(GRAY, Ga.) — A husband has been charged with the murder of his wife in Georgia after it was initially claimed in a 911 call that she had died by suicide, according to the Jones County Sheriff’s Office.
Shyanne Schroeder was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head on March 27, when deputies responded to the call, the sheriff’s office said.
Her husband, Troy Newton Scarborough, of Gray, Georgia, was arrested following his wife’s death and charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
However, while he remained in custody, police reviewed the evidence in their investigation and now believe he was responsible for killing Schroeder.
“The responding deputies got the feeling that something wasn’t right about this case, and thankfully they trusted their instincts,” Sheriff Butch Reece said in a statement.
Scarborough was charged Friday with felony murder, multiple counts of aggravated assault and possession of firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with his wife’s death.
“I would like to thank our investigators and deputies for all their hard work, without which there may have been a huge miscarriage of justice,” Reece said in the statement. “I also want to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigations for their technical expertise and assistance in this case.”
Scarborough is being held without bond, according to the sheriff’s office.
(NEW YORK) — Anyone who has lived in New York or visited the city is likely familiar with the smells — and especially, the tastes — of its beloved halal carts.
And yet, for one entire month of the year, the workers running these carts can’t eat their own food during daylight.
During the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk. The exact dates are determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, which is a few days shorter than the standard 365-day solar calendar, meaning Ramadan occurs 10 days earlier each year and cycles throughout all seasons. This year, it is being observed from April 2 to May 1.
Abstaining all day from food and drink, including water, is no easy feat for anyone, but those whose livelihoods involve serving food may face an added level of difficulty.
“It can be hard to have a job over a hot grill, especially when Ramadan is in the summer, in this small space and you’re fasting for 15, 16 or 17 hours,” said Ahmed Ahmed, who has worked at a halal cart off Everitt Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn, since immigrating to New York five years ago. “But that is just part of it.”
Originally from Egypt, Ahmed said he wouldn’t characterize the food he serves as similar to what he’d find on the street back home. Indeed, “halal” is not actually a certain genre of dishes. While the popularity of these carts have nearly caused “halal” to become synonymous with a type of cuisine, it’s just an Arabic word describing permissible foods and meats under Islamic law — much as “kosher” is in Judaism.
At these carts, the meat is halal, meaning it was butchered in line with Islamic protocol underscoring hygienic and ethical practices.
“It’s a blessing to be able to serve people food, especially to fellow Muslims looking for halal food in specific,” said Alam Hussain, who runs a cart in Long Island City in Queens and emigrated from Bangladesh 11 years ago.
Despite their strong presence and followings, halal carts are relatively new in New York. While food carts have a long history in the city, halal offerings were not part of the story until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a growing influx of South Asian and Arab immigrants entered the street vendor space. As the ethnic composition of the city changed, so did its offerings on its streets.
For about a century and a half, street vending has been a common entry-point into the job market for New York’s immigrants. Since the mid 1800s, several immigrant populations — including Greeks, Italians and Jews — have reigned over the city’s street food scene at different points. Most recently, it’s been New York’s Muslim community.
Research from Queens College, comparing street vendor demographic data, tallied that 306 German and Italian immigrants ran street carts in New York in 1990, compared to none in 2005.
Meanwhile, immigrants from Egypt, Bangladesh and Afghanistan accounted for 69 vendors across New York in 1990, yet 563 in 2005.
Halal carts seem to be operated predominantly by those hailing from these three nations, but there are Muslim vendors from several other countries, too. This also means that each cart offers its own take on the popular dishes. The lamb or chicken served is spiced differently cart to cart. Some include grilled peppers and onions, and others top their plates off with french fries. (There are also many carts that serve other, distinct cuisines — like African or Asian food — that just happen to use halal meat.)
“Chicken over rice is the most popular dish at my cart,” Hussain said. “But I serve samosas, too.” As a South Asian immigrant, he also offers mint chutney, as well as other items and condiments that reflect the food of his personal background.
Across the board, however, one thing remains key: the legendary white sauce. “It’s yogurt, mayonnaise, tons of spices. There’s not really anything like it anywhere else. It’s halal cart sauce,” explained Hussain.
At first, however, these halal carts did not sell the chicken, rice and white sauce you’d expect to see today. Halal Guys — likely the most well-known cart that began as a small operation in midtown Manhattan and now operates almost 100 stores internationally — began as a hot dog stand.
Its founders, Mohamed Abouelenein, Ahmed Elsaka, and Abdelbaset Elsayed, all of whom were born in Egypt, opened their cart in 1990 outside the Hilton hotel on 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue. They sold typical fare found at other carts at the time: hot dogs. During this era, New York saw a rising wave of Muslim immigrants, many of whom began working as cab drivers who’d stop at the stand and suggest that the three friends sell hot, affordable, tasty, familiar halal meals on the go.
The history of halal carts, as well as their passionate fanbases, speaks both to Muslim immigration patterns and to the community’s relationship with the city. Still, Muslims lived in New York well before the 1980s, dating all the way back to the 17th century when Dutch merchants colonized Manhattan. Historians also estimate that about 10% to 15% of slaves brought to America from West Africa were Muslim, although many were coerced to convert to Christianity.
Today, about 9%, or 800,000, of New Yorkers are Muslim, according to researched published by Muslims for American Progress in 2018. It’s a striking number compared to the national figure: Muslims account for just 1% of Americans. This means over 20% of the U.S. Muslim population lives in New York City alone. While the community has long been a pillar of New York’s economy and culture, it is slowly becoming more represented in policies and leadership, too. Eid-ul-Fitr, a celebration all about feasting and family to commemorate the end of Ramadan, has been a New York City public school holiday since 2015. It will be observed this year on May 2.
Of course, the journey for visibility and equality has been one full of obstacles. The Sept. 11 attacks notably shed a light, one that was often misinformed and narrow, on Muslim Americans, especially in New York City.
Eraky Badawy, who emigrated from Egypt in 1999 and has worked at a halal cart in the Financial District close to Ground Zero for over 20 years, says he did face disparaging comments after 2001. “But I just have to be good, you know, that’s all I can do. I feed people, and I talk to people. It’s my job, and I care about giving people food and kindness.”
Badawy’s attitude is common across the Muslim-American community, and he attributes his values and sense of self to his faith. Even with fasting during Ramadan, he says he wouldn’t necessarily classify it as difficult. “Hard? Not hard. My eight year old daughter does it! It’s not about being easy or hard. It’s part of our religion and what it teaches us and how it brings people together.”
(HOMESTEAD, Fla.) — Four Florida correctional officers were arrested on murder charges for allegedly beating an inmate to death, authorities said.
Christopher Rolon, 29, Kirk Walton, 34, and Ronald Connor, 24, were arrested Thursday following a monthslong investigation of the fatal incident at the Dade Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said.
A fourth officer, 28-year-old Jeremy Godbolt, was arrested by the LAX Airport Police at the Los Angeles International Airport earlier Friday, the agency said.
They all face multiple charges, including second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, aggravated battery on an elderly or disabled person and cruel treatment of a detainee, officials said.
“Today is a day of accountability,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, whose office is prosecuting the case, told reporters during a briefing Friday.
Inmates “should not be subject to forms of ‘back alley’ justice, which are actions that violation Florida law,” she said.
The incident occurred on the morning of Feb. 14, before the inmate, Ronald Gene Ingram, was scheduled to be transferred to a correctional facility in Lake County, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which led the investigation into the death along with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
After Ingram reportedly threw urine on an officer, he was placed in handcuffs and removed from his cell in the mental health unit, at which point the officers “began to beat him,” the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said in a statement.
“The inmate was beaten so badly he had to be carried to the transport van,” the agency said.
Rundle said that a witness recalled hearing another officer say that Ingram, who was serving a life sentence for murder, “would never throw urine on another correctional officer again.”
Prosecutors displayed surveillance footage on Friday that they said reveals the moments before and after the beating. Cameras inside the Dade Correctional Facility captured officers escorting Ingram from his cell to the transport van, with Ingram appearing to walk under his own power, prosecutors said.
Footage from exterior cameras minutes later then reveal the officers escorting Ingram, whose legs are dragging and head is slumped, into the van that would transfer him to another facility, prosecutors said.
According to Rundle, the officers beat Ingram sometime in between the moments captured on camera.
“We believe that the [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] investigation has developed sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ingram was beaten out of the line of sight of the institution, where there were no surveillance cameras,” she said.
Ingram was placed in a compartment of the van alone. During a stop in Ocala, an over 300-mile drive from Dade Correctional Institution, he was found dead, authorities said.
The inmate’s death was caused by a punctured lung leading to internal bleeding, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He also had injuries to his face and torso “consistent with a beating,” the agency said.
The incident initially led the Florida Department of Corrections to place 10 officers on administrative leave. One officer also resigned over it, the department said.
“What happened in this case is completely unacceptable and is not a representation of our system or of Dade Correctional Institution as a whole,” Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon said in a statement Thursday. “The staff involved in this case failed, and as an agency we will not stand for this.”
During the first court appearance for Rolon, Walton and Connor on Friday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer determined there was probable cause to hold them without bond.
Walton’s attorney, David Donet argued during the hearing that there wasn’t any proof that the officer caused serious bodily injury to Ingram.
Rolon’s attorney, Edward Martinez, told a local station following the hearing that “up until now he is innocent until the state can prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.”
ABC News has reached out to Connor’s attorney for comment.
It is unclear if the fourth officer arrested, Godbolt, has an attorney.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
John Nacion/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Backlash erupted this week against New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine in response to reports the school is in discussions to hire Dr. David Sabatini, a biologist who is facing accusations of sexual harassment.
Sabatini resigned from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earlier this month after a review by his department head, the dean of science and the provost recommended his tenure be revoked due to his violation of MIT’s policy on consensual relationships, according to a letter MIT President L. Rafael Reif sent to faculty.
“The reviewers found Professor Sabatini engaged in a sexual relationship with a person over whom he held a career-influencing role, he did not disclose the relationship at any time to his supervisors, and he failed to take any steps to relinquish his mentoring and career-influencing roles, as the policy requires,” Reif said in the letter.
“The Committee also had significant concerns regarding his unprofessional behavior toward some lab members,” the letter added.
Members of the NYU community, including its union for graduate workers, a group for women in STEM and a group of STEM researchers planning on forming a union organized a protest against Sabatini’s hiring on Wednesday.
The groups also started a petition which had gathered over 300 signatures by Thursday afternoon.
“To hire David Sabatini as a faculty member is to put his work above the safety of the women in NYU’s community. It is additionally completely hypocritical to the DEI efforts that NYU have made in the past two years,” the petition reads.
“We, the undersigned, collectively condemn NYU for the immense harm already done by even considering Sabatini’s employment,” the petition added.
Signatories also pledged that until Sabatini is removed from consideration, they will not give or attend any talks, seminars, conferences or symposia hosted by NYU Langone Health, the academic medical center that comprises the school of medicine. They also vowed not to teach any courses at NYU Langone or collaborate with any labs at NYU Langone.
News that Sabatini may be hired by NYU was first reported on science.org, which also reports that Sabatini has been forced out of or fired from three leading institutions for sexual harassment or for violating workplace or consensual sexual relationship policies.
In response to the allegations made at MIT, Sabatini told ABC News, “Although I have taken full responsibility for having had a consensual personal relationship with a professional colleague, the outcome thus far has been out of all proportion to the actual, underlying facts. As I have maintained consistently from the start, I differ sharply with the way this matter has been characterized and I intend to set the record straight and stand up for my integrity.”
In an email sent to staff last August, Dr. Ruth Lehmann, the director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, a nonprofit research lab affiliated with MIT, said an investigation by an outside firm found that Sabatini violated the institute’s policy on sexual harassment and other policies related to research misconduct, according to science.org.
Sabatini is suing the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Lehmann, and the woman who accused him of sexually harassing her. Sabatini claims he was in a consensual relationship with the accuser.
Among the claims Sabatini made in the lawsuit filed in October was that the investigation Whitehead conducted was a “sham” and was flawed.
He also alleged that claims made by the woman that he was sexually harassing her are “fabricated” and that his relationship with the woman was consensual. Sabatini also accused the woman of being “determined to destroy” him, he alleged in the lawsuit.
Sabatini claimed the woman and her attorney pressed Lehmann and Whitehead to conclude that Sabatini engaged in misconduct and terminate him on that basis.
In a countersuit, the woman accusing Sabatini of harassment said he “coerced” her into having sex with him while she was a graduate student and “committed assault and battery on [her] when he coerced her into having sex with him despite her protests.”
The woman also alleged in the suit that Sabatini created a work environment where to get ahead and gain his approval, undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows were to “indulge a highly sexualized lab environment.”
The woman alleged that more than once, when women joined the lab, “Sabatini tried to engage them in unwelcomed discussions about their private, sexual lives and he groomed them, exploring just how far he could go with those under his authority,” in the suit. Those who do not participate were either cast aside or “embarrassed until they, at least, played along,” the countersuit alleges.
She said she suffered financial losses, reputational harm, pain and suffering and emotional distress due to Sabatini’s retaliatory behavior against her claims.
Sabatini allegedly interfered with the investigation “as reflected in ‘numerous’ reports from those interviewed, resulting in investigators’ making ‘negative credibility determinations about … Sabatini and support [of] another finding of misconduct,” lawyers representing the woman told ABC News in a statement, citing the investigation’s findings.
Lawyers for Whitehead and Lehmann claimed, in a court filing, that Sabatini’s lawsuit was a “direct attack” on what was then a pending investigation at MIT.
Whitehead in the filing, said the investigation, conducted by the law firm Hinckley, Allen, was initiated after it received “concerning information” in an anonymous survey. Whitehead also noted that there were claims by other men and women who raised concerns about his conduct and the environment of his laboratory to independent investigators.
Sabatini said the NYU community’s concern is based on a misunderstanding.
“The concern is based on a misunderstanding of what happened in Boston regarding a romantic relationship I had with a 30-year-old principal investigator who had her own separate lab,” Sabatini said
He added, “Female students and scientists deserve support and a lab environment free from inappropriate conduct, which I firmly believe I provided. I only want a fair assessment of the facts of the situation and to get back to work.”
Sabatini said he understands the NYU community’s concern over his hiring.
“I have mentored dozens of women who succeeded professionally and personally. I understand how upset many in the NYU community who have not heard all of the facts are about the possibility that I might join the faculty there,” Sabatini said.
NYU Langone said Thursday that it has not yet come to a decision on whether it will offer Sabatini a position.
“We are taking a thorough look at the full set of facts and circumstances involving his tenure and departure from MIT,” NYU Langone said in a statement.
NYU Langone said accomplished and upstanding scientists who worked with Sabatini for years have given a different account of what happened at MIT.
“A main reason for that examination is that, by all accounts, there were many pertinent aspects of the matter that were never publicly disclosed. For example, we have heard directly from dozens of Dr. Sabatini’s peers and colleagues describing a first-hand view that is starkly at odds with the investigation and its outcome,” NYU Langone said.
It added, “The investigation itself is now the subject of litigation, which details a variety of alleged procedural flaws.”
NYU Langone also said it would take into consideration protests from the community over his potential hiring.
“We do not wish to dismiss anyone’s viewpoint and indeed the feedback from our community that we have sought out and are hearing is being thoughtfully included in our considerations. We would never make any hiring if we thought it would place our personnel at any risk or compromise in any way our commitment to hiring people of the highest integrity and professionalism,” NYU Langone said.
(NEW YORK) — Three Bureau of Prisons employees at United States Penitentiary Thompson in Illinois have had to go to the hospital over the past two weeks, according to the local union president, prompting two members of Congress to write a letter to the agency questioning how mail for prisoners is processed.
“We write with concern about reports of unsafe conditions for correctional officers in opening mail for incarcerated persons,” the letter written by Rep. Cherri Bustos, D-Ill., and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ili., and obtained by ABC News, said.
“We know that it is critical for incarcerated persons to have access to correspondence while serving their sentences. Unfortunately, mail is also one of the ways in which drug contraband can be brought into correctional facilities,” the lawmakers wrote.
One staff member was hospitalized on Friday. The drug involved and the officer’s condition are unknown.
On March 17, a corrections officer was sorting mail and 19 pieces of mail were soaked in amphetamines, according to USP Thompson Union President Jon Zumkehr.
The staff member started “throwing up and having a violent reaction and was rushed to medical — his vitals were off the chart,” Zumkehr said.
A day later, another staff member was rushed to the hospital after being exposed to synthetic marijuana, he said.
In 2020, the Bureau of Prisons started a pilot program to convert mail to electronic scans at some facilities, to combat drug smuggling through official correspondence, according to the two lawmakers.
Zumkehr said the program was ended due to funding concerns.
“Staff shouldn’t have a price tag on their life,” he said.
Shane Fausey, president of the National Council of Prison Locals 33 told ABC News the substances officers are dealing with, including fentanyl, are both very dangerous and prevalent.
“It’s a matter of safety. It’s a matter of when you deal with substances like fentanyl, car fentanyl, they’re so hazardous a minuscule amount is going to kill someone if we don’t somehow stop it from entering our prisons,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement to ABC News it would respond directly to members of Congress and their staff.
“Out of respect and deference to Members, we do not share our Congressional correspondence with media,” it said.
(NEW YORK) — Trevor Reed’s family said President Joe Biden may have saved their son’s life, doing everything he could to bring Reed home, in their first interview since seeing their son on U.S. soil.
“Ultimately it was President Biden,” Joey Reed, Trevor Reed’s father, said in an interview Friday on Good Morning America. “We’ve said all along if we could just speak to the man, we think he would make this happen and that’s exactly what happened. He did everything that we had said he would do and it’s amazing and we can’t thank him enough.”
He added, “We believe he may have saved Trevor’s life.”
Reed, a former Marine from Texas, was released from Russian prison on Wednesday as part of an international prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia. He had been held in Russia since 2019.
Trevor Reed’s family said they met with him on Thursday for a few hours. His mother, Paula Reed, said it was the first time they got to hug him, saying “it was heaven.”
The Reeds said they received a phone call early Thursday morning from Roger Carsten, the presidential envoy on hostage affairs, who handed the phone to Trevor Reed, who was on a plane headed to the U.S.
Reed was arrested in Russia, while on a trip visiting his girlfriend, after Russian authorities alleged he grabbed the wheel of a police car and assaulted a police officer while drunk.
Reed denied the allegations and maintained his innocence. A year later he was sentenced to nine years in prison. After several appeals he was moved from a Moscow prison to a remote prison colony.
Reed was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted drug trafficker.
Reed’s parents said their son has a long road to recovery, in an interview with ABC News’ David Muir on Wednesday.
He is currently in a medical facility receiving care, but his family did not have a complete update on his health on Friday.
“We don’t really have a whole lot of answers yet. He’s getting testing done. He is at a top-notch medical facility and getting great care so we’re excited about that but we won’t really know more for a few days,” Paula Reed said.
The Reeds lobbied for years for the U.S. to negotiate for their son’s release, even personally pleading with Biden.
Other Americans, including Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, are still being held in Russia.
“Our hearts go out to them and we can only imagine how disappointed they are that their loved ones didn’t get to come home,” Paula Reed said.
She added that Whelan’s release was the first thing her son brought up when the family spoke.
“He said he didn’t feel well and we said, ‘Do you mean physically?’ He said, ‘No, mom. I feel terrible that Paul still there and I’m here.’ And he said when I get better, I’m going to start advocating for them to bring Paul home right away,'” Paula Reed said.
(MIAMI) — Three Florida correctional officers were arrested on murder charges for allegedly beating an inmate to death, while a fourth remains at large, authorities said Thursday.
Christopher Rolon, 29, Kirk Walton, 34, and Ronald Connor, 24, were arrested Thursday following a monthslong investigation of the fatal incident at the Dade Correctional Institution in Miami-Dade County, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said.
They were arrested on multiple charges, including second-degree murder, conspiracy, aggravated battery of an elderly adult and cruel treatment of a detainee, jail records show. Attorney information was not immediately available.
Additional information on the fourth correctional officer being sought by law enforcement was not provided.
The incident occurred on the morning of Feb. 14, before the inmate was scheduled to be transferred to a correctional facility in Lake County, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which led the investigation into the death along with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
After the inmate reportedly threw urine on an officer, he was placed in handcuffs and removed from his cell in the mental health unit, at which point the officers “began to beat him,” the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said in a statement.
“The inmate was beaten so badly he had to be carried to the transport van,” the agency said.
The inmate, whose name was not released by the agency, was placed in a compartment of the van alone. During a stop in Ocala, an over 300-mile drive from Dade Correctional Institution, he was found dead, authorities said.
The inmate’s death was caused by a punctured lung leading to internal bleeding, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He also had injuries to his face and torso “consistent with a beating,” the agency said.
The incident initially led the Florida Department of Corrections to place 10 officers on administrative leave. One officer also resigned over it, the department said.
“What happened in this case is completely unacceptable and is not a representation of our system or of Dade Correctional Institution as a whole,” Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon said in a statement Thursday. “The staff involved in this case failed, and as an agency we will not stand for this.”
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, is holding a press briefing Friday afternoon with the Florida Department of Corrections and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to share further details on the criminal charges.
“Staff misconduct, abuse or criminal behavior have no place in Florida’s correctional system,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “Inmates should not be subject to forms of ‘back alley’ justice which are actions in violation of Florida law.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
It is seeking $3 million in fines and penalties over Manafort’s alleged failure to file reports disclosing more than 20 offshore bank accounts he controlled in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the U.K. between 2006 and 2014.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, notes that the Treasury Department previously sent him a notice of its assessment of the penalties in July of 2020.
He was pardoned by former President Donald Trump five months later in December of 2020 for his tax fraud, conspiracy and obstruction convictions stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The DOJ’s lawsuit indicates that prosecutors don’t believe Trump’s pardon of Manafort encompasses his failure to file Foreign Bank Account reports in 2013 and 2014.
ABC News has reached out to an attorney for Manafort for comment.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) — A Black woman was finally named valedictorian at her Illinois high school nearly four decades after her graduation.
Tracey Meares, a law professor at Yale University, was a star student at Springfield High School in Springfield, Illinois. But when she graduated in 1984, she was not awarded the title of valedictorian despite having the highest academic ranking in her class, she said. Her story is now the subject of a new documentary, “No Title for Tracey.”
Meares would have been the first Black female valedictorian in the school’s history, but she was not awarded the title. Instead, the school did away with the valedictorian and salutatorian titles that year and Meares was recognized with a group as “top students.” The school went back to official titles in 1992.
“As a 17-year-old, achieving something like being valedictorian is probably the biggest thing…It was incredibly disappointing,” Meares told “Good Morning America.”
Meares said the snub was “very confusing” at first but she later processed the great lengths the school went to to deny her the title.
“I didn’t talk about it ever…Many of my best friends that I have known since I was an adult have asked me why I never told and I didn’t want to talk about it. It was terrible. It was really hard,” she reflected.
Meares went on to study engineering at the University of Illinois and then attended the University of Chicago Law School.
This year, her sister, Dr. Nicole Florence, a first-time filmmaker, turned Meares’ story into a documentary to spotlight the impact of structural racism.
On April 16, after a screening of the documentary in her hometown, Springfield Public Schools District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill presented Meares with the valedictorian medal — a surprise to Meares.
“I felt some pride and happiness that my parents who are sitting in the front row could see this happening because they were denied that 30 years ago,” Meares said. “I felt sadness that my grandparents weren’t there.”
Gill said she was “happy” to meet Meares and right this wrong.
“When we know better, we do better. By meeting Tracey and hearing about her lived experience, we know that honoring her with this title means so much more,” Gill told “GMA.” “We want every student to have a feeling of belonging in all aspects of school and a sense of becoming as they leave our schools with a plan for college and career. It is our responsibility to ensure that our system supports students in reaching their full potential. We have seen that high school experiences can have a profound, lifelong impact.”
“It was an honor to have Tracey here and a privilege to learn from such an accomplished alumna,” she added.
The recognition 38 years later is a gesture that Meares says she appreciates.
“Institutionally, there are people who are making an effort to to acknowledge that people are thinking wrong. That was harmful. And it wasn’t harmful, just to me as an individual. It was harmful to the community,” she said. “The thing to take away is for people to understand the ways in which discrimination can operate at a disproportionate rate at a structural level and that its downstream effects are enduring.”
(NEW YORK) — Police arrived at a home in Selkirk, New York, just before 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2020 to find a husband and wife dead. Bhupinder Saran, 58, killed his wife, Sarbjit Saran, 58, and then took his own life, police said.
It was not the first time police had been to the home. A year earlier, officers were called to a domestic violence incident, and there had been an order of protection against the husband.
On Thursday, New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang revealed that Sarbjit Saran had informed her employer, the state’s information technology office, of the trouble at home, but she received no help — a violation of state domestic violence policies.
“When she reached out for help, it fell on deaf ears,” Lang said during a news conference in Albany.
“This investigation found that despite ITS’ awareness that its employee had reported that she was a victim of domestic violence, ITS did not follow its Domestic Violence and the Workplace Policy in a manner that was responsive to her needs as a victim or that promoted workplace safety,” the inspector general’s report said.
Incidents of violence, sexual violence and stalking increased in New York during the pandemic, when calls to the state’s domestic and sexual violence hotline increased 45%.
Lang called Sarbjit Saran’s death “an utter tragedy” and said she should have been able to count on her employer.
“She gave 30 years of her life to the state,” Lang said. “So much of what happened here is that warning signs were disregarded, and that is a failure of education, a failure of training and a reason why domestic violence has for years existed outside the public sphere.”
Lang announced her office would audit every state agency to make sure they understand their obligations when an employee mentions being the victim of violence by an intimate partner.
