A state investigator in Georgia on Thursday alleged that the white man accused of killing jogger Ahmaud Arbery was heard saying a racial slur as he stood over the mortally wounded man, moments after hitting him with three shots from a pump-action shotgun.
Related: FBI investigating Ahmaud Arbery shooting as possible hate crime, lawyer says
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The Guardian’s Ankita Rao, reporting from New York, on the mayor’s controversial late-night statements:
Mayor Bill de Blasio took to the podium on Saturday night to tell protestors across the city that they were “heard, loud and clear”.
I’m in Brooklyn to talk about tonight’s protests. https://t.co/oBVXGh7JWo
US prosecutors have filed federal charges against three people in New York, accusing them of using “molotov cocktails” on New York police vehicles during the Friday protests:
BREAKING: Three people charged with federal crimes in connection with Molotov cocktail attacks on the NYPD during #GeorgeFloyd protests in NYC Friday night. pic.twitter.com/dyaDJByMit
Continue reading...Police attempted to use a Taser on Ahmaud Arbery, the slain Georgia jogger, after questioning why he was sitting alone in his car in a park one morning in November 2017, according to records and a police video obtained by the Guardian.
The video comes to light as law enforcement in the area faces scrutiny after Arbery was shot dead by two white men while out for a run in February. Police did not initially arrest Gregory and Travis McMichael, who chased down and killed the unarmed Arbery, and a prosecutor assigned to the case wrote a lengthy memo explaining why the killing was legally justified.
In a joint statement to the Guardian, lawyers working for the Arbery family described the video as a clear depiction of 'a situation where Ahmaud was harassed by Glynn county police officers'.
Continue reading...Police attempted to use a Taser on Ahmaud Arbery, the slain Georgia jogger, after questioning why he was sitting alone in his car in a park one morning in November 2017, according to records and a police video obtained by the Guardian.
Related: Ahmaud Arbery: new focus on district attorney’s flawed prosecutions of black women
Continue reading...The local prosecutor who argued two white men were legally justified in chasing down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, has been at the center of aggressive and flawed prosecutions of at least two black women in recent years.
One of the women was wrongfully imprisoned for over a decade on a murder conviction secured by later discredited forensic evidence, and another woman was unsuccessfully tried twice for helping people vote.
Continue reading...Gregory McMichael lost his power of arrest in 2006 after failing to complete sufficient basic law enforcement training
Gregory McMichael, the white retired law enforcement officer who helped chase down and kill Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African American man, failed to complete sufficient basic law enforcement training for years, a deficiency that led to him losing his power of arrest.
McMichael, who worked as an investigator in the Brunswick judicial circuit district attorney’s office from 1995 to 2019, lost his power of arrest in January 2006 for failing to complete the required 20 hours of training the previous year, according to personnel records obtained by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Marcus Arbery Sr says Ahmaud’s death at the hands of two white men, while he was out for a run, was an act of racism
Marcus Arbery Sr says his son was just like him, fit and athletic.
Related: ‘Every stone will be uncovered’: how Georgia officials failed the Ahmaud Arbery case
Continue reading...Gregory and Travis McMichael confronted Arbery with two firearms as the 25 year old was jogging in Brunswick, Georgia
A white father and son have been arrested over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man who was shot while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood and whose case has sparked a national outcry.
In a statement released Thursday evening, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said that Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, had been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault.
Continue reading...Prosecutors were reluctant to charge former police officer and son in shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery
A prosecutor in Georgia said on Tuesday he would ask a grand jury to decide if charges should be filed against a white former law enforcement officer and his son in the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black man as he ran through a small town.
The shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February was captured on videotape and posted on social media on Tuesday, stirring outrage over the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges against Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis.
Continue reading...Storms caused flooding, mudslides and power outages, killing 11 people in Mississippi and six people in Georgia
Severe weather has swept across the southern US, killing at least 19 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian mountains.
Many spent part of the night sheltering in basements, closets and bathtubs as sirens wailed to warn of possible tornadoes.
Continue reading...Whole families are falling victim as African Americans are hit disproportionately hard by the coronavirus pandemic
Last weekend, at two churches in New Orleans, two pastors read from separate passages of the Bible as they buried four members of the same family. Each had died within days of each other after contracting the novel coronavirus.
Related: 'A nightmare all over again': after surviving Katrina, New Orleans battles Covid-19
Continue reading...In Georgia’s northern mountains, workers scale daunting heights in search of the pine cones seeds that produce Europe’s favourite Christmas tree. But while foreign importers line their pockets, the climbers hazard all for a pittance
It takes Ramaz Chelishvili just a few seconds to reach the top. Soon, a pine cone falls to the ground. Then another. One by one, cones keep dropping, until none are left in the tree. Chelishvili, as fast as he climbed up, gets back down.
“I try to not think of anything up there, just focus. The problem is, if you lose concentration, then you might fall,” he says.
Continue reading...A Georgia man who was videotaped slapping a female reporter’s bottom on live TV was arrested on Friday on a misdemeanor charge of sexual battery.
Related: Los Angeles police officer charged with groping dead woman's breast
Continue reading...Symbols at University of Georgia and Georgia College & State University fuel renewed calls for hate crimes law
Swastika symbols on two Georgia university campuses have students and parents on edge.
Swastikas were drawn on message boards recently in Creswell and Russell halls at the University of Georgia, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Continue reading...After losing the race for Georgia governor in 2018, Stacey Abrams will lead a nationwide voting rights campaign. Her goal is to export lessons she learned fighting voter suppression in Georgia, and to mobilize a base of progressives and marginalized communities to help Democrats win the White House in 2020
Continue reading...After hammering the Bahamas and leaving at least 30 dead, Hurricane Dorian began raking the south-east US seaboard, with the eye hitting the North Carolina coast on Thursday evening.
The threat to the US remains real but in the Bahamas the storm has left such terrible devastation that the authorities were still struggling to get aid to stricken areas and the death toll is expected to rise, perhaps steeply.
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Sarah St George, chairman of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, told the Guardian that the “force and size” of Dorian took everyone by surprise, a situation made worse by the hurricane stalling over the archipelago.
“Grand Bahama is not in good shape at all because 70% of it was under water,” St George said. “On the north side of the island the water was coming up to the second floor of their houses. My assistant Tammy was on the roof of her house for 30 hours hanging on to a coconut tree with her 8-year-old daughter Ariana. Her grandmother lost her grip and slipped off the roof and drowned. There was no way of getting to them. They’ve lost everything.”
In the president’s continuing battle against his own incorrect statement that Alabama was under threat from Hurricane Dorian, which has left at least 23 people dead, he has just now been tweeting what he claims is evidence he knew what he was talking about.
It is not.
Just as I said, Alabama was originally projected to be hit. The Fake News denies it! pic.twitter.com/elJ7ROfm2p
I was with you all the way Alabama. The Fake News Media was not! https://t.co/gO5pwahaj9
Over the weekend, projections for #HurricaneDorian have continually skewed further north and east, leaving Alabama outside the anticipated path. While we are thankful for that, we remain #AlwaysReady to help our sister states. #OneTeamOneFight #OneGuard pic.twitter.com/7TbFKpd2Zh
Continue reading...Video shows the scale of catastrophe as the storm continues to move away from the Bahamas and towards Florida
Kari Paul logging off for the evening. Please stay tuned tomorrow for more updates as Dorian reaches the US coast and the picture of effects on the Bahamas become clearer.
Here are the latest updates from this afternoon:
The death toll for Hurricane Dorian climbed to seven, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said on Tuesday night, according to CNN. The death toll, which was at five earlier in the day, has been expected to climb as survivors of the natural disaster face ongoing food and medicine shortages.
Continue reading...State representative Erica Thomas says she was verbally attacked in supermarket while shopping with her nine-year-old daughter
A pregnant African American lawmaker in Georgia said she was verbally attacked in a supermarket Friday by a middle-aged white man who used profanity, called her vulgar names and told her to “go back where you came from” as her nine-year-old daughter looked on.
Erica Thomas, a Democrat and Georgia state representative from Austell, said the man was irate that she was in an express line with too many items. Thomas said she was in a line for customers with 10 items or less because she cannot stand for long periods of time.
Continue reading...Police in Georgia have released dramatic bodycam footage showing the moment a newborn baby girl was discovered alive in a plastic bag. Local residents called the police on 6 June after hearing cries from a wooded area. Forsyth county sheriff’s office has released the footage in the hope of receiving more information about ‘Baby India’
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