Again in Atlanta, The Virus Spreading

Police Blotter: An officer was fired, the chief of police resigned, and a restaurant was burned after the shooting death of an unarmed black man in Atlanta over the weekend.

  Even as protests continue over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd three weeks ago, similar incidents keep happening and some cops are resisting calls for change.  

  Friday night the Atlanta cops were called after 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, fell asleep in his car on the drive-through line at a Wendy’s hamburger restaurant. Police video shows that Brooks was compliant until officers tried to handcuff him and then it turned into a wrestling match with Brooks and two cops. Brooks can be seen taking a police Taser and running away. Off. Garrett Rolfe at first tries to shoot Brooks with a Taser, then fires three gunshots at Brooks’s back. 

  Brooks was still alive and moving as Rolfe and another officer stood over him for at least a minute. Brooks, who had four children, died in the hospital.

  Saturday night, protesters had blocked roads and an interstate near the restaurant as several hundred people gathered outside until they started breaking windows and burned it. Protests continued yesterday outside the burned out building.

  The entire SWAT team — the heavy metal guys — of the Hallandale Beach Police in Florida resigned on Friday in response to Police Chief Sonia Quinones kneeling alongside protesters demonstrating against anti-black police brutality. The protest was in part about the SWAT team’s killing of a man in 2014.

  And in New York, an NYPD lieutenant has apologized for taking a knee in sympathy with protesters. Lt. Robert Cattani, said in an email that kneeling with protesters “goes against every principle and value that I stand for.” He said, “The cop in me wants to kick my own ass,” a telling remark.

Sick Call: With warm weather and the bar crowds gathering in New York and the Hamptons, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is threatening a return to lockdown to fight spread of the coronavirus. Warning of a second wave of disease, Cuomo said, “It will come. And once it comes, it’s too late.”

  This morning, 115,732 Americans are dead of the coronavirus, but deaths are down 25 percent over the last 14 days.

  “This virus is not going to rest” until it infects about 60 percent to 70 percent of the population, said Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

  An array of prediction models say that deaths will be over 130,000 by the 4th of July. All models give a range, but on the high end, UCLA, 131,000; Georgia Tech, 143,000; UMass, 142,000; MIT, 136,000; and University of Arizona, 157,000.

Senior Citizen: President Trump was the subject of questions about his health over the weekend after he was seen walking gingerly down a ramp at West Point on Saturday. He took tiny steps like a very elderly man. Trump also appeared to need two hands to raise a glass of water to drink during his speech. 

  The 74-year-old Trump defended himself on Twitter Saturday night saying, “The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is ‘fall’ for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!”

  No, he didn’t run.

The Obit Page: Former FBI Director William Sessions, who served under three presidents from 1987 to 1993, fought racial and gender bias in the agency but was ultimately fired, has died at age 90.Sessions presided over the agency during the disastrous armed confrontations at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas. He tried to get librarians to observe reading habits of visitors to catch Russian spies. 

  Eventually Sessions was accused of using FBI planes to visit relatives and friends with his wife, using agents to run personal errands, and having the agency pay $10,000 to build a fence around his Washington home. Sessions refused to resign and was fired by President Bill Clinton.

The Bulletin Board: Virginia’s freshman Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman, who was criticized for presiding over a same-sex wedding, lost his party’s nomination to challenger Bob Good, a former Liberty University fundraiser who describes himself as a “biblical conservative.” Riggleman’s defeat might make it easier for a Democrat to take the seat in November. — A  study released in the journal Science says the West, like the world’s oceans, is being polluted by tons of microplastic particles spread by the wind. They say the plastic pollution is the equivalent of up to 300 million pulverized plastic water bottles every year. — A US Air Force F-15 fighter crashed into the North Sea off England today. The pilot is missing. —  Senate candidate and former Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach had four guns stolen from his vehicle parked at a Wichita hotel over the weekend. “Secretary Kobach always has at least one firearm with him for personal protection,” his campaign spokeswoman, Danedri Herbert, said in an email to the Kansas City Star. Kobach was the man President Trump put in charge of finding voter fraud. He didn’t find fraud and now he can’t find his guns.

Stop Reading After Headline: “Harvey Weinstein’s deformed penis explained.”

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Thursday, May 2, 2024

Page Two

The Most Corrupt Justice

Monday, October 2, 2023

Democracy and Video in the Dark

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Page Two: Do the Right Thing

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Page Two: Sound Recall

Monday, September 13, 2021

Page Two: Cuomo Must Go

Friday, August 13, 2021

Trump and the Truth

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

The “Great” President

Monday, March 30, 2020

The Wright Stuff

Saturday, February 29, 2020

It's Been Said

"In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have, no excuses."

-Andrew Cuomo, resigning as governor of New York after accusations of sexual harassment

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