Our live coverage of the anti-racist protests has moved here.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said the city is “not under siege” and that the police are “still responding to every single call in every area of the city.”
Protesters have occupied a six-block zone around a downtown precinct, with some calling it CHAZ for Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or CHOP for the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.
Best said the occupied area is a “delicate situation” but “not a situation where there is lawlessness.”
“The last thing I want to do is have any issue of violence occurring in the area, so we are very judicious about how we do it and how we go in,” she said.
Last week, the police department pulled officers out of the precinct as tensions between officers and protesters boiled over. The abandoned precinct has been spray painted with a sign that says: “Seattle People Department East Precinct.”
Best said that they are working with the protesters to try and resolve the situation.
“What we have is a situation where people have occupied an area, and we are working with them. The city is working with them, and has negotiators to work with them to have a peaceful resolution,” she said.
Best also said that the barricades are preventing them from “going in as quickly and efficiently as we would like to” and the fact that officers are not in the precinct has increased response times “across the entire East precinct area.”
Here’s what it’s like inside Seattle’s Capitol Hill:
Watch Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best’s interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo:
The Los Angeles Police Department told their officers they cannot afford to pay them for overtime worked during the recent George Floyd protests and prior to that during California’s stay-at-home order protests, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN Monday.
LAPD told CNN they will compensate officers in the form of time off instead.
“During this extraordinary time, including the full mobilization of our sworn members, the Department has expended more than $40 million dollars in overtime expenses,” the memo reads.
“This amount far exceeds any budgetary reserve to address unusual occurrences. Therefore, this notice is to advise department personnel that as of June 7, 2020 pursuant to Memorandum of Understanding 24, Article 6.1D, compensation for overtime shall be in the form of time at the appropriate rate.”
Prior to June 7, 2020, sworn officers could accrue up to 150 hours of compensatory time off but that cap no longer applies, the department said in a statement.
The announcement comes nearly two weeks after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the city identified $100 million to $150 million cuts to LAPD’s budget to “build trust and bolster accountability” with more transparent police practices.
Attorney for Rayshard Brooks’ family, L. Chris Stewart, said that he is “not shocked” that the officers involved in the fatal shooting of Brooks had disciplinary complaints against them.
“It’s like we’re living in that movie ‘Groundhog Day.’ It’s the same thing over and over again,” Stewart said.
“It’s normally that situation. You know who causes issues or who has had prior issues and complaints. A lot of them don’t get justified and stay on the force. So, it wasn’t a surprise,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
Atlanta police released the disciplinary records for the two officers involved in the shooting. They show that Officer Garrett Rolfe had a use of force complaint from 2016, that resulted in a written reprimand the following year. Rolfe’s record also included several citizen complaints, all with notes that no action was taken.
Officer Devin Brosnan has two firearm discharges on his record, both entered on the record this month.
Stewart said that deadly force was not necessary in this case.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced plans to initiate a public process to consider the future of the Christopher Columbus statue located in Marconi Plaza on South Broad Street, according to a press statement.
In a letter, Kenney asked the Public Art Director Margot Berg to initiate the appropriate process through the Philadelphia Art Commission for the possible removal of the statue, adding that the totality of Columbus’ “infamous” history should be accounted for when considering to maintain a monument to him.
No decision has been made yet on whether the City will remove the statue. A boxing apparatus will be installed around the statue on Tuesday in order to preserve it while the Art Commission process is followed, the statement reads.
The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to ban the use of chokeholds by the Seattle Police Department during a council meeting today.
The City Council also unanimously voted to ban the Seattle Police Department from owning, purchasing, renting, storing or using crowd control weapons.
Those crowd control weapons include: “kinetic impact projectiles, chemical irritants, acoustic weapons, directed energy weapons, water cannons, disorientation devices, ultrasonic cannons, or any other device that is designed to be used on multiple individuals for crowd control and is designed to cause pain or discomfort,” according to the bill.
The final bill was also unanimously passed. It requires certain uniformed police officers to not cover the serial number engraved on their badge with a mourning band.
Eight Atlanta police officers have resigned since June 1, according to the Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
The foundation did not state an exact reason for the resignations, but indicated a low moral throughout the department.
The organization had previously reported that 19 officers had resigned in the past 10 days. In an updated statement, the Atlanta Police Foundation said they reported an inaccurate number of officer resignations.
“Earlier today, the Atlanta Police Foundation reported an inaccurate number of officer resignations within the Atlanta Police Department since the start of the social justice protests. Eight officers have resigned since June 1. Due to a miscommunication we reported inaccurately that 19 officers had resigned. We apologize for the error,” the statement said.
CNN has reached out to the police department for comment on the resignations.
This post has been updated to reflect the updated number of resignations from the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Atlanta police have released the disciplinary records for the two officers involved in Rayshard Brooks’ shooting on Friday night.
Officer Garrett Rolfe’s record shows a use of force complaint from September 19, 2016, that resulted in a written reprimand the following year.
Rolfe’s record also included several citizen complaints, all with notes that no action was taken.
Officer Devin Brosnan has two firearm discharges on his record, both entered on the record this month. An Atlanta Police Department spokesman tells CNN that one of the cases is from a March 20 incident and the other is from Friday night’s shooting.
The Brooks’ incident notes maltreatment or unnecessary use of force, the record shows.
Rolfe was fired on Saturday and Brosnan has been placed on administrative duty.
CNN has reached out to the Atlanta police for more information on the officer’s records.
The Fulton County District Attorney is weighing charges for both officers involved in the Rayshard Brooks shooting, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, Jr., told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Howard said that he understands Brooks’ widow and the community who are calling for one system of justice.
Howard said that when he watched the video already knowing that Brooks died, he was expecting to see someone who was resisting and not cooperating with the police.
“That was the exact opposite of what happened with Mr. Brooks. He was very compliant,” Howard said. “There is no reason for Mr. Brooks to end up dead because he fell asleep in a drive-thru or that he was intoxicated.”
Howard said the video evidence in this case would be very important to determine what happened at the exact moment of the shooting
Justin Miller, attorney for the family of Rayshard Brooks, said the officer who shot Brooks in the back “was already going to use legal force.”
Brooks, 27, was shot dead by an officer Friday night at a fast-food restaurant after he scuffled with police who were trying to handcuff him, took one of their Tasers and ran. Brooks was suspected of driving under the influence.
Miller said that video released of the incident shows that “the officer dropped his Taser and put his hand on his gun before Mr. Brooks turned around with that Taser and just randomly shot it in the air.”
“He was already going to use legal force. He was already going to shoot him in the back, before any of that stuff with Mr. Brooks happened,” Miller told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
Miller also said that officers should have to complete “100 hours at least of community service” before policing a community “so you know the people.”
“I think they’re trained to be more militarized than they need to be, and then they are placed in communities with people they don’t know,” Miller said.
In an interview with ESPN, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that he supports a team if it makes the decision to sign Colin Kaepernick.
“Well, listen, if he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then obviously it’s going to take a team to make that decision,” Goodell said. “But I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that.
Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who started kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality in 2016, has been unsigned to a team since 2017.
Earlier this month, Goodell said the league should have listened to players earlier about racism.
“If his efforts are not on the field but continuing to work in this space, we welcome (him) to that table and to be able to help us, and guide us, help us make better decisions about the kinds of things that need to be done in communities,” Goodell told ESPN.
“We have invited him in before, and we want to make sure that everybody’s welcome at that table, and trying to help us deal with some very complex, difficult issues that have been around unfortunately for a long time.”
Goodell said he hopes, “we’re at a point now where everybody’s committed to making long-term, sustainable change.”
The ESPN special, called “The Return of Sports,” will air on ESPN starting at 9 p.m. ET.
Hallandale Beach Police Chief Sonia Quinones appeared on CNN after kneeling in solidarity with activists at a protest – an act that prompted 10 South Florida police officers to resign from their city’s SWAT unit.
Quinones said she knelt because she saw that it was, “an opportunity to stand with them, to kneel with them.”
The officers had sent a letter to Quinones, saying they were “minimally equipped, under trained and often times restrained by the politicization of our tactics to the extent of placing the safety of dogs over the safety of the team members.”
Quinones said the claims of underfunding are “not accurate.”
“We provided increase in training hours, we’ve provided over $100,000 over the past two years in Swat-specific equipment,” she said.
Read the story:
Watch:
Louisville Metro Police say at least two news crews have encountered aggressive protestors who have thrown bricks at them this evening, according to the LMPD Media and Public Relations Office.
The Department is asking people to stay out of the area of the protests, “due to aggressive behavior of demonstrators downtown, including road blocks, trapping vehicles, and violent behavior.”
According to CNN affiliates WAVE, WDRB, and WLKY, police have also asked all news crews to leave the area.
The FBI, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and the US Attorney’s office for the Central District of California are reviewing investigations into the recent hanging deaths of two black men in Southern California to determine if foul play or civil rights violations played a role.
The deaths of the two men, Robert Fuller, 24, and Malcolm Harsch, 38, occurred in the cities of Victorville and Palmdale 10 days and 50 miles apart. Both deaths were initially reported as suspected suicides by the Los Angeles and San Bernardino sheriff’s departments and are now under further investigation by the local departments.
Fuller was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale on the morning of June 10. Nothing but the rope, contents of his pockets, and a backpack that he was wearing were found on the scene, Los Angeles County Homicide Capt. Kent Wegener said Monday.
Investigators are researching Fuller’s medical history and looking for the witness who reported Fuller’s body as well as searching for contacts in Arizona and Nevada. Sheriff’s investigators will also analyze Fuller’s cell phone and are also looking for neighborhood surveillance video.
About 50 miles away, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is also investigating Harsch’s death near a homeless encampment on May 31. Investigators there have not recovered evidence of foul play, the sheriff’s department said.
Protesters in Washington, DC, on Monday appeared to block both sides of Interstate 395 south of the Capitol.
About 150 protesters were also seen at the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, DC.
They were seen carrying signs with the names of victims of police violence, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.
Here’s what the protest looked like:
An upcoming executive order on policing will create new incentives for “best practices” in police departments, senior administration officials said on Monday.
The order, which is set to be unveiled on Tuesday, will create a nationwide certification process for police departments and rely on incentives to steer local forces towards federal guidelines, including on use of force standards that prohibit chokeholds outside of situations where deadly force is allowed.
During a call with reporters, one senior administration official said the team worked closely with “law enforcement professionals and their representatives, as well as with families and people who are killed by law enforcement and, and also their representatives” to craft the document.
The official said the executive order has three main components, focusing on new, national credentialing and certification for officers and departments, “information sharing” on excessive use of force complaints against officers, and incentivizing a “co-responder program” to deal with issues like mental health and homelessness.
But there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of federal mandates. Asked how the Department of Justice would enforce the components of the order, the official answered that “a lot of the law enforcement is local.”
The order won’t mandate that federal funding be tied to meeting those best practices, another official said later, but it will make departments more “competitive” for federal grants if they meet those standards.
“It’s creating the ecosystem that rewards good behavior. One of those good behaviors, if I’m applying for federal grants, maybe you want to look at an accreditation that makes you more competitive,” the official said.
Trump has yet to comprehensively address issues of police reform or even acknowledge systemic racism in America and has not been heavily involved in drafting the executive order. Instead, the President has directed his energy on delivering a tough-talking law-and-order message and falsely portraying peaceful protesters as mostly violent.
Trump talks to reporters about upcoming executive order:
Seattle Police officers have been instructed not to respond to calls for service within the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” unless it is in response to a “mass casualty event” like an active shooter, or a structural fire “likely to endanger human lives,” according to an email obtained by CNN.
The email, sent department-wide on June 12, instructs Seattle police officers to continue documenting calls originating from the “autonomous zone,” even in cases “where complainant/victim contact isn’t possible.”
Detective Patrick Michaud, Seattle Police spokesperson, confirmed the authenticity of the email on Monday and reiterated that officers will still respond to any significant life safety issues in the “autonomous zone.” For all other calls, people will be asked to meet police outside the zone, Michaud said.
Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said at news conference Monday that although they are responding to calls in the zone differently, “there is no cop-free zone in the city of Seattle.”
“I think that the picture has been painted in many areas that show the city is under siege – that is not the case. We do have a small area, as you know, in the Capitol Hill area…that we are responding to calls for service in a different manner,” Best said.
For non-life-threatening calls originating in this area, Best said “dispatchers and officers will try to coordinate contact with the victim or caller outside” of the zone’s boundaries “if it is feasible, reasonable, and safe to do so.”
In a 911 call released by Atlanta police from Rayshard Brooks’ fatal shooting, a Wendy’s employee told the operator she thought a man was drunk in his vehicle parked in her drive-through causing other cars to drive around him.
The employee told the dispatcher she went to his window.
“He woke up, looked at me and I was like ‘you’ve got to move out the drive-through’ because people can’t – they’re going around him, he’s in the middle of the drive-through just right there,” she said, according to the audio.
“And I asked him to pull over. If he had too much to drink to pull over and go to sleep,” she said.
The dispatcher asked the caller if she thought the man had a weapon.
“No, no. I think he’s intoxicated,” she said.
Some background: Brooks, 27, was shot and killed by police in a Wendy’s parking lot Friday night. His death sparked protests this weekend, and prompted the sudden resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields. The officer who shot Brooks, identified by police as Garrett Rolfe, has been fired, and a second officer involved in the encounter, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on administrative duty. CNN has reached out to the officers and police union for comment.
Plenty of questions are unanswered, perhaps chief among them whether the officers will face charges.
Hear 911 call before Rayshard Brooks was shot:
A concerned dispatcher watching the death of George Floyd on surveillance cameras felt it was necessary to alert a supervisor about the use of force applied by the officers involved, according to an audio recording released by the Minneapolis Police Department on Monday.
The audio stamp on the recording indicates the call was made at 8:30 p.m. local time on May 25, around the time Floyd was being transported by ambulance to the Hennepin County Medical Center.
The Minneapolis Police Department also released two 911 transcripts, including one from an unidentified off-duty city firefighter who witnessed the incident and said, “I’m on the block of 38th and Chicago and I literally watched police officers not take a pulse and not do anything to save a man, and I am a first responder myself, and I literally have it on video camera… I just happened to be on a walk so, this dude, this, they (expletive) killed him so…”
The off-duty firefighter offered to speak to a supervisor but when the 911 dispatcher tried to connect him, the call was disconnected, according to the transcript.
In another 911 transcript, an unidentified caller mentioned how an officer “pretty much just killed this guy that wasn’t resisting arrest.” The caller is then offered a chance to speak to a supervisor at the Minneapolis Third Precinct.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced Monday that he has signed an executive order banning the use of chokeholds for the state police force.
Lamont’s executive order also requires the state’s Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) review the Connecticut State Police Administrative and Operations Manual and update it to require state troopers to, when possible, deescalate situations, provide a verbal warning, and exhaust “all other reasonable alternatives” before resorting to use of deadly force. Troopers will also be required to intervene to stop another law enforcement officer from using excessive force and to report any such use to a supervisor, according to a statement from Lamont’s office.
Additionally, the executive order also requires that every state trooper be equipped with a body camera and all state police vehicles be equipped with a dashboard camera. The order prohibits DESPP from purchasing military and military-style equipment from the federal government until further notice, the statement said.
Lamont also said the state plans to release information on use of force incidents through an online portal, and aims to recruit more black and female officers for its state police force.
The governor said Monday he hoped his executive order will be codified into law in a special session of the state legislature.
The orders were limited to Connecticut State Police, but the governor said he hoped the reforms would be enacted throughout municipal police departments.
