(ATLANTA) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Thursday in response to ongoing protests in downtown Atlanta.
Kemp ordered the state’s defense department to mobilize up to 1,000 state National Guard troops to be called up to active duty “as necessary.”
Authorities arrested six people Saturday when demonstrations over a proposed training ground for the Atlanta Police Department, which started peacefully, involved shooting fireworks, smashing windows, and igniting a police cruiser once protestors reached downtown.
Police suppressed the protests quickly, authorities said last weekend.
The group behind the protests, called ‘Stop Cop City,’ has demonstrated against the training facility for months and was particularly moved last week by the death of a protestor when police raided a campground occupied by demonstrators.
Police say the protestor, Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, fired first, injuring an officer, but activists have questioned authorities’ description of the encounter.
The proposed training center, which was approved by the Atlanta City Council in 2021, will “reimagine law enforcement training,” according to the website of the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is spearheading the project.
In a September FAQ posted on its website, the Foundation acknowledged that the 85 acres on which the facility is being built, which is part of a wooded area in DeKalb County, had been designated by the city council in 2017 as a future green space. However, the group claims that the plan “was not well-known” and said it was not binding.
Kemp’s state of emergency declaration came as Atlanta braces for possible protests on Friday when Memphis authorities intend to release body camera footage of the alleged beating of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers who have since been fired and charged with murder in his death.
“We are closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city,” the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement Thursday. “We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols. Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful.”
Kemp did not indicate whether his declaration was also in preparation for any Nichols-related protests.
(HUNTSVILLE, Ala.) — With her older brother now on trial in Moscow after being held in a Russian detention center for more than a year, each day is a struggle for Margaret Aaron of Huntsville, Ala.
“It’s been very, very tough on our whole family,” Aaron told ABC News anchor Linsey Davis during an interview on ABC News Live Prime on Tuesday. “It’s just something that’s on your mind every day and [it] weighs on you very heavily.”
Aaron’s brother, David Barnes, was taken into custody in Russia’s capital at the beginning of 2022, accused by law enforcement there of abusing his two sons in Harris and Montgomery counties in Texas years earlier, even though Barnes is not facing charges in either Houston-area county.
Although Aaron and her relatives have been able to exchange letters with Barnes, she says she has not been able to speak with her brother since his arrest.
Barnes could now face a lengthy sentence in a Russian penal colony if convicted by a Moscow judge at the conclusion of his ongoing bench trial.
“We would appreciate any help that we could get to get him back home,” Aaron said, adding that she hopes her brother could be classified by the U.S. as being “wrongfully detained” and that he could be brought back through a prisoner exchange.
Barnes has pleaded not guilty and is being represented in court by Gleb Glinka, an attorney who practices in both the United States and Russia.
A 65-year-old resident of The Woodlands in suburban Montgomery County, Barnes traveled to Moscow around a month before his arrest. After his wife left for Russia, Barnes was designated the sole managing conservator by a court in Texas, making him the primary guardian of the children. However, because the kids weren’t in the country anymore, he says he went to Russia to see them, but was not intending to try to bring them back to the U.S. at that time.
“He wanted to make an effort to try to see his children,” Aaron told Davis. “He had not seen them in three years.”
The children were allegedly taken out of the U.S. on March 26, 2019 by Barnes’ Russian ex-wife, Svetlana Koptyaeva. As ABC News has previously reported, Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, considers the children to have been missing since that date.
This followed a contentious child custody and divorce process that lasted for years, along with reports in which Koptyaeva accused Barnes of abusing the children. Barnes was investigated for child abuse in Montgomery County after the concerns were raised, but prosecutors found no basis to file charges against him.
However, after Koptyaeva allegedly fled the U.S. with the boys, Montgomery County law enforcement did open an interference with child custody case against her and she remains wanted in Texas on a felony warrant. Although currently jailed, Barnes still is considered to have custody of the children based on a Texas judge’s 2020 order.
Koptyaeva continues to say that the children were abused, telling ABC News in part in an email on Tuesday, “there was enough evidence, including several psych evaluations, to take the case to court. The boys and I passed several separate psych evaluations and results were the same — the boys are not lying.”
“I was protecting the boys when the U.S. system failed to keep them safe,” Koptyaeva added. “We had to [run] away from the U.S. so that the boys didn’t have to suffer from sexual abuse anymore, leaving everything behind. The charges for child custody interference against me were filed after we ran away.”
Meanwhile, Barnes’ family maintains that he is innocent of the allegations against him.
“There was no evidence, no proof to support these claims,” Aaron said. “He loved those children.”
While Americans Brittney Griner, Sarah Krivanek, Taylor Dudley, and Trevor Reed were all released from Russia over the last year, Barnes remains incarcerated in the country, along with other U.S. citizens such as Marc Fogel and Paul Whelan. However, Barnes is the only one of these Americans who was accused by Russian prosecutors of wrongdoing on U.S. soil, despite a lack of charges in a U.S. court.
Barnes’ trial began in November and testimony began last week, with Koptyaeva and her mother taking the stand in a Moscow courtroom. Since the trial is occurring on occasional days over a period of several months, Barnes is not scheduled to return to court to face a judge until Feb. 22.
Representatives for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow last visited Barnes in his detention center in December, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News.
When asked by Davis if she has a message for the highest-ranking government officials in the U.S., Aaron said, “Just please bring my brother home.”
(CYRIL, Okla.) — Remains found last week amid the search for a missing 4-year-old girl in Oklahoma have been confirmed to be those of the child, authorities said.
Athena Brownfield was reported missing earlier this month after a postal carrier found her sister wandering alone outside, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Remains found in rural Grady County, outside of Rush Springs, on Jan. 17 have been positively identified as those of Athena, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday.
The agency said it had no further comment due to a gag order filed in Caddo County District Court.
Local authorities began searching for Athena on Jan. 10, when the postal worker discovered her 5-year-old sister wandering alone and notified police, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The search became a “recovery operation,” the agency said on Jan. 16, several days after one of her caregivers was arrested on a murder charge in connection with the child’s disappearance.
Alysia Adams, 31, was arrested on Jan. 12 in Grady County, Oklahoma, on two counts of child neglect, the agency said. Her husband, Ivon Adams, 36, was taken into custody in Phoenix that day on one count of murder in the first degree and one count of child neglect, it said.
The two sisters had reportedly been in the couple’s care for at least a year, before the 5-year-old was found alone outside their home in Cyril, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Alysia Adams is related to the sisters, the agency said. Authorities did not comment on how the Adams’ became the primary caregivers of the children.
The girls’ biological parents have been interviewed by agents and are “cooperating with the investigation,” the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said.
During a court appearance in Maricopa County a day after his arrest, Ivon Adams waived his right to an extradition hearing.
“I need to get there and fight this,” he told the court.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued a missing and endangered person alert for Athena on Jan. 11 to people in a 15-mile radius of Cyril, located about 70 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said on Jan. 16 that the search was now considered a “recovery operation” and that its agents and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol were searching areas of Caddo County for the child’s remains.
Amid the search, Brook Arbeitman, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, said that authorities were finding items in town that “could be relevant” and helpful to the case, though did not elaborate.
“We are finding things that we hope might give us clues,” she said.
Athena’s sister was placed in protective custody with the state after she was found, Arbeitman said.
(LOS ANGELES) — Following four California mass shootings in the span of eight days that left 25 people dead and 17 injured, some gun violence researchers said they’re concerned that a phenomenon known as “mass shooting contagion” is occurring across the state.
The cluster of deadly incidents is not surprising, gun violence researchers told ABC News, saying studies have shown the probability is high that a mass shooting garnering national attention will be rapidly followed by another.
“‘Contagion’ is a statistical process. It’s when the likelihood of a similar crime of another mass shooting increases in the aftermath of another mass shooting. That’s what ‘contagion’ is,” James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University, who led a study on the subject published in 2020, told ABC News.
Fox said a 2015 study conducted by researchers at Arizona State University concluded that every mass shooting tends to increase the likelihood of another mass shooting for about 13 days.
String of California massacres
California’s recent string of mass shootings began on Jan. 16, when six people, including a teenage mother and her baby, were found fatally shot at a home in Goshen, a semi-rural area in the state’s San Joaquin Valley. The Tulare County Sheriff’s Department, which has yet to announce any arrests, said the shooting appeared to be a targeted attack by two gunmen possibly connected to a drug cartel.
Just five days after the Goshen killings, a 72-year-old man allegedly opened fire in a dance studio in the Los Angeles County city of Monterey Park, killing 11 people, all of Asian descent, and injuring nine others, according to law enforcement officials. The gunman, identified as Huu Can Tran, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police cornered him following an intense manhunt, officials said. A motive in the shooting remains under investigation.
A day later, a 66-year-old farmworker allegedly shot and killed seven co-workers, five of Asian descent and two of Hispanic descent, and injured one in what authorities said was a workplace shooting at two mushroom growing farms in Half Moon Bay. The suspect, Chunli Zhao, was charged with seven counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, firearm use enhancements and a count of special circumstance allegation of multiple murder.
Just hours after the Half Moon Bay shooting, seven people were shot, one fatally, in Oakland, California, in what police described as a “targeted” and possibly gang-related attack during the filming of a music video at a gas station.
“There are mass shootings waiting to happen, so one of them can influence the other,” Lori Post, director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News.
Post, who keeps a database of mass shootings dating back to 1966, added, “If a would-be shooter sees all the attention of another mass shooter, it may incentivize him to carry out his plan. But one mass shooting does not inspire a normal person to commit a massacre.”
Difference between contagion, copycat killings
Fox said mass shooting contagion is very different from what law enforcement officials call “copycat shootings,” when an individual attempts to mimic or copy the actions of mass shooter they may admire.
Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 in a May 2014 rampage in Isla Vista, California, near Santa Barbara, became a hero to the so-called “incel,” or voluntarily celibate community after distributing a document in which he said he planned his murderous rampage as a “Day of Retribution” to exact revenge on a society that had denied him sex and love.
“There were a couple of mass shootings by incels who revered him,” said Fox, adding that copycat killings can occur long after the original crime.
“The 20th anniversary of Columbine brought a number of attempts,” Fox said. “Fortunately, no one succeeded.”
In contagion mass shootings, Fox said, “It’s not necessarily that the killer admires the previous ones.”
“There are individuals who have the motivation to commit a mass killing and another crime can help precipitate it, but it doesn’t cause it. It’s just that they say, ‘Ok, that’s what I want to do too and I’ll do it now,” Fox said.
In addition to the spat of California mass shootings, Post said there have been several recent examples of the phenomenon, indicating contagion mass shootings don’t have to occur in the same geographic location or even the same state if widespread publicity is spawned by the initial event.
On May 14, 2022, 18-year-old Payton Gendron killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in what investigators said was a racially-motivated attack he later pleaded guilty to. Ten days after the Buffalo mass shooting, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos committed a mass shooting at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers before he was killed by a police officer.
One day after an Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart, a gunman fired 41 shots in 30 seconds in a nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio, killing 9 people and wounding dozens of others before being shot and killed by police. In the final report of its investigation released in 2021, the FBI said the gunman, 24-year-old Conner Betts, had a fascination with mass shootings, serial killings and murder-suicide for at least a decade.
Fox said a cluster of mass shootings can be followed by a lull in massacres, some lasting several weeks to several years.
Fox, who once served on President Bill Clinton’s advisory committee on school shootings, said that from the latter half of the 1990s to March 2021, there were eight multiple victim shootings in U.S. schools, each with at least four victims and at least two deaths, prompting a tremendous amount of discussion among the public, educators and students.
“After March of 2001, we had summertime, and of course there’s no school shootings in the summertime, and then we had 9/11,” Fox said. “After 9/11, no-one talked about school shootings. The shift of attention went from school shootings to terrorism. Once we stopped obsessing about it, they dissipated.”
Less than 1% of annual homicides
Tage S. Rai, a psychologist and an assistant professor of management at U.C. San Diego Rady School of Management, who studies violence, told ABC News that data shows mass shootings only account for less than 1% of all annual homicide deaths in the United States, yet they garner the most attention and create widespread fear that is unwarranted.
“And so what that means is we’re probably not paying enough attention or giving enough resources to other kinds of gun violence that go on,” Rai said. “We’re not paying enough attention to violence in the home, we’re not paying enough attention to suicide deaths by gun, we’re not paying enough attention to a lot of other kinds of gun violence that we see.”
Young the Giant has announced a North American tour alongside Milky Chance.
The outing will stretch from May 30 in Montreal to August 31 in Dillon, Colorado. Tickets go on sale next Friday, February 3, with various presales happening over the next week.
For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit YoungtheGiant.com.
Young the Giant’s most recent album is American Bollywood, which was released in three parts throughout 2022. Milky Chance, meanwhile, has been putting out singles over the past couple years alongside the duo’s Trip Tape compilations, including “Colorado” and “Synchronize.”
Papa Roach, Motionless in White and the reunited Flyleaf have joined the lineup for the 2023 Bamboozle Festival, taking place May 5-7 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Previously announced artists on the bill include Limp Bizkit, Hollywood Undead, blackbear, Say Anything and Mayday Parade.
Bamboozle 2023 marks the festival’s return after going on hiatus after its 2012 edition, which notably featured the final My Chemical Romance performance before their 2019 reunion.
(LOS ANGELES) — January’s record rain and snowfall on the West Coast has had a positive side effect for over 27 million California residents.
California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced Thursday that the extra rainwater will allow the State Water Project (SWP) to increase deliveries to 29 local water agencies this year.
In December, the agency announced that it would initially allocate 5% of requested supplies to the local agencies, but now it will allocate 30% of those requests.
“The SWP’s two largest reservoirs (Oroville and San Luis) have gained a combined 1.62 million acre-feet of water in storage — roughly enough to provide water to 5.6 million households for a year,” DWR said in a statement.
Several rain and snow storms left parts of California with flash floods, downed trees and other damage during for weeks starting at the end of December. More than three feet of rain fell in California during those storms and the Sierra Nevada Mountains surpassed seasonal averages for snowfall, according to state data.
Extreme drought, the second-highest level of drought, in California fell from 27.1% to 0.32% Between Jan. 3 and Jan. 10, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe drought, the third-highest level, fell from 71% to 46%, during that same period, according to the monitor.
“These storms made clear the importance of our efforts to modernize our existing water infrastructure for an era of intensified drought and flood. Given these dramatic swings, these storm flows are badly needed to refill groundwater basins and support recycled water plants,” DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement.
The agency warned Californians to still conserve their water use as the state could see a return to warm and dry conditions prior to April 1, which is the end of the wet season.
Fans of the CW DC Comics-based shows Doom Patrol and Titans might have been surprised to find out that the shows won’t be back for fifth seasons, but they might also be surprised to learn that James Gunn didn’t pull the trigger.
The Guardians of the Galaxy franchise writer-director has taken flak online for making some big changes to Warner Bros. Discovery’s superhero universe along with his partner Peter Safran. However, he contends the cancellations weren’t their doing.
One fan of the shows snarked online on Thursday, “With @DCDoomPatrol and @DCTitans officially ending due to the new direction of @JamesGunn and Safran…All the fans can say is good luck. It’s a mighty big hill you have to climb to win the majority of fans over who enjoyed the shows and movies. I’ll be kicking my feet up waiting.”
Gunn set the record straight, explaining, “The decision to end the series precedes us. But I certainly wish the best for the talented group of creators, actors, and the rest of the crew that produced both shows.”
Yet another artist has sold their catalog.Billboardreports Dion aka Dion Francis DiMucci has sold the rights to his publishing catalog and future works to Reservoir Media. Dion is best known for such ’60s hits as “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer,” along with “Ruby Baby” and “Dream Lover.”
“I am most pleased to enter into this great new relationship with Reservoir,” Dion said in a statement. “I know how much the Reservoir team appreciates my work, and I am looking forward to some exciting times ahead with them.”
There’s no word on the value of the deal, which also includes synchronization rights (the right to use a piece of music with some sort of visual media) to his master recordings.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Jan. 7, 2023: Tyre Nichols pulled over
Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was pulled over by police for alleged reckless driving.
According to Nichols’ mother, Rowvaughn Wells, Tyre was 2 minutes away from his home when he was pulled over.
Officials said that Memphis officers approached Nichols, who ran away.
Attorneys for Nichols’ family said the body camera footage of the incident shows that Nichols did not originally run when being approached by officers. They say Nichols told police that “he was just trying to get home” from FedEx, where he worked, and yelled for his mother three times toward the end of the video. The body camera footage has not yet been released publicly.
Officers say they then pursued Nichols after he ran and apprehended him, police said.
After the incident, Nichols “complained of having a shortness of breath” and was transported by ambulance to Memphis’ St. Francis Hospital in critical condition, according to police.
Due to Nichols’ condition, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office was contacted and TBI special agents were subsequently requested to conduct a use-of-force investigation, according to the TBI.
The Memphis Police Department said at the time that the “officers involved will be routinely relieved of duty pending the outcome of” the TBI’s investigation.
Jan. 10: Tyre Nichols’ death
Nichols died three days after being detained by Memphis police.
Jan. 18: Federal investigations begin
Kevin G. Ritz, United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, announced that the FBI and DOJ are investigating the incident.
“State authorities have publicly announced that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is investigating,” Ritz said in a statement. “In addition, the United States Attorney’s Office, in coordination with the FBI Memphis Field Office and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, has opened a civil rights investigation.”
Jan. 20: The firing of Memphis police officers
The Memphis Police Department announced that it fired five police officers following an investigation into Nichols’ death.
The officers were identified as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith. They are all Black men.
“After a thorough review of the circumstances surrounding this incident, we have determined that five MPD officers violated multiple department policies, including excessive use of force, duty to intervene and duty to render aid,” the department said in a statement.
Jan. 23: Family describes body camera footage
The video footage of Nichols’ interaction with five Memphis police officers was viewed by Nichols’ family and attorneys.
They described the video as “appalling,” “deplorable,” “heinous,” “violent” and “troublesome on every level,” according to Ben Crump, attorney for the Nichols family.
“What he was in that was defenseless the entire time,” said Antonio Romanucci, another attorney for the family. “He was a human piñata for those police officers. It was unadulterated, unabashed, nonstop beating of this young boy for 3 minutes.” Romanucci also mentioned that Nichols, who died January 10, was kicked during the footage.
The family said they saw the police kick, pepper spray and use a stun gun on their son all while Nichols repeatedly asked, “What did I do?”
A grand jury indicted five officers involved in the Nichols incident. They have each been charged with murder and are in custody. They have been charged with “second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravating kidnapping, resulting in bodily injury, aggravated kidnapping involving the possession of a weapon official misconduct through unauthorized exercise of power, official misconduct through failure to act when there is a duty imposed by law, and official oppression,” according to the Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.
An independent autopsy, completed by a forensic pathologist hired by the family’s attorneys, found that Nichols suffered from “extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,” according to the family.
“His observed injuries are consistent with what the family and attorneys witnessed on the video of his fatal encounter with police on January 7,” the family of Tyre Nichols and their attorneys said in a statement. “Further details and findings from this independent report will be disclosed at another time.”
Memphis Chief of Police Cerelyn Davis called the officers’ actions “heinous, reckless and inhumane,” adding that “when the [body camera footage] is released in the coming days, you will see this for yourselves.”
Chief Davis said that she expects protests following the video’s release, but warns that even though she anticipates outrage, that “none of this is a calling card for inciting violence.”
