A gay man was brutally beaten with a metal pipe and robbed of his walker while bystanders ignored him in Brooklyn, New York.
More than a month since the attack in his hometown of Coney Island, Jawhar Edwards still has a swollen eye after his eye socket was broken when a man and a woman battered him and threatened to kill him.
As he ducked out of a birthday honouring his late godmother, Edwards went to pass out food to the homeless on the boardwalk by 19th and 21st Streets on 4 November at around 12:30am.
That’s when two people targeted him because he is gay, he told FOX 5 New York, taking off with his mobile phone, coat, money and walker.
The attacked called him a “f****t” and swung at his eye with a metal pole, shattering his eye socket and damaging his vision. He was left writhing in pain on the boardwalk as bystanders simply strolled past, doing nothing.
First responders arrived and brought him to Kings County Hospital to undergo multiple surgeries on his eye.
The New York Police Department arrested Infenent Millington, a 21-year-old homeless man, on Friday (10 December). Millington has been charged with second-degree robbery.
For the last three years, Edwards has gone out to the boardwalk to feed homeless folk at around 10pm.
“I went down to feed the homeless,” Edwards told the outlet.
“In return, I got assaulted, I got gay-bashed, I got robbed of my belongings. I got called a [slur], I got told: ‘If I see you again, I am going to kill you’.”
At a Friday rally organised by assembly member Mathylde Frontus outside her Mermaid Avenue office, Edwards urged law enforcement to treat the incident as a hate crime.
Edwards knows homophobia all too well. It was the third time he has been attacked because of his sexuality, he said. In 2018, a subway rider hurled homophobic insults at him because he bumped into him.
His story, however, echoes a frightening pattern in New York City. According to data from the NYPD, anti-LGBT+ hate crimes have surged a staggering 139 per cent this year alone.
“[Edwards] is not hurting anyone,” Ann Valdez, a community leader, said, Gay City News reported.
“He’s not bothering anyone. He went out there to feed the homeless. He’s not being paid for that.
“He’s doing that out of the kindness of his heart. My question for Coney Island is: ‘Where is your heart?’”
The State Department has launched a fund that seeks to bolster LGBTQ rights around the world.
A press release the State Department released on Friday says the Global LGBTQI+ Inclusive Democracy and Empowerment (GLIDE) Fund will “provide up to $5 million … to facilitate the participation and leadership of LGBTQI+ community members in democratic institutions.”
The GLIDE Fund is a program under the Global Equality Fund, a public-private partnership the U.S. helped launched in 2011 that seeks to promote LGBTQ rights around the world. A State Department spokesperson earlier this week told the Washington Blade the Swedish International Development Agency and the U.S. provided the GLIDE Fund’s initial funding.
Friday’s announcement coincides with International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948. It also took place on the last day of the White House’s Summit for Democracy.
Equal Rights Coalition reaffirms commitment to LGBTQ rights
The U.S. and other members of the Equal Rights Coalition, which seeks to promote LGBTQ rights around the world, on Friday issued a statement to “affirm that the revitalization of democracy within our own nations and around the world is essential to promoting and protecting human rights, especially for those in the most vulnerable situations including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons.”
“Threats to the rule of law, rising levels of inequality, authoritarianism and corruption are eroding democracy in every region, with grave consequences for the LGBTI community, among others,” reads the statement. “Persistent criminalization of LGBTI status and ongoing violence and discrimination undermine the possibility of LGBTI persons to fully participate in democratic and political processes.”
Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Sweden, the U.K. and Uruguay signed the Equal Rights Coalition statement alongside the U.S.
“Members of this coalition affirm our interest to work together over the coming year to support and empower the participation of LGBTI persons in the full range of democratic processes, including elections; political campaigns; civil society advocacy and oversight; journalism and independent reporting; and political leadership,” it reads.
The Biden administration in February issued a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad.
The Council for Global Equality and F&M Global Barometers earlier this week released a series of report cards that rank countries on their LGBTQ rights records. The report cards indicate the U.S. continues to lag behind other countries in terms of protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
n Thursday, December 16, 2021, at 6pm, at the Shea Federal Building, 777 Sonoma Ave., in Santa Rosa, Immigrants and allies will hold a public “Speak-Out” to let California’s U.S. Senators know that they expect passage of a Path To Citizenship for Christmas, as President Biden and the Democrats promised. At 7pm, they will walk with lights to the Old Courthouse Square, in downtown Santa Rosa, to show holiday shoppers, elected officials and the community at large that undocumented residents of Sonoma County demand legalization as soon as possible.
“It is difficult for the undocumented community to celebrate the holidays when so many of us still can’t travel to see our families and loved ones in our home countries,” states Socorro Diaz, Leader of ALMAS, an Immigrant & Indigenous women’s organization which empowers workers through education and political campaigns. “We need to end the criminalization of essential workers in this country, and it needs to happen before Christmas,” she adds.
“The “Build Back Better” Bill is the closest we’ve gotten to achieving a Path To Citizenship,” says Patricia Garibay, also a Leader of ALMAS. “The Democrats must act boldly and swiftly and deliver legalization to us for Christmas this year.”
The “Build Back Better” Bill recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives and is currently being considered by the U.S. Senate as a budget reconciliation bill. Although the Senate Parliamentarian announced that a Path To Citizenship should not be included in a budget bill, Immigrant communities and Democrats wish to override the Parliamentarian or include some type of “temporary status” for the country’s 12 million undocumented.
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EN ESPANOL:
Inmigrantes del Condado de Sonoma Organizan un “Micrófono Abierto” y Caminata Alrededor de Los Compradores de Regalos Navideños Para Exigir Que el Senado Pase Para Navidad la Propuesta de Ley “Build Back Better” Que Contiene Estatus Legal Para Los Indocumentados del País.
El Jueves, Diciembre 16, 2021, a las 6pm, en el Edificio Federal Shea, 777 Sonoma Ave., en Santa Rosa, Inmigrantes y aliados tendrán un “Micrófono Abierto” para informarles a los Senadores de California que esperan que pasen un Camino a la Ciudadanía para Navidad, como el Presidente Biden y los Demócratas prometieron. A las 7pm, caminarán con luces al Old Courthouse Square, en el centro de Santa Rosa, para mostrarles a los compradores, políticos y la comunidad entera que residentes indocumentados del Condado de Sonoma exigen la legalización lo más pronto posible.
“Es difícil para la comunidad indocumentada celebrar las Navidades cuando tantos de nosotros aún no podemos viajar para ver a nuestras familias y seres queridos en nuestros países de origen,” dice Socorro Diaz, Lider de ALMAS, una organización de mujeres Inmigrantes e Indígenas que empodera a las trabajadoras a través de información y campañas políticas. “Debemos poner fin a la criminalización de trabajadores esenciales en este país, y necesita tomar lugar antes de la Navidad,” ella agrega.
“La propuesta de ley “Build Back Better” es lo más cercano que hemos llegado para lograr un Camino a la Ciudadanía,” dice Patricia Garibay, también Lider de ALMAS. “Los demócratas deben actuar con valor y rápidamente para darnos una legalización esta Navidad.”
La propuesta de ley “Build Back Better” recientemente pasó por la Cámara de Representantes de los EEUU y ahora está siendo considerada por el Senado EEUU como una propuesta presupuestal. Aunque la Parlamentaria del Senado anunció que un Camino a la Ciudadanía no debe ser incluido en una propuesta presupuestal, comunidades Inmigrantes y Demócratas quieren rechazar esta conclusión o incluir un tipo de “estatus temporal” para los 12 millones de indocumentados en este país.
A 12-year-old boy took his own life after being tortured by bullies and told he would go to Hell because he is gay.
Eli Fritchley was a seventh-grader from Shelbyville, Tennessee, who adored Spongebob Squarepantsand played the trombone.
He died by suicide on 28 November, no longer able to bear the “pain and torture” from kids at his school, his parents said.
Eli was never afraid to be himself, Debbey and Steve Fritchley told WKRN-TV, and they were in awe at his bravery in the face of bullies at his school, Cascades Muddle School in Bedford County.
“He was told because he didn’t necessarily have a religion and he said he was gay that was going to Hell,” Debbey told the local station. “They told him that quite often.”
She added that Eli wore the same Spongebob sweater every day – even doing the laundry himself – and painted his nails. “I think probably because he was in the same clothes every single day that they used that as a weapon,” she added.
Eli’s father, Steve, said: “It was really abusive. I don’t think it was ever physical. I think it was just words, but words hurt.
“They really hurt. This has just blindsided us. This is something we would have never, ever expected.”
Though his parents knew he was being bullied, neither Debbey nor Steve knew the extent of how Eli was feeling.
“We all failed him,” Debbey said. “We all failed him. It’s as simple as that.”
Family of Eli Fritchley raise thousands so ‘this terrible tragedy doesn’t happen again’
The story of Eli Fritchley echoes a frightening pattern for queer youth who are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their straight, cisgender peers, according to LGBT+ suicide-prevention charity The Trevor Project.
More than one in two queer youth have been bullied in person or electronically, it adds.
Bedford County School district officials were left “shocked” and “devastated” by the news of Eli’s passing. Working together with his grieving parents, superintendent Tammy Garrett said more social and emotional education programs will be rolled out across local schools.
“Anytime someone takes his or her life, especially a child, it is nearly unbearable,” Garrett said in a statement.
“Our hearts go out to his parents and family as they deal with this terrible loss.”
Now Fritchley’s parents are working to ensure that no child or parent goes through what their family did. “I honestly think education, education, education for everyone where bullying is concerned,” Debbey said, “because it is a problem.
“Not just in Bedford County. It’s a problem everywhere.”
The Fritchley family, with the help of Penalties Sports Bar & Grill, have created a GoFundMe paid to do just that.
Tens of thousands of dollars have poured into the fundraiser to “go towards other kids and families […] so that this terrible tragedy doesn’t have to happen again”, ” fund organiser and family friend Shondelle Lewis wrote.
“As parents and grandparents, it is our responsibility to teach our children to love, not hate; to be kind, not mean; to understand that we are all different in our own ways and that is OK.”
“Hug your children and your grandchildren, tell them this world doesn’t have to be so full of evil because, in the end, evil never wins.”
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact theNational Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
“The Obama Portraits Tour” and “Black American Portraits” exhibits at LACMA not only celebrate portraiture, but also queer Black artists and subjects.
In the West Coast presentation of “The Obama Portraits Tour,” Kehinde Wiley’s Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama are on loan from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through Jan. 2.
Wiley, who identifies as gay, was the first Black artist to paint an official presidential portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery when Obama selected him in 2018.
Wiley’s “Portrait of a Young Man,” his eagerly anticipated reimagining of Gainsborough’s iconic 1770 painting “The Blue Boy,” is on display at The Huntington. Wiley’s work, which takes the name that Thomas Gainsborough initially used, incorporates the Grand Manner portraiture technique and style, but in a contemporary setting.
“The Portrait Gallery’s official portraits of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley and First Lady Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald are powerful works of art,” Michael Govan, LACMA CEO, said in a statement. “The colors and styles of the paintings are a fresh departure from the history of presidential portraiture, and these have become two of the most recognized artworks in the world.”
To complement “The Obama Portraits Tour,” “Black American Portraits” is an exhibit that reframes portraiture to center Black American subjects, sitters, and spaces. It features 140 works mainly drawn from the museum’s permanent collection.
The picture above it showed several Black men who had been lynched.
Another photo asked what someone should do if their girlfriend was having an affair with a Black man. The answer, according to the caption, was to break “a tail light on his car so the police will stop him and shoot him.”
Someone else sent a picture of a candy cane, a Christmas tree ornament, a star for the top of the tree and an “enslaved person.”
“Which one doesn’t belong?” the caption asked.
“You don’t hang the star,” someone wrote back.
The comments represent a sliver of a trove of racist text messages exchanged by more than a dozen current and former Torrance police officers and recruits.
Through interviews with sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, public records requests and a review of district attorney’s office records, The Times examined some of the contents of the until-now secret texts and identified a dozen Torrance police officers under investigation for exchanging them.
The broad scope of the racist text conversations, which prosecutors said went on for years, has created a crisis for the Torrance Police Department and could jeopardize hundreds of criminal cases in which the officers either testified or made arrests. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Wednesday his office will investigate the department in the wake of the scandal.
The officers’ comments spared no color or creed: They joked about “gassing” Jewish people, assaulting members of the LGBTQ community, using violence against suspects and lying during an investigation into a police shooting, according to district attorney’s office records reviewed by The Times.
Frequently, hateful comments were targeted at Black people. Officers called Black men “savages,”and several variations of the N-word, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The officers also shared instructions on how to tie a noose and a picture of a stuffed animal being lynched inside Torrance’s police headquarters, according to the documents.
While no officers currently face criminal charges in direct relation to the text messages, the racist exchanges have led to the dismissal of at least 85 criminal cases involving the officers implicated in the scandal. County prosecutors had tossed 35 felony cases as of mid-November, and the Torrance city attorney’s office has dismissed an additional 50, officials said.
In total, the officers were listed as potential witnesses in nearly 1,400 cases in the last decade, according to district attorney’s records The Times obtained through a public records request. The officers did not necessarily testify in each case, so it’s unclear how many of those cases could be affected.
Still, in the span of one week in November, the Los Angeles County public defender’s office received about 300 letters from prosecutors disclosing potential misconduct by officers implicated in the scandal, said Judith Green, an office spokeswoman.
Prosecutors are reviewing dozens of additional cases linked to the officers, said Diana Teran, a special advisor to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. The review will prioritize active cases in which a defendant is still in custody and one of the officers implicated in the scandal was a “material witness.”
“So that could be, for example, a single police officer is in a patrol car and sees an individual on the sidewalk and then says he had a bulge in his pocket and then pats him down and then recovers a gun,” Teran said. “Without that officer, you couldn’t prove that case.”
Since 2013, the group of officers identified by The Times has been involved in at least seven serious use-of-force incidents in Torrance and Long Beach, including three that ended in the deaths of Black and Latino men, according to police use-of-force records and court filings. Although the officers’ actions were found to be justified in each case, experts say those cases should be reexamined in the context of the hateful messages.
“What those text messages revealed was an extraordinarily hostile attitude toward people of color, people who are nonbinary, people who have different sexual orientations,” said Walter Katz, a former independent police auditor in California who now serves as a vice president of criminal justice for research firm Arnold Ventures. “I don’t know that we can take anything they’ve said at face value.”
Two of the officers under investigation as part of the scandal — Anthony Chavez and Matthew Concannon — are also under investigation for the controversial 2018 slaying of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, a Black car theft suspect they fatally shot while he was holding an air rifle. Chavez and Concannon were cleared of wrongdoing by former Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, but the case is one of several that Gascón has hired a special prosecutor to review for possible criminal charges.
Several of the officers have also been named as defendants in lawsuits alleging excessive force, false arrest and wrongful death, court filings show. In some of those cases, the plaintiffs are members of the same ethnic groups the officers espoused hatred for in the texts.
In addition to Weldin, Tomsic and Chandler, The Times has reviewed district attorney’s records detailing racist texts or images shared by six other police officers: Blake Williams, Brian Kawamoto, Joshua Satterfield, Omar Alonso, Christopher Allen-Young and Long Beach Police Officer Maxwell Schroeder, who is a former Torrance police recruit.
Concannon, Chavez and fellow Torrance Police Officers Andrew Kissinger and Enrique Villegas are also under investigation as part of the scandal, according to three people with direct knowledge of the case and a review of district attorney’s records. The Times did not independently view documentation of racist text messages sent by any of those four officers, though the newspaper did review a document that showed Concannon sent messages that are part of the investigation.
The identities of all 13 officers named in this article were confirmed by three people with direct knowledge of the case and by reviewing district attorney’s records that detailed some of the officers’ comments. Those people spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could candidly discuss an ongoing investigation.
The text messages were not on one continuous thread, according to two of the sources.Additional officers received the texts but did not interact with them in any way, so they are not considered under investigation,those sources said.
The exact number of officers involved in the scandal is unclear. Sgt. Mark Ponegalek, a Torrance police spokesman, could not confirm or deny the identities of the officers involved, but said 15 have been placed on administrative leave in relation to the scandal.
That number did not include Tomsic, Weldin, or Schroeder, he said. The Times identified 13 officers in its investigation, including Tomsic, Weldin and Schroeder, meaning there are an additional five Torrance officers under investigation whose identities remain unknown to the public.
A Long Beach police spokesman said Schroeder was assigned to desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation, but would not say why.
The officers either declined to comment through their attorneys or did not respond to messages left by The Times at their homes or through their union, the Torrance Police Officers Assn., which represents rank-and-file officers. An attorney for the union said the officers were barred from commenting on the investigation.
“The current administrative investigations are confidential. As such, we do not have access to facts of the underlying investigation, or the alleged inappropriate materials. We expect that as police officers, our members should be treated like any other citizen — considered innocent until proven guilty,” the union said in a statement. “Our members have a right to due process and should be protected from illegal and unnecessary intrusion into their private lives.”
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The text messages might have remained hidden if not for the alleged bizarre actions of Tomsic and Weldin in January 2020.
The two officers responded to a report of mail theft in the South Bay city and directed a car linked to the crime to be towed from the scene, authorities said. The pair allegedly spray-painted a swastika and a “happy face” inside the vehicle, according to a criminal complaint.
District attorney’s records reviewed by The Times showed Tomsic sent a slew of racist images and messages, including a picture of former President Reagan feeding a monkey with a caption stating Reagan “used to babysit [former President] Obama.”
Another picture he sent referred to an “African American baby” as a “Pet Niguana,” according to the records, and he also sent a message mocking the fact that he was the subject of a racial profiling complaint.
“So we totally racially profiled his ass, haha … Shopping at 7/11 while Black, he didn’t know the rules lol,” Tomsic wrote, according to the records.
Torrance police officials acquired evidence of the text message threads during their investigation of Weldin and Tomsic, according to Ponegalek, though he declined to give a specific timeline of when they obtained the data.
Gascón said he first became aware of the situation in July, when he was given a briefing about the pending vandalism charges.
“I questioned whether there was any other things that would lead us to believe that this is not sort of a single crime event,” he said. “I actually made some comments about how, generally, when someone does this kind of stuff, there are bigger patterns of behavior. So, I started asking if we had checked for text messages.”
Within weeks, Torrance police provided the district attorney’s office with more than 200 gigabytes of data, which showed the officers had been exchanging racist messages since at least 2018, according to Teran, the advisor to the district attorney. Gascón praised Torrance Police Chief Jeremiah Hart for moving quickly to provide information to prosecutors, noting he met resistance from police leaders when investigating similar scandals involving racist text messages among San Francisco officers.
Gascón said the texts are proof that some Torrance officers hate the communities they were hired to serve.
“It creates a tremendous amount of concern for me. We have a group of officers who, apparently in addition to harboring very biased and racist beliefs, also may be engaging in inappropriate force that could be illegal in some cases,” he said.
In the texts, the officers showed little concern about getting caught and even less about the citizens they were assigned to protect, routinely joking about using force and mocking internal affairs.
“We had to [expletive] her up because we knew he wouldn’t,” one officer wrote in one exchange about an altercation with a female suspect. “Don’t ask me where that lump on her forehead came from though.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to do things your own damn self,” Kawamoto replied, later adding a comment that he wanted to “always make Torrance great again,” a reference to former President Trump’s ubiquitous political slogan.
Kawamoto also referred to Black men as “savages” in the texts, according to district attorney’s records reviewed by The Times.
In another message reviewed by The Times, Alonso complained about the idea of having to work with a gay officer, and said he’d “straight punch” a member of the LGBTQ community, using a common slur for gay men.
Usually, conversations always seemed to circle back to vile insults or depictions of violence against Black people. After one officer shared a news article about someone being arrested for urinating on a Black child and calling them the N-word, Satterfield replied, “what’s the crime?” according to district attorney’s records reviewed by The Times.
From 2016 to 2019, Torrance police upheld just three citizen allegations of police misconduct and zero allegations of racial profiling made against officers, according to data submitted to the California attorney general’s office. Katz, the former independent police auditor, described those statistics as “concerningly low.”
“If citizen complaints are not taken seriously, it does increase the sense of impunity that officers who are inclined toward misconduct have,” he said.
Ponegalek argued that The Times’ analysis was incomplete, as it did not include statistics involving complaints filed by other officers. Torrance police sustained 35 out of 43 internally generated complaints of officer misconduct from 2016 to 2020, Ponegalek said. The department has also hired an outside law firm to conduct a review of the scandal, he said.
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Many of the officers under investigation as part of the scandal also have use-of-force histories involving the communities for which they expressed hatred.
Schroeder used a carotid restraint hold — sometimes referred to as a blood choke — to subdue a homeless Black man in a park in November 2018, according to Long Beach police records The Times obtained through a public records request. Schroeder initiated contact with the man because he was sleeping in a park after it closed, the records show, and used the choke to take him down after an altercation.
Long Beach police officials determined the use of force was justified, the records show. The homeless man was booked on suspicion of resisting arrest, being in the park after dark and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to a Long Beach police spokesman. Long Beach City Prosecutor Doug Haubert did not respond to repeated calls and e-mails seeking information about the criminal case against the homeless man.
According to the district attorney’s records reviewed by The Times, Schroeder sent one message in the texts reading “No Jews, No Blacks,” and made racist remarks about a child eating a watermelon.
Several of the Torrance officers under investigation as part of the scandal have also used serious or deadly force against Black and Latino men while on duty in recent years, according to district attorney’s records.
Chavez, Williams, Satterfield and Tomsic all opened fire on Michael Lopez in 2017 after a vehicle pursuit that started in Palos Verdes Estates. Lopez had been fleeing police in a truck, and the officers said he attempted to ram them when they opened fire, according to a district attorney’s office memo that determined the fatal shooting was justified.
One year later, Tomsic was one of several officers involved in a deadly altercation with Deautry Ross in the Del Amo Fashion Center, according to district attorney’s records. The officers were responding to calls from a mall employee who said Ross was walking through the building with a knife, muttering to himself. Ross fled from Torrance police when they responded, and became violent when they tried to arrest him, district attorney’s records show.
During the struggle, Tomsic said, Ross tried to gain control of his gun, according to a district attorney’s office memo clearing the officers of criminal liability. The officers hit Ross with a Taser and handcuffed him, but he continued to struggle, according to the report, which then described two officers kneeling on Ross’ shoulders.
Another officer then sat on Ross’ legs before others were able to “bind Ross’ arms and legs with a hobble restraint.”
Minutes later, firefighters on scene noted Ross’ pulse was beginning to weaken. He eventually went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. A knife was recovered at the scene.
Medical examiners ruled Ross died of cardiac arrest resulting from methamphetamine use and his struggle with the officers, according to autopsy records.
The most controversial incident involving officers linked to the racist text scandal is the 2018 shooting death of Christopher DeAndre Mitchell. The incident sparked significant protests — including one inside Torrance’s City Council chambers that led demonstrators to file excessive-force lawsuits against several of the officers The Times identified in this article — and remains under review by Gascón.
Mitchell, who was Black, was suspected of driving a stolen vehicle when he pulled into a Ralphs parking lot in Torrance in December 2018, according to a district attorney’s office memo clearing the officers of wrongdoing. Concannon and Chavez pulled in behind him, exited their vehicle and yelled “police!” Mitchell initially placed his hands on the steering wheel, according to the memo, but when the officers approached him, they noticed his hands move toward his lap where Concannon saw what he believed to be a firearm.
The officers repeatedly ordered Mitchell to get out of the car, but he did not comply, according to the report. The officers described the weapon, later determined to be a “break barrel air rifle,” as “pinched” between Mitchell’s legs, though neither alleged he grabbed it or pointed it at them before they opened fire.
Lacey cleared the officers of wrongdoing in all three deaths, but Gascón has reopened the investigation into Mitchell’s killing . He declined to offer a timetable on that review and would not say whether the officers involvement in the text scandal would affect that probe.
Katz said the text messages call into question the credibility of the officers’ accounts of any past use-of-force incidents involving Black or Latino suspects.
In the Mitchell case, that could be especially concerning. According to district attorney’s records reviewed by The Times, Concannon once sent a troubling text message referring to a deposition he gave in an “officer-involved shooting.”
“They believed our lies. Good job sticking to the script,” he wrote. “LMAO, that’s what they call a W.”
According to a Times review of public records, Concannon has shot only one person during his career: Christopher DeAndre Mitchell.
A series of report cards from the Council for Global Equality and F&M Global Barometers that rank countries on their LGBTQ rights records indicate the U.S. continues to lag behind.
The report cards rank the 110 countries that are participating in the White House’s Summit for Democracy that began on Thursday. They specifically rank the nations on 30 specific benchmarks that are grouped together in three categories.
Basic Human Rights:
– No criminalization of sexual orientation
– No criminalization of gender identity or expression
– Freedom from arbitrary arrest based on sexual orientation
– Freedom from arbitrary arrest based on gender identity
– Legal recognition of gender identity
– No physiological alteration requirement for legal gender recognition
– No psychiatric diagnosis requirement for legal gender recognition
– LGBTQI organizations are allowed to legally register
– LGBTQI organizations are able to peacefully and safely assemble
– Security forces provide protection to LGBTQI pride participants
Protection from Violence:
– Ban on gay conversion therapy
– Hate crimes legislation includes sexual orientation
– Hate crimes legislation includes gender identity
– Hate crimes legislation includes sex characteristics
– Hate speech laws include sexual orientation
– Hate speech laws include gender identity
– Equality body mandate exists
– Prohibition of medically-unnecessary non-consensual medical interventions on intersex individuals
– Gender affirming prison accommodations
– Asylum for LGBTQI individuals is available within the country
Socio-Economic Rights:
– Workplace non-discrimination laws include sexual orientation
– Workplace non-discrimination laws include gender identity
– Workplace non-discrimination laws include sex characteristics
– Fair housing non-discrimination las include sexual orientation
– Fair housing non-discrimination laws include gender identity
– Head of state supports marriage equality
– State allows for marriage equality
– State prohibits discrimination in health care based on sexual orientation
– State prohibits discrimination in health care based on gender identity
– Legal classifications, such as an X sex or gender marker, universally available
The U.S. scored 70 percent on the “Basic Human Rights” benchmarks, 30 percent on the “Protection from Violence” benchmarks and 50 percent on the “Socio-Economic Rights” benchmarks.
Malta scored 100 percent on all three sets of benchmarks. Uruguay received a 100 percent score on the “Basic Human Rights” benchmarks, an 80 percent score on the “Protection from Violence” benchmarks and a 90 percent score on the “Socio-Economic Rights” benchmarks.
The report cards the Council for Global Equality and F&M Global Barometers released on Tuesday are based on 2020 data.
The groups will release a second set of report cards in 2022 based on new data. Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley told the Washington Blade the U.S. will have a higher score because the State Department will have begun to offer passports with an “X” gender marker and President Biden explicitly supports marriage equality.
The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled the Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal, which the White House describes as “a landmark set of policy and foreign assistance initiatives that build upon the U.S. government’s significant, ongoing work to bolster democracy and defend human rights globally.” Biden in a speech he delivered at the opening of the Summit for Democracy noted the initiative, among other things, includes programs that seek to empower LGBTQ people.
Federal prosecutors arrested a man Monday who they said threatened to attack this year’s New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk.”
Officials from the FBI and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force announced that Robert Fehring, 74, was charged with mailing dozens of letters threatening to assault, shoot and bomb LGBTQ-affiliated individuals, organizations and businesses, including New York City’s annual Pride festival.
After executing a search warrant at his home in Bayport, New York, last month, law enforcement agents recovered photographs from a Pride event on Long Island this year, two loaded shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, two stun guns and a stamped envelope addressed to an LGBTQ-affiliated attorney containing the remains of a dead bird, federal prosecutors said.
“Fehring’s alleged threats to members of the LGBTQ+ community were not only appalling, but dangerous, despite the fact he hadn’t yet acted on his purported intentions,” Michael J. Driscoll, the assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said in a statement.
A criminal complaint released Monday said Fehring had sent more than 60 threatening letters to members of and organizations affiliated with the LGBTQ community since 2013 and as recently as September.
In many of the letters, he describes LGBTQ individuals as worse than the “bottom of the pig-pen” or states that “even animals know better” than to engage in same-sex activity, according to the complaint.
Notably, the complaint stated that Fehring threatened that there would “be radio-cont[r]olled devices placed at numerous strategic places” at the 2021 New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referring to the massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 people dead and dozens injured.
NYC Pride, which runs New York City’s Pride march, “received threatening letters earlier this year and reported them,” the organization’s executive director, Sandra Pérez, told NBC News in an email.
“We are cooperating in any way we can, and we remain committed to the safety and well-being of the LGBTQIA+ community,” she added.
Prosecutors also detailed an incident in which Fehring allegedly sent a letter threatening the organizer of the Long Island Pride event in East Meadow, New York. The letter called the organizer a “freak” and stated, in part, “You are being watched. No matter how long it takes, you will be taken out…. high-powered bullet…. bomb….knife…. whatever it takes.”
Last month, Fehring waived his Miranda rights and allowed federal prosecutors to interview him, according to the complaint. During the interview, he acknowledged that he authored certain letters under investigation and that he had a general animosity toward the LGBTQ community, according to the complaint.
There is “a sick overdose of that stuff being shoved down everybody’s face on the paper, on the TV and all over the place and I’m not a fan of any of the homosexuality, homosexual thing,” he said.
Fehring is expected to make his initial appearance in court Monday afternoon.
After four years of debate, New Zealand has unanimously passed a self-ID bill for trans people, voting “in favour of inclusivity and against discrimination”.
The self-ID bill was introduced in 2018, and was finally passed by New Zealand’s parliament on Thursday (9 December) after its third reading.
It will remove the requirement for medical intervention to change legal gender marker in favour of a “statutory declaration”.
The changes will come into force in 18 months time, allowing for consultation with the LGBT+ community on how the process should work, how young people can access correct gender markers, and how to be inclusive of non-binary people and different cultures.
According to the NZ Herald, Green Party MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, a cisgender lesbian and longtime trans ally, said: “This bill recognises that those who need to amend their birth certificate can do so, that the courts do not have the right to make that choice for them, that parents do not have that right, that cisgender people who don’t even know them or care about them do not have that right.”
“As a takatāpui, cis-lesbian fem ally to our takatāpui, trans and intersex non-binary whānau, I am very proud to commend this bill to the house,” she continued.
Internal affairs minister Jan Tinetti described the passing of the bill as “a proud day in Aotearoa’s history”, and added: “Parliament has voted in favour of inclusivity and against discrimination.”
She said that trans folk and those who supported the bill had been “hurt, mocked, belittled and discriminated against” during the course of the years-long debate, and continued: “A lot of discussion was aimed at trans women. As a cis woman I am proud to stand alongside my sisters.
“Trans misogyny is still misogyny… We are changing legislation that is truly a step closer to an inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand.
“Keep proudly being you.”
Lagging shamefully behind New Zealand, in the UK, self-ID for trans folk seems like a distant dream.
While the Tory government conducted research as far back as 2018 showing broad public support for reform of the gender recognition, under Boris Johnson, the government announced last year that it was scrapping plans for reform completely.