The South Side Street Fest added additional metal detectors and ID scanners, plus a dedicated line for locals, to help people get in faster after long lines were reported for the event’s first outing last weekend.  

There were no lines at 11 p.m. on Friday, the event’s second night, but an organizer said Saturday, when they usually see larger crowds, will be a better test of the new measures. While attendees praised the event’s first night from a safety standpoint, with no arrests and an average number of citations issued, some criticized how long it took to get in on June 20.

“It’s a little overkill. I kind of had to wait 30 minutes,” Justin McCord said. “The line was just startling to me.”  

John DeMauro, a business owner and member of the South Side Hospitality Partnership, which is working with the city to put on the event, said leaders have heard the feedback.   

“We got more people than we thought there [would be],” DeMauro said. “There was a little bit of a wait to get into the entrances.”

They’ve since added four ID scanners and two more metal detectors, he said.   

“We should be able to move those lines along fairly quickly this week,” DeMauro said.   

The event is restricted to people 21 and up, but anyone under 21 who lives within the footprint can still get through. They’ll be escorted to their homes, a police commander told KDKA-TV, adding that few kids live inside the event’s footprint.   

They also have a new solution for South Side residents to enter the footprint faster: a local lane pass. Acting just like a fast pass at an amusement park, those who have it can go through a dedicated entry line.

“Wanted that to be quicker, wanted that to be not as cumbersome,” he said.   

Anyone who lives in the 15203 zip code, which covers the entire South Side, can register for the pass online, he said. At the 18th Street security checkpoint on Friday, residents had to show their ID with the 15203 zip code to go through the local lane.   

Because the zip code is used, it means it’s not just for people who live inside the footprint. Anyone who lives on the South Side can enter using the pass, for instance, if they want to grab something from a corner store. Fifty people had registered as of 7 p.m. on Friday.   

The line also helps to get delivery drivers through, Zone 3’s police commander said.   

A bar owner within the footprint told KDKA-TV last week that during the fest’s debut, they saw a lot of people on the street but fewer in bars. But because it’s so early, they said they weren’t concerned.

“I think that’s the general consensus,” DeMauro said. “It was a really good start to it, but our intention is to make it grow. I think that’s the biggest thing we want people to understand.”   

He added that the intention moving forward is to keep listening to feedback and making changes to improve the festival. He also encouraged people to come down to test the improved security measures themselves.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut prison inmate J’Allen Jones was suffering a mental health crisis in 2018 when correctional officers struck him multiple times, stripped him naked, put a spit bag over his head and sprayed pepper spray at his face shortly before he died.

Video of the series of events was released Friday by a state judge in Hartford overseeing Jones’ family’s lawsuit against eight officers and a prison nurse, following a yearslong legal battle and after both sides agreed to certain redactions.

The Department of Correction had sought to keep it sealed since 2019, saying in part that its release could present security problems because it shows the physical layout of the prison and staffing patterns. But Jones’ family, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut and local NAACP officials called for publicly releasing the video, saying transparency was needed in Jones’ death.

“The events in the video are as disturbing as the events in the video of George Floyd’s death,” Ron Murphy, a lawyer for Jones’ family, wrote in a court document, referring to the man killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. “But in some ways, the video of J’Allen’s death is worse.”

Jones, 31, from Atlanta, was serving a 10-year sentence for robbery at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of New Haven when he died on March 25, 2018. Correction officers had been trying to take him to a medical unit in the prison at the time to get treatment for his mental illness.

Handcuffed inmate appeared in crisis as officers struck him

Portions of the 52-minute video show Jones handcuffed behind his back — and later with his legs shackled — as officers hit his legs and torso with their knees and fists, after he refused a strip search. At one point, an officer pins him down on a bed with a knee on his back while others hold him down.

Jones — who was having a schizophrenic episode, according to court documents — is heard yelling at this point, much of it unintelligible. He repeatedly shouts, “In the blood of Jesus Christ!” At one point, he tells officers, “I command you … to uncuff me now!”

Officers, meanwhile, tell Jones numerous times to stop resisting and to calm down. One officer tells Jones they’re just trying to help him.

About 17 minutes into the video, Jones appears to start having trouble breathing after the spit bag was placed over his head and he was pepper sprayed. Nearly five minutes later, Jones appears to be unconscious as officers struggle to hold him up and put him in a wheelchair. At around the 24-minute mark, an officer requests a nurse to evaluate Jones.

“Right now he’s just being dead weight, and I just want to make sure he’s OK,” the officer says, talking to the video camera held by another officer.

Minutes go by before life-saving measures are started

About 28 minutes into the video, a nurse starts performing CPR and an officer orders someone over the radio to call 911. An ambulance crew doesn’t arrive until more than 43 minutes into the video. Jones was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Hours after Jones’ death, the Department of Correction put out a brief statement saying that Jones had become “non-compliant and combative with staff and then became non-responsive.” It did not say anything about officers striking Jones but noted that there were no immediate indications that excessive force was used. It said life-saving measures were performed and he was brought to a hospital.

The medical examiner’s office determined that the cause of Jones’ death was “sudden death during struggle and restraint with chest compression and pepper spray exposure in person with hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.” It ruled his death a homicide, although that designation does not necessarily mean a crime was committed.

In January 2019, a state prosecutor investigating Jones’ death determined that no crimes were committed.

An internal Correction Department investigation found that excessive force was not used. But the eight officers and nurse violated policy by not recognizing for more than seven minutes that Jones was in medical distress — although not intentionally, the investigation report said.

Punishment of one-day suspensions without pay were handed down to the nine staff members, Correction Department records show.

The correctional officers’ union did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Family lawyer hopes video release spurs calls for reforms

Allen was Black, and his lawyer says eight of the nine defendants are white. One is Black. In court papers seeking release of the video, Murphy said it’s important that the public sees the footage and can consider “whether his race or schizophrenia played any role in how his cries for help and gasps for air were perceived and handled.”

“I hope everyone who chooses to watch the video does so with an open heart, remembering that J’Allen Jones was a father and a son and that his family grieves every day,” Murphy said in a statement Friday afternoon, adding that he hoped the video leads to prison system improvements.

He added, “I found the video very difficult to watch as it depicts the painful death of another human being. So please take care of yourself while watching and if you experience overwhelming feelings, consider taking a break or reaching out to someone for support. Thank you.”

Responding to a series of questions from The Associated Press about the video and how officers dealt with Jones, the Correction Department’s interim commissioner Sharonda Carlos, said in a statement that the agency is continually focused on improving the services it offers to inmates experiencing mental health problems.

“Any loss of life in our facilities is a tragedy that we feel deeply, and our sympathy remains with Mr. Jones’ family and loved ones,” she said.

Carlos said she appointed a psychiatrist to lead the department’s inmate medical services in May, and the agency is rolling out major improvements to its mental health training for staff.

“Behind every individual in our care is a family hoping for their well-being, and we do not take that responsibility lightly,” she said.

PORTLAND (WGME) — Maine Governor Janet Mills has not yet decided whether the state will opt into a new federal tax credit program that would help fund private school tuition, tutoring and other educational services.

The program, called the Educational Choice for Children Act, would start next year. In states that opt in, individuals can receive up to $1,700 in tax credits for donations they make to scholarship-granting organizations, also known as SGOs. Those SGOs would then award grants to students to cover private school tuition, tutoring and other educational services.

Families earning up to 300 percent of the area median income can qualify for the scholarships in states that opt in.

Under the current framework, donors contribute to SGOs and receive federal tax credits, and SGOs use the funds to award scholarships for qualifying educational expenses, including tuition, fees, tutoring, curriculum materials and educational therapy for K-12 students. SGOs can also use donated money to award scholarships for educational expenses, including everything from private school tuition to special needs services and educational therapy.

Each state’s governor must opt in by filing IRS Form 15714. Once opted in, the state designates SGOs to operate within its borders and distribute EFTC scholarships to eligible families.

Republican State Senator James Libby of Cumberland, a member of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, says he is interested in bringing the program to Maine.

“What it really does is it takes dollars that would normally go to pay for taxes and put them directly into education,” Libby said. “The program itself allows for expenditures for other things besides school choice, so the states can set it up the nonprofit to have goals for whatever they want. There’s a lot of good parts to this legislation and I truly hope Maine will get involved.”

Democratic Rep. Kelly Murphy, who chairs the state’s education committee, says she believes the program would hurt Maine students.

“The Education Freedom Tax Credit favors families that already have the ability to pay for private schools at the expense of families with students enrolled in public schools,” Murphy said. “A decline in public school enrollment would result in a loss of state funding for local SAUs, as the costs for running schools continue to increase, putting additional pressure on property taxpayers to make up the gap. This program and others like it would hurt the majority of Maine students, especially those in small, rural schools across our state.”

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is in the process of finalizing rulemaking for the program. Currently, 30 states have opted into the program, and four states have opted out. In New England, New Hampshire is the only state that has opted in so far.

It is unclear if there is a hard deadline for states to opt in, but Mills is facing pressure to sign off this year so the Department of the Treasury can approve scholarship organizations before scholarships become available in January.