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Video shows Irvo Otieno being pinned to the floor in the moments before his death | CNN

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Video shows Irvo Otieno being pinned to the floor in the moments before his death | CNN



CNN
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Surveillance video launched by a prosecutor Tuesday reveals Irvo Otieno being pinned to the ground by a number of safety officers at a Virginia state psychological well being facility within the moments main as much as his dying earlier this month.

Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Lawyer Ann Cabell Baskervill’s workplace additionally launched 911 calls in regards to the incident during which a caller described Otieno as “very aggressive” and repeatedly requested for an ambulance, saying he was not respiratory.

Taken collectively, the video and emergency calls supply additional particulars of the ultimate moments of Otieno, a 28-year-old Black man who died March 6 as he was transferred from a Henrico County jail to Central State Hospital, in keeping with Baskervill.

Seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers had been indicted by a grand jury Tuesday on a cost of second-degree homicide, in keeping with court docket paperwork. In a listening to final week for the costs in opposition to the deputies, Baskervill instructed the court docket, “They smothered him to dying.”

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The newly launched video begins as Otieno, sure by his fingers and toes, is forcibly taken right into a room and dragged into an upright seated place on the ground together with his again in opposition to a chair. Ten minutes later, after Otieno has turned onto his aspect with three folks holding him, his physique jerks, and 5 extra deputies and employees transfer to pin Otieno to the ground.

A transparent view of Otieno is blocked in a lot of the video, however one deputy seems to be mendacity throughout Otieno for many of the incident as he’s pressured onto his abdomen. Ultimately, Otieno is rolled onto his again, the place a number of deputies seem like restraining him with their knees. One deputy holds Otieno’s head nonetheless by grabbing his braided hair.

After 12 minutes of Otieno being pinned to the bottom, one deputy might be seen shaking Otieno’s hair and making an attempt to take a neck pulse, however Otieno is unresponsive. Three extra minutes cross earlier than CPR begins, with Otieno’s limbs nonetheless shackled.

Medical employees from the hospital are seen converging on the room as CPR continues for almost an hour. After he’s pronounced lifeless, Otieno is roofed in a white sheet, nonetheless mendacity on the ground, his physique briefly left alone within the room.

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The time stamp on the video reveals Otieno’s physique being coated at 5:48 p.m.

Baskervill initially declined to launch the video however modified course after Otieno’s household accepted. The recording doesn’t embrace audio.

Otieno’s household and their attorneys watched the video final week and stated they had been disturbed by how Otieno was handled throughout a psychological well being disaster.

“My son was handled like a canine, worse than a canine,” Otieno’s mom, Caroline Ouko, stated at a information convention. “I noticed it with my very own eyes on the video.”

Civil rights legal professional Ben Crump, who’s representing the household, in contrast the video to that of the homicide of George Floyd, who was handcuffed, pressured to the bottom and held down by Minneapolis law enforcement officials in Might 2020. That case sparked nationwide protests over police use of power, particularly in opposition to folks of coloration.

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“Irvo wanted a serving to hand. What he bought was an overdose of extreme power,” Crump stated Tuesday at a information convention with the household.

Crump stated Otieno was not being aggressive or resisting. “He was making an attempt to breathe,” he instructed reporters. “In case you had been down there, restrained and all of those folks on high of you, you’d be making an attempt to breathe. You’d attempt to transfer, too, to let your lungs increase.”

Crump additionally mentioned how the video reveals that nobody else within the room tried to assist throughout all the 11 minutes that Otieno was being smothered.

Mark Krudys, one other household legal professional, described Otieno as “gasping for breath” within the video.

“All people has an obligation to intervene in that circumstance, to say, ‘No, that’s not proper.’ However no person intervened,” he stated. “After which, when his physique was lifeless, and his pants had been dangling on him, they didn’t do something.”

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Ouko stated of Tuesday’s authorized developments, “These 10 monsters. These 10 criminals. I used to be comfortable to listen to that they had been indicted and that’s only the start step.”

An legal professional for one of many deputies charged within the case instructed CNN he’s “disillusioned” the prosecutor launched the video as a result of he thinks it might affect the jury pool.

“I do know we had been going to file a movement to not have that launched,” stated legal professional Caleb Kershner, who represents deputy Randy Joseph Boyer. “Sadly, it’s too late. It’s been launched. So I believe that was finished considerably strategically by the Commonwealth. That’s her prerogative, she will be able to try this. She doesn’t have to try this. She selected to try this final evening.”

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Prosecutor describes VA dying in custody

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Staff at Central State Hospital referred to as 911 a number of instances to report Otieno wasn’t respiratory and had been “aggressive” at one level, in keeping with 911 calls and the dispatch audio offered to CNN by the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Lawyer’s workplace.

In what seems to be the primary name, at 4:40 p.m., an worker might be heard asking for EMS assist, saying they’re administering CPR however that the affected person is “very aggressive.”

“The affected person is a brand new admission, so we’re nonetheless within the admission unit, after which he’s very aggressive,” the worker says. “They’re doing CPR proper now.”

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The dispatcher asks for clarification on Otieno’s situation, “I’m sorry, is the affected person aggressive or is he not respiratory?”

“He was aggressive, proper, in order that they’re making an attempt to place him in a restraint, then finally he’s not respiratory,” the worker says.

In one other name that seems to happen at 5:02 p.m. a pressured hospital worker says they referred to as “a minimum of quarter-hour in the past,” and had been nonetheless in search of medical assist for an “emergency.”

“You stated they had been en route the final time, I imply, how far had been they coming from?” the worker asks the dispatcher.

“Ma’am they’re coming and so they’re coming as shortly as they’ll,” the dispatcher responds.

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“That is simply completely unacceptable, and y’all realize it too. Completely unacceptable,” the worker responds.

Baskervill instructed CNN in an interview with CNN’s Brian Todd that she believed the hospital didn’t make the 911 calls till after Otieno had died.

The surveillance video from the hospital obtained by CNN doesn’t clearly present what time Otieno first seems unresponsive, however an officer is seen making an attempt to take a pulse from his neck at 4:39 p.m. That seems to be across the time that hospital workers first referred to as 911 based mostly on the file names of the 911 recordings offered to CNN.

CNN has reached out to the hospital for clarification on when the preliminary 911 calls had been positioned.

Otieno’s household is initially from Kenya, and Irvo got here to the US at age 4, Krudys, an legal professional for the household, instructed CNN.

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He graduated in 2012 from Douglas S. Freeman Excessive College, the place – in keeping with the Richmond Occasions-Dispatch – he performed soccer and basketball, and he attended school in California. Otieno additionally had a ardour for music and was working to grow to be a hip-hop artist, his household stated.

But he additionally struggled with psychological sickness, his household stated. Ouko stated her son had lengthy stretches the place “(you) wouldn’t even know one thing was flawed,” after which there have been instances when “he would go into some type of misery after which you already know he must see a physician.”

Otieno’s dying got here three days after he was taken into custody below an emergency order.

On March 3, Henrico Police responded to a report of a potential housebreaking and encountered Otieno, police stated in a information launch. Law enforcement officials – together with the county’s disaster intervention workforce – put him below an emergency custody order as a result of their interactions with and observations of him, police stated.

Based on Virginia regulation, an individual might be positioned below an emergency custody order when there may be cause to consider they might harm themselves or others because of psychological sickness.

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Krudys stated Otieno was experiencing a psychological well being disaster on March 3, and his mom was on the scene and implored police to not be aggressive with him.

Otieno was taken for analysis to a hospital, the place he turned “bodily assaultive in direction of officers,” police stated. He was held on three counts of assault on a regulation enforcement officer, disorderly conduct in a hospital and vandalism, police stated.

Otieno was then transferred to the Henrico County Jail West.

At round 4 p.m. on March 6, Otieno was taken to be admitted to Central State Hospital, a state-run psychological well being facility south of Richmond, by the Henrico County Sheriff’s Workplace, in keeping with the commonwealth legal professional’s workplace. It’s not clear why deputies transferred Otieno.

State police investigators had been later instructed Otieno turned “combative” and was “bodily restrained” in the course of the consumption course of, the legal professional’s workplace stated in an announcement on March 14. He died on the hospital, the workplace stated.

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Three extra charged: Virginia dying in custody

The video was key to the ten folks being charged with second-degree homicide, Baskervill, the prosecutor stated.

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“I’ve by no means seen something like this,” stated Baskervill, referring to video displaying his dying.

Baskervill characterised his habits within the video as “being distressed, fairly than assaultive, combative.”

Seven Henrico County deputies, who turned themselves in to state police final week, are on administrative depart as investigations by their company and state police proceed, Henrico County Sheriff Alisa Gregory stated in an announcement.

CNN has sought remark from the deputies. Kershner, Boyer’s legal professional, instructed CNN final week that they had but to see video however claimed “nothing was outdoors of the atypical” within the lead as much as his dying.

“They delivered him as quick as they might as a result of clearly this was a person in super want of some kind of medical consideration,” Kershner stated. He added that his shopper famous that they had handled Otieno “for a very long time and he had a major quantity of violent noncompliance.”

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Peter B. Baruch, an legal professional for deputy Bradley Thomas Disse, stated he “is trying ahead to his alternative to do that case and for the complete fact to be shared in court docket and being vindicated.”

Three Central State Hospital employees who had been arrested final week have been positioned on depart “pending the outcomes of the authorized proceedings,” the Division of Behavioral Well being and Developmental Providers and Central State Hospital stated in an announcement.

They had been anticipated to look in court docket Tuesday earlier than a grand jury, in keeping with on-line court docket data. It was not clear if they’ve attorneys.

The Henrico Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4, the native regulation enforcement officers’ union, “stands behind” the deputies, it stated in an announcement on Fb.

“Policing in America at the moment is tough, made much more so by the potential for being criminally charged whereas performing their responsibility,” the group stated. “The dying of Mr. Otieno was tragic, and we categorical our condolences to his household. We additionally stand behind the seven accused deputies now charged with homicide by the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Lawyer Ann Baskervill.”

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Taliban Frees an American, George Glezmann, Held in Afghanistan Since 2022

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Taliban Frees an American, George Glezmann, Held in Afghanistan Since 2022

The Taliban on Thursday released George Glezmann, an American held since 2022 in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Mr. Glezmann, an Atlanta native, was a Delta Air Lines mechanic who was detained while visiting Afghanistan as a tourist in December 2022. The State Department had officially designated him a wrongful detainee.

Mr. Glezmann boarded a Qatari aircraft in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to fly to Doha, Qatar, with U.S. and Qatari officials on Thursday. Qatar maintains close ties with the ruling Taliban government in Afghanistan and has hosted talks between it and U.S. officials. Negotiations between the first Trump administration and Taliban insurgents for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan occurred in Doha.

In his announcement of Mr. Glezmann’s release, Mr. Rubio thanked the Qatari government for its help. Adam Boehler, who had been President Trump’s pick for special envoy for hostage affairs, took part in the negotiations with the Taliban.

The meeting in Kabul between American and Taliban officials was the first known in-person contact of any significance between the two governments since Mr. Trump took office in January. Mr. Boehler was accompanied on the trip by Zalmay Khalilzad, the special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation in the first Trump administration and a former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.

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Mr. Boehler arrived at the meeting in Kabul dressed in a gray jacket, black sweater and black baseball cap. Mr. Khalilzad wore a navy suit and purple-and-red floral tie. They sat at a wooden table across from Amir Khan Muttaqi, the foreign minister of Afghanistan, and other Afghan officials, photographs of the meeting showed.

The Taliban toppled a U.S.-backed Afghan government in August 2021 and returned to power after President Joseph R. Biden Jr. executed the troop withdrawal that Mr. Trump had negotiated in his first term. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with the Taliban and has imposed sanctions on its officials. Moderate Taliban officials are seeking to normalize relations with the United States.

The United States does not maintain a presence in Kabul, unlike European countries, which have been more successful in negotiating releases of their citizens with the Taliban.

Mr. Rubio said on Thursday that Mr. Glezmann’s release was “also a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan.”

The State Department said it was still seeking the return of six American detainees in Afghanistan and the remains of one U.S. citizen. The agency has not labeled them wrongfully detained, although one State Department official said the Americans were unjustly detained.

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A wrongful detention designation means the U.S. government tries to prioritize freeing that citizen.

The department has focused on Mahmood Shah Habibi, an Afghan American businessman who was taken from his vehicle near his home in Kabul in August 2022, according to an F.B.I. report. Mr. Habibi worked for the Asia Consultancy Group, a telecommunications company based in Kabul.

The Taliban government released two Americans, Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenty, in late January in a prisoner swap arranged by the Biden administration. U.S. officials released Khan Mohammed, a member of the Taliban who had been imprisoned for life in California on charges of drug trafficking and terrorism. Mr. Biden gave a conditional commutation to Mr. Mohammed before he left office.

Christina Goldbaum contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria.

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The promise of the fifth estate is being squeezed

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The promise of the fifth estate is being squeezed

JD Vance told a funny story at the American Dynamism Summit in Washington this week. He recalled a Silicon Valley dinner he and his wife Usha attended, before he became vice-president, where the talk had been of machines replacing humans in the workforce. According to Vance, an unnamed chief executive from one giant tech company said that the jobless of the future could still find purpose in fully immersive digital gaming. “We have to get the hell out of here. These people are effing crazy,” Usha texted him under the table.

Why Vance thought it a good idea to tell this story is puzzling, given it contradicted the central theme of his speech — but at least it got a laugh. As Usha Vance colourfully implied, the worldview of the techno-libertarians and ordinary workers appears antagonistic. But her husband’s main message was the opposite: that the tech sector and ordinary workers had a shared interest in promoting the “great American industrial renaissance”.

Vance’s speech was a clear attempt to reconcile the two warring wings of President Donald Trump’s political movement: the tech bro oligarchy — or broligarchy — led by Elon Musk, and the Maga nationalists animated by Steve Bannon. Bannon has denounced globalist tech leaders as anti-American and described Musk as a “truly evil person” and a “parasitic illegal immigrant”.

Vance declared himself a “proud member of both tribes”. He may be right that Musk and Bannon have much in common in spite of their pungent differences. They are both elitist anti-elitists with a shared mission to overturn the power of the administrative state and the mainstream press.

Historians once described the three ancient estates of power as the clergy, nobility and commoners. A fourth estate — the press — was later added. And a fifth estate — social media — has since emerged. But the fifth estate could be seen as a software update of the third one: commoners armed with smartphones. In that view, Bannon may be a tribune of the third estate while Musk is a champion of the fifth. In the Trump movement, the two have fused.

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In his book The Fifth Estate, William Dutton argued that social media represented a new and mostly positive form of power allowing individuals to access alternative sources of information and mobilise collective action. He sees Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl who emerged as a global environmental campaigner, as its poster child. “It is the scale of the technology that changes the role of the individual in politics and society,” he tells me.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, has also declared the fifth estate to be a global public good giving voice to the once-voiceless. “People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world,” he said in 2019.

That all sounds great in theory. But the negative effects of social media have become increasingly striking: misinformation, incitement to hatred and the emergence of an “anxious generation” of teenagers. Social media has mutated from a technology of liberation to one of manipulation. It has corroded the political process and been hijacked by anti-establishment populists. 

One study of 840,537 individuals across 116 countries from 2008 to 2017 found that the global expansion of the mobile internet tended to reduce approval of government. This trend was especially marked in Europe, undermining support for incumbent governments and boosting anti-establishment populists. “The spread of the mobile internet leads to a decline in confidence in the government. When the government is corrupt people are more likely to understand that the government is corrupt,” one of the co-authors of the paper Sergei Guriev, now dean of London Business School, tells me.

Populist politicians have been quick to exploit voter dissatisfaction aroused by social media and use the same technology to mobilise support in cheap and interactive ways. “It is normal for anti-elite politicians to use new technologies that are not yet embraced by the elites,” Guriev says. 

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The fifth estate has certainly rattled the old gatekeepers of information in politics and the media. But new digital gatekeepers have emerged who control who sees what on the internet. Trump’s “first buddy” Musk bought Twitter, now X, which promotes or demotes posts in unaccountable ways. The free-speech absolutists who denounce moderation and government “censorship” are often providing cover for more insidious forms of algorithmic control.

Progressive campaigners acknowledge they are on the back foot on social media but they have not abandoned hope. “It is more important than ever to fight for the future. We need to use these tools as well as we can,” says Bert Wander, chief executive of Avaaz, a crowdfunded global campaigning platform. With 70mn members in 194 countries, Avaaz mobilises action against corruption and campaigns for algorithmic accountability, as included in the EU’s Digital Services Act. “We need to communicate in technicolour with all the emotion and resonance that the nationalist populists use,” Wander says.

For such progressives, three bracing truths emerge from this debate. The power of the fifth estate is a disruptive force that is not going away. Populists have been particularly smart in their use of it. And to compete, progressives drastically need to up their game.

john.thornhill@ft.com

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‘See you in court’: Teachers union vows to fight Trump’s Education Department order

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‘See you in court’: Teachers union vows to fight Trump’s Education Department order


The president plans to sign an executive order on Thursday attempting to dismantle the Education Department. A leading teachers union is already preparing to challenge him.

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WASHINGTON – “See you in court.”

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That was the one-sentence retort from a leading teachers union Wednesday following news that President Donald Trump planned to sign an executive order Thursday aimed at eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.

Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, vowed to sue the administration if it moved forward with a mandate to obliterate the agency’s limited federal role in the nation’s schools.

The action is unlawful, she and others have argued, because only Congress has the power to close federal agencies. Still, the Trump administration has slashed the Education Department’s workforce in half, which is prompting widespread concern from students and schools about reductions in vital services. Democratic state attorneys general and advocates for students with disabilities sued last week to stave off those cuts.

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Multiple polls have shown that the idea of abolishing the Education Department is unpopular among Americans.

Teachers unions have been at the forefront of litigation against the Trump administration’s education policies in recent weeks and months. The AFT filed a separate suit this week accusing the Education Department under Trump of “effectively breaking the student loan system.”

The president plans to sign his much-touted executive order alongside Republican governors Thursday afternoon at the White House. Lawsuits will likely follow once the full text of the order has been released.

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Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.

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