(NEW YORK) — Musician Ed Sheeran was in Manhattan federal court Tuesday as opening statements began in a copyright infringement trial involving alleged similarities between his Grammy-winning song “Thinking Out Loud” and the Marvin Gaye classic “Let’s Get It On.”
Sheeran, seated in a dark suit and tie at the defense table, listened to the opening statements in the case, which was brought forth by the heirs to “Let’s Get It On” co-writer Ed Townsend.
“If you remember nothing else about this trial, about this case, simply remember it is about giving credit where credit is due,” said renowned civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the heirs of Townsend.
The lawsuit claims that Sheeran, without permission, took the rhythm, chord progression and other elements for his 2014 song “Thinking Out Loud” from “Let’s Get It On,” which Crump said has become a “cornerstone” in the American experience.
“It has been called the perfect song for ‘that moment,'” Crump said of Gaye’s 1973 soul classic. “Some of you may know what I mean by ‘that moment.'”
Crump said Sheeran “recognized the magic of ‘Let’s Get It On'” and infringed on its copyright for the tune that won him his first Grammy.
Sheeran’s attorney, Ilene Farkas, said Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge “independently created” the song “Thinking Out Loud.”
“Their song was born from an emotional conversation,” Farkas said. “It was their original creation.”
The defense referred to the chord progression and rhythm of “Thinking Out Loud” as “basic musical building blocks that no one can own” and said the rest of the alleged similarities “do not exist.”
Crump said the plaintiffs “have a smoking gun”: a videotape of Sheeran in concert merging “Thinking Out Loud” with “Let’s Get It On.”
“In that video you will see Mr. Ed Sheeran switching from ‘Thinking Out Loud’ and then to ‘Let’s Get It On’ and then he switches back to ‘Thinking Out Loud,'” Crump said, arguing that demonstrates the infringing similarities.
Farkas said Sheeran and Wadge were thinking about personal loss and the recording of “Thinking Out Loud” had nothing to do with Gaye and Townsend’s song.
“‘Thinking Out Loud’ is a song about finding everlasting, unconditional love,” Farkas said.
The trial comes after Townsend’s heirs sued Sheeran, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing in 2017.
There is a keyboard set up near the witness stand for an expert musicologist who is expected to testify during the trial.
Sheeran previously won a 2022 copyright infringement case involving “Shape of You,” while Gaye’s heirs, who are not involved in this current lawsuit, won a case in 2015 against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams involving “Got to Give it Up.”
(TALLHASSEE, Fla.) — Hundreds of drag queens and allies are expected to march Tuesday in protest of recent legislation that organizers say is attacking the LGBTQ community.
The rally is expected to draw advocates statewide in Tallahassee Tuesday afternoon for a march to the state Capitol, where speakers are scheduled to include state Sen. Linda Stewart and Sen. Shevrin Jones and state Rep. Anna Eskamani, among others, organizers said.
The march comes nearly a week after the Republican-led state legislature passed a bill banning children from adult live performances, which LGBTQ advocates say targets drag shows.
“Drag Queens are not just entertainers, we’re valued contributors to society — small business owners, parents, teachers, nurses, first responders and much more. Floridians know we pose no threat,” Darcel Stevens, a drag queen activist from Orlando who organized Tuesday’s protest, said in a statement.
“That’s why we’re united here using our powerful collective voices to encourage political activism, register voters, and resist policies that harm us and the brothers and sisters in our LGBTQIA+ community” Stevens continued. “We are not going anywhere, we will not be silent, we will rise up and we will fight back.”
SB 1438, known as the Protection of Children Act, would allow the state to fine, suspend or revoke the food and beverage licenses of businesses that admit children to any “adult live performance.” The bill defines this as “any exhibition, or other presentation in front of a live audience” that “depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or specific sexual activities” or other “lewd conduct.”
“Anything from local brunches, theatrical productions such as Shakespeare or the Mrs. Doubtfire musical, to major concerts featuring performers like Madonna or Sam Smith could all be canceled by venues who fear elements of Drag will be in violation of the law,” Equality Florida said in a press release on the event.
The law, which is awaiting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature, comes after his administration moved to revoke the liquor license of a Miami hotel that hosted a Christmas drag show.
(NEW YORK) — As many communities across the United States struggle with mass shootings, malicious actors are increasingly targeting schools with false reports of shootings, using the fear of gun violence and 911 calls to afflict terror about another potentially deadly incident, experts told ABC News.
Callers have caused confusion and delays, prompted law enforcement to expend vital resources and exposed the vulnerabilities of schools to potential future shootings. Commonly called “swatting” incidents, these instances employ technology to disguise phone calls that signal a threat, often prompting a local Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team to a specific address, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
A Growing Threat
“Somebody just shot seven students in the bathroom,” a caller told the Onondaga County, New York, 911 Dispatch Center around 10:15 a.m. on March 30. Officers from four different law enforcement agencies with long rifles and tactical gear rushed toward Westhill High School in Syracuse, New York. The call would later be deemed a hoax, but in that moment, officers believed it was the “real thing,” Geddes Police Chief John Fall told ABC News.
“The hardest part about any situation like this is everyone has a little bit of information,” Westhill Central School District Superintendent Stephen Dunham said to ABC News. “No one has all the information.”
No student had been shot in the school’s bathroom, yet parents and community members who learned of law enforcement’s response feared their school might be the next target of a mass shooting.
“You could see it on people’s faces, where it’s like, ‘I didn’t know for a couple minutes if I was going to be driving to the high school to have to identify my kids’ body,'” Dunham said.
On March 30 alone – the same day as the Westhill High incident – 226 schools across New York state were impacted by 36 false reports of mass shooting incidents, according to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has called for a full-scale investigation from the FBI of the incidents.
Just three days before the hoax at Westhill, a lone shooter killed three children and three adults at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Swatting calls have become common over the last decade, with criminals calling in threats on rival gamers or activists. Schools, however, have become frequent targets this year, multiple experts told ABC News. The number of swatting calls has at least doubled over the last year, according to James Turgal, the former chief information officer of the FBI and the current vice president of information security company Optiv.
Experts said swatting incidents are similar to the rise of school bomb threats in the 1990s.
“It’s the best thing we have to compare it to, but the comparisons fall apart pretty quickly,” Mo Canady, the executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, told ABC News.
Swatting calls attempt to mimic what a “victim” of a fabricated shooting would tell authorities, while bomb threats are commonly made from the perspective of the person who placed the fictional bomb. Canady said a person who planted a real bomb has little incentive to call in a threat to clear people from their target. At the same time, a shooting victim would try to immediately contact the police for assistance – complicating the perceived importance of these calls.
“Those two males, approximately 6 feet tall; the male said he’s hiding in a stall and they were walking toward him and disconnected. He advised they had AR-15s, however, it sounded like he was trying to change his accent,” according to a police scanner on April 5 about a potential shooting at Valparaiso University in Indiana.
Authorities later determined the incident posed no credible threat and no weapons found.
“Even if that dispatcher can kind of create some doubt of whether or not this is a legitimate call, there is still local law enforcement that is running to that school,” Turgal told ABC News.
The exact reason for the surge in incidents is unclear, though multiple experts suggest the proliferation of accessible technology has enabled swatters. Computer programs have allowed callers to disguise their identity with a computer-generated voice, while advances in artificial intelligence have made these voices increasingly believable, according to Don Maue, director of the Center for Emerging and Innovative Media at Duquesne University.
“The ease of which someone can hide themselves behind some aspects of technology makes it sometimes easier for the task to be done,” Maue told ABC News.
Moreover, perpetrators can make their calls practically untraceable by utilizing a free and open-source software called the Tor network, or “the onion router.” This network allows users to communicate anonymously and make calls that bounce between multiple IP addresses, according to Turgal.
“I could be sitting in a hotel room in Pinehurst, North Carolina, like I’m doing now, but actually utilize that onion router network to then move my signal from North Carolina to Western Europe, right to Russia, to China,” he said.
For example, the call that impacted Westhill High School appeared to come from Canada, though it could have originated in Syracuse. According to Canady, the calls that target schools and universities increasingly originate from overseas.
Beyond a desire to create fear in a community, Turgal said these swatting calls might also be an international effort to expose law enforcement’s vulnerabilities and fatigue first responders mentally and physically. Criminal actors could use these calls to determine weak spots in a school’s response in planning a future shooting or move resources away from another target in a community, experts said.
The Fatigue of False Alarms
With 173 mass shootings so far in 2023, psychologists are concerned the fear of these incidents can harm children’s ability to comfortably socialize and grow in school spaces, which has always been associated with safety.
“Your fight or flight response comes on board. Where there’s an active danger, [your] body needs to respond,” school psychologist Tammy Hughes told ABC News. “And that happens prior to finding out that it’s a false report or a hoax, so your body already has the physiological response – people are afraid.”
University of Pittsburgh professor of psychiatry and law John Rozel said these fears can be inflamed as eyewitnesses and actors outside the impacted community begin posting about an incident on social media.
“They hear about a critical incident and then they start imagining that there’s more to it,” Rozel told ABC News. “I could have sworn I heard blank when they didn’t actually hear blank.”
Reports about these incidents also leave a lasting impression on local residents, according to Hughes.
“Even when things are found to be a hoax, there can be parts of the community that think, ‘Oh, no, it actually did happen. You’re just covering it up from happening, you’re failing to report that there was a shooting,'” she said.
While many victims of swatting are fearful for what could have been, others are left jaded or less concerned about the threat of gun violence, experts said. Rozel expressed concern that false alarms could expose first responders and students to “alarm fatigue,” where first responders or students could take swatting incidents less seriously and create vulnerabilities for the real thing.
“If the boy cries wolf too many times, people start to stop paying attention and that creates an opportunity for something even worse to happen,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — A nine-member jury was seated in Manhattan federal court Tuesday for former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump.
Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations. The trial is expected to last around five days.
Two women are expected to testify during the trial that Carroll told them about the alleged attack shortly after it occurred. Two other women are expected to testify that Trump sexually assaulted them, claims that he denies, as Carroll’s attorneys try to show a pattern of conduct.
The judge has also agreed to allow excerpts of the so-called Access Hollywood tape on which Trump is overheard in 2005 bragging to then-host Billy Bush about groping women.
The judge told prospective jurors Tuesday that he was looking to select jurors who are “willing and able to decide this case in a manner that is fair and impartial,” no matter what they may know about those involved.
“The name of the game here is utter fairness and impartiality,” Kaplan said. “The job of the jury will be to decide what did or didn’t happen at the department store, whether Ms. Carroll was or wasn’t raped” — and whether she should be compensated and whether defamation occurred, the judge said.
The judge began questioning prospective jurors with this question: “Is there anything about the nature of this case or the parties that would make it difficult for you to be entirely fair to both parties and to come to a just or impartial verdict?”
He asked prospective jurors about everything from their vaccine status to whether they watched The Apprentice, the reality game show that Trump hosted from 2004-2015.
The judge also asked whether they would find Carroll’s battery claim “less reliable” because she brought it 30 years after it allegedly happened.
Prospective jurors were asked whether they maintain a Twitter account, whether they’ve ever been wrongfully accused of misconduct, and whether they feel Trump has been unfairly treated by the press.
The former president was not present in court Tuesday.
Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, told the judge Thursday that Trump will decide whether or not to attend as the trial proceeds.
The civil trial is being heard a block from the criminal courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.
Kaplan last week denied Trump’s attempt to delay the start of this week’s trial for a month after Trump’s attorneys sought a four-week delay on the grounds that a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of Trump’s criminal indictment.
“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”
This week’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in the Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.
Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.
Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
Bob Lee, Cash App founder and former Square executive. — Handout
(SAN FRANCISCO) — The suspect in the killing of 43-year-old Cash App founder Bob Lee is set to be arraigned in a San Francisco courtroom on Tuesday.
The suspect, Nima Momeni, is the owner of an Emeryville, California-based company called Expand IT. He was arrested earlier this month and charged with murder.
Momeni allegedly drove Lee to a dark, secluded area and stabbed him three times, according to a motion filed by prosecutors earlier this month.
Lee, an executive at cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin, was killed in the early morning hours on April 4 in the San Francisco neighborhood of Rincon Hill, the San Francisco Police Department said.
The doctor who conducted the autopsy found that Lee had been stabbed three times, including one strike that penetrated his heart, the motion said.
Police later found a roughly 4-inch blade at the scene that appeared to have blood on it, the document said.
During the previous afternoon, Lee spent time with Momeni’s sister and a witness, who identified him or herself as a close friend of Lee, prosecutors said.
Later in the day, at Lee’s hotel room, he had a conversation with Momeni in which he asked Lee about whether his sister was “doing … anything inappropriate,” the witness told the police, according to the document.
Lee reassured Momeni that nothing inappropriate had taken place, the witness said to police.
Early the following morning, at about 2 a.m., camera footage showed Lee and Momeni leaving Lee’s hotel and getting into Momeni’s car, a BMW Z4, prosecutors said.
Video shows the BMW drive to a secluded and dark area where the two men got out of the car. Momeni “moved toward” Lee and the BMW drove away from the scene at high speed, according to the court document.
In a separate incident, Momeni was accused of assaulting a woman in August, according to an Emeryville Police Department report obtained by ABC News.
On Aug. 1, officers responded to a caller who said she was inside a unit with Momeni when he grabbed her arm, pulled it and pushed her, the report said.
Momeni was cited in that case.
“Mr. Momeni was taken into custody without incident in Emeryville and transported to San Francisco County jail and booked on a charge of murder,” San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said earlier this month.
“Our investigators have been working tirelessly to make this arrest,” Scott added.
London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, said in a statement to ABC News earlier this month that Lee’s death marks a “horrible tragedy.”
“Bob’s dream was to make technology free and available,” Timothy Oliver Lee, Bob Lee’s brother, said in a statement after the incident.
“He positively affected millions of people throughout his life. He had an overarching need to make technology accessible, and to help out everyone.”
(NEW YORK) — Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll hugged her attorneys on her way into Manhattan federal court Tuesday at the start of her defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump.
Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations.
Two women are expected to testify during the trial that Carroll told them about the alleged attack shortly after it occurred. Two other women are expected to testify that Trump sexually assaulted them, claims that he denies, as Carroll’s attorneys try to show a pattern of conduct.
The judge has also agreed to allow excerpts of the so-called Access Hollywood tape on which Trump is overheard bragging to then-host Billy Bush about groping women.
The judge told prospective jurors Tuesday that he was looking to select jurors who are “willing and able to decide this case in a manner that is fair and impartial,” no matter what they may know about those involved.
“The name of the game here is utter fairness and impartiality,” Kaplan said. “The job of the jury will be to decide what did or didn’t happen at the department store, whether Ms. Carroll was or wasn’t raped” — and whether she should be compensated and whether defamation occurred, the judge said.
The judge began questioning prospective jurors with this question: “Is there anything about the nature of this case or the parties that would make it difficult for you to be entirely fair to both parties and to come to a just or impartial verdict?”
The former president was not present Tuesday as preparations as jury selection got underway.
Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, told the judge Thursday that Trump will decide whether or not to attend as the trial proceeds.
The civil trial is being heard a block from the criminal courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.
Kaplan last week denied Trump’s attempt to delay the start of this week’s trial for a month after Trump’s attorneys sought a four-week delay on the grounds that a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of Trump’s criminal indictment.
“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”
The lawsuit is Carroll’s second against Trump and the trial is expected to last five days or so.
Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
(NEW YORK) — CNN anchor Don Lemon tweeted Monday that he’s been terminated from the network.
CNN said that the network and Lemon “have parted ways.”
“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years,” CNN said in a statement. “We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”
Lemon said that he’s “stunned” and learned the news from his agent.
“After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly,” Lemon wrote on Twitter. “At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”
CNN, however, said that “Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” adding that the journalist “was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”
The news came hours after Lemon co-hosted CNN This Morning alongside Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.
CNN CEO Chris Licht told employees the network is “committed” to the “success” of CNN This Morning.
At the top of Tuesday’s show, Harlow and Collins addressed Lemon’s departure.
“Don was a big part of this show over the last six months,” Collins said.
“He was one of the first anchors on CNN to have me on his show,” she added. “That’s something I’ll obviously never forget. … We wish him the best.”
“Don was one of my first friends here at CNN,” Harlow said. “I’m so thankful to have worked alongside him and for his support for nearly 15 years here, and I wish him all good things ahead.”
(NEW YORK) — Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday in the defamation and battery case brought by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll against former President Donald Trump.
Carroll sued Trump in November, alleging that he defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations.
It’s unclear whether Trump will himself will travel to New York City to attend any portion of the civil trial. His attorney, Joe Tacopina, told Judge Lewis Kaplan Thursday that Trump will make that decision as the trial proceeds.
“Because the decision of the defendant, who is not required to appear as a civil litigant, will be made during the course of the trial, we are not yet in a position to advise the Court in this regard,” Tacopina wrote the judge. “However, we will inform the Court as soon as a decision is reached, particularly in light of the logistical concerns that will need to be addressed in coordination with the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, and the City of New York.”
The trial is expected to last about five days.
Kaplan last week denied Trump’s attempt to delay the start of the trial for four weeks. Trump had sought a one-month delay on the grounds that a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of his criminal indictment in Manhattan last month in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.
“There is no justification for an adjournment,” the judge ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”
Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Significant flooding is happening along the Mississippi River this week, from Minneapolis to Davenport, Iowa.
Several river gauges are in major flood stages and are under flood warnings for surrounding areas, as some spots could reach the highest river flooding levels in 20 years.
McGregor, Iowa, may see historic flooding, as the area is expected to crest just one foot under the all-time highest on record, which was set back in 1965.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a disaster proclamation Monday for 10 counties in the state, which allows state resources to be used to help with the flooding.
Chilly temperatures are expected across parts of the Ohio, the Tennessee Valley and into the Northeast on Tuesday morning.
Frost and freeze alerts are in effect across eight states that could be dangerous to crops or other sensitive vegetation and outdoor plants.
The temperatures are expected to be in the low to mid-30s in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, with both cities under freeze watches.
Pittsburgh is expected to reach 32 degrees Tuesday morning, as well as Charleston, South Carolina.
A few severe storms capable of hail and damaging wind gusts may develop across parts of Florida on Monday — a severe thunderstorm watch is also possible if the storms get strong enough.
More than two feet of rain brought Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to a standstill nearly two weeks ago, shutting down the city’s airport and stranding drivers on flooded streets.
A severe storm threat begins in Texas on Tuesday with an area from Dallas to Austin and San Antonio at risk for damaging winds, hail and possible tornadoes.
Another day of severe storms is possible across the same region in Texas on Wednesday and could expand east to Shreveport, Louisiana.
(FORT WORTH, Texas) — Three people were arrested in Texas after one of them pepper-sprayed protesters outside a restaurant hosting a drag show, police said.
The incident unfolded in Fort Worth on Sunday afternoon when a small group of people from an anti-LGBTQ nonprofit called Protect Texas Kids arrived at Fort Brewery and Pizza to stage a protest across the street from the restaurant during a scheduled drag show. A group of counter-protesters — dressed in black, wearing helmets and outer tactical vests — also showed up and stood in front of the restaurant, many of them armed with handguns and long guns, according to the Fort Worth Police Department, which said it was monitoring both groups via a city-owned surveillance camera.
At approximately 12:50 p.m. CT, police observed a member of the counter-protest group — later identified as Samuel Fowlkes, 20, of Weatherford, Texas — cross the street and approach the Protect Texas Kids group, then allegedly spray them with pepper spray. Officers attempted to arrest Fowlkes on scene, but police said he evaded their efforts and swung his closed fists at them.
As the officers tried to stop Fowlkes and place him in handcuffs, another member of the counter-protest group — later identified as Christopher Guillot, 33, of Lewisville, Texas — intervened and swung an umbrella at the officers, hitting one of them in the face, according to police. The officers then attempted to arrest Guillot.
Both Fowlkes and Guillot continued to resist arrest, prompting police to deploy a directed response unit to assist. When the officers instructed the rest of the counter-protesters to move to the sidewalk, away from the situation, a third member of the group — later identified as Meghan Grant, 37, of Dallas, Texas — repeatedly tried to charge past the officers to gain access to Fowlkes and Guillot, police said. An officer attempted to stop Grant by pushing her back toward the sidewalk, but she refused to comply and was taken into custody, according to police.
On Monday, police released footage from city cameras and an officer’s body-worn camera showing Sunday’s incident. In the videos, a counter-protester is seen spraying a substance at a small group protesters. The videos also show the tense situation between counter-protesters and police, including the moment an officer was struck in the face by an open umbrella. Some of the counter-protesters are seen evading and resisting arrest, while others are heard shouting at the officers.
“Our main goal during any protest event is to provide a safe environment that respects all participants’ constitutional rights, while effectively maintaining public peace and order,” the Fort Worth Police Department said in a press release on Monday. “However, those who choose to violate the law and assault others will be arrested and charged.”
Online jail records for Tarrant County show Fowlkes is facing four counts of assault causing bodily injury, one count of evading arrest or detention, one count of resisting arrest and one count of assaulting a peace officer. He was being held on $22,500 bond. Guillot is facing one count each of interfering with public duties and assaulting a peace officer. He was being held on $9,500 bond. Grant is facing one count each of interfering with public duties and resisting arrest. She was being held on $4,000 bond, according to jail records.
It was unclear whether any of the three suspects had obtained attorneys.
