(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — Lawyers for the school board in Newport News, Virginia, have filed a motion to dismiss the $40 million lawsuit filed by first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner who was shot in her classroom by a 6-year-old student.
The attorneys for the board claim that her injuries are covered under the state’s worker’s compensation law for which she was approved to receive benefits, but they say she refused to accept them and filed suit instead.
In Zwerner’s lawsuit, she alleged that school administrators were told the boy brought a gun to school prior to the shooting and “had a history of random violence,” yet did nothing to stop him from harming her.
In response to her lawsuit, the motion filed on Wednesday by the attorneys for the Newport News School division claims the allegations made in the lawsuit fall under Virginia’s Workers’ Compensation Act.
They argue the act doesn’t fall in the jurisdiction of the Newport News Circuit Court.
The lawyers for the board are representing former Newport News School Superintendent Dr. George Parker, III, and former Richneck Elementary Principal Briana Foster Newton. Ebony Parker, the former assistant principal at Richneck who was named in Zwerner’s lawsuit, was not included in the school board’s motion.
Lawyers for the school board wrote in the motion that Zwerner’s complaints about the shooting in her lawsuit, “alleges in detail a long list of workplace conditions that were a direct and proximate cause of the attack on Zwerner.”
The motion argues that under the Workers Compensation Act, Zwerner is barred “from maintaining a cause of action against the School Defendants for the injures she sustained in the course of her employment as a first-grade teacher with Newport News School.” The court, thus, lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Zwerner’s claims arising from the injuries she sustained during the shooting, the motion argues.
It further argues that Zwerner’s assertion that the 6-year-old’s attack was personal to her is in violation of the state’s laws that children under the age of seven are unable to be guilty of negligence. The attorneys for the board add that Zwerner’s lawsuit “attempts to circumvent the Act” by alleging that the child’s actions on the day of the shooting were “personal” and pointing to the handgun as the problem.
Zwener “goes as far as to claim that she reasonably anticipated that ‘she would be working with young [elementary school] children who posed no danger to her.’ While in an ideal world, young children would not pose any danger to others, including their teachers, this is sadly not reality,” the motion says.
The motion says this is why Zwerner focused on the use of the handgun compared to any other weapon “with less perceived notoriety and shock value, even though serious injuries can be inflicted with scissors, knives, pencil, rocks, chairs, and hands.”
The motion alleges that Zwerner, alongside other school officials, allowed the 6-year-old who shot her to return to school without the requirement of a parent. They claim that Zwerner had raised that the 6-year-old’s improvement in class warranted an extended school day and other modifications.
Diane Toscano and Jeffrey Breit, attorneys for Zwerner, told ABC News on Thursday, “No one believes that a first grade teacher should expect that one of the risks of teaching first grade is that you might get shot by a six-year-old.”
Zwerner’s lawyers added, “The school board’s position is contrary to how every citizen in Newport News thinks teachers should be treated, and the law does not support the board’s position. Teachers across the district will be alarmed to learn their employer sees this as part of the job description.”
(NEW YORK) — Top music industry leaders joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday to back a federal bill that would limit the use of rap lyrics by federal prosecutors in criminal proceedings.
The Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which was co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), was first introduced last year but was re-introduced on Thursday in a press conference that began with remarks from President of the Recording Academy Harvey Mason Jr.
Mason said that the bill not only seeks to protect hip-hop artists or musicians, but is also intended to protect the creative expression of all artists and creators across musical disciplines.
“Our mission, our responsibility is to protect creative rights,” Mason said. “Silencing creative expression is a violation against all artists in all forms,” he added.
The Restoring Artistic Protection Act, which is also known as the RAP Act, seeks to amend the federal rules of evidence “to limit the admissibility of … a defendant’s creative or artistic expression” in a criminal proceeding, according to the text of the bill.
While the law would not completely bar rap lyrics from being admitted as evidence, it would essentially require prosecutors to prove that the lyrics in question refer “to the specific facts of the crime alleged” and “that defendant intended to adopt the literal meaning of the expression as the defendant’s own thought or statement,” the bill reads.
Johnson told reports that the bill is “long overdue” and already has bipartisan support, with 20 Republican lawmakers backing it as of Thursday afternoon.
“For too long artists have been unfairly targeted by prosecutors,” Johnson said.
Supporters of the RAP Act include the Recording Academy, the Recording Industry Association of America, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, Warner Records, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, the Black Music Action Coalition and The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, whose president, actress Fran Drescher, also spoke at the press conference.
“I have hope that the whole music and creative community has come together,” said CEO of 300 Entertainment Kevin Liles at the press conference.
“I have hope in groups on the right and the left both saying that this is against the values of Americans. I have hope in blue states and red states advancing legislation to end this practice,” he added, referencing similar state-level bills in Missouri and Louisiana that have been sponsored by Republican lawmakers.
Rap lyrics have been used by prosecutors in the U.S. for decades as alleged evidence in criminal cases, helping put rappers behind bars. However, it wasn’t until lyrics were used in the indictment of hip-hop star Young Thug in May 2022 on gang-related charges, that the controversial practice sparked a movement in the music industry and fueled a wave of support for legislation seeking to limit the practice.
Although the scope of the indictment, which names 28 individuals, goes far beyond the lyrics, the use of rappers’ lyrics as part of the alleged evidence is what has drawn pushback from the music industry.
Research outlined in the 2019 book Rap on Trial by Erik Nielson and Andrea Dennis – which was referenced by Johnson and other speakers at the press conference, shows that the practice of using lyrics in court disproportionately impacts rap musicians.
Nielson previously told ABC News in an interview that aired on ABC Studios’ Rap Trap: Hip-Hop on Trial, which is now streaming on Hulu, that rap lyrics used by prosecutors in court usually lack a factual connection to an alleged crime and are often used as a form of character evidence that could prejudice a jury and prevent a defendant from getting a fair trial.
Liles, who leads the label under which Young Thug is signed, wrote an op-ed in June 2022, launching the “Protect Black Art” movement, and as the campaign gained steam, artists across genres have voiced their support.
Liles said on Thursday that hip–hop is being “attacked” and that advocating for these bills has become a “passion project” for him.
“That’s because hip-hop is what made me,” Liles said. “It’s who I am.”
James Corden took his final bow as the host of The Late Late Show on Thursday night, with a little help from Harry Styles and Will Ferrell.
Corden, who’s hosted the show since 2015, went out with a star-studded bang with bits that included fellow late night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman, and Trevor Noah.
There was even a video message from President Joe Biden, who teased, “I’m surprised you lasted eight years.”
“Special thanks for never asking me to sing in the car. I can’t sing worth a damn,” he added. “We’ll miss ya pal. I can’t wait to see what you do next.”
Next, Ferrell and Styles joined Corden on-stage and the trio played “Spill Your Guts,” a game where each person is asked a question. If they refuse to answer they have to eat some weird concoction like bug trifle, bulls penis, or a clam juice smoothie.
For Styles question, he was asked what all One Direction fans want the answer to — Will the band ever reunite?
“I would never say never to that,” he replied. “I think if there was a time where we all felt like that was what we wanted to do, then I don’t see why we wouldn’t.”
Towards the end of the show, Corden thanked viewers and everyone who has worked on the show.
“I have struggled to find the words to sum up what this past 8 years has meant to me … but I sit here now tonight with nothing but love, gratitude, and pride. This show is everything it’s everything I’ve ever wanted it to be,” he said holding back tears.
In true Corden fashion, though, the official end saw the host behind a piano as he sang a farewell song.
Def Leppard fans recently got a peak behind the scenes at the making of Def’s new album, Drastic Symphonies, which reworks 15 of their songs with the Royal Philharmonic. The band shared a trailer for the album, which drops May 19, featuring footage of them with the Philharmonic at Abbey Road Studios.
And while some bands may have just given the Philharmonic free range with their music, guitarist Phil Collen says that simply wasn’t the case with their band.
“We didn’t want to do it like everyone else,” he tells ABC Audio. “We wanted to be involved in it. We thought what a great opportunity, you know, the Royal Philharmonic, and it’s like a massive thing, and we have songs that we’re so proud of, so we didn’t want to mess it up.”
Collen says the process of picking the songs for the album was really easy. They were so serious about getting it right that some of their biggest hits, like “Rock of Ages,” “Photograph” and “Let’s Get Rocked,” didn’t make the album because they “didn’t work.”
One hit that did make it is “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” although Collen says the original sounds “ridiculous” with an orchestra. But instead of leaving it off, they adapted a version they heard years ago by a Canadian singer named Emm Gryner, making it a duet with frontman Joe Elliott.
And for Collen, one of the highlights of the project was getting to hear the Royal Philharmonic perform their songs at Abbey Road Studios. He notes, “It far exceeded our expectations. It was pretty amazing.”
In a New York courtroom Thursday, Ed Sheeran once again testified in his ongoing copyright trial. The family ofthe late songwriter Ed Townsend alleges that the British pop star’s hit “Thinking Out Loud” contains elements of Marvin Gaye‘s classic “Let’s Get It On,” which Townsend co-wrote.
Sheeran testified that he writes most of his songs in a single day. During questioning by his attorney Ilene Farkas, he said he did not stop to think about copying elements from “Let’s Get It On” when he composed his Grammy-winning hit.
Describing writing “Thinking Out Loud” with his frequent collaborator Amy Wadge, Sheeran says the two “sat guitar to guitar” while writing. The song was composed in February 2014 at Ed’s house and was inspired by both his grandfather, who’d just passed away, and his grandmother, who was battling cancer.
Amy also had family members who were ill, and Sheeran says the concept of love at an advanced age was the impetus for the song. He recalled coming out of the shower and hearing Amy in another part of the house strumming chords.
“I remember thinking we have to do something with that,” Ed said, adding it took “really not that long” to write. “Amy definitely started strumming the chords,” he added. “It’s a collaboration.”
He then sang on the witness stand the song’s original words: “I’m singing out now” — which became “I’m thinking out loud.” He played the basic chord progression of “Thinking Out Loud” on guitar, providing the jury with a mini concert.
(HELENA, Mt.) — The day after state Rep. Zooey Zephyr was censured by Montana House Republicans, she could be found seated in the public area of the state capitol building, voting and participating from her laptop as close to the House floor as she was allowed.
“The people sent me here to do the work, and much of that work is on the House floor,” Zephyr told ABC News in an interview. “I need to be as close as possible, so I can have the conversations with legislators and make sure that I can, at least in some way, make sure the voice of my constituents can be discussed.”
Zephyr’s calls to vote against a gender-affirming care ban for transgender youth on bill SB99 prompted days of being ignored by Republican leaders on the House floor.
“If you are denying gender-affirming care and forcing a trans child to go through puberty, that is tantamount to torture, and this body should be ashamed,” Zephyr said in the April 18 debate.
She continued, “If you vote yes on this bill, I hope the next time you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”
Republican lawmakers responded by refusing to allow her to speak or comment on the House floor, she says. Some legislators, including House Speaker Matt Regier, argued she had broken House rules of decorum.
“All representatives are free to participate in House debate while following the House rules. The choice to not follow House rules is one that Representative Zephyr has made,” said Regier in a statement to reporters. “The only person silencing Representative Zephyr is Representative Zephyr.”
Demonstrators in support of Zephyr interrupted House business several days later to protest her silencing. Zephyr showed her support by holding up her mic and failing to leave the House floor.
“Let her speak,” protesters chanted.
House Republicans voted to censure her in response, representing just over the two-thirds needed to bar her from the House floor.
Several of her colleagues argued that Zephyr was inciting “violence” and showing “flagrant disregard for the safety and well-being” of those at the House, according to one statement from the Montana Freedom Caucus.
Zephyr argues the real violence is the negative impact gender-affirming care bans may have on transgender youth.
Zephyr, the first openly trans lawmaker in the state, told ABC News transitioning has played a pivotal role in her life.
“Trans people, when they transition, we come fully alive into ourselves,” Zephyr said. “We live lives full of joy and purpose … we live in a resonance with our bodies that we were unable to do prior to our transitions.”
She continued, “Trans people know that and those who love and care about us, they see that as well. And so, to me, that is one of the fundamental truths underpinning this moment. And it’s why ultimately, we’ll win.”
Due to discrimination and gender dysphoria, the psychological distress of presenting as a gender that doesn’t feel like one’s own, trans youth face higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, research shows. Receiving gender-affirming care has proven to improve such mental health conditions, according to several studies.
Zephyr said she has seen these consequences firsthand.
“I have lost friends to suicide this year,” Zephyr said. “I’ve had families call me when there have been – and discuss with colleagues of mine as well – when there have been suicide attempts by trans youth, including one trans teenager who attempted to take her life watching one of these hearings on legislation targeting the transgender community.”
If SB99 is signed by Montana’s governor, it will join at least 13 other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah — in passing laws or policies that restrict gender-affirming care for people under the age of legal majority, which is the threshold for legal adulthood.
As the legislative session comes to an end in the coming weeks, Zephyr told ABC News she hopes to continue to speak up “in defense of our communities with a passion, that is with an urgency that meets the moment.”
“The policies you bring forward, both directly and indirectly, make it impossible for trans people to thrive and live in the world,” she said.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide — free, confidential help is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call or text the national lifeline at 988. Even if you feel like it, you are not alone.
(WASHINGTON) — With the marbled 14th century Palazzo Colonna as his backdrop, a tuxedo-clad U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito approached the lectern in July 2022 to deliver a rebuke of his critics as searing as the Italian sun.
Before launching into an impassioned defense of the court’s monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, made just weeks earlier, the conservative justice took a moment to thank his hosts, the University of Notre Dame Law School, “for the warm hospitality” extended to him and his wife — which included a hotel room overlooking the iconic Roman Forum.
After his speech, Alito was photographed mingling with the law school’s scholars — several of whom had only recently advocated in favor of overturning Roe in three amicus briefs filed with the court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Alitos’ trip to Italy, paid for by the university, is just one example of how academic institutions have sought to leverage their ample resources for opportunities to access the justices — a play at prestige and advocacy that has contributed to an already messy ecosystem of influence-peddling on the court.
Justices appointed by presidents of both parties have for years accepted travel and honoraria from academic institutions — a tradition that has transcended ideological boundaries, as the late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeatedly demonstrated.
And while a wave of recent reports chronicling Justice Clarence Thomas’ financial ties to a Texas billionaire alleged a more overt breach of rules and norms, an ABC News examination of how law schools engage with the court presents a more nuanced take on possible unethical conduct.
A spokesperson for the court did not respond to specific questions from ABC News. She said, “The Justices comply with the Ethics in Government Act, which permits judges to accept travel reimbursement relating to appearances and teaching engagements, and directs them to disclose reimbursements on their financial disclosure reports.”
But to critics, the existing rules remain woefully insufficient and contribute to an atmosphere of mistrust. Ethics experts warned that these relationships stand as yet another opportunity for certain voices to press their views on an institution whose credibility is already plummeting.
“So long as the justices are reporting the free trips on their annual disclosures, no laws are being violated,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a leading Supreme Court watchdog. “But it’s reasonable to be concerned about the propriety of this situation, especially with the Court’s ethics issues being top of mind.”
‘Inside baseball’
Top-tier law schools pay unknown sums to fly justices on both ends of the political spectrum across the globe for speaking engagements and teaching stints while also filing amicus briefs intended to sway the court’s high-stakes opinions.
It is an arrangement that some court watchers framed as “inside baseball,” and one that they say merits more attention as Washington becomes increasingly aware of the gaps in justices’ financial disclosures.
“If an entity’s stated goal is to influence the outcome of legal cases — and that’s the purpose of many of these amicus briefs — the fact that any justice would accept compensation or travel expenses to a desirable foreign location from that entity is deeply troubling,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the government ethics group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
From 2004-2018, justices disclosed more than 1,300 trips where their travel and accommodations were reimbursed by third parties, according to the government accountability watchdog OpenSecrets — including several paid for by university law schools.
In 2018, Justice Neil Gorsuch reported travel-related reimbursements for a three-week trip to Padua, Italy, for George Mason University — another institution whose Supreme Court clinic frequently files amicus briefs with the court. And in 2019, Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed reimbursements for travel to Lisbon, Portugal, paid for New York University School of Law.
After a lull in travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Notre Dame Law School has emerged as the most aggressive underwriter of the justices’ travel and solicitor of their teaching services.
In 2020 and 2021 alone, four conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — reported payments and reimbursements for guest lectures, teaching engagements, or other events hosted by the law school.
Thomas collected nearly $20,000 from the university for a September 2021 week-long teaching stint. And Barrett reported earning almost $15,000 from the law school for teaching gigs in 2021, her first full year on the court. (Barrett, who taught at the law school since 2002, reported earning another $28,000 in 2020, the year she was nominated and confirmed to the bench.)
Already in 2023, Justice Brett Kavanaugh has traveled to London for a seminar with the school’s London Gateway program and visited its South Bend campus for a law symposium. Barrett was also reportedly expected to teach students at the law school’s London Gateway program this spring.
Justices are entitled to accept payments for teaching, so long as they seek prior approval from the chief justice. In fact, according to an existing ethics statement signed by all nine members of the court, engagement with academic institutions is encouraged, “to avoid isolation from the society in which they live and to contribute to the public’s understanding of the law.”
But Richard Painter, a former chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, suggested that “all the wining and dining of justices” by Notre Dame could cross ethical lines and present the appearance of impropriety and conflicts of interest. Justices, unlike members of Congress, are not required to put a dollar amount of reimbursements for travel expenses or meals, further complicating transparency efforts.
“I think they’ve gone too far when they’re flying the justices to Europe,” he said. “They shouldn’t be doing that.”
Marcus Cole, dean of Notre Dame Law, said in a statement to ABC News that “visits by members of our nation’s highest court have been valuable learning opportunities for our students and the broader campus and local communities.”
Amicus advocacy
Concerns about the possible impact of the ties justices’ teaching and speaking engagements may foster with law schools come into sharper relief for court watchdogs as scholars file amicus briefs with the court — legal documents that provide broader legal context and judicial justifications to support certain positions in cases before the court.
Since 2020, when Notre Dame launched its Religious Liberty Initiative, faculty and board members of the initiative have filed briefs in at least ten cases before the court. Of those ten cases, the court has overwhelmingly voted in favor the positions taken in briefs filed by the Notre Dame-associated figures.
Experts emphasized that the court currently holds a conservative majority, so the fact that their opinions reflect a conservative ideology cannot necessarily be attributed to the university law school’s advocacy.
Some amicus briefs filed by Notre Dame scholars extend beyond the school’s Catholic foundations. But the school’s faculty has been most active in advocating for conservative legal causes and providing a Catholic perspective on issues like abortion before a court that has shown itself to be sympathetic to those views — and where six of the nine justices identify as Catholic.
Last week, for example, the justices heard arguments in Groff v. DeJoy, which highlights a dispute pertaining to a part-time mail carrier who resigned after the Postal Service required him to work on the Sabbath.
The Religious Liberty Initiative’s amicus brief in Groff, which urged the court to side with the mail carrier, highlights another aspect of the issue: personal relationships.
Richard Garnett, a Notre Dame law professor who signed onto one of the school’s amicus brief in the Groff case and a faculty fellow with the Religious Liberty Initiative, is a longtime friend and neighbor to Justice Barrett. Barrett is a godmother to one of Garnett’s daughters and co-hosted a baby shower for his wife, Nicole Stelle Garnett, another faculty member at the law school and a faculty fellow with the Religious Liberty Initiative.
Liberal members of the court also have financial ties to academic institutions. Justice Elena Kagan, for example, served as the dean of Harvard’s law school before her appointment to the Supreme Court in 2010. From 2011 to 2021, Kagan reported earning $140,500 from Harvard Law for teaching gigs and unquantified reimbursements for travel expenses each year of those years — sometimes multiple times each year.
Meanwhile, the Harvard Supreme Court Litigation Clinic frequently files amicus briefs with the court, and one of its instructors, Kevin Russell, recently argued a case before the justices. Kagan has so far declined to recuse herself from a high-stakes affirmative action case in which Harvard is a party, raising questions about whether the former dean can be impartial on the matter.
Ethics experts said amicus briefs have emerged in recent years as a more explicit way to influence the court’s rulings. Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, said that, like traditional lobbying in the other branches of government, “if justices see an amicus brief by someone they’re connected to, they’re reading those.”
But unlike lobbying, experts said, there are very few rules dictating who can or cannot file amicus briefs — only a disclosure certifying that attorneys who signed onto the amicus did not represent or financially back any party in the case at hand.
These types of briefs have become more prevalent features of Supreme Court deliberations in recent years, and experts have raised concerns with close friends of the justices involving themselves in cases before the court.
“More and more amicus briefs are being used to influence the court’s decisions to a degree that they take on the form of a lobbying activity,” said Canter, “and there’s nothing to regulate ethics issues that arise from accepting tens of thousands of dollars from an educational sponsor of these types of amicus briefs while providing members of the Court compensation for teaching activity or reimbursing them for travel costs to desirable foreign locations.”
Cathleen Kaveny, a professor of law at Boston College, expressed concern with the increasingly close ties between the two entities, but urged caution on casting the relationship as one tethered to money or influence — instead framing the justices and their academic ties as being more deeply rooted in an existing “sympatico” view of the world.
“There’s a certain intellectual alignment already in place,” Kaveny explained. “I don’t think these justices are doing it for the money — they’ve got a shared vision of how things should be.”
Even so, Kaveny said, “any time a Supreme Court looks like it’s captured by an interest group, its credibility is diminished.”
Transparency push
Reports in ProPublica and elsewhere about Justice Thomas’ relationship with Harlan Crow, a Texas billionaire and Republican megadonor, have renewed calls for ethics reform at the Supreme Court — which Roth has called “America’s most powerful, least accountable government institution.”
Crow bankrolled transportation and accommodations for Thomas and his wife to far-flung destinations like Indonesia and New Zealand. These vacations and others to Crow’s own properties reportedly included lavish trimmings, including use of billionaire’s private jet, yacht, and chef.
None of those gifts appeared on Thomas’ annual financial disclosure reports — omissions that attracted bipartisan condemnation. But Supreme Court watchers noted that even the entries that justices report lack key information.
In Alito’s case, details of his trip to Rome won’t become public until this summer, when financial disclosure forms for 2022 are due. Even then, those filings may not include information about how much money the law school paid to reimburse his expenses, whether his wife’s expenses were paid for, or details on their accommodations — including that hotel room in the heart of Rome.
Advocacy groups and lawmakers have pushed to change that. A bill proposed by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would require the court to adopt a “code of conduct” akin to what is imposed on members of Congress, who must report specific dollar amount of gifts within a month of receiving them.
Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a separate bill this week that would require the court to appoint an official to handle any violations of a code of conduct.
Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., invited Chief Justice John Roberts testify at a public hearing about Supreme Court ethics reform. Lawmakers have also encouraged the chief justice to launch his own investigation into Thomas’ relationship with Crow.
Roberts this week declined Durbin’s invitation, responding in a letter that a chief justice’s testimony before Congress is “exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”
Durbin said his committee would move forward with a hearing on May 2 to review proposals for tighter oversight of the court.
“Make no mistake,” Durbin said in a statement on Tuesday. “Supreme Court ethics reform must happen whether the Court participates in the process or not.”
(NEW YORK) — In 2015, three men, all current or former Florida correctional officers, were arrested after investigators revealed they were Ku Klux Klan members plotting to kill a Black former inmate.
Now, “Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK,” a new documentary and first-time collaboration between ABC News and The Associated Press takes viewers inside one of America’s most sinister secret societies and the covert FBI operation to stop a modern-day lynching.
When the state of Florida announced the arrests of Thomas Driver, Charles Newcomb, and David Moran, it caught the eye of Associated Press journalist Jason Dearen.
“I just started looking into it and I kind of became obsessed with it.”
“Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK” is now streaming on Hulu.
Dearen wrote a series of articles about the case, piecing together information from court documents and interviews, but said, “there were just a lot of questions, a lot more questions than answers.”
He knew that a confidential informant who infiltrated the klan had exposed the murder plot and led to the arrests, but he didn’t know much else about this person.
“It was only after I wrote the second article in my series that I received an email and my heart stopped. The subject was, ‘This is Joseph Moore.'”
In 2013, the FBI asked Joe Moore, a former Army sniper, to go undercover inside a local klan organization.
“We had been receiving a series of directives going back to 2006 concerning the threat from domestic terrorism extremism groups,” said Chris Graham, the FBI Supervisory Special Agent in Jacksonville, Florida during Moore’s recruitment. “The KKK has the history, the image, so to speak. They’re capable and dangerous.”
Moore said his mission was to “go inside the KKK to identify people that are involved and to forewarn the FBI of any illegal activities.”
In order to join the Traditionalist American Knights of the KKK (TAKKKK), he embellished his military accolades and signed a blood oath. “They tell you that if you violate or disclose the secrets of the KKK, you’ll pay with your blood.”
Moore, 51, during an extensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, revealed that he fears for his family’s safety since his undercover operation.
According to Moore, even though his family was relocated and given new identities by the FBI, they have received threats from KKK members and supporters. He says he is coming forward now in an effort to protect them.
“If something were to happen to me, I need the world to know the truth,” Moore said.
Produced by George Stephanopoulos Productions for ABC News Studios, the documentary features rarely-heard undercover audio and video from the investigation, firsthand accounts from FBI agents and the intended victim’s mother, and intimate access and interviews with undercover source, Moore.
Moore spent his first year inside the TAKKKK gathering intelligence and learning the intricacies of the klan. Offering ABC News a look at confidential klan documents, Moore explained that the klan has an extensive language to weed out potential intruders.
“They use acronyms in order to ensure that impostors were not infiltrating the meeting or the klan. They would use terms like ‘A.Y.A.K..’ ‘Are you a klansman?’ And the proper response if you are a Klansman is, ‘A.K.I.A..’ ‘A klansman I am.’ If you don’t respond with ‘A.K.I.A.,’ they know you’re not a Klansman.”
After rising through the ranks, thanks to his military background, Moore became the Grand Knighthawk for the Florida and Georgia realm of the TAKKKK, expanding his purview and connecting him with high-ranking klan leaders across the country.
The role made him the top security officer of the region’s klan, among other, more nefarious, responsibilities.
“The Grand Knighthawk has been sort of a hitman for the KKK,” said Moore. “I embraced the fact that the KKK might call upon me for violence.”
Dearen’s investigation into the organization found that multiple members had violent pasts. “The Klan tries to present a public face of being kind of a social club, but behind the scenes, oftentimes they’re plotting violence,” he said.
The news that Driver, Newcomb, and Moran were members of a white supremacist organization while working as correctional officers, may have surprised some, but according to Dearen, Florida law enforcement moonlighting as klansmen was nothing new.
Over the past decade alone, investigators discovered klan members working in local, county and state law enforcement agencies in Florida.
“These groups are trying to recruit law enforcement,” said Greg Ehrie, the former FBI Section Chief of Domestic Terrorism Operations. “They’re armed. They’ve had training. They have access to confidential information.”
The extremist group’s continued presence in Florida law enforcement agencies is in keeping with state history, Dearen said. Klan members ran towns and were sheriffs less than 100 years ago in Florida.
“You’re not gonna surprise no Black person by telling them the klan is working in prisons, not southern Black people,” said Antwan Williams, a former inmate of the Florida Department of Corrections.
Driver, Newcomb, and Moran all, at one time, worked at Florida’s Reception and Medical Center, a state prison and hospital in Lake Butler.
It was at this correctional facility that Thomas Driver got into an altercation with the intended victim, Warren Williams.
Williams, who has a history of mental health issues, was serving time at the facility after hitting a police officer during a mental health episode. During their fight, Williams bit Driver.
According to Williams’ mother, Latonya Crowley, Williams was beaten so badly by Driver that he was sent to the hospital.
Warren Williams grew up in North Florida, in a town called Palatka, on the St. John’s River. Crowley said that as a child, Williams enjoyed spending time outdoors, especially fishing.
Williams spent a year in prison and came home to his mother’s house, the fight with Driver still heavy on his mind.
“He said, ‘Momma, ain’t nobody will ever hear my story,'” Crowley said. “I was like, ‘Okay, well, sit down and tell me your story.'”
The fight was still on Driver’s mind, too. He had to undergo routine testing for communicable diseases, like HIV and Hep-C, after Williams’ bite.
“Because of the worry over whether or not he picked up one of these diseases, he said it had caused his family immeasurable stress and that he just wanted this guy assassinated,” Dearen said.
In December 2014, at a cross burning in rural North Florida, the three men approached Moore with a request. Driver told Moore about his fight with Williams and handed him a piece of paper with Williams’ information on it.
“I asked, ‘What do you want to do?’ Moore said. “‘Do you want him six feet under?’ And they said, Yes.'”
Up until that moment, Moore’s time undercover had been largely uneventful, but that night would change everything.
After their conversation, Moore said he immediately called his FBI handlers to warn them about the potential murder plot.
“Everything about that meeting was chilling,” said Graham. “It’s not illegal to engage in hateful speech. What is illegal is to go from hateful speech into the planning of a criminal act, a violent act.”
“The KKK wanted to catch my son, cut him up in pieces on the creek, and leave him there,” Crowley said.
“It was obvious that they did harbor racial animosity toward the victim,” said Paul Brown, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent. “There was absolute intent to see this carried out.”
Realizing the severity of the threat, the FBI formulated a plan, getting Moore to continue discussing the would-be murder with the klan members, this time wearing a wire.
“He’s obviously interacting with and around people that have expressed a clear intent to commit murder,” Brown said. “If it came out that Joe was cooperating and working with the FBI, we feared his life could very well be in danger.”
Over the next several months, Joe Moore would find himself pushed to the edge – balancing two lives and desperately racing to stop this murder.
“I’ve asked myself time and time again if knowing then what I know now, would I have done it again?” Moore said. “Ultimately I know I would say yes.”
(NEW YORK) — A large and “extremely dangerous” tornado was confirmed in Florida Thursday amid a severe weather threat across much of the state.
The tornado was located nine miles south of Greensboro at 4:09 p.m. ET, moving northeast at 20 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
The National Weather Service in Tallahassee has issued a tornado warning for Aucilla until 7 p.m. and for Coolidge, Georgia, until 7:15 p.m. ET, as “severe storms continue to progress east/southeast across the southeast Big Bend.”
A confirmed tornado was located over Lynn Haven, near Panama City on the Gulf Coast, shortly after 3 p.m. CT, the NWS said.
Severe thunderstorm watches have been issued for much of northern and eastern Florida, as well as southeastern Georgia, through 10 p.m. Thursday.
More than 15 million people are under a severe weather threat Thursday, affecting areas along the Gulf Coast, the east coast of Florida from Jacksonville to West Palm, far southern Texas and the Mid-South from Memphis to Tupelo, Mississippi.
In addition to the tornado threat, hail and damaging winds are possible.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has again swiped at President Joe Biden’s age after he formally launched his 2024 bid this week and on Thursday the White House shot back.
Haley suggested during an interview with Fox News Wednesday that Biden wouldn’t “make it” to the end of a second term were he to be reelected.
“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” Haley said.
The Haley campaign continued that criticism on Thursday, tweeting: “A vote for Joe Biden is a vote to make Kamala Harris president.”
The former South Carolina governor, who is 51 years old, jumped into the race for the GOP nomination in February. She’s pitched herself to voters as much-needed generational change against figures like Biden, 80, and Donald Trump, 76.
Asked for a response Thursday, White House deputy spokesman Andrew Bates told ABC News: “As you know, we don’t engage with campaigns. But honestly, I forgot she was running.”
Haley’s platform includes proposed mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75, though she hasn’t elaborated on what those tests would look like or entail.
Biden is the oldest sitting president in U.S. history, and if he’s successful in the next election would be 82 when sworn in for a second term and 86 by the time that term ended.
Questions about his age have swirled around his reelection announcement. Biden said he took a “hard look” at his age himself when weighing whether to run again and respects Americans doing the same.
“I can’t even say, I guess, how old I am. I can’t even say the number, it doesn’t register with me,” Biden told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Wednesday.
“But the only thing I can say is that one of the things that people are going to find out, they’re going to see a race and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it,” Biden continued. “I respect them taking a hard look at it, I’d take a hard look at it as well.”
Biden’s critics jumped on an exchange with he had with kids Thursday when he appeared to forget when asked about the last foreign trip he made — to Ireland — as he said it’s “hard to keep track” of all his meetings with heads of state.
When previously asked about Haley’s proposition of mental competency tests, the White House dismissed the idea, telling ABC’s Stephanie Ramos that they’ve “heard these types of attacks and remarks before.”
“If you go back to 2020, they said that the president couldn’t do it in 2020 and attacked him there and he beat them,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told Ramos in February.
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.
