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News briefs
Pharrell wants federal investigation into fatal police shooting of his cousinPharrell Williams called for federal authorities to investigate the death of his cousin, Donovon Lynch, who was fatally shot by police in Virginia Beach on March 27. Williams, 48, spoke at Lynch’s funeral Monday. “I had to speak at my cousin’s funeral, and was choked up with emotions. Too many unanswered city and state questions,” he wrote in a social media post. “Respectfully, I am calling for a federal investigation. I also humbly ask that you all keep the family in prayer.” Police fatally shot Lynch, a 25-year-old ...
Tribune News Service
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Prosecutor won’t seek death penalty for inmate who admitted he killed the ‘I-5 Strangler’
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Prosecutors won’t seek the death penalty for the man accused of strangling Roger Kibbe, the serial killer known as the “I-5 Strangler,” in his prison cell. Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe said Wednesday he filed formal first-degree murder charges against Kibbe’s cellmate, Jason Budrow, a 40-year-old convicted murderer out of Riverside County. Riebe said he’d seek life without possibility of parole and forgo a death penalty trial for Budrow. There hasn’t been an execution in California since 2006, and Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on capital punishment af...
The Sacramento Bee
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Documentary on the slaying of Michael Jordan’s father plays like a John Grisham novel: ‘The murder of James Jordan is really the gateway to a larger story’
It’s James Jordan’s name and son Michael Jordan’s fame that will bring audiences to imdb.com’s “Moment of Truth,” but the docuseries has little to do with them. The five-part documentary, which began streaming Friday on the Amazon-owned website best known as a resource for TV and movie credits, is really about justice, incompetence, inconsistencies and allegations of corruption. The elder Jordan, a murder victim not long after his son’s third NBA title with the Chicago Bulls in 1993, is soon enough an afterthought. So, too, is Jordan after a retelling of his well-worn basketball origin story, ...
Chicago Tribune
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Families of Philadelphia homicide victims often face the traumatizing and expensive task of cleaning up the crime scene
PHILADELPHIA — In the days after Patricia Norris was murdered in her West Oak Lane home, her family was busy planning the unexpected funeral, and investigators had finished collecting evidence. But no one told the Norris family what they’d find when they came back to the house to collect Patricia’s belongings. Renee Norris-Jones, Patricia’s sister, stepped into the basement, shocked to see blood still on the walls. She remembers crying and thinking: My God, the police were just here with the yellow tape. They don’t clean this stuff up? That was 22 years ago. Patricia — whom family called “Tric...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Retired Philly police officers apologize for fund-raising effort blaming George Floyd for his own death
A group of retired Philadelphia police officers apologized Friday for a Thursday fund-raising email that blamed George Floyd for his own death and claimed former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is on “trial for a murder he did not commit.” Protect Our Police PAC said it fired a national marketing company that sent the plea for donations, calling it “tactless messaging” that “does not reflect the values or views” of the group. “Chauvin’s actions were examples of bad policing and poor training that directly caused George Floyd’s death, in my opinion,” Protect Our Police president Nick G...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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California prisoner admits to murdering serial killer known as the I-5 Strangler, calls it ‘a mission for avenging’ his victims
IONE, Calif. — Jason Budrow, the California prisoner accused of strangling to death the serial killer known as the “I-5 Strangler” in the prison cell they shared, confessed in a five-page letter to the Bay Area News Group, writing that he spent months “grooming” his intended victim for murder. Budrow strangled 81-year-old Roger Kibbe to death “with a triangle choke hold” the same day they became cellmates at Mule Creek State Prison, he wrote. The late February homicide had two motives, according to Budrow: He originally wanted to be placed in a single-man cell, but as he learned more about Kib...
The Mercury News
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Four people, including child, shot and killed in California
Orange (United States) (AFP) - Four people, including a child, were shot and killed Wednesday evening at an office building in Southern California, police said. It is the third such shooting in the United States in weeks, with 18 people killed in two separate gun violence incidents in March. The shooter, whose motivations are so far unknown, sustained a gunshot wound and was taken to hospital, police lieutenant Jennifer Amat said, adding the suspect was in a critical condition. She continued that officers were still working to determine whether the wound was self-inflicted or a result of an ex...
AFP
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Solomon Jones: George Floyd was somebody and his death can’t be in vain
As the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who is accused of killing George Floyd by mercilessly pressing his knee against Floyd’s neck, begins this week, I am convinced that Black people need healing as much as we need justice. There is a persistent heartache that comes with the knowledge that some of those who are sworn to protect Americans believe that doing so involves killing citizens who look like me. That pain is coupled with anger each time I see a still from the video of George Floyd’s death—a still in which Chauvin stares defiantly into a camera as Fl...
The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Dahleen Glanton: Witnesses to George Floyd’s killing couldn’t save his life, but their testimony ensures his death was not in vain
Many of us did not want to watch George Floyd suffer. Not again. In nearly a year since Floyd’s death, those who mourn for him have tried to move on. Some have marched, protested and held vigils in his memory. We have spoken out as loud as we could. We have vowed to never give up until justice is served. Watching former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial on television reminds us why we can never stop fighting for what is right and equitable. But we have always been merely observers, standing on the outside looking in. Those who stood on the sidewalk and watched the horrifi...
Chicago Tribune
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White supremacist who killed 3 at Jewish sites in Kansas appeals death sentence
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A white supremacist who killed three people in 2014 at Jewish sites in Overland Park on Monday asked the Kansas Supreme Court to overturn his death sentence, contending he should not have been allowed to represent himself at trial. Attorneys for F. Glenn Miller Jr., who in 2015 was convicted of capital murder, argued that the trial judge in Johnson County made a mistake when he allowed Miller to represent himself in the penalty phase of the case, among other issues. During oral arguments, Miller’s lawyer Reid Nelson said normally trained attorneys can’t defend suspects in co...
The Kansas City Star
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