GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids police officer who shot and killed Patrick Lyoya following a traffic stop and struggle on April 4 will be charged with one count of second-degree murderthe Kent County prosecutor announced Thursday afternoon.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker says his office is charging Officer Christopher Schurr with second-degree murder for the shooting death of Lyoya.
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Prosecutor Becker made the announcement at a press conference at the Michigan State Police Grand Rapids Headquarters Thursday afternoon.
According to Becker, Schurr has already turned himself in. Records show Schurr turned himself into the Calhoun County Correctional Center just before 2 p.m. He will be arraigned on Friday.
The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday evening Schurr is in the Calhoun County Jail at the request of the Kent County Sheriff. In a statement, the sheriff’s office said this is common in situations where someone previously worked for the jurisdiction where they are charged.
“The elements of second-degree murder are relatively simple. First, there was a death, a death done by the defendant. And then, when the killing occurred, the defendant had one of these three states of mind: an intent to kill, an intent to do great bodily harm, or the intent to do an act that the natural tendency of that act would be to cause death or great bodily harm. And finally, that the death was not justified or excused, for example, by self-defense. Taking a look at everything that I reviewed in this case, I believe there’s a sufficient basis to proceed on a single account of second-degree murder,” Becker said.
Second-degree murder is a felony charge. Schurr faces life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted.
Becker says he plans to prosecute the case and will not recuse himself.
Following the announcement, attorneys Ven Johnson and Ben Crump held a press conference with Patrick’s family.
“The Kent County prosecutor, who has certainly never charged another officer even though there have been a number of shootings with this crime before, how clear he believes this evidence to be,” said Johnson.
Johnson said he will get full cooperation from the Lyoya family and their attorneys. Crump released a statement following Becker’s announcement.
Interactive timeline of events related to the shooting death of Patrick Lyoya:
THE INCIDENT
It’s April 4, 2022. It’s a Monday and it’s raining in Grand Rapids.
Just after 8 a.m., a gold Nissan Altima is pulled over by a Grand Rapids Police officer near the intersection of Griggs Street and Nelson Avenue. The driver, 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya, exits the Nissan.
Body and dash cameras, and bystander cellphone video capture what happens next.
“Stay in the car!” the officer shouts to Lyoya as he exits his police cruiser. Again, “stay in the car.”
Lyoya remains standing on the driver’s side and seems confused as the officer approaches and asks for his license; asks if he speaks English.
“The plate doesn’t belong on this car,” the officer explains to Lyoya.
Lyoya opens the door, speaks to a passenger inside, and after a few moments of silence, closes the car door and begins to walk away without another word. The officer grabs Lyoya’s green sweater, and the two begin to struggle.
Over the next few minutes, Lyoya and the officer wrestle on the lawn of a Griggs Street home. He’s told nine times to stop resisting.
A taser fires – it’s been two minutes since the officer first made contact with Lyoya. He yells for Lyoya to drop the device. Both their hands are on it, the video shows.
Eventually, the officer’s body camera is bumped off and records no more video. The reason for the malfunction is still being investigated.
In other angles of the struggle – a bystander’s phone and a neighbor’s Ring camera – the taser fires again.
“Drop the taser!” the officer shouts another time.
Seconds later, with Lyoya on his stomach and the officer on top of him, the officer reaches back, unholsters his gun, and fires a single shot at Lyoya’s head, killing him.
Lyoya’s body lays limp on the grass.
It’s been a little over three minutes since he and the officer spoke their first words to each other.
Panting, his breath visible in the damp April air, the officer reaches for his radio. He’s standing just feet away from Lyoya’s motionless body.
“1915,” he radios his badge number through heavy breaths, “I was just involved in a shooting.”
As he finishes his call, in the video, sirens start to blare in the background.
THE VICTIM
Patrick Lyoya was born on February 5, 1996, in the Democratic Republic of Congo – the oldest of Peter and Dorcas Lyoya’s six children.
From a young age, Lyoya was active and passionate. He was an avid dancer and a fan of soccer.
“He was a gem in his family and the leader of his siblings,” said a program from his funeral, written in both English and Lyoya’s native language of Swahili. “Patrick loved the holidays when the whole family would get together and celebrate.”
“Patrick was a warm and loving person who would do anything for his family and friends,” it continued.
“Patrick was a loving person, he loved people,” his father told FOX 17 through an interpreter four days after his son’s death. “He was like a brother to me.”
Lyoya left the Congo as a teenager, spending several years living inside a refugee camp in Malawi before moving to the United States at age 18. When he arrived, Lyoya attended Everett High School in Lansing for a short time. Years later, he would tag along with a friend he met in the refugee camp to Restoration Community Church – a small Methodist church within a church that shares a building with Wesley United Methodist in Wyoming.
His pastor, Banza Mukalay, who is also a Congolese native and spent time in a refugee camp himself, says Lyoya couldn’t have been more than 23-years-old when he first walked through the church’s doors.
“He was very ready to change his life and [do] something good,” Mukalay remembers. “He had a future.”
Like the rest of Grand Rapids, on April 13th, Mukalay watched the videos released on livestream by the Grand Rapids Police Department of Lyoya’s killing.
“I was so shocked, because that was far from my mind to feel like Patrick could die,” he said. “What happened to Patrick, it was so discouraging for everybody. Any refugee you talk to they will tell you the same thing. We were very discouraged to see how that happened to Patrick.”
Pictures from rallies:
At a rally in downtown Grand Rapids a few days after Lyoya’s death, Jimmy Barwan stoically listens to the shouts of organizers through bullhorns. He wears a black hooded sweatshirt with Lyoya’s face on the front overlayed with the words “Justice for Patrick.”
Barwan is also a Congolese native, and was so close with Lyoya after the two met in West Michigan, that he refers to him as his brother throughout the interview.
“Every single thing we did, we did it together,” says Barwan. “It’s been a tragedy for all of us. It hurts. It really hurts.”
“We left Africa to come here, to feel safe,” Barwan continues. “Imagine being with somebody and the next day they’re not there no more. Somebody that meant so much to you…a role model.”
Lyoya was also the father of two young children. In another interview a few weeks later, Barwan shows videos of the toddlers kissing their father’s face on a t-shirt. He says they ask for him constantly. But they’re young – one is less than a year old – and Barwan says they still don’t understand their father’s fate.
The April 4 incident that ended in his death wasn’t Lyoya’s first brush with law enforcement.
Court documents show in May of 2017, Lyoya fled the scene of a traffic accident – his license, at the time, was suspended.
In March of 2021, Michigan State Police arrested Lyoya for operating while intoxicated in Allegan County. According to a police report, the trooper followed Lyoya’s car for two miles and observed it fluctuating speeds between 40 and 50 miles per hour. The trooper says the car crossed the center line three times.
A preliminary breath test sampled Lyoya’s blood alcohol level at .223. The legal limit in Michigan is .08.
FOX17 obtained video of the incident, which shows a stark difference from Lyoya’s interaction with police during the April 2022 traffic stop. Lyoya complied with most of the trooper’s requests, although he appeared to be confused about what was happening. He asked, “What did I do?” several times while state police questioned him.
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Three days before Lyoya was killed, a warrant was issued for his arrest on a single charge of domestic violence against an apparent girlfriend.
Ven Johnson, attorney for the Lyoya family, called Patrick’s record “highly irrelevant” to his killing.
“Anything that allegedly is going to be on there, the officer will not have known about,” he said. “You would’ve heard the officer use that in one form or another, like ‘hey man, don’t run away because I know you’ve got a warrant for blah.’ You didn’t hear any of that.”
“It has nothing to do with anything in this instance,” Johnson went on. “In the 36-years I’ve been doing this, I have never had my client’s criminal history – full and complete criminal history – come into evidence.”
Lyoya’s killing devastated the local immigrant community. Mukalay says the shock of the incident has sparked conversations in his congregation and in his own household about interactions with police.
“I have one son, only one,” he says, “and I was trying to see the future of my son in this country. So I said, you must be careful, because we don’t want this to happen and I don’t want you to be in this situation. So you have to be careful.”
THE OFFICER
A photo posted on John Riley’s Facebook page shows the freshly retired GRPD officer, dressed in an untucked short-sleeved button-down shirt, beaming and shaking hands with a uniformed policeman.
“This is a photo of my friend Chris on the day his badge was pinned on,” Riley’s caption reads.
At the time the photo was taken, Riley had been retired from the force for about a week.
“So I literally passed him in the doorway walking out and as he was walking in,” Riley told FOX17 in late April.
The officer he’s shaking hands with in the photo is Christopher Schurr, who joined the force in 2015. On April 25, 2022, he was identified as the officer who killed Patrick Lyoya.
FOX17 obtained Schurr’s record through a Freedom of Information Act request.
It shows two disciplinary incidents, neither of which involved any use of force.
A January 2021 complaint said Schurr drove his police cruiser “carelessly,” resulting in a minor accident. He received coaching and a verbal reprimand from department leadership.
The second complaint is from April 2021. It initially claims that Officer Schurr and another GRPD officer broke into a safe and stole the urn containing a civilian’s grandmother’s ashes following a traffic stop.
Part of that complaint was deemed unsubstantiated. The police department found the search of the safe was warranted due to Officer Schurr seeing a firearm inside the safe through small holes in the bottom of it. Merl’s Towing used a crowbar to open the safe.
Schurr and the other officer were exonerated on the accusation of improper search. Schurr sustained a complaint for “diligence” for not documenting the damage to the safe when opening it.
But between 2016 and 2019, Schurr was also recognized 14 times for his police work, ranging from merits for felony arrests to traffic stops that resulted in the recovery of weapons.
“Just a sharp individual,” Riley said of Schurr. “Empathetic, compassionate, and wanting to help make a difference in the community.”
Riley said Schurr was deeply involved in his faith. Alongside the Facebook picture of the two shaking hands is another of Schurr being fitted for a wedding ring on one of his several mission trips to Africa. In fact, he and his wife were married on one mission trip to Kenya – dressed in traditional Kenyan clothing.
Schurr was also a star track athlete both at Byron Center High School and at Siena Heights University, where he set conference records in pole vault.
“He could’ve gone anywhere,” said Riley. “College track star and so on. But it takes a special person to want to do something to serve the country; serve the community.”
But fellow teammates told the New York Times that Schurr was “a stickler for rules” and would scold teammates for drinking and partying. They also told the Times he was often quick to anger.
Riley, who started Gentle Response, a civilian de-escalation course, one year after retiring, says he’s watched the video and wouldn’t have done anything different than Schurr on that day.
“This was a horrific incident that no one wanted,” Riley said. “Unless you’ve had training and experience you don’t know how you’re going to react in a stressful, confrontational situation.”
THE INVESTIGATION
When Patrick Lyoya was killed, Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom had been in the department’s top job for all of two months.
“I didn’t expect it to happen,” he said of the killing, “certainly didn’t expect it to happen a few weeks into my tenure here.”
“Even in a town as safe as Grand Rapids, and as peaceful, it can happen,” said Winstrom, a veteran of the Chicago Police Department and no stranger to police shooting investigations.
The day of the Lyoya shooting, Officer Schurr was placed on paid administrative leave and the investigation was turned over to an outside agency – the Michigan State Police. It’s a common occurrence when investigating deadly use of force incidents.
Right away, public frustration with the pace of the investigation was obvious. Protestors at several straight days of demonstrations downtown chanted for the release of the officer’s name before it became public, and demanded Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker press charges.
But oftentimes, investigations, especially of a high-profile nature, can move at a snail’s pace.
“Television, a movie, is a little bit different than reality. Everything does not get wrapped up within the hour. It does not work that way,” said Lewis Langham, a Cooley Law Professor, criminal defense attorney, and retired Michigan State Police Detective. “I think everyone wants it to be done correctly. And I think if the prosecutor wants to charge, you wouldn’t want them to be unprepared.”
In the past, Becker has issued charges against GRPD officers. Under Becker, on average, a decision on charges came anywhere from 6-to-8 weeks after an incident.
On April 28, MSP turned over a large portion of the investigation to Becker.
That day, Becker issues a statement saying the report, while appreciated, was still incomplete.
“I will begin to review the materials they have gathered at this time; but I cannot, and will not, make a final decision until they submit all the necessary information,” he said.
A week later, on May 6, the Kent County Medical Examiner released an autopsy for Lyoya. It confirmed what an independent autopsy requested by the Lyoya family three weeks earlier showed: Lyoya died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He suffered no injuries consistent with a Taser.
The autopsy also showed that Lyoya, on the morning he was killed, had a blood alcohol content of .29 – more than three times the legal limit. According to Kent County Medical Examiner Dr. Stephen Cohle, blood alcohol levels from .25 to 3 indicate that person is physically and mentally impaired, as are sensory functions, and accidents become highly likely.
In the statement released on May 18, Becker said he recognizes the investigation appeared to be moving “painstakingly slowly.” Becker stated he decided to seek expert guidance beyond the scope of MSP to help him review the facts and evidence before he makes a decision on whether to charge the officer responsible for shooting and killing Patrick.
“Because of the extraordinary interest in this case, I felt it was important to inform the public that it will take additional time for a final decision. While I may receive the complete MSP investigation soon, it does not mean my decision is imminent,” stated Becker. “I have heard from many members of the public, and I am keenly aware of the impact this situation is having on our community. I thank you for your understanding in this matter, and I ask for your continued patience.”
Even weeks out from the killing, there were still questions that not even Chief Winstrom could answer. He could say that the tasers provided to GRPD, made by Axon, carry two cartridges and also have a close-range feature designed for up-close encounters. Axon also provides GRPD with their body-worn cameras.
Winstrom couldn’t say whether the threat of Lyoya grabbing the taser warranted deadly action by Schurr.
“Tasers are not a deadly weapon per se; they call them an intermediate weapon, which means that it can be deadly under certain circumstances,” said Winstrom, who has previously acknowledged that the only weapons found at the scene on April 4 were Schurr’s firearm and taser.
Winstrom, at the time, also couldn’t confirm how the department’s automated license plate reader flagged Lyoya’s car. The APL system rapidly reads plates and returns information on drivers or vehicles to officers.
Asked what the department could do to earn back the trust of the city’s Black residents, Chief Winstrom was quick to respond. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work on behalf of the police department and it’s going to take a lot of communication,” he said.
THE FALLOUT
April 22, 2022, was a day not unlike the one on which Patrick Lyoya lost his life.
Rain fell consistently throughout the gray morning and a chill hung in the air outside Renaissance Church of God in Grand Rapids.
As people filled the church’s cavernous family center to the brim, Lyoya’s family made their way to the front of the room where Patrick’s casket lay, draped in the vibrant Congolese flag.
“It was not easy to watch,” said the family’s spokesman and interpreter, Israel Siku. “The father was down on the floor. The mom was crying. The younger sister was saying, ‘I don’t think this is the time for you to leave and to go. You didn’t deserve to go. You are sleeping. You are not dead.’”
A few hours later, a black SUV pulls up outside the church. Famed civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton, sharply dressed in a black suit and blue overcoat, steps out into the rain and is swarmed by reporters. Though the two never met, he is a much-anticipated speaker at Lyoya’s funeral.
When asked for his thoughts on the video of Lyoya’s killing, Rev. Sharpton doesn’t break stride while answering.
“It made me feel like I was witnessing an execution,” and he shuffles inside.
From the pulpit, during the service, he is equally as pointed as an organ occasionally punctuates his fervent words.
“You’re going to take your gun out of your holster and take his life, his children’s father, about some car tags?” Sharpton said. “And you thought we wouldn’t come from all over the world and let you know that enough is enough?”
“I cannot have this legal precedent in our country that the equivalent of the value of our lives is some car tags,” he continues to rapturous applause.
On stage behind Rev. Sharpton is renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is leading the representation team for the Lyoya family. Also on stage were the mayor and city manager of Grand Rapids, a handful of local elected leaders, and Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist.
As Lyoya’s casket is led out of the church afterward, his mother wails and watches. She braces herself against someone else to stand. His father Peter stares straight ahead, hands crossed in front of him.
In the days after Lyoya’s death, hundredstookto the streets to call for justice in his name. Things remained peaceful night after night, but people were frustrated.
“I don’t know why this had to happen,” Latisha Cheatham, a protestor, told FOX17. “I wish it didn’t happen and we had to go through this. I wish everyone could get along and love each other.”
“I keep coming out just so we can make a change,” said another demonstrator, Brian Stewart II. “I’m just tired of the same old thing happening over and over again.”
Lyoya’s killing was a culmination for the city’s minority residents. Years earlier, a traffic study that began in 2013 and went public in 2015 showed Black motorists in Grand Rapids were twice as likely to be stopped by GRPD than their non-Black counterparts.
In 2017, GRPD instituted a new policy on detaining minors after handcuffing 11-year-old Honestie Hodges, who was Black. They were pursuing a violent suspect but were at the wrong house. None of the officers were disciplined.
Nine months earlier, GRPD officers held five Black minors ranging in age from 12-to-15 at gunpoint on their way home from a pickup basketball game because one of them matched the description of a suspect involved in a fight earlier that day. The incident received national attention.
“We told our city officials something like this is going to happen if you don’t do something about the police department,” said Aly Bates, an activist, at an April demonstration for Lyoya. “And now look. We were right. And we don’t want to be right in these situations.”
Renewed calls for police reform came almost immediately at the state level.
“Patrick Lyoya should still be alive,” said State Sen. Erika Geiss (D–Taylor) in an interview with FOX 17. “His mother and father and brothers should not be burying him. And we have the ability as lawmakers; as policymakers, we have the ability to change the circumstances around why these things are even happening.”
Abipartisan package of bills introduced last year has never left committee, sitting stagnant in the Republican-led Senate. The dozen bills include measures covering a number of law enforcement issues.
One bill would establish de-escalation training standards for police, and another would put in place use of force policies that would include verbal warnings and exhaustion of alternatives before using deadly force.
Friends and family who are still unable to process Lyoya’s loss have shifted their focus to keeping his name and face alive. In May, Barwan began partnering with local company RegJames Klothing to produce clothes with Lyoya’s name and face on it.
The Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives announced this month that they will archive some of the items in their permanent collection. The Grand Rapids Public Museum is also archiving the clothing, and in the past has displayed James’ designs in exhibits. The GRAMMA has also previously archived other pieces made by Reg James featuring the face of Breonna Taylor, a Grand Rapids native. They’ll also be selling the merchandise at their store and a portion of the proceeds are going directly to the Lyoya family.
“This is something I don’t want to do, I don’t want to do this,” said James at an interview with FOX17 at the GRAMMA, which sits just a block away from the Grand Rapids Police Department on an avenue named for Breonna Taylor.
“How many more t-shirts do we have to make?” said Barwan, seated next to him. “We don’t want to do that.”
WHAT COMES NEXT
Grand Rapids city leaders held a press conference Thursday to outline the next steps in the investigative process.
GRPD’s Internal Affairs unit recently received Michigan State Police’s reports and evidence it collected during its criminal investigation into the shooting.
Now, the unit will conduct a separate investigation to determine if Schurr violated city and/or GRPD rules, procedures and/or policies on April 4.
From there, the city’s office of Oversight and Public Accountability (OPA) will audit MSP and GRPD IA reports and findings.
OPA will then release the findings of its audit and make policy recommendations to city leaders.
“A lot of the work that we’ve done [over the years], I believe has been important work moving us in the right direction,” said Mayor Rosalynn Bliss. “Is that work ever done? Likely not.”
Schurr is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in 61st District Court in Kent County.
His attorneys called the shooting not a “murder, but an unfortunate tragedy,” telling the Associated Press, “Mr. Lyoya gained full control of a police officer’s weapon while resisting arrest, placing Officer Schurr in fear of great bodily harm or death.”
Before the shooting on April 4, Schurr’s personnel record contained two complaints, one of them unsubstantiated, and 14 letters of recognition.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testifies during a hearing by the select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Thursday in Washington.
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U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testifies during a hearing by the select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Thursday in Washington.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The House panel heard on Thursday night from U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who it described as the first law enforcement officer to be injured in the Jan. 6 riot.
It also played video of her being violently slammed to the ground by protesters breaking through a barrier outside of the Capitol, knocking her unconscious — the first of several injuries she sustained that day.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she recalled of the scene, which she compared to a war zone. “There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding, they were throwing up … I saw friends with blood all over their faces, I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage, it was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”
Several law enforcement officers who responded to the riot, as well as family members of those who died as a result, looked on as Edwards described her experience.
Edwards said as the mob grew, she told her sergeant “the understatement of the century: ‘Sarge, I think we’re going to need a few more people down here.'”
The officers on that part of the Capitol grounds grabbed bike racks to try to keep the protesters at bay and buy time for more units to respond.
As officers and protesters grappled over the bike racks, she remembers feeling one come on top of her head and pushing her backwards. Her foot caught on one of the concrete stairs behind her and her chin hit the handrail, at which point she lost consciousness and her head hit the stairs.
Edwards returned to duty after regaining consciousness, helping treat people who were injured and decontaminating people who had been pepper-sprayed. She eventually got back on the line on the lower West Terrace, where she said Officer Brian Sicknick was behind her for roughly half an hour as they tried to hold protesters back.
Sicknick died the following day of what D.C.’s medical examiner ruled natural causes as a result of two strokes. His mother, Gladys Sicknick, was at the hearing and could be seen hugging other officers in attendance.
“All of the sudden I see movement to the left of me, and I turned and it was Officer Sicknick with his head in his hands. He was ghostly pale,” Edwards said, adding that she knew something was wrong because people generally turn red, not white, after being pepper sprayed.
“I looked back to see what hit him, what happened, and that’s when I get sprayed in the eyes, as well,” she said.
Edwards said another officer began to take her away to be decontaminated, but they didn’t get the chance because they were hit with tear gas. The committee also played a clip of that moment.
Edwards could be seen at the end of the hearing embracing Sicknick’s longtime partner Sandra Garza and telling her “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Earlier, the panel played a 10-minute long video that included new graphic footage from the Capitol that day, including provided by a documentarian who later testified.
She suffered a traumatic brain injury in the riot
In her opening statement, Edwards described her dedication to her job of protecting elected officials, and said her patriotism had never been called into question until that day. She recalled spending hours — including on weekends and holidays — in the baking sun and freezing snow making it possible for lawmakers to do their jobs, and shedding blood, sweat and tears defending the building during the riot.
Edwards invoked her late grandfather, a U.S. Marine who fought in the Korean War and lived the rest of his life with shrapnel still inside his body.
“I’m a proud American and will gladly sacrifice everything to make sure the America my grandfather defended is here for many years to come,” she added.
Edwards suffered a traumatic brain injury in the riot, which has prevented her from returning to the Capitol Police’s First Responder Unit, the committee said. She hopes to return to duty later this year.
More than 140 U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers were injured while defending the grounds that day, according to a Thursday statement from the U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee. Four officers died by suicide in the aftermath of the attack.
Gus Papathanasiou, chairman of the Capitol Police Officers’ Union, said officers are watching the hearings and hoping they will prompt Congress to provide the force with more support and resources to deal with the “high threat environment” it faces every day.
He said the number of threats made against members of Congress jumped from around 5,200 in 2018 to more than 9,600 last year, and that a security review found that USCP must hire 884 more officers.
It’s not just a question of hiring more officers but retaining existing ones, he added, urging Congress to address the “stark disparity” in retirement benefits between the USCP and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Papathanasiou said the force is also seeking to hold multiple parties accountable — including its intelligence chief, who remains in her position even after a no-confidence vote, as well as “who perpetrated the attack and those who conspired to make it happen.”
“We trust the Department of Justice will vigorously pursue all those who assaulted our officers and those who threatened the peaceful transfer of power,” he added.
The Democratic chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol said Thursday that the panel will present witnesses describing conversations between extremist groups and members of former President Donald Trump’s orbit.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether there was “going to be witnesses that describe actual conversations between these extremist groups and anyone in Trump’s orbit?” Rep. Bennie Thompson responded: “Yes.
“Obviously, you’ll have to go through the hearings, but we have a number of witnesses who have come forward that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring,” the Mississippi Democrat said.
Thompson did not elaborate on the nature of the conversations, though evidence gathered in the Justice Department’s Oath Keepers and Proud Boys cases shows that both groups stuck close to some right-wing VIPs, especially those they believed they were providing volunteer “security” for on January 5 and 6, 2021.
Joshua James, an Oath Keeper who has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, chauffeured Roger Stone, for instance. Stone also has close ties to prominent members of the Proud Boys, going back years.
During the riot, some Oath Keepers discussed trying to help Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson – though they were not clear whom they were in touch with to learn about Jackson’s status.
And according to another piece of evidence in the case against the Oath Keepers, a lawyer working with the group discussed being in touch with people around the Trump campaign on a recorded November 2020 conference call.
Yet not all the contacts are described so explicitly. One Oath Keeper said as part of his guilty plea that he witnessed group head Stewart Rhodes call an unnamed person the night of January 6, and ask to speak to Trump directly. The person didn’t oblige.
Thompson’s comments came after the panel held its first prime-time hearing, detailing the findings of its investigation and playing new video from closed-door depositions of members of Trump’s team and depicting the violence at the Capitol. The committee introduced the American public to two of the most militant far-right extremist groups in the country, which were present on January 6: The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
These groups were at the vanguard of the riot. They were among the first to breach the building, and are accused of planning violence.
Explaining the committee’s approach to the hearings, Thompson told Tapper that “everything that the public heard tonight is factual. We can prove it. Because as you know, the fact checkers will look at everything that was presented, and we made a conscious effort to only put on what we could prove.”
“So, we put the tweets from the President. We put video from the President,” he continued. “We put everything on, but we put it in an order that the public could now see that even when the President was told by the chief law enforcement officer, that he appointed, attorney general, that there was no fault in the election. Obviously, the people he was listening to were not reputable in terms of looking at the evidence. And so, the President blew him off and started listening to people who had no real ground on the issue.”
Thursday’s hearing was the first in a series this month that will highlight the findings of the panel’s investigation, which included interviews with more than 1,000 people about how Trump and his team tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election on multiple fronts.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – The congressional committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat presented testimony on Thursday showing that close allies – even his daughter – rejected his false claims of voting fraud.
The U.S. House of Representatives select committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, assault also showed graphic footage of thousands of rioters attacking police and smashing their way into the Capitol. It was the first of six planned hearings intended to show that the Republican former president conspired to unlawfully hold onto power.
The Democratic-led committee presented video of testimony from notable Trump administration figures including his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Attorney General William Barr, campaign spokesperson Jason Miller and General Mark Milley.
It also showed part of Trump’s incendiary speech before the attack in which he repeated false election fraud claims and directed his supporters’ anger at Vice President Mike Pence, who was at the Capitol overseeing congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election win – a process the riot failed to prevent.
Some congressional Republicans in the days after the attack condemned Trump, but most have since changed their tune, supporting him and downplaying the day’s violence. Trump himself has gone after Republicans who voted to impeach him for his actions, backing primary challengers to them ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the following two years. read more
Democratic committee chair Bennie Thompson said Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to thwart American democracy and block the peaceful transfer of power.
“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup, a brazen attempt, as one writer put it shortly after Jan. 6, to overthrow the government,” Thompson said. “The violence was no accident. It was Trump’s last stand.”
Barr in videotaped testimony said: “I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I call the bullshit. And, you know, I didn’t want to be a part of it.”
Barr’s view convinced Trump’s daughter.
“I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying,” Ivanka Trump said in videotaped testimony.
Trump, who is publicly flirting with another White House run in 2024, issued a statement before the hearing calling the committee “political Thugs.”
“Aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence,’ the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Well, maybe our supporters have the right idea,'” said Representative Liz Cheney, one of the two Republicans on the nine-member panel and its vice chairperson.
Since leaving office last year, Trump has kept up his false claims that his 2020 election loss to Biden was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by numerous courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.
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Tear gas is released into a crowd of protesters during clashes with Capitol police at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
“We can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that there was fraud in the election,” Barr, who resigned about two weeks before the Capitol attack, said in the video.
Kushner was shown on video dismissing threats by some Trump aides to resign after the riot as “whining.”
The hearing also featured two witnesses who testified in person: U.S. Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards, who sustained a brain injury in the attack, and Nick Quested, a filmmaker who captured footage of the far-right Proud Boys group, accused of helping to plan the attack.
Edwards described insults hurled by rioters at her during the melee but said she was proud of fighting them off even after being injured.
“I was slipping in people’s blood,” Edwards said. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”
“What I saw was just a war scene,” Edwards added.
‘SUMMONED THE MOB’
The mob attacked police, sent lawmakers and Pence fleeing for their safety and caused millions of dollars in damage. Four people died that day, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day. Four officers later died by suicide.
“Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them: That the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president,” Cheney said. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
To her fellow Republicans – who voted to remove her from her House leadership position – Cheney offered a warning: “There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
Cheney noted that multiple Republican congressmen contacted the White House after Jan. 6 to seek pardons for what she said was their role in trying to overturn the election.
Biden on Thursday described the attack as “a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday underscored the partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault. It found that among Republicans about 55% believed the false claim that left-wing protesters led the attack and 58% believed most of the protesters were law-abiding.
Two Republican Georgia state election officials who Trump tried to pressure to “find” votes that would overturn his election defeat will testify at hearings later this month, a source familiar with the matter said. read more
November’s midterm elections are likely toshift the political landscape and impact what President Biden can accomplish during the remainder of his first term. Here’s what to know.
When are the midterm elections? The general election is Nov. 8, but the primary season is already underway. Here’s a complete calendar of all the primaries in 2022.
Today’s primaries: California, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Follow along for live updates.
Why are the midterms important? The midterm elections determine control of Congress: The party that has the House or Senate majority gets to organize the chamber and decide what legislation Congress considers.Thirty six governors and thousands of state legislators are also on the ballot. Here’s a complete guide to the midterms.
Law enforcement vehicles block the road at the scene of a shooting at a Maryland business near Smithsburg, Md., on Thursday June, 9 2022. A man opened fire at a manufacturing business in rural western Maryland on Thursday, killing multiple people before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, authorities said.(AP Photo/Michael Kunzelman)
A tactical police officer walks near where a man opened fire at a business, killing three people before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, according to authorities, in Smithsburg, Md., Thursday, June 9, 2022. The Washington County (Md.) Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that three victims were found dead at Columbia Machine Inc. and a fourth victim was critically injured. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)
Law enforcement works near where a man opened fire at a business, killing three people before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, according to authorities, in Smithsburg, Md., Thursday, June 9, 2022. The Washington County (Md.) Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that three victims were found dead at Columbia Machine Inc. and a fourth victim was critically injured. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)
Law enforcement officials process evidence from one of two cars that were involved in a shooting involving a Maryland State Police officer on Thursday, June 9, 2022 along Mt. Aetna Road near Smithsburg, Md. An employee opened fire at a manufacturing business in rural western Maryland on Thursday, killing three coworkers before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, authorities said. (AP Photo/Timothy Jacobsen)
Law enforcement officials remove evidence from one of two cars that were involved in a shooting involving a Maryland State Police officer on Thursday, June 9, 2022 near Smithsburg, Md. An employee opened fire at a manufacturing business in rural western Maryland on Thursday, killing three coworkers before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, authorities said. (AP Photo/Timothy Jacobsen)
Law enforcement officials gather outside the entrance to Columbia Machine Inc on Thursday, June 9, 2022 near Smithsburg, Md. An employee opened fire at a manufacturing business in rural western Maryland on Thursday, killing three coworkers before the suspect and a state trooper were wounded in a shootout, authorities said. (AP Photo/Timothy Jacobsen)
Law enforcement stages near the scene of a shooting at Columbia Machine, Inc., in Smithsburg, Md., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Tim Jacobsen)
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Three people are dead and another seriously injured after a shooting at a machine shop near Smithsburg, Maryland, on Thursday afternoon.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded around 2:30 p.m. Thursday for reports of an active shooter at Columbia Machine, a manufacturing facility on the 12900 block of Bikle Road.
They found three victims dead at the scene, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Sgt. Carly Hose said at a news briefing. One additional victim was transported to a hospital in critical condition.
In a later news conference Thursday night, Washington County Sheriff Douglas Mullendore identified the victims who were killed as Mark Alan Frey, 50; Charles Edward Minnick Jr., 31; and Joshua Robert Wallace, 30. The injured victim has been identified as Brandon Chase Michael, 42. Mullendore said the victims and the suspect worked at the facility.
Mullendore did not identify the suspect but said that he was a 23-year-old man who lives in West Virginia. The suspect’s name will be withheld as criminal charges are being prepared.
A male suspect fled the scene by car before deputies arrived, the sheriff’s office said. A vehicle description was circulated among nearby law enforcement, and a Maryland State Police encountered him a short time later at a roundabout on Md. Route 66/Maplesville Road and Mount Aetna Road — about 5 miles from the initial shooting.
Bill Dofflemyer with Maryland State Police said three troopers encountered the suspect and when they tried to stop him, he immediately started firing at the police. The troopers returned fire and in the exchange, the suspect was struck and so was one trooper.
“We’re still working with sheriff’s office on what happened and why it kept escalating,” Dofflemyer told reporters.
Gunfire could be heard ringing out on eyewitness footage posted to social media. Mullendore said the suspect used a semiautomatic handgun, which was recovered after the shootout. He declined to specify the caliber or model.
Both the trooper and the suspect were taken to a hospital. Maryland State Police said in a release late Thursday night that the injured trooper — a 15-year veteran of the department — was released after receiving treatment.
Rep. David Trone, who represents Maryland’s 6th congressional district, referred to the incident on Twitter as a “mass shooting” and urge residents to avoid the scene.
We are actively monitoring the mass shooting in #Smithsburg right now, and our office is in contact with officials on the ground. If you’re local, please stay away from the area as law enforcement responds.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, lamented the loss of life in his state so soon after other recent shootings and vowed action.
“Today’s horrific shooting comes as our state and nation have witnessed tragedy after tragedy, and it’s got to stop,” he said in a statement. “We must act to address the mass shootings and daily toll of gun violence on our communities.”
Smithsburg, a community of nearly 3,000 people, is just west of the Camp David presidential retreat and about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Baltimore. The manufacturing facility was in a sparsely populated area northeast of the town’s center with a church, several businesses and farmland nearby.
WTOP’s Abigail Constantino and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Liz Cheney tells Republicans defending rioters: ‘When Trump is gone, your dishonour will remain’
The House January 6 select committee’s first prime-time hearing wrapped up after two hours of testimony, 18 months after the violent Capitol riot.
Included in the bombshell revelations introduced by Reps Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney were that Donald Trump thought then-Vice President Mike Pence ‘deserved’ hanging as rioters had chanted.
Excerpts of interviews with former Attorney General Bill Barr, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner were also played. Mr Barr testified he told then-President Trump that the idea the election was stolen was “bulls***”. Ms Trump said she respected his opinion and had also accepted that.
Ms Cheney said the probe had found multiple House Republicans had sought pardons for their roles in trying to overturn the election; Mr Trump had set off the chain reaction that led to the violence; and he did not contact any part of government to quell the mob.
To her Republican colleagues “defending the indefensible” she said one day Mr Trump will be gone, but “your dishonour will remain”.
The hearing was shown unseen graphic footage of the attack on the Capitol that distressed some in the room, followed by emotional testimony was heard from Officer Caroline Edwards who recalled being injured when the mob turned violent and the “war zone” that followed.
‘He was ghostly pale’: Video shows Officer Sicknick before he died
Video footage of Brian Sicknick, the officer who would die a day after the Capitol riot, was played on Thursday shortly before the committee adjourned for the night.
In the video, a uniformed officer identified as Mr Sicknick is seen holding his face in pain after apparently being attacked with pepper spray. The actual attack itself is not clearly visible.
A final video is played of six of the rioters who pleaded guilty to their actions all saying that they went to the Capitol that day because Donald Trump asked them to go.
Following the video, the hearing is adjourned.
Officer Edwards is seen embracing Sandra Garza the late-Brian Sicknick’s partner.
Officer Edwards remembers telling her commanding officer they would need reinforcements.
She then recalls being knocked unconscious when the Proud Boys knocked through and lifted up the barriers that were set up.
Despite having a head wound she then returned to duty helping decontaminate fellow officers who had been sprayed.
She describes Officer Brian Sicknick with his head in his hands, looking “ghostly pale” — as white as a sheet of paper. She knew he hadn’t been pepper-sprayed as his face would be red.
As she tried to see what hit him, she got sprayed too, and when she went to get decontaminated, she then got tear-gassed.
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards
Asked for a memory of that day, she recalls there were wounded colleagues and “I was slipping in people’s blood, I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage, it was chaos … I’m not combat trained and that day it was hours of hand-to-hand combat.”
Mr Quested recounts his movements and interactions with Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys on 5 January 2021.
Tarrio met in a parking garage with Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, and Mr Quested’s crew filmed that meeting.
The following day he was surprised by the number of Proud Boys present (approximately 200 people he recalls) and that they were walking down the Mall away from where President Donald Trump was speaking, towards the Capitol.
Some of the Capitol police officers present on the day of the January 6 Capitol attack could be seen crying and emotional as the committee showed a shocking compilation of bodycam footage and documentary video on Thursday during the first primetime hearing into the attack on Congress.
Chairman Thompson: “We have obtained substantial evidence showing that the President’s December 19th tweet, calling his followers to DC on January 6th, energised individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups.”
In a video of their investigation into the Proud Boys’ activities that day, the January 6 Committee found that membership in the Proud Boys grew “exponentially” after Donald Trump’s infamous ‘stand back and stand by’ line at his presidential debate against Joe Biden.
GADSDEN, Ala. (AP) — A man who tried to enter an Alabama elementary school where a summer program was being held was shot to death by police Thursday morning, authorities said.
Gadsden City Schools Superintendent Tony Reddick told reporters that a “potential intruder” went to several doors trying to get into Walnut Park Elementary School, where a summer literacy program was being conducted for 34 children. All the exterior doors were locked and the principal contacted the school resource officer when she realized what was happening, Reddick said.
The resource officer confronted a person who attempted to break into a marked Rainbow City police car near the school, according to a statement from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. More officers from the Gadsden Police Department showed up to assist, the statement said.
The person was shot to death after resisting and trying to take the resource officer’s gun, the agency said. The statement, which didn’t mention any attempt to enter the school, didn’t say how many shots were fired or by whom.
The state identified the dead man as Robert Tyler White, 32, of Bunnlevel, North Carolina. Officials don’t know whether the man was a “passerby” or something else, Reddick said.
Authorities didn’t immediately release details including whether White was armed or why he might have been trying to get into the school or patrol car.
While the resource officer suffered minor injuries, no students were hurt and most didn’t realize anything unusual had happened, Reddick said.
“Our primary concern was just making sure that someone who wasn’t authorized to be in our building does not enter and our kids are safe,” he said.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sent a tweet saying school police “immediately took action, faculty inside the building followed safety protocols and all children present were kept out of harm’s way.”
“I commend all involved for acting quickly to protect these children,” it said.
Gadsden is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northeast of Birmingham.
The fight: A slowly regenerating Russian army is making incremental gains in eastern Ukraine against valiant but underequipped Ukrainian forces. The United States and its allies are racing to deliver the enormous quantities of weaponry the Ukrainians urgently need if they are to hold the Russians at bay.
Ivanka Trump, former senior adviser to Donald Trump, displayed on a screen during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Ivanka Trump, former senior adviser to Donald Trump, displayed on a screen during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In a piece of video evidence shared during Rep. Liz Cheney’s opening statement Thursday during the hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter and his onetime White House adviser, reacted to then-Attorney General William Barr saying that the 2020 election was not stolen.
Interviewers asked Ivanka Trump for her reaction to Barr’s statement.
“It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr so I accepted what he said,” Ivanka Trump testified.
The clip was the first time the committee presented any testimony from Ivanka Trump, though more is expected.
The committee will hold six hearings, where it intends to detail a conspiracy by Donald Trump to overturn the election that ultimately led to a violent insurrection meant to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.
Officials in Kent County, Michigan, announced Thursday that a second-degree murder charge has been filed against the officer who fatally shot 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya on April 4. Video of the encounter, in which an officer shot Lyoya in the head after a struggle during a traffic stop, sparked national outrage and calls for the officer to be charged.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said he believes there’s sufficient evidence to support the second-degree murder charge against the officer, Christopher Schurr. The charge is a felony offense which is punishable by up to life in prison with the possibility of parole, Becker said at a Thursday news conference.
Becker said Schurr has turned himself in and will be arraigned on Friday.
Video released by the Grand Rapids Police Department in April showed the officer, who is White, pull over Lyoya, who is Black, for driving with mismatched plates. The video showed Lyoya getting out of the car, despite the officer’s instructions to stay inside. When instructed to get his license from the car, Lyoya appears to ask a passenger to get it, and then tries to walk towards the passenger side of the car.
A still image from cell phone video taken prior to the fatal police shooting of Patrick Lyoya.
Grand Rapids Police Department
The officer is then seen telling Lyoya to stop and grabbing him. The pair struggle briefly, before Lyoya breaks free and the officer chases him on foot. The officer then tackles Lyoya on a nearby lawn, and the pair begin to struggle.
At one point, the officer fires his Taser twice — but Cedar Rapids Police Chief Eric Winstrom said he missed Lyoya both times. As the struggle continues, it appears at some moments that both men have their hands on the Taser.
The officer can repeatedly be heard telling Lyoya to take his hand off the Taser, though the passenger can be heard saying that Lyoya isn’t touching it.
Eventually, the officer is seen getting on top of Lyoya and shooting him in the head. An independent autopsy confirmed he was killed by the shot to his head.
A TV display shows video evidence of a Grand Rapids police officer struggling with and shooting Patrick Lyoya at Grand Rapids City Hall on April 13, 2022.
Grand Rapids Police Department / AP
The videos released by police included the officer’s body worn camera, the dashcam from the officer’s car, surveillance video from a house across the street and cell phone video captured by a passenger in the car. Still, some of the interaction — including the moments just before the shooting — are difficult to discern. At the time of the shooting, the body worn camera had been deactivated, the surveillance video was from a considerable distance and the cell phone was often pointed at the ground instead of the officer and Lyoya.
At a press conference in April, Winstrom said the body camera had deactivated because the button that controls the recording function had been pressed down for more than three seconds during the struggle. He said that based on the video, he believed the two men had fought over the Taser for about 90 seconds before the shooting.
According to the Associated Press, Winstrom said Thursday he would recommend firing Schurr, though he is entitled to a hearing, and the city manager will ultimately make the decision.
Lyoya’s family has condemned the shooting, with his father telling CBS News in April that his son was “killed like an animal.” Peter Lyoya said the family had fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2014 in the hopes of a safer life.
“I came here to save my family,” Peter Lyoya told CBS News. “My son has been killed like an animal.”
“The one [who] was supposed to be protecting Patrick’s life, is the one [who] killed Patrick and take Patrick’s life away,” he added.
In a statement Thursday, Lyoya family attorney Benjamin Crump heralded the decision to charge Schurr as a “crucial step in the right direction.”
“While the road to justice for Patrick and his family has just begun, this decision is a crucial step in the right direction,” Crump said. “Officer Schurr must be held accountable for his decision to pursue an unarmed Patrick, ultimately shooting him in the back of the head and killing him – for nothing more than a traffic stop.”
AUSTIN, Texas – An infant who was declared missing in 1981 after her parents, a Florida couple, were discovered dead in a wooded Texas area was found more than 40 years later by cold case investigators, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday.
Baby Holly, now 42 years old, was located “alive and well” after Identifinders International positively identified the bodies of her parents as Tina Gail Linn Clouse and Harold Dean Clouse Jr. in 2021, investigators said. When the bodies of Tina and Dean were found in the 80s — they couldn’t be identified. Then, last year, a company that offers DNA services to law enforcement was able to positively identify the bodies.
The murders of Tina and Dean were a cold case mystery for four decades. They were last seen by family in 1980 — leaving their home in Volusia County so Dean could pursue carpentry work in Texas. Not long after they left, the couple’s car was returned to their family by ”Sister Susan” — who told the family the couple had joined a religious group and no longer wanted contact.
In 1981, the remains of a couple were found in a wooded area along Wallisville Road in Harris County. Investigators said the couple was likely murdered between December 1980 and early January 1981, News4JAX sister station KPRC in Houston, Texas, reported.
At the time of their deaths, the couple had a one-year-old daughter named Holly, who was not found with her parents’ bodies.
Baby Holly. (NCMEC)
According to a release from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the victims’ extended families began searching for holly. She was recently located in Oklahoma on what would have been her father’s birthday.
It remains unclear what fully happened to Holly four decades ago and how she ended up in Oklahoma.
She has reconnected with her biological family. Her grandmother calls it a gift from Heaven.
“Finding Holly is a birthday present from heaven since we found her on Junior’s (her father’s) birthday,” Donna Casasanta, Holly’s grandmother, said in a news release. “I prayed for more than 40 years for answers and the Lord has revealed some of it… we have found Holly. Thank you to all of the investigators for working so hard to find Holly. I prayed for them day after day and that they would find Holly and she would be alright. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Mindy Montford. We will be forever grateful.”
The family believes Tina Linn Clouse is finally at peace knowing her daughter is reunited with her family.
During Thursday’s press conference, investigators said Holly was dropped off at an Oklahoma church by two women who identified themselves as a nomadic religious group. They were described as wearing white robes and being barefoot. They indicated that their beliefs in religion, including separation of male and female members, practicing vegetarian habits and not using or wearing leather goods.
The women told the church that they have given up a baby before at a laundry mat — it is believed that this particular group traveled around the southwestern United States, including Arizona, California and possibly Texas. There were sightings of this religious group around the Yuma, Arizona area in the early 80s. The woman members would be seen around town at various points, asking for food.
In late December of 1980, or early January 1981, the families of the Clouses received a phone call from someone identifying themselves as sister Susan.
She explained she was calling from Loa Angelas, California and wanted to return the couple’s car to their family and further stated that Tina and Dean had joined their religious group and no longer wanted to have contact with their families. She said they were also giving up all of their possessions. Sister Susan allegedly asked for money in exchange for returning the car to Florida where the family lived. The family agreed but contacted the police and agreed to meet them. Investigators said two to three women and possibly a man wearing robes showed up at the meeting place where police took them into custody. Investigators said they are still looking for the police report.
Investigators said the family who raised Holly are not suspects in this case.
The investigation into Holly’s biological parents’ death is still ongoing. No arrests have been made.
The investigation into the murders of Holly’s parents remains ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Texas Attorney General’s Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit by e-mailing coldcaseunit@oag.texas.gov.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold the first of at least six public hearings in a rare prime-time session Thursday evening to show the American public what they have learned so far about the riot and former President Donald Trump’s role.
The committee chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said last week that lawmakers plan to use a “combination of witnesses, exhibits, things that we have through the tens of thousands of exhibits we’ve […] looked at, as well as the hundreds of witnesses we deposed or just talked to in general.”
CBS News will broadcast the hearing as a Special Report on all CBS stations starting at 8 p.m., anchored by “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell. She will be joined by CBS News chief political analyst John Dickerson; chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa; chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes; chief national affairs and justice correspondent Jeff Pegues; and congressional correspondents Nikole Killion and Scott MacFarlane.
Ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on Thursday, Mr. Biden noted that some Americans will be hearing details of the Jan. 6 attack for the first time.
An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021.
LEAH MILLIS / REUTERS
“And as I said when it was occurring and subsequent, I think it was a clear, flagrant violation of the Constitution,” Mr. Biden said. “I think these guys and women broke the law. … There’s a lot of questions — who’s responsible, who’s involved. I’m not going to make a judgment on that, but I just want you to know that we’re going to probably be, a lot of Americans are going to be seeing for the first time some of the detail that occurred.”
Committee aides said the first hearing will be treated like an opening statement, with committee members sharing their initial findings about the attack. They will also preview the next hearings.
“We will be revealing new details showing that the violence on Jan. 6 was the result of a coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and stop the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, and indeed that President Donald Trump was at the center of that effort,” a select committee aide said. “We’ll remind people of what happened on that day. We’ll bring the American people back to the reality of that violence and remind them just how horrific it was.”
The committee plans to unveil “a whole lot of new material,” including previously unseen documents, video and audio it has obtained. The hearing will feature both in-person witnesses as well as taped testimony from witnesses the committee interviewed during the investigation. These witnesses include Trump White House officials, senior Trump administration officials, Trump campaign officials and Trump family members.
The committee has interviewed more than 1,000 individuals, gathered more than 140,000 documents and received nearly 500 “substantive” tips on its tip line. Members have spent nearly a year reviewing documents and hearing testimony from people ranging from former Trump officials to Capitol police to riot defendants.
Thursday’s hearing will be led by Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, committee aides said. An aide said that Thompson will “place Jan. 6 in a broader historical context and talk about what an aberration that day was in the history of American democracy.” Committee aides said there likely will be opening statements by Thompson and Cheney, followed by “substantive” multimedia presentations and then live witness testimony.
The committee will also make legislative recommendations on how to prevent another attack from happening.
The panel has also scheduled the next two public hearings for Monday, June 13, at 10 a.m. ET and Wednesday, June 15, at 10 a.m. ET.
J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, confirmed to CBS News that he has accepted an invitation to appear before the committee next week. “It will be an honor to testify before the January 6th committee,” he told CBS News.
Greg Jacob, who served as chief counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will also appear at subsequent hearings.
Cheney, one of only two Republicans on the committee, told “CBS Sunday Morning” she is confident what they found as a committee will make the American people wake up and pay attention.
“You know, we are not in a situation where former President Trump has expressed any sense of remorse about what happened,” Cheney said. “We are in fact in a situation where he continues to use even more extreme language, frankly, than the language that caused the attack. And so, people must pay attention. People must watch, and they must understand how easily our democratic system can unravel if we don’t defend it.”
The select committee announced Tuesday evening it planned to call two witnesses on Thursday: Nick Quested, a filmmaker who followed the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, and Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, the first law enforcement officer injured by rioters storming the Capitol grounds. Edwards suffered a traumatic brain injury and has not been able to return to work since the attack, according to the committee.
Quested will likely face questions about the footage he shot both on the days leading up to Jan. 6 and on the day of the attack,when he followed a group of Proud Boys as they stormed the Capitol. The leader and four members of that far-right group are facing charges of seditious conspiracy.
James Goldston, who worked for nearly two decades at ABC News as an executive producer and eventually president of the news division, is helping the committee put together its presentation, which is expected to include audio and video elements.
Committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin told CBS News’ “Red & Blue” in May that the committee divided material up into chapters “that will allow for the unfolding of the narrative.”
The nine-person committee is comprised of seven Democrats and two Republicans. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the committee despite opposition from Republicans to investigate the origins of the attack, which took place after then-President Trump encouraged his supporters to “walk down” to the U.S. Capitol while the Electoral College votes were being counted. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said. In the ensuing riot, five people died, including a Capitol police officer.
Several of Trump’s closest supporters have appeared before the committee, including his children Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and son-in-law Jared Kushner. But others have refused to comply with subpoenas, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and former adviser Steve Bannon, who has been charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the subpoena.
He was arrested on the same day that the House committee investigating the attack was set to open a landmark series of public hearings.
One of Mr. Kelley’s Republican rivals in the primary, Kevin Rinke, a businessman, wrote on Twitter: “My hope is that the F.B.I. is acting appropriately, because the timing here raises serious questions.”
Another Republican opponent, Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor, used the arrest to attack the F.B.I., writing on Twitter that it had become “an arm of the Democrat Party.”
Mr. Kelley’s arrest is the latest disruption in the Republican primary for governor, which is set for Aug. 2. Two of the leading candidates in the race — James Craig, a former Detroit police chief, and Perry Johnson, a wealthy businessman — were dropped from the ballot because of forged signatures on their nominating petitions. Both men recently lost legal challenges to be reinstated on the ballot. Mr. Craig and Mr. Johnson are among five Republican candidates in the race who were declared ineligible.
Mr. Kelley is among the remaining five candidates vying to challenge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in the general election this fall. Mr. Kelley has raised a fraction of the amount of money as some of the other candidates in the race.
Mr. Kelley, a real estate broker in a suburb of Grand Rapids, was the lead organizer of an armed protest against pandemic lockdown measures at the Michigan Statehouse in April 2020. In June that year, he called together about 50 militiamen to square off against a few dozen Black Lives Matter protesters over a statue of a Confederate soldier in his town.
BAKHMUT, Ukraine (AP) — Two British citizens and a Moroccan were sentenced to death Thursday for fighting on Ukraine’s side, in a punishment handed down by the country’s pro-Moscow rebels.
The proceedings against the three captured fighters were denounced by Ukraine and the West as a sham and a violation of the rules of war.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to liken himself to conquering monarch Peter the Great and spoke of his country’s need to “take back” territory and reinforce itself as the Kremlin’s forces continued a grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine.
A court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in Ukraine found the three fighters guilty of seeking the violent overthrow of power, an offense punishable by death in the unrecognized eastern republic. The men were also convicted of mercenary activities and terrorism.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported that the men — identified as Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun — will face a firing squad. They have a month to appeal.
The separatist side argued that the three were “mercenaries” not entitled to the usual protections accorded prisoners of war. The men are the first foreign fighters sentenced by Ukraine’s Russian-backed separatists.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko condemned the proceedings as legally invalid, saying, “Such show trials put the interests of propaganda above the law and morality.” He said that all foreign citizens fighting as part of Ukraine’s armed forces should be considered Ukrainian military personnel and protected as such.
British Foreign Secretary Luz Truss pronounced the sentencing a “sham judgment with absolutely no legitimacy.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman Jamie Davies said that under the Geneva Conventions, POWs are entitled to immunity as combatants.
Saadoun’s father, Taher Saadoun, told the Moroccan online Arab-language newspaper Madar 21 that his son is not a mercenary and that he holds Ukrainian citizenship.
Aslin’s and Pinner’s families have said that the two men were long-serving members of the Ukrainian military. Both are said to have lived in Ukraine since 2018.
The three men fought alongside Ukrainian troops before Pinner and Aslin surrendered to pro-Russian forces in the southern port of Mariupol in mid-April and Saadoun was captured in mid-March in the eastern city of Volnovakha.
Another British fighter taken prisoner by the pro-Russian forces, Andrew Hill, is awaiting trial.
The Russian military has argued that foreign mercenaries fighting on Ukraine’s side are not combatants and should expect long prison terms, at best, if captured.
As the war raged in a key city in Ukraine’s Donbas region and other parts of the country, Russia’s president drew parallels between Peter the Great’s founding of St. Petersburg and modern-day Russia’s ambitions.
When Peter founded the new capital, “no European country recognized it as Russia. Everybody recognized it as Sweden,” Putin said. He added: “What was (Peter) doing? Taking back and reinforcing. That’s what he did. And it looks like it fell on us to take back and reinforce as well.”
Putin also appeared to leave the door open for further Russian territorial expansion.
“It’s impossible — Do you understand? — impossible to build a fence around a country like Russia. And we do not intend to build that fence,” the Russian leader said.
Russian forces continued to pound the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk in fierce, street-by-street combat that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said could determine the fate of the Donbas, the country’s industrial heartland of coal mines and factories.
Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for years in the Donbas and held swaths of territory before the invasion.
“Fierce battles continue in the city itself. Street battles are taking place with varied success in city blocks,” Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk province. “The army of Ukraine is fighting for every street and house.”
Sievierodonetsk is part of the very last pocket of Luhansk that the Russians have yet to seize. The Donbas is made up of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a Facebook post that up to 100 Ukrainian troops are being killed every day. “We as a country can’t afford to bleed, losing our best sons and daughters,” he said.
In other developments:
— Haidai said Russian forces are also targeting Lysychansk, the city that neighbors Sievierodonetsk, with “day and night shelling,” and are trying to storm a key road leading from Lysychansk to the southwest.
— Russian troops are trying to resume their offensive to completely capture the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine’s southeast, Ukrainian authorities said. Kyiv continues to hold the northern part of the region, including the city of Zaporizhzhia.
— Thirteen civilians were killed in Ukrainian shelling of the separatist-controlled city of Stakhanov in the Luhansk region, a pro-Russian separatist envoy said on social media. It was not immediately possible to verify the claim.
— Russia claimed it used missiles to strike a base west of the capital in the Zhytomyr region, where, it said, mercenaries were being trained. There was no immediate response from Ukrainian authorities.
Two Uvalde Police Department officers, a lieutenant and a sergeant, were shot and suffered grazing wounds after they tried to peer through a window in one of the classroom doors, the surveillance footage showed. The entire group of officers who had arrived by then sought cover down the hallway.
No one would approach the classroom doors again, the video showed, for more than 40 minutes, though well-armed officers began quickly arriving.
Fifteen children had come to class in Room 111 that Tuesday, according to the documents, along with one teacher, Arnulfo Reyes. Eleven of the children died in the shooting, three were uninjured, and one was wounded. Mr. Reyes was shot but survived.
In Room 112, which is connected internally by a thin blue door, there were 18 students and two teachers, Ms. Garcia and the teacher who had called her husband after being shot, Eva Mireles. Nine children were wounded but survived and one was listed as uninjured, according to the documents.
Ms. Mireles’s husband, Ruben Ruiz, who worked for Chief Arredondo as one of six uniformed members of the Uvalde school district’s Police Department, had rushed to the school, and it is now clear from the documents that he informed the responders on scene that his wife was still alive in one of the classrooms.
“She says she is shot,” Officer Ruiz could be heard telling other officers as he arrived inside the school at 11:48 a.m., according to the body camera transcript.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department is opening a sweeping civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police amid mounting evidence that the agency has a pattern of looking the other way in the face of beatings of mostly Black men, including the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene.
The federal “pattern-or-practice” probe announced Thursday followed an Associated Press investigation that found Greene’s arrest was among at least a dozen cases over the past decade in which state police troopers or their bosses ignored or concealed evidence of beatings, deflected blame and impeded efforts to root out misconduct. Dozens of current and former troopers said the beatings were countenanced by a culture of impunity, nepotism and, in some cases, outright racism.
“We find significant justification to open this investigation now. … We received information of the repeated use of excessive force, often against people suspected of minor traffic offenses, who are already handcuffed or are not resisting,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department’s civil rights division. She added there were also reports of troopers targeting Black residents in traffic enforcement and using “racial slurs and racially derogatory terms.”
The federal probe, the first such action against a statewide law enforcement agency in more than two decades, comes more than three years after white troopers were captured on long-withheld body-camera video beating, stunning and dragging Greene on a rural roadside near Monroe. Despite lengthy, ongoing federal and state criminal investigations into a death troopers initially blamed on a car crash, no one has been charged.
AP’s reporting found troopers have made a habit of turning off or muting body cameras during pursuits. When footage is recorded, the agency has routinely refused to release it. And a recently retired supervisor who oversaw a particularly violent clique of troopers told internal investigators last year that it was his “common practice” to rubber-stamp officers’ use-of-force reports without ever reviewing body-camera video.
In some cases, troopers omitted uses of force such as blows to the head from official reports, and in others troopers sought to justify their actions by claiming suspects were violent, resisting or escaping, all of which were contradicted by video footage.
“This systemic misconduct was blessed by top brass at the Louisiana State Police,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. She described a “culture of violence, terror, and discrimination” within the agency, calling Greene’s death “the tip of the iceberg.”
Clarke said the civil “pattern-or-practice” probe is aimed at driving needed reforms, if necessary by suing to implement a federal consent decree. She added that Gov. John Bel Edwards and the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, Lamar Davis, have pledged their cooperation.
Davis, in an internal email obtained by AP, told troopers to “hold your heads high” and embrace the federal scrutiny. “We have nothing to hide and can only benefit from learning,” he wrote.
Edwards issued a statement Thursday welcoming the investigation. “It is deeply troubling that allegations of systemic misconduct exist that would warrant this type of investigation,” he said, “but it is absolutely critical that all Louisianans, especially African-Americans and other people of color, have their faith, confidence and trust in public safety officers restored.”
Black leaders have been urging the Justice Department for months to launch a broader investigation into potential racial profiling by the overwhelmingly white state police, similar to other probes opened over the past year in Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix.
By its own tally, 67% of state police uses of force in recent years were against Black people, who make up 33% of the state’s population.
The action comes as Edwards prepares to testify before a bipartisan panel of state lawmakers investigating Greene’s death. AP reported last month that the Democratic governor and his lawyers privately watched video showing Greene taking his final breaths during his fatal arrest — footage that didn’t reach prosecutors until nearly two years after Greene’s May 10, 2019, death.
Federal prosecutors also are still investigating whether police brass obstructed justice to protect troopers in the Greene case — and whether they sought to conceal evidence of troopers beating other Black motorists.
The head of the state police at the time of Greene’s arrest, Kevin Reeves, has denied the death was covered up but current commanders have told lawmakers investigating the state’s response that it was. The agency’s own use-of-force expert called what troopers did to Greene “ torture and murder.”
The AP also found that a former trooper implicated in three separate beatings, Jacob Brown, tallied 23 uses of force dating to 2015, 19 of which involved Black people. In one case that resulted in federal charges, Brown was seen on body-camera video beating Aaron Larry Bowman 18 times with a flashlight after deputies pulled him over for a traffic violation in 2019. State police didn’t investigate the attack until 536 days later, and only did so after a lawsuit from Bowman, who was left with a gash to the head and a broken jaw, ribs and wrist.
“Finally!!!” Bowman’s attorney, Donecia Banks-Miley, said in a text message upon hearing of the pattern-or-practice probe. “We still need transparency and accountability to help bring restoration to the pain that continues to occur with LSP and other law enforcement agencies.”
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Bleiberg reported from Uvalde, Texas.
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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/
Ryan Kelly, Republican candidate for governor, attends a Freedom Rally in support of First Amendment rights and to protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on May 15, 2021.
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
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JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Ryan Kelly, Republican candidate for governor, attends a Freedom Rally in support of First Amendment rights and to protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, outside the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on May 15, 2021.
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Michigan candidate for governor, Ryan Kelley, faces misdemeanor criminal charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the U.S. capitol.
Kelley was arrested by the FBI Thursday at his home in Allendale in western Michigan. He is scheduled to appear later today at the U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Documents say that Kelley was part of a crowd that tried to disrupt the certification of President Joe Biden as the winner of the November election. The evidence includes photos and videos of the insurrection that were posted online.
Kelley is a Republican candidate for governor who will appear on the August statewide primary ballot. That’s not the case for numerous other Republicans who were accused of submitting fraudulent signatures and were dropped from the ballot.
The criminal complaint alleges that Kelley, among other things, knowingly entered and engaged in disorderly conduct in restricted buildings or grounds and engaged in an act of physical violence against a person or property.
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