(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — A second man charged in a bizarre plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded guilty Wednesday and has agreed to testify for the prosecution at the federal trial of four other defendants.
Kaleb Franks, 27, of Waterford, Michigan, admitted in U.S. District in Grand Rapids that he and other members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan-based self-styled “militia” group, hatched the plot to abduct Whitmer at her summer home in 2020 because they were upset by the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.
The plot, which allegedly included plans to use semiautomatic assault-type weapons and to bomb a bridge near Whitmer’s vacation home, was foiled by undercover law enforcement officers who infiltrated the group.
“Did any law enforcement officers suggest kidnapping the governor?” U.S. Magistrate Judge Phillip Green asked Franks during Wednesday’s hearing.
Franks replied, “No sir.”
Franks admitted in court that the kidnapping plan originated solely with him and the others charged in the conspiracy.
Lawyers for the other men facing trial in March filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing they were entrapped. The judge rejected that motion.
Franks’ guilty plea comes after another man charged in the case, Ty Garbin, 25, pleaded guilty last year to firearms charges and conspiracy charges of providing material support for terrorists. Garbin was sentenced in August to 75 months in prison.
Garbin is also expected to testify for the prosecution in the upcoming federal trial for Adam Fox, 40, Barry Croft Jr., 45, Daniel Harris, 24, and Brandon Caserta, 33. Eight other men face charges in state court stemming from the kidnap plot.
Franks admitted being deeply involved in the kidnap plot, participating in meetings and training sessions, and surveillance conducted on Whitmer’s vacation home in his signed plea agreement.
After the plot was thwarted, Whitmer alleged in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America that the plan included more than kidnaping her.
“This was a very serious thought-out plot to kill police officers, to bomb our capitol, killing Democrats and Republicans alike, and to kidnap and ultimately put me on trial and kill me as well,” Whitmer said on GMA. “These are the types of things you hear from groups like ISIS. This is not a militia; it is a domestic terror organization.”
(HOUSTON) — A 9-year-old girl is in critical condition after she was hurt in an apparent road rage shooting in Houston, police said.
The suspect, believed to be in a white GMC Denali pickup truck, apparently cut off the girl’s family several times on the Southwest Freeway Tuesday night, Houston police said.
At about 9:10 p.m., the pickup truck pulled behind the family’s vehicle and someone in the pickup truck fired shots, hitting the 9-year-old, police said.
No arrests have been made. Police ask anyone to call the police department at 713-308-8800 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 909,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 09, 11:01 am
Massachusetts lifts statewide school mask mandate
Massachusetts is lifting its statewide school mask mandate effective Feb. 28, Gov. Charlie Baker announced Wednesday.
“Everyone now has the tools and the knowledge to stay safe,” Baker said, citing availability of vaccines, distribution of tests and the relative lack of serious illness among kids. “It’s time to give our kids a sense of normalcy.”
Baker said the state fully supports an individual’s decision to continue to wear a mask and he asked school districts to do the same, echoing New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who told school districts to crack down on any bullying that results from continued mask wearing.
Baker said Massachusetts ranks 2nd in the nation for the highest number of vaccinated kids.
-ABC News’ Aaron Katersky
Feb 09, 8:29 am
England to lift all COVID-19 restrictions a month early
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Wednesday his plans to lift all remaining pandemic-related restrictions in England in less than two weeks.
Addressing lawmakers in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, Johnson said he hopes to scrap England’s COVID-19 restrictions as soon as Parliament returns from its upcoming recess on Feb. 21.
“I can tell the House today that it is my intention to return on the first day after the half-term recess to present our strategy for living with COVID,” Johnson told lawmakers. “Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
Johnson first announced his plans to end all of the so-called Plan B measures last month, starting with mask mandates. He told lawmakers at the time that the legal requirement for people with COVID-19 to self-isolate would be allowed to expire when the regulations lapsed on March 24, but that the date could be brought forward.
Although Johnson is the U.K. prime minister, his government is only responsible for COVID-19 restrictions in England because public health legislation is devolved to national governments within the U.K., meaning that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for their own pandemic-related policies.
Feb 09, 7:55 am
US reported more cases, deaths than any country last week, WHO says
The United States reported the highest number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths from the disease last week out of any country in the world, according to a weekly epidemiological update released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.
More than 1.8 million new cases were reported in the U.S. during the week of Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, a 50% decrease compared to the previous week. Over 14,000 new fatalities were also reported, a 15% decrease, the WHO said.
France had the second-highest number of new cases with more than 1.7 million, a 26% decrease, while India had the second-highest number of new deaths with nearly 8,000, a 69% increase, according to the WHO.
Meanwhile, the global number of new cases during that same period decreased by 17% compared to the previous week, while fatalities increased by 7%, the WHO said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 909,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Feb 09, 8:29 am
England to lift all COVID-19 restrictions a month early
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Wednesday his plans to lift all remaining pandemic-related restrictions in England in less than two weeks.
Addressing lawmakers in the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, Johnson said he hopes to scrap England’s COVID-19 restrictions as soon as Parliament returns from its upcoming recess on Feb. 21.
“I can tell the House today that it is my intention to return on the first day after the half-term recess to present our strategy for living with COVID,” Johnson told lawmakers. “Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive, a full month early.”
Johnson first announced his plans to end all of the so-called Plan B measures last month, starting with mask mandates. He told lawmakers at the time that the legal requirement for people with COVID-19 to self-isolate would be allowed to expire when the regulations lapsed on March 24, but that the date could be brought forward.
Although Johnson is the U.K. prime minister, his government is only responsible for COVID-19 restrictions in England because public health legislation is devolved to national governments within the U.K., meaning that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for their own pandemic-related policies.
Feb 09, 7:55 am
US reported more cases, deaths than any country last week, WHO says
The United States reported the highest number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths from the disease last week out of any country in the world, according to a weekly epidemiological update released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.
More than 1.8 million new cases were reported in the U.S. during the week of Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, a 50% decrease compared to the previous week. Over 14,000 new fatalities were also reported, a 15% decrease, the WHO said.
France had the second-highest number of new cases with more than 1.7 million, a 26% decrease, while India had the second-highest number of new deaths with nearly 8,000, a 69% increase, according to the WHO.
Meanwhile, the global number of new cases during that same period decreased by 17% compared to the previous week, while fatalities increased by 7%, the WHO said.
(NEW YORK) — Milwaukee resident Exie Tatum III grew up in heart of the city and still lives there. The African American father owns a home in a predominantly Black neighborhood but has been house-hunting in pricey, majority-white suburbs, searching for an affordable home that he might someday pass along to his young son Charles through inheritance.
“It would really change the game,” Tatum said of owning a suburban Milwaukee home.
But statistics suggest he’s fighting an uphill battle.
Despite 50 years of federal oversight under the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968, housing segregation persists in America’s largest cities and urban centers — and an exclusive ABC News analysis of mortgage-lending data shows a pattern of racial isolation remains consistent following decades of failed initiatives.
The analysis shows that 20 of the nation’s top 100 metropolitan areas have an “extreme dissimilarity index” of 50 or higher — meaning at least half of the population would have had to move to another neighborhood in the area to achieve total integration in 2019.
The Milwaukee metro area is at the top of ABC News’ “extreme” segregation list, but that list also includes America’s largest metro areas — New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago.
Also on the top 20 “extreme” list: Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York, Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; Springfield, Massachusetts; New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Baltimore, Maryland; Cincinnati, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Providence, Rhode Island.
ABC News’ analysis of segregation and home lending patterns across America used data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and the U.S. Census American Community Survey.
Race and ethnicity information in the home lending data is collected voluntarily from the loan applicant or through visual observation by the lender, and by self-identification in the census data.
The data were used by ABC’s Owned Television Stations to compile the Equity Report, which allows readers to track and measure quality of life and equality in America’s 100 largest metro areas in five categories: housing, health, education, policing, and the environment.
Using the home lending and census datasets, ABC News calculated a dissimilarity index for metropolitan areas and census tract neighborhoods across the U.S.
Indexes like the ones used by ABC News are often used by researchers to measure residential segregation between two racial or ethnic groups within a geographic region. It is based on a 0-100 scale, with “0” being total integration and “100” being total segregation.
The ABC News analysis found that segregation persists across the nation, and that there is no indication that the racial composition of neighborhoods is rapidly changing in the nation’s most segregated metropolitan areas.
In 19 of those 20 extremely segregated metro areas, at least 40% of the homeowners who got a mortgage loan in 2019 — white or non-white — would have had to buy a house in a different neighborhood to create a naturally integrated pool of new homeowners.
In eight of those metro areas with extreme segregation, at least half the new homebuyers would have had to settle into a new neighborhood in 2019 to make an integrated pool of new neighbors.
Even in neighborhoods where some racial evolution is taking place, the analysis shows an overall disparity: It’s easier for whites to buy homes in majority non-white neighborhoods than for non-whites to buy in mostly white sections of a metro area.
In 2019, nearly two-thirds of the 347,000 white homebuyers (64.8%) who applied for mortgages in mostly non-white neighborhoods in America’s largest metro areas got a loan approval — an indicator of what many urban planners and demographers see as a continued pattern of gentrification in urban areas across the nation.
Meanwhile, about 56% of the 715,000 non-white applicants got a loan in 2019 in those same majority non-white neighborhoods.
In mostly white neighborhoods, the same pattern exists in the largest metro areas. About 69% of the 1.9 million loan requests from white applicants were approved, compared to about 55.8% of 613,000 applications from non-whites.
The ABC analysis shows disparities were similar for applicants in the same income range ($50,000 – $100,000) who sought mortgage loans of $50,000 to $250,000.
In majority-white neighborhoods, white applicants in those categories had a 67% approval rate, compared to 52% for non-white applicants.
In mostly non-white neighborhoods, white applicants with similar incomes and loan amounts had a 63% approval rate, while the approval rate for similar non-white applicants was 55%.
In some cities, the gentrification process is forcing more non-white residents out of urban neighborhoods, along with the small minority-owned businesses, cultural enterprises and institutions — barbershops, hair salons, and churches — that have catered to those residents for decades.
Milwaukee under the microscope
The ABC News analysis shows just how mortgage lending disparities in wealthy suburbs and poorer urban neighborhoods play out in the Milwaukee metro area.
Overall, in 2019, whites filed four times more mortgage loan applications than non-whites, and had 73% of those loans approved, compared to 49% for non-whites.
In Milwaukee’s majority non-white neighborhoods — mainly urban areas where gentrification was taking place — non-white home seekers filed twice as many applications as whites, but had a lower approval rate — 55% compared to 64% for whites.
Meanwhile, in majority white neighborhoods, white home seekers filed seven times as many mortgage applications — and the 73% approval rate among white applicants was higher than the non-white approval rate of 47%.
For Milwaukee metro applicants with similar income and loan requests, the analysis shows the white approval rate in both mostly non-white and mostly-white neighborhoods was 1.5 times higher than the non-white approval rate.
Tatum says he has seen and experienced the suburban housing disparities that the data seem to support — and how they affect people of color.
Demographically, Tatum has seen Milwaukee change dramatically over the years. But when it comes to segregated neighborhoods, he’s seen some things stubbornly stay the same.
“If you look at the north side of Milwaukee, you’re going to see African-Americans,” Tatum explained. “As soon as you cross the bridge to the south side, that’s where the Latino community begins.”
By buying a suburban home that he could pass on to his son, Tatum would love to help break that decades-old pattern of segregation.
National studies suggest that homeownership is a key factor in building generational wealth within families. A 2017 Federal Reserve study shows the average homeowner had a household wealth of $231,400 in 2016, compared to the average renter having a household wealth of $5,200.
But U.S. Census data show that homeownership rates among non-white households — particularly Black households — falls far short of the white homeowner rate of 76%.
For Tatum and other non-white city residents wanting to relocate to Milwaukee’s suburbs, there’s reason for optimism: The latest census data show that, for the first time, two suburban communities — West Milwaukee and Brown Deer — reported majority-minority population counts.
Those communities are outliers, however. Other suburban neighborhoods in the Milwaukee metro area remain at least 73% white.
For Black residents, the data is even more dismal: Less than 9% in the Milwaukee metro area live in the suburbs.
A “baked” lending system
Tatum and other non-white home seekers across the U.S. blame a financial lending system — developed and regulated by the federal government — that for decades has systematically kept people of color from getting home loans, particularly in suburban neighborhoods.
“I still feel like my bankers always have to go to the underwriters and fight for me. They literally tell me, ‘I’m going to fight for you,'” Tatum said. “Why do you have to fight for me when I’m meeting all the criteria that you told me I needed?”
In San Francisco, 30-year resident Boris Quinonez has had his own experience with lenders.
Around 2010, Quinonez tried purchasing a single-family home in the city’s Mission District, but was denied a loan at least three times by a lender.
Property records show the house eventually sold — to Quinonez’s best friend.
Quinonez said he and his friend had the same job, the same down payment, a similar credit score, and lived in the same neighborhood.
The only difference?
“He was white and I wasn’t,” Quinonez said. “Everything else was the same.”
Rochelle Sparko, the director of North Carolina Policy at the Centers for Responsible Lending, points to historical real estate practices and longstanding racial wealth gaps as barriers that communities of color are still combating.
“It is baked into the system that it is difficult for … Black people who want to take on home mortgages to have difficulty doing that,” Sparko said. “It is possible that some of that is about overt discrimination, but a lot of it is sort of all of these impacts coming together.”
Sparko said that obstacles to getting a home loan for people of color include student loan debt and loss of family wealth during the last foreclosure crisis.
“There are any number of reasons why we see this difference in homeownership rates, and I think what we are beginning to recognize and talk about more is the need for targeted interventions to address that,” Sparko said.
But targeted interventions of the past, like the GI Bill, proved to be little more than an illusion for many Black Americans.
The GI Bill was supposed to guarantee low-interest mortgages and other loans to veterans returning home from World War II. While it generally helped white American veterans prosper and accumulate wealth in the postwar years, it failed to deliver for many veterans of color — primarily because white-run financial institutions had the power and incentive to refuse mortgages and loans to Blacks and other veterans of color.
In Milwaukee and other cities across the U.S., restrictive housing covenants — some dating back 100 years — helped lay the foundation for America’s segregation problem.
Those covenants, written by local housing authorities and developers, and sanctioned by the federal government, prohibited anyone but whites from owning or leasing property in specific sections of a community.
“People who were living in these covenant neighborhoods knew that this meant, ‘OK, this is an all-white community,'” said Reggie Jackson, an educator, consultant, and member of the City of Milwaukee’s Equal Rights Commission.
“They kept neighborhoods all white for decades,” Jackson said.
The covenants led to “redlining” practices in many cities, where federally-insured mortgages, loans and private residential insurance were withheld from non-white homeowners who were pigeonholed into non-covenant neighborhoods considered “investment risks.”
The term comes from lenders and other institutions literally drawing red lines around high-risk neighborhoods considered undesirable for business purposes. Redlining thwarted growth and redevelopment in many urban neighborhoods, leading to inner-city ghettos.
Those decades-long practices ended, in theory, with the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, gender, disability or family status.
But the legacy — and patterns — of segregation left by covenants and redlining still linger.
A demographic analysis by ABC News partner FiveThirtyEight of 138 metropolitan areas where redline maps were drawn found that nearly all the former redlined zones are still disproportionately Black, Hispanic or Asian, compared with their surrounding areas.
In comparison, the FiveThirtyEight analysis found that two-thirds of “greenlined” zones — neighborhoods deemed by insurers and lenders to be the best for mortgage lending — are still overwhelmingly white.
Going “all in” on fair housing
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chairperson of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which is charged with overseeing the Fair Housing Act, believes the housing act has fallen short in its intent to “address both discrimination in housing and increase integration.”
In a March, 2020 letter to the general counsel of The Department of Housing and Urban Development, Brown points the blame at HUD, which he says has “failed for decades to fully implement (fair housing).”
“Sadly, half a century later, our nation has failed to achieve that goal of ‘truly integrated and balanced living patterns,'” Brown wrote, quoting the act’s original sponsor, former senator and Vice President Walter F. Mondale.
“We have never, as a nation, gone ‘all in’ on fair housing,” Brown told ABC News in December. “We’ve never, as a nation, tried to close that gap … that gap between black and white ownership.”
HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge believes the regulatory agency is on a path toward fulfilling the original promise of the Fair Housing Act. One of the first steps taken by Fudge in her initial year of leadership was to overturn a decision by the previous administration that suspended a rule requiring local communities to identify fair housing issues and commit to solving them.
HUD will be reviewing the assessments coming from local governments that receive federal funding under the Fair Housing Act.
“More than 50 years since the Fair Housing Act’s passage, inequities in our communities remain that block families from moving into neighborhoods with greater opportunities,” Fudge said in a June 2021 press release. “Today, HUD is taking a critical step to affirm that a child’s future should never be limited by the ZIP code where they are born.”
Linda McCoy, president of the National Association of Mortgage Professionals (NAMB), believes the way to bridge racial gaps in loan approval ratings is through education and government action.
“You know, I wish I could … wave a magic wand and make it (housing discrimination and segregation) go away,” said McCoy, who’s group represents nearly a million mortgage brokers across the U.S.
McCoy noted that NAMB is working with “10 or 12” members of Congress to create legislation that would help mortgage brokers — particularly those lending in majority non-white communities — compete with big banks and lending institutions.
“I’m not sure what the solution is going to be, but I know that we’re doing all that we can do to help,” she said.
Gentrification: The urban neighborhood “makeover”
In the heart of Milwaukee sits a mostly-Black subdivision filled with tidy bungalows, ranch houses and bi-level homes sitting on manicured grass lots.
Halyard Park emits a suburban vibe, even though it’s surrounded by decaying, urban neighborhoods and sits in the shadow of Fiserv Forum, home to the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks.
Established in 1976 with vacant land from the I-43 freeway expansion in the 1960s, Halyard Park was set up as a neighborhood for middle-class Black residents.
It is named for Ardie Clark Halyard and her husband, Wilbur, two Black community activists who saw Black homeownership being stymied by redlining and institutional racism.
The Halyards started Columbia Savings & Loan, the city’s first Black-owned bank, and one of only a few that offered home loans to Blacks moving into the subdivision and other urban neighborhoods.
“You had a group of folks that came up with this brilliant idea,” said Jackson. “If we can’t get these middle-class and upper middle-class black people out to our suburbs, why don’t we build a suburb in the city?
“And that’s what they did,” Jackson said. “It’s a hidden gem.”
Halyard Park has remained a gem over the past 40 years — but it’s no longer hidden.
The neighborhood’s proximity to the arena and other downtown development makes it attractive to developers and wealthy white homebuyers, which has driven up property values and property taxes.
Halyard Park is a real-time example of the urban gentrification taking place in cities across the U.S. — a profit-driven race and class “makeover” of a neighborhood that historically has been deprived of investment opportunities.
Since 2018, the ABC News analysis shows lenders have approved 62% of the home loans in census tracts that comprise the Halyard Park neighborhood. But the lenders have approved 76% of the loans for white applicants, compared to only 53% of non-white applicants.
Yet it’s not the changing demographics that concern longtime Black Halyard Park residents like Clara Smith. It’s the changing economics.
“I have seen my taxes go from $1,500 to over $4,000,” said Smith, a retiree who’s lived 38 years in Halyard Park. “It’s going to be a disaster for everybody. I do not want to be taxed out of my home.”
Chris Neilsen, one of Halyard Park’s newest white residents, says he was drawn to the neighborhood by its diverse environment. But he realizes there’s a difference between integration and gentrification that pushes people out.
“Looking to the future, I think it is a concern, and something that we need to be aware of, if we’re going to keep a diverse atmosphere,” said Neilsen, who bought a house in Halyard Park nearly four years ago with his wife Avery.
Jackson, the Milwaukee equal rights commissioner, agrees.
“Gentrification’s like a slow moving freight train,” he said. “You see it coming, but you’re not going to do anything to stop it from moving.”
Meanwhile, just a few blocks from Halyard Park, Exie Tatum still dreams of owning a suburban home someday.
For now, he’s considering a different strategy: buying a foreclosed property in a rundown neighborhood at a cost of only $1,000 for the house and an adjoining parcel of land. Maybe, says Tatum, he can improve the property then resell it for a handsome return.
But Tatum knows all too well the risks of trying to “flip” a house in an area that isn’t being gentrified. His current home, which he owns in a predominantly Black neighborhood, is a transitional home that he had hoped to “put a little income into, take a little equity, turn it over, and move out a little further (into the suburbs).”
The problem, says Tatum, is that after the house was originally appraised for about $110,000, it dropped to only $25,000 by the time he was ready to sell — all because of the neighborhood where it’s located.
“I’m jumping through multiple hoops just to stay somewhere where I really don’t want to stay,” he said.
ABC News Senior Investigative Correspondent David Scott, San Francisco ABC7’s Stephanie Sierra and Lindsey Feingold, and Raleigh ABC11’s Akilah Davis, Samantha Kummerer and Maggie Green contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 909,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Feb 09, 7:55 am
US reported more cases, deaths than any country last week, WHO says
The United States reported the highest number of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths from the disease last week out of any country in the world, according to a weekly epidemiological update released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.
More than 1.8 million new cases were reported in the U.S. during the week of Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, a 50% decrease compared to the previous week. Over 14,000 new fatalities were also reported, a 15% decrease, the WHO said.
France had the second-highest number of new cases with more than 1.7 million, a 26% decrease, while India had the second-highest number of new deaths with nearly 8,000, a 69% increase, according to the WHO.
Meanwhile, the global number of new cases during that same period decreased by 17% compared to the previous week, while fatalities increased by 7%, the WHO said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Maryland Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on Tuesday over whether Lee Boyd Malvo, the last living D.C.-area sniper, should be given a revised sentence under new federal and state laws that apply to those convicted of crimes as juveniles.
In 2002, Malvo, who was then 17, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after a sniper spree nearly 20 years ago in which 10 people were killed and another three wounded in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia over a span of 22 days.
In 2009, Malvo pleaded guilty for his role in killing six people in Montgomery County, Maryland, and received six life sentences without the possibility of parole. That same year, Malvo’s co-conspirator, John Allen Muhammad, was executed by lethal injection after being sentenced to death in Virginia.
However, because Malvo committed the crimes as a juvenile in 2002, new laws have given his attorneys fresh arguments to try to gain Malvo’s release.
Kiran Iyer, a lawyer for Malvo, claimed that his client’s age was not considered when he was sentenced to the six life sentences in Maryland in 2006.
Iyer claimed the judge who sentenced Malvo did not take into account Malvo’s immaturity and what the law terms the “diminished capacity” of juvenile offenders.
Malvo’s lawyer argued the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case Miller v. Alabama, which said mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders is unconstitutional and violates the 8th Amendment, should be applied in Malvo’s case.
Iyer also argued new Maryland laws, including the Juvenile Restoration Act (JUVRA) that lets prisoners convicted as juveniles seek release after serving at least 20 years in prison, should apply. Juvenile offenders imprisoned at least 20 years can now file motion three times to attempt to receive a reduced sentence.
In recent years, lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia have passed similar legislation to abolish sentences of life without parole for crimes committed by juveniles.
Malvo, who is currently serving four life sentences for his conviction in Virginia, could be paroled in that state under new JUVRA laws. However, as things now stand, he’d then have to begin serving his Maryland sentence, needing to wait another 20 years to be considered for JUVRA consideration in Maryland.
On Tuesday, Malvo’s attorney asked the court to consider his sentences in Virginia and Maryland as one, noting, because of his conviction in Virginia, Malvo may never enter Maryland state custody. Iyer asked “for a meaningful opportunity for release from [Malvo’s] Maryland sentences.”
Carrie J. Williams, a Maryland assistant attorney general, attempted to poke holes in Malvo’s appeal to Maryland’s highest court. She argued that under Virginia laws, Malvo will have a meaningful opportunity for release starting later this year in Virginia due to a state law there that allows juvenile offenders to have a parole hearing after 20 years. She added that Maryland and Virginia did not violate the 8th Amendment or the Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama, because of the way JUVRA laws work.
She also argued that Malvo was nearly 18 when he committed the crime and noted, because of his age and laws at the time of the killings, he isn’t serving life without parole.
Williams told the court, “Mr. Malvo was nearly 18 when he committed these crimes is certainly relevant, it is certainly relevant for consideration when deciding whether he could be appropriately sentenced to life without parole. But in this case, because of JUVRA. He’s not serving life without parole, and in fact, because his sentence should not be considered in the aggregate. And in fact, no one is any longer serving life without parole in Maryland for crimes that they committed as a juvenile.”
She went after Malvo’s attorney’s plea that his sentencing in Maryland and Virginia should aggregate, noting the planning and length of the crimes he committed.
Williams argued “Mr. Malvo had multiple, multiple opportunities to reflect upon each one of his 10 bad decisions and the bad decisions that have not been prosecuted but to which Mr. Malvo has confessed. If Mr. Malvo’s sentences aggregate — if this court holds that Mr. Malvo’s sentences must be considered as one single sentence — it will be close to a per se rule that all juvenile sentences must aggregate. Because it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the where the– argument against aggregation would be stronger.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 908,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Daily cases below 300,000 for 1st time this year
-Omicron estimated to account for 96.4% of new cases
-Michigan closes bridge to Canada amid trucker-led protests
-Oregon to lift mask mandates for indoor public spaces, schools by March 31
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Feb 08, 7:32 pm
Boston mayor lays out guidelines to drop vaccine proof requirement
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu outlined her plan to drop the city’s proof of vaccine requirement at indoor businesses including bars, movie theaters and restaurants.
The city must have fewer than 200 COVID-19 hospitalizations a day, 95% of ICU beds need to be free and the community positivity rate must be below 5%, before the requirement is removed, she said.
“The fastest way to help ensure we are relieving pressure on hospital capacity and driving down community positivity is to keep closing gaps with vaccination and boosters,” Wu said in a statement.
There are no immediate plans to end the city’s mask mandate in schools, she added.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Feb 08, 7:20 pm
LA County maintains mask mandate for schools
While California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that he will end the statewide mask mandate next week, Los Angeles County health officials said Tuesday they have no immediate plans to drop their mask mandate.
LA County Department of Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer told reporters the county’s decision will be made based on dropping hospitalization numbers or vaccination approval for young children.
The mandate will be dropped when daily hospitalizations drop below 2,500 for seven consecutive days, according to Ferrer. Once this threshold is met, “masking will no longer be required while outdoors at outdoor mega events or an indoor outdoor spaces at childcare and K to 12 schools,” Ferrer said.
Even if that threshold is not met, the mandate could be dropped eight weeks after vaccines are approved for children under 5. Pfizer submitted a request to the Food and Drug Administration to have its vaccine approved for children 6 months to 5 years old. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 15.
Los Angeles County is the second-largest school district in the country, with over 600,000 students.
Feb 08, 1:53 pm
Daily cases below 300,000 for 1st time this year
The U.S. case rate is dropping, down by 63.4% since the peak three weeks ago, according to federal data.
For the first time since December, U.S. daily cases are below 300,000.
However, experts continue to caution that the U.S. isn’t out of the woods. Case levels remain much higher than the nation’s previous surges and the U.S. is still reporting millions of new cases every week. Experts also point out that many Americans taking at-home tests are not submitting their results, and thus, case totals may be higher than reported.
On average, about 13,000 Americans with COVID-19 are being admitted to the hospital each day — a 26.4% drop in the last week, according to federal data.
Emergency department visits with diagnosed COVID-19 cases are also on the decline, down by nearly 60% in the last month, federal data show.
The U.S. death average is at a plateau, with the nation reporting around 2,300 new COVID-19-related deaths each day, according to federal data. That average is significantly lower than last winter when the nation peaked around 3,400 deaths per day.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Feb 08, 11:28 am
Omicron estimated to account for 96.4% of new cases
The presence of the omicron sub-variant, BA.2, is increasing in the U.S., according to new data published by the CDC.
BA.2 was estimated to account for 3.6% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Feb. 5. BA.2 was projected to account for 1.2% of new cases the week prior.
The original omicron strain, B.1.1.529, still makes up the vast majority of new cases, accounting for an estimated 96.4% of cases in the U.S.
There is still much unknown about the BA.2 variant, but currently it doesn’t appear to demonstrate a more severe illness. There’s also no indication to suggest that BA.2 will further impact the efficacy of vaccines.
The delta variant, which accounted for 99.2% of all new cases just two months ago, is now estimated to account for 0% of new cases.
(NEW YORK) — In North Lawndale, a neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago laden with crime and poverty, Derek Brown, founder of Boxing Out Negativity, has taken the fight against gun violence off the street and into the ring.
His program provides mentorship and a safe space for at-risk youth who are more likely to be swept up into street life.
“I’m a counselor, I’m a teacher, I’m a motivator, I’m whatever our children need,” Brown told ABC News. “Boxing took troubled kids and started programming them. In order to be ‘bad’ here, you have to run at least five miles a day, exercise all day, repeat the same techniques over and over and over until you get it mastered.”
“We’re not just fighting our way inside the ring, we’re fighting our way through life,” Brown continued. “Our everyday objective is to fight for ourselves, our families and friends and communities.”
As a former gang member who transitioned out of street life at 28, Brown, now 45, said he is acutely aware of environmental factors that lead young people down the wrong path.
Trumale Coleman, Brown’s 18-year-old mentee who has been in the boxing program since he was 8, said the lessons on discipline and dedication provided him with the tools to see his higher potential and navigate through an environment where violence is the norm.
“I never even thought I would do boxing. I never even thought I had as much knowledge as he gave me. He [Brown] is not my biological father; he is my spiritual father. I learn more every day, and what he teaches me, I teach everyone else,” Coleman said.
Experts say examining the environment that perpetuates gun violence is key to understanding the latest uptick in communities of color.
Dr. David Ansell, the senior vice president for community health equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and author of “The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills,” told ABC News that public health and poverty are directly correlated to high rates of gun violence.
MORE: Lessons from a ‘violence interrupter’ as shootings continue to ravage Chicago
“[West Chicago] has one of the highest COVID death rates in the city; it also has high rates of gun violence. These things are co-prevalent,” Ansell said. “What ties it all together is trauma over time and how people react to various traumas. Some of that trauma gets acted out in behavioral ways, with either mental illness, addiction or violence.”
Chicago Police department data showed that 48 people were killed in shooting homicides in January, ABC station WLS in Chicago reported. That’s a 13% decline compared to January 2021, police said.
There were 219 people shot last month, compared to 241 around the same time last year, the data showed.
“We’re seeing reductions in involvement in gun violence. We’re seeing reductions in victimization rates among the [community-led outreach organizations], all heading in the right direction,” Andrew Papachristos, professor of sociology at Northwestern University and director at the Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative.
“It’s hard to prove,” he said. “It’s especially hard to prove because of the national surge in gun violence we just saw happen in Chicago. But even during COVID, even during this national surge in gun violence, we’re seeing positive direction in street outreach.”
Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative (N3) is a research collective that works with Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research to engage with community organizations and policymakers to address social problems in Chicago. Researchers have been studying the impact of community street outreach programs, and evidence shows that credible messengers — people who grow up in the same neighborhoods they serve — have a promising impact on lowering gun violence.
A 2021 N3 report evaluated the outreach program of Chicago CRED, anti-violence organization that provides mentorship and resources to at-risk youth, to identify how the use of credible messengers impacts gun violence in neighborhoods with high crime rates. The report identified young adults in the program to see how they perceive violence around them and examined how CRED engaged with them.
Early results from the study showed that there was evidence of a reduction in gunshot victimization and violent crime arrests among CRED participants.
“Overall, the number of fatal and non-fatal gunshot injuries across all CRED participants decreased by nearly 50%, and the number of arrests for violent crimes fell 48% in the 18 months following the start of participation in the program,” according to the report.
The average outreach worker in Chicago is a 44-year old Black man who’s been incarcerated, who got involved with gangs and the criminal justice system around the age 13, according to Papachristos. Twenty-five percent of outreach workers are Latino, and about 20% are women, he said, explaining that credible messengers can have a unique impact on the ability to reach disenfranchised members of low-income communities who are often out of reach by law enforcement and city officials.
“When we look at their lived experience, they have long histories of involvement and victimization. They’ve been victimized when they were young. They have a long history of involvement with gangs. They’ve been incarcerated and they largely have lived in the same community their entire life. So they’re quite familiar with what gun violence looks like in their neighborhood. They know the families, they know the people, they know the neighborhoods, they know the parks, they know the stories, and they’re part of those stories,” Papachristos said.
“This is the workforce that is charged with tackling gun violence,” he said, “and in some ways, they are the only workforce that can reach people that are at risk and bring them into these sorts of services.”
He added, “The question is not about, ‘Did they reduce violence by 50 or 60%,’ but rather, ‘How many lives were saved today?'”
Tio Hardiman, executive director of Violence Interrupters Inc, an anti-violence program focused on combating the culture of violence, uses peace circle and conflict resolution trainings to help at-risk youth de-escalate disagreements and avoid deadly retaliation.
“The violence interrupter trainings that I facilitate is very important because we have an opportunity to actually help young men and educate them on how to think on a higher level. That’s why the training is so important. We focus on the do’s and don’ts of conflict resolution and gang mediation,” Hardiman said. “The work of credible messengers is very impactful because it’s about saving lives. Last year, in 2021, Violence Interrupters Inc mediated around 60 conflicts that could have turned deadly.”
For Patricia Hillard, a West Garfield Park outreach worker, violence interruption work is about meeting people where they are.
That means doing outreach work on “Heroin Highway,” a stretch of West Garfield Park battered by the opioid crisis. It’s the same area Hillard said she dwelled when she was addicted to drugs. After years of sobriety, she said she found a new purpose in helping others.
Now a salaried employee with the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, Hillard said that the residents she mentors trusts her, because she was once them.
“I was with them. I was with the drug dealer. I was the person out here running to get drugs. I did it all, and I survived,” Hillard said. “A lot of the guys around here, who are doing the shooting and the sliding, they know me. So I’ve actually been able to intervene with guns drawn.”
Investment in gun violence interruption programs are taking shape in major cities and states around the country.
President Joe Biden showed his support for community-led anti-violence programs during his visit to New York City last Thursday, where he discussed his and Mayor Eric Adams’ plans to tackle gun crimes. Biden’s Build Back Better plan proposes a $5 billion dollar investment in community-led programs, but that legislation remains stalled in Congress.
Papachristos said financial investment in street outreach as a profession could have major implications for the reduction of violence over.
“You can look at any map of any city, and the areas that have the highest levels of homicide also have the highest levels of poverty, dropout rates, low birth weight, exposure to toxins like lead. … It’s not that most poor people are criminals. It’s just that crime tends to concentrate by design in communities that lack resources and opportunities,” Papachristos said. “It’s vital right now more than ever, especially as you’re getting the attention from the White House and the State House, to find out how do we develop this workforce? What tools do they need?”
(NEW YORK) — As New York City gets closer to its goal of returning to a pre-pandemic way of life, elected officials are considering making one emergency order a permanent fixture.
A New York City Council committee held its first hearing Tuesday on a bill requested by Mayor Eric Adams that would change the rules for restaurant outdoor seating permits that would allow for more businesses to provide a sidewalk seating option.
City councilmember Marjorie Velazquez, the bill’s co-sponsor, said during Tuesday’s hearing that thousands of restaurants around the city were able to survive the pandemic because of outdoor dining and argued that the city needed to adapt to help owners stay afloat.
“It’s important we save our small businesses, our restaurants,” she said during the zoning and franchises committee hearing.
However, some residents who have grown concerned over the noise, loss of street space and other trade-offs of sidewalk seating say this is one rule that shouldn’t outlast the emergency order.
Prior to the pandemic, restaurant owners would need to obtain approval from several agencies, pay a fee and go through numerous applications before they received an outdoor dining permit. The outdoor dining area would only be limited to a few feet on the sidewalk.
Roughly 1,400 restaurants, over 1,000 of which were in Manhattan, had outdoor seating permits before the pandemic, according to city records.
In June 2020, former Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order that amended the city’s regulations and allowed struggling restaurants to apply for a permit for outdoor dining options in front of their restaurant, on parking spaces and, in some cases, on a closed off street. The seating area needed to meet several requirements, including a minimum of eight feet of sidewalk space for pedestrians and the removal of chairs and other items when the eatery is closed.
Fees were waived as part of the order, and the city’s Department of Transportation oversaw the temporary program.
Since the Open Restaurants program’s inception, the city has approved over 12,000 permits, 6,000 of which are for restaurants outside of Manhattan, according to data from the city. The program has been renewed several times during the pandemic and is set to expire when the city’s pandemic state of emergency ends.
The new proposed legislation would keep the outdoor dining rules in place permanently but would charge owners a $1,050 initial fee and a $525 annual fee for subsequent years. Once approved, the Department of Transportation would continue to issue guidelines for outdoor dining areas and regulate the businesses.
Several restaurant owners and advocacy groups said the rule change was a long time coming and would be a boon to their economic recoveries.
Loycent “Loy” Gordon, the owner of Neir’s Tavern, a 200-year-old bar in Queens, testified that without outdoor dining, his business would be permanently closed. He encouraged lawmakers to continue offering outdoor dining options to more restaurants.
“We have an opportunity to reimagine a bold and better new way forward. Outdoor dining is the start,” he said.
Not every New Yorker is keen to the idea.
Some opponents who testified at the hearing said the city has failed to enforce some regulations on outdoor dining areas regarding litter and noise, and they claimed that some restaurants are failing to provide ample space for pedestrians and cars.
Jeannine Kiely, the chair of a Manhattan community board, testified that the neighborhoods in her community board’s boundary have 1,000 restaurants with outdoor dining and despite thousands of city warnings for violations, the city has only issued 22 fines on owners and removed four permits.
“In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. Not in New York City with open restaurants,” she said. “The city has a terrible track record.”
City Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez acknowledged during the hearing that the city has had to deal with instances where an outdoor dining area stepped out of its bounds and inconvenienced neighbors, but he reassured attendees that they will take residents into consideration before they fine tune the regulations for a permanent basis.
“We are ready to take your feedback,” he testified.
The bill will have to pass in the zoning and franchises committee before going through a full council vote. Neither vote has been scheduled.
