Jailhouse assault trial for accused Parkland shooter begins
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer rejected a defense effort to delay the opening of the jailhouse assault trial of the Parkland shooter.
The Broward Public Defender’s Office sought the delay over the weekend after their lead attorney on the case, David Wheeler, fell ill. Details about the ailment were not disclosed, but officials said it was not COVID-related and will involve some time for rehabilitation.
”Mr. Wheeler had an extreme medical issue on Thursday that caused him to be hospitalized through Friday and Saturday,” Public Defender Gordon Weekes told the judge, protesting her decision to move ahead without Wheeler.
Eight months after the Parkland Massacre, Nickolas Cruz, the state says, attacked a Broward County Jail detention deputy. The attack was captured on jailhouse surveillance video.
Cruz faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of attempted aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon, battery on a law enforcement officer and other related charges. His sentencing will not happen until after he is tried for for the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting that left 17 dead and another 17 wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Cruz, who has confessed to the killings, faces the death penalty.
Jury selection for the battery case began Monday morning.
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
Yang says he’s ‘breaking up with the Democratic Party’
NEW YORK — Andrew Yang says he isn’t a Democrat anymore.
The losing New York City mayoral and presidential candidate announced Monday that he changed his voter registration to independent because he hopes to have a bigger impact on the political dialogue from outside the Democratic Party.
“Breaking up with the Democratic Party feels like the right thing to do because I believe I can have a greater impact this way,” Yang, a tech entrepreneur, wrote in a blog post on his website.
Yang, who’s been a Democrat since first registering to vote in 1995, said he still mostly agrees with the party’s liberal stances. But he feels constrained by the need to always toe the party line.
“I believe I can reach people who are outside the system more effectively,” he wrote. “I feel more ... independent.”
Yang insisted he admires and respects many of the Democratic rivals he challenged in the presidential and mayoral primaries.
Still, he admitted to being frustrated at the ugliness of campaigning.
“I’ve seen politicians publicly eviscerate each other and then act collegial or friendly backstage a few minutes later,” he said. “A lot of it is theatre.”
Yang suggested he has no immediate plans to run for elected office and would invest a lot of energy into reforming the political system, citing the need to expand ranked-choice voting and open up primaries to all voters.
Yang was a virtual unknown when burst out of the pack in the crowded Democratic presidential primary field in 2020 to grab a large and devoted following.
—New York Daily News
Baltimore County homicides on pace for deadliest year on record
BALTIMORE — Baltimore County has seen a rise in homicides this year that county officials attribute to behavioral health-related incidents and killings resulting from domestic abuse, putting the county on track to surpass the number of killings in its deadliest year on record in 2019.
There have been 42 people killed in the county through Thursday. Baltimore County ended 2019 with 49 homicides, police say.
The deadliest police precincts in 2021 have been Dundalk and Essex on the east side and the Wilkens and Woodlawn precincts to the west. As of Thursday, a dozen people had been killed in shootings in Dundalk and Essex and nine people were killed in the Wilkens and Woodlawn precincts.
Ten have been killed in the Pikesville and White Marsh precincts combined.
Police said Baltimore County recorded 24 homicides in 2020, experiencing a downturn in killings even as FBI data showed that the country saw its largest year-over-year increase in homicides.
Sixty-four percent of homicides this year were either mental health-related or resulted from a domestic dispute, county police Chief Melissa Hyatt said.
Breaking it down further, 24% of those killed “had a behavioral health component to their death,” Hyatt said. And 40% began with an argument, Hyatt said.
—Baltimore Sun
NYC says 95% of school staff is vaccinated following mandate
New York City said 95% of teachers and other school staff got COVID-19 shots ahead of a mandate that went into effect on Monday, with 18,000 vaccine doses administered over the weekend.
Thousands of the city’s 148,000 education workers who haven’t gotten vaccinated were barred from entering schools and were placed on unpaid leave. Schools chancellor Meisha Ross Porter said she doesn’t yet have the exact number of people put on leave. She said the school system had enough substitute workers for now but urged unvaccinated education employees to go out and get the vaccine.
“To those who haven’t yet been vaccinated, it’s not too late,” Porter said during a Monday briefing. “You are more than welcome to come back to work. Our students need you. Our parents need you.”
Enforcement of the vaccine requirement is the latest step in the reopening of the largest U.S. school system. Hurdles for the district may be a preview for other schools and employers as they move to impose mandates on workers, a point Mayor Bill de Blasio drove home on Monday.
“Put these mandates in place,” he said, addressing mayors and governors around the country. “They work. Do it now.”
The share of New York City teachers who have met the mandate rose to 96% from 93% on Friday, and the percentage of principals who have gotten at least one shot increased to 99% from 98%, de Blasio said.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew criticized the implementation of the mandate in a separate briefing Monday and called the last few weeks “chaotic.” He said it would have been smart for the city to impose the requirement earlier during the summer to allow schools and workers enough time to prepare.
—Bloomberg News
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