(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed legislation Tuesday establishing how the city will make Times Square a gun-free zone even as the state law underpinning the policy was overturned in federal court.
Adams said the 56 million tourists predicted to visit New York City this year should not have to “live in fear” as they walk through Times Sqaure, often deemed the “crossroads of the world.”
“We will not allow them to live in fear or distrust that someone is walking around with a gun ready to harm them.”
Adams, who owns three guns, said the designation of Times Square as a sensitive location was not intended to punish lawful gun owners. Rather, he and other city leaders said it is untenable to have so many guns in a place as densely packed as Times Square.
“It is plain good old common sense that no one should have a gun in Times Square,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who joined the mayor for the bill signing.
The law defines the boundaries of the Times Square sensitive location and authorizes the NYPD to implement it.
Last week, a federal judge in Syracuse struck down portions of the state’s new gun law, including the part that designates all of Times Square as off limits to conceal carry.
The state plans to appeal the ruling and has sought to keep the law in effect while the appeal is heard and until it is decided
“We just have to wait and see what happens,” said Steven Lewis of the city’s law department.
(NEW YORK) — A New York City psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to plotting the murder-by-sledgehammer death of her child’s father was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in state prison, but not before a dramatic moment in court in which Pamela Buchbinder tried to take back her plea, claiming she was maced by guards and got a contact high on the prison bus from people smoking K2.
The judge pressed ahead with sentencing and imposed the prearranged prison term of 11 years followed by five years of supervised release. Buchbinder has already served 5 years in prison.
Buchbinder, 52, admitted to burglary and attempted assault charges for manipulating her 19-year-old cousin, Jacob Nolan, to kill Michael Weiss at Weiss’s home office in November of 2012. The plot followed a custody battle over their then- 5-year-old child.
Weiss spoke in court before Buchbinder’s sentencing about his ongoing struggles.
“While I am grateful that this day has arrived, it has not brought me the sense of relief, or the feeling of closure that I had hoped it would. Although it has been almost 10 years since I was attacked, I still struggle with the emotional and physical scars of what happened to me on November 12, 2012,” Weiss said.
Buchbinder, who was a practicing psychiatrist, was called an evil genius in court, a label her attorney rejected.
“I don’t know her to be evil or a genius — just statements that were opportunistic,” defense attorney Eric Franz said.
Buchbinder accompanied Nolan to Home Depot on West 23rd Street the night before the November 2012, attack and paid cash for a 10-pound sledgehammer. Buchbinder also gave her cousin a kitchen knife to use in the attack.
Buchbinder drew a map for Nolan and instructed him how to enter Weiss’s building. Once inside, Nolan swung a sledgehammer repeatedly at Weiss and stabbed him repeatedly.
“I still find it difficult to understand how any of this could have happened, and I struggle to comprehend the type of hatred that would lead someone to plan such a deliberate, personal and brutal attack,” Weiss said.
In 2016, Nolan was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 9 ½ years in New York state prison.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to avoid intervening in the government’s ongoing documents dispute with Donald Trump, asserting that the former president is not entitled to have the court put the materials before an independent arbiter.
Trump had asked the court to put more than 100 documents with classification markings back in the hands of the special master appointed to review the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago.
The DOJ said in their latest filing that Trump “has no plausible claims of ownership or privilege in the documents bearing classification markings” and said that he has never represented in court that he declassified any of the documents — “much less supported such a representation with competent evidence.”
A federal appeals court last month excluded those documents from the special master’s review and restored the government’s access to them as federal prosecutors decide whether any criminal charges are warranted.
“Most notably, applicant has not even attempted to explain how he is irreparably injured by the court of appeals’ partial stay, which simply prevents disclosure of the documents bearing classification markings in the special-master review during the pendency of the government’s expedited appeal,” the DOJ’s Tuesday filing stated.
The department said Trump “has no basis to demand special master review” of any classified documents.
Trump’s application was made to the Supreme Court’s Clarence Thomas, the justice for the 11th Circuit. Thomas could rule on his own or refer the matter to the full court.
In the next 48 hours, the Trump team will file a reply to the DOJ’s brief. Then the court could act at any time, though it has not yet shown any indication that it sees this issue as an “emergency” in the way that Trump does.
(PARKLAND, Fla.) — The fate of confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz will soon be in the hands of the jurors who will determine if Cruz will be sentenced to the death penalty or life in prison for carrying out the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.
Closing arguments in the penalty phase trial were held Tuesday, more than four years after Cruz, then 19, gunned down 14 students and three staff members at his former Florida high school. Cruz pleaded guilty last year to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.
As parents of the slain children looked on, prosecutor Michael Satz said Tuesday that the testimony and evidence presented at the trial revealed the “unspeakable, horrific brutality and the unrelentless cruelty” carried out on Feb. 14, 2018.
“It’s been said that what one writes, and what one says, is a window to someone’s soul,” Satz said in his closing argument. “Some of the remarks the defendant wrote on his YouTube were: ‘No mercy, no questions, double tap. I’m going to…murder children…I’d love to see the families suffer.'”
“He’s thinking ahead,” Satz said, by “not only looking to inflict pain” on the victim, but also “anticipating how that pain, fear and death…is gonna affect the families.”
Cruz researched previous mass shootings, Satz said, and planned a “systematic massacre.”
Satz recounted how Cruz’s phone revealed a video filmed three days before the carnage, in which Cruz said: “I’m going to be the next school shooter…my goal is to kill at least 20 people.”
“He wanted to be known,” Satz said.
Satz highlighted how two of the four gunshot wounds to 14-year-old victim Gina Montalto were contact wounds, meaning the end of Cruz’s AR-15-style rifle “was right up against her chest and right up on her abdomen.”
Satz told the jury that one of Cruz’s YouTube comments was “I don’t mind shooting a girl in the chest,” adding, “that’s exactly what he did to Gina Montalto.”
Cruz fired 70 shots on Building 12’s first floor, Satz said, and the barrage of bullets prompted students and teachers on the second floor to take cover.
Cruz fired just six shots on the second floor, because he couldn’t find any targets, Satz said.
Cruz fired 61 rounds on the third floor, Satz said, including into the back of geography teacher Scott Beigel. The 35-year-old died trying to shepherd students to safety into his classroom.
Also among those killed on the third floor was 15-year-old Peter Wang, who was shot a total of 12 times, Satz said. While Wang was lying on the ground injured, Cruz shot him in the head four times, the prosecutor said.
Defense attorney Melisa McNeill stressed in her closing argument that Cruz already pled guilty. McNeill admitted Cruz was responsible and planned the massacre.
Cruz “knew the difference between right and wrong that day — and he chose wrong,” she said.
But the defense argued Cruz suffered lifelong developmental delays that traced back to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
Cruz’s birth mother was a drug and alcohol addict who drank and used drugs up until six weeks before Cruz was born, McNeill said in her opening argument. Cruz was “poisoned in the womb” and his “brain was irretrievably broken,” she said.
The Broward County School Board classified Cruz as “developmentally delayed in all areas” and said he had “a language impairment,” McNeill noted. The district classified him as an “ESE” student, or a special needs child, she said.
Satz countered in his closing argument, saying that doctor testimony proved Cruz doesn’t have a mental disease, but an antisocial personality. Cruz’s adoptive mother took him to multiple doctors and therapists, Satz said, adding that Cruz “had the ability to behave — he just didn’t.”
McNeill argued Tuesday that prosecutors tried to “dehumanize” Cruz.
“What they have done is slapped on a label that says he only has a personality disorder… but that doesn’t describe all of Nikolas’ behavior,” she said. “It’s easier to call someone antisocial…than to accept what Nikolas Cruz really is: a broken, brain-damaged, mentally ill young man. Do we kill brain-damaged, mentally ill, broken people?”
“He deserves to be punished,” McNeill said, adding, “Sentencing Nikolas to death will change absolutely nothing. It will not bring back those 17 innocent victims that he viciously murdered.”
The jury’s decision must be unanimous for the death penalty.
“The individual, moral decision that you will be making about whether Nikolas should live or die is not a decision that should be made in an emotional state,” she told the jurors. “Please don’t ever feel pressured to reach a verdict — take your time…You must carefully consider and weigh the evidence, realizing…that you literally have another human being’s life at stake.”
Fred Guttenberg, father of 14-year-old victim Jaime Guttenberg, tweeted Tuesday morning that he hopes the trial “will conclude this week.”
“This trial has been harder on us than you could imagine, and we are ready to have this in our rear view,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court justices appeared deeply conflicted on Tuesday over the treatment of pregnant pigs, the prices consumers pay at the grocery store and California’s attempt to shape the pork industry with a ban on meat from mother sows kept in too narrowly confined spaces.
An oral argument in the case, National Pork Producers v. Ross, was scheduled for 70 minutes — but stretched to nearly double that as a consequential debate played out, pitting California voters’ moral views against a critical national industry that feeds millions of Americans every year.
At issue is California’s Proposition 12, passed in 2018, which would ban the sale of all pork from mother pigs housed in cages or crowded group pens with less than 24-square-feet each — the amount of room needed for an animal to turn around. Animal welfare advocates have called the confinement “cruelty.”
The nation’s $20-billion pork industry wants the justices to strike down the legislation, contending its example would empower other states to enforce their regulations and values nationwide.
“If Proposition 12 is lawful,” warned attorney Timothy Bishop, representing the National Pork Producers Council, “Oregon can condition imports on workers being paid the minimum wage. And Texas can condition sales on the producer employing only lawful U.S. residents. And at that point, we have truly abandoned the framers’ idea of a national market.”
While 63% of California voters approved Prop 12, it would have the biggest impact elsewhere: the Golden State consumes 13% of U.S. pork, the largest market in the country, but produces just 1%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Farmers in heavy pork-producing states like Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina say it will cost billions of dollars to retool their operations to comply with California’s law, resulting in less efficient production and, in turn, higher store prices for consumers.
“Even if it’s only $0.25 a pound or something, that adds up quite a bit over time,” economist Barry Goodwin, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in the pork industry, told ABC News.
The Biden administration has taken the side of pork farmers, concerned, they say, that a single state should not be allowed to upend a major American industry.
The Constitution’s so-called “dormant” commerce clause has been widely interpreted to prohibit states from passing laws that would have an excessive impact on interstate trade or the economic interests of other states.
The Supreme Court’s view of the clause will be key to the fate of Prop 12. Several of the justices indicated Tuesday that they shared the pork-producing industry’s concerns.
Justice Samuel Alito suggested he worried about the law setting off a tit-for-tat among states. “Could a state say, ‘We’re really concerned about water shortages, so we’re going to prohibit … the sale within our borders of any almonds where the trees are irrigated’?” Alito asked.
“If it’s focused on the sale within their borders,” replied California Solicitor General Michael Mongan, “I think that the logical conclusion of our position is that they could do that.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised hypotheticals, too: “What about a law that says, ‘You can’t sell fruit in our state if it’s produced — handled — by people who are not in the country legally’? Is that state law permissible?”
Justice Elena Kagan, noting we “live in a divided country,” worried about “balkanization.”
“Do we want to live in a world where we’re constantly at each other’s throats and, you know, Texas is at war with California and California at war with Texas?” she said.
Chief Justice John Roberts focused on what he saw as the role “morality” plays in California’s regulatory approach.
“I think people in some states, maybe the ones that produce a lot of pork, in Iowa or North Carolina or Indiana, may think there’s a moral value in providing a low-cost source of protein to people, maybe particularly at times of rising food prices,” Roberts said. “But under your analysis, it’s California’s view of morality that prevails over the views of people in other states because of the market power that they have.”
At the same time, many of the justices seemed to agree that states should have broad leeway in taking steps to protect the health and safety of residents as they see fit. California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 12, in part, based on arguments that confinement of pigs is harmful to human health.
“I know you’re going to tell me there’s no scientific proof, but there is certainly a reasonable basis for these people to think this,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“We don’t think there’s a reasonable basis,” Bishop, the pork industry attorney, replied.
Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed most inclined to side with California. “Californians … voted for this law,” he said. “They don’t wish to have California be complicit, even indirectly, in livestock practices that they find abhorrent, wherever they occur, in California or anywhere else. Why isn’t that a correct understanding of California’s asserted moral interest and why isn’t that an in-state moral interest?”
The justices could narrowly decide the case by simply allowing the pork producers’ legal challenge to move forward and go to trial in lower courts, saying little else and stopping short of a conclusion on the legality of California’s law.
The high court could, alternatively, take a more sweeping approach and clarify a test for when and how a state law violates the Constitution’s commerce clause, perhaps deciding the fate of Prop 12 outright.
During Tuesday’s arguments, several of the justices appeared to feel out a middle ground.
“Why can’t California solve for its morality issue in a different way,” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, “[and] simply allow California to express its morality interest through a less burdensome means, like segregating Iowa’s pork when it comes in, putting a big label over it that says ‘this is immorally produced’ or whatever — and that won’t hurt Iowa as much? Why can’t we say that that’s the way this should be?”
As the court took up the case, there were already signs market forces and consumer preferences have been nudging producers toward what animal advocates consider more ethical practices.
“They need more farmers doing it this way to meet the demand,” Ruth Jovaag, co-owner of the Jovaag Family Farm in Austin, Minnesota, previously told ABC News. “There’s not enough supply.”
The Jovaag Family Farm is part of the Niman Ranch network of family farmers who specialize in certified “humanely-raised” pigs and other animals. They abandoned gestation stalls, or crates, years ago and now give pregnant sows more than 60-square-feet each, piles of comfortable hay and fresh air and sunlight.
Mike Boerboom, a third-generation hog farmer who raises thousands of sows in confinement every year, hopes the justices will conclude that Californians have gone too far.
“We produce a lot of food to feed the rest of the country,” he told ABC. “It’s California today,” he added, “but are there going to be more mandates that come potentially from every other state? That’s the fear.”
(BOCA RATON, Fla.) — Police departments in Florida responded to “swatting” calls at multiple high schools on Tuesday.
Swatting is a hoax where someone calls emergency services and reports a nonexistent crime to get law enforcement officials — generally a SWAT team — to show up to an address.
Boca Raton police said they responded to reports of an armed person at Boca Raton High School.
Upon arriving at and checking the school, officers determined there wasn’t a shooting or a shooter on the school’s campus and said that nothing suspicious was found.
Police in Pembroke Pines, Florida, also responded to a swatting call at Flanagan High School on Tuesday, Pembroke Pines Police Department said on Twitter.
“Our search of the school has been completed. No evidence of any crime was found,” Pembroke police said. “At this time, this incident appears to be a result of swatting. Our investigation into the initial call remains on-going.”
Miami-Dade Public Schools said that schools in its district were also subject to swatting pranks, urging parents to have a discussion with their kids about the illegal activity.
“We have a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy for this type of activity. A prank threat against a school is deemed a federal crime that can lead to arrest & a felony record,” the school district tweeted. “Parents, speak to your children about the life-long consequences.”
In 2019, a man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for making a prank call to Wichita, Kansas, police, resulting in officers going to a home and fatally shooting 28-year-old Andrew Finch, a father of two, in December 2017.
Last month, over a dozen states, including Florida, reported incidents of hoax calls to 911 about active shooters in schools, resulting in the FBI’s involvement.
The FBI has warned about the practice, saying it’s a federal crime.
“The FBI takes swatting seriously because it puts innocent people at risk,” the FBI told ABC News last month, adding that it will investigate every threat.
(NEW YORK) — Vaccine experts are pushing back on an analysis published by Florida’s surgeon general that warns COVID-19 vaccines increase the risk of cardiac-related deaths in young men, calling the study poorly designed and dangerously misleading.
The warning against vaccines from Dr. Joseph Ladapo is the latest move by the state surgeon general and his boss — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — that casts doubt on scientific consensus as they tap into voter frustration still lingering from the pandemic.
“I love the discussion that we’ve stimulated,” tweeted Ladapo on Monday after being accused by immunologists and doctors of spreading misinformation.
“Isn’t it great when we discuss science transparently instead of trying to cancel one another?” he added.
But if Ladapo wanted to spark a scientific discussion, he would have submitted the health department’s work for peer review instead of posting it on the Florida government website, said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Hotez called it another “phony-baloney” advisory by the DeSantis administration intended to raise the Republican governor’s national profile ahead of an election.
“This is much more of a political stunt than it has anything to do with science or protecting the population of the people of Florida … They cherry pick the risks, and they cherry pick the benefits,” said Hotez.
Ladapo did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bryan Griffin, press secretary for DeSantis, said: “We have no interest in responding to this.”
At issue is a paper Ladapo cites as his rationale for no longer recommending vaccines for young men ages 18-39. The recommendation bucked the consensus of every major government scientific organization, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
Those government agencies and the American Heart Association cite larger studies that found the benefits of COVID vaccination far outweigh the risks.
Ladapo’s recommendation was so far outside mainstream scientific consensus that it prompted immediate online pushback. At one point, Twitter removed the surgeon general’s announcement from its platform.
When asked why, a Twitter spokesperson only said the “enforcement action” was done “in error” and later reversed.
Vaccine experts said the Florida paper raised several red flags: Written anonymously before being released by the Florida Department of Health, the analysis omitted key details on methodology and didn’t examine medical records, only deaths.
“There’s just issue after issue piled up when you look at how this study was conducted and the interpretation of the findings,” said John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC contributor.
Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said among those concerns was that Florida looked at deaths up to 25 weeks after vaccination. He called that a “huge problem” because it’s too long and likely impacted by the “seasonality” of outcomes.
“No experienced vaccine safety researcher would have a 20- or 25-week control period,” he said.
“If you submitted that to peer review, any decent journal would reject it,” he added.
The Florida analysis also didn’t mention what medical experts and scientists agree has become evident in the past year: The virus is more likely than the vaccine to cause health problems in young men.
When the vaccine does induce myocarditis, most cases appear to be relatively mild and resolve on their own.
“COVID can cause all sorts of cardiovascular problems,” said Salmon, who said he personally opted to vaccinate his own sons. “So at the end of the day, the benefits (of the vaccine) outweigh the risks and that’s what really matters.”
Hotez and Brownstein agreed, both pointing to larger studies that show the COVID virus can put young men at risk in ways the vaccine does not.
“We know that there’s some concern about myocarditis. But overall, the evidence actually suggests there’s much greater risk of cardiac-related events when you’re unvaccinated,” Brownstein said.
A significantly larger global study is underway to examine the risk of myocarditis by combing through the data collected by more than a dozen of countries. Those results are expected next spring.
When asked about Florida’s position in a CNN interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned the primary problem was that misinformation was still spreading too easily.
“The enemy of public health, when you’re dealing with a pandemic, is misinformation and disinformation. And unfortunately we have plenty of that,” he said.
ABC News reporter Cheyenne Haslett and Dr. Tiffany Russ contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Biden administration officials on Tuesday previewed the Department of Education’s much anticipated student loan forgiveness application process, which they said would be “easy,” “straightforward” and resistant to fraud.
But the officials did not signal when the loan cancellation applications would be available online beyond saying it would be sometime in October. That is a delay from an earlier timeline that the forms would be released by early October.
In a call with reporters organized by the White House, senior administration officials said that they expect it will take “a matter of weeks” after someone applies for them to receive loan forgiveness.
Still, the officials reiterated that eligible borrowers should apply by mid-November to ensure their loan amounts are canceled before repayments resume on Jan. 1, 2023, after a nearly three-year pause during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We hope and expect to deliver student debt relief to millions of Americans before the loan repayments restart,” one official said on the call.
The government has urged people to double-check their contact information online to ensure they receive timely updates when the application is ready.
Student loan forgiveness ap… by ABC News Politics
Under the forgiveness plan, people who made less than $125,000 in the 2020 or 2021 tax year — or less than $250,000 as a couple — will be eligible to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt or up to $20,000 for people with Pell grants, for low-income families.
The program, which President Joe Biden announced in August, is expected to apply to 43 million Americans — and 20 million could have their debt completely wiped out, the White House estimates.
The debt cancellation, which is also being challenged in court, is expected to cost around $400 billion, the Congressional Budget Office has said, though the administration disputes this assessment.
On Tuesday, administration officials said that once the application is released, eligible borrowers will fill out a “simple” two-part form that will be available in both English and Spanish, via computers and mobile devices, and accessible to borrowers with disabilities. The White House also released a sample version of that form.
Borrowers will not need to log in with a preexisting aid ID or upload any documents to the link, the officials said. They will have to provide their first and last names, Social Security number, date of birth, phone number, email address and income based on their 2020 or 2021 taxes.
At the bottom of the form, borrowers must review and sign a certification statement under penalty of perjury, which the administration officials stressed was one part of their defense against fraud.
“This is a multi-step process for preventing fraud,” one administration official said, adding that “all borrowers who apply will have to attest under penalty of perjury, which is enforceable with hefty fines and jail time, that they meet the income cutoff.”
The officials said there were “strict fraud prevention measures in place” for the loan forgiveness but declined to detail all of them.
A borrower will not have to mark whether or not they received a Pell grant, the officials said. The DOE already has borrowers’ loan information.
According to the White House, applicants who have a federal loan and are likely to “exceed” the income cutoff will be required to submit additional information to confirm that they meet the income requirement. The government will reach out to borrowers directly in the cases where they need more information.
The officials told reporters that steps have been taken to ensure the government can meet the volume of expected demand for the loan forgiveness.
“We’ve been working very hard with our existing contractors to make sure that they have the capacity that’s necessary to serve the public,” one official said. “We’ve also brought in additional support for web traffic and web volume. So we are aware of how big this project is that we’re working on and how important it is for 40 million borrowers and their families and communities and how much excitement there’s going to be.”
Asked about the recent decision to scale back some parts of the loan cancellation program — specifically regarding Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL), which are handled by private banks — an administration official on the call did not dispute that the change was made to help protect the overall policy from pending lawsuits.
“Our guiding principle here is that we are trying to reach as many borrowers as possible and to do that as quickly and easily as possible,” the official said.
The official said the government was assessing other options for borrowers of Perkins loans and FFELs.
The loan forgiveness application will be available through December 2023.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — A bus driving students from a historically Black college to an economic conference was likely targeted when it was pulled over and searched, the university’s president said.
Eighteen students of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and two staff advisers were on their way to the Center for Financial Advancement Conference in Atlanta on Oct. 5 when the bus was pulled over for a minor traffic violation in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, Shaw University President Dr. Paulette Dillard told ABC News Raleigh-Durham station WTVD.
The bus was stopped for minor traffic violations, but deputies from the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office then allegedly brought drug-sniffing dogs to search through the students’ suitcases, Dillard claimed.
Nothing illegal was found in the search, and the driver was issued a ticket for “improper lane use” because he was allegedly swerving while driving, Dillard said.
Additional information regarding the stop was not immediately available.
Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Kevin Bobo told ABC News that he could not provide any information regarding the traffic stop without the name of the bus driver or the license plate number for the bus.
Dillard said she was “outraged” over the encounter, adding that the incident was reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s, when segregation was still practiced widely in the South.
“This behavior of targeting Black students is unacceptable and will not be ignored nor tolerated,” Dillard told the station. “Had the students been White, I doubt this detention and search would have occurred.”
Dillard declined to provide additional information to ABC News until a university investigation into the incident concludes.
Students at the university said the experience will likely leave lasting consequences for those who were involved and their future interactions with law enforcement.
“It’s 2022. I don’t understand why students are being harassed in this form and fashion,” student Brendan Truynor told WTVD.
Another student, Nikaya Matier, said the encounter was likely “traumatizing” for the students, especially considering “everything that’s happened to Black people with police officers.”
“This is probably going to give them a negative feeling next time they interact with police,” student Tionna Mayo told the station.
Dillard commended the students for how they handled the encounter.
“Our students stood tall amid an unnerving and humiliating experience and because of their dignified and professional response, the situation did not escalate into something far more sinister,” she said.
In a statement, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper expressed “deep concern” over what school officials say transpired during the traffic stop.
“The Governor shares the deep concern of Shaw University leaders about the treatment and safety of their students and has asked North Carolina Public Safety officials to discuss this matter with South Carolina law enforcement officials and express that concern,” a statement from Cooper’s office read.
(LOS ANGELES) — Former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez announced she is taking a leave of absence from her position, after a recording emerged of her making racist and offensive comments about fellow council members. Martinez had already resigned from her role as city council president on Monday, but remained a member of the council.
“This has been one of the most difficult times of my life and I recognize this is entirely of my own making. At this moment, I need to take a leave of absence and take some time to have an honest and heartfelt conversation with my family, my constituents, and community leaders. I am so sorry to the residents of Council District 6, my colleagues, and the City of Los Angeles,” Martinez said in a statement Tuesday.
In a recording of three Latino city council members, Martinez allegedly referred to white council member Mike Bonin’s son, who is Black, as an “accessory.” The recording was first posted to Reddit and later deleted. The Los Angeles Times then reviewed the recording and confirmed it is authentic.
ABC News has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
Several groups also planned to gather at City Hall in protest of the alleged racist comments made, with some demanding that all three council members on the recording resign.
Protesters on Tuesday made their way into the chamber where the city council was holding its meeting, disrupting the meeting from getting started with chants of “resign now” and “not one more day.”
Council member Mitch O’Farrell was seated in the president’s seat, previously occupied by Martinez, and tried to get the crowd under control.
In the recording, Martinez allegedly said Bonin’s young son behaved “parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.” In a statement Monday, Martinez apologized to her colleagues, Bonin and his family for the statements.
“As a mother, I know better and I am sorry. I am truly ashamed. I know this is the result of my own actions. I’m sorry to your entire family for putting you through this,” Martinez said.
In several tweets, Bonin called for Martinez and the two other city council members allegedly speaking with her on the recording to resign.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Bonin and his family said they are “appalled, angry and absolutely disgusted that Nury Martinez attacked our on with horrific racist slurs, and talked about her desire to physically harm him.”
Bonin was invited to speak, in an effort to get the meeting started on Tuesday. Fighting through tears, Bonin again condemned the statements made by Martinez and said council members asking for forgiveness need to start by resigning.
-ABC News’ Matthew Fuhrman contributed to this report.
