td-cloud-library domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/releande/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6170 [ad_1]
Managing business operations today goes far beyond answering messages or organizing tasks. Most teams I talk to are juggling customer inquiries across multiple channels, dealing with repetitive work that drains hours each week, and trying to keep workflows moving as demand grows.
[ad_1]
Posted on January 11, 2026 by mylifeofcrime
Disgraced ex-NYC councilman caught with child sex abuse videos at Miami airport, feds say
Former New York Councilman Indicted on Child Pornography Charges
Ex-New York politician caught at MIA hoarding hundreds of child sex abuse videos: feds
Disgraced ex-NYC Councilman Dan Halloran arrested at Miami airport with thousands of child sex abuse videos on phone
Wikipedia: Dan Halloran
Instagram: Daniel J Halloran
INMATE INFORMATION
Name: DANIEL J HALLORAN
Register Number: 68384-054
Age: 54
Race: White
Sex: Male
Release Date: UNKNOWN
Located At: FDC Miami
Filed under: child pornography, crime, federal, high profile, Pervert Alley | Tagged: 2025, crimes against children, Florida, Miami, Pervert Alley, sex crime |
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Justin Bieber and Tate McRae lead the Juno Awards nominations this year, with six nods apiece.
The pop stars are both up for artist of the year and album of the year — Bieber for Swag II and McRae for So Close to What.
They’ll also face off in the single of the year category with Bieber’s lo-fi Daisies up against the Y2K throwback Sports Car.
Meanwhile, The Weeknd is nominated for five Junos, including album of the year for Hurry Up Tomorrow and single of the year for Cry For Me.
Newcomer Cameron Whitcomb is also in the running for five, including breakthrough artist of the year, single of the year for Options, album of the year and country album of the year for his debut The Hard Way.
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
In the new category Latin music recording of the year, the inaugural nominees are Alex Cuba, Lido Pimienta, Andy Rubal, Isabella Lovestory and Mario Puglia.
The Junos will be handed out at a gala on Saturday, March 28 and during a live broadcast hosted by comedian Mae Martin on Sunday, March 29.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
I like many things
that are automatic
: automatic transmissions, automatic doors, automatic bill payments, automatic software updates. In each case, the automatic feature makes my life easier by handling routine functions or frictions that I’d otherwise have to spend time on or endure.
Automation is often a clear improvement when things work as intended. But there is an important caveat. Automatic systems are efficient until judgment is required. Much like artificial intelligence and large language models, they can be powerful tools, but they cannot replace wisdom, experience and judgment.
That distinction matters when discussing tax administration and the introduction of automatic tax filing, something
I’ve long been an advocate of
.
Variations of automatic tax filing
exist around the world, but at its core, it involves the government using information already at its disposal to prepare and file a tax return for low-complexity taxpayers. After an opportunity to review and amend the return,
it can be filed automatically
if no action is taken.
Some people and organizations are vehemently opposed to this idea, often arguing that automatic tax filing represents
government overreach
and that governments should simply stay out of the way.
But the simple fact is that most Canadians’ tax affairs are straightforward. The
Canada Revenue Agency
(CRA) has virtually all the relevant taxpayer income information at its fingertips. Having the government take the additional step of preparing a pre-filled tax return — one that can be reviewed, confirmed or amended by the taxpayer — is not government overreach. It is a basic convenience, especially when judgment is not involved.
The
case for automatic filing
becomes clearer when you consider how many Canadians currently outsource tax compliance and how large the supporting industry has become.
Businesses in the accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services industry earned $30.3 billion in operating revenue in 2024, with tax preparation and representation being 27.7 per cent of that revenue, or about $8.4 billion. Not all of that figure would represent personal tax preparation, but a material amount of it would.
Roughly one-third of Canadians
to prepare their taxes, but according to CRA data, more than 60 per cent of returns are filed by someone
, including paid preparers, volunteers or family members. In other words, a majority of Canadians don’t file their own return, even if they don’t always pay for help.
The overarching message here is that preparing your tax return is not easy and can be expensive for the average low-complexity taxpayer.
This matters because one of the foundational objectives of a good tax system — articulated centuries ago by Scottish economist Adam Smith in his book The Wealth of Nations — is convenience. Taxes should be levied and collected in a way that is easy to comply with and minimizes unnecessary burdens.
A system that requires millions of Canadians with simple tax situations to spend money, time and emotional energy to meet a basic filing obligation fails that test. Automatic tax filing is not about eliminating choice or judgment; it is about recognizing that routine compliance should not impose disproportionate costs.
Over the years, the CRA has introduced various tools designed to ease the filing burden. “
” allows income and benefit data already held by the CRA to populate certified tax software. The agency has also experimented with simplified filing initiatives, such as
, aimed primarily at low-income Canadians with very basic tax situations.
Despite good intentions, uptake of these programs has historically been low. Participation depended on
taxpayers being invited
and then choosing to act. As a result, these initiatives never meaningfully changed the overall filing experience for most Canadians.
The federal 2025 budget finally marked a notable shift. It announced the government’s intention to move forward with
, starting with low-income and low-complexity taxpayers who meet certain criteria.
However, the budget was light on implementation detail. Key design questions, such as reassessment rights and safeguards, were largely left unanswered, but the government is currently consulting on some of those design matters with Canadians until Jan. 30.
If automatic tax filing is to deliver real benefits, it cannot depend on traditional opt-in consent. A system that requires affirmative action before anything happens simply recreates the friction automation is meant to eliminate.
The 2025 budget announcement seems to give credence to that concern since it proposed that prior to the CRA automatically filing a return, eligible individuals would have 90 days to review the information and submit changes. I generally like the proposal, but fairness must be embedded into the system’s design.
Many Canadians are intimidated by the CRA, are uncomfortable with technology or lack confidence reviewing even simple tax returns. Automatic filing should simplify compliance, not create anxiety or silence taxpayers through inaction.
One way to address this concern would be to extend the normal reassessment period for automatically filed returns. Currently, most individuals are subject to a three-year normal reassessment period.
For auto-filed returns
, extending that period to something more reasonable — say, six years — would provide taxpayers with additional time to revisit their filings, obtain advice and correct issues without penalty.
In addition, the 90-day period should be longer — perhaps 180 days — while accommodating an extended filing due date beyond April 30 (so as to avoid late filing penalties).
These are sensible trade-offs. The system gains efficiency and reduced compliance costs upfront, while taxpayers gain comfort and flexibility on the back end. Again, like many automatic systems, automatic tax filing will work best where judgment is minimal and complexity is low.
Automatic transmissions do not eliminate driving. They do, however, make it easier. The same for automatic tax filing: it should simply remove unnecessary friction from routine compliance. For millions of Canadians with simple tax affairs, that would be a long-overdue improvement.
When judgment isn’t required, friction isn’t a virtue, but automation is.
Kim Moody, FCPA, FCA, TEP, is the founder of Moodys Tax/Moodys Private Client, a former chair of the Canadian Tax Foundation, former chair of the Society of Estate Practitioners (Canada) and has held many other leadership positions in the Canadian tax community. He can be reached at kgcm@kimgcmoody.com and his LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimgcmoody.
_____________________________________________________________
If you like this story, sign up for the FP Investor Newsletter.
_____________________________________________________________
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
These energy balls are lifesavers! When you’re hungry in between meals, running out the door without breakfast, or craving a wholesome little treat, these energy balls will come to the rescue. They’re the perfect healthy grab-and-go snack.
This recipe is made with oats, honey, nut butter, and toasted nuts and seeds, though it’s endlessly adaptable to suit your preferences. I designed it to offer sustained energy from the whole grains and nuts. One ball is just sweet enough to taste like a treat, and offers a healthy dose of protein and fiber.
This recipe was inspired by my husband’s mom’s interpretation of my no-bake granola bars. She always has a batch in the fridge for her grandkids, and they’ve become a staple in our house, too. I crumbled one over my yogurt just this morning, and they’ve kept my energy level up through this postpartum phase. They’re a perfect homemade gift for anyone who’s in a busy season of life, that’s for sure.
This recipe comes together quickly and easily, especially with the help of some basic kitchen tools. Use a food processor to chop the mix-ins, and a medium-sized cookie scoop to turn the mixture into balls (affiliate links).
You’ll find the full recipe below. Here’s what you’ll need and why:
This recipe is flexible and fun to play with. It calls for a total of 1 3/4 cups of mix-ins, counting the pecans, almonds, and pepitas. (The flaxseed absorbs some moisture, so for consistency’s sake, leave that one as-is.)
You can easily adjust the ingredients to suit your taste buds. Try substituting other nuts, shredded coconut, dried fruit, chocolate chips or chopped chocolate! You can blitz all of these ingredients together in the food processor (if you’re using chocolate, be sure to let the nuts cool completely before combining them so the chocolate doesn’t melt).
Here are some variations to try:
If you enjoy these energy balls, try one of these wholesome, nutty recipes next:
Please let me know how your recipe turns out in the comments! I love hearing from you.
Print
These energy balls are the perfect wholesome snack! Each one is packed with whole grains, nuts and seeds, and offers a healthy amount of protein and fiber. Recipe yields about 36 balls.
Recipe adapted from my Easy No-Bake Granola Bars.
Mix-in options: This recipe calls for 2 cups of nuts and seeds total. You can change the mix-ins by substituting other nuts (cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts) or seeds, such as sunflower seeds. Or, you can replace some of the nuts/seeds with chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate, shredded coconut, or dried cranberries or cherries.
Change it up: These balls can be sweetened (mostly) with Medjool dates, if you’d like to increase the fiber content. Soak 12 dates in piping hot water for 10 minutes, then tear them in half and remove their pits. Place them in a food processor with 2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey and blend until completely smooth. Use this mixture in place of the ½ cup honey or maple syrup.
Make it gluten free: Be sure to use certified gluten-free oats.
Make it nut free: Do not use nuts (pepitas and sunflower seeds are good options) and replace the nut butter with sunflower butter.
Make it vegan: Use maple syrup instead of honey.
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz look on during a rural health roundtable on January 16, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
A nationwide experiment to give health care in rural America a $50 billion makeover is underway.
The Trump administration, in a late December announcement, revealed how much each state will get under an ambitious 5-year initiative known as the Rural Health Transformation Program.
“This is a massive effort to change an unfortunate reality that has occurred to rural health care in America,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told reporters as the awards went out, “which is that your zip code has started to predict your life expectancy.”
Research shows people are more likely to die younger in rural communities compared to cities, and the disparity has grown over the last three decades.
Congress created this new pot of money last summer. States were given just 52 days to pull together applications and outline how they would use the funding to improve outcomes, grow the rural health care workforce and drive innovation.
Each state is guaranteed $100 million a year over the next five years. The rest of the money was awarded based on a series of factors — including how rural a state is, what states propose to do with the money and whether the states adopt policies aligned with the administration’s Make America Healthy Again priorities.
There’s bipartisan excitement about rural health finally getting some attention and investment. Democrats and many health policy experts argue, however, that this temporary $50 billion infusion pales in comparison to the roughly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and Obamacare, also passed by Congress last year.
“There’s a lot of great things in these proposals,” said Kevin Bennett, director of the Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare at the University of South Carolina. “But I think if we really wanted to transform [rural health care], they would have gone a lot further.”
Bennett spoke on a panel about the new funding co-hosted by the health policy news organization Tradeoffs and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Here are a few other key things to know about the Rural Health Transformation Program:
Congress added the rural funding to President Trump’s massive tax and spending bill — sometimes called the Big Beautiful Bill — passed by Republicans last July. At the last minute, Congress doubled the funds for the program from $25 billion to $50 billion.
The new funding was included in part to satisfy some Republicans lawmakers who feared that major cuts to federal Medicaid funding would threaten the viability of rural hospitals. Nearly 200 rural hospitals have closed since 2005, and another 432 are vulnerable to closure, according to a recent report.
But the Trump administration pushed states to think more broadly about rural health, telling them they can only use up to 15% of this new funding for direct payments to providers.
“The purpose of this fund is not to pay operating expenses,” Oz told reporters in December. “The purpose of this $50 billion investment is to allow us to right-size the system and to deal with the fundamental hindrances of improvement in rural health care.”
Awards for the first year range from New Jersey’s $147 million to $281 million for Texas.
Large rural states like Texas, Alaska, California and Montana got the most money, but according to an analysis from the health policy research group KFF, some small states like New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts got significantly more per rural resident.
Paula Chatterjee, a physician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania did an analysis ahead of the awards being announced that found what she called a “mismatch” in how funds were targeted compared to where the greatest rural patient needs are.
“If you look at where funding per rural resident is going under this program, it’s not going to states that have the highest rural mortality rates,” Chatterjee said at the recent panel. “It’s not going to states that are projected to have the greatest reductions in federal Medicaid spending. It’s not going to places that are losing the most hospital beds.”
A number of states went after the new money to fund more telehealth, deploy artificial intelligence and expand the rural health care workforce.
States took on workforce shortages from many angles. Delaware asked for money to launch a new medical school. Alaska plans to spend funds on housing and child care for its health care workers. California wants to invest in a workforce mapping and planning tool. Many states said they would create more residency and fellowships for doctors and make it easier for nurses, pharmacists and other health workers to do more.
“A lot of the workforce proposals in these are tried and true methods,” Bennett said. “Pipeline development, incentive programs, loan repayment, all of those sorts of things we know can be effective.”
The same legislation that created the Rural Health Transformation Program also cut federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. A KFF analysis estimates that $137 billion of those cuts will hit rural areas — nearly triple the amount of the new rural health fund.
Rural health advocates say the looming cuts will leave hospitals struggling to survive, making it difficult to fully take advantage of the rural funding opportunity.
“It’s really hard to think about transformation if you’re trying to keep your doors open and employees employed and patients served,” Bennett said.
CMS launched an Office of Rural Health Transformation, which will oversee the program and offer support to states, according to federal health officials. Most states are planning to have their health departments or Medicaid offices manage their new initiatives.
States are expected to start work on their implementation immediately, with awards for 2027 due to be announced in October 2026.
Some of the money comes with strings. States could get bigger awards by promising to adopt health policies highlighted by the administration in its call for proposals.. But if states fail to pass those policies, they will receive less money in future years and could be forced to repay funds they already received.
According to federal health officials, 24 states promised to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test in schools; thirty-three states said they already have or would add restrictions to their food assistance programs to make it harder for people to buy soda and other unhealthy items; and 18 states got points for repealing or limiting certificate of need laws, which require health care providers to prove to state regulators that new services or facilities are needed before they can open up shop.
Oz said he sees this as a tool for governors to push policies through potentially uncooperative legislatures.
“This is not a threat,” Oz said. “This is actually an empowering element of the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
Gladys Mae West was born in rural Virginia in 1930, grew up working on a tobacco farm, and died earlier this month a celebrated mathematician whose work made possible the GPS technology most of us use each and every day. Hers was a distinctively American life, in more ways than one. Seeking an escape from the agricultural labor she’d already gotten to know all too well, she won a scholarship to Virginia State College by becoming her high school class valedictorian; after earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics, she taught for a time and then applied for a job at the naval base up in Dahlgren. She first distinguished herself there by verifying the accuracy of bombing tables with a hand calculator, and from there moved on up to the computer programming team.
This was the early nineteen-sixties, when programming a computer meant not coding, but laboriously feeding punch cards into an enormous mainframe. West and her colleagues used IBM’s first transistorized machine, the 7030 (or “Stretch”), which was for a few years the fastest computer in the world.
It cost an equivalent of $81,860,000 in today’s dollars, but no other computer had the power to handle the project of calculating the precise shape of Earth as affected by gravity and the nature of the oceans. About a decade later, another team of government scientists made use of those very same calculations when putting together the model employed by the World Geodetic System, which GPS satellites still use today. Hence the tendency of celebratory obituaries to underscore the point that without West’s work, GPS wouldn’t be possible.
Nor do any of them neglect to point out the fact that West was black, one of just four such mathematicians working for the Navy at Dahlgren. Stories like hers have drawn much greater public interest since the success of Hidden Figures, the Hollywood adaptation of Margot Lee Shetterly’s book about the black female mathematicians at NASA during the Space Race. When that movie came out, in 2016, even West’s own children didn’t know the importance of the once-classified work she’d done. Only in 2018, when she provided that information on a biographical form she filled out for an event hosted by her college sorority, did it become public. She thus spent the last years of her long life as a celebrity, sought out by academics and journalists eager to understand the contributions of another no-longer-hidden figure. But to their questions about her own GPS use, she reportedly answered that she preferred a good old-fashioned paper map.
Related content:
Margaret Hamilton, Lead Software Engineer of the Apollo Project, Stands Next to Her Code That Took Us to the Moon (1969)
Women’s Hidden Contributions to Modern Genetics Get Revealed by New Study: No Longer Will They Be Buried in the Footnotes
Meet Grace Hopper, the Pioneering Computer Scientist Who Helped Invent COBOL and Build the Historic Mark I Computer (1906–1992)
Jocelyn Bell Burnell Discovered Radio Pulsars in 1974, But the Credit Went to Her Advisor; In 2018, She Gets Her Due, Winning a $3 Million Physics Prize
Henrietta Lacks Gets Immortalized in a Portrait: It’s Now on Display at the National Portrait Gallery
Black History in Two Minutes: Watch 93 Videos Written & Narrated by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
A collection of images reflecting life at home and abroad by Danish photographer Albert Elm. The followup to his acclaimed debut monograph, “What Sort of Life is This,” Elm’s new book captures a particular moment in time, shaped by his age, circumstances, and surroundings. From an Italian marble quarry to an industrial pipe system outside Mumbai, Elm has assembled a series of scenes that manage to feel both global and personal. Like many of us, Elm is navigating the constant barrage of information and ever-changing nature of contemporary life. His work emerges from a desire to make sense of our reality as well as to push its limits. “This Much is True” is an act of observation as we witness Elm’s understanding and view of the world takes shape before our eyes.
The book is currently available for pre-order via Disko Bay. Click here for more details.
[ad_2]
Source link
[ad_1]
In 1871, bands of masked men were riding through southern states, terrorizing Black people with murders, beatings and rapes. Local officials did little to stop the violence because many of them supported, or in some cases were members of, the Ku Klux Klan.
In response, Congress passed a law, often referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act, meant to protect people from civil rights violations by state and local officials. The law has become a key piece of police accountability, granting Americans the ability to file civil rights lawsuits in federal court against state and local officers. But one important group remains exempt — federal agents.
Following the recent slayings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers in Minnesota, along with other violence against civilians, some experts are questioning why that same 155-year-old law doesn’t apply to employees of the federal government.
Scenes of brutal arrests and violent encounters with federal agents have become commonplace in U.S. cities where the Department of Homeland Security has launched immigration crackdowns in recent months, especially in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse for the Veterans Administration, was fatally shot in Minneapolis by Border Patrol agents on Saturday after he tried to protect a woman an officer had shoved to the ground.
When federal agents use excessive force, infringe on people’s civil rights or fail to offer medical aid, experts say it’s especially difficult to hold them accountable in federal court.
“There’s basically no right to sue federal officers for almost anything, including constitutional violations and including use of deadly force,” explained Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at UCLA who is an expert on police misconduct lawsuits.
When local or state police use excessive force, victims or their families often file federal civil rights lawsuits. Cleveland paid Tamir Rice’s family $6 million; Baltimore agreed to $6.4 million for the family of Freddie Gray; and Minneapolis awarded George Floyd’s family a $27 million settlement.
Schwartz said it is “a cruel irony” that Congress originally passed the civil rights law in response to masked men committing abuses allowed by state and local officials following the Civil War.
“And here we are, 150 years later, and we are seeing federal officers blatantly violate the Constitution and laws,” she said. “And states are beginning to recognize that they need to step in to protect the citizenry — their residents — from violence and overreach by federal officers.”
In a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, two legal scholars argued that the loophole for federal officers should be closed and the new law should be named in Good’s honor. Jonathan Ross, the officer who killed Good, could possibly face state criminal charges, but legal experts say the prosecution would face a number of challenges.
Lawmakers’ refusal to close this loophole in the 1871 act for federal officers is a bipartisan policy failure that has persisted for decades, said Alex Reinert, a professor at New York City’s Cardozo School of Law who is an expert in civil rights and constitutional law.
“The Supreme Court has made it hard and Congress has done nothing about it,” he said. “The other piece of it is: Every presidential administration, every Department of Justice of every presidential administration for the last 45 years, has argued vigorously for a limitation of the right to sue federal officials. So, whether it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, they are all responsible for the space in which we find ourselves today — even as the current administration must be held accountable for flouting constitutional bounds in unprecedented ways.”
Reinert said the killings of Pretti and Good have brought national attention to this issue, and that “has the potential to generate momentum for change,” but that effort may face significant resistance from the administration and Congress.
Illinois passed a law last year that would allow people to sue federal officers in state court for violations of their civil rights while conducting immigration enforcement. The Trump administration quickly sued to nullify it.
Ken Wallentine is the retired chief of the West Jordan, Utah, Police Department and the former chief of law enforcement for the state attorney general, and has served as a consultant on civil and criminal use-of-force investigations. He has concerns about what he’s seen unfolding lately in Minnesota.
“I have a lot of questions about the tactics and use of force,” Wallentine said.
If these deadly and violent encounters involved Minneapolis or St. Paul police instead of ICE and Border Patrol agents, he said, there would likely be some level of accountability happening, at least on the city, county or state level. There would be an investigation by internal affairs or the local prosecutor, or possibly an inquiry by another elected official or public body. For instance, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin received more than 22 years in prison for the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
To be sure, not all incidents involving excessive force claims against local police end in criminal convictions or lawsuit victories. But in Wallentine’s previous roles, he had to answer to a mayor or an attorney general who could fire him. And state and local police have to obtain and maintain licensure through a state board that can revoke it. That same system doesn’t exist for federal officers, he said.
“There are so many accountability tools that don’t apply to federal agents,” he said.
In fact, several Trump administration officials have told ICE officers that they have “absolute” immunity.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, dozens of states passed laws aimed at reducing use of deadly force by police and creating a duty for officers to intervene in cases of excessive or illegal force or misconduct. This month, Colorado officials launched a system for reporting complaints of misconduct by federal agents.
“Nobody is above the rule of law, including federal agents such as ICE or border patrol,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.
Minnesota’s attorney general has a form for reporting violations of civil rights by federal officers. The state also has a specific law requiring someone who fires a gun and knows or suspects they have injured someone to immediately render aid. Some experts have argued that the agents present at Good’s death could be prosecuted under that law, because they reportedly never rendered aid and prevented a physician from doing so. After agents shot Pretti, they didn’t perform CPR and initially refused to allow a doctor to examine him before relenting, according to the doctor’s account in court records.
In the case of Good’s death, Wallentine noted, “you’ve got the head of the agency jumping up and down and thumping her chest and saying this was a bad person,” leading him to believe any internal investigation may not be fair or impartial.
Similarly, within hours of Pretti’s death on Saturday, Trump administration officials labeled him a “domestic terrorist” and someone trying to “massacre law enforcement.”
Wallentine said he was a vocal advocate for a Utah law passed in 2022 that set minimum standards for an officer’s duty to intervene and report misconduct. He’s authored articles for police publications examining lawsuits in which courts held officers liable for not intervening when witnessing excessive force.
“We require of our state and local officers a high standard of conduct, and we have a number of means to ensure that that standard of conduct gets met,” Walletine said. “And we ought to, as a society, expect the same out of anyone that we give a badge and a gun and the right to infringe on constitutional liberties. We ought to have the same standards of accountability [for federal law enforcement] — and we don’t.”
Federal officers have used violent tactics during a number of incidents in Minneapolis-St. Paul: A family with six young children had tear gas thrown at their vehicle when they were trapped in protest traffic. The mother had to perform CPR on her infant, and the other children were treated at a hospital for smoke exposure, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. Agents mistakenly arrested a U.S. citizen at gunpoint in his own home, hauling him out in his underwear. Protesters have been sprayed in the face at close range with chemical irritants.
On the morning of Jan. 11, Orbin Mauricio Henríquez-Serrano reportedly was on his way to work when he stopped to fuel up at a gas station in St. Paul.
As Henríquez-Serrano sat in his car at the gas pump, Border Patrol agents in military-style fatigues and tactical gear swarmed his vehicle and ordered him out. In bystander video of the incident, Henríquez-Serrano appears to be on his phone when federal officers surprise him. Within seconds, they smashed the window and forcibly removed the 27-year-old from a Jeep, flipping him face down on the ground, cuffing his hands while at least one agent knelt on his back. He was soon limp and unconscious before agents took him away in a minivan.
Some who watched the footage of Henríquez-Serrano’s arrest initially feared he might have died. He survived, and records show he was held at an ICE detention facility in El Paso the following week. HuffPost reported on Monday that he was deported.
Homeland Security officials didn’t respond to questions about the incident. The agency addressed criticism of the arrest in a public post on X: “The subject refused to obey lawfully given orders and during that time a crowd formed. After multiple warnings and several minutes, Border Patrol broke the vehicles [sic] window and arrested the illegal alien.”
His sister, Consuelo Henríquez-Serrano, told The Marshall Project in a phone interview that her brother did not have legal immigration status but planned to seek asylum, fearing gangs and corruption in his native Honduras. She spoke to her brother briefly on the phone from the detention camp, but was unsure about the extent of his injuries.
“He’s not a criminal, he didn’t harass anybody, he didn’t have guns — they just took him,” she said.
[ad_2]
Source link
