely, positively it’s wrong. It’s simply, simply wrong.”

“So you won’t let your Justice Department do that?” the reported asked.

“I will not let that happen,” the president responded.

Biden’s declaration follows recent disclosures that during the Trump administration, the Justice Department secretly sought the records of four journalists, three for their work at The Washington Post and one for her reporting at CNN.

Media organizations and free-press advocates decried the moves, asking whether the Justice Department had followed its own policies and noting that such tactics have a chilling effect on journalists’ ability to uncover essential information about the government. Two Democratic lawmakers – Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin of Maryland – wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to stop using the tactic. But until the president’s assertion Friday, his administration had not renounced the practice.

Biden’s statement would seem to block the Justice Department from sifting through reporters’ records in leak investigations and other cases, at least while he is in office. That could curtail federal law enforcement’s ability to pursue those who reveal classified information, although under existing policy, prosecutors were supposed to pursue all other means before trying to sweep up any reporter’s communications.

“That statement basically ends the chances of any media subpoenas in this administration,” said Matthew Miller, who was a spokesman for Eric H. Holder, President Barack Obama’s attorney general.

Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that he is seeking more details on the Justice Department’s recently revealed seizures and that he is in talks with government officials to reconstitute a group of journalists and Justice Department personnel first formed in the Holder years to discuss the impact of the department’s policies. The group, he said, has not met since 2018.

Brown hailed Biden’s comments, saying they set the groundwork for a productive discussion about the policy.

“Hearing him say, ‘This is wrong,’ and hearing him say, ‘This is not going to happen again,’ that’s just what we’re wanting to hear,” Brown said.

But some former Justice Department officials cautioned that a unilateral ban on going after reporter records was unwise. “It’s appropriate for there to be a significant hurdle for the Justice Department to seek records of journalists in leak investigations – but establishing a blanket prohibition would be detrimental to legitimate national security interests,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official who previously oversaw leak cases. “What the department needs is a policy that strikes the right balance between protecting First Amendment interests while enabling law enforcement to determine who’s responsible for the unauthorized disclosure of classified information.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on Biden’s declaration. It was unclear whether the president’s remark – which appeared to be off the cuff – would be accompanied by any policy update or formal guidance to federal prosecutors.

In a briefing Friday before Biden spoke, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had notably declined to renounce the Justice Department’s practice of secretly seeking journalists’ phone and email records to identify sources in leak investigations, even as she sought to distance the Biden administration from the recently revealed instances of the Trump administration’s doing so.

Asked what the Biden administration’s view was on the Justice Department’s having secretly obtained journalists’ records, Psaki noted that the moves occurred before Biden was in office but did not answer whether she thought the tactic was appropriate.

“The Justice Department conveyed yesterday that they intend to meet with reporters to hear their concerns about recent notices, and they certainly intend to use the Holder model as their model, not the model of the last several years,” Psaki said during the briefing. “But really, these decisions would be up to the Justice Department.”

Pressed later by a reporter who noted that Holder’s Justice Department had also secretly sought reporter phone records – though it later instituted policies narrowing the circumstances in which that could be done – Psaki again deflected.

“We’re not going to follow the Barr model, and I would point you to our Department of Justice as to how they will approach that issue,” she said, referring to William P. Barr, who served as attorney general under President Donald Trump.

In a brief phone call after Friday’s White House news briefing, Barr asserted, “All I’ll say is, I followed the Holder model.” He declined to answer more-specific questions.

Anthony Coley, a Justice Department spokesman, also declined to answer specific questions about the recently revealed gathering of journalists’ records, including whether the moves were appropriate and whether the department would continue the practice.

The Post was notified earlier this month that the department had, during the Trump administration, secretly obtained phone records of Post journalists and tried to obtain their email records. The effort appears to have been centered on reporting about the Trump administration and Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Then, on Thursday, CNN revealed that its Pentagon correspondent was told her phone and email records had been secretly swept up by the department.

After the revelation that Post reporters’ records were collected, Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman, seemed to suggest the department’s policies had been followed.

“While rare, the Department follows the established procedures within its media guidelines policy when seeking legal process to obtain telephone toll records and non-content email records from media members as part of a criminal investigation into unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” he said in a statement at the time.

But after the more recent revelation about the gathering of CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr’s records, Coley, the Justice Department’s top spokesman, said only that the move occurred in 2020 and vowed, “Department leadership will soon meet with reporters to hear their concerns about recent notices and further convey Attorney General Garland’s staunch support of and commitment to a free and independent press.”

Holder faced significant controversy over collecting the phone records of journalists working for the Associated Press and Fox News. In 2013, he issued guidelines for how such records should be obtained. The guidelines called for prosecutors to notify and negotiate with reporters before obtaining their records but said an exception could be made if the attorney general determined that such discussions would pose a substantial threat to an investigation. Obama had called on Holder to review the Justice Department’s guidelines on such matters.

Miller, the former Holder spokesman, said he thought reporter subpoenas during the Biden administration were “unlikely anyway after the experience in the Obama administration and the rules Holder put in place.” But Biden’s assertion, he said, “drives a stake through it, barring something truly unexpected.”

Miller conceded that the Holder policy was “not perfect,” because the exception could be exploited to allow a willing attorney general to search reporters’ records. But he said the department was unlikely to want to abandon entirely the practice of issuing subpoenas to journalists, because nefarious actors, such as foreign intelligence agents, might pose as journalists to dodge law enforcement.

“You have to either ban media subpoenas outright – which I think is unwise, and most people at the department think is unwise – or you have to have some kind of an exception,” Miller said. “And the problem with having some exception is an attorney general who doesn’t want to follow the spirit of these rules can always find an exception.”

Published : May 22, 2021

By : The Washington Post · Matt Zapotosky, Anne Gearan

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Louisiana police release video from violent arrest of Black man who died amid outcry over leaked footage

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Louisiana State Police on Friday released body-camera videos from the arrest of Ronald Greene, a Black man whose death in custody triggered fresh outrage this week after leaked footage showed Greene pleading with troopers who stunned him, dragged him and left him shackled facedown.

State Police Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis also said he had replaced the leader of a troop dogged by allegations of abuse and made other changes to his command staff. Video of Greene’s May 2019 arrest obtained by the Associated Press – withheld for two years by authorities amid allegations of a coverup – added to mounting scrutiny of Troop F, which saw four of its members charged this year after an excessive force investigation.

“I assure you that we are making significant change,” Davis said at a news conference Friday evening. “We have made significant change, and we will continue to make significant change throughout our agency.”

The footage newly uploaded to YouTube represents all of the state police’s video from the incident, officials said. It includes body-camera as well as some in-car camera footage from four state troopers: Kory York, John Clary, Dakota DeMoss and Chris Hollingsworth, who died last fall. Lawyers for Greene’s family have also called for the arrest of officer Floyd McElroy, as the Justice Department investigates.

“We have been in close contact with FBI and we expect federal indictments to happen soon,” Lee Merritt, an attorney for Greene’s family, said in a Friday night statement to The Washington Post. “The Greene family has waited long enough for justice.”

The partial video released this week by the AP showed Greene wailing and saying “I’m sorry!” as troopers violently arrest him, deploying what the AP identified as a stun gun after appearing to raise his hands inside his car. Troopers later punch Greene in the face, drag him briefly by his shackled ankles and leave him to moan alone while handcuffed for more than nine minutes, the AP reported.

“I’m scared! I’m scared! . . . I’m scared!” the 49-year-old yelled while bent over in the front seat. “I’m your brother. I’m scared!”

Medics soon found Greene unresponsive, according to his family’s wrongful death lawsuit, and he was pronounced dead minutes after arriving at a hospital.

Davis said that state police had intended to make the videos public at the proper time; police previously said that unauthorized release compromised a “fair and impartial outcome.”

Davis said he hopes the community can start a “healing process” but declined Friday to comment to reporters on troopers’ conduct while state and federal authorities investigate. He said he could not speak to whether Greene should be alive today.

Asked about the AP’s reporting that state police withheld basic records related to Greene’s arrest from the medical examiner – including police reports and emergency medical information – Davis said he could not discuss the matter.

“I really don’t know why or when,” Davis said. “I would have to look at that.”

A long-hidden autopsy attributed Greene’s death to “cocaine induced agitated delirium complicated by motor vehicle collision, physical struggle, inflicted head injury and restraint,” according to the AP.

Lawyers for the troopers involved in the arrest have previously either declined to comment or not responded to The Post. State police said they intend to fire DeMoss, who is on leave and faces charges in the alleged beating of another Black driver.

Louisiana Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday that he supported the release of all the footage in state police’s possession and found the video, which he watched last year, to be “disturbing.”

Troopers filmed with Greene appear to be White, and the AP describes them as White.

Greene was driving his silver Toyota along a highway in Monroe, La., about midnight on May 10, 2019, according to his family’s lawsuit. The body-cam video shows trooper DeMoss chasing Greene down a highway at more than 115 mph, the AP reported.

“We got to do something,” DeMoss said over his radio, according to the AP, just before police caught with Greene. “He’s going to kill somebody.”

DeMoss has said he tried to stop Greene after observing an unspecified “traffic violation,” the lawsuit from Greene’s family states. It says Greene eventually swerved and crashed into a wooded area but did not hit a tree and was able to leave the car on his own.

Video obtained by the AP shows Greene putting at least one hand up inside his car as troopers approach and shout with expletives, “Let me see your . . . hands!” Greene recoils and pleads with police as they shock him while he is still inside the car.

Troopers get Greene on the ground and struggle with him, with one man saying Greene is grabbing him, the AP reported. But they use force even when Greene is apparently restrained and compliant.

One video obtained by the AP shows an officer berating Greene for trying to change positions as he lay on his stomach, restrained.

“Don’t you turn over! Lay on your belly! Lay on your belly!” a trooper yells, briefly dragging Greene by his shackled ankles and then kneeling on the man’s back.

“You better lay on your . . . belly like I told you to!” he orders. “You understand?”

“Yes, sir!” Greene cries. “OK, OK, sir!”

When Greene is shackled and cuffed, police leave him unattended, bloody and still facing the ground, according to the AP.

One of the troopers, Hollingsworth, admitted to beating Greene in a profanity-laced recording obtained by the AP.

“Choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,” Hollingsworth said, the news agency reported. He described a prolonged struggle with Greene, who he said “was spitting blood everywhere and all of a sudden . . . just went limp.”

The lawsuit filed by Greene’s family says police initially told loved ones Greene died in a car crash; in fact, the lawsuit alleges, excessive force left Greene “beaten, bloodied, and in cardiac arrest.”

Police pointed Friday to local news articles from the day Greene died that said he became “combative” with officers and was handcuffed after a struggle, according to authorities.

DeMoss got a “letter of counseling” and a “letter of reprimand,” according to the state police. He was found to have violated rules on “courtesy” and body-worn or car cameras, officials said.

York was found to have violated rules on body-worn cameras and treatment of people in custody and got a 50-hour suspension. He has “returned to active duty pending the outcome of the review by federal and state authorities,” state police said.

Hollingsworth was set to be fired last fall, but died in a single-vehicle crash shortly after learning his intended punishment, the AP reported.

The criminal investigations division in Monroe reviewed the incident and submitted materials in August of 2019 to prosecutors in Lincoln Parish, according to a timeline released Friday by state police. In February 2020, police said, they provided a case file to the Justice Department. Then, more than a year after Greene’s death, an administrative investigation into troopers’ use of force began.

Critics have cast Greene’s death as part of systemic issues in the Louisiana State Police and their treatment of people of color. Court filings recently drew new attention to DeMoss and other troopers’ roles in the alleged beating of 29-year-old Antonio Harris.

Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told The Post this week that she wants the Justice Department to investigate the Louisiana State Police and Troop F.

Odoms said of the body camera footage: “It provides to the public – in the same way that the George Floyd video did – the necessary kind of tangible and frankly gruesome and infuriating kind of proof of what our community members have known inherently and anecdotally for too long.”

Davis defended the Louisiana State Police as a whole on Friday, echoing other police leaders’ references to “bad apples.”

“While we may have a few bad actors, it’s our job and it’s my job to hold them accountable,” Davis said.

Published : May 22, 2021

By : The Washington Post · Hannah Knowles