Monday, August 28, 2017
5 assaulted at Berkeley protests as black-clad anarchists storm rightwing rally
Protesters from the poles of the U.S. political
spectrum converged on another American city Sunday as violence erupted
when left-wing protesters surrounded and attacked at least five
right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley.
The group of more than 100 hooded
protesters, with shields emblazoned with the words “no hate” and waving a
flag identifying themselves as anarchists, busted through police lines,
avoiding security checks by officers to take away possible weapons.
Several thousand people had congregated for a “Rally
Against Hate” in response to the planned right-wing protest that raised
concerns of violence and triggered a massive police presence.Berkeley police chief Andrew Greenwood defended how police handled the protest, saying they made a strategic decision to let the anarchists enter to avoid more violence.
Greenwood said to The Associated Press: “the potential use of force became very problematic” given the thousands of peaceful protesters in the park. Once anarchists arrived, it was clear there would not be dueling protests between left and right so he ordered his officers out of the park and allowed the anarchists to march in.
There was “no need for a confrontation over a grass patch,” Greenwood said.
Among those assaulted was Joey Gibson, the leader of the Patriot Prayer group, which canceled a Saturday rally and was then prevented from holding a news conference when authorities closed off the public square Gibson planned to use.
After the anarchists spotted Gibson at the Berkeley park, they pepper-sprayed him and chased him out as he backed away with his hands held in the air. Gibson rushed behind a line of police wearing riot gear, who set off a smoke grenade to drive away the anarchists, Fox 40 reported.
Separately, groups of hooded, black-clad protesters attacked at least four other men in or near the park, kicking and punching them until the assaults were stopped by police. The assaults were witnessed by an Associated Press reporter.
Anti-rally protesters chanted slogans “No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA” and carried signs that said: “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate.”
At one point, an anti-rally protester denounced a Latino man holding a “God Bless Donald Trump” sign.
“You are an immigrant,” Karla Fonseca said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Several other people also yelled at the man, who said he was born in Mexico but supports President Donald Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the southern border.
Police pulled one supporter of Trump out of the park over a wall by his shirt as a crowd of about two dozen counter demonstrators surrounded him and chanted “Nazi go home” and pushed him toward the edge of the park.
The left-wing protesters far outnumbered those who showed up for the largely peaceful rally, which police tried to keep safe by setting up barricades around it and checking people who entered to make sure they did not have prohibited items like baseball bats, dogs, skateboards and scarves or bandanas they could use to cover their faces.
Officers arrested 13 people, most for having prohibited items, Greenwood said.
Berkeley authorities refused to issue a permit allowing Sunday’s event. The city and the University of California, Berkeley campus have been the site of political clashes and violence over the past year.
The deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 during a rally of white supremacists led San Francisco police and civil leaders to rethink their response to protests.
Earlier Sunday, a separate counter protest took place on the nearby Berkeley university campus despite calls by university police for demonstrators to stay away. From the campus, the crowd marched to Civic Center Park and merged with the anti-rally protesters who already had gathered there.
The Berkeley rallies happened a day after a rally planned by a right-wing group fizzled amid throngs of counter-protesters in San Francisco.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee declared victory over a group he branded as inviting hate.
Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin had urged counter-protesters to stay away.
The organizer of Sunday’s right-wing event was Amber Cummings, a transgender woman and Trump supporter who has repeatedly denounced racism. Cummings said that demonization by mayors in both cities and left-wing extremists made it impossible for people with other views to speak out.
Cummings has said on social media and in media interviews that Marxism is the real evil and that members of the anti-fascist movement are terrorists.
“I’m not safe to walk down the road with an American flag in this country,” she told reporters last week.
Saturday’s event was organized by a group known as Patriot Prayer. Its leader, Gibson, also repeatedly has disavowed racism.
Fox 61 reported that the group told its members: “No extremists will be allowed in. No Nazis, Communist, KKK, Antifa, white supremacist, I.E., or white nationalists. This is an opportunity for moderate Americans to come in with opposing views. We will not allow the extremists to tear apart this country.”
President Trump to Visit Texas Soon
August 27, 2017
President Trump is set to visit Texas as recovery efforts continue in the wake of tropical storm Harvey.
In a tweet Sunday, the president confirmed his travel plans saying he will depart as soon as the trip can be made without causing disruption.
He added the federal government has an all out effort going against what he called a “once in 500 year flood, according to experts.”
President Trump has praised cooperation between state and federal agencies in recent days, during on going rescue efforts in the state.
Pres. Trump Reignites Calls for Mexico to Pay for Border Wall
President Trump renews his pledge that Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall.
The president tweeted Sunday that Mexico is having one its most violent years on record and a border wall must be built.
He then repeated his notorious campaign call to make Mexico pay for the wall or reimburse the United States in the future.
The president also said Mexico and Canada are being difficult in the renegotiation of NAFTA, suggesting he may terminate the agreement if the two countries do not put forth a good deal for the U.S.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Controversial Black Lives Matter comment results in suspension of university professor
Professor Toby Jennings of Grand Canyon University |
An Arizona university professor has
been suspended over controversial comments he made about Black Lives
Matter activists nearly a year ago.
Professor Toby Jennings of Grand
Canyon University ignited a firestorm recently after the university
posted a link to a ministry forum from last September in which he said
that some members in the Black Lives Matter group “should be hung.”
“They are saying things that are not helpful in any
shape or form or human dignity or flourishing,” the African-American
professor said during the forum, which was videotaped.GCU officials told Fox 10 Phoenix that Jennings was advised that his comments during the forum, called “God’s concern for the poor: What’s missing in social justice,” were offensive, but it was not brought up to the school’s top executives.
However, members of the Black Lives Matter movement were outraged when it was shared recently.
In response, Jennings was suspended for the upcoming fall semester. He has also apologized.
Members of the BLM movement told Fox 10 Phoenix that the school’s response was not enough.
“My heart is broken, not because GCU is our enemy, but they claim to be our brothers and sisters,” said Pastor Warren Stewart, Jr. “Brothers and sisters please stop avoiding talking about ways racism … makes us uncomfortable.”
Brian Mueller, president of Grand Canyon University, said the critics of the school in this case are wrong.
“It was terribly wrong, but it is an isolated incident and it does not represent who our faculty is and it does not represent who are students are,” he said.
VA to pay Iowa veteran $550,000 to settle suit over treatment
The Department of Veterans Affairs is paying an
Iowa veteran $550,000 to settle his allegation that he suffered
life-shortening heart damage because of a three-year delay in treatment.
John Porter, 68, of Greenfield,
initially sought $5 million when he sued last year in federal court in
Des Moines after he says VA staff overlooked a test result showing his
heart was failing.
Porter told the Des Moines Register on Friday he was glad he lived long enough to see the case settled.“I’m just glad it’s over. They drug it out for so long,” he said.
Porter's lawsuit says he went to the emergency room of the Des Moines VA hospital in October 2011 after feeling tightness in his chest, and tests showed he might have heart problems. The lawsuit said a follow-up test three weeks later showed his heart was functioning at less than half of normal levels, indicating heart failure, but no VA doctors told Porter of the findings.
Only three years later did doctors at an Arizona VA hospital, where Porter had gone in 2014 after experiencing severe chest pain, find the 2011 test results and inform Porter.
The lawsuit cited a cardiologist at the Des Moines VA who later wrote that the oversight kept Porter from seeing a cardiologist promptly and that because of the three-year delay, "I doubt there will be much progress made" in treating Porter.
A VA spokeswoman did not respond Friday to the Register's request for comment. Federal lawyers' formal response to the lawsuit acknowledged that the 2011 test was done on Porter and that the doctor said its results weren't acted on. But they denied that the VA staff was negligent or that Porter's life expectancy was curtailed because of the delay.
Porter, 68, is an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam. He’s also a retired truck driver.
His lawsuit came amid national outrage over delays that many veterans were experiencing in dealing with the VA.
Porter told the Des Moines Register that he blamed his ordeal on communications problems within the VA. But he stressed that he wasn’t mistreated by VA employees.
“The Des Moines VA is full of knowledgeable, caring and competent people,” he told the newspaper. “I have nothing against the VA hospital.”
"The Des Moines VA is full of knowledgeable, caring and competent people. I have nothing against the VA hospital.”The $550,000 for which Porter settled will likely shrink fast, he told the Register.
- John Porter, 68, Vietnam veteran from Iowa
“After I’m done paying my lawyer and expenses, I’m not going to be rich,” he said Friday. “To me, it’s more of a moral victory than money, for sure.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Tit for Tat ? ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass was ripped from its base in Rochester on the an...
-
NEW YORK (AP) — As New York City faced one of its darkest days with the death toll from the coronavirus surging past 4,000 — more th...