The Daily Moth 9-30-19
Sikh police officer killed in Houston; President Trump on the counterattack; California passes law to allow college athletes to be paid; Top News Briefs: Forever 21 bankruptcy; NFL player suspended; Rep. Chris Collins resigns; Deaf Oregon man awarded $125,000 for ADA violations in jail
[Transcript] Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Monday, September 30. Ready for news?
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Sikh police officer killed in Houston
On Friday, Sandeep Dhaliwal, a police officer and a Sikh, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Houston.
The driver, Robert Solis, got out of his car and shot him in the back of his head as he was walking back towards his patrol vehicle.
Solis fled the scene, but was quickly arrested and is charged with capital murder.
There is an outpouring of grief for Dhaliwal, who was already well-known for being one of the first police officers in the U.S. to wear a turban as a part of his uniform.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office tweeted a video of him allowing a deaf boy to handcuff him in a restaurant. The mother told the sheriff’s office “he laughed and joked with all of us, and left a bright impression on my son who is deaf.”
[Video of tweet]
There will be a public memorial service for Dhaliwal on Wednesday that will include Sikh religious observances. He leaves behind a wife and three children. A GoFundMe set up for his family raised almost $400,000.
Today a judge in Harris County did not grant Solis a bond and said it is likely he will be sentenced to death.
Tweet: https://twitter.com/HCSOTexas/status/1177796393349603328
https://bit.ly/2nPeBnz
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/28/texas-police-turban-beard-killed-sikh
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/29/us/texas-sikh-deputy-funeral-services/index.html
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/robert-solis-suspect-in-deputy-dhaliwal-slaying-due-in-court-monday
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President Trump on the counterattack
President Trump has tweeted counterattacks against those who accuse him of abusing his presidential powers in his phone call with Ukraine about an investigation on Joe Biden.
This morning Trump said Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (Calif) should be arrested for treason.
Yesterday he shared a quote from Pastor Robert Jeffress in which he warned of a “Civil War like fracture in this Nation” if Trump is removed from office.
What’s next with House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry? Adam Schiff, who is the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has an agreement with the whistleblower, who is still anonymous, to get their testimony.
Members of Congress are now on a two-week recess. Many are now at their home districts.
Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said if the House votes to impeach Trump, the Senate would have no choice but to hold a trial. He said this was based on a Senate rule on impeachment.
This does not mean that Sen. McConnell supports an impeachment. The Washington Post reported that most Republican lawmakers have voiced support for Trump. The White House claimed that whistleblower is not a credible person and has a political bias.
Lawyers for the whistleblower said they are afraid for the client’s safety because Trump said last week that the whistleblower and those who gave him information were “close to a spy” and suggested that they should get the death penalty.
In separate news, there are reports that the U.S. State Department is now ramping up a probe on Hillary Clinton’s emails from when she was the Secretary of State under the Obama administration.
Trump tweeted an attack on Clinton for deleting 33,000 emails. Clinton tweeted that the president is a corrupt human tornado.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-panel-has-deal-to-hear-whistleblowers-testimony/2019/09/29/fc22d084-e2e0-11e9-a6e8-8759c5c7f608_story.html
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
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California passes law to allow college athletes to be paid
College athletes in California are now allowed to earn endorsement money according to a new law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). It will allow college athletes in California, from either public or private colleges and universities, to earn money from their name, image or likeness, starting in 2023.
The NCAA is opposed to this idea and has threatened in the past to sue and possibly bar California schools from NCAA competitions. They say it is unconstitutional for California to make decisions that will impact a national organization with members in 49 other states.
Gov. Newsom said he signed the bill because colleges and universities reap billions of dollars from student athletes’ sacrifices without them earning a single dollar.
He said in an interview last week with Trevor Noah that there is a “racialized element” to this because close to 90% of coaches are white and the majority of Division I basketball and football players are black. Coaches can earn tens of millions of dollars, while players can only earn scholarships.
NBA star LeBron James was an outspoken supporter of this bill. He invited Newsom to his HBO show, “The Shop,” and that’s where Newsom signed the bill. Here is a clip.
[Clip by @GavinNewsom]
The NCAA released a statement today that said decisions on making improvements needs to happen on a national level, that this new law is creating confusion, and that they will consider what their next steps are.
Clip: https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1178672387136425985
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-governor-signs-bill-allowing-college-athletes-to-earn-endorsement-money-11569855344?mod=hp_lead_pos7
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765700141/california-governor-signs-bill-allowing-college-athletes-to-profit-from-endorsem
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765700141/california-governor-signs-bill-allowing-college-athletes-to-profit-from-endorsem
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Top News Briefs: Forever 21 bankruptcy; NFL player suspended; Rep. Chris Collins resigns
Here are three news briefs.
The first — clothing store Forever 21 announced they will file for bankruptcy and close 350 stores in the U.S. and worldwide. Their bankruptcy filing said they owe $1 billion to $10 billion to more than 100,000 creditors. Forever 21 said they would restructure. The business was founded by a Korean immigrant husband-and-wife team in 1984 in Los Angeles.
The second news — Oakland Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict was suspended for the rest of the NFL season for a helmet-to-helmet hit on an Indianapolis Colts player. This is the most serious punishment in NFL history for something that happened on field. Burfict was suspended and fined multiple times in the past for similar helmet-to-helmet hits, and now this is for the entire season.
The third news — U.S. Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) has resigned his seat today and is expected to plead guilty to federal insider trading charges tomorrow. He was accused last year of passing inside information about a failed drug test from an Australian biotech company he was on the board of to his son so he could avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. Collins was the first House Republican to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/30/forever-files-bankruptcy-will-close-stores-worldwide-amid-restructuring/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/raiders/2019/09/30/vontaze-burfict-suspended-oakland-raiders-hit/3818402002/
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/30/chris-collins-guilty-plea-insider-trading-1519268
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Deaf Oregon man awarded $125,000 for ADA violations in jail
The Oregonian reported last week that a federal jury awarded a 52-year-old deaf man from Oregon, David Updike, $125,000 after they found that Multnomah County violated his ADA rights when he was not provided an interpreter when he was arrested and jailed for two nights
The trial lasted for three days, but it took an eight-member jury only an hour to decide the outcome.
The arrest was in January 2013. Police in Gresham went to Updike’s home on a disturbance call that involved him and another deaf person. Officers communicated using pen and paper with both persons, then arrested Updike for fourth-degree assault and harassment.
Updike said he was jailed for two nights and did not have any interpreters, access to video relay phones, or text telephones. His first court arraignment did not have an interpreter, which forced him to spend a second night in jail. All of the charges were eventually dropped.
Multnomah County argued that Updike could read and write and that it was not obvious that he needed an interpreter. They said they did not discriminate against Updike and allowed him to make two calls during his jail stay with a special telecommunications device.
Updike’s attorney, Daniel Snyder, called an ASL linguistic expert from Maine, Dr. Judy Shepard-Kegl, to provide testimony via video. She said Updike reads at the third-grade level and that his first language is ASL.
A juror said it was a quick decision that the county was liable for ADA violations and that they learned through the trial that English is not the first language for deaf people and that it is important to provide an interpreter.
The link to the Oregonian article is in the transcript.
https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/09/jury-awards-125000-in-damages-to-former-multnomah-county-inmate-who-is-deaf.html
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That is all for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
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