theintercept--2020-05-31--Animal Rights Activists Uncover the Locations of Thousands of Factory Farms

published an interactive map on Sunday revealing the locations of more than 27,500 farms and animal agriculture facilities , including 5,812 identified using satellite imagery , many of which do not appear in public records .
Users will be able to pin new locations to the map , known as Project Counterglow , and attach photos and videos documenting animal cruelty and health violations .
The animal agriculture industry has spent decades fighting to avoid the disclosure of information about facilities where animals are raised for food .
The map is meant to offer a rare bird ’ s-eye view @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while also providing a research tool for activist investigators .
Kecia Doolittle , the leader of the team that created the map , is an animal rights activist who has participated in a number of farm investigations herself .
Footage uncovered by Doolittle and others over the years has revealed conditions such as overcrowding ; wounded , sick , and dead animals left in pens with the living ; painful procedures like tail removal and castration without anesthesia ; and physical abuse by farmers , at times resulting in boycotts or criminal charges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reported on Friday , activists with the organization Direct Action Everywhere captured footage of a harrowing mass kill method called ventilation shutdown .
The closure of meatpacking plants due to Covid-19 outbreaks has left farmers with nowhere to take mature livestock ; in response , they have exterminated millions of animals .
One particularly torturous tactic involves corralling pigs into a barn , closing the doors and windows , and shutting down the ventilation system .
“ This causes the buildup of excessive temperature and moisture from body heat and respiration of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” according to guidelines from the American Association of Swine Veterinarians , which endorses ventilation shutdown in “ constrained circumstances.
” Doolittle said that despite her knowledge of the industry ’ s brutal practices , this method caught her off guard .
“ I didn ’ t believe it was real , ” she said .
To Doolittle , the use of ventilation shutdown should be a call to action , and more than images are needed .
“ There ’ s already lots of bad pictures of pigs on the internet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Project Counterglow map will be a place where activists can share information and tactics , feeding a movement of smaller-scale farm investigations carried out as acts of civil disobedience .
If a similar project in Australia is any indication , backlash against the map ’ s creators could be significant .
Project Counterglow began as a partnership with the organization Aussie Farms , whose Farm Transparency Map launched last year to the outrage of the farming industry .
Its release led to the passage of federal legislation in Australia that criminalized the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to incite trespass on a farm .
Project Counterglow is launching in the wake of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that labeled meat-processing plants as “ critical infrastructure ” and ordered the secretary of agriculture to “ take all appropriate action ” to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations , apparently at the expense of workers ’ health .
The move came after intensive lobbying by meat companies and farmers , who are now pushing for financial aid to help them “ depopulate ” herds that have grown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocates , the pandemic has only highlighted the need for better transparency around animal enterprises .
“ I think it ’ s critically important to public health and the health of the food chain and the climate that some level of accountability and transparency take place while the federal government is shielding these industries and deregulating them , ” said Lauren Regan , a longtime attorney for animal rights activists and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center .
“ Advocating for investigations is not criminal activity , ” she added .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuel industry or the animal industry , when big producers are at threat of losing profits , they take repression to the max.
” As Dangerous as It Sounds The animal agriculture industry has become highly consolidated over the last 50 years .
Around 40 percent of livestock today are raised in concentrated animal feeding operations , known as CAFOs , that house at least 1,000 beef cattle , 2,500 pigs weighing 55 pounds or more , or 125,000 chickens .
Yet pressure from industry assured that the regulatory system would not keep @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Environmental Protection Agency , approximately 60 percent of CAFOs hold no environmental permits — operators are only required to obtain a clean water permit when they admit to discharging waste into federally regulated waters .
In 2008 , a Government Accountability Office report noted that “ no federal agency collects accurate and consistent data on the number , size , and location of CAFOs.
” As a result , the EPA “ does not have the information that it needs to effectively regulate these operations.
” Despite a lengthy legal fight by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ map the secretive industry , little has changed since then .
The Natural Resources Defense Council spent the better part of the last decade attempting to learn exactly how much the EPA knows about the 17,000 CAFOs the agency counted in 2012 .
The organization sought the EPA ’ s records of facility locations , the number of animals they held , the volume of waste they produced , and how they disposed of that waste .
“ The industry cried foul and claimed that we were trying to get personal info about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a staff attorney with the NRDC .
“ They talked a lot about the fact that individuals tend to live at the facilities , which is distinct from other industries .
We don ’ t need to know where people live — this is about dangerous facilities — where they are and what it does to the neighbors and the waterways.
” The NRDC was able to obtain data on 7,595 facilities , but the EPA could provide no information about nearly 10,000 other operations , other than the fact that they existed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ multiple ethics investigations in 2018 , Trump EPA head Scott Pruitt doubled down on the secrecy surrounding CAFOs , signing a settlement agreement with agribusiness limiting the agricultural data that the environmental agency will give out .
The public health consequences of the lack of transparency are significant .
Some of the largest CAFOs produce more waste in a year than the city of Philadelphia .
A Duke University study found that North Carolina residents living near hog CAFOs die at higher rates than people in other parts of the state , even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have implications when it comes to Covid-19 as well .
Respiratory problems linked to factory farming like lung disease and asthma are risk factors for more severe coronavirus symptoms , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
The fact that many Covid-19 patients are contracting secondary bacterial infections makes the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in pig farming communities all the more worrisome , Baron noted .
“ All along the chain that is controlled by these corporations , you have people ’ s lives and livelihoods at risk .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s going into the facility every day without proper personal protective equipment and being exposed to these harms ; it could be a slaughterhouse worker who is at a very high risk of contracting Covid for lack of PPE , or it could be the USDA inspectors forced back to work before the facility is properly secured , ” said Baron .
Meatpacking plants have been the source of multiple community outbreaks , and so far at least 70 workers have died .
Baron said the lack of transparency and regulation is particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The remains of pigs are often disposed of on site , at times buried or burned in massive pits .
“ Dumping a huge number of dead animals and trying to dispose of them in a field is as dangerous as it sounds , especially where people rely on well water , ” Baron said .
“ It ’ s still unfolding , and I have a concern that it ’ s not going to be as transparent as it should be.
” If you were to look down at pig CAFOs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long , evenly spaced rectangular barns alongside square waste lagoons , sometimes red , sometimes black .
Dairy farms , meanwhile , can be recognized by what look like open-faced Oreo cookies — tires on top of white tarps that cover cow feed .
Most of the data for Project Counterglow came from mining state regulatory databases , business directories , and information gathered by activists .
But in addition to collecting data by hand , the team also used artificial intelligence software to scan satellite images for potential facilities .
The tool @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adept at recognizing CAFOs .
Project Counterglow ’ s use of artificial intelligence was inspired by a paper published in Nature Sustainability by two academics from Stanford , who argued that deep machine learning could significantly reduce the costs of regulating CAFOs .
They estimated that it would take two days to fully document all the CAFOs in the state of North Carolina using AI , while a specialist would need to scan Google Maps full-time for six weeks to manually complete the same task .
Using AI , the academics were able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the state than the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance had identified in previous manual mapping efforts .
Similarly , the activists who built Project Counterglow ’ s map could find no records linked to many of the facilities they found using Lucy , and what they did find in public records at times seemed to further obscure animal exploitation activities .
For each location record , Project Counterglow ’ s creators examined satellite imagery to determine if the site actually involved animal agriculture .
In numerous of cases , the reviewers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ near the recorded addresses , which instead included homes in residential areas or buildings in office parks .
In other cases , Doolittle said , multiple contiguous farms seemed to be connected to the same owner , registered under LLCs or the names of a farmer ’ s family members .
Such arrangements could allow farmers to evade environmental permits , which are required once the number and weight of animals on a given farm reach a certain threshold .
Watchdogs have tracked a wider trend in which CAFO owners set up multiple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ litigation .
“ I think the animal rights movement is really misguided in how much they ’ re focused on veganism and food and not enough about the systemic issues , because those are almost as jaw-dropping , ” Doolittle said .
“ It ’ s scandalous how corrupt it is.
” The animal rights activists ’ map is distinct from past CAFO transparency projects in that it includes the plot points of newly identified facilities and invites users to add content .
Once Lucy finds a potential CAFO , a human must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong , which strengthens Lucy ’ s ability to make accurate identifications .
Now that the map is live , the task will be crowdsourced .
To Doolittle , giving people concerned with animal exploitation a means to get involved is key .
“ The goal for me is that there ’ s an organizing element where people can take action based on what they ’ re finding , ” she said .
Activists carry out extensive research in advance of farm investigations , searching for a facility linked to a high-profile corporation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a politician advancing harmful policies .
“ You ’ re trying to shame someone publicly — someone that matters , ” Doolittle said , underlining that Project Counterglow is not anti-farmer and the goal is not to go after “ Joe Schmoe ’ s farm , ” as she put it .
The project is meant to act as a clearinghouse for research and footage collected in the course of such investigations .
In addition to the map , a sister website called Papertrail will serve as a kind of Wikipedia for animal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ farms , tutorials describing best practices for carrying out investigations , and information about particular health threats linked to animal agriculture .
Doolittle sees legal risk as an unavoidable part of exposing a powerful and abusive industry .
Project Counterglow moderators will monitor the site for misinformation posted by police or industry infiltrators , and users will be able to send material anonymously through Mozilla ’ s encrypted file transfer service .
But the map has sacrificed perfect security for accessibility .
“ There ’ s always a possibility that they could throw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Doolittle said , referencing the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act .
The U.S. has a long history of going after activists for capturing images inside farms or posting information about animal rights actions online .
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act , a federal law that criminalizes “ interference ” in the activities of entities with a connection to an animal enterprise , was passed in response to the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty website , which posted information about the laboratory research of Huntingdon Life Sciences and protest actions targeting the company ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ served prison sentences after being accused of encouraging and publicizing radical tactics .
One particularly extreme provision criminalizing filming in agricultural facilities was left out of the federal law that ultimately passed , but elected officials in more than two dozen states picked up the idea and introduced so-called ag-gag laws .
Laws in Idaho , Utah , Kansas , and Wyoming have since been overturned as unconstitutional .
In Iowa , soon after a judge found the state ’ s ag-gag law unconstitutional , the legislature passed a new one .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while another legal challenge moves through the courts .
Ag-gag laws in Montana , North Dakota , Missouri , Arkansas , Alabama , and North Carolina remain in place .
Regan maintains that ag-gag laws and AETA primarily serve to discourage dissent .
“ AETA has mostly been used to chill activism rather than prosecute it , ” she said .
“ Regardless of repression , animal rights activism has continued unabated and I think will continue.
” Indeed , the legislative efforts have failed to halt the growth of a newly confrontational @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aussie Farms released its map in January 2019 to immediate controversy .
The project was the brainchild of Chris Delforce , the activist behind the film “ Dominion , ” which featured disturbing footage from inside animal agriculture facilities and helped fuel disruptive protest actions .
In response to the map , Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the passage of new anti-protest legislation a key promise in his campaign for reelection .
He delivered .
Last September , to fanfare from the animal agriculture industry , new federal criminal code amendments made using @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agricultural facility punishable by a year of imprisonment , or five years if the page incited property damage or theft .
Two months later , the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission revoked Aussie Farms ’ charity status .
The site , however , remains live .
And in the U.S. , Iowa ’ s ag-gag laws failed to prevent activists from obtaining the ventilation shutdown footage .
The images reveal a large pen of lively pigs before steam obscures the camera and the animals begin to screech .
When the steam clears , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bodies — a portrait of the consequences of unregulated industrial agriculture .
“ Is there a point at which it will have gone too far ?
It proves that there ’ s not , ” Doolittle said of the footage .
But , she added , “ I hope it pushes us closer to some kind of climactic moment .
”

Animal rights activists published an interactive map on Sunday revealing the locations of more than 27,500 farms and animal agriculture facilities, including 5,812 identified using satellite imagery, many of which do not appear in public records. Users will be able to pin new locations to the map, known as Project Counterglow, and attach photos and videos documenting animal cruelty and health violations. The animal agriculture industry has spent decades fighting to avoid the disclosure of information about facilities where animals are raised for food.
The map is meant to offer a rare bird’s-eye view of the scale of the industry, while also providing a research tool for activist investigators. Kecia Doolittle, the leader of the team that created the map, is an animal rights activist who has participated in a number of farm investigations herself. Footage uncovered by Doolittle and others over the years has revealed conditions such as overcrowding; wounded, sick, and dead animals left in pens with the living; painful procedures like tail removal and castration without anesthesia; and physical abuse by farmers, at times resulting in boycotts or criminal charges.
Most recently, as The Intercept reported on Friday, activists with the organization Direct Action Everywhere captured footage of a harrowing mass kill method called ventilation shutdown. The closure of meatpacking plants due to Covid-19 outbreaks has left farmers with nowhere to take mature livestock; in response, they have exterminated millions of animals. One particularly torturous tactic involves corralling pigs into a barn, closing the doors and windows, and shutting down the ventilation system. “This causes the buildup of excessive temperature and moisture from body heat and respiration of the animals and results in death from hyperthermia,” according to guidelines from the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, which endorses ventilation shutdown in “constrained circumstances.”
Doolittle said that despite her knowledge of the industry’s brutal practices, this method caught her off guard. “I didn’t believe it was real,” she said. To Doolittle, the use of ventilation shutdown should be a call to action, and more than images are needed. “There’s already lots of bad pictures of pigs on the internet,” she said. She hopes the Project Counterglow map will be a place where activists can share information and tactics, feeding a movement of smaller-scale farm investigations carried out as acts of civil disobedience.
For many animal welfare advocates, the pandemic has only highlighted the need for better transparency around animal enterprises.
If a similar project in Australia is any indication, backlash against the map’s creators could be significant. Project Counterglow began as a partnership with the organization Aussie Farms, whose Farm Transparency Map launched last year to the outrage of the farming industry. Its release led to the passage of federal legislation in Australia that criminalized the use of a website or social media to incite trespass on a farm.
Project Counterglow is launching in the wake of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that labeled meat-processing plants as “critical infrastructure” and ordered the secretary of agriculture to “take all appropriate action” to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations, apparently at the expense of workers’ health. The move came after intensive lobbying by meat companies and farmers, who are now pushing for financial aid to help them “depopulate” herds that have grown too large.
For many animal welfare advocates, the pandemic has only highlighted the need for better transparency around animal enterprises. “I think it’s critically important to public health and the health of the food chain and the climate that some level of accountability and transparency take place while the federal government is shielding these industries and deregulating them,” said Lauren Regan, a longtime attorney for animal rights activists and executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center.
“Advocating for investigations is not criminal activity,” she added. “Whether it’s the fossil fuel industry or the animal industry, when big producers are at threat of losing profits, they take repression to the max.”
As Dangerous as It Sounds
The animal agriculture industry has become highly consolidated over the last 50 years. Around 40 percent of livestock today are raised in concentrated animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, that house at least 1,000 beef cattle, 2,500 pigs weighing 55 pounds or more, or 125,000 chickens. Yet pressure from industry assured that the regulatory system would not keep up with the changes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 60 percent of CAFOs hold no environmental permits — operators are only required to obtain a clean water permit when they admit to discharging waste into federally regulated waters.
In 2008, a Government Accountability Office report noted that “no federal agency collects accurate and consistent data on the number, size, and location of CAFOs.” As a result, the EPA “does not have the information that it needs to effectively regulate these operations.” Despite a lengthy legal fight by environmental organizations and attempts by researchers to map the secretive industry, little has changed since then.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The Natural Resources Defense Council spent the better part of the last decade attempting to learn exactly how much the EPA knows about the 17,000 CAFOs the agency counted in 2012. The organization sought the EPA’s records of facility locations, the number of animals they held, the volume of waste they produced, and how they disposed of that waste. “The industry cried foul and claimed that we were trying to get personal info about them,” said Valerie Baron, a staff attorney with the NRDC. “They talked a lot about the fact that individuals tend to live at the facilities, which is distinct from other industries. We don’t need to know where people live — this is about dangerous facilities — where they are and what it does to the neighbors and the waterways.”
The NRDC was able to obtain data on 7,595 facilities, but the EPA could provide no information about nearly 10,000 other operations, other than the fact that they existed. Before resigning in the face of multiple ethics investigations in 2018, Trump EPA head Scott Pruitt doubled down on the secrecy surrounding CAFOs, signing a settlement agreement with agribusiness limiting the agricultural data that the environmental agency will give out.
Investigators with Direct Action Everywhere captured a photo of an overcrowded pig farm in Iowa. Photo: Direct Action Everywhere
The public health consequences of the lack of transparency are significant. Some of the largest CAFOs produce more waste in a year than the city of Philadelphia. A Duke University study found that North Carolina residents living near hog CAFOs die at higher rates than people in other parts of the state, even after accounting for socioeconomic factors.
CAFOs have implications when it comes to Covid-19 as well. Respiratory problems linked to factory farming like lung disease and asthma are risk factors for more severe coronavirus symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The fact that many Covid-19 patients are contracting secondary bacterial infections makes the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in pig farming communities all the more worrisome, Baron noted.
The lack of transparency is particularly concerning when it comes to widespread depopulation.
“All along the chain that is controlled by these corporations, you have people’s lives and livelihoods at risk. That might be the CAFO worker who’s going into the facility every day without proper personal protective equipment and being exposed to these harms; it could be a slaughterhouse worker who is at a very high risk of contracting Covid for lack of PPE, or it could be the USDA inspectors forced back to work before the facility is properly secured,” said Baron. Meatpacking plants have been the source of multiple community outbreaks, and so far at least 70 workers have died.
Baron said the lack of transparency and regulation is particularly concerning when it comes to widespread depopulation. The remains of pigs are often disposed of on site, at times buried or burned in massive pits. “Dumping a huge number of dead animals and trying to dispose of them in a field is as dangerous as it sounds, especially where people rely on well water,” Baron said. “It’s still unfolding, and I have a concern that it’s not going to be as transparent as it should be.”
Missing Farms and Incomplete Data
If you were to look down at pig CAFOs from the sky, you would see long, evenly spaced rectangular barns alongside square waste lagoons, sometimes red, sometimes black. Dairy farms, meanwhile, can be recognized by what look like open-faced Oreo cookies — tires on top of white tarps that cover cow feed.
Most of the data for Project Counterglow came from mining state regulatory databases, business directories, and information gathered by activists. But in addition to collecting data by hand, the team also used artificial intelligence software to scan satellite images for potential facilities. The tool, named Lucy, has become particularly adept at recognizing CAFOs.
Project Counterglow’s use of artificial intelligence was inspired by a paper published in Nature Sustainability by two academics from Stanford, who argued that deep machine learning could significantly reduce the costs of regulating CAFOs. They estimated that it would take two days to fully document all the CAFOs in the state of North Carolina using AI, while a specialist would need to scan Google Maps full-time for six weeks to manually complete the same task. Using AI, the academics were able to detect 15 percent more poultry CAFOs in the state than the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance had identified in previous manual mapping efforts.
Similarly, the activists who built Project Counterglow’s map could find no records linked to many of the facilities they found using Lucy, and what they did find in public records at times seemed to further obscure animal exploitation activities. For each location record, Project Counterglow’s creators examined satellite imagery to determine if the site actually involved animal agriculture. In numerous of cases, the reviewers could not identify any animal agriculture activities near the recorded addresses, which instead included homes in residential areas or buildings in office parks.
A map of farms on the Project Counterglow website. Screenshot: Provided by Kecia Doolittle
In other cases, Doolittle said, multiple contiguous farms seemed to be connected to the same owner, registered under LLCs or the names of a farmer’s family members. Such arrangements could allow farmers to evade environmental permits, which are required once the number and weight of animals on a given farm reach a certain threshold. Watchdogs have tracked a wider trend in which CAFO owners set up multiple LLCs to protect their assets from potential litigation.
“I think the animal rights movement is really misguided in how much they’re focused on veganism and food and not enough about the systemic issues, because those are almost as jaw-dropping,” Doolittle said. “It’s scandalous how corrupt it is.”
The animal rights activists’ map is distinct from past CAFO transparency projects in that it includes the plot points of newly identified facilities and invites users to add content. Once Lucy finds a potential CAFO, a human must confirm whether the tool was right or wrong, which strengthens Lucy’s ability to make accurate identifications. Now that the map is live, the task will be crowdsourced. To Doolittle, giving people concerned with animal exploitation a means to get involved is key. “The goal for me is that there’s an organizing element where people can take action based on what they’re finding,” she said.
A Chilling Effect
Activists carry out extensive research in advance of farm investigations, searching for a facility linked to a high-profile corporation, a particularly cruel practice, or a politician advancing harmful policies. “You’re trying to shame someone publicly — someone that matters,” Doolittle said, underlining that Project Counterglow is not anti-farmer and the goal is not to go after “Joe Schmoe’s farm,” as she put it.
The project is meant to act as a clearinghouse for research and footage collected in the course of such investigations. In addition to the map, a sister website called Papertrail will serve as a kind of Wikipedia for animal rights activists, with entries about individual farms, tutorials describing best practices for carrying out investigations, and information about particular health threats linked to animal agriculture.
Doolittle sees legal risk as an unavoidable part of exposing a powerful and abusive industry. Project Counterglow moderators will monitor the site for misinformation posted by police or industry infiltrators, and users will be able to send material anonymously through Mozilla’s encrypted file transfer service. But the map has sacrificed perfect security for accessibility. “There’s always a possibility that they could throw some crazy AETA shit at you,” Doolittle said, referencing the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
The U.S. has a long history of going after activists for capturing images inside farms or posting information about animal rights actions online. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a federal law that criminalizes “interference” in the activities of entities with a connection to an animal enterprise, was passed in response to the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty website, which posted information about the laboratory research of Huntingdon Life Sciences and protest actions targeting the company’s leadership and investors. Six SHAC organizers served prison sentences after being accused of encouraging and publicizing radical tactics.
An Iowa Select Farms worker on May 19, 2020, stepping over pig corpses after the use of ventilation shutdown. Still: DxE investigation
One particularly extreme provision criminalizing filming in agricultural facilities was left out of the federal law that ultimately passed, but elected officials in more than two dozen states picked up the idea and introduced so-called ag-gag laws.
Laws in Idaho, Utah, Kansas, and Wyoming have since been overturned as unconstitutional. In Iowa, soon after a judge found the state’s ag-gag law unconstitutional, the legislature passed a new one. That law is currently blocked by an injunction while another legal challenge moves through the courts. Ag-gag laws in Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, and North Carolina remain in place.
Regan maintains that ag-gag laws and AETA primarily serve to discourage dissent. “AETA has mostly been used to chill activism rather than prosecute it,” she said. “Regardless of repression, animal rights activism has continued unabated and I think will continue.”
“AETA has mostly been used to chill activism rather than prosecute it.”
Indeed, the legislative efforts have failed to halt the growth of a newly confrontational animal rights movement. The Australian organization Aussie Farms released its map in January 2019 to immediate controversy. The project was the brainchild of Chris Delforce, the activist behind the film “Dominion,” which featured disturbing footage from inside animal agriculture facilities and helped fuel disruptive protest actions. In response to the map, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the passage of new anti-protest legislation a key promise in his campaign for reelection.
He delivered. Last September, to fanfare from the animal agriculture industry, new federal criminal code amendments made using a website to incite trespass on an agricultural facility punishable by a year of imprisonment, or five years if the page incited property damage or theft. Two months later, the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission revoked Aussie Farms’ charity status. The site, however, remains live.
And in the U.S., Iowa’s ag-gag laws failed to prevent activists from obtaining the ventilation shutdown footage. The images reveal a large pen of lively pigs before steam obscures the camera and the animals begin to screech. When the steam clears, what remains is a pen of gray bodies — a portrait of the consequences of unregulated industrial agriculture.
“Is there a point at which it will have gone too far? It proves that there’s not,” Doolittle said of the footage. But, she added, “I hope it pushes us closer to some kind of climactic moment.”


theintercept--2020-06-01--Albany County District Attorney, Once a Promising Criminal Justice Reformer, Faces Primary Challenge

Albany County District Attorney, Once a Promising Criminal Justice Reformer, Faces Primary Challenge From the Left

The commission was later deemed unconstitutional ( because of how its members would be chosen ) , and the bail reforms were scaled back earlier this year .
One of the most vocal opponents of the new measures was Albany County District Attorney David Soares , who served as head of District Attorneys Association of New York , or DAASNY , from 2018 to 2019 .
Until 2018 , New York was behind the curve in terms of criminal justice reform .
But spurred by grassroots activists , that year the state legislature surged to the forefront , creating a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the landmark bail reforms passed in early 2019 .
Throughout his 16-year tenure , Soares has become increasingly less progressive , and critics charge that the office is not keeping pace with the bail reform legislation .
Soares has been accused of favoritism toward NXIVM , the Albany-based sex cult , and Albany judges have sharply criticized his office ’ s handling of recent high-profile cases .
Soares “ has championed racialized mass incarceration at the expense of our black and brown communities ” as a top prosecutor and head of DAASNY , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who narrowly lost the Democratic primary for Queens district attorney last year .
In Cabán ’ s view , Toporowski represents “ much-needed change.
” While Soares was one of the first candidates to win any office in the state with the backing of New York ’ s Working Families Party , which supported his next three reelection victories through 2016 .
The group is now backing Toporowski in the June 23 Democratic primary .
Now , Soares has a target on his back .
First elected in 2004 as a promising criminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Rockefeller Drug Laws , Soares is now being challenged from the left by Albany defense attorney Matt Toporowski , a former prosecutor in Soares ’ s office .
Toporowski — who also has been endorsed by leading Albany-area activists Barbara Smith and Jess Wisneski ( of Citizen Action of New York , which advocates for decarceration ) — pledges to return a social justice commitment to the DA ’ s office .
His many proposals include expanding transparency by providing public data tracking the office ’ s adherence to the expanded discovery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After Toporowski entered the race in early February , Soares warned that “ to run to the left of me would be encroaching on recklessness.
” But he may have underestimated his opposition .
Despite his four terms in office , Soares has raised just over $ 33,000 in 2020 , according to a May 22 filing , adding to the $ 25,000 in his account from previous campaigns .
Gun retailers , a group generally not allied with progressives , kicked in $ 4,000 .
After expenditures — mainly on consultant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Gov .
Andrew Cuomo — he has close to $ 11,000 on hand .
Toporowski , meanwhile , has raised more than $ 62,000 and has $ 43,000 left to spend .
The incumbent ’ s weak fundraising suggests that Soares envisioned coasting to another reelection .
that drew judicial scrutiny of Soares ’ s office involved NXIVM , the Albany-based cult known for branding its female members .
After meeting with people involved with the group , Soares in 2007 indicted Joseph O ’ Hara , a local consultant who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on bad terms .
During the preindictment investigation , the DA allowed Kristin Keeffe , then one of cult leader ’ s Keith Raniere ’ s top aides , to work in his office for several weeks in order to help build the case against O ’ Hara .
A judge dismissed the indictment , which accused O ’ Hara of grand larceny in connection with his business dealing with NXIVM , for lack of evidence .
A Soares spokesperson later claimed that Keeffe had been allowed access to the office “ because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the alleged victim of a crime.
” Keeffe , who later had Raniere ’ s child , eventually broke with NXIVM .
In 2019 , Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking in federal court and is scheduled to be sentenced later this year .
Soares oversees a team of just over 30 prosecutors , in proportion with Albany ’ s population of roughly 300,000 .
( By comparison , Brooklyn , the state ’ s largest county — with 2.6 million people — has over 500 prosecutors in its DA ’ s office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months , two Albany judges have chided Soares ’ s small office for mismanagement .
In one case , Judge Peter Lynch said a conflict of interest between a prosecutor and defense attorney “ was a direct product of ( Soares ’ s ) lack of oversight over the day-to-day prosecutorial operations of the office and failure to establish office policy prohibiting such work.
” In late 2017 , Soares ’ s team won the high-profile conviction of Albany city worker Edward Mero for two murders .
After the trial , Mero informed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Cheryl Coleman , his well-known local defense attorney , had an active business relationship with Steven Sharp , the veteran prosecutor who handled the case .
Coleman had paid Sharp $ 20,000 over the preceding five years in order to prepare appeals in cases that Coleman handled outside of Albany County .
At a post-trial hearing to determine the extent of the conflict of interest , Soares testified that he was “ shocked ” to learn of the ties between Coleman and Sharp .
Still , it took more than a year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Mero ’ s conviction was ultimately upheld by Lynch . )
Toporowski views the conflict as emblematic of Soares ’ s administration .
“ It ’ s a small office and everyone works closely together , ” said Toporowski , a prosecutor under Soares from 2013 to 2015 .
“ Sharp was a golden boy in the office , but Soares failed to take responsibility for what happened on his watch .
He also failed to lead by example in terms of ethics.
” In mid-May , an Albany judge slammed Soares @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a new six-month “ speedy trial ” timetable that was part of the bail reform legislation , dismissing charges that prosecutors had brought against Michael Snyder , a corrections officer at the Albany County Jail accused of sexually assaulting two incarcerated women .
In his ruling , Judge Thomas Breslin found the prosecution to be “ fraught with dilatory conduct.
” How far Soares ’ s office has strayed from his initial reputation was on display in the DA ’ s late March objection to the early release of a prisoner from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread of Covid-19 , the disease caused by the new coronavirus .
Although that person had just six days remaining on a four-month sentence ( on a low-level sex offense ) , Soares ’ s prosecutor insisted that safety precautions at the jail were sufficient .
Again , an Albany judge disagreed with Soares ’ s judgment .
In light of the “ extreme ” circumstances caused by the pandemic , Lynch wrote , there was “ no legitimate purpose ” in keeping that person in jail .
In general , that ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be asked .
Albany voters can now demand answers from Soares .

Until 2018 , New York was behind the curve in terms of criminal justice reform. But spurred by grassroots activists, that year the state legislature surged to the forefront, creating a prosecutorial misconduct commission and initiating debate over the landmark bail reforms passed in early 2019.
The commission was later deemed unconstitutional (because of how its members would be chosen), and the bail reforms were scaled back earlier this year. One of the most vocal opponents of the new measures was Albany County District Attorney David Soares, who served as head of District Attorneys Association of New York, or DAASNY, from 2018 to 2019.
Now, Soares has a target on his back. First elected in 2004 as a promising criminal justice reformer who campaigned on opposition to the Rockefeller Drug Laws, Soares is now being challenged from the left by Albany defense attorney Matt Toporowski, a former prosecutor in Soares’s office.
While Soares was one of the first candidates to win any office in the state with the backing of New York’s Working Families Party, which supported his next three reelection victories through 2016, the group is now backing Toporowski in the June 23 Democratic primary.
Soares “has championed racialized mass incarceration at the expense of our black and brown communities” as a top prosecutor and head of DAASNY, said WFP national organizer Tiffany Cabán, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary for Queens district attorney last year. In Cabán’s view, Toporowski represents “much-needed change.”
Throughout his 16-year tenure, Soares has become increasingly less progressive, and critics charge that the office is not keeping pace with the bail reform legislation. Soares has been accused of favoritism toward NXIVM, the Albany-based sex cult, and Albany judges have sharply criticized his office’s handling of recent high-profile cases.
Toporowski — who also has been endorsed by leading Albany-area activists Barbara Smith and Jess Wisneski (of Citizen Action of New York, which advocates for decarceration) — pledges to return a social justice commitment to the DA’s office. His many proposals include expanding transparency by providing public data tracking the office’s adherence to the expanded discovery requirements included in the 2019 bail reforms. After Toporowski entered the race in early February, Soares warned that “to run to the left of me would be encroaching on recklessness.” But he may have underestimated his opposition.
Despite his four terms in office, Soares has raised just over $33,000 in 2020, according to a May 22 filing, adding to the $25,000 in his account from previous campaigns. Gun retailers, a group generally not allied with progressives, kicked in $4,000. After expenditures — mainly on consultant Mark Streb, who has close ties to Gov. Andrew Cuomo — he has close to $11,000 on hand. Toporowski, meanwhile, has raised more than $62,000 and has $43,000 left to spend. The incumbent’s weak fundraising suggests that Soares envisioned coasting to another reelection.
One high-profile case that drew judicial scrutiny of Soares’s office involved NXIVM, the Albany-based cult known for branding its female members.
After meeting with people involved with the group, Soares in 2007 indicted Joseph O’Hara, a local consultant who had formerly worked for NXIVM but had parted on bad terms. During the preindictment investigation, the DA allowed Kristin Keeffe, then one of cult leader’s Keith Raniere’s top aides, to work in his office for several weeks in order to help build the case against O’Hara.
A judge dismissed the indictment, which accused O’Hara of grand larceny in connection with his business dealing with NXIVM, for lack of evidence. A Soares spokesperson later claimed that Keeffe had been allowed access to the office “because she worked for an organization that was the alleged victim of a crime.”
Keeffe, who later had Raniere’s child, eventually broke with NXIVM. In 2019, Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking in federal court and is scheduled to be sentenced later this year.
Soares oversees a team of just over 30 prosecutors, in proportion with Albany’s population of roughly 300,000. (By comparison, Brooklyn, the state’s largest county — with 2.6 million people — has over 500 prosecutors in its DA’s office.) Yet in the past three months, two Albany judges have chided Soares’s small office for mismanagement.
In one case, Judge Peter Lynch said a conflict of interest between a prosecutor and defense attorney “was a direct product of (Soares’s) lack of oversight over the day-to-day prosecutorial operations of the office and failure to establish office policy prohibiting such work.”
In late 2017, Soares’s team won the high-profile conviction of Albany city worker Edward Mero for two murders. After the trial, Mero informed the court that he had since learned that Cheryl Coleman, his well-known local defense attorney, had an active business relationship with Steven Sharp, the veteran prosecutor who handled the case. Coleman had paid Sharp $20,000 over the preceding five years in order to prepare appeals in cases that Coleman handled outside of Albany County.
At a post-trial hearing to determine the extent of the conflict of interest, Soares testified that he was “shocked” to learn of the ties between Coleman and Sharp. Still, it took more than a year before Sharp was forced to resign. (Mero’s conviction was ultimately upheld by Lynch.)
Toporowski views the conflict as emblematic of Soares’s administration. “It’s a small office and everyone works closely together,” said Toporowski, a prosecutor under Soares from 2013 to 2015. “Sharp was a golden boy in the office, but Soares failed to take responsibility for what happened on his watch. He also failed to lead by example in terms of ethics.”
In mid-May, an Albany judge slammed Soares’s office for failing to adhere to a new six-month “speedy trial” timetable that was part of the bail reform legislation, dismissing charges that prosecutors had brought against Michael Snyder, a corrections officer at the Albany County Jail accused of sexually assaulting two incarcerated women. In his ruling, Judge Thomas Breslin found the prosecution to be “fraught with dilatory conduct.”
How far Soares’s office has strayed from his initial reputation was on display in the DA’s late March objection to the early release of a prisoner from the Albany County Jail because of the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Although that person had just six days remaining on a four-month sentence (on a low-level sex offense), Soares’s prosecutor insisted that safety precautions at the jail were sufficient.
Again, an Albany judge disagreed with Soares’s judgment. In light of the “extreme” circumstances caused by the pandemic, Lynch wrote, there was “no legitimate purpose” in keeping that person in jail. In general, that’s a question that more prosecutors should be asked. Albany voters can now demand answers from Soares.


theintercept--2020-06-01--With Medical Conditions, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Risks Coronavirus "Death Sentence" Behind

With Medical Conditions, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Risks Coronavirus "Death Sentence" Behind Bars, Attorneys Say

weeks after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the spread of the novel coronavirus , National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner wrote an email to her family and friends from the federal prison in Texas where she is serving a record sentence for informing the public of a national security threat through an unauthorized leak of classified information .
Winner sent the email as prisoners were bracing themselves for an upcoming lockdown .
Since it began , her lawyers said , Winner spends 11 hours a day in a room within 3 feet of four other fellow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Winner was most concerned about those who were outside the prison , writing that she worries “ every hour of every day ” for her loved ones , including her mother , who received the email .
The hardest part of lockdown , Winner said , was being “ powerless ” to help family and friends .
Winner ’ s mother , Billie Winner-Davis , is an essential employee in south Texas and still expected to show up to her workplace during the Covid-19 pandemic .
Reality Winner begged her to quit her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a great fear that : What if I was to get it ?
” Winner-Davis said .
“ And then that would be it .
She ’ d never see her mom again.
” Winner ’ s alarm , however , would soon also grow over her own risk of contracting the virus in Federal Medical Center Carswell , a federal prison in Fort Worth for women with chronic medical issues .
“ It ’ s amazing to go into a visitation room and see women in wheelchairs , women in walkers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re in a nursing home environment , ” Winner-Davis said , “ because this is where the sick female inmates of our nation go.
” With the novel coronavirus spreading throughout the nation ’ s sprawling mass incarceration system , Winner ’ s legal team filed a petition in federal court calling for her urgent release .
The motion is in line with guidance from the Trump administration .
Attorney General William Barr called on the Bureau of Prisons to utilize home confinement for at-risk inmates and those not assessed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus crisis .
Alongside meatpacking plants , jails and prisons rank among the country ’ s top infection clusters and Winner ’ s advocates fear that her preexisting health conditions make her susceptible to the virus .
Alison Grinter , a Dallas civil rights attorney on Winner ’ s legal team , said that releasing people like Winner is “ low-hanging fruit ” for prisons to make good on compassionate release measures .
In addition to hewing to Barr ’ s guidance on freeing people with nonviolent convictions who pose little likelihood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people ’ s ability to seek release on compassionate grounds was one of the aims of the 2018 First Step Act .
“ That says Reality Winner all over it , ” Grinter said .
Winner ’ s petition was filed in early April and was initially denied by Randal Hall , chief judge of the Southern District of Georgia in Augusta , where the National Security Agency station Winner was a contract linguist at is located .
When Hall denied Winner ’ s bid for compassionate release on April 24 , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facility , as a medical prison , is “ presumably better equipped than most to deal with any onset of COVID-19 in its inmates.
” Just four days after his denial , the prison recorded its first inmate death .
Andrea Circle Bear , a pregnant woman who was charged with maintaining a “ drug-involved ” premises in South Dakota , was taken from the prison and put on a ventilator at a local hospital after staff saw she had a fever and dry cough on March 31 .
At the hospital , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before succumbing to the coronavirus on April 28 .
Winner ’ s defense team cited Circle Bear ’ s death in their continued efforts to get Winner released .
“ This and other serious injury are precisely the imminent harms we can not allow Reality to suffer , and why we continue to exhaust all possible avenues for relief , ” said Winner ’ s Atlanta-based attorney , Joe Whitley , in an interview .
On May 12 , Whitley filed a motion to expedite Winner ’ s appeal of Hall ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by email that there is “ no set deadline for a ruling.
” “ Separate from and in addition to her underlying medical issues , ” the motion says , “ Reality has coped , all her life , with symptoms and triggers for her conditions ( e.g.
, stress , depression , etc . )
by exercising and strictly managing her diet ; however , FMC Carswell ’ s response to the global pandemic allows neither .
In other words , BOP ’ s response effectively took away all of Reality ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exacerbates her susceptibilities , leaving her even more immunocompromised and vulnerable.
” The motion added , “ Indeed , the BOP ‘ response ’ makes matters worse for Reality and threatens to turn her 63-month sentence into a death sentence.
” In responding to Winner ’ s release , the government said her Air Force-era bulimia diagnosis did not constitute “ a qualifying medical condition ” justifying compassionate release .
Recent sack lunches provided at the prison have included bologna sandwiches , something Winner-Davis said her daughter will not eat .
In its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , government attorneys wrote , “ Not being able to exercise or eat how she would like does not qualify as ‘ unable to provide self-care.
’ ” In coronavirus-related deaths , however , medical histories loom large .
After Circle Bear ’ s death , FMC Carswell quickly put out a press release noting that she had a preexisting condition .
incarcerated people — such as former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort , Trump ’ s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen , and Michael Avenatti , an attorney who represented an adult @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affair with the president — have been released to home confinement in recent weeks .
Some prisons and jails across the country have responded to the call to depopulate during the pandemic .
The Bureau of Prisons , which runs Carswell , reported that just over 3,500 of what the Prison Policy Initiative says are 226,000 incarcerated people in the federal prison system have been released since Barr issued his guidance .
Advocates , however , say that number needs to be far higher to ensure the safety of prisoners and the staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ It ’ s been completely insufficient and inconsistent .
There needs to be a national strategy immediately to release people from detention who are at serious risk of the virus , ” said Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International USA , which recently called for Winner ’ s release .
“ We need to help people be protected from Covid-19 .
It ’ s the U.S. government ’ s responsibility , and they should do it without excuse and without delay.
” Winner was widely reported as the source for a June 2017 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ document that detailed phishing attacks by Russian military intelligence on local U.S. election officials .
The Intercept received the document anonymously , and its parent company , First Look Media , contributed to Winner ’ s legal fund through the Press Freedom Defense Fund after learning of her arrest .
Winner , who has been incarcerated since 2017 , is nearing the end of her confinement and , if not granted release during the Covid-19 pandemic , is otherwise projected to leave prison in December 2021 .
At FMC Carswell , like in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t the only ones who fear for their health .
Following Circle Bear ’ s death , Vice News reported that the union representing correctional workers at prison sent a whistleblower complaint to Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn in early April .
The complaint said the facility “ knowingly and willingly misled the public ” about virus mitigation efforts at the facility , therefore “ placing the staff , inmates , and community at risk to the most lethal pandemic since 1920 , ” according to Vice , which posted a copy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fewer inmates would be safer for prisoners and staff alike , Grinter , Winner ’ s Texas-based attorney , said .
“ This virus does not care whether you ’ re in that room because of a conviction or in that room because of your job , ” she said .
Winner ’ s family , her attorneys , and local media have highlighted several causes for alarm in the prison ’ s response to the virus .
While incarcerated people are on partial lockdown and denied outdoor time in a bid to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they nonetheless congregate in the dining hall and share telephone rooms that are not cleaned between uses , Winner ’ s attorneys say .
KERA News in Dallas reported in April that one incarcerated person said the facility had run out of sanitary pads , toilet paper , and soap .
Following publication of the report , the person ’ s father told the news outlet that she was put into solitary confinement .
Winner-Davis , Reality ’ s mother , said her daughter has not been tested for Covid-19 and that she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Intercept submitted written questions about Winner ’ s prison conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic and the correctional employees ’ whistleblower complaint to FMC Carswell ’ s executive assistant , who forwarded questions to the Bureau of Prisons ’ Office of Public Affairs .
The spokespeople provided only generic information about the agency ’ s response to the outbreak .
The U.S. attorneys who prosecuted Winner for unauthorized leak of national security information have twice opposed her bid to ride out the pandemic at her family ’ s home in rural Texas .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and not waiting to file a motion in court until 30 days after submitting a request for release from her prison administration .
In the meantime , as her attorneys await a response from the appeals court in Atlanta , Winner ’ s mother maintains her home as a safe space to receive her daughter .
Winner-Davis ’ s country house , surrounded by longhorn cattle fields in the Texas panhandle , is so remote that she has to warn visitors that it doesn ’ t show up on Google Maps .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking “ all of the precautions ” they can , and she wears a mask at all times outside and avoids shopping .
Her county has reported only a handful of virus cases .
After one recent troubling phone call with her daughter , Winner-Davis said she wrote to the FMC Carswell administration to express grave concern about Reality ’ s health .
“ I just felt like she ’ s not going to make it through this , one way or another , ” Winner-Davis said .
“ She ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @

In early April, weeks after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner wrote an email to her family and friends from the federal prison in Texas where she is serving a record sentence for informing the public of a national security threat through an unauthorized leak of classified information.
Winner sent the email as prisoners were bracing themselves for an upcoming lockdown. Since it began, her lawyers said, Winner spends 11 hours a day in a room within 3 feet of four other fellow incarcerated people.
In her email, Winner was most concerned about those who were outside the prison, writing that she worries “every hour of every day” for her loved ones, including her mother, who received the email. The hardest part of lockdown, Winner said, was being “powerless” to help family and friends.
Winner’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, is an essential employee in south Texas and still expected to show up to her workplace during the Covid-19 pandemic. Reality Winner begged her to quit her job. “She really did express a great fear that: What if I was to get it?” Winner-Davis said. “And then that would be it. She’d never see her mom again.”
“The BOP ‘response’ makes matters worse for Reality and threatens to turn her 63-month sentence into a death sentence.”
Winner’s alarm, however, would soon also grow over her own risk of contracting the virus in Federal Medical Center Carswell, a federal prison in Fort Worth for women with chronic medical issues. “It’s amazing to go into a visitation room and see women in wheelchairs, women in walkers. You almost at some point think that you’re in a nursing home environment,” Winner-Davis said, “because this is where the sick female inmates of our nation go.” With the novel coronavirus spreading throughout the nation’s sprawling mass incarceration system, Winner’s legal team filed a petition in federal court calling for her urgent release.
The motion is in line with guidance from the Trump administration. Attorney General William Barr called on the Bureau of Prisons to utilize home confinement for at-risk inmates and those not assessed to pose a danger to their communities during the coronavirus crisis. Alongside meatpacking plants, jails and prisons rank among the country’s top infection clusters and Winner’s advocates fear that her preexisting health conditions make her susceptible to the virus.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Alison Grinter, a Dallas civil rights attorney on Winner’s legal team, said that releasing people like Winner is “low-hanging fruit” for prisons to make good on compassionate release measures. In addition to hewing to Barr’s guidance on freeing people with nonviolent convictions who pose little likelihood of recommitting a crime, bolstering incarcerated people’s ability to seek release on compassionate grounds was one of the aims of the 2018 First Step Act.
“That says Reality Winner all over it,” Grinter said.
Winner’s petition was filed in early April and was initially denied by Randal Hall, chief judge of the Southern District of Georgia in Augusta, where the National Security Agency station Winner was a contract linguist at is located. When Hall denied Winner’s bid for compassionate release on April 24, he cited his belief that Winner’s facility, as a medical prison, is “presumably better equipped than most to deal with any onset of COVID-19 in its inmates.”
Just four days after his denial, the prison recorded its first inmate death. Andrea Circle Bear, a pregnant woman who was charged with maintaining a “drug-involved” premises in South Dakota, was taken from the prison and put on a ventilator at a local hospital after staff saw she had a fever and dry cough on March 31. At the hospital, she delivered her newborn by cesarean section before succumbing to the coronavirus on April 28.
Winner’s defense team cited Circle Bear’s death in their continued efforts to get Winner released. “This and other serious injury are precisely the imminent harms we cannot allow Reality to suffer, and why we continue to exhaust all possible avenues for relief,” said Winner’s Atlanta-based attorney, Joe Whitley, in an interview. On May 12, Whitley filed a motion to expedite Winner’s appeal of Hall’s decision, though he told The Intercept by email that there is “no set deadline for a ruling.”
“Separate from and in addition to her underlying medical issues,” the motion says, “Reality has coped, all her life, with symptoms and triggers for her conditions (e.g., stress, depression, etc.) by exercising and strictly managing her diet; however, FMC Carswell’s response to the global pandemic allows neither. In other words, BOP’s response effectively took away all of Reality’s healthy coping mechanisms, which further exacerbates her susceptibilities, leaving her even more immunocompromised and vulnerable.” The motion added, “Indeed, the BOP ‘response’ makes matters worse for Reality and threatens to turn her 63-month sentence into a death sentence.”
In responding to Winner’s release, the government said her Air Force-era bulimia diagnosis did not constitute “a qualifying medical condition” justifying compassionate release. Recent sack lunches provided at the prison have included bologna sandwiches, something Winner-Davis said her daughter will not eat. In its motion to opposing Winner’s bid, government attorneys wrote, “Not being able to exercise or eat how she would like does not qualify as ‘unable to provide self-care.’”
In coronavirus-related deaths, however, medical histories loom large. After Circle Bear’s death, FMC Carswell quickly put out a press release noting that she had a preexisting condition.
Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court on June 27, 2019, for his arraignment on mortgage fraud charges. Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Some high-profile incarcerated people — such as former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, and Michael Avenatti, an attorney who represented an adult film star who said she had an affair with the president — have been released to home confinement in recent weeks. Some prisons and jails across the country have responded to the call to depopulate during the pandemic. The Bureau of Prisons, which runs Carswell, reported that just over 3,500 of what the Prison Policy Initiative says are 226,000 incarcerated people in the federal prison system have been released since Barr issued his guidance. Advocates, however, say that number needs to be far higher to ensure the safety of prisoners and the staff who report daily to those facilities.
“It’s been completely insufficient and inconsistent. There needs to be a national strategy immediately to release people from detention who are at serious risk of the virus,” said Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International USA, which recently called for Winner’s release. “We need to help people be protected from Covid-19. It’s the U.S. government’s responsibility, and they should do it without excuse and without delay.”
“There needs to be a national strategy immediately to release people from detention who are at serious risk of the virus.”
Winner was widely reported as the source for a June 2017 article in The Intercept on an NSA document that detailed phishing attacks by Russian military intelligence on local U.S. election officials. The Intercept received the document anonymously, and its parent company, First Look Media, contributed to Winner’s legal fund through the Press Freedom Defense Fund after learning of her arrest.
Winner, who has been incarcerated since 2017, is nearing the end of her confinement and, if not granted release during the Covid-19 pandemic, is otherwise projected to leave prison in December 2021.
At FMC Carswell, like in other detention facilities, incarcerated people aren’t the only ones who fear for their health. Following Circle Bear’s death, Vice News reported that the union representing correctional workers at prison sent a whistleblower complaint to Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn in early April. The complaint said the facility “knowingly and willingly misled the public” about virus mitigation efforts at the facility, therefore “placing the staff, inmates, and community at risk to the most lethal pandemic since 1920,” according to Vice, which posted a copy of the letter.
A facility with fewer inmates would be safer for prisoners and staff alike, Grinter, Winner’s Texas-based attorney, said. “This virus does not care whether you’re in that room because of a conviction or in that room because of your job,” she said.
Winner’s family, her attorneys, and local media have highlighted several causes for alarm in the prison’s response to the virus. While incarcerated people are on partial lockdown and denied outdoor time in a bid to limit their exposure to one another, they nonetheless congregate in the dining hall and share telephone rooms that are not cleaned between uses, Winner’s attorneys say.
KERA News in Dallas reported in April that one incarcerated person said the facility had run out of sanitary pads, toilet paper, and soap. Following publication of the report, the person’s father told the news outlet that she was put into solitary confinement.
Winner-Davis, Reality’s mother, said her daughter has not been tested for Covid-19 and that she is issued one mask a week.
The Intercept submitted written questions about Winner’s prison conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic and the correctional employees’ whistleblower complaint to FMC Carswell’s executive assistant, who forwarded questions to the Bureau of Prisons’ Office of Public Affairs. The spokespeople provided only generic information about the agency’s response to the outbreak.
The U.S. attorneys who prosecuted Winner for unauthorized leak of national security information have twice opposed her bid to ride out the pandemic at her family’s home in rural Texas. The government accused Winner of “line-jumping” and not waiting to file a motion in court until 30 days after submitting a request for release from her prison administration.
In the meantime, as her attorneys await a response from the appeals court in Atlanta, Winner’s mother maintains her home as a safe space to receive her daughter. Winner-Davis’s country house, surrounded by longhorn cattle fields in the Texas panhandle, is so remote that she has to warn visitors that it doesn’t show up on Google Maps. She said she and her husband are taking “all of the precautions” they can, and she wears a mask at all times outside and avoids shopping. Her county has reported only a handful of virus cases.
After one recent troubling phone call with her daughter, Winner-Davis said she wrote to the FMC Carswell administration to express grave concern about Reality’s health.
“I just felt like she’s not going to make it through this, one way or another,” Winner-Davis said. “She’s not going to live through this.”


theintercept--2020-06-01--Trump Falls for Video of Dallas Clash Edited to Cast Machete-Wielding Vigilante as Victim

relying on fragmentary video clips posted on social media by politically motivated witnesses to news events was on full display on Saturday night in Dallas , where a right-wing video blogger captured a shocking act of violence on camera , but posted a misleadingly edited version on Twitter that was viewed more than 30 million times in 24 hours .
Among the Twitter users who unthinkingly swallowed the misleading video — which was edited to remove footage of a white man who was beaten charging at black protesters with a machete before they pummeled him — was the president of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the clip with an outraged call for “ LONG TERM jail sentences ” for the protesters .
The edited clip was the work of Elijah Schaffer , a freelance producer for Glenn Beck ’ s Blaze TV and a pro-Trump political activist who hosts a YouTube talk show dedicated to mocking left-wing protesters .
Just before 10 p.m. local time in Dallas on Saturday , Schaffer uploaded 24 seconds of video that showed a white man , face down on the street , being kicked , stomped on and beaten with rocks and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black protesters .
Before posting his video on Twitter , Schaffer edited out the first 18 seconds he had recorded , which showed what happened immediately before the beating began , and wrote a caption that gave the false impression that the man was a store owner who had been attacked by looters .
On his Instagram account , where the same edit has been viewed over 500,000 times , with a close-up of the man ’ s bloody head on the pavement as a thumbnail , Schaffer explicitly cast the protesters as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appears he attempted to defend a shop with a large sword .
Looters ran at him , then he charged rioters.
” In a subsequent appearance on Blaze TV , Schaffer told the conservative commentator Steven Crowder that the victim of the attack was “ a man who was defending his store , ” and passed on a false rumor that he had died .
The tweet linking to Schaffer ’ s video that Trump commented on echoed the false claim that the man who was beaten “ was protecting his business , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he had been “ stomped and stoned by Antifa , ” using the shorthand for anti-fascist activists who , in fact , played no role in the incident .
But Schaffer ’ s account of what prompted the fight and the man ’ s condition were both false , according to statements from the Dallas Police Department and a protester who also witnessed the incident and posted his own more complete but less viral video on Instagram .
Tamika Dameron , a Dallas police spokesperson , told The Intercept that the man @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Victory Park neighborhood on Saturday , “ carrying a machete to allegedly protect his neighborhood from protesters .
The victim confronted protesters while holding the machete and was subsequently assaulted by the protesters.
” The man , who has not been identified by the police , was treated at the scene by volunteer medics and brought to a hospital nearby where , Dameron said , “ he remains in stable condition.
” The confrontation took place outside Hatchways , a co-working space and cafe at the intersection of High Market Street @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mile away from a street where officers were firing tear gas at kneeling protesters chanting “ No Justice , No Peace.
” According to Yoel Measho , a college student and videographer who took part in the protest , after it splintered he was marching with a group that included a young skateboarder when they came upon the man with the machete .
In a phone interview , Measho said that he started recording just after the man with the machete pulled it out and threatened the skateboarder , who was slightly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Measho insisted that , although glass was broken at Hatchways at some point on Saturday night , there was “ no violence or looting of any kind ” when the man confronted the skateboarder .
The video Measho posted on Instagram showed what he described as the defensive action taken by the protesters after the man with the machete threatened the skateboarder .
The images show protesters hurling rocks at the man , who started to retreat , but elected not to run away , and instead turned and ran back at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ machete over his head as if about to swing or throw it .
Video posted on Twitter by another protester also showed the man screaming as he ran at the demonstrators with the machete held up .
Like Schaffer ’ s video , Measho ’ s recording then shows a group of nearly a dozen protesters , most of whom were black , brutally beating and kicking the man until he lay face down on the ground , bleeding from his head and unresponsive .
Measho said that what he hadn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the skateboarder ’ s hand with the machete before the group pounced on him .
“ The kid had a huge slash in his hand , ” Measho wrote on Instagram , “ under no circumstances does anyone deserve to get beat like this but this is his fault.
” “ Do not believe the story of ‘ looters attacked innocent white man , ' ” he added , “ the Twitter video was cropped to make protestors look bad.
” The only sign of Antifa on the scene was an ironic one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for his wounds in the aftermath of the incident , a white protester who held up the machete for the cameras was wearing a red t-shirt with the word “ Catifa ” on it , above a cartoon of a radical cat in a bandana .
That scene was captured on video by Measho , who shared it in a Snapchat story , and by another witness .
Since video shot during the confrontation between the man with the machete and the protesters showed no damage to Hatchways at that time , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Schaffer , the Blaze TV producer and host , also had video of the man running at the protesters and shrieking while holding up the machete , which he made a conscious decision to not show in the tweet that went viral .
We know that because he posted his raw footage , which suggests a more complex story than an innocent white man being attacked by black “ rioters , ” in another tweet later on Saturday night , directed at news producers .
There is also evidence , in the video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men who beat the white man with the machete , were not simply “ rioters ” as he claimed , but had attended the earlier protest against police brutality prompted by the killing of the Minneapolis security guard George Floyd .
One of the Dallas Morning News journalists who covered that protest earlier on Saturday night , Kevin Krause , shared a photograph of one protester holding up a sign reading “ The Revolution Has Begun !
” That same protester , holding his sign under his arm , can be seen 10 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , stepping in to stop the beating and saying “ Stop !
Stop !
” Even though Trump tweeted his video because he mistakenly thought that it showed a business owner who was attacked by Antifa , Schaffer was elated .
“ My coverage of the Dallas riots was just shared by the President of the United States , ” he tweeted .
“ I started this journey 2 years ago .
So many people discouraged me at first .
Said I should quit while there was still time .
Now my work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said that he had seen some video of the incident , according to WFAA , the local ABC affiliate .
“ It ’ s unacceptable for a beating to happen like that in my city , ” he said .
“ The police are looking into that situation and that ’ s going to be addressed in our criminal justice system.
” The Dallas Morning News reported that the police had arrested about 90 people on Saturday night suspected of vandalizing buildings or inciting a riot .
The city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

The danger of relying on fragmentary video clips posted on social media by politically motivated witnesses to news events was on full display in Dallas on Saturday night. Two witnesses, a Black Lives Matter protester and a right-wing video blogger, both captured a shocking act of violence on camera. But while the protester’s raw footage, which gave a more complete picture of the incident, was not widely seen, the video blogger’s edited version, posted on Twitter with a misleading caption, was viewed more than 30 million times in 24 hours.
Among the Twitter users who unthinkingly swallowed the blogger’s misleading video — which was edited to remove footage of a white man who was beaten charging at black and white protesters with a machete before they pummeled him — was the president of the United States, who tweeted about the clip with an outraged call for “LONG TERM jail sentences” for the protesters.
The edited clip was the work of Elijah Schaffer, a freelance producer for Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV and a pro-Trump political activist who hosts a YouTube talk show dedicated to mocking left-wing protesters.
Just before 10 p.m. local time in Dallas on Saturday, Schaffer uploaded 24 seconds of video that showed a white man, face down on the street, being kicked, stomped on and beaten with rocks and a skateboard by a group of mainly black protesters. Before posting his video on Twitter, Schaffer edited out the first 18 seconds he had recorded, which showed what happened immediately before the beating began, and wrote a caption that gave the false impression that the man was a store owner who had been attacked by looters.
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1266925493384736769
On his Instagram account, where the same edit has been viewed over 500,000 times, with a close-up of the man’s bloody head on the pavement as a thumbnail, Schaffer explicitly cast the protesters as the aggressors, writing: “It appears he attempted to defend a shop with a large sword. Looters ran at him, then he charged rioters.”
In a subsequent appearance on Blaze TV, Schaffer told the conservative commentator Steven Crowder that the victim of the attack was “a man who was defending his store,” and passed on a false rumor that he had died.
The tweet linking to Schaffer’s video that Donald Trump commented on echoed the false claim that the man who was beaten “was protecting his business,” and added a new one: that he had been “stomped and stoned by Antifa,” using the shorthand for anti-fascist activists who, in fact, played no role in the incident.
On Monday, Trump referred to the edited clip as evidence that “innocent people have been savagely beaten — like the young man in Dallas, Texas, who was left dying on the street.”
Trump tells the nation that "innocent people have been savagely beaten, like the young man in Dallas, Texas, who was left dying on the street." There's quite a bit missing from that version of the story. https://t.co/QMJ9RgMUZY pic.twitter.com/xHjORjL4XT — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) June 1, 2020
But Schaffer’s account of what prompted the fight and the man’s condition were both false, according to statements from the Dallas Police Department and a protester who also witnessed the incident and posted his own more complete but less viral video on Instagram.
Tamika Dameron, a Dallas police spokesperson, told The Intercept that the man who was beaten took to the streets of the Victory Park neighborhood on Saturday, “carrying a machete to allegedly protect his neighborhood from protesters. The victim confronted protesters while holding the machete and was subsequently assaulted by the protesters.”
Witnesses told police investigators that the attack began when the man “came to the protest wielding a large knife/machete at several protesters,”
The man, who has not been identified by the police, was treated at the scene by volunteer medics and brought to a hospital nearby where, Dameron said, “he remains in stable condition.”
In remarks on Monday, Trump echoed Schaffer’s misleading account of what happened, including the false claim that the man “was left dying on the street.”
The confrontation took place outside Hatchways, a co-working space and cafe at the intersection of High Market Street and Victory Park Lane, about about half a mile away from another street corner where officers were firing tear gas at kneeling protesters chanting “No Justice, No Peace.”
Large group of protesters chanting “No justice no peace” as they kneel in front of a line of Dallas police #DallasProtest pic.twitter.com/SIBUPUrtfA — Dom DiFurio (@DomDiFurio) May 31, 2020
According to Yoel Measho, a college student and videographer who took part in the protest, after it splintered he was marching with a group that included a young skateboarder when they came upon the man with the machete. In a phone interview, Measho said that he started recording just after the man with the machete pulled it out and threatened the skateboarder, who was slightly ahead of the rest of the group.
Measho insisted that, although glass was broken at Hatchways at some point on Saturday night, there was “no violence or looting of any kind” when the man confronted the skateboarder.
The video Measho initially posted on Snapchat and Instagram — and later provided to The Intercept — showed what he described as the defensive action taken by the protesters after the man with the machete threatened the skateboarder. The images show protesters hurling rocks at the man, who started to retreat, but elected not to run away, and instead turned and ran back at the skateboarder, shrieking and raising the machete over his head as if about to swing or throw it.
Video posted on Twitter by another protester also showed the man screaming as he ran at the demonstrators with the machete held up.
Like Schaffer’s video, Measho’s recording then shows a group of nearly a dozen protesters, most of whom were black, brutally beating and kicking the man until he lay face down on the ground, bleeding from his head and unresponsive.
Measho said that what he hadn’t captured on camera was the man slashing the skateboarder’s hand with the machete before the group pounced on him. “The kid had a huge slash in his hand,” Measho wrote on Instagram, “under no circumstances does anyone deserve to get beat like this but this is his fault.”
“Do not believe the story of ‘looters attacked innocent white man,'” he added in the Instagram post he later removed after getting death threats, “the Twitter video was cropped to make protestors look bad.”
Breaking in Dallas: this man just tried to attack a crowd with a machete. Only one person was slightly cut on the hand. pic.twitter.com/ey6BVU4ZA9 — Austen Holland (@ecom_austen) May 31, 2020
The only sign of Antifa on the scene was an ironic one. As volunteer medics treated the man for his wounds in the aftermath of the incident, a white protester who held up the machete for the cameras was wearing a red t-shirt with the word “Catifa” on it, above a cartoon of a radical cat in a bandana. That scene was also captured on video by Measho, who shared it first in a Snapchat story, and later made a copy available to The Intercept.
Measho’s video, and a second clip recorded by another witness, shows the blade clearly, which appears to be a Cold Steel Gladius Machete, which comes with a sheath identical to the one the man who charged the protesters was wearing.
A spokeswoman for the company that owns Hatchways, and a neighboring saloon, Billy Can Can, said in a phone interview that the businesses were not looted, although windows and glass doors were smashed at both places, and elsewhere on the block, and “BLM” and “Fuck Trump” graffiti was sprayed on the exterior of the building.
https://twitter.com/JasonOHC_Dallas/status/1267107371626700801
Since video shot during the confrontation between the man with the machete and the protesters showed no damage to Hatchways at that time, it appears to have been inflicted later.
Schaffer, the Blaze TV producer and host, also had video of the man running at the protesters and shrieking while holding up the machete, which he made a conscious decision to not show in the tweet that went viral. We know that because he posted his raw footage, which suggests a more complex story than an innocent white man being attacked by black “rioters,” in another tweet later on Saturday night, directed at news producers.
This video, recorded by @ElijahSchaffer of Blaze TV in Dallas on Saturday, shows what he edited out of the viral clip he posted 90 minutes earlier: proof that the man who was beaten was a machete-wielding vigilante who was chasing a protester when attacked pic.twitter.com/Es40kob1aP — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) June 1, 2020
There is also evidence, in the video Schaffer shot, that the young black men who beat the white man with the machete, were not simply “rioters” as he claimed, but had attended the earlier protest against police brutality prompted by the killing of the Minneapolis security guard George Floyd.
One of the Dallas Morning News journalists who covered that protest earlier on Saturday night, Kevin Krause, shared a photograph of one protester holding up a sign reading “The Revolution Has Begun!”
That same protester, holding his sign under his arm, can be seen 10 seconds into Schaffer’s viral clip, stepping in to stop the beating and saying “Stop! Stop!”
Even though Trump tweeted his video because he mistakenly thought that it showed a business owner who was attacked by Antifa, Schaffer was elated. “My coverage of the Dallas riots was just shared by the President of the United States,” he tweeted. “I started this journey 2 years ago. So many people discouraged me at first. Said I should quit while there was still time. Now my work is changing the conversation in America.”
As Todd Gillman of The Dallas Morning News reported, Trump made it clear in a call with governors on Monday that he had no idea that the man with the machete had run at the protesters, wounding one of them, before he was beaten. “You don’t have to have a brick hit you in the face and you don’t do anything about it. You are allowed to fight back,” Trump said, apparently unaware of evidence suggesting that it might have been the protesters who were fighting back.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said that he had seen some video of the incident, according to WFAA, the local ABC affiliate. “It’s unacceptable for a beating to happen like that in my city,” he said. “The police are looking into that situation and that’s going to be addressed in our criminal justice system.”
Another police spokesperson, Melinda Gutierrez, told The Intercept after this report was initially published that the preliminary police investigation suggested that the man who was beaten had initiated the conflict. “According to witnesses, the individual came to the protest wielding a large knife/machete at several protesters,” Gutierrez wrote in an email. “An unknown protester was attempting fight off the individual by using his skateboard and was subsequently cut in the hand, but not before disarming the individual. At this time, the crowd of protesters began assaulting the individual.”
The Dallas Morning News reported that the police had arrested about 90 people on Saturday night suspected of vandalizing buildings or inciting a riot. The city imposed a 7 p.m. curfew on Sunday.
Last Updated: Monday, June 1, 4:30 p.m. PDT
This article was updated with an edited headline and to report two new comments from President Donald Trump on Monday about the violence caught on camera in Dallas on Saturday.


theintercept--2020-06-01--Louisville Police Left the Body of David McAtee on the Street for 12 Hours

David McAtee laid in the streets of Louisville , Kentucky , for over 12 hours on Monday .
McAtee had been killed by law enforcement just after midnight on Sunday , May 31 , amid days of protests over police violence nationwide .
Noon the next day , protesters were gathered at the site .
McAtee ’ s body was still there .
McAtee , the owner of a local barbecue business and a beloved community figure , was shot and killed after Louisville police and the National Guard opened fire on a crowd that had gathered at a parking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the owner of YaYa ’ s BBQ , McAtee was known to give police officers free meals .
Bystanders and witnesses have said that the crowd was not protesting when the police arrived .
Police claim that they were returning fire after the crowd began shooting .
Kentucky Gov .
Andy Beshear attributed the killing to the Louisville Metro Police Department and the National Guard .
Police officers , Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said , had not activated their body cameras in violation of policy .
Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Acting Chief Robert Schroeder , at the press conference , seemed to walk back Beshear ’ s statement pending investigation .
“ We do not know who shot him , ” he said , “ we do not know if it was related to a separate incident , if it was due to the shots fired by our officers and the National Guardsmen soldiers who accompanied them.
” The press conference did not address why McAtee ’ s body was left outside , and Louisville police did not respond to a request @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a community activist who ’ s running for the Louisville Metro Council in the 4th District , was among the hundreds of protesters who had gathered at the scene early Monday afternoon .
He said the crowd was made up mostly of members of the community , not experienced activists , who were angry and hurt .
“ We were already dealing with the death of Breonna Taylor , ” he said , referring to the police shooting of a young black woman two months ago .
“ Even if they had some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ keeping the body at the scene ] you ’ d think they would have in mind the trauma that they ’ re inflicting when they do that , especially having experienced that with the Mike Brown case in Ferguson , ” Bell said .
“ That ’ s the first thing I thought , that this was terrorism… because it ’ s terrorizing , even if they don ’ t intentionally try to do it.
” Protests of police brutality around the country saw escalating violence over the weekend , with police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bullets , tear gas , and flash grenades , in clashes that have gone viral on social media .
Police have arrested more than 4,100 people over days of demonstrations , according to a tally from the Associated Press , and several protesters have been killed .
On Saturday night in Omaha , Nebraska , Jake Gardner , a white bar owner , shot and killed James Scurlock , a 22-year-old black man , outside his establishment .
On Monday , prosecutors said the man acted in self defense and would not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot and killed outside a pawnshop in Minneapolis .
Chris Beaty , a former football player , and Dorian Murrell were also shot and killed in separate incidents in Indianapolis over the weekend , though it was not immediately clear who was responsible for either killing .
A protester died in St. Louis after reportedly being dragged on the highway by a FedEx truck .
At the mayor ’ s press conference , Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker , a Louisville native who is challenging Mitch McConnell for Senate in 2020 , spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is strained because I ’ ve been doing a lot of yelling and crying as well , ” he said , and called for police officers involved in Taylor ’ s death to be relieved of their duties and for the investigations in Taylor ’ s death to be expedited .
“ To lose your job when someone has died at your hands is a small price to pay .
”

The body of David McAtee laid in the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, for over 12 hours on Monday. McAtee had been killed by law enforcement just after midnight on Sunday, May 31, amid days of protests over police violence nationwide. Noon the next day, protesters were gathered at the site. McAtee’s body was still there.
McAtee, the owner of a local barbecue business and a beloved community figure, was shot and killed after Louisville police and the National Guard opened fire on a crowd that had gathered at a parking lot on 26th and Broadway. As the owner of YaYa’s BBQ, McAtee was known to give police officers free meals. Bystanders and witnesses have said that the crowd was not protesting when the police arrived. Police claim that they were returning fire after the crowd began shooting.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear attributed the killing to the Louisville Metro Police Department and the National Guard. Police officers, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said, had not activated their body cameras in violation of policy. Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired as a result, but retains his pension. Acting Chief Robert Schroeder, at the press conference, seemed to walk back Beshear’s statement pending investigation. “We do not know who shot him,” he said, “we do not know if it was related to a separate incident, if it was due to the shots fired by our officers and the National Guardsmen soldiers who accompanied them.” The press conference did not address why McAtee’s body was left outside, and Louisville police did not respond to a request for comment.
Robert LeVertis Bell, a community activist who’s running for the Louisville Metro Council in the 4th District, was among the hundreds of protesters who had gathered at the scene early Monday afternoon. He said the crowd was made up mostly of members of the community, not experienced activists, who were angry and hurt. “We were already dealing with the death of Breonna Taylor,” he said, referring to the police shooting of a young black woman two months ago.
“Even if they had some sort of legitimate, procedural reason for [keeping the body at the scene] you’d think they would have in mind the trauma that they’re inflicting when they do that, especially having experienced that with the Mike Brown case in Ferguson,” Bell said. “That’s the first thing I thought, that this was terrorism… because it’s terrorizing, even if they don’t intentionally try to do it.”
Protests of police brutality around the country saw escalating violence over the weekend, with police driving vehicles into crowds and firing rubber bullets, tear gas, and flash grenades, in clashes that have gone viral on social media. Police have arrested more than 4,100 people over days of demonstrations, according to a tally from the Associated Press, and several protesters have been killed. On Saturday night in Omaha, Nebraska, Jake Gardner, a white bar owner, shot and killed James Scurlock, a 22-year-old black man, outside his establishment. On Monday, prosecutors said the man acted in self defense and would not be charged. Calvin L. Horton Jr. was shot and killed outside a pawnshop in Minneapolis. Chris Beaty, a former football player, and Dorian Murrell were also shot and killed in separate incidents in Indianapolis over the weekend, though it was not immediately clear who was responsible for either killing. A protester died in St. Louis after reportedly being dragged on the highway by a FedEx truck.
At the mayor’s press conference, Kentucky State Rep. Charles Booker, a Louisville native who is challenging Mitch McConnell for Senate in 2020, spoke for the community. “My voice is strained because I’ve been doing a lot of yelling and crying as well,” he said, and called for police officers involved in Taylor’s death to be relieved of their duties and for the investigations in Taylor’s death to be expedited. “To lose your job when someone has died at your hands is a small price to pay.”