The Daily Moth 8-20-19
NYPD officer who choked Eric Garner is fired; Police arrest teen for making “joke” online threat; Elizabeth Warren apologizes to Native Americans; U.S. military conducts first missile test since the end of the Cold War; First deaf tennis player to win ATP Tour match
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Tuesday, August 20. Ready for news?
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NYPD officer who choked Eric Garner is fired
Daniel Pantaleo, the New York City police officer who choked Eric Garner before he died in an arrest in 2014 has been fired.
Garner was seen in a cell phone video being swarmed by several officers who first approached him on suspicion of selling cigarettes on the street in Staten Island. Garner told the officers to leave him alone and did not allow officers to grab his arms.
Pantaleo then wrapped his arm around Garner’s neck and tightened it in a chokehold as other officers wrestled Garner to the ground.
Garner said, “I can’t breathe” several times before he passed out and died a short time later.
There were Black Lives Matter protests and many advocates who demanded Pantaleo to be punished, but he was not charged by the Staten Island district attorney or the Justice Department.
Pantaleo continued to keep his job, but was reassigned on desk duty.
Several weeks ago a police administrative judge said Pantaleo should be fired because the NYPD does not allow chokeholds.
On Monday the NYPD Commissioner officially announced his firing. He said Garner should not have resisted arrest, but said that Pantaleo’s chokehold led to Garner’s death so he can’t effectively serve as a NYPD officer.
New York’s largest police union criticized the firing, saying the commissioner bowed to pressure from anti-police extremists.
Pantaleo’s lawyer said they plan to sue in state Supreme Court for him to be reinstated as a police officer.
Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, has demanded 11 other police officers who were involved in the arrest to be fired as well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/nyregion/daniel-pantaleo-fired.html
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Police arrest teen for making “joke” online threat
A 15-year-old student in Daytona Beach, Florida was arrested after he posted online on a video game chat platform that he would bring his father’s M15 rifle and kill at least seven people.
Someone reported the comment to the FBI. The FBI reached out to the local sheriff’s office, who was able to track down where the boy lived.
In the image from body-camera footage, you can see two officers talking with the boy and his mother.
Police said the boy admitted to posting the comment, but said it was a joke.
The sheriff’s office said, “Joke or not, these types of comments are felonies under the law.”
The mother said she owns a gun and understands that threats are serious, but said his son was just a little kid playing a video game.
But officers handcuffed the boy. Police said they have a responsibility to investigate and charge people who make threatening statements because of the mass violence in Florida and across the country.
On Friday police arrested a 15-year-old girl in Fresno, California for posting on Snapchat a threat to commit a shooting at her high school. The post had an image of a gun in a Walmart display case with a caption that said, “Don’t come to school tomorrow.” She was pulled out of class to meet with officers and was charged with making a terror threat in juvenile court.
Last week police arrested a 17-year-old boy in Houston, Texas and charged him with making a terroristic threat after he posted on Snapchat an image of an airport with captions that said it was time to blow up the place and the plane.
ABC News: https://abcnews.go.com/US/joke-types-comments-felonies-police-arrest-florida-teen/story?id=65070169&cid=clicksource_81_null_bsq_hed
https://abcnews.go.com/US/girl-15-arrested-threatening-california-school-shooting-snapchat/story?id=65008558
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Elizabeth Warren apologizes to Native Americans
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), who is one of the top Democratic candidates running for president in 2020, offered an apology for using a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry.
Warren told a Native American presidential forum in Sioux City, Iowa that she knows she made mistakes and is sorry for the harm she has caused. She said she has listened and learned a lot.
U.S. Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM), who was one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress last year, introduced Warren during the forum and endorsed her.
Last year Warren released a DNA test and an analysis that showed she was somewhere between 1/32nd and 1/1024th Native American. Warren did this to respond to President Donald Trump’s challenge that she take a DNA test to prove her previous claims of being part Cherokee.
But the DNA test was criticized by the Cherokee Nation, who said it was inappropriate and useless in determining tribal citizenship.
Warren, in Monday’s forum, vowed to push for sweeping policy changes to support Native Americans’ needs and positions in infrastructure, criminal justice, missing indigenous women, health care, access to internet, and other issues.
Several other Democratic presidential candidates attended the forum that continued into today.
https://www.apnews.com/fc83ec71fab84dbd8180c9aae0a1689c
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/20/20812193/elizabeth-warren-native-american-apology-policy-deb-haaland
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/cherokee-nation-issues-statement-on-sen-elizabeth-warren-s-dna-test-results
https://www.instagram.com/elizabethwarren/
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U.S. military tests first cruise missile since the end of the Cold War
The U.S. military fired a ground-launched cruise missile in San Nicolas Island, California in a test and said it flew more than 500 kilometers before impacting it’s target.
This launch is significant because it is the first test since the U.S. officially withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia three weeks ago.
The INF treaty, which was signed in 1987 at the end of the Cold War, bans ground-based missiles capable of carrying nuclear arms that has a range of 310 to 3,400 miles.
500 kilometers is approximately 310 miles, which is past the limit.
A top Russian official said the test was regrettable and that it shows the U.S. obviously wants to escalate military tensions.
A top Chinese official said this test would trigger a new round of an arms race and have a negative impact on international and regional security.
The U.S. said Russia violated the INF treaty first, accusing the country of placing ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers in western Russia.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-conducts-first-cruise-missile-test-since-withdrawal-from-inf-treaty-with-russia/
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First deaf tennis player to win ATP Tour match
ESPN and Reuters reported that a deaf professional tennis player from South Korea, Lee Duck-hee, became the first deaf player to win an ATP Tour main draw match on Monday in the first-round of the Winston-Salem Open in North Carolina.
ATP is short for the Association of Tennis Professionals and is equivalent to the NBA for basketball or NHL for hockey.
Lee is 21 years old and has been deaf since early childhood. Lee uses his voice to communicate and lipreads. It doesn’t look like he uses sign language.
He has been playing tennis since he was seven.
Lee said after his win yesterday that his “message for people who are hearing impaired is to not be discouraged. If you try hard, you can do anything.”
An ESPN article said he used an interpreter to translate from Korean to English. It was not a sign language interpreter.
In a 2017 ATP feature video on Lee’s life, his mother explained that she taught him how to lipread because she didn’t want him to rely on sign language interpreters.
Lee depends on umpires’ hand gestures to know what the calls are.
Lee won on Monday and today (Tuesday) is playing against the No. 3 seed Hubert Hurkacz from Poland. As I’m signing this, they are playing. Lee won the first set, while Hurkacz won the second set. The match is not finished, so when we post this news, we’ll include an update on who won the match.
UPDATE: Lee Duck-hee lost his match to Hubert Hurkacz.
https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/27425250/lee-atp-1st-deaf-player-wins-north-carolina
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tennis-winstonsalem/lee-becomes-first-deaf-player-to-win-an-atp-main-draw-match-idUSKCN1VA0AN
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/lee-winston-salem-2019-monday
ATP Feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WezP2_c_eTg
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
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