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#Christopher Kunzelman
18kgold · 1 year
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Local lawyers believe this is the first time the US has prosecuted Native Hawaiians for hate crimes. The unique case highlights the struggles between Native Hawaiians who are adamant about not having their culture erased and people who move to Hawaii without knowing or considering its history and racial dynamics.
[...] “Haole”, a Hawaiian word with meanings that include foreigner and white person, is central to the case. [...] But it’s more than racial, Rohrer said, explaining how the Hawaiian word has become part of Hawaii Pidgin, the creole language of the islands, to describe behavior or attitudes not in sync with local culture.
“Acting haole” means “acting out of entitlement, and like you own the place”, she said.
[...] Attorneys for Aki and Alo-Kaonohi say it wasn’t Kunzelman’s race that provoked them, but his entitled and disrespectful attitude. Kunzelman came to the village saying he wanted to help residents improve their homes and boost property values, without considering that higher property values come with higher property taxes in a state with the highest cost of living, the defense attorneys said. But the tipping point came when Kunzelman cut locks to village gates, they said.
[...] Both men were prosecuted in state court for the assault. Alo-Kaonohi pleaded no contest to felony assault and was sentenced to probation, while Aki pleaded no contest to terroristic threatening and was sentenced to probation and nearly 200 days in jail. [...] For the federal hate crime, prosecutors are asking for a sentence of about nine years for Alo-Kaonohi and six and a half years for Aki.
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eagletek · 1 year
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Native Hawaiians to be sentenced for hate crime attack on white man | Race
In a case that reflects Hawaii’s nuanced and complicated relationship with race, two Native Hawaiian men are scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for a federal hate crime in the brutal beating of a white man who tried to move into their remote traditional fishing village. A jury convicted Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr in November, finding that they were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman’s…
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recentlyheardcom · 1 year
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Two Hawaiians convicted of hate crime after beating white man
Two Hawaiians convicted of hate crime after beating white man
Two Hawaiian men were convicted of a hate crime after punching, kicking and beating a white man with a shovel in Maui in 2014. Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. were reportedly motivated by Christopher Kunzelman’s run when the incident happened in the village of Kahakuloa, where he was renovating his recently purchased home, the New York Post reported Friday. This week they were jailed…
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investmart007 · 6 years
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | US newsrooms fall silent to honor 5 slain at Maryland paper
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ANNAPOLIS, Md. | US newsrooms fall silent to honor 5 slain at Maryland paper
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Newsrooms usually abuzz with approaching deadlines fell oddly silent as journalists nationwide paused to honor five people shot dead a week before at a Maryland newspaper.
At a temporary office of the Capital Gazette, where the massacre occurred, survivors gathered somberly at 2:33 p.m. Thursday. Editor Rick Hutzell rang a bell and the staff lit candles for each person who died exactly seven days earlier, The Baltimore Sun reported.
At the New York headquarters of The Associated Press, dozens paused to reflect as Manhattan streets kept humming below. At The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, voices cracked as a moment of silence was accompanied by the names of the five victims being read aloud.
“It was incredibly quiet,” said reporter Jane Harper, 55, who once worked at the Annapolis paper. “Not a cellphone rang. Not a desk phone. Not a single sound.”
The American Society of News Editors and The Associated Press Media Editors asked newsrooms around the globe to join in a remembrance of the dead, and many did.
Journalists at The Oklahoman in Oklahoma City worked through tragedy after the deadly bombing of a federal building in 1995, and about 40 newspaper staffers bowed their heads in memory of the victims in Maryland.
“The folks a week ago at the Capital Gazette had a worse experience in their newsroom, and yet they admirably did what they do, what we all do,” business and lifestyle editor Clytie Bunyan said.
The newsroom of the Courier Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, fell silent in memory of the victims after executive editor Joel Christopher read the names of the dead.
“They paid a high price for doing what we do,” he said.
About 100 people gathered at AP in New York to observe a moment of silence, circling around a desk where coverage of national and international stories is planned.
The attack on the Capital Gazette newsroom was “frightening and distressing in so many ways,” AP executive editor Sally Buzbee said.
Jimmie Gates, a reporter who participated in a moment of silence at the Clarion Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, said being a journalist is like being in a small fraternity or sorority, and an injury to any one member hurts all.
“It was just like a family member being taken away,” Gates said.
The remembrance also touched journalism schools. No classes were in session at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, but more than a dozen faculty members and students bowed their heads in memory of the slain newspaper workers.
One of the victims, assistant managing editor Rob Hiaasen, was an adjunct lecturer who taught his first class at the school in the spring semester. Two other victims, editorial page editor Gerald Fischman and John McNamara, a writer and copy editor, earned their bachelor’s degrees from the university more than three decades ago.
Special publications editor Wendi Winters and Rebecca Smith, a recently hired sales assistant, also were killed. Deborah Nelson, an associate professor at Maryland, said the killings will be on the minds of people getting into journalism.
“Students will be traumatized by the loss and they’ll also be wondering about the issue of safety, which is something we haven’t had to deal with much in the U.S.,” she said.
Jarrod Ramos, a 38-year-old Maryland man with a longtime grudge against the newspaper, has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the shooting. He is being held without bail.
Executive editor Paige Mudd of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia said what happened in Annapolis was a reminder that journalists’ work makes them vulnerable.
“We’re not in the line of fire every day like police or the military, but we do run the risk of angering readers or the public if they don’t like our coverage. And you just can’t predict how a disgruntled reader might react,” Mudd said.
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Associated Press reporters Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; David Bauder in New York; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland; and Adam Kealoha Causey in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.
By BRIAN WITTE,  Associated Press
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frontstreet1 · 7 years
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White Man Arrested In Slayings Of 2 Black Men In Louisiana
Kenneth James Gleason is escorted by police to a waiting police car in Baton Rouge, La., Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. Gleason is charged with two counts of first degree murder and other charges, for three shootings in the Baton Rouge area throughout the past week that resulted in the death of two men. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
BATON ROUGE, La. -- A 23-year-old white man was arrested Tuesday and accused of cold-bloodedly killing two black men and shooting up a black family's home in a string of attacks last week that police say may have been racially motivated.
A law enforcement official said authorities found a handwritten copy of an Adolf Hitler speech at Kenneth James Gleason's home, and investigators said surveillance footage and DNA on a shell casing link him to the crimes.
Authorities said he would be charged with first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of a homeless man and a dishwasher who was walking to work. In each case, the killer opened fire from his car, then walked up to the victim as he lay on the ground and fired again repeatedly, police said.
"I feel confident that this killer would have killed again," interim Police Chief Jonny Dunnam said.
Gleason's attorney, J. Christopher Alexander, said his client "vehemently denies guilt, and we look forward to complete vindication."
Authorities found the Hitler speech during a search over the weekend, according to the law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still going on.
Asked whether police suspect the shootings were motivated by race, Sgt. L'Jean McKneely said: "We're not completely closed off to that. We're looking at all possibilities at this time, so we're not going to just pinpoint that."
District Attorney Hillar Moore said he may seek the death penalty.
"It appears to be cold, calculated, planned (against) people who were unarmed and defenseless," he said.
Authorities also said that just after midnight on Sept. 10, Gleason fired into the home of a black family who lived three houses down from Gleason and his parents.
The homeowner, Tonya Stephens, said her two adult sons were home at the time and she was away at her nurse's job. Three bullets pierced the front door and struck furniture, but no one was hurt.
Stephens said her family had seen Gleason sleeping in his car or speeding down the street, but she never had any dealings with him and "I never paid him any mind."
In the other shootings, neither victim had any connection to Gleason, investigators said.
The first killing occurred Sept. 12, when 59-year-old Bruce Cofield, who was homeless, was gunned down. The second took place last Thursday night, when 49-year-old Donald Smart was shot on his way to his job at a cafe popular with Louisiana State University students.
Authorities said ballistics tests determined that the same gun was used in all three shootings. Also, they said DNA found on one of the shell casings matched genetic material on a swab they took from Gleason.
Investigators have not found the 9 mm gun but said Gleason bought such a weapon last November. He also ordered a silencer in July, but it had not arrived yet - "thankfully," the prosecutor said.
One of the big breaks in the case came when a security company noticed a white man in a red car removing his license plate and perhaps putting a gun in the trunk while parked at the company's office.
The company reported the suspicious activity to police and followed up with them after the second shooting, giving authorities surveillance video and photographs. Investigators found Gleason's red car on Saturday.
Louisiana's capital city is in the grips of a surge in bloodshed. The number of homicides in East Baton Rouge Parish has already surpassed last year's total of 62, The Advocate newspaper reported this month.
"Baton Rouge has been through a lot of turmoil in the last year," the police chief said. If not for Gleason's arrest, "he could have potentially created a tear in the fabric that holds this community together."
Racial tensions escalated in the city in the summer of 2016 when a black man was shot to death by white police officers outside a convenience store. About two weeks later, a black gunman targeted police in an ambush, killing three officers and wounding three before he was shot to death.
The city of approximately 229,000 is about 55 percent black and 40 percent white.
Gleason did not appear to have any active social media profiles. A Louisiana State University spokesman said a student by that name attended from the fall of 2013 to the fall of 2014 before withdrawing. He had transferred to LSU from Baton Rouge Community College.
Gleason was arrested in Phoenix in December on charges of shoplifting wine and razors. Police said he was homeless at the time. The case was dismissed the following month.
During the search of Gleason's home, authorities also found 9 grams of marijuana and vials of human growth hormone, according to police.
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN - Sep 19, 3:47 PM EDT
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whatwentviral · 7 years
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Louisiana Officer Sentenced to 40 Years in Shooting Death of 6-Year-Old
The Louisiana law enforcement officer found guilty of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old boy with autism has been sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Derrick Stafford, 33, was sentenced to 40 years without parole for manslaughter in the death of Jeremy Mardis and 15 years for the attempted manslaughter of Christopher Few. The sentences will run concurrently.
Stafford and another deputy city marshal attempted to pull Few over in Marksville, Louisiana, in 2015 and engaged in a two-mile car chase before opening fire.
Derrick Stafford, one of two deputies charged with second-degree murder in the death of Jeremy Mardis, a 6-year-old autistic boy. Gerald Herbert / AP, file
Few said he stuck his hand out the window in a sign of surrender, but bullets continued to tear through his vehicle, according to NBC News affiliate WDSU News 6.
Few was wounded. Jeremy was shot five times in the head and chest, killing him.
Norris Greenhouse Jr., 25, the officer with Stafford at the time, is also facing second-degree murder charges.
Greenhouse’s trial will take place later this year.
Christopher Few, left, walks with attorney Mark Jeansonne to the courthouse in Marksville, Louisiana on Tuesday, March 21, 2017. Michael Kunzelman / AP
Stafford and Greenhouse — who were moonlighting as deputy city marshals on the night of the shooting — were also with two additional officers at the time of the shooting. Those law enforcement officers didn’t open fire on Few’s car that night.
During an emotional trial, Stafford wept when he saw photographs of the dead child, saying he wouldn’t have fired knowing a boy was in the car.
“Never in a million years would I have fired my weapon if I knew a child was in that car. I would have called off the pursuit myself,” Stafford said.
Stafford said his reason for opening fire was that he feared Few would reverse and run over Greenhouse. But prosecutors said the officers were at a safe distance from the car and weren’t in any danger.
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http://nbcnews.com/news/us-news/louisiana-officer-sentenced-40-years-shooting-death-6-year-old-n741216
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from What Went Viral? https://www.whatwentviral.com/louisiana-officer-sentenced-to-40-years-in-shooting-death-of-6-year-old/
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