CLG: What Happened to $1.3 Billion of Taxpayer Money Sent Directly to U.S. Military Officers in Afghanistan? Pentagon won't Say, Unarmed Teen Shot, Killed by Police, Cried for His Mother: 'Mommy, Mommy, Please Come'

News Updates from CLG
30 April 2015

http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Previous edition: FBI agent's sniper rifle stolen at Salt Lake City hotel, days before President Obama's Utah visit

Freddie Gray Severed His Own Spine Just Like Steve Biko Died of a 'Hunger Strike' By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org | 30 April 2015 | On Wednesday we read: A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray "banging against the walls" of the vehicle and believed that he "was intentionally trying to injure himself," according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post. (See: Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was 'banging against the walls' during ride 29 April 2015.) Are we to actually believe that while in police custody, 25-year-old African American Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord -- and crushed his own larynx, too? Recall a death decades earlier of South African anti-apartheid activist, Stephen Bantu Biko. The founder of the Black Consciousness Movement also died in police custody -- and the cause of his death was similarly reported as 'self-inflicted' -- due to an alleged hunger strike.

More than 100 arrested in clashes between cops and Freddie Gray protesters in New York as thousands take to the streets of six American cities on a third night of anger --Protests in the name of Freddie Gray were held in Baltimore, New York, Washington DC, Boston, Houston and Indianapolis Wednesday night | 29 April 2015 | Outrage over the unexplained death of a black man in Baltimore, Maryland prompted nationwide protests against police brutality on Wednesday from Houston to Boston. Baltimore has been the scene of near-nightly protests ever since the April 19 death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who is believed to have been fatally injured while in police custody. However, the most dramatic protests Wednesday night happened in New York City, where a group of activists started an illegal march resulting in the arrests of several protesters in scuffles with police officers trying to maintain order on the streets. More than 100 people were arrested by the New York Police Department, according to reports as up to 1,000 marchers blocked streets - including the entrance to the Holland Tunnel - a main passage under the Hudson River - and the West Side Highway.

Locked Out: Orioles Fans Booted From Ballgame Amid Unrest | 29 April 2105 | Baseball in Baltimore was closed to the public for one day. The only shutout in the final score Wednesday at Camden Yards came in the attendance total: Orioles 8, White Sox 2, Fans 0. MLB decided to play the game behind closed doors because of looting and rioting around Camden Yards that broke out amid tensions between residents and police. The turmoil prompting a citywide curfew came hours after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody. The sounds of the game had been silenced.

Martial law is the plan: Baltimore enforces night-time curfew, 'essentially 24 hours per day' for youth | 29 April 2015 | Pepper spray has been deployed to enforce a citywide curfew in Baltimore, Maryland. While scheduled to be lifted at 5:00am, it will recur nightly for a week. Minors' movements will be restricted even further. Violating the restrictions is a misdemeanor. After the curfew kicked in in Baltimore at 10:00pm ET on Tuesday, few patches of protesters remained on the street with authorities warning that violators could face arrest.

2,000 National Guard troops fan out across Baltimore | 28 April 2015 | A force of 2,000 soldiers from the Maryland National Guard has activated to assist efforts by the Maryland State Police to prevent a repeat of last night's violence in Baltimore. Guard troops are posted at City Hall and throughout the city and various neighborhoods. The Maryland Guard's Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 175 Infantry Regiment, had set up in an area of operations including City Hall, Johns Hopkins Medial Center, and other parts of downtown under the leadership of 1st Lt. Sean Gramm and 1st Lt. Henry Hensley.

Baltimore police use flash bangs, pepper pellets to clear protesters after curfew | 28 April 2015 | Law enforcement officers in Baltimore used flash bangs and shot pepper pellets to disperse protesters who remained after a 10 p.m. curfew. Hundreds of officers created walls with shields to slowly push the remaining protesters from where they were gathered. Some plastic and glass bottles were thrown at police and at least one of the smoke bombs was thrown back toward officers. It's unclear how many protesters remained after curfew.

Hundreds gather in Chicago to protest police violence | 28 April 2015 | In the aftermath of riots in Baltimore, hundreds of protesters gathered Tuesday evening outside Chicago Police Headquarters on the South Side to voice displeasure with a number of shootings by police across the country. The peaceful protest became confrontational shortly after more than 200 people began marching east on 35th Street and King Drive. The crowd pushed back against a line of bicycle police as the protesters chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Protests return in Ferguson for second night | 29 April 2015 | Protesters returned to Ferguson on Wednesday night, a day after looting, fires and gunfire broke out there during demonstrations over the death of a black man who died of spinal injuries after his arrest by Baltimore police. Several dozen people marched down West Florissant Avenue in the St. Louis suburb on Wednesday night, protesting the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray and calling for police reforms, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. They chanted "No justice; no peace. No racist police," and also referenced the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, by a white Ferguson police officer in August.

Gunfire wounds one amid protest near Brown shooting scene in Ferguson | 28 April 2015 | A man was shot as a group of about 50 protesters took to West Florissant Avenue near Canfield Drive Tuesday night. The man was carried to the safety of a restaurant by bystanders and a Post-Dispatch photographer at the scene. Police who were at the scene to monitor the protest quickly took a person into custody in the shooting and recovered a gun. It was unclear if the shooting was related to the protest.

Washington Post: Freddie Gray Severed His Own Spinal Cord --Prisoner in van said Freddie Gray was 'banging against the walls' during ride | 29 April 2105 | prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray "banging against the walls" of the vehicle and believed that he "was intentionally trying to injure himself," according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post. The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him...The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate's safety. The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator [sic], offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.

Unarmed Teen Shot, Killed by Police, Cried for His Mother: 'Mommy, Mommy, Please Come' | 28 April 2105 | Lucia Morejon cannot escape the haunting memory she has of the final desperate words spoken to her by her teenage son after he was shot by police: "Mommy, Mommy, please come, please come." Hector Morejon, the youngest of five children, made that plea for help after he was shot by a Long Beach, California, police officer, who allegedly thought the 19-year-old was in possession of a firearm Thursday afternoon. The teen, who Lucia Morejon's attorney says was unarmed, directed the cries for help toward his mother when she saw him in an ambulance directly after the shooting. His final words to his mother came, the attorney alleges, after police denied Lucia Morejon access to her son before the ambulance drove away.

Explosion, gunshots, chemical exposure part of mock emergency in Barrie | 29 April 2015 | (Central Ontario, Canada) Barrie Police, firefighters and Simcoe County paramedics worked together this morning during a mock emergency. Set inside an abandoned house on Georgian Drive, emergency crews were told a story about a hostage situation, which turned into a volatile chemical threat, followed by an explosion and gunshots. A dozen volunteers spent the morning acting as victims, with some ending up as mock fatalities.

28 Months Later, Review of State Police Response to Sandy Hook Shooting Lags | 28 April 2015 | 28 months since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings [aka drill gone live], Connecticut state police have yet to issue an after-action report analyzing law enforcement response...Sources have said many state police radios did not work inside the school, making it difficult for officers to communicate, a potentially deadly situation with so many officers searching from different areas looking for the shooter. At one point, an officer had to go outside the school and use a cellphone to call headquarters and relay the gravity of the situation. There also were questions about the 911 calls going to the regional dispatch center in Litchfield rather than to the closest state police barracks in Southbury, and whether that affected the response times of troopers who were unfamiliar with the Newtown area.

What Happened to $1.3 Billion of Taxpayer Money Sent Directly to U.S. Military Officers in Afghanistan? Pentagon won't Say. | 27 April 2015 | The Department of Defense (DOD) refuses to detail what it did with 1.3 billion that was supposed to be used on urgent humanitarian and reconstruction projects. A report from Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko pointed out that 2.26 billion had been put into the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP)...The SIGAR report said "DOD could only provide financial information relating to the disbursement of funds for CERP projects totaling 890 million (40%) of the approximately 2.2 billion in obligated funds at that time." The other 1.3 billion of the CERP money that has been sent to Afghanistan has been spent on projects classified as "unknown" [aka protecting the CIA's opi-m pipeline].

Former commander of US nuclear force urges taking missiles off high alert, citing cyberthreats | 29 April 2015 | Taking U.S. and Russian missiles off high alert could keep a possible cyberattack from starting a nuclear war, a former commander of U.S. nuclear forces says, but neither country appears willing to increase the lead-time to prepare the weapons for launch. Retired Gen. James Cartwright said in an interview that "de-alerting" nuclear arsenals could foil hackers by reducing the chance of firing a weapon in response to a false warning of attack. Essentially adding a longer fuse can be done without eroding the weapons' deterrent value, said Cartwright, who headed Strategic Command from 2004 to 2007 and was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before retiring in 2011.

Ukrainian Forces Open Fire on Russian Humanitarian Aid Convoy | 27 April 2015 | The Ukrainian Armed Forces [aka US-backed Nazis, terrorists, and sociopaths] have opened fire on a Russian humanitarian convoy. According to Gleb Kornilov, head of the Relief Fund and the New Russia Donbass, Ukrainian soldiers opened fire on a convoy carrying humanitarian aid to Donbas, killing one person. All the people from the humanitarian convoy were taken prisoner; one of them was injured in the shooting.

Forest fires heading for Chernobyl nuclear plant - Ukraine Interior Ministry | 28 April 2015 | The Ukrainian National Guard has been put on high alert due to worsening forest fires around the crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant, according to Ukraine Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. "The forest fire situation around the Chernobyl power plant has worsened," a statement on Avakov's Fb page says. "The forest fire is heading in the direction of Chernobyl's installations. Treetop flames and strong gusts of wind have created a real danger of the fire spreading to an area within 20 kilometers of the power plant. There are about 400 hectares [988 acres] of forests in the endangered area."

Aid reaches quake-hit Nepal villagers as death toll passes 5,000 | 28 April 2015 | Hungry and desperate villagers rushed towards relief helicopters in remote areas of Nepal Tuesday, begging to be airlifted to safety, four days after a monster earthquake killed more than 5,000 people. In a televised address late Tuesday, Koirala declared three days of national mourning for the 5,057 people known to have perished in Nepal alone. Around 8,000 people had been injured while the United Nations estimated that eight million people had been affected.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I am running for president' | 29 April 2015 | Promising to fight what he deems "obscene levels" of income disparity and a campaign finance system that is a "real disgrace," independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said Wednesday he will run for president as a Democrat. In an interview with The Associated Press, Sanders confirmed his plans to formally join the race Thursday. The self-described "democratic socialist" enters the race as a robust liberal alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and he pledged to do more than simply raise progressive issues or nudge the former secretary of state to the left in a campaign in which she is heavily favored.

With All Eyes on California, Vermont Forces Through Vaccine Bill | 27 April 2015 | With the public focused on the lobbyist-driven California Senate Bill 277 (SB-277), the Vermont Senate quietly eliminated vaccine exemptions Thursday with an 18-11 vote. Missing the starting gun, communities across America are now facing the political push to remove the barrier between their bodies and a private company's medical product. Attempting to squeeze every last drop of credibility from the "safe and effective" argument, senators across the U.S. appear to be ignoring the voices of their people in addition to over 3 billion of payouts in the U.S. alone from The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

United Express flight with engine fire forced to land in Philadelphia | 28 April 2015 | A plane with an engine on fire was forced to make an emergency landing on Tuesday at Philadelphia International Airport, where it landed safely, according to the airport and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. The fire broke out in the No. 2 engine of United Airlines Express Flight No. 4882, bound for Newark, New Jersey, with 75 people on board, Philadelphia International Airport said on its Twitter feed.

Lynch Sworn In as U.S. Attorney General, Succeeding Holder | 27 April 2015 | [Rudy Giuliani-backed] Loretta Lynch was sworn in as U.S. attorney general on Monday, becoming the first black woman to serve as the nation's top law enforcement officer. Lynch, who was confirmed by the Senate on April 23, replaces Eric Holder as head of the Justice Department. Her confirmation on a 56-43 vote ended a five-month wait after her nomination.

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