Excerpt: In a brief video that circulated over the holidays among officers of the BART police force, the department’s chief pins a badge on a beaming young officer wearing the turban of his Sikh faith. Ominous music plays in the background, and it soon becomes clear why: The chief removes the turban, turns it over and discovers a semiautomatic pistol inside. The newly hired officer is no longer smiling.
In those six seconds, it’s not immediately clear that the video — which depicts a real BART officer and the actual BART chief, Kevin Franklin — is a fake made with generative AI.
The bigoted video, which the Chronicle obtained, has prompted an internal investigation, along with orders from the chief that officers at the agency refrain from harassing colleagues. The union representing rank-and-file officers, meanwhile, reminded them to “exercise sound judgment when communicating digitally,” while recommending they proactively scrub their phones of any potentially offensive content.
Me again: There’s the police union in action: Remember, badge-buddies, to keep your racism off the record!
Excerpt: His family said Alberto entered the U.S. without proper documentation, but had no criminal record. As he remained in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), his health began to deteriorate and his son said he was reportedly denied medical care.
“He would send them a message that said, ‘I need medical attention,’ and they would ignore it until he passed out last Wednesday,” said Erick Gutierrez, Alberto’s son. “They took him to the emergency room and unfortunately, last Friday, he passed away.”
Excerpt: Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has a cochlear implant.
“No child should be ripped from their home community and hidden in a detention center, especially not a Deaf child who is being deprived of the ability to communicate and understand what is happening to him,” Tony Thurmond, the California superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement on Friday. “I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now. These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end.”
Excerpt: Detainees seeking health care in the GEO facility described receiving devastating misdiagnoses and prescriptions for the wrong medicines.
People suffered from chest pain, body pain, uncontrollable vomiting and headaches, said V Reeves of the housing advocacy group Housekeys Action Network Denver. The response, detainees reported: a single dose of Ibuprofen.
… GEO’s “volunteer work” program, where people earn $1 a day, felt more like forced labor to multiple detainees, who said they would be punished if they did not participate. Advocates likened the program to “sharecropping.”
… Inmates said they were placed in solitary confinement for stretches of time — sometimes when they were a victim of a crime. In solitary, they missed meals and were denied phone calls, commissary use and visits.
Guards treated detainees “like animals,” several people told the investigators.
“I don’t know if they treat us bad because they’re racist or because of the color of our [orange] uniforms,” one inmate said in the report. “The new ones are a little worse, they act like they’re part of ICE, part of the system, like they’ve chosen this job just to mistreat us.”
Excerpt: The driver in the stolen vehicle, a woman who has been identified as Anna Giza, took law enforcement on a pursuit that began more than 10 miles north of where the crash occurred.
The truck was stolen from Fort Lauderdale. However, authorities said it was equipped with a tracking device.
At some point, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, the truck was stopped but then hit two parked law enforcement cars.
Eventually, a PIT maneuver stopped the stolen truck on the Turnpike, but not before it slammed into a black Nissan Altima and killed the woman behind the wheel.
Excerpt: Former DeKalb police officer Russell Mathis will also be eligible to have his conviction sealed under Georgia’s First Offender Act if he successfully completes his 10-year sentence, after pleading guilty under an Alford plea in the 2022 killing of 37-year-old Marando Salmon inside his Stone Mountain home.
Mathis was sentenced to two years of house arrest, followed by eight years of probation after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter on February 11. He was also ordered to pay $4,700 to Salmon’s family for funeral expenses, but he will not be required to wear an ankle monitor while on house arrest.
Excerpt: Prosecutions for non-immigration crimes tied to Operation Midway Blitz have disintegrated at an alarming rate at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse since October. Cases against 17 of 32 known defendants have already collapsed, including the ones against Collins and Robledo.
But they still come at a cost. A federal prosecution is intimidating. It carries the threat of prison time. Damaging news stories spread online. Freedoms are often restricted, even in minor cases. Lawyers are needed, though federal defenders have saved people from big legal bills.
Then there’s jail.
The 17 cleared defendants spent a combined 150 days in federal custody, records show. That doesn’t include 35 days, and counting, that Juan Espinoza Martinez has been held by immigration authorities since he was acquitted for allegedly placing a hit on Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who became the face of the deportation operation.
Excerpt: Slidell Police Chief Daniel Seuzeneau says a corrections officer in his department has “tarnished this badge, this uniform” of the Slidell Police Department.
His comments come the day after the FBI arrested 31-year-old Slidell Police Corrections Officer Nicholas Engolia on charges of sending obscene material to a minor and coercion and enticement of a minor.
Excerpt: A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement, “The employee is on leave and appropriate disciplinary action will be taken in accordance with standard procedure. While we cannot comment on personnel matters, we hold all of our employees to the highest standards of ethical conduct at all times.”
Excerpt: The video begins without audio as the sound buffers. Baltimore County police officer Derek Hadel, a nine-year department veteran, walks up to Brown’s car. Brown gets out and says something to Hadel.
Video then shows Hadel extend his arm and push Brown away from him. Brown swipes at the officer’s hand twice. Hadel then punches Brown multiple times.
Brown then falls to the ground and hits his head on the street, video shows.
“You can see at the time of the attack, Big Sam was obviously drunk. He was defenseless because he was standing still with his arms at his side when he got hit,” said Billy Murphy, the family’s attorney.
Excerpt: On the morning of Feb. 28, just as he always did, LaMorie texted his mom an inspirational quote, Neiberger said.
“Life is too short to be mad at everyone, so I’m nice to almost everyone instead,” the text read. Hours later, his mother received a frightening phone call from her son. He told her he was in suicidal crisis and had called the police for a wellness check, part of a safety plan he had in place, Neiberger said. His mother called a suicide hotline and was patched through to Howard County police, telling them he was autistic and at risk of harming himself.
Officers who responded to LaMorie’s call early on March 1 found him outside the apartment building holding a knife, police said. Two of the officers at the scene had undergone crisis intervention training for handling such incidents, Howard County police said. When LaMorie didn’t drop the knife after repeated commands, state officials said, three officers shot him as he approached them. He died at the scene.
Excerpt: Samantha Thomason says the officer sent intimate videos and a nude photo from her phone to himself while she was detained following a traffic stop. Detroit police confirm the officer is under investigation and was arrested earlier this week.
Excerpt: Duncan was initially charged with two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct and three counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct but pleaded down to one of the charges to serve six months in jail and 15 years of probation.
Excerpt: Former Minnesota state Sen. Matt Little was lawfully observing federal immigration agents in a Dakota County neighborhood last month when the drive took an unexpected turn.
As he followed their vehicles, they led him down a rural road that grew increasingly familiar during the 20-minute drive. Soon, Little told The Intercept, he realized where the federal agents were headed: his house.
Excerpt: Hollingsworth and her daughters were sitting in a vehicle and waiting for a friend when they were approached by police who were investigating a report of harassment. According to the lawsuit, an officer “proceeded to demand Ms. Hollingsworth respond to his inquiries without providing her with any means to communicate, despite Ms. Hollingsworth and her children repeatedly informing him that she is deaf and Ms. Hollingsworth requesting the use of written notes.”
The lawsuit states the officer was also wearing a neck gaiter and she couldn’t recognize that he was speaking or read his lips. It also states he refused to let her use pen and paper to communicate and the officer didn’t attempt to locate or use a qualified interpreter.
By the time another officer arrived on the scene, the lawsuit states the situation had turned into an “unnecessary physical confrontation.” Hollingsworth was “violently forced from her car for her so-called non-compliance, shoved to the ground, and twisted and cuffed her hands — her primary means of communication — behind her back while her daughters watched in horror.” She was arrested but not cited for any crimes.
This incident is leading to changes for the department. According to the City of North Las Vegas, all officers now receive annual mandatory deaf sensitivity training.
Excerpt: In August 2022, Adams County deputies raided the home of Joseph Foreman, better known as Afroman, with a search warrant tied to an investigation into possible drugs and kidnapping victims. No charges were filed after the raid.
… Afroman said the raid left damage throughout his home, and that the Adams County Sheriff’s Office told him it was not responsible for paying for repairs.
“The guy started laughing and waddling his head, and said we’re not required to do that. They were unapologetic,” Afroman said.
Afroman said he turned the experience into music, using his own security footage from the raid in a music video to help pay for the repairs.
“I use my personal life to write my music,” he said. “Will you help me repair my gate, will you help me repair my door. I’m singing about what actually happened to me.”
Deputies who appear in the video are now suing the rapper for damages caused by their likenesses being used in the video.
Excerpt: The moment 19-year-old Emely Agustin spotted the group of masked immigration agents tackling a woman facedown on the pavement, her heart dropped.
She saw the woman’s red jacket. “Oh my fucking God. That’s my mom!” she screamed.
Excerpt: Immigration and Customs Enforcement are trying to deport a journalist covering immigration, in one of the most egregious attacks on freedom of speech under Donald Trump’s administration so far, Migrant Insider reported Friday.
Estefany Maria Rodríguez Flores, a reporter who’d been covering a series of immigration raids in Nashville, Tennessee, was headed to the gym with her husband Wednesday when her vehicle was swarmed by federal agents. Her car bore the name of her newsroom, Nashville Noticias.
The agents did not produce a warrant for her arrest, her attorney told Migrant Insider. They simply presented her with a Notice to Appear—the first of many steps toward deportation.
Rodríguez Flores, who entered the country legally in 2021 and later married a U.S. citizen, was in the process of applying for permanent residency. When her recent appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was canceled and an agent was unable to find her name in the system, she got a handwritten note rescheduling her for a meeting March 17—in less than two weeks.
It wasn’t immediately clear where Rodríguez was taken. “We don’t know where she is,” her husband, Alejandro, who is still in Tennessee with their child, told Migrant Insider. He hasn’t been able to speak to her since Wednesday.
Excerpt: In January, staff at Camp East Montana called 911 to request emergency help for Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old from Cuba. DHS described his death as an attempted suicide. A medical examiner later ruled it a homicide. That same month, staff at the detention facility called 911 to report that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide. The AP reports that “detainees attempted to harm themselves while expressing suicidal ideations on at least six other occasions that resulted in 911 calls.”
Excerpt: In an internal report released by a nonprofit watchdog group last month, ICE said Martinez “accelerated forward” and struck an agent during the March 2025 incident. The Department of Homeland Security claimed in a statement that an ICE agent had fired “defensive shots” into Martinez’s vehicle after Martinez “intentionally ran over” another agent.
But body camera video, which has not been previously reported, shows that Martinez’s vehicle, a blue Ford Fusion, was stationary or going at a very low rate of speed when he was fatally shot. When gunshots are heard in the video, the brake lights of Martinez’ vehicle appear to be on.
After he’s shot three times, Martinez is seen being pulled from his vehicle, thrown to the ground by an ICE agent, face down, and then handcuffed. Personnel on the scene are not seen in the video providing medical care until after he is handcuffed.
Excerpt: The family of a man who reportedly died last year after an injury in prison is suing the Vermont Department of Corrections and its health care provider, claiming that prison and medical staff didn’t properly treat the man’s diabetes, leading to his death at 40 years old.
Jason Colebaugh died last April from injuries he sustained on March 2, 2025, when he fell from his top bunk onto his cell floor in Northern Correctional Facility in Newport during a seizure prompted by low blood sugar, according to his family’s lawsuit.
Colebaugh fell “head first onto the concrete floor” while he seized, said Lisa Steadman, Colebaugh’s mother, at a press conference Monday in downtown Burlington. The impact fractured his skull and nicked an artery, causing a brain bleed that led to his death, she said.
… Steadman, on behalf of her son’s estate, is suing the Vermont Department of Corrections, a handful of individual employees and the for-profit health care company Wellpath, which the department contracts to provide medical services.
Excerpt: The inmate alleges that Griffin grabbed his genitals and slammed his head into the van floor on the transport from the facility, knocking him unconscious. Griffin told investigators the inmate was not being cooperative and was trying to harm himself.
In body camera footage of the incident reviewed by Detective Matthew Sutton, Griffin could be heard saying, “It’s time to start playing big boy games with him. He don’t like you touching his balls, so if he does something stupid, grab his nuts.” Footage indicated Griffin had repeated the suggestion to grab the inmate’s genitalia a second time.
The inmate also reported that Griffin said he was going to kill the inmate and told the other transport officer how much he hated the inmate. The other transport officer agreed that Griffin hated the inmate but never heard him say Griffin wanted to kill him.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it’s not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they’re investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers’ names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with ‘law enforcement experience’ and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It’s called “Wandering Cops.”
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: “testilying.” Yet it’s almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don’t, they aren’t cops for long.
The legal doctrine of “qualified immunity” renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past ‘qualified immunity’ is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
Excerpt: Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.
Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was “directly responsible” for the riot. Loudermilk’s referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.
Excerpt: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from ordinary apps like video games, dating services, and fitness trackers, according to an internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media.
The document shows in stark terms the power, and potential risk, of online advertising data and how it can be leveraged by government agencies for surveillance purposes. The news comes after ICE purchased similar tools that can monitor the movements of phones in entire neighborhoods.
… This sort of information is a “goldmine for tracking where every person is and what they read, watch, and listen to,” Johnny Ryan, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) Enforce, which has closely followed the sale of advertising data, told 404 Media in an email.
… This sort of surveillance can happen through all sorts of innocuous seeming apps, such as video games, news apps, weather trackers, and dating apps. 404 Media has previously linked RTB-based surveillance to games like Candy Crush and Subway Surfers; dating apps Tinder and Grindr; the social network Tumblr, and the popular fitness app MyFitnessPal. In many cases, the app developers themselves are likely unaware they are acting as a conduit for government surveillance because the data collection is not based on any code the app creators have included themselves. The end result is tools that can potentially track hundreds of millions of phones, often without a warrant.
Excerpt: On an evening in late January, Emily was driving through her Minneapolis neighborhood doing something that had become part of her routine in recent weeks: patrolling for ICE.
Emily, who NPR is only identifying by her first name because she fears retribution from the federal government, says she followed an ICE vehicle at a safe distance into a parking lot. “And then someone leaned out of the passenger side of that SUV and took a picture of me and my car,” she says.
Emily says she decided to leave at that point, but the SUV made a sudden U-turn and barreled towards her, braking next to her driver’s side window. A female agent wearing a gaiter-style mask rolled down the window, leaned out — and addressed Emily by name.
“She yelled, ‘Emily, Emily, we’re going to take you home!’ Then she looked at her phone and she recited my home address,” she says.
Excerpt: His family said Alberto entered the U.S. without proper documentation, but had no criminal record. As he remained in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), his health began to deteriorate and his son said he was reportedly denied medical care.
“He would send them a message that said, ‘I need medical attention,’ and they would ignore it until he passed out last Wednesday,” said Erick Gutierrez, Alberto’s son. “They took him to the emergency room and unfortunately, last Friday, he passed away.”
Excerpt: Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has a cochlear implant.
“No child should be ripped from their home community and hidden in a detention center, especially not a Deaf child who is being deprived of the ability to communicate and understand what is happening to him,” Tony Thurmond, the California superintendent of public instruction, said in a statement on Friday. “I am calling on the federal government to return our student to his school community now. These inhumane and illegal attacks on our families must end.”
Excerpt: Detainees seeking health care in the GEO facility described receiving devastating misdiagnoses and prescriptions for the wrong medicines.
People suffered from chest pain, body pain, uncontrollable vomiting and headaches, said V Reeves of the housing advocacy group Housekeys Action Network Denver. The response, detainees reported: a single dose of Ibuprofen.
… GEO’s “volunteer work” program, where people earn $1 a day, felt more like forced labor to multiple detainees, who said they would be punished if they did not participate. Advocates likened the program to “sharecropping.”
… Inmates said they were placed in solitary confinement for stretches of time — sometimes when they were a victim of a crime. In solitary, they missed meals and were denied phone calls, commissary use and visits.
Guards treated detainees “like animals,” several people told the investigators.
“I don’t know if they treat us bad because they’re racist or because of the color of our [orange] uniforms,” one inmate said in the report. “The new ones are a little worse, they act like they’re part of ICE, part of the system, like they’ve chosen this job just to mistreat us.”
Excerpt: Prosecutions for non-immigration crimes tied to Operation Midway Blitz have disintegrated at an alarming rate at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse since October. Cases against 17 of 32 known defendants have already collapsed, including the ones against Collins and Robledo.
But they still come at a cost. A federal prosecution is intimidating. It carries the threat of prison time. Damaging news stories spread online. Freedoms are often restricted, even in minor cases. Lawyers are needed, though federal defenders have saved people from big legal bills.
Then there’s jail.
The 17 cleared defendants spent a combined 150 days in federal custody, records show. That doesn’t include 35 days, and counting, that Juan Espinoza Martinez has been held by immigration authorities since he was acquitted for allegedly placing a hit on Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who became the face of the deportation operation.
Excerpt: Former Minnesota state Sen. Matt Little was lawfully observing federal immigration agents in a Dakota County neighborhood last month when the drive took an unexpected turn.
As he followed their vehicles, they led him down a rural road that grew increasingly familiar during the 20-minute drive. Soon, Little told The Intercept, he realized where the federal agents were headed: his house.
Excerpt: The moment 19-year-old Emely Agustin spotted the group of masked immigration agents tackling a woman facedown on the pavement, her heart dropped.
She saw the woman’s red jacket. “Oh my fucking God. That’s my mom!” she screamed.
Excerpt: Immigration and Customs Enforcement are trying to deport a journalist covering immigration, in one of the most egregious attacks on freedom of speech under Donald Trump’s administration so far, Migrant Insider reported Friday.
Estefany Maria Rodríguez Flores, a reporter who’d been covering a series of immigration raids in Nashville, Tennessee, was headed to the gym with her husband Wednesday when her vehicle was swarmed by federal agents. Her car bore the name of her newsroom, Nashville Noticias.
The agents did not produce a warrant for her arrest, her attorney told Migrant Insider. They simply presented her with a Notice to Appear—the first of many steps toward deportation.
Rodríguez Flores, who entered the country legally in 2021 and later married a U.S. citizen, was in the process of applying for permanent residency. When her recent appointment with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was canceled and an agent was unable to find her name in the system, she got a handwritten note rescheduling her for a meeting March 17—in less than two weeks.
It wasn’t immediately clear where Rodríguez was taken. “We don’t know where she is,” her husband, Alejandro, who is still in Tennessee with their child, told Migrant Insider. He hasn’t been able to speak to her since Wednesday.
Excerpt: In January, staff at Camp East Montana called 911 to request emergency help for Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old from Cuba. DHS described his death as an attempted suicide. A medical examiner later ruled it a homicide. That same month, staff at the detention facility called 911 to report that a 36-year-old Nicaraguan man died by suicide. The AP reports that “detainees attempted to harm themselves while expressing suicidal ideations on at least six other occasions that resulted in 911 calls.”
Excerpt: In an internal report released by a nonprofit watchdog group last month, ICE said Martinez “accelerated forward” and struck an agent during the March 2025 incident. The Department of Homeland Security claimed in a statement that an ICE agent had fired “defensive shots” into Martinez’s vehicle after Martinez “intentionally ran over” another agent.
But body camera video, which has not been previously reported, shows that Martinez’s vehicle, a blue Ford Fusion, was stationary or going at a very low rate of speed when he was fatally shot. When gunshots are heard in the video, the brake lights of Martinez’ vehicle appear to be on.
After he’s shot three times, Martinez is seen being pulled from his vehicle, thrown to the ground by an ICE agent, face down, and then handcuffed. Personnel on the scene are not seen in the video providing medical care until after he is handcuffed.
Excerpt: When Kathy Magnuson was young, she signed her Social Security card with pride, if not precision, by her maiden name: “Kathy A. Brown.”
She got married in 1963 and signed her new card more formally, “Kathleen A. Magnuson.” A later replacement card got the full treatment, “Kathleen Ann Magnuson.” These name variations mingled across her official documents for decades to follow.
Recently, Magnuson exerted significant energy to prove these names refer to the same person: herself, now 82, a retired teacher’s aide from Stillwater. It was annoying, she said, but also concerning. That’s because complicated new voter identification requirements — such as those proposed in the so-called SAVE Act — risk impeding our most fundamental rights as Americans, starting with people like her.
Nowadays, Magnuson lives with her husband of 62 years on Ely Lake, just south of Eveleth, Minn. Late last year she applied for and received an enhanced ID when she renewed her driver’s license. Then early this year she found out that her application was being audited because of a discrepancy between the “A” and the “Ann” in her records.
The necessary paperwork was in a safety deposit box, which Magnuson visited several times over the span of a week, first to get what she needed to request a certified birth certificate. Then, when everything seemed to be in order, she learned that her marriage certificate was never properly stamped. To square everything, she would have to travel three hours to Washington County to receive a stamp on a piece of paper that originated during the Kennedy administration.
At this point, Magnuson said she unleashed a “tirade” over the phone. Though, after talking to her myself, I suspect that this diatribe was mostly a polite one. Nevertheless, her feelings are understandable, especially as we watch the U.S. Senate deliberate over the SAVE Act.
“If everybody had to go through all this to vote, it would be a crazy impediment,” she told me.
Excerpt: A proposal in the Tennessee General Assembly would expand when courts can place some juveniles in secure detention by creating a new legal category for youth considered “at risk of violent behavior.”
Under Tennessee Senate Bill 1868, judges could detain a child if there is probable cause to believe the child is a “child in need of heightened supervision.” The designation would apply to juveniles who have exhibited or threatened behavior consistent with certain violent crimes, including offenses such as murder, robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault and some weapons or felony drug offenses.
Me again: Call me old fashioned, but I prefer innocent until proven guilty.
Full text: The police officers were taunted and beaten. Some were knocked unconscious and dragged down stone steps, tear gas stinging their throats, to chants of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” on Jan. 6, 2021, as hundreds, then thousands, swarmed the citadel of American democracy.
Now, more than five years later — and years after Congress ordered a memorial honoring the officers be installed at the Capitol — workers placed the plaque inside the building they protected from a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters intent on overturning his 2020 election loss.
In the predawn darkness Saturday, around 4 a.m., staff with the Architect of the Capitol bolted the bronze plaque to a granite wall near an entrance on the west front, close to where the armed crowd had amassed and scaled scaffolding set up for the inauguration. They wheeled the plaque, stored in plywood, across the stone basement floor and guided it through the double doors. They raised the tribute with a jack table and began bolting it to the wall, the clang of their tools ringing out through otherwise empty hallways.
There was no announcement, no ceremony, no news cameras — just two employees on their routine overnight shift working while most of Washington slept. The quiet installation, which Congress ordered completed by mid-March 2023, marks the latest turn in the contested effort to remember Jan. 6, as Trump continues to reframe the riot as patriotic and the rioters as victims of a weaponized justice system.
Congress passed a law in March 2022 mandating the installation of a memorial plaque within a year. Instead, the plaque sat in the Capitol basement, surrounded by maintenance equipment. It lists the names of almost two dozen local, state and federal law enforcement agencies including the D.C. police, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Capitol Police, the National Guard and the Maryland and Virginia state police.
Democrats have pressed for implementation in the years since, saying the only thing keeping the plaque from public view was that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) had yet to instruct the Architect of the Capitol — which oversees the complex — to install it. A spokesperson for Johnson at the time argued the project was “not implementable.” Some lawmakers took it upon themselves to memorialize the law enforcement response, mounting copies of the plaque outside their office doors.
Last summer, two police officers who responded to the riot sued the Architect of the Capitol to have the congressional memorial installed and, according to federal court records, “to honor the women and men who saved the lives of those inside the building, and to ensure that the history of this attack on the Capitol — and on democracy — is not forgotten.”
In January, senators passed by unanimous consent a resolution ordering the display of the plaque on the Senate side of the Capitol building “until the plaque can be placed in its permanent location.” It was a seemingly rare moment of bipartisanship, helmed by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon).
Five people died during the attack or its immediate aftermath. Among them was Brian D. Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer who suffered two strokes and died a day after he confronted rioters. He was 42 years old. More than 140 officers were injured. At least four officers later died by suicide.
Trump, however, has called Jan. 6 a “day of love.” For hours that afternoon, he made little effort to quell the assault he helped instigate. When he ultimately shared a video telling people to “go home,” he continued to spread the falsehood that he won the election by “a landslide.”
On the first day of his second term, he granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack, effectively wiping away a years-long effort by federal investigations to seek accountability. Earlier this year, on the fifth anniversary of the attack, his administration unveiled a website filled largely with falsehoods, including a claim that Capitol Police had “turned a peaceful demonstration into chaos.”
Architect of the Capitol staff were already back at work just hours after the riot ended, sweeping shattered glass and hauling away broken furniture. Their HVAC team offered their eyewash stations to officers struck by pepper spray and tear gas.
About half an hour in, the two employees lifted their screwdrivers and began to tighten. They used a level to check the installation was straight. Then they checked again and again. “Don’t want this thing coming off,” one of the employees said, picking up his screwdriver and checking the bolts anew.
They stepped back and looked at the plaque, newly displayed. It reads: “On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten.”
Two other colleagues watched. “Work like this typically takes place after hours, when visitors are not in the hallways,” said Todd Andrews, a senior spokesman for the Architect of the Capitol, when asked about the reason for an overnight assembly. A ceremony is probably forthcoming, he added.
On the wall near the plaque, they affixed a QR code titled “Honored Law Enforcement.” A scan with a smartphone takes the viewer to a list of officers present that day. The list goes on for 45 pages.
By 4:25 a.m. they had finished. They packed up their tools and wheeled the plywood away, leaving the hallway empty once more. Outside, the air was damp and filled with birdsong, the darkness gradually receding with the dawn of a new day.
Excerpt: On Thursday night, the Department of Justice released at least some of those files, and they are harrowing. An FBI interview that took place on August 7, 2019, describes a woman who claimed that Epstein brought her to meet Trump “when she was between 13 to 15 years old.”
The interview contains horrifying details, including the alleged assault and its aftermath…
Excerpt: Mr. Schwartz had not been shy about sharing the strategy behind his clemency campaign with other inmates, so they knew he had paid multiple people to try to get the job done, according to two people familiar with conversations at Otisville.
Nearly a million dollars went to right-wing operatives who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer, a social media provocateur who has the ear of Mr. Trump, to advocate for Mr. Schwartz’s release. Another $100,000 or more was paid to a lobbyist who had a different set of connections to Mr. Trump — pro-Israel evangelicals.
Thousands more went to lawyers who had personal relationships with Alice Marie Johnson, Mr. Trump’s “pardon czar,” and David Warrington, the White House counsel, according to four people familiar with the effort.
Excerpt: In 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.
In what experts described as a highly unusual arrangement, the nonprofit routed funds to a personal company of Noem’s that had recently been established in Delaware. The payment totaled $80,000 that year, a significant boost to her roughly $130,000 government salary. Since the nonprofit is a so-called dark money group — one that’s not required to disclose the names of its donors — the original source of the money remains unknown.
Me again: And yeah, Noem has been shifted to “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” and whatever that means she’s the wrong person for the job, but it doesn’t make her any less a criminal. Proceed with the prosecutions, please.
Excerpt: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem’s directive requiring she sign off on any department expense over $100,000 has delayed tens of millions of dollars in grants, contracts and funding awards to help communities rebuild and recover after disasters, according to a report released Wednesday by Senate Democrats.
Compiled by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the report is based on data in “an internal tracker provided by whistleblowers,” the lawmakers said. They have called on Noem to immediately rescind the directive she first introduced in June.
Noem’s policy, they said, has been implemented through an “ad hoc review process” with no firm deadlines, which has led to average delays of three weeks and sometimes far longer on decisions around much-needed disaster aid. Details in the document corroborate reports from numerous current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to The Washington Post about how the policy has held up critical resources in recent months.
The report identifies what it says are “at least 1,034 FEMA contracts, grants, or disaster assistance awards” that have been delayed or remain pending, including for victims of July’s deadly flooding in Texas and the catastrophic Hurricane Helene, which hit swaths of the Southeast in the fall of 2024.
Excerpt: The Justice Department has proposed a regulation seeking to authorize Attorney General Pam Bondi to suspend state bar ethics investigations into current and former DOJ lawyers—a step outside attorneys quickly criticized as an illegal intervention into state-run processes.
The proposal, posted in the Federal Register Wednesday, would aim to halt state-level ethics proceedings against DOJ lawyers while the department conducts its own review, which would diminish local bar associations’ power.
The department unveiled the unexpected policy by saying the change is necessary in light of the “weaponization” of the bar complaint process.
Excerpt: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) will send a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday urging him to use executive authority to reduce some of the taxes paid on capital gains — a change that would lower the tax burden on Americans selling stocks, businesses, homes and other assets, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release. The senators argue the administration does not need congressional approval to make the shift, although some conservative legal experts and Treasury officials have disagreed with that conclusion in the past.
Excerpt: Ndiaga Diagne, the man accused of killing three people and injuring 15 others in a downtown Austin shooting spree, was a former Tesla employee who worked at Gigafactory Texas, where he allegedly assaulted a fellow employee late last year. A lawsuit filed by the co-worker accuses the automaker of failing to provide a safe work environment and know the backgrounds of its employees.
Lillian Mendoza Brady also accuses Tesla Inc. of withholding Diagne’s name since the alleged assault Dec. 4.
The Buda resident, who filed suit Thursday in state district court in Travis County, only learned his identity after the mass shooting early Sunday, when pictures of Diagne began circulating in news media. Since he was identified, information suggesting Diagne possessed a violent temperament also has surfaced.
Me again: Let’s say it more directly: The mass shooter had earlier assaulted Lillian Mendoza Brady on company grounds, but Tesla wouldn’t identify him, so the victim couldn’t press charges. La di da, la di da, and then he went on to become a mass shooter.
Excerpt: Footage posted to X by Communications Advisor Margo Martin shows a prayer circle surrounding Trump, as he sits behind his desk in the Oval Office.
One man leads the prayer saying: “I pray for your grace and your protection over him. I pray for your grace and your protection over our troops and all of our men and women serving in our armed forces. And father we just pray you continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our nation as we come back to one nation under God.”
Excerpt: The uproar is over the latest edition of the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, which has been published since 1994 by the Federal Judicial Center, an agency that provides resources to judges. A group of Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to the center on Jan. 29, claiming that the climate chapter was biased and demanding its retraction. About a week later, the center deleted the chapter from its online edition of the nearly 1,700-page manual.
Excerpt: A lawyer for the Trump administration told a judge on Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has such broad authority over vaccine policy that he could even scrap recommendations for measles shots in favor of people deliberately exposing themselves to the virus.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Isaac Belfer offered that hypothetical as he urged U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston to rule that Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic, and other health officials have such unfettered authority that their vaccine decisions are not subject to court review.
Belfer said that authority should preclude a lawsuit by medical groups seeking to block a wide range of vaccine policy changes under Kennedy, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s January decision to cut the recommended number of shots for children.
… “Is it your position that is totally unreviewable?” Murphy asked. “If the secretary said instead of getting a shot to prevent measles I think you should get a shot that gives you measles, is that unreviewable?”
Excerpt: Under pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dozens of American medical schools have agreed to rework their curriculums to teach more about nutrition, according to federal officials, records and interviews with medical leaders.
Mr. Kennedy, who has made healthy eating a centerpiece of his campaign to address what he calls an epidemic of chronic disease, has spent months pressuring medical schools to adopt his ideas, threatening funding cuts and promising public recognition.
The recommended curriculum draws heavily on the work of Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, and her brother, Calley, a close adviser to Mr. Kennedy. The secretary said in his speech in Austin that his team had met with accreditors and the groups behind the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam, as well as 100 medical schools.
Excerpt: President Trump heralded his signature drug discount platform, TrumpRx, as “one of the most transformative health care initiatives of all time.” But a month after its launch, few drugs are available, data about how much the site is being used remains unknown, and the private deals underlying TrumpRx are still being worked out. In response to questions from STAT, administration officials declined to offer details on the number of new drugs expected to be added, when that may happen, or on how many people have used the site.
Almost half the 43 drugs listed on TrumpRx were already available more cheaply as generics, a STAT analysis found. Plus, spending on TrumpRx typically doesn’t count toward insurance deductibles. At launch, Joe Gebbia, the U.S. chief design officer who helped build the site, said the administration would add “more and more drugs, week over week.” A month later, the site has 44, a tiny slice of the 24,000 prescription drugs that federal regulators have approved.
Excerpt: President Donald Trump acquired between $600k and $1.25 million worth of Netflix bonds in two transactions in January, according to a disclosure today on the website of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
The filing shows a purchase worth $500k to $1 million on January 2 and another worth $100k-$250k on January 20.
Trump previously acquired $500k to $1 million in Netflix bonds in December after the company signed a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery. Following a noisy takeover battle, WBD terminated that agreement last week and is now selling itself to David Ellison’s Paramount.
Excerpt: A recall of Trader Joe’s food products that may contain glass was significantly expanded on Tuesday to more than 36 million pounds nationwide, officials said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a news release that 36,987,575 pounds of various ready-to-eat and frozen chicken and pork fried rice, ramen, and shu mai dumpling products were being pulled from shelves.
Me again: Sure seems to be Trader Joe’s a lot, when I read about recalls like this. Which bummers me out, since some of their glassy fried rice is in my freezer.
In a factory setting, it’s easy to understand how glass or metal bits might plop onto the assembly line, but I’ve never grokked how such oopsies escape notice on the day it happens. They’re unaware that six of the skylights shattered until some end-of-week audit? Why is there no safeguard, no off-switch while glass bits are flying around, so millions of pounds of glassy food don’t get packaged and shipped stores?
Also, memo to NBC News: 36,987,575 pounds is indeed “over 36 million pounds” but it’s more mathily accurate to say “almost 37 million pounds.”
Excerpt: “Charter has committed to new safeguards to protect against DEI discrimination and has reaffirmed the merged entity’s commitment to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination. Specifically, Charter commits to recruiting, hiring, and promoting individuals based on the factors that matter most: skills, qualifications, and experience.”
Excerpt: Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz, dog-walker Sarah Daither, and former lobbyist Jay Footlik were among six who managed to flee on a plane chartered by the former after US strikes on Iran unleashed chaos in the region.
‘This has easily been the craziest experience of my life,’ Bruesewitz told Politico.
‘I’m grateful for all of the people who played a role in getting us out of the active war zone and to safety. I can’t wait to get back to the USA, the greatest country in the world!’
Bruesewitz used his White House connections along with officials in Saudi Arabia and Qatar to get the group of six out of the Middle East safely after many airports were closed and the US Embassy told its employees to shelter-in-place.
Excerpt: The Justice Department has formed a working group to examine possible federal charges against officials or entities within Cuba’s government, according to an official familiar with the group.
The formation of the group could be a significant step in the Trump administration’s public push to topple the regime in Cuba.
Officials from government agencies including the Treasury Department will be part of the recently formed group. Treasury’s involvement could mean the Trump administration is considering further sanctions against Cuba, already the subject of intense U.S. economic sanctions.
The working group is exploring potential crimes related to immigration, economics and more. Another person familiar with the working group said federal prosecutors in Florida are also working with local partners in the state to bring potential charges against Cuban officials.
The effort to bring charges against Cuban officials coincides with President Donald Trump saying that his administration is eyeing Cuba as the next country whose government might be overthrown, following the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in early January and the killing of Iran’s supreme leader last Saturday.
Me again: So, here comes an attempted invasion of Cuba, to arrest Cuban officials. If it had been a test on a high school quiz, the correct answer would be that American law holds no force in Cuba…
Excerpt: “He’s doing some job, and your next one is going to be, we want to do that special Cuba,” Trump said Thursday referring to his Secretary of State. “He’s waiting. But he says, ‘Let’s get this one finished first.’ We could do them all at the same time, but bad things happen. If you watch countries over the years, you do them all too fast, bad things happen. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to this country.”
Excerpt: While most European leaders have responded to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran with condemnations of the Iranian regime and tepid calls for “de-escalation” designed not to offend Washington, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has unequivocally condemned the war on Iran as a breach of international law.
Contrast that with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who chose to insist at the war’s outset that “this is not the time to lecture our partners and allies” about potential violations of international law.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer went to considerable lengths trying to have it both ways: on the one hand, appealing to the international law, on the other he allowed Washington the use of the British military bases for “defensive operations” – which, in effect, are no such a thing as they include targeting Iranian missile launchers on the Iranian territory. He still incurred President Donald Trump’s insult that Starmer is “no Winston Churchill.”
The leaders of other major European countries have performed only slightly better – French President Emmanuel Macron waited for fully four days to declare that the U.S./Israel war is “outside international law.” And even then, he pledged to send air defense assets and a warship to defend the island of Cyprus from the strikes from Iran on the British military base there, in retaliation for the UK’s support for attacks on Iran.
Macron also said he wanted to build an international coalition to secure commercial shipping routes “essential to the global economy.” He said France would contribute its aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
Sanchez’ position deserves attention because not only did he talk the talk but he also walked the walk. In foreign policy, coherence is a matter of credibility.
Concretely, Sánchez has refused to allow U.S. aircraft to use the jointly operated naval and air bases at Rota and Morón in Spain for strikes against Tehran. That decision predictably elicited Trump’s ire. He called Spain “terrible” and threatened to cut off all trade with Madrid. He also said if he wanted to use Spanish bases he would “fly in there” if he wanted to.
“We could just fly in and use it, nobody is going to tell us not to use it. But we don’t have to,” he said.
Far from folding, Sanchez doubled down by rejecting the violations of international law in a historic televised address to the nation. He dismissed the “illusion that we can solve the world’s problems with bombs” and vowed not “to repeat the mistakes of the past.” The position of the Spanish government can be summarized in four words he uttered: “No to the war.”
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Joey Jo Jo & John the Basketemeritus, Jeff Meyer, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn’t always shitty.
News always and only from reliable sources, and I decide what’s reliable — no right-wing bullshit, no Substack because fuck Nazis, and no RawStory, Newsweek, or other clickbait sites. Written news is preferred; video links will be rare, and damned near never to videos where a reporter or podcaster simply reads a script or does improv — that’s show biz, not news.
If a paywall prevents access to any coverage linked here, let me know. I’ll reply with the article’s complete text.
If I’m finally all better from whatever disease hit me last month, when does my strength come back? Any time now, please.
Today I’m very low on energy, so instead of me doing any real writing, you get more letters to Pathetic Life:
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A bit of background, from here and now: It’s something i haven’t re-typed as I’ve put Pathetic Life on-line, but at the back of every on-paper issue, mostly as filler, there was a small list of people I said thanks to, usually for things unmentioned, and always under the kindhearted headline, “People Who Shouldn’t Be Shot.”
In the November 1995 list, I wrote:
I’d like to start with sincere thanks to Diane & Jeffrey, who send three bucks each month for the next issue, and though they live only a few miles away haven’t once hinted at inviting me to dinner or anything. They’re ideal subscribers — content to laugh at my life from a distance, with no desire to meet the anti-social author.
While I have generally enjoyed meeting most (not all) of the readers I’ve met, it’s always a moment I’d rather avoid. For sparing me that misery, I thank you, Jeffrey & Diane — let’s not get together some time!
A few months later, this letter came:
I don’t know if words can express how nice it was of you to thank us for our non-intrusions, in PL#18’s “People Who Shouldn’t Be Shot.” Your interpretation was correct — we respect your privacy way too much to ever put you on the spot with a request for a face-to-face meeting, and you’re the one and only person who’s ever noticed or acknowledged that.
There’s a confession behind our non-intrusion which might shed enlightenment. We are somewhat in the same position you are in — having people know more about us than we know about them.
We are the owners of a used book store (West Portal Books). It’s just the two of us, no employees, and we are open every day. As a result, over the years a fairly large number of people have come to recognize us. They know who we are, that we’re married and own the store, and various other facts about us gathered in conversation.
We are not famous enough to be celebrities, but we are a little bit of famous, sort of the same way you are. I’m finding it to be a very weird experience. My husband Jeff seems to be handling it fairly well, but I’m not doing so good with it, because I am kind of shy. Privacy means a lot to me (didn’t realize how much until I started to lose some!).
For example, sometimes strangers (they must be former customers we don’t remember) will just walk up to our table in a restaurant and start asking questions about what kind of books we buy from people, how much we pay and stuff. It startles me, and I feel they’ve butted in rudely on our private conversation. They don’t even say “excuse me” or anything.
Another bad personal experience is when I’m just walking down the streets of San Francisco, minding my own bee’s wax, when suddenly a stranger races up to me and shouts, “Aren’t you the lady from the book store?”
Somehow I’m never prepared for it, and it always scares the hell out of me. I’m stunned, standing there sweating and blinking like a toad that’s just been uncovered from a rock or something. Then the person thinks I’m being the rude one, because I’m too shocked to speak. Sometimes they’ll start badgering me, “Well, you ARE the lady from the book store, AREN’T YOU? Huh? Huh? ANSWER ME, GOD DAMN IT!”
I guess they want me to stand and deliver a warm-hearted monologue on Haiku or some kind of bullshit like that, but there’s way too much pressure, so I can’t. Maybe we should consider ourselves to be “mini-celebrities,” and these people are our “mini-stalkers.” So we understand how it goes, sometimes, on the other side of ‘fame’ with a small ‘f’. That’s why we’ve never tried to get up close and personal with you.”
—Diane Goodman, San Francisco
Diane, you’ve said it brilliantly and I’m so glad it’s not “just me being me.” When you’re away from the bookstore, you’re not the bookstore, you’re a person eating in a restaurant or walking along the sidewalk, and you deserve the freedom to be that non-bookstore person.You’re not a walking billboard for the bookstore everywhere you go, and like you, when I’m not typing I am just an anonymous fat guy, not eager to talk about my life with strangers. —DH
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Haven’t been working on the new Attagirl zine lately ’cause I suck. Meanwhile, you rock. Here’s some dough. See ya, and have a nice day. I’m pre-menstrual.
—Sandra Stringer, Attagirl, Columbia SC
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Anonymity is one of the great blessings of urban life. I know most people get some kind of gratification if the grocery clerk recognizes them and says hi, but it just makes me want to go buy my bread somewhere else.
I can imagine that strangers coming up to you with “You must be Doug!” would get on your nerves, preemptively taking away your choice of whether to introduce yourself or not.
—Jeff Carlock, Well Read Fox, Berkeley CA
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Sir: This is to advise you that Norman Edwards died in Akron on December 15, 1995, and I have been appointed executor of his estate.
Your publications 19 and 20 were forwarded to me. Please remove his name from your mailing list and cancel his account. Thank you.
—David E Culbertson, attorney-at-law
When I read “executor of his estate” I briefly daydreamed of an inheritance, but instead it’s a fatal cancellation — a letter from a dead man’s lawyer.
Many readers of the zine send notes, which I read, but according to my half-assed bookkeeping and memory, Norman only sent a couple of fivespots with his name and address, never anything else. And now, never anything ever again.
Adios, Norman. Hope you enjoyed the reading as much as I enjoyed your ten dollars. Go in peace. —DH
Addendum, here and now:West Portal Books, like most of the San FranciscoI lived in and loved, is long gone.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
