(MINNEAPOLIS) — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s full ban on applying for and executing “no-knock” search warrants in the city goes into effect Friday.
The policy implementation comes just two days after the announcement that no criminal charges would be filed in the case of Amir Locke, who was fatally shot in February by Minneapolis police officers executing a no-knock search warrant on the apartment he was in.
No-knock warrants allow officers to enter a private home without knocking or making their presence known.
Frey said that exceptions could be granted for hostage situations or other extremely dangerous scenarios.
The department will also establish a classification system for warrants: low, medium and high risk. Medium and high-risk warrants will require additional approval.
The new policy also established wait times for officers before they can enter a residence while executing a knock-and-announce warrant.
During the day, officers will have to wait 20 seconds after making themselves known before entering a residence. At night, the wait time is 30 seconds.
The ban would also extend to warrants carried out by the Minneapolis Police Department on behalf of other agencies, as well as those that have been requested by Minneapolis police but executed by other departments.
Frey received backlash for the previous moratorium on no-knock warrants because officials could execute such a warrant if it is determined that there is an imminent threat of harm to an individual or the public.
“It’s important to implore upon everyone, that half measures have really gotten cities nowhere across the country,” said attorney Jeff Storms, who is co-representing Locke’s family members, at a February hearing on no-knock warrants.
“It’s important that city does not just put Band-Aids on the immediate problems but spends time thinking about how to preempt the next civil rights violation, not just related to no-knock warrants, but to other areas of policy practice and training,” he added.
No-knock warrants have come under scrutiny, most prominently in the 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched drug raid.
Karen Wells, Locke’s mother, spoke with ABC News Live’s Stephanie Ramos Wednesday, just hours after Minnesota prosecutors announced they wouldn’t charge the officer who shot Locke.
Wells said that such warrants should be banned in her son’s name.
“They’re not good for my son. They’re not good for anybody else. Because in the end, it doesn’t do anything. It brings harm, it brings death, which is what happened with my son,” Wells told ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — When the Supreme Court struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s federal eviction moratorium in August 2021, experts and politicians predicted that expulsions would soar.
But eviction filings overall remained well below the historical average through 2021, according to the White House and housing experts.
“[Eviction filings] increased after the CDC moratorium ended, but they still aren’t anywhere near back to normal,” said Peter Hepburn, Princeton Eviction Lab statistician and quantitative analyst. “So we’re still at 60% of the historical average.”
Hepburn credited the influx of state and federal resources and ramped up legal assistance implemented during the coronavirus pandemic for the downward trend.
While some financial resources started during the pandemic outlasted the eviction moratorium, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Aug. 30, 2021, also called upon lawyers and law students to help fill the gap after the moratorium ended by helping with Emergency Rental Assistance applications, volunteering with legal aid providers and assisting courts with implementing eviction diversion programs, among other initiatives aimed at increasing housing stability.
Heeding that call were 99 law schools in 35 states and Puerto Rico, according to the White House.
“Over the past five months, over 2,100 law students dedicated over 81,000 hours to serve over 10,000 households,” said a statement released by the Biden administration.
Gene Sperling, the senior adviser to President Joe Biden who is spearheading the implementation of the American Rescue Plan, said the partnership with the legal community has been an “extraordinary national experiment.” The project — part of an “whole-of-government approach” — contributed to eviction diversion programs as well as rental assistance programs that kept eviction filings significantly below historic averages.
Funding worth $46 billion for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program — provided for households economically impacted by COVID-19 — also flooded the system at the same time these partnerships were emerging.
David Daix, a 45-year-old immigrant from the Ivory Coast and father of two residing in Henrico Country, Virginia, is one beneficiary of a newly beefed-up partnership between the Virginia Poverty Law Center’s eviction legal helpline and the University of Richmond School of Law.
After being let go from his customer service job in March 2020, Daix was unable to pay rent after his unemployment benefits expired a year later. His landlord filed for eviction in January 2022, he said. The helpline put him in touch with Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, which got his case dismissed in early February.
Daix is not alone. Richmond, Virginia, and its surrounding counties — Henrico and Chesterfield — have some of the highest eviction rates in the country, according to Princeton’s Eviction Lab.
These regions had a stark “access to justice” gap between represented and unrepresented individuals in court. From 2015 to 2019, only 1% of tenants in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield were represented in local general district courts, according to the 2017 Virginia Self-Represented Litigant Study.
In 2020, tenant representation in housing court increased by 11% while 30% fewer landlords were awarded judgments, according to the RVA Eviction Lab. Four years ago, the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society didn’t have a single attorney who was practicing full-time housing law; now it has six.
“A new generation of housing advocates have been born out of this time,” Erika Poethig, White House adviser on Urban Planning and Policy, said at an eviction prevention event at the end of January.
The program began after the Biden administration reached out to Georgetown Law School Dean Bill Treanor, who spearheaded the partnership between law schools and the White House along with NYU Law School Dean Trevor Morrison.
Treanor said one of the most important legacies of the project is a renewed commitment to eviction prevention, and the White House and Department of Justice have said they intend to maintain the law school partnerships after the pandemic ends.
“Even after the pandemic is over, the underlying housing crisis will endure. This has helped make us all conscious [of] the importance of finding ways in which law students can help people facing housing crises,” Treanor said.
As part of the program, the University of South Carolina School of Law — located in Columbia, the city with the eighth-highest eviction rate in the country — helped fund Veterans Legal Clinics that serve indigent veterans with housing issues. The school also partnered with the NAACP housing navigators program.
“We’ve made the case to the General Assembly of South Carolina that these access to justice initiatives are vital to the public interest of South Carolina,” said William Hubbard, dean of the University of South Carolina School of Law.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, dean of Boston University School of Law, said tenants often do not have access to legal assistance and don’t know how to fight an illegal eviction, especially during a pandemic.
“[Tenants] have no way of getting it back, they have no way of fighting against a landlord who has used something that’s improper,” Onwuachi-Willig said. “And imagine and during all of that, during a pandemic, when you’re also trying not to get sick.”
Onwuachi-Willig partnered with Naomi Mann, clinical associate professor, and Jade Brown, clinical instructor in the Civil Litigation and Justice Program, last spring. Brown helped develop the MA Defense for Eviction (MADE) for students to help tenants respond to initial complaints filed by landlords against them and generate pleas based on tenants’ answers.
“Hopefully, the pandemic has sort of revealed the cracks in our system, and where they are. It has certainly shown us how enormous the unmet need is, when it comes to housing law, the unmet legal need, in particular, is what we obviously are working on,” Mann said.
Students did not need to have a background in housing law to participate and, according to Brown, the project had a “profound” impact on many of them.
“Being able to work with Naomi and Jade on this definitely solidifies this is something that will be a part of my career for a long time,” said Julian Burlando-Salazar, a Boston University law student who was not previously planning to pursue housing law.
Burlando-Salazar partnered with another BU law student, Marie Tashima, to solve tenants’ disputes with landlords through mediation.
The movement toward getting tenants better representation in court was already underway in many states before the pandemic began.
Three states — Washington, Maryland and Connecticut — have enacted laws that require no necessary qualifications for tenants facing eviction to be eligible for free legal representation.
Eleven states have established a qualified right to counsel, including New York, where the state’s eviction moratorium ended on Jan. 15, 2022. That same day, Ciji Stewart was scheduled to appear in court and requested a lawyer from the Legal Aid Society.
Stewart, a mother of three living in Rockaway Beach in Queens, received a call from Sateesh Nori, the attorney in charge of the Queens Neighborhood Office of the Legal Aid Society.
“I was just telling Nori everything that was happening in my home and he got me an adjournment, which I didn’t know what was or could happen,” Stewart said. “He helped me file a suit for repairs against the landlord.”
Because she lived in New York, Stewart may have already qualified for legal representation. But since the federal program was developed, many more like her in other states have now begun to feel the same relief.
But while University of Richmond Law School Dean Wendy Perdue said the program represents progress in that it has helped show the necessity of legal representation, she said it’s still just a “drop in the bucket.”
“The Association of American law schools has collected the data nationwide — literally millions of hours of service that law students around the country provide,” she said. “It’s still only a drop in the bucket, but the only way you fill up the bucket is with a series of drops and so law students are having an important impact in filling some of the gaps that exist in legal services.”
(MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.) — Amir Locke’s mother said she doesn’t want her son’s death to be in vain and is calling on lawmakers to reform one of the most controversial police tactics.
Karen Wells spoke with ABC News Live’s Stephanie Ramos Wednesday, just hours after Minnesota prosecutors announced they wouldn’t charge the officer who shot Locke during a “no knock” warrant in February.
Locke, 22, wasn’t under investigation for the Saint Paul case which led to the warrant, investigators said.
Wells told ABC News that such warrants, which allow law enforcement members to enter someone’s home without announcing their presence, should be banned from Minnesota.
“They’re not good for my son. They’re not good for anybody else. Because in the end, it doesn’t do anything. It brings harm, it brings death, which is what happened with my son,” Wells told ABC News.
Locke, who legally owned a gun, was sleeping under a blanket on the couch on Feb. 2 when the officers came into the apartment and executed the warrant. Police body camera footage shows a gun was in Locke’s hand when he began to sit up as police approached him.
Minneapolis Police Department officer Mark Hanneman fired three shots killing Locke, according to investigators.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and Minnesota Attorney General’s office reviewed all the evidence surrounding the shooting, and said that there was insufficient evidence to charge the officer.
“Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman. Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke,” the DA and AG’s offices said in a joint statement Wednesday.
Wells said she spoke with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison before the announcement was made.
“I reiterated to him that I was not disappointed. I was disgusted with the decision,” she said.
“No knock” warrants have come under scrutiny over the last couple of years due to high profile shootings of Black victims.
Louisville, Kentucky banned “no knock” warrants in 2020, a few months after Breonna Taylor was killed by police in her sleep when they executed an order. Activists and elected officials have pushed other states and the federal government to follow suit.
Ben Crump, Wells’ attorney, told ABC News that 82% of “no knock” warrants are done on Black residents’ homes.
“Until we can have it where it is done equally and justly then the Department of Justice needs to review everything that Minneapolis has done executing these warrants,” he told ABC News.
In the meantime, Wells said she hopes all elected officials take a long hard look at the police policy and think about her son’s life.
“Amir had a beautiful spirit. He had a beautiful smile. He was my baby boy,” she said.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Officials in Philadelphia are recommending residents start wearing masks indoors again due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Data shows the city is currently averaging 94 new cases of COVID-19 per day.
This marks a 50% increase in infections over the last 10 days.
Additionally, over the last two weeks, 3.3% of COVID-19 tests in Philadelphia have come back positive compared to 1.4% just one month earlier.
“It’s not huge numbers we’re seeing, but it’s enough to take notice,” Dr. Darren Mareiniss, an emergency medicine and infectious disease expert at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, told ABC News.
Earlier this year, Philadelphia set three COVID-19 benchmarks, and two would have to be met to trigger the return of indoor mask mandates.
These benchmarks include average new daily cases above 100 but below 225; hospitalizations above 50 but below 100; and cases increasing by more than 50% in the previous 10 days.
So far, just one benchmark has been met: the increase of cases by more than 50%.
However, the city is closing in on meeting the hospitalization benchmark. As of Monday, 48 patients are hospitalized in Philadelphia with COVID-19.
This has led officials to recommend residents wear masks indoors ahead of a potential mandate going into effect.
“As we see more cases of COVID-19 in the city, everyone’s risk goes up,” Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, commissioner for the city’s Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “That means that now is the time to start taking precautions. It’s not required yet, but Philadelphians should strongly consider wearing a mask while in public indoor spaces.”
The department did not return ABC News’ request for comment.
Mareiniss believes the increase is partly due to the spread of BA.2, a subvariant of the original omicron variant.
BA.2 makes up more than 84% of COVID-19 samples in the Northeast that have undergone genome sequencing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This has closely mirrored what’s occurred in several countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, which hit a record-high 1 in 13 people being infected with the virus last week, according to the government’s Office for National Statistics.
Mareiniss added that the rise in cases in Philadelphia is also because several mitigation measures have been relaxed since the end of the omicron wave.
“We’ve relaxed a lot of restrictions, people are not masking indoors; it’s much easier to transmit the virus when people are indoors unmasked,” he said. “So, we’re going to see an uptick. The question is how much of an uptick.”
He stressed the importance of people getting vaccinated if they haven’t already and said to follow the health department’s recommendations of wearing masks in indoor settings.
“Right now, I would recommend indoor masking for everyone given the rise of cases,” Mareiniss said. “Your behavior should be dictated by the level of disease in the community … and, as levels rise, you should consider masking. I would try to mask indoors and avoid indoor dining.”
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump should be held in contempt for failing to respond to a subpoena as instructed, the New York Attorney General’s office said Thursday in a new court filing.
New York Attorney General Letitia James also asked the judge to impose a daily $10,000 fine until Trump complies.
The subpoena, issued as part of James’ civil investigation into the way Trump values his real estate portfolio, sought personal documents from Trump, including tax records and statements of financial condition. The original deadline of March 3 was pushed to March 31 after Trump asked for an extension.
“The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” James said in a statement.
Trump raised new objections to the document requests on March 31, which James’ office said is impermissible.
“This Court’s order was not an opening bid for a negotiation or an invitation for a new round of challenges to the subpoena. It was, rather, a court order entered after full briefing and argument during which Mr. Trump could have, but did not, raise any of the purported objections or assertions he has now raised,” the attorney general’s motion said.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Thursday’s filing.
Trump has asked a state appellate court to quash a separate subpoena that required him and his two eldest children to sit for depositions, arguing, in part, that the subpoenas result from an investigation driven by James’ political animus. James’ office rejected the claim.
Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen testified before Congress in 2019 that the former president valued his real estate holdings differently depending on whether he was seeking loans or tax deductions.
Cohen provided the House Oversight Committee with copies of Trump’s financial statements that he said misrepresented the values of Trump assets to obtain favorable terms for loans and insurance.
Trump and his children have denied any wrongdoing.
(LANSING, Mich.) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is filing a lawsuit Thursday in an effort to protect abortion rights in the state.
“No matter what happens to Roe, I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is a right for all women in Michigan,” she said in a statement. “If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to protect the constitutional right to an abortion, the Michigan Supreme Court should step in. We must trust women — our family, neighbors, and friends — to make decisions that are best for them about their bodies and lives.”
Michigan is one of about 20 states where abortion could be immediately banned if Roe v. Wade were overturned because of either laws that predate Roe but were never removed from the books, so-called “trigger” laws that would go into effect in the event of the precedent being overturned, state constitutional amendments, or six- or eight-week bans that are not currently in effect but would ban nearly all abortions, according to a 2021 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
In Michigan’s case, abortion would be banned because of a 1931 state statute that criminalizes abortion, including in cases of rape or incest. The only exception would be in case of threat to the pregnant person’s life.
That statute has not been enforced since Roe made abortion a national right, but it could go back into effect if Roe were overturned. Whitmer filed the lawsuit, which names the elected prosecutors of 13 counties that have abortion clinics as defendants, to undo the statute.
As governor, she is utilizing the rarely used executive message power, which includes the governor’s right under the state constitution to “initiate court proceedings in the name of the state to enforce compliance with any constitutional or legislative mandate,” to push the case forward. Effectively, Whitmer is asking the Michigan Supreme Court to pick up the case directly, bypassing the time it would take in trial and appeals courts.
“This is no longer theoretical: it is reality,” Whitmer said in her statement about the possibility of Roe being overturned. “That’s why I am filing a lawsuit and using my executive authority to urge the Michigan Supreme Court to immediately resolve whether Michigan’s state constitution protects the right to abortion.”
She had previously supported an effort from the state Legislature to repeal the statute, however that effort has not moved the needle.
Whitmer’s move to protect abortion rights in this sped-up manner comes as Roe v. Wade faces its biggest challenge in its 49 years with the U.S. Supreme Court expected to hand down a decision in a case out of Mississippi early this summer.
That case revolves around a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of a pregnancy. Previous Supreme Court precedent had stipulated abortion was legal up to the point of viability, which typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks.
During oral arguments in December, the conservative justices openly raised the prospect of overturning decades of legal precedent, sending up flares around the nation that the landscape for legal abortion could be radically changed.
If abortion were made illegal in Michigan, the average Michigander’s driving distance to the nearest abortion clinic would expand from 11 miles to 261 miles, according to the Guttmacher Institute, as patients would have to travel out of state to seek an abortion.
With this, Michigan joins several states that have in recent months bulked up protections for abortion rights, apparently in response to the possibility of Roe being overturned.
“However we personally feel about abortion, a woman’s health, not politics, should drive important medical decisions,” Whitmer said in her statement. “A woman must be able to make her own medical decisions with the advice of a healthcare professional she trusts – politicians shouldn’t make that decision for her.”
This move also comes as the jury deliberates in a trial over an alleged 2020 plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer. The four men accused could face life in prison if found guilty.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill Wednesday that would ban transgender women and girls from playing on school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity from grades six and up into college.
Under the proposed bill, students would play on teams based on their sex assigned at birth.
Beshear, who is a Democrat, joins two Republican governors who vetoed similar bills in Utah and Indiana. In his veto letter, he said he shares their concerns that the bills could provoke lawsuits against the state and cause harm against transgender people.
“Transgender children deserve public officials’ efforts to demonstrate that they are valued members of our communities through compassion, kindness and empathy, even if not understanding,” the governor stated.
Beshear also pointed to the Kentucky High School Athletic Association’s transgender participation policy, which requires that trans student-athletes undergo hormone therapy after puberty to minimize potential gender-related advantages.
The KHSAA policy states that the organization “recognizes and promotes the ability of transgender student-athletes to participate in the privilege of interscholastic sports and sport-activities free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
However, Senate Bill 83 — the Fairness in Womens’ Sports Act — passed Kentucky’s legislature on March 24 with a GOP majority that could override Beshear’s decision.
Those in support of these policies, like bill sponsor Sen. Robby Mills, have said that they believe transgender women have a biological advantage against cisgender women.
“It would be crushing for a young lady to train her whole career to have it end up competing against a biological male in the state tournament or state finals,” Mills said during Senate debate on the bill.
There has been “no direct or consistent research” that shows that trans people have an advantage over cisgender peers in athletics, according to a Sports Medicine journal review of several research studies on potential advantages.
LGBTQ advocates applauded Beshear’s decision, saying that legislators behind the bill are bullying transgender youth.
“From the start, this bill has been more about fear than fairness,” said Chris Hartman, the executive director of Kentucky LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Fairness Campaign.
He continued: “In Kentucky’s entire school system, there is only one openly transgender girl we know playing on a school sports team. That student started her school’s field hockey team, recruited all of the other team members, and just wants the opportunity to play with her friends her eighth-grade year.”
(WASHINGTON) — On Jan. 6, 2021, two police officers who nicknamed each other “dad” and “son” loaded their car with meals and a wooden stick, met with a neighbor and drove from Rocky Mount, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. They allegedly stormed the Capitol with gas masks, took a picture next to a statue and drove home discussing the “next civil war.”
On Wednesday afternoon, they both showed up at D.C. Federal Court, yards away from the Capitol. One took the stand as a witness for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The other was the defendant.
As part of Jacob Fracker’s plea deal for storming the Capitol, he testified on Wednesday against the U.S. Attorney’s Office in a case against his longtime friend and former colleague Thomas Robertson. He hopes to gain a more lenient sentence for cooperating with the trial, he confirmed during his testimony.
“Could you tell us how you’re feeling about being here today?” a U.S. attorney asked Fracker at the beginning of testimony.
“I absolutely hate this,” Fracker said in a shaky voice, adding he “never thought it would be like this.”
“Why did you never think this is what it would be like?” the attorney asked.
“I’ve always been on the other side of things,” Fracker responded. “The good guy side, so to speak.”
The testimony came on day two of the trial for Robertson, who faces five felonies and one misdemeanor after allegedly storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and destroying his cellphone. Witnesses, including police officers and FBI agents, have pointed to footage from that day, at times identifying Robertson in brief skirmishes.
Robertson’s lawyer has said he was invited into the Capitol by an officer, stayed for only 10 minutes and didn’t assault anyone or cause any damage.
Fracker talked extensively about the buildup and aftermath of the trip with Robertson. Robertson, who is 17 years older, served as a mentor on the force for Fracker, both of whom had military ties.
“Is this relationship you have with him part of why you’re nervous today?” a U.S. attorney asked.
“Absolutely,” Fracker said.
The two stayed close after they were both fired from the Rocky Mount Police Department following their arrests a week after the riot.
Fracker said he gave his phone to Robertson in the days following the riot to “get rid of it.” He said Wednesday he does not know what happened to it.
Fracker identified Robertson as having a wooden stick, which has become a key component of the trial. The prosecution says that he used it as a weapon, while Robertson’s counsel has argued that he used it as a walking stick due to injuries sustained during his military duty. Video shows him using it in a “port arms” position, a military and police defensive tactic used to push past others, several witnesses said.
The two decided to go to the Capitol just a few days before after Robertson extended a “casual invite” to Fracker, he said. The two believed that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, and they wanted to mount pressure to overturn the results.
The two packed guns and their police badges in the car they drove through Virginia, but ultimately decided to leave them in the vehicle. They were wary about identifying themselves as police officers due to hostility toward those in the profession, Fracker said.
Recalling one brief interaction from Jan. 6, Fracker said he attempted to place himself in between officers that he believed were separated from their group and a crowd of rioters. One of them was missing head protection, he said, and the crowd was “wildly getting out of hand.” The attorney asked him if he tried to help police once he entered the Capitol, and he said he did not. He then walked through the Capitol, past broken glass, flipped furniture and alarms, and took pictures once he reunited with Robertson, he said during testimony.
The two both made social media posts that were used as exhibits in court.
“CNN and the Left are just mad because we attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business,” Robertson wrote.
On Facebook, Fracker posted, “Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around… Sorry I hate freedom? …Not like I did anything illegal…y’all do what you feel you need to…”
Referencing his social media posts, the U.S. attorney asked: Do you still feel that way today, and how do you feel sitting here?
“The person in those videos, the photos that day, at the time it was all fun and games,” Fracker said. “Here lately, I’ve had it presented to me or shown to me for what it is. That’s not the person I am. That’s not how I act.”
“I know for a fact my mom would slap me in the face if she saw what I was doing that day,” he added. “So I sit here today just ashamed of my actions. I didn’t have to do all that stuff. But I did.”
Fracker is set to be cross-examined by Robertson’s counsel on Thursday morning.
(WASHINGTON) — Four members of the United States Secret Service, including one member who was on first lady Jill Biden’s protective detail, were suspended after they allegedly associated with and were provided gifts from two men who are accused of pretending to be Homeland Security Investigations agents.
The two men, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, were charged with impersonating federal law enforcement officers and allegedly provided members of the Secret Service gifts such as rent-free apartments totaling $40,000, surveillance systems, a drone, law enforcement paraphernalia and more, court documents said.
“All personnel involved in this matter are on administrative leave and are restricted from accessing Secret Service facilities, equipment and systems. The Secret Service adheres to the highest levels of professional standards and conduct and will remain in active coordination with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security,” the Secret Service said in a statement Wednesday night.
Taherzadeh and Ali allegedly posed as “Special Police,” claiming “to be involved in undercover gang-related investigations as well as conducting investigations related to the violence at the United States Capitol on January 6,” according to court documents unsealed Wednesday night.
Taherzadeh went so far as to show someone who is identified in court documents as “Witness 1” an “HSI casefile” they were “working on” that was marked “confidential.” They even went so far as to have identical Chevy Tahoes fitted with police lights.
“TAHERZADEH told Witness 1 that as part of the recruiting process, TAHERZADEH would have to shoot Witness 1 with an air rifle in order to evaluate Witness 1’s reaction and pain tolerance. According to Witness 1, because he/she believed this was part of the DHS/HSI recruiting process, he/she agreed to be shot and subsequently was shot by TAHERZADEH. During the shooting, ALI was present,” court documents revealed.
Another witness who was interviewed in court documents, and is on the first lady’s detail, was told by Taherzadeh that he was on a “covert task force” and he provided many favors to residents who were members of law enforcement. He also offered to gift the unnamed witness an AR-style rifle.
Additionally, the unnamed Secret Service agent on the first lady’s detail was told by Taherzadeh that he had the same agency gun the witness did.
“TAHERZADEH came to Witness 2’s apartment carrying a Glock 19 Generation 5 in an Ayin Tactical Holster. TAHERZADEH stated that he had an extra holster and wanted to give Witness 2 the Ayin Tactical Holster for Witness 2’s newly issued Glock 19 Generation 5. Witness 2 is still in possession of this holster,” according to court documents.
Another witness, who is not named, allegedly saw Taherzadeh’s fraudulent Department of Homeland Security computer and Federal Training Center certificate.
The men told residents of the Navy Yard apartment complex where they lived that they were renting out apartments paid for by the DHS and set up a surveillance system around the apartment complex in which residents could access it at any time from their mobile device.
“These residents stated that they believe that TAHERZADEH and ALI had access to personal information of all the residents at the apartment complex,” court documents said.
One witness believed the two men had access codes to everywhere in the building due to them posing as law enforcement.
Taherzadeh allegedly walked up to another DHS employee who worked for HSI. However, when the employee looked him up in the database, he could not be found.
The investigation began when the suspects were witnesses to an assault involving a letter carrier and Postal Inspection Agents interviewed them.
“The USPIS Inspector provided this information to the DHS Office of Inspector General, which then referred the information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for further investigation. It was at this point that the FBI began its investigation, which corroborated the statements of residents obtained by the USPIS Inspector,” court documents said.
The names of the suspended Secret Service members have not been released. The court documents did not say when these alleged interactions occurred.
(NEW YORK) — At the end of this school year, a family of four from Austin, Texas, plans to uproot their lives and move over 2,000 miles away to Portland, Oregon.
The family, native Texans, say they are moving because they fear for the safety of their 10-year-old transgender daughter in the wake of Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision in February to direct the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate reports of gender-affirming care as child abuse.
“Our house is halfway packed in boxes,” said the mom, whom ABC News is identifying under the pseudonym, Marin, because she asked that her name not be used for privacy reasons. “[My kids] are sad to leave their friends … but they know where we’re moving, my daughter will be able to play on the sports team of her choice, with the girls. She will never have a problem using the girls’ restroom.”
“We want our kids to have the opportunity to grow up in a place where they can just focus on being kids, and that’s something that Portland can provide,” she said.
Marin was among a group of moms who publicly advocated for transgender rights during the Texas legislature’s last session, testifying at the Texas Capitol and ultimately helping to defeat dozens of bills targeting transgender people. When Abbott announced the directive in February, she thought her family would stay put and continue to fight in Texas, but she said the threat became too great.
“With the situation as it is, I’m not fighting effectively,” said Marin. “You can’t fight when you’re down on the ground, just trying to fend people off of your children.”
According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, at least nine investigations have been opened on families since February, when Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton issued their opinion on transgender care, calling gender-transitioning or affirming procedures for minors “child abuse.”
The Texas Supreme Court is expected to rule soon whether the state can resume the investigations. In March, a district judge blocked state agencies from investigating gender-confirming care as child abuse, issuing a temporary injunction after hearing from the parents of a 16-year-old transgender girl who were under investigation.
Gender affirmation is when transgender people make changes to their lives in accordance with their gender identity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That can be done through a change of clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, names and pronouns.
Gender affirmation can also come in the form of hormone therapy or surgeries to alter one’s physical characteristics.
Abbott’s directive on gender-affirming care is contrary to guidance from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association, all of which classify gender-affirming care as medically necessary.
In anticipation of a regulation like Abbott’s, Camille Rey said she made the decision to leave Texas last summer in an effort to protect her 9-year-old son Leon, who is transgender.
During the past legislative session, Rey said both she and Leon testified against anti-transgender legislation. She said she saw Leon begin to suffer mentally and then physically, becoming withdrawn and experiencing stomachaches severe enough to go to the emergency room.
“Unfortunately, he was exposed to a lot of hate in listening to the testimony of people who were for the bills and also just hearing us talk at the dinner table like, ‘what are we going to do?'” said Rey. “The teachers from his school called me and were worried about him because they said he used to be the one who made everyone else laugh and now he doesn’t really talk.”
In August, the family moved to Maryland where Camille said Leon is “much happier.”
“Our move was all about being in a place where Leon could just be Leon, so, yeah, we feel protected because there’s laws on the books, but honestly, we just need a normal environment and that’s what we have here,” she said. “It’s not that we need anything special for him, just the absence of attack and the absence of threats to our family. That’s all we need.”
Rey said that while her family has been met with support in their new home, she worries about families still in Texas.
“I’m heartbroken over these directives coming out of Texas and I know people that I testified with and protested with last year … some of them leaving, some of them being investigated for child abuse,” she said. “And that was my nightmare.”
John Pachankis, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and professor at the Yale School of Public Health who has studied the mental health of gay and bisexual men who move from a country with high LGTBQ stigma to one more accepting, said his research shows that feeling forced to move can be traumatic, but ultimately result in improved mental health.
“Movement away from states with discriminatory laws and policies might lead to improved mental health over the long-term, but in the short term, moving can be highly stressful because of the disruptions and uncertainties associated with moving,” Pachankis told ABC News by email. “Our research conducted across 44 countries shows that for gay men who move from homophobic countries to more supportive countries, it takes at least five years before the negative mental health impact of moving from a homophobic country dissipates.”
“But thereafter, our research shows that individuals who move to a more supportive location experience lower odds of depression and suicidality because they are less likely to hide their identities and are less socially isolated,” he said.
Families staying behind in Texas
Many families of transgender children who remain in Texas may be doing so without a choice due to family or career obligations or because a move out of state is too big a financial burden.
“Most families in the U.S. don’t have the financial and job flexibility necessary to move,” said Pachankis. “Families with higher income have more ability to move, but when families do move, they likely relinquish the social capital, and possibly even some of the economic capital, that they’ve accumulated in their hometowns.”
Anne, a mom of two daughters in Austin, for whom a pseudonym is also being used because she wants her name to remain private, said she and her family plan to stay put in Texas for the time being despite their fears for their 8-year-old daughter, who is transgender.
Anne shares custody of her older daughter with her ex-husband and said that by moving for her one daughter, she would have to forgo seeing her other daughter for much of the year. A move would also be a daunting financial burden for the family, likely costing them tens of thousands of dollars in addition to she and her husband having to find new jobs and the family having to find a new, supportive community and new medical care, according to Anne.
“I’m having to balance keeping both of my kids safe and happy,” she said. “And it takes so much to even consider like, ‘Okay, let’s go do this all over again.'”
While they remain in Texas, Anne and her husband say they have retained an attorney for their family, and have prepared a safe folder, which contains their daughter’s medical records and documentation from health care professionals, family and friends, in case they would be investigated.
“I don’t know anybody in this community that’s okay right now,” Anne said of the fear she sees among friends in the transgender community.
Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, an advocacy organization focused on LGBTQ rights, told ABC News there are additional challenges that families of transgender children who remain in Texas could face.
“For people who don’t have the means to leave, what does that mean? That they might be incurring additional costs for homeschooling; that they might have to pay more for childcare; that they may have to either quit their job or work a third-shift so that there’s always a parent or caretaker at home,” he said.
Martinez also said there is also a mental health impact that comes with the fear of investigations for parents and transgender children.
“We are talking about kids not disclosing their identities at school and navigating the world secretly, which is pushing people back into the closet, which we know isn’t really great for mental health,” he said. “These kids have heard their humanity debated every single day for almost two years.”
In Houston, Lisa Stanton, a mom of 11-year-old twins, one of whom is transgender, said she and her husband have decided to stay put for now, but at the same time they are planning an “emergency escape plan” and putting out feelers for job opportunities in states with more protections for transgender children.
“We shouldn’t have to leave. This is our home,” she said. “We have a network and have built a lot of relationships in this community and we’re established in our careers here and our children are established and have friends.”
Stanton said she and her husband are closely watching the Texas Supreme Court’s decision on the judge’s injunction before making a decision about their family’s future.
“Our hope is that we will be able to stay and not face any emergent issue where we need to go, but if things don’t go the right way with this case, then we may have to reevaluate,” she said. “It’s really hard because we are just trying to get through life and do all the things you have to do to take care of your family, and it should not be a concern of mine that I would have the government intervening or getting involved in private, personal family medical decisions.”
If Stanton and her family decide to move, one of the states they are considering is Colorado, one of the top LGBTQ-friendly states, according to the Human Rights Committee’s 2021 State Equality Index.
Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, said she and other leaders are working on a resource guide for parents of transgender children in preparation for the influx of families they anticipate could move to the state.
She said that even with protections for transgender youth, there are currently not enough providers in Colorado to meet the demand of kids seeking gender-affirming care.
“That’s the other area we’re working on, to connect with those providers that are supporting transgender, non-binary and gender-expansive youth to make sure they also know they can reach out to us,” said Bridges. “Hopefully we’ll be able to find a pipeline to provide support [for parents and providers].”
In California, a major LGBTQ advocacy organization there, Equality California, is working to advance legislation that would make the state a refuge for transgender kids and families.
The legislation, which will soon be introduced, would prevent the implementation of other states’ laws and policies that “would deny trans people life-saving, gender-affirming care” within the state’s borders, according to Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California.
“For us, California has always led the fight for LGBTQ+ equality, including ensuring that trans kids are protected from discrimination and have access to life-saving, gender-affirming care,” said Hoang. “We have served as a beacon of hope to LGBTQ+ people everywhere, and we have a responsibility to stand up to hate and injustice no matter where it occurs.”
