Leah Kate’s the latest artist to see her viral TikTok song turn into a bona fide radio hit. After she posted a snippet of her song “10 Things I Hate About You” on the app, it went viral, then blew up on digital service providers and is now on radio stations nationwide. And that’s something that Leah says she just can’t get her head around.
“I don’t believe it. I’m just like, ‘What?'” she laughs. “In my head, I’m so, like, ‘Please listen to my music. I’ll do anything … stream my song!’ … so it hasn’t connected in my brain. Like, reality hasn’t caught up with what the truth is, in my head. So every time I hear it on the radio, I’m like, ‘Oh, how is this possible?'”
And no, despite the song’s title, it was not inspired by the 1999 rom-com starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. “I love the movie, but it actually had nothing to do with the creation of the song,” Leah tells ABC Audio.
She explains, “I was not over this guy and I was like, ‘I need to get over him.’ [But] I could only really remember the good parts of our relationship, [so] I was like, ‘OK, Leah, time to remember the bad parts,’ because there are way more bad parts than good!”
Leah adds, “I started writing this list of everything I hated about him, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is kind of a fun song idea.’… It started out as, like, 100 things, and then I narrowed it down to 10 things.”
You’ll hear Leah performing that song and more as she kicks off a tour with Australian band Chase Atlantic on Wednesday.
“You can expect, like, so much new music in the set,” she promises, teasing “crazy things and visuals.” “It’s going to be really fun. I’m so excited!”
Being a band that can cover The Four Seasons, Iggy Pop and Britney Spears in the same set, Måneskin is clearly inspired by many different types of music. As frontman Damiano David tells ABC Audio, each of the band members has their own specific influences that they bring to the Måneskin sound.
“[Guitarist] Thomas [Raggi] is very into ’70s and ’80s rock ‘n’ roll, so the more classic, milestone bands,” David explains. “And I’m more into the [2000s], Strokes and Arctic [Monkeys] and stuff like that.”
Meanwhile, bassist Victoria De Angelis‘ tastes range from U.K. punk to techno, while drummer Ethan Torchio is the “mad dog in this conversation.”
“Ethan is f***ing crazy and listens to instrumental songs … classical music,” David laughs.
Those influences are not limited to Måneskin’s wide array of covers, but apply to the group’s original material, as well.
“Every time you hear our songs, you can hear many different things, and all of that will be correct,” David says. “Maybe there’s more of my influence in a song, and in another there’s more of Thomas’ influence.”
“I think that that’s the cool thing about us,” he adds. “We kind of always manage to mix all our different tastes together.”
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SHEIN Together Fest 2021
After coming out as bisexual, Tinashe proudly celebrated Pride Month in June. She says loved performing at a recent benefit for the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project.
“It’s great to be a part of something that obviously gives back to a cause that I am passionate about. I am a supporter of LGBTQ+ community in New York and anti-violence, I think, is so important,” the singer told People.
“It’s something that I’m 100% behind,” she continued. “So, it’s really important to me from that aspect. And then, aside from that, it’s really fun just to be involved in Pride for New York and to celebrate.”
The 29-year-old singer/actress released her fifth studio album, 333, in August 2021 on her own label, Tinashe Music. She tells fans on social media asking about a follow-up to have patience.
“I think it’s going to take me a second to really get my footing on what direction I want to go next,” says Tinashe. “But I definitely always want to try something new.”
Anderson will be joined by over 20 talented young musicians at the concerts, which will feature a performance of Yes’ entire 1972 album Close to the Edge in honor of its 50th anniversary, as well as renditions of other songs by the legendary prog-rock band, tunes from Jon’s solo catalog, mash-ups and more.
“If you come you’re gonna to have a great time,” Anderson tells ABC Audio about the upcoming concerts. “I mean, seriously, these teenagers, ranging from 14 to 17, are just brilliant musicians.”
Released in September 1972, Close to the Edge peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200. The album features three long musical pieces — the title track, “And You and I” and “Siberian Khatru.”
Anderson explains that before his latest tour with the Paul Green Rock Academy, he’d already performed “And You and I” with the teens, and for his trek with them earlier this year, they added the epic “Close to the Edge” to the set.
“They had a ball doing it. I loved it,” Jon notes. “So, we thought, ‘Okay, we’re gonna do some shows this summer, so why don’t we celebrate the fact that it was 50 years ago that we did the album Close to the Edge?’ So they learned ‘Siberian Khatru.’ So we’re doing the whole album, which will be…wonderful chaos.”
Anderson says the shows also will feature a performance of “So Limitless,” a song he co-wrote with and recorded last year with members of the Rock Academy, as well as mashups including a Lenny Kravitz tune and Led Zeppelin‘s “Kashmir.”
The tour runs through an August 6 show in Albany, New York.
Minions 2: The Rise of Gru is now the July 4 holiday box office record holder, earning an estimated 125.1 million dollars from Friday through Monday. That’s also the second-best debut for a Despicable Me/Minions movie, about three-and-a half million less than the first standalone Minions movie earned in 2015.
The Rise of Gru — featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Taraji P. Henson and Michelle Yeoh — did pretty well overseas too, scooping up an estimated $93.7 million, for a worldwide total of $202.2 million between Friday and Monday.
Top Gun: Maverick held on to second place, delivering an estimated $25.5 million over the three-day weekend and $33.3 through Monday. The Top Gun sequel has earned a total of $544.5 million overseas, bringing its six-week global tally to upwards of $1.1 billion worldwide.
Dropping to third place was Elvis, which collected an estimated $19 million in its second week of release. The biopic has collected a total of $70 million in North America. Thus far, Elvis has earned $113 million worldwide.
Pulling up in fourth place was Jurassic World: Dominion with just under $15.7 million. Adding Monday’s estimated totals, that figure swells to roughly $19.7 million. After four weeks, Dominion has raked in $331.8 million domestically to go with $492.7 million internationally, where it opened a week earlier. Its new worldwide total currently sits at $824.5 million.
Rounding out the top five was the horror film The Black Phone, taking in an estimated $12.3 million between Friday and Sunday and $14.4 million through Monday. The film has grabbed a total of $49.7 million in North America and $74.4 million globally after two weeks.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, overseeing a very narrow Democratic majority, issued a warning to voters after the Supreme Court struck down Roe vs. Wade.
Republicans are “plotting a nationwide abortion ban” and will act if they get the majority in Congress this midterm election, she said — a sentiment that is a nationwide rallying cry for Democrats.
And while that’s possible — the fall of Roe means abortion is no longer legally protected nationwide, leaving the door open to making it illegal nationwide — the bigger question is whether its plausible.
Here’s what to watch:
First things first: there is a Democrat in the Oval Office.
If Republicans were to win a lot of seats in the House and the Senate in November, giving them enough votes to pass a nationwide ban on abortion, that bill would still have to go to the president’s desk to be made law of the land.
“The key backstop to there being a ban is that the president would veto it,” said Victoria Nourse, a law professor at Georgetown University who focuses on Congress.
The only way around that, in the short-term, would be for Republicans to secure two-thirds of the Senate chamber, or 67 votes, to override that veto — an incredibly unlikely scenario.
Still, such legislation could “very well backfire,” given that only just 13% of Americans support making abortion illegal outright, according to a long-running Gallup poll, said Michele Goodwin, a constitutional law professor at University of California, Irvine.
But just because legislation is unlikely to pass in the immediate wake of the 2022 midterms, those races will still set the stage for bigger threats to abortion rights down the line.
“Where we are today is more of a marathon than a sprint,” Goodwin said.
That’s because if Republicans were to win the House or the Senate, they would be that much closer to enacting a ban if a Republican president was then elected in 2024.
And while Republicans could be pushed away from flat-out bans because of their unpopularity, more tailored bans could gain traction.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has thrown his weight behind a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks, which could get more support from moderate Republicans because nearly all abortions happen before then.
A ban like that could set up a “chip-away” of abortion rights, Goodwin said.
“To the extent that there is a chip-away that ultimately is realized, like what we see in Dobbs and with these trigger bans, one should actually be deeply concerned about the chip-away that could take place in Congress and also in the executive leadership of our country,” she said.
Of course, the underlying question is whether Republicans would actually push for a nationwide ban, if all the pieces were in place.
So far, the only prospective 2024 candidate to go so far as call for a nationwide ban is former Vice President Mike Pence, who reacted to the Supreme Court decision by urging people not to “relent” until “the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land.”
Other possible Republican contenders like former President Donald Trump, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley have hailed the decision as a victory for state’s rights, steering clear of mentioning top-down action at the federal level.
“This long divisive issue will be decided by the states and the American people,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday in Illinois. “That’s the way it should have been many many years ago, and that’s the way it is now.”
And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who initially said a nationwide ban was “possible,” recently said he didn’t think it would be possible to get 60 senators, which is how many would have to vote in favor of a ban without ending the filibuster.
Any legislation would end up right back in court
Yet another potential barrier would be the court, which is where any law that touches the Roe vs. Wade decision would end up, whether it’s an attempt to codify abortion rights or get rid of them.
And the Supreme Court ruled states should decide the laws around abortion on an individual basis, which could neuter interference at the federal level of either kind.
That’s led states like California, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey to enact laws that protect peoples’ rights to an abortion and make them safe harbors. It’s unclear how those laws might interact with a nationwide ban — something experts describe as uncharted territory.
But Nourse also said she sees a world where the court is more favorable to a nationwide abortion ban, which would align more with its recent ruling, than an attempt to make abortion legal.
“The bottom line is it will go back to the courts either way,” said Nourse.
What about the steps to codify Roe vs. Wade as law?
While the midterms could hand Republicans a victory that set the stage for a future ban on abortion at the national level, they could also hand Democrats the votes they need to protect abortion rights.
“People across the country are mobilizing and women are pretty ticked off, including Republican women, even if they are not being vocal about this,” Goodwin said.
If the decision does galvanize Democrats enough to gain seats in the Senate, progressives have urged their party to end the filibuster, which would mean Democrats could get laws passed by a slimmer majority.
This past week, Biden endorsed the idea, handing progressives a win.
But moderates warn that the political maneuver would go both ways.
Ending the filibuster could open the door to Republicans using the same tactic to ban abortion — a point Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin leans on to defend his opposition to ending the filibuster.
The bottom line: No single election will guarantee a ban or the return of national protection for abortions, but every single one will have an impact.
“This is on the ballot,” Nourse said. “And it’s going to be on the ballot for a longtime.”
(ATLANTA) — A listeria outbreak that caused one death in Illinois and sickened at least 23 other people has been linked to a Florida ice cream brand, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC advises consumers to discard Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream they have at home. It also recommends cleaning any containers, utensils and areas that may have touched a Big Olaf ice cream product.
The brand is only sold in Florida but the outbreak spread across 10 states.
The CDC is advising retailers to remove Big Olaf ice cream products from shelves and notes that the Sarasota-based company is “voluntarily contacting retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products until further notice.”
Listeriosis is an infection typically caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium “Listeria monocytogenes,” the CDC states on its site. When the bacteria spreads beyond the gut to other parts of the body, it can cause severe illness.
Symptoms can start as early as the same day or up to 70 days after eating the contaminated food.
The CDC says listeria typically affects pregnant women, newborns, older adults and people with weakened immune systems. It is rare for people in other groups to get the illness.
Symptoms vary based on the person and the part of the body affected – including fatigue, muscle aches, fever and more.
(WASHINGTON) — Congress “must pass” new immigration laws, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday while defending the administration’s policies amid renewed scrutiny of the high amount of migration at the southern border.
“Because the border has been a challenge for decades, ultimately Congress must pass legislation to once and for all fix our broken immigration system,” Mayorkas told ABC This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Mayorkas’ defense comes after 53 migrants were found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas, late last month, which Mayorkas called a “tragic result” of a “dangerous journey.” Four men have been charged in the deaths.
On This Week, Mayorkas said that the U.S. was working with regional allies in Central and South America beyond pushing for legislation, which remains a dim prospect in Congress.
“These are remarkable, distinct times,” Mayorkas said. In lieu of new laws, “we have a multi-faceted approach, not only to work with our partner countries but to bring law enforcement to bear to attack the smuggling organizations in an unprecedented way,” he said. “We are doing so very much.”
Raddatz pressed Mayorkas, noting that a legislative fix on immigration was unlikely given partisan gridlock on the issue — and, she said, the administration’s warning to migrants to not try to cross the border was either not being heard or not being heeded.
“Fifty-three people lost their lives in the most horrific of conditions,” Mayorkas said of the migrants who died in San Antonio. “We continue to tell people not to take the dangerous journey. We are enforcing our laws. And we are working with countries … including our close partner Mexico, but with Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, to really address the migration that is throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
Still, Raddatz cited a historic high in May for southern border crossings: 240,000.
“I think that we are doing a good job. We need to do better,” Mayorkas acknowledged. “We are focused on doing more, and we are doing it with our partners to the south.”
“You have Congressman Henry Cuellar saying that only about 30% of the Border Patrol are doing missions at checkpoints and the border because the other 70% are tied up at detention centers. How do you fix that?” Raddatz pressed.
“We are pressing this issue vigorously and aggressively to address the number of encounters that we are experiencing at the southern border,” Mayorkas responded.
He touted the administration’s recent win before the Supreme Court, which ruled last week that the White House can end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy that made migrants seeking asylum stay outside the U.S. during adjudication.
Mayorkas argued that policy “has endemic flaws and causes unjustifiable human tragedy.”
“We need to wait until the Supreme Court’s decision is actually communicated to the lower court, to the federal district court and the Northern District of Texas … So, we have to wait several weeks for that procedural step to be taken,” he said.
As for the migrant deaths in the tractor trailer in Texas, Mayorkas said he didn’t want to comment on the facts of the case as they were still emerging. He declined to say whether or not the vehicle had been “waved through” a checkpoint.
“The smuggling organizations are extraordinarily sophisticated. They are transnational criminal organizations,” he said.
Raddatz followed up, asking: “What good are these checkpoints if a truck like that gets through, full of migrants?”
Mayorkas said the “checkpoints are part of a multilayered approach.”
“In fiscal year 2022 alone we’ve stopped more than 400 vehicles and saved and rescued more than 10,000 migrants,” Mayorkas said. “But this is why we continue to communicate that the journey — the dangerous journey should not be taken. We are enforcing our laws and people lose their lives at the hands or exploitative smugglers.”
David Barnes is seen in an undated photo provided by his family. – Courtesy Carol Barnes
(HUNTSVILLE, Ala.) — A Texas man who has spent more than five months in a Russian detention center is facing a different challenge from other recent American detainees such as Trevor Reed and Brittney Griner, as authorities in Moscow are accusing him of wrongdoing in his home country.
David Barnes, a Huntsville, Alabama, native who has lived in the Houston area in recent years, was taken into custody by law enforcement in Moscow in January and has been incarcerated on Russian soil ever since.
“If I could go over there and just sit in that place with him, I would do it in a minute, because this is the most unjust situation I’ve ever experienced in my entire life,” Carol Barnes, David’s older sister, told ABC News. “I feel like part of me is missing.”
David Barnes was in Russia attempting to gain legal clearance to either see his children or bring them home, after his Russian ex-wife allegedly violated a court custody order and fled the United States with them, his family says.
On Jan. 13, Russian investigators apprehended Barnes in Moscow, accusing him of abusing his two children years earlier in Texas, according to translations of court documents. Similar allegations against Barnes were brought to authorities in Texas by his now-ex-wife Svetlana Koptyaeva during their long and acrimonious divorce proceedings. The allegations were investigated in 2018 by the Department of Family and Protective Services, which found insufficient evidence to support them and closed the case without any findings of abuse or any charges against Barnes.
Barnes’ ex-wife is herself now wanted in the U.S. on a felony charge of interference with child custody, after she fled with the children in 2019.
“His mission was to save his children,” Carol Barnes said. “His mission all along has not been really revenge against her at all.”
With her brother locked up abroad in a country that is currently fighting a war in Ukraine that has lead to a diplomatic dispute with the United States, Carol Barnes says she worries about his future.
“I’ve never been so sad and so hurt,” she said. “All I think about is the conditions that he’s living in.”
Making ‘examples out of U.S. citizens’
For much of his time in Russia, David Barnes has been in Moscow’s Detention Center 5, according to his family. He is not the only American — or even the only Texan — who has been held there in recent years.
Trevor Reed, a former Marine from Texas, was arrested by Russian authorities in 2019 and sentenced to nine years in prison. After being accused of assaulting two police officers in Moscow, Reed spent part of his time behind bars in Detention Center 5.
After Reed’s case gained widespread publicity in the U.S., he was released by Russian authorities in April in exchange for a Russian man who was being held in Connecticut on a federal drug trafficking conviction.
In an interview with ABC News, Reed described his pretrial Russian detention facility as rat-infested and “extremely dirty.”
“It took Trevor Reed three years to get out and his alleged crime was much less severe than what David is being accused of,” Carol Barnes said. “We’re talking about Russia. They’re going to make examples out of U.S. citizens.”
Another Texan, Brittney Griner, is still being held by Russian law enforcement in the Moscow area. The WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist was arrested at an airport after Russian authorities alleged that she had vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage, but the U.S. government says Griner is being “wrongfully detained.”
Barnes had been living in Texas since 2007, working initially as a design engineer for an Alabama-based software company’s Houston office.
Houston is where he met Svetlana Koptyaeva, who was also living there for work. The two would go on to marry and have two sons, at least one of whom has dual Russian and American citizenship.
“I saw a difference in him when he had those two children,” Carol Barnes said. “His boys were his only focus in this life.”
Svetlana Barnes filed a petition for divorce in 2014, and over the next five years, a lengthy and ugly custody battle ensued between the two parents, resulting in a jury trial and numerous court hearings in Texas.
“It was horrible,” David Barnes’ younger sister Margaret Aaron said. “She tried everything she could to take the children from him and to get sole control, and he fought her tooth and nail.”
Of Barnes’ two children, Carol Barnes said, “He wanted them — even though their parents were divorcing — to have two parents. He thought that children should be raised by two parents’ influence.”
Paul Carter, a lifelong friend of David Barnes who is also divorced with two sons, said the struggle between Barnes and his ex-wife became “a cascading series of events” stemming from “her desire to not have David in any part of their lives.”
“My boys are everything,” Carter said. “Watching my sons grow up has been a wonderful experience. I’ve wanted so much for David to have that.”
‘Completely and totally devastated’
In early 2019, as part of a custody arrangement, Svetlana Barnes was expected to bring the children to an agreed-upon meeting point so David Barnes could have the boys for a few days.
However, she never showed with the children. According to law enforcement records, David Barnes called the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office multiple times to ask for welfare checks on the two boys.
“She was a flight risk and somehow was able to flee with the passports,” Carter said. “I think that’s a real travesty. It’s a real breakdown of the system.”
By April 6, 2019, the FBI was able to track Svetlana Barnes to Turkey, according to a criminal complaint.
“He was completely and totally devastated,” Aaron said. “He had gotten their room ready at his apartment and bought them toys, and he was just so happy that they were going to come back to him, and then they were gone. He was crushed.”
In August 2020, a judge in Montgomery County signed an order designating David Barnes as the sole managing conservator of his children, which gave him rights to decide the primary home for his children, make decisions regarding their education, represent them in legal actions, and possess their passports.
Yet despite the order, the two boys were nowhere to be found in the U.S. and Barnes was unable to reestablish contact with them.
His family said he had a gut feeling about where the children had ended up.
“He was pretty certain what had happened, that [Svetlana] had taken them back to Russia,” Aaron said. “He knew that she would probably do this if she had the opportunity.”
Svetlana Barnes was eventually traced to her homeland, with court-appointed receiver Robert Berleth writing in a November 2020 report, “It is understood by the Receiver the Defendant has fled to Russia and has no intention of returning” to her home in Texas.
Carol Barnes said that after locating and hiring an attorney in Moscow, her brother decided to fly there in December 2021 to see if he could secure at least partial custody or limited rights to visitation with his children in Russian court.
“Society doesn’t consider fathers to be as important as mothers,” Carol Barnes said. “They don’t take into consideration that maybe there are fathers out there that are willing to fight for their children.”
Not long after David Barnes arrived in Moscow and rented a room near where Svetlana Barnes was believed to be living, the former spouses ran into each other, according to Carol Barnes, who alleges that the ex-wife then contacted Russian authorities to make the same past child abuse allegations that Texas authorities could not substantiate.
David Barnes was soon arrested by law enforcement in Moscow.
“After reviewing the decision to initiate a criminal case against me, I think that this is absurd,” court records say that David Barnes told Russian investigators during an interrogation. “I did not take the actions set forth in the decision to initiate a criminal case against me.”
“I’m sure he was panicked,” Aaron said. “You feel so helpless.”
‘It was all made up to destroy him’
David Barnes’ detention in Russia has come as news to prosecutors in the Lone Star State.
“We were not aware that Mr. Barnes was being held in a Russian detention center,” Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office Trial Bureau Chief Kelly Blackburn told ABC News when informed of Barnes’ incarceration. “At this time, there are no accusations out of Montgomery County that we are aware of that would allow Mr. Barnes to be held in custody.”
Nor have any child abuse charges been made against David Barnes in neighboring Harris County, which covers the part of Houston also referenced in Russian court documents, according to the district attorney’s office there.
A 2014 petition for divorce that was filed on Svetlana Barnes’ behalf said that “Petitioner believes that Respondent [David Barnes] has a history or pattern of sexual abuse directed against” one of the children, but did not go into detail.
“There was not a lot of information in 2014,” Carol Barnes said. “All I remember from talking to David was she started accusing him of some kind of abuse, but there was nothing definitive really said.”
In 2017, a settlement agreement between David and Svetlana Barnes noted in part that Svetlana Barnes was “to refrain from making statements, either written or oral, to any third party, alleging that … [David Barnes] … molested his minor child and/or engaged in improper sexual contact with his minor child” — though she did not waive any legal reporting duties.
An incident report from a constable’s office in Montgomery County said that law enforcement interviewed Svetlana Barnes and the children in 2018 regarding sexual assault concerns that she reported. A search warrant was subsequently executed on David Barnes’ apartment in The Woodlands, but no charges were ever filed.
“I know my brother. I know that he loved his children and he would never do those things that she has accused him of,” Aaron said. “It was all made up to destroy him and to get the children away from him.”
While David Barnes is not currently facing criminal charges in Texas, the same cannot be said for Svetlana Barnes, who was indicted in 2019 for interference with child custody, a felony.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office alleged that despite a judgment allowing David Barnes to have partial custody of the two children, Svetlana Barnes “failed to comply with any condition for travel outside of the United States with the children,” and left the country with the boys on a Turkish Airlines flight from Houston to Istanbul on March 26, 2019.
“Svetlana Barnes still has yet to be arrested on the charge of interference with child custody, and the warrant for her arrest is still active,” Blackburn said.
Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, considers March 26, 2019, to be the date on which the children disappeared. The organization, which published yellow global police notices containing pictures of the boys, still considers them missing.
In an attempt to reach Svetlana Barnes for comment, ABC News sent an email to an address previously associated with her, but received an unsigned response from the email account that stated in part, “as her attorney I won’t recommend her talking to you.”
‘I want to see his release’
The news that David Barnes is being detained in Russia has prompted calls for his release from many of those closest to him, including his employer.
“We continue to hope for his well-being and safe return home as soon as possible,” Philip Ivy, vice president of Houston-based engineering firm KBR, said.
David Barnes’ arrest was covered by state media outlets in Russia, but has not previously made headlines in the U.S.
In the months since he was taken into custody, Barnes has been visited by representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, according to emails between his family and the State Department. A trial date has not yet been scheduled and his future remains uncertain.
“We are aware of reports of the arrest of a U.S. citizen in Moscow,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told ABC News. “We take seriously our responsibility to assist U.S. citizens abroad, and are monitoring the situation. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services in cases where U.S. citizens are detained abroad.”
Back in Huntsville, his family and friends are hoping that he will be able to rejoin them soon.
“I want to see his release,” said his sister Margaret Aaron. “He is being held there as guilty until they can prove him innocent, but there’s nothing to hold him there, there’s no evidence of anything, [and] he did not do anything. We would like some action taken for his freedom.”
“President Biden, if you could help David in any way, God bless you,” said his friend Paul Carter. “We want him back.”
ABC News’ Patrick Linehan contributed to this report.
(AKRON, Ohio) — Ohio police officials released officer body-camera footage of a 25-year-old Black man killed in a hail of bullets fired by eight officers while he was unarmed and running away.
As Jayland Walker’s family has demanded answers about the circumstances of last week’s killing, which authorities said occurred following a police chase, large protests have erupted in Akron, Ohio, with demonstrators marching on the city’s police headquarters.
Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan and Police Chief Steve Mylett, during a news conference Sunday afternoon, joined the Walker family in calling for peaceful protests and for patience as the investigation continues in the man’s death.
“When an officer makes the most critical decision in his or her life as a police officer, it doesn’t matter where in the country this happens, when they make that most critical decision to point their firearm at another human being and pull the trigger, they’ve got to be ready to explain why they did what they did,” Mylett said Sunday. “They need to be able to articulate what specific threats they were facing, and that goes for every round that goes down the barrel of their gun.”
Mylett began the news conference by expressing his “deepest sympathies to Jayland’s family” and apologized for their loss.
“I cannot imagine the sense of loss, the pain they are going through right now,” Mylett said. “I want to personally thank you for the way in which you have been dealing with this situation. You have asked for peace in an environment that is rife for aggression and violence. If Jayland reflects the character of this family, which I continually heard that he did, you raised a good son.”
Before the body-camera footage was shown, Horrigan said he was “beyond outraged” at the situation, and told reporters that “the video you are about to watch is heartbreaking.”
Akron police officials said the fatal incident unfolded about 12:30 a.m. on June 27 in Akron’s North Hill neighborhood when officers attempted to pull over Walker for a traffic violation and an equipment violation with his car. Police said the driver allegedly refused to stop, setting off a chase that ended in his death.
Police officials played footage from two police body-camera videos, the first showing police pursuing Walker’s silver Buick onto Route 8 in Akron.
The video showed the Buick taking an onramp and a flash of light that Mylett said appeared to be the muzzle flash of a gun coming from the driver’s side of Walker’s car. Police officials also released freeze frames of the flash coming from the vehicle’s window.
A second body-camera video recorded officers radioing that they heard at least one shot being fired from Walker’s car. The video also shows the officer following the Buick off Route 8 and continuing the pursuit on side streets.
At one point, Walker slowed down and jumped out of the vehicle before it came to a full stop. The footage showed a man, who police said was Walker, exiting the car’s passenger side door wearing a ski mask.
Multiple officers are seen in the footage running after Walker, who appeared to look over his shoulder as officers fired their weapons at him.
Mylett said he has watched the video at least 40 times and said there are still photos showing Walker appear to reach for his waistband, turn toward the officers and move an arm forward.
Mylett said Walker’s face and body were blurred out in the video shown to the public at the request of the Walker family.
The chief said he is reserving further comment on the video and judgment on the incident until the Ohio Bureau of Investigation completes its probe.
In an earlier statement, Akron police officials said, the “actions by the suspect caused the officers to perceive he posed a deadly threat to them. In response to this threat, officers discharged their firearms, striking the suspect.”
Despite the shooting occurring seven days ago, Mylett said none of the officers have been interviewed by investigators. The chief said the police union president has assured him that all of the officers involved in the shooting will fully cooperate.
The officers involved in the shooting are on paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation being led by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Following the news conference, Bobby DiCello, an attorney for Walker’s family, said the key fact of the case, which Mylett confirmed, is that Walker was unarmed when he was killed.
Mylett said while the video confirmed that Walker was unarmed when he was shot, he said the footage also captured a handgun with a separate loaded magazine and what appears to be a gold wedding band left on the driver’s seat of Walker’s car.
The body-camera videos were released in accordance with a city law passed last year requiring police body-camera footage be made public seven days after an officer’s use of force resulted in death or great bodily injury.
DiCello said the videos show Walker did not pose a threat to the officers when they fired more than 60 shots.
“You can see his hands as he is running on the video,” DiCello told ABC News’ Good Morning America after watching the video before it was made public.
He said the first two Akron police officers to engage Walker, deployed their stun guns. Mylett confirm that officers deployed Tasers, but they had no effect.
“Why do eight men shoot him, mostly from behind, as he’s running away?” DiCello told GMA of the troubling list of questions he has over the shooting.
DiCello said he saw no evidence in the video he reviewed of Walker posing a threat to the officers.
“Just sprinting away from these men, he is shot as he starts to turn and look over his shoulder,” DiCello said.
Walker’s aunt, LaJuana Dawkins, told GMA, “We’d like to know why he was shot down like a dog.”
DiCello said Sunday that Walker was saddened over the recent death of his girlfriend, but relatives told him they did not notice anything about his behavior that would have led them to believe he would allegedly lead police on a chase or shoot at officers.
DiCello accused Mylett of playing “armchair quarterback” during Sunday’s news conference without knowledge of all the facts.
“I’m disappointed. They want to turn him into a masked monster with a gun,” DiCello said. “He wasn’t a criminal, he was obviously in pain. He didn’t deserve to die.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost attempted to assure the public on Sunday that the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation “will conduct a complete, fair and expert investigation.”
“People want and deserve answers, and they shall have them,” Yost said in a statement. “Body-worn camera footage is just one view of the whole picture — before drawing conclusions, the full review must take place.”
He said the investigative file will be made public at the conclusion of the case and people will be able to review it online.
“The goal is the truth, and we need to talk to anyone who knows anything,” Yost said. “Silence will never produce justice.”
