Community: Crime

The\ president’s lawsuit to shield his White House records came under scrutiny in court on Tuesday.

The district attorney who put Bill Cosby in prison has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Cosby's conviction.

Jussie Smollett stands accused of staging a hate crime against himself in Chicago.

When a suburban Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Daunte Wright in April, her reaction on body-camera video seemed to instantly establish the key facts of the case: “I grabbed the wrong (expletive) gun,” Kim Potter said.

Report: San Francisco sees 753% increase in car break-ins in tourist areas
Monday, June 28, 2021
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting a 753% increase in car break-ins in the city's Central District from May 2020 to May 2021.
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The district includes seven of the city's top tourist spots, like Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown.

Police have increased patrols in heavy tourist areas to prevent break-ins due to the troubling trend in San Francisco.

RELATED: 'It was 9 cars in a row': Rash of car break-ins targets SF's Union Square garage

Earlier this month, a Fremont family visiting Union Square had their car windows smashed, calling it a "horrific experience."

The family's car wasn't the only one hit in the Union Street garage on that day.

Saeed Ahmed said there were eight or nine cars broken into at the same time.

Over the weekend, ABC7 learned security is being reinstated at several parking garages due to the rise in car break-ins.

abc7news.com/san-francisco-car-b...
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The video of Ahmaud Arbery's shotgun death was a shocking piece of evidence that suddenly brought the black man's killing into the national consciousness.

The jury reached the right verdict – even as the criminal justice system did everything it could to exonerate the three men

Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom told mayors in his state to "step up" on Monday following a weekend million-dollar looting spree in San Francisco.

“I’m not the mayor of California, but I was a mayor, and I know, when things like this happen, mayors have to step up,” Newsom said at a San Francisco vaccine clinic on Monday. “That’s not an indictment. That’s not a cheap shot.”
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Newsom’s remarks follow a mob of approximately 80 people ransacking a Nordstrom store on Saturday night, according to a Walnut Creek Police Department news release. While robbing the department store, looters assaulted and pepper sprayed store employees.

Newsom also mentioned that the “timing” of the robberies was noteworthy, specifically citing the “Rittenhouse decision.” Newsom described the robberies as “crimes of opportunity” that are “very well organized.”
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The killing was captured on video and shared around the world: Ahmaud Arbery running toward and then around an idling pickup truck before its driver blasted him at close range with a shotgun.

On Tuesday, WVLT reported that a Knoxville, Tennessee man held up a Little Caesars in Cedar Bluff with an AK-47 rifle after being told his pepperoni pizza order would take ten minutes."Officers responded to the restaurant just after 9 p.m. Friday where they were told that the suspect, identified as ...

Demonstrators in the US must fear not only police brutality but also rightwing vigilantes.

Rittenhouse – the armed white teenager who traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin to allegedly “protect” local businesses from anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, whereupon he shot and killed two people and injured another – has been acquitted of all charges. I don’t think anyone who has followed the trial even casually will be surprised by this verdict. After the various antics by the elected judge, which seemed to indicate where his sympathies lay, and the fact that the prosecution asked the jurors to consider charges lesser than murder, the writing was on the wall.
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I do not want to discuss the legal particulars of the verdict. It is clear that the prosecution made many mistakes and got little to no leeway from the judge, unlike the defense team. Moreover, we know that “self-defense” – often better known as vigilantism – is legally protected and highly racialized in this country. Think of the acquittal of George Zimmerman of the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013.

In essence, the Rittenhouse ruling has created a kind of ‘stand your ground’ law for the whole country
In essence, the Rittenhouse ruling has created a kind of “stand your ground” law for the whole country. White people now have the apparent right to travel around the country, heavily armed, and use violence to protect the country from whatever and whoever they believe to be threatening to it. Given the feverish paranoia and racism that has captured a sizeable minority of white people in the US these days, this is a recipe for disaster.

In the coming hours and days, many media outlets will eagerly await riots or other potentially violent reactions from the other side – from the anti-racists and progressives of all colors and races who are disturbed by this verdict – and use the existence of those riots, if they occur, to push a misguided “both sides” frame. If there is protest or rioting, don’t expect the police to be as courteous and supportive as they were towards Rittenhouse and his far-right buddies.

The most worrying effect of this verdict may be this: giving rightwing vigilantes a legal precedent to take up arms against anyone they consider a threat – which pretty much runs from anti-fascists to so-called Rinos (Republicans in Name Only) and includes almost all people of color – means it is now open hunting season on progressive protesters.

A fire burns on the street during protests in Portland, Oregon after Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty over the shooting deaths of two people at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year.
Unrest in Portland as Kyle Rittenhouse verdict divides US
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Don’t get me wrong; this ruling alone did not start this kind of lopsided law and order. It is just the latest in a centuries-old American tradition of protecting white terror and vigilantism. Civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, particularly but not exclusively in the south, were not just denied police protection; the demonstrators were attacked and abused by the police. That was also the case at many Black Lives Matter demonstrations last year.

A Boston Globe investigation found that “between [George] Floyd’s death on 25 May 2020 and 30 September 2021, vehicles drove into protests at least 139 times”, injuring at least 100 people. In fewer than half of the cases the driver was charged, and only four drivers have been convicted of a felony. Moreover, in response to these attacks, Republican legislators have proposed laws to protect the drivers from legal action in case they hit a protester. Florida, Iowa, and Oklahoma have already passed such laws.

It takes courage to publicly protest in any situation, particularly when protesting state powers. Now protesters in the US will have to fear not only police brutality but an emboldened and violent far right, fired up by the Republican party and the broader rightwing media and protected by the local legal system.

All of this comes at a crucial point in US democracy. From Georgia to Wisconsin, the Republican party is attacking the electoral system, while their supporters are terrorizing poll workers and those signing up to be poll workers in the next elections. In the event that Democrats win important elections in conservative states in 2022 – think Stacey Abrams in Georgia or Beto O’Rourke in Texas – there is a big chance that these results will be contested and judged by highly partisan forces protected by state politicians.

Similarly, should President Biden or another Democrat win the 2024 presidential election, the result will again be challenged in conservative states, but this time independent poll workers could be absent or outnumbered and the few Republicans who withstood Donald Trump’s pressure in 2020 will have been replaced or have fallen in line.

At that point, Democrats, and indeed all democratic-minded citizens, will have to go into the streets to protest. They will confront an alliance of heavily armed civilians and police and national guard, who can attack protesters with effective immunity. Remember: Kyle Rittenhouse has just been acquitted after killing two people and injuring a third at a protest.

In my home country, the Netherlands, we have a saying that is used regularly in political discussions: “Democracy is not for scared people.” Most of the time when it is used, we mean that democracy is not for people who are afraid of change or of critique. In the US, in the wake of today’s verdict, this saying has become both more real and more sinister.

Cas Mudde is Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, the author of The Far Right Today (2019), and host of the podcast Radikaal. He is a Guardian US columnist
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A jury acquitted teenager Kyle Rittenhouse on Friday of murder in the fatal shooting of two men during racial justice protests in a decision that ignited fierce debate about gun rights and the boundaries of self defense in the United States.

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The judge at Kyle Rittenhouse's murder trial banned MSNBC from the courthouse Thursday after police said they briefly detained a man who had followed the jury bus and may have tried to photograph jurors.

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At one point, the 18-year-old murder defendant stood behind the seated, black-robed judge and peered over him to review evidence.

Miramax accuses Quentin Tarantino of copyright infringement for offering to sell 'Pulp Fiction' NFTs.