Seattle Police Officer Who Joked After Woman’s Death Says Remarks Were Misunderstood

(SEATTLE) — A city watchdog agency is investigating after a body-worn camera captured one Seattle Police Department union leader joking with another following the death of a woman who was struck and killed by a police cruiser as she was crossing a street.

Daniel Auderer, who is the vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, responded to the Jan. 23 crash scene where another officer, Kevin Dave, struck and killed Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, in a crosswalk. Dave was driving 74 mph (119 kmh) on the way to an overdose call, and Auderer, a drug recognition expert, was assigned to evaluate whether Dave was impaired, The Seattle Times reported.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Afterward, Auderer left his body-worn camera on as he called guild President Mike Solan to report what happened. In a recording released by the police department Monday, Auderer laughs and suggests that Kandula’s life had “limited value” and the city should “just write a check.”

“Eleven thousand dollars. She was 26 anyway,” Auderer said, inaccurately stating Kandula’s age. “She had limited value.”

The recording did not capture Solan’s remarks.

Neither Auderer nor Solan responded to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Read More: 3 Years After George Floyd’s Murder, Cop Culture Still Hasn’t Changed

However, a conservative talk radio host on KTTH-AM, Jason Rantz, reported that he had obtained a written statement Auderer provided to the city’s Office of Police Accountability. In it, Auderer said that Solan had lamented the death and that his own comments were intended to mimic how the city’s attorneys might try to minimize liability for it.

“I intended the comment as a mockery of lawyers,” Auderer wrote, according to KTTH. “I laughed at the ridiculousness of how these incidents are litigated and the ridiculousness of how I watched these incidents play out as two parties bargain over a tragedy.”

The station reported that Auderer acknowledged in the statement that anyone listening to his side of the conversation alone “would rightfully believe I was being insensitive to the loss of human life.” The comment was “not made with malice or a hard heart,” he said, but “quite the opposite.”

Read More: The Problems With Policing the Police

The case before the Office of Police Accountability was designated as classified. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the details of Auderer’s statement.

The station said Auderer reported himself to the accountability office after realizing his comments had been recorded, because he realized their publicity could harm community trust in the Seattle Police Department.

In a written statement on its online blotter, the department said the video “was identified in the routine course of business by a department employee, who, concerned about the nature of statements heard on that video, appropriately escalated their concerns through their chain of command.” The office of Chief Adrian Diaz referred the matter to the accountability office, the statement said.

It was not immediately clear if both Auderer and the chief’s office had reported the matter to the office, or when Auderer might have done so. Gino Betts Jr., the director of the Office of Police Accountability, told The Seattle Times the investigation began after a police department attorney emailed the office in early August.

Kandula was working toward graduating in December with a master’s degree in information systems from the Seattle campus of Northeastern University. After her death, her uncle, Ashok Mandula, of Houston, arranged to send her body to her mother in India.

“The family has nothing to say,” he told The Seattle Times. “Except I wonder if these men’s daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life.”

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal review of the crash.

The controversy over Auderer’s remarks comes as a federal judge this month ended most federal oversight of the police department under a 2012 consent decree that was meant to address concerns about the use of force, community trust and other issues.

Read More: Former Chief Norm Stamper: Police Forces Belong to the People

Another Seattle police oversight organization, the Community Police Commission, called the audio “heartbreaking and shockingly insensitive.”

“The people of Seattle deserve better from a police department that is charged with fostering trust with the community and ensuring public safety,” the commission’s members said in a joint statement.

source https://time.com/6314404/seattle-police-joked-woman-death/

Breaking Down Trump’s Four Indictments

source https://time.com/6314103/breaking-down-trump-indictments/

An Auto Workers Strike Would Threaten Biden’s Green Coalition

The most consequential political force in passing the landmark Inflation Reduction Act last summer was President Joe Biden’s big green base, a coalition of unions, businesses, and environmentalists that he managed to lash together with the clear, simple promise of good jobs in a new, decarbonized economy. Now, on the precipice of what may become the biggest auto strike in years, that green troika is threatening to split apart, imperiling the future of the President’s climate agenda, and his reelection chances.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

U.S. labor has been out in force over the past two years, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union is no exception. If a deal isn’t reached by Thursday night workers may begin striking at some factories. Part of their demands include a big pay bump, but they also want protections from what they see as a looming threat: that the green transition will be used as an excuse to rob them of hard-earned rights. 

They have a point. Wages have been declining for years, and they’ve slumped precipitously after an especially brutal two years of inflation. The race to transition to EVs might worsen their situation further. The Big Three automakers—Ford, GM, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler)—are building a lot of their new EV plants in southern states that have passed laws hostile to organized labor in order to save on wage costs. They’re also investing in U.S. battery plants operated as joint ventures with South Korean cell manufacturers, most of which are not unionized. Before one GM-operated facility in Warren, Ohio, voted to unionize in December, wages ran a mere $16 an hour. After months of bargaining workers at the plant are now set to earn around $20/hour.

EVs are also generally simpler to produce than gasoline-powered cars, and some worker jobs could be eliminated entirely. That may be why, among other things, the UAW is asking for a 4-day workweek—to help preserve more jobs when there’s less work to do. 

And then there’s the fact of the billions of dollars that the public has forked over to these companies to help spur them into producing EVs en masse. As the union leaders are effectively arguing, by taking that money, automakers are implicitly agreeing that the EV transition will benefit all of society, workers included, rather than merely executives and shareholders.

A version of this story also appears in the Climate is Everything newsletter. To sign up, click here.

That’s all well and good, say the carmakers, but they still have to actually sell these cars. To survive as businesses, the Big Three are going to have to go up against cheap foreign labor and rising competition on the global market from China, which means they have to keep their own labor costs down. That argument would be a bit stronger if the auto executives weren’t taking quite so much for themselves out of the company coffers (GM CEO Mary Barra, for instance, made about $29 million last year, equal to approximately 450 lineworkers’ combined annual salaries).

Biden, with his perilous green coalition, stands in the middle of all this: in the lead up to a second term run, the outcome of the auto industry power struggle could swing his chances of reelection, either allowing him to solidify his climate gains, or give a conservative opponent an opportunity to tear them down. The automakers, and the investor class they to some extent represent, have political power, especially as they ponder how much they’re willing to contribute to Democratic campaigns this cycle. If Biden uses the power of his office to twist their arm too hard in giving concessions to workers, they may decide they are better off doing business with conservatives.

But the workers are also powerful, both in their capacity to help get out the vote for Biden in their crucial swing states, and in the fact that a long strike and the regional economic slump it could precipitate could erase any hope of the Democrats carrying important states. UAW president Shawn Fain is well aware of his power in that regard—so far, the influential union has withheld endorsing Biden for a second term. They want to see how far the President will go to help them first. “I think our strike can reaffirm to him where the working-class people in this country stand,” Fain said on CNBC last week. “It’s time for politicians in this country to pick a side.”

Biden’s people are engaging in the back rooms, and they’re saying a strike can be averted. In public, the President has sounded a note in favor of workers. “The UAW helped create the American middle class,” he said in an August statement. “And as we move forward in this transition to new technologies, the UAW deserves a contract that sustains the middle class.” 

Yet that hasn’t stopped opponents from attempting to siphon away the President’s union support should the deal fail to deliver on worker’s hopes. “Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle mandate will murder the U.S. auto industry and kill countless union autoworker jobs forever, especially in Michigan and the Midwest,” wrote GOP front-runner former President Donald Trump’s campaign in a statement last week. “There is no such thing as a ‘fair transition’ to the destruction of these workers’ livelihoods and the obliteration of this cherished American industry.”

It’s not exactly a fair statement—in a world undergoing a massive and urgently-necessary transition to clean energy, giving automakers a leg up in a changeover to EVs is probably the best thing the government can do to preserve an American auto industry into the future. As for the point about the coming loss of union jobs and fair wages, the outcome of the current negotiations will go a long way towards determining that fact. Biden has always had a rapport with unionized blue collar folks, and that support was one of the most important factors in launching him to the presidency. Now, as those same voters and organizers try to extract gains from his policies to which they feel they are entitled, he would do well to make sure that they haven’t misplaced their trust.

source https://time.com/6314089/auto-workers-strike-biden-green-coalition/

NASA To Use Advanced Satellites and AI to Better Study UFOs

(CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.) — NASA said Thursday that the study of UFOs will require new scientific techniques, including advanced satellites as well as a shift in how unidentified flying objects are perceived.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The space agency released the findings after a yearlong study into UFOs.

In its 33-page report, an independent team commissioned by NASA cautioned that the negative perception surrounding UFOs poses an obstacle to collecting data. But officials said NASA’s involvement should help reduce the stigma around what it calls UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the agency wants to shift the conversation about UAPs “from sensationalism to science.” Nelson added the panel found no evidence that UAPs had extraterrestrial origin.

The 16-member panel noted that artificial intelligence and machine learning are essential for identifying rare occurrences, including UFOs.

“NASA will do this transparently,” Nelson said.

At the one and only public meeting earlier this year, the independent team selected by the space agency insisted there is no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life associated with UFOs.

No top-secret files were accessed by the scientists, aviation and artificial intelligence experts, and retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space. Instead, the 16-member group relied on unclassified data in an attempt to better understand unexplained sightings in the sky.

NASA said there are so few high-quality observations that no scientific conclusions can be drawn.

The government refers to unexplained sightings as UAPs versus UFOs. NASA defines them as observations in the sky or elsewhere that cannot be readily identified or scientifically explained.

The study was launched a year ago and cost under $100,000.

source https://time.com/6314066/nasa-ufo-report-calls-for-more-data/

Breaking Down the Ending of The Other Black Girl—And Why It’s Different From the Book

Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Other Black Girl

The Other Black Girl is not your average workplace drama. Based on Zakiya Dalila Harris’ thrilling satirical 2021 novel of the same name, the 10-episode television series, which drops on Hulu on September 13, centers on Nella Rogers, an ambitious young Black woman trying to make it in the competitive (and very white) world of book publishing, only to be faced with a truly horrific workplace conflict.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Nella’s world is turned upside down after she meets Hazel, her new co-worker at Wagner Books and the only other Black woman in their department. At first, Nella is excited to have another Black woman in the workplace and eagerly befriends Hazel. But soon, she notices that strange things are happening in the office and at home, including microaggressions and gaslighting incidents, and that they all began after Hazel appeared in her life.

As the seeming sabotages on Nella’s career and personal life add up (and point, suspiciously, to Hazel), she embarks on a search for answers only to discover more sinister secrets about her employer than she ever anticipated, leading to a cliff-hanger of a finale that will leave viewers enthralled. What viewers who haven’t read Harris’ book may not know is that the novel that inspired the series has a very different ending, but one that’s equally as jaw-dropping

Here’s what to know about The Other Black Girl and the novel that inspired it.

How The Other Black Girl TV series ends

At the end of The Other Black Girl, Nella has discovered that Hazel, as a “lead conditioner,” has been sent to recruit her to join a national “sisterhood” that uses hair grease to brainwash smart and talented Black women into assimilating into white society. The grease works as a “social lubricant,” numbing their ventromedial prefrontal cortexes, eliminating guilt and struggle, and offering them social ease and material and corporate success as a reward.

Nella also finds out that the sisterhood is headed by Diana Gordon, an influential Black author whose first book was published by Wagner. Gordon’s first attempt to use the hair grease was on Kendra Rae Phillips, the only Black senior editor in the history of Wagner’s company, as well as Gordon’s childhood best friend. While long presumed dead, Phillips has in fact been on the run since Gordon attempted to brainwash her. Nella also learns that Gordon has used the hair grease to brainwash Jesse Watson, a prominent activist who opposed Wagner because of the structural racism in their workplace, into writing a book for them.

After being cornered by both Hazel and Diana, Nella is faced with the choice to use the hair grease or face an uncertain fate. In the final scene of the show, Nella appears for an important meeting with Jesse, visibly changed—perhaps most noticeably, her natural hair, which she wore in an afro, is now replaced with a pin-straight weave. She’s congratulated by both Hazel and Diana on making the right decision and given a corner office.

But behind the privacy of a closed door, Nella is seen making a phone call on a burner phone to her best friends, Malaika and Kendra Rae, who are helping to lead a resistance movement to the brainwashing—and have taken Jesse.

Read more: The 36 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023

What are the biggest changes from the book to the screen?

In the novel, it’s revealed that Nella has used the hair grease after considering that she’s never felt free. At end the book, Nella escapes being forced to use the hair grease by Hazel, but gives into the pressure to use it after she discovers that Jesse has been brainwashed. In the final chapter of the book, Nella is revealed to now be a lead conditioner herself.

Other changes from the book to the series include Hazel’s character, who is given a more nuanced and softer treatment in the TV show, which devotes an entire episode to her backstory, as well as the portrayal of the resistance to the brainwashing. In the novel, there’s a large organized resistance to the “Other Black Girls” and their brainwashing conglomerate, while in the series, Nella meets just two people who have been on the run individually after their attempted conversions, Shani and Kendra Rae.

Why is the ending of the TV series different from the book?

While the show and the novel had very different endings, what the two shared is that it left plenty open to interpretation. The show’s ending, in particular, hints that there may be more of Nella’s story to be told. While the show hasn’t been renewed yet, the open-ended ending leaves plenty of opportunity for second season fodder.

source https://time.com/6313422/the-other-black-girl-ending-book-tv/

How Police Captured Escaped Killer Danelo Cavalcante in Pennsylvania

After a nearly two-week manhunt, Danelo Cavalcante, a convicted murderer who escaped a Pennsylvania prison late last month, was taken into custody Wednesday morning.

Cavalcante, 34, escaped from Chester County Prison on Aug. 31. Pennsylvania State Police conducted a search across the surrounding heavily wooded areas, but authorities did not capture him until they identified an 8-to 10-square-mile perimeter in northern Chester County where Cavalcante was last spotted on Tuesday.

Authorities said they used heat-seeking technology and a police dog to help with the search after a burglar alarm went off in the early hours of Wednesday morning in the area where Cavalcante was last seen. Cavalcante had a stolen rifle in his possession when he was captured, but did not shoot, Lt. Colonel George Bivens said during a Wednesday press conference.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Cavalcante was serving a life sentence without the possibility for parole for an April 2021 murder before his escape. He is now facing a felony escape charge as well.

“I can assure you he will not escape while he is in our custody,” Bivens said during the press conference. “I have every confidence that they will be able to safely and securely house him as well.”

Here’s what to know. 

On the run for weeks

Surveillance video of Cavalcante’s prison escape on Aug. 31 captured him stretching himself horizontally before scaling up a wall and onto the roof of Chester County Prison in Pocopson Township. Cavalcante, who is 5-foot-2 and 120 pounds, then had to pass through more than one razor wire and scale the prison’s roof before escaping. An hour after his escape, prison guards noticed Cavalcante was missing and the prison went into lockdown.

On Aug. 16, Cavalcante was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for stabbing his former girlfriend, 33, to death. Police provided protection for the family of his ex-girlfriend during the search.

Pennsylvania State Police say that Cavalcante had a pattern of moving during the late evening and overnight while on the run. There were multiple sightings of the 34-year-old while the manhunt went on.

On Sept. 2, Cavalcante was spotted on a residential camera in an area less than two miles from the prison. On Sept. 4, he was seen on camera near Longwood Gardens, and then seen again near Phoenixville with a different appearance. Cavalcante’s sister had attempted to help him after he escaped prison, police said during the Wednesday morning press conference. She is now being deported to Brazil, where his family is from.

On Monday, a motorist said he spotted a man crouched along Fairview Road west of Route 100, where investigators found Cavalcante’s prison shoes. That same night, a homeowner said that they found Cavalcante stealing a .22 caliber rifle from their garage. The homeowner opened fire at him with a pistol, but Cavalcante remained unharmed. 

The search, which closed down some local schools, included helicopters and patrol cars, as police also searched heavily wooded areas near the prison. 

Police were offering a total reward of up to $20,000 for people who could share information about Cavalcante’s whereabouts, and repeatedly classified him as “extremely dangerous.”

How he was captured

Cavalcante was apprehended at around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, about 15 miles north of the Chester County Prison. 

Police were notified of Cavalcante’s presence after a burglar alarm went off shortly after midnight in northern Chester County, where there had already been an existing police presence.

Authorities initially did not find Cavalcante, but had a better idea of where he might be. Around 1 a.m., an aircraft, operated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, pinpointed a “heat signal” that showed Cavalcante could be nearby. A thunderstorm made an assessment difficult, and the aircraft ultimately had to leave the scene.

Hours later, however, the manhunt continued as about 25 officers approached a wooded area they believed Cavalcante could be. Bivens said “Cavalcante did not realize he was surrounded until that occurred, and later tried to “crawl through thick underbrush, taking his rifle with him as he went.”

Then, a police dog chased and bit Cavalcante before he was ultimately taken into custody, according to police. Cavalcante suffered no injuries outside of a minor dog bite, according to authorities. He was transferred to Avondale for processing and questioning.

Cavalcante is set to be taken to a state correctional institution, though authorities did not reveal the location, where he will continue to serve his sentence. He is also set to be arraigned on his felony escape charge.

source https://time.com/6313705/pennsylvania-escaped-killer-danelo-cavalcante/

The Back-to-School Horror for Ukraine’s Children

For children in the U.S., the back-to-school season evokes a mix of emotions: nostalgia for another summer ended, excitement about seeing friends again and learning new things, and the butterflies that accompany any major life change. It is a time for many kids to pick out a new lunchbox and recommit to learning as they embark on their journey to adulthood.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Tragically, for Ukraine’s children, this back-to-school season is about trying to survive Russia’s war of aggression. The U.N. Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict has documented hundreds of cases of abuse by Russia’s armed forces, including the killing and maiming of children resulting from attacks with heavy artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, and air strikes. In addition, the U.N. report noted 480 attacks on schools and hospitals attributed to Russia’s armed forces and affiliated armed groups. Ukraine’s children have witnessed, and experienced, events that will haunt them forever: seeing loved ones killed, forcibly displaced, or abused as well as their homes and communities destroyed.

How do we know the extent of these abuses? The Conflict Observatory—a program supported by the State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations in partnership with Esri, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, Planetscape Ai, and Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab—has provided independent documentation of the impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine’s civilian population, and especially on children.

Read More: The Growing Pains of Kyiv’s Youth Captured in Photos

One particularly depraved element of Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine stands out: the forcible transfer and deportation of Ukraine’s children. In February 2023, the Conflict Observatory provided some of the most comprehensive empirical data that Russia is systematically and forcibly relocating Ukraine’s children. Russia has transferred children to camps in occupied areas of Ukraine or deported them to camps in Russia. It is placing others up for so-called “adoption” or in “foster care” with Russian families. The patterns of these transfers and deportations are chilling: in some cases, families were offered free summer camp experiences only to have contact with their children severed. In other cases, care facilities were emptied of children, with no records as to their whereabouts. 

As Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., stated before the Security Council, “Children are literally being ripped from their homes.” Once in Russia’s custody, some Ukrainian children are subjected to pro-Russia re-education programs, indoctrination, and military training. Some are told their parents do not want them, and some are punished if they don’t conform and fully renounce their Ukrainian identities. Russian citizenship has been foisted upon many of them as part of a widespread system of forced “passportization.”

Russia has responded to condemnations of its unconscionable actions with a barrage of denial, disinformation, and propaganda. Russian officials have claimed that this system is actually a grand humanitarian gesture in place to protect the most vulnerable children from the ravages of war. But the U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that the transfers were not justified by safety or medical reasons and did not satisfy the requirements set forth by the laws of war.

At the Munich Security Conference last February, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced the Biden Administration’s conclusion that members of Russia’s forces and other officials committed crimes against humanity in connection with the deportation of Ukrainian civilians, including children who have been forcibly separated from their families. As President Joe Biden noted, Russia is trying to steal Ukraine’s future by stealing its children.

The people of Ukraine have rightfully demanded accountability. Prosecutors, advocates, and human rights lawyers have launched a concerted campaign aimed at securing justice in domestic and international courts, even as Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war continues unabated.

Read More: How One Group Rescues Ukraine’s Children from Russia

The U.S., E.U., and U.K. have joined Ukraine in these efforts through the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group. The ACA is designed to support Ukraine’s prosecutors, operating in their own national judicial system, to identify and charge those responsible for the crimes committed in Ukraine. This innovative multilateral initiative is deploying teams of experts—many of them veterans from the world’s war crimes courts—to assist. The ACA is helping to triage the 100,000 plus potential war crimes that Ukraine has recorded to date; build case files against alleged culprits; track the location of suspects; and ensure due process, even for those charged with the most horrific crimes.

More broadly, an unprecedented 43 states referred Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC so far has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights (a misnomer if there ever was one), Maria Lvova-Belova. They stand accused of the forced deportation or transfer of children—a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is devoted to the protection of civilians. Additional arrest warrants are anticipated. In response, Dmitry Medvedev, a former President and Deputy Chair of the Security Council of Russia, suggested that the arrest warrants should be used as toilet paper. The U.S. has expressed support for the ICC’s investigation and is assisting it.

At home, Congress amended the War Crimes Act to allow for the prosecution of war crimes if the perpetrator is found in the U.S., regardless of their nationality or where the crimes took place. Attorney General Merrick Garland has also formed an ace War Crimes Accountability Team within the Department of Justice to pursue potential cases in U.S. courts. In the meantime, the U.S. has sanctioned individuals and entities connected to the transfer or deportation of Ukraine’s children. Several European states have formed a Joint Investigative Team to coordinate with each other and the ICC. Finally, a new International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression has been set up in The Hague, the justice capital of the world, to prepare for prosecutions for the crime of aggression. A seasoned prosecutor from the U.S. Department of Justice will be assisting in this effort.

Given the scale of criminality by members of Russia’s forces and Russian officials, achieving justice will be a generational effort. It will require perseverance from prosecutorial authorities the world over to collect evidence, prepare case files, and move quickly when perpetrators come within their jurisdictional reach. Those responsible should know that impunity is elusive, the arm of international justice is long, and war crimes prosecutors are tenacious. Many will not rest until those responsible for the terrible crimes committed against Ukraine’s people—including crimes against those most vulnerable—are held to account.

Ukraine’s children deserve nothing less.

source https://time.com/6313622/ukraine-children-trauma-school/