Everyone old enough to remember can recollect what he/she was doing on November 22, 1963 when President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Time stood still and this country was changed forever at that moment.
November 22, 2021
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy
Brad Pitt’s closing line in the 2012 violent, gritty neo noir film Killing Them Softly says it succinctly about what America is all about.
Top photo: Richard Jenkins and Brad Pitt
Lee Heidhues 11.20.2021
It’s been 52 years since a group of Native Americans began what turned out to be the 19 month Occupation of Alcatraz.
The Native American population was decimated by the white Americans during their brutal trek West. The original inhabitants of the United States have been abused, murdered, placed on reservations and treated as second class citizens.
The nearly two year Occupation was an event heard around the United States to tell the World the Native Americans would stand their ground and fight for their rights.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 11.20.2021
The crisp, clear San Francisco morning began with a prayer circle on Alcatraz.
Fifty two years ago, Native Americans from all over the U.S. touched down on the island to fight for Indigenous rights, where they would remain for 19 months in a landmark struggle known as the Occupation of Alcatraz. On Saturday, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a U.S. cabinent secretary, visited the island to highlight the progress made over the past five decades by Indigenous peoples.
“We’re in a new era in which we can embrace our identities as Indigenous people and be proud,” she said.
“I am here. We are here. And we’re not going anywhere,” she added, as cheers erupted from the tribal leaders listening to her speak.
As Haaland wrapped up her speech, birds chirped loudly overhead, almost drowning her voice out.
“Our relatives are speaking today as well,” she noted, smiling.
Two year ago was the 50th Anniversary of the landmark landmark struggle that energized the Native American rights movement and brought together tribes from across the United States onto a 22-acre rock in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
“It was cold and miserable out here much of the time,” recalled Eloy Martinez, 82, who also goes by Seeker of Justice. “There was no water. But we were used to that, living on the reservation. That’s the way it still is.
“It was also an exciting time. Our adrenaline was running. For the first time, a lot of us felt free, felt together. You know how it is when you’re waiting for Christmas? It felt like that,” he said.
With Haaland in the Cabinet, the federal government has taken a number of steps to support Indigenous communities. President Joe Biden this week signed an executive order addressing violence against Indigenous people and combating human trafficking and crime on Native American lands and announced protections for Chaco Canyon, a Native American heritage site in New Mexico.
On Thursday, the first-ever Native American head of the National Park Service, Charles “Chuck” Sams III, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Biden’s infrastructure bill — which Haaland and other cabinet secretaries helped the president sell in Northern California — also put $13 billion toward Native American communities to help provide resources like high-speed internet and clean drinking water, Haaland noted.
On Friday, she formally declared “squaw” a derogatory term and said she is taking steps to remove it from federal government use.
“There is a racism in this country that continues to target Native people. Offensive names, mascots and rally cries are not a thing of the past, but their time has come,” Haaland said. “As long as I have a platform to speak from, I will stand against them.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom expressed his visceral outrage over the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse in a Wisconsin courtroom.
This is a disgraceful and shameful verdict. One which only embolden the most reactionary racist fascist elements in America.
Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, murdered two people and wounded a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin using an assault weapon during a protest following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020.
Rittenhouse has become the poster boy for the most rabid violent right wing militia groups; Q’Anon, Proud Boys et al. The same insurrectionists who stormed the capitol on January 6, 2021 at the urging of ex-President Trump.
San Francisco Chronicle 11.19.2021
In a tweet Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the verdict sent a clear message to “armed vigilantes across the nation.”
“America today: you can break the law, carry around weapons built for a military, shoot and kill people, and get away with it.”
Quanah Brightman, executive director of United Native Americans, said the jury’s decision represented a pervasive and harmful double standard in the criminal justice system.
“We’re sick and tired of our community living in fear; we’re sick and tired of all of these atrocities going unpunished,” Brightman said.
Roughly 200 people gathered at Oakland’s Frank H. Ogawa Plaza and marched to the Dellums Federal Building on Friday night to denounce the acquittal earlier in the day of Kyle Rittenhouse, a man tried on charges that he intentionally killed two people during racial justice protests last year.
A Wisconsin jury found Rittenhouse, 18, not guilty of homicide and other felony charges on Friday. He had shot three men with a semiautomatic rifle, killing two of them, in August 2020 as chaotic protests played out in Kenosha, Wis. The demonstrations and riots followed the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer, three months after a white police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, setting off a fervent nationwide movement that called for racial justice and police reform.
During the trial, which ended Friday, Rittenhouse and his attorneys argued that he shot the men in self defense. Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, were killed. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26 at the time, was injured. Rittenhouse was acquitted of first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of recklessly endangering the safety of others, according to Kenosha County court records.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/It-s-a-big-blow-Demonstrators-in-Oakland-16636744.php
Lee Heidhues 11.19.2021
I am fortunate to live in San Francisco where the local Administration has taken the Pandemic seriously since day one.
Nearly two years into the Pandemic citizens are required to wear masks indoors. Many people voluntarily wear masks outdoors. Locals are waiting in long lines to receive their vaccines and have remained overwhelmingly supportive of how local leadership is handling the Pandemic.
As a result of its aggressive policy and an accommodating population San Francisco has one of the lowest infection rates in United States
https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/coronavirus.asp
The European Union has been faced with intense opposition to Covid-19 restrictions. Most leaders understand the danger and continue to pursue a vigorous strategy to stop the spread of Covid-19 as the Pandemic enters its second winter.
Austria and Germany in particular have imposed strict regulations forcing its citizens to comply with government mandates.
The Dutch are particularly incensed by what a segment of its population believe to be an unfair intrusion into their freedom of choice.
Deutsche Welle 11.19.2021
A demonstration with several hundred people in Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ second-largest city turned violent Friday evening with rioters setting fire to cars and clashing with riot police. Riot police clashed with stone-throwing rioters in the Dutch port city after hundreds gathered to oppose stricter anti-coronavirus measures.
Police said they fired water cannons and warning shots to disperse rioters, and at least seven people were wounded. At least 20 people have been arrested so far.
A demonstration had been called by several organizations in opposition to a government plan to restrict access to indoor venues to people who have a “corona pass” proving they are vaccinated or have recovered from COVID.
Last week, the Netherlands partially reimposed lockdown measures to slow a resurgence of the virus, with daily infection numbers at some of their highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic.
Last January, when a curfew was imposed in the Netherlands, riots in several cities caused millions of euros in damage.
“We fired warning shots and there were also direct shots fired because the situation was life-threatening,” police spokesperson Patricia Wessels told Reuters news agency. Police have not commented on the state of those injured, but said their officers were also wounded.
Dutch broadcaster NOS said at least one police car was set on fire and others were damaged. Police officers and firefighters were also pelted with objects.
Images posted on social media showed cars on fire, fireworks being ignited, and debris and trash bins on fire in the street and rioters throwing stones and fireworks at police.
Authorities shut down public transportation in the city, closed the main train station and ordered people to go home.
https://www.dw.com/en/rotterdam-shaken-by-riots-over-planned-coronavirus-curbs/a-59886286
Lee Heidhues 11.18.2021
I was still in high school when Malcolm X was assassinated on a Sunday in February 1965. Malcolm’s murder came as a surprise. The mainstream media of the day generally reported Malcolm as a divivise, controversial figure who preached black separatism.
As a teenager I was puzzled over the fact that Malcolm was cut down while giving a speech at a community facility in New York’s black neighborhood. As years passed I have continued to follow how history would treat Malcolm.
56 years later the story of his assassination continues to unravel.
New York Times 11.18.2021
Muhammad A. Aziz stood up in a New York City courtroom on Thursday, 55 years after he and two other men were found guilty of murdering Malcolm X, and began to speak.
Minutes later, he would walk out of the courtroom an innocent man in the eyes of the law, his conviction in the assassination of one of the most influential Black leaders of the civil rights era overturned by a judge. But first he addressed a silent room.
“I do not need this court, these prosecutors or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent,” he said in a stern voice that did not shake or falter. “I am an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the criminal justice system.”
On Thursday, Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project called for officials to undertake a broader investigation “with greater access to evidence to get the history right.”
He said that the suppression of exculpatory evidence by F.B.I. and police officials served to inflict immeasurable damage to the lives of the two wrongfully convicted men — and altered the record of a moment that still holds deep significance five decades later. If the investigation into Malcolm X’s assassination had been conducted properly, “it would have changed the history of the civil rights movement in this country,” Mr. Scheck said.
Mr. Aziz and his co-defendant, Khalil Islam, were exonerated on Thursday after a review initiated by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., found that they had not received a fair trial. The investigation found that evidence pointing toward their innocence had been withheld by some of the country’s most prominent law enforcement agencies, and that at least some information was suppressed on the order of the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover.
But Mr. Aziz, his lawyers and two of Mr. Islam’s sons made it clear on Thursday that they did not think it was a day for celebration, but a moment that reflected a profound injustice administered a half-century earlier in the same courthouse.
“I hope the same system that was responsible for this travesty of justice also takes responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused to me,” Mr. Aziz said, adding that his conviction was part of a corrupt process “that is all too familiar to Black people, even in 2021.”
Ameen Johnson, noting the absence of his father, Mr. Islam, who died in 2009, called the hearing “good, but bittersweet,” adding, I honestly didn’t think that I was going to live to see the day.”
The hearing rewrote the official history of one of the most infamous moments of the civil rights era, when Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 by gunmen in an Upper Manhattan ballroom a year after leaving the Nation of Islam. The decision confirmed the doubts that historians have long held concerning the convictions of the two men, as one of their lawyers noted during the hearing.
Along with Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam, a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, was also found guilty in 1966, and his conviction stands. At the trial, he confessed to the murder. He said then, and has maintained, that the other two men were innocent.
The exonerations came after a 22-month review of Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s convictions. It concluded what scholars had long argued: that the case against them was flawed from the start, based on conflicting witness testimony and a total lack of physical evidence.
A review by the Manhattan district attorney and lawyers for the two men originally convicted decades ago found they did not receive a fair trial. The son of one of the men called the move “bittersweet.”
“I regret that this court cannot fully undo the serious miscarriages of justice in this case and give you back the many years that were lost,” said Ellen N. Biben, the State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan who presided over Thursday’s hearing. As she granted the motion to throw out the convictions, the courtroom burst into applause.Mr. Vance had earlier submitted a 43-page motion written with the men’s lawyers asking that the convictions be vacated.
The investigation, jointly conducted by his office and lawyers for the men, reviewed informant and witness accounts, conversations between police and prosecutors about undercover officers and reams of other documents. Some were newly discovered; some had been pored over publicly for years by historians, journalists and hobbyists.
One of the most explosive details in the motion to overturn the convictions was the revelation that Mr. Hoover had ordered the F.B.I.’s informants not to make their role known when talking with other law enforcement officials about the murder.
On Thursday, Mr. Vance apologized on behalf of all law enforcement and reflected on the erosion of public trust that occurred because of the wrongful convictions.
“What I am going to begin by saying directly to Mr. Aziz and his family, and the family of Mr. Islam, and of Malcolm X is that I apologize,” Mr. Vance said. “We can’t restore what was taken from these men and their families, but by correcting the record, perhaps we can begin to restore that faith.”
The audience at Thursday’s haring included Ameen Johnson, 57, and his brother Shahid Johnson, 55. Their father, Mr. Islam, spent more than 20 years in prison before being paroled in 1987 and died in 2009. They had not been notified of the hearing ahead of time and had traveled to New York from Florida and Virginia, respectively, after hearing the news on Wednesday.
As tears welled in their eyes, the brothers described their father’s struggle to reconnect with society after his release from prison. Ameen Johnson said that he believes that the deaths of his father and his mother, Etta Johnson, were a “direct result of the stress and drama and trauma” of the wrongful conviction.
“The effects of this removed them from our lives,” Ameen Johnson added. It also affected his own childhood, he said, as others often branded his father as a “killer” and he sought to defend Mr. Islam against that portrayal.
In the courtroom, one of the men’s lawyers, David Shanies, described Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s shared experience, two “innocent, young Black men” who were rounded up by the authorities and wronged by a system that withheld evidence of their innocence.
“These men became victims of the same racism and injustice that were the antithesis of all that Malcolm X stood for,” Mr. Shanies said, adding, “Nothing can give back these men or families the decades of freedom that were stolen from them.”
The news this week that the two convictions were expected to be thrown out spurred waves of reaction from the public, historians and civil rights leaders, who expressed disappointment at the length of time it took for the record to change.
On Thursday, one of Malcolm X’s daughters, Ilyasah Shabazz, who watched as her father was assassinated, demanded that his true killers be identified and brought to justice.
Mr. Vance first took up the case in January 2020, after meeting with Mr. Aziz and his lawyers from the Innocence Project and lawyers who work with Mr. Shanies, a civil rights lawyer. While clearing the names of Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam — who were enforcers in the Nation of Islam when Malcolm X left the sect in an acrimonious split but insist they were not even in the ballroom when the murder occurred — the review did not pinpoint who was responsible for the assassination.
Though it found no evidence the killing was orchestrated by the government — a popular conspiracy theory — it also did not answer broader questions about the role of the Nation’s leadership, the police and the federal government in the assassination.
The men who some historians say were the actual assassins are dead, as well as the witnesses who testified and the police officers who handled the case.
“We still have a system that works to oppress some and protects other,” Vanessa Potkin, the director of post-conviction litigation at the Innocence Project, said on Thursday. “What would the world be if this assassination had not taken place? What would Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s lives have been if the last 55 years had not been robbed from them or their families?”
Lee Heidhues 11.17.2021
If Pacific Heights Supervisor Catherine Stefani really cares about the state of Justice in San Francisco she would work constructively with District Attorney Chesa Boudin to make sure his office receives adequete funding.
Supervisor Stefani has been going after DA Chesa Boudin since the day he assumed office on January 8, 2020. As the blog post reprinted below clearly shows Stefani leaves no political stone unturned. A year ago she scolded the DA for not living within his budget, even though it is common knowledge in City Hall the DA is historically underfunded.
Most recently, Stefani is using television news reporting to push legislation to force the District Attorney’s office and the Police Department to provide the public with quarterly reports that include never before-released details about how the city prosecutes domestic violence offenders and how often.
“The requested statistics outlined in the ordinance overlook the wide array of victim services and advocacy that my office provides to survivors of domestic violence, irrespective of whether a criminal case is being pursued,” Boudin wrote. “These services include but are not limited to, assistance applying for civil protective orders, crisis support services and counseling, guidance to navigate the criminal justice system, referrals to local resources and services, support at court hearings, and a wide variety of both short term and ongoing support.”
During the hearing, Stefani brushed aside the the District Attorney’s remarks.
Just today Stefani got herself splashed all over page one of The San Francisco Chronicle with her proposed ballot measure to create The Office of Victim and Witness Rights, envisioned as a one-stop shop outside of law enforcement where survivors can go to navigate a currently complicated system.
When asked whether the ballot initiative was motivated by dissatisfaction with the district attorney’s victim services, Stefani told The Chronicle her criticism of Boudin was “no secret,” but pointed to a larger problem.
“Many victims of crime aren’t even served through the D.A.’s office, because either the crime isn’t reported or no arrest is made or no charge is filed,” Stefani said. “This will be a place where all victims of crimes can go … and to bring together a myriad of different victim services in the city.”
Stefani knows her proposed office will not be able to make arrests. Stefani knows this office will not be able to charge those arrested. Her entire proposal is just a crass political publicity stunt to squeeze the District Attorney as the June 7, 2022 recall approaches.
BLOG POST – ORIGINALLY POSTED NOVEMBER 13, 2020
San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani representing the toney Pacific Heights neighborhood tells DA Chesa Boudin to deal with it.
His office, overwhelmed in its case load, particularly in a year of increasing domestic abuse during the pandemic is getting short shrift. Supervisor Stefani, herself a one time Assistant District Attorney in a neighboring county, told the DA to “budget within his means to deliver public safety for all San Franciscans.” Stefani knows, absent adequate funding, it’s an impossible task.
If DA Boudin does not prosecute crime he will be pilloried for neglecting the citizenry. It takes money and personnel to do the job. Stefani knows this all too well.
Stefani’s comments are just typical San Francisco political posturing.
San Francisco Chronicle 11.13.2020
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said his office is inadequately funded and unable to fully staff units that investigate homicides and domestic violence cases — a situation, he said, that has reached a “tipping point.”
In an Oct. 29 letter, Boudin told Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors that his office is understaffed and overwhelmed by their caseloads. In the General Felonies Unit, for example, Boudin said his staff is handling between 185 and 229 cases a year, far more than the national standard of 150.
Boudin said the lack of adequate staffing impedes his office’s “ability to provide constitutionally required services.”
The letter came shortly after the city closed a massive, $1.5 billion budget deficit largely caused by the pandemic, and a few weeks before City Hall learned they had another $116 million deficit to contend with. As many departments faced budget cuts this year, the District Attorney’s Office received a slight increase in its budget from $73.59 million to $73.72 million.
Despite the slight increase, Boudin said his office has still been strained amid the pandemic as “COVID-19 has impacted staffing capacity due to illness, family leave and court closures” that have caused delays in processing court cases. He added that the department’s staffing issues existed long before he took over in January.
Additionally, he said, the short-staffed Domestic Violence Unit has seen a 60% increase in demand for services related to children witnessing domestic violence during the pandemic. The issues have also been “aggravated” by the need to investigate alleged misconduct of a forensic laboratory analyst from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
Supervisor Catherine Stefani, the most fiscally conservative member of the board, said Boudin should “be budgeting within his means to deliver public safety for all San Franciscans.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, Breed placed a hiring freeze on vacant city positions in an attempt to stave off layoffs and service cuts. Any department that wanted to fill a vacancy had to convince the mayor and board that such a position was essential. The District Attorney’s Office was allowed to hire four of the eight positions they requested, but David Campos, Boudin’s chief of staff, said that was not enough.
“People have to understand that this is serious and we all have obligations and responsibilities,” he said. “But we need the resources.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-DA-Chesa-Boudin-says-department-is-15726636.php
Lee Heidhues 11.16.2021
The controversial Nord Stream 2 Russian pipeline built under the Baltic Sea to carry gas to Europe has been mired in political controversy for years.
Opponents of the gas pipeline fear Moscow will use the pipeline as a political cudgel to regulate the flow of gas to European countries. In addition Russia’s nemesis Ukraine stands to lose revenue when gas stops flowing through that nation bordering Russia.
Now German regulators have put a monkey wrench into Nord Stream 2 with a ruling that the company did not follow the law when seeking approval for the pipeline to transmit gas through Germany. The Green Party which is about to become part of the ruling coalition in the next government has long opposed Nord Stream 2.
The decision will further delay the project and further embolden critics.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.16.2021
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is complete but still not yet operational
Germany’s network regulator suspended its ongoing process to certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline after ruling that its operator within Germany does not comply with conditions set by German law.
The decision could amount to another setback for the controversial pipeline that has been waiting to become operational for almost a year.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is to transport gas from Russia to Germany and other countries. It is owned by Russian-controlled gas giant Gazprom with investment from several European companies.
Critics recently accused Russia of deliberately cutting its gas supply to Europe as a ploy to speed up Germany’s certification of the pipeline. Moscow has denied the allegations.
The pipeline was built underwater to run through the Baltic Sea and bypass Poland and Ukraine, which have both raised objections. Ukraine stands to lose revenue if gas to Europe is not conveyed through its territory. Poland, for its part, fears the project will further strengthen Gazprom’s already dominant position in the region.
German Green party lawmaker Oliver Krischer welcomed the suspension by the regulator, saying that Gazprom had given the impression “of not taking German and European law seriously.”
The move will “significantly delay the launch of the pipeline, which is therefore unlikely to play a role this winter,” he told Germany’s Rheinische Post newspaper.
Germany’s Federal Network Agency said the operating company did not meet conditions to be an “independent transmissions operator,” and it could be certified only “if that operator was organized in a legal form under German law.”
The suspension comes as the Switzerland-based company Nord Stream 2 AG plans to establish a subsidiary under German law, but only for the German section of the pipeline. This decision was taken instead of “transforming its existing legal form,” the regulator said.
The certification would stay suspended “until the main assets and human resources have been transferred to the subsidiary,” the German officials added.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-agency-suspends-certification-for-nord-stream-2-pipeline/a-59833502
Lee Heidhues 11.15.2021
An American tragedy played out in a Brunswick, Georgia courtroom.
The attorney for one of the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery demanded civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson be removed from the courtroom.
This racist demand is all too symptomatic of the white privilige still felt in America when it comes to attitudes towards black people.
The Civil War ended over 156 years ago. The attitudes which were responsible for the four year war between 1861-1865 have not diminished.
The Judge thankfully was having none of it.
The Guardian 11.15.2021
A judge has denied mistrial requests at the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery after defense attorneys claimed jurors were tainted by weeping from the gallery where Arbery’s parents sat with the Rev Jesse Jackson.
Monday morning’s testimony was interrupted by arguments in the jury’s absence over Jackson’s appearance. The judge said he found one defense lawyer’s complaints last week about Black pastors to be “reprehensible” and no group would be excluded from his courtroom.
Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son, armed themselves and pursued the Black 25-year-old in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood on 23 February 2020. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times with a shotgun.
Tensions flared in the courtroom on Monday morning soon after Jackson sat in the back row of the courtroom between Arbery’s parents. The defense attorney Kevin Gough asked the judge to make the civil rights leader leave to avoid unfairly influencing the jury.
Gough, an attorney for William Bryan, also complained last week when the Rev Al Sharpton joined Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, and father, Marcus Arbery Sr, inside the Glynn county courtroom. Gough told the judge on Thursday: “We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here.”
“There is no reason for these prominent icons in the civil rights movement to be here,” Gough said Monday. “With all due respect, I would suggest, whether intended or not, that inevitably a juror is going to be influenced by their presence in the courtroom.”
The superior court judge, Timothy Walmsley, declined the request. Courtrooms are generally open to the public, although the judge has limited seating in the public gallery because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The court is not going to single out any particular individual or group of individuals as not being allowed into his courtroom as a member of the public,” Walmsley said. “If there is a disruption, you’re welcome to call that to my attention.”
Jackson told reporters outside the courthouse that he had come to coastal Brunswick to support justice for Arbery’s family, not in response to the attorney’s previous remarks about Black pastors.
“As the judge said, it was my constitutional right to be there,” Jackson said. “It’s my moral obligation to be there.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/15/ahmaud-arbery-killing-jesse-jackson-trial
Today’s example of People Behaving Badly during the Pandemic.
The behavior of some travelers during the Pandemic defies the imagination.
A Texan on a United Airlines lines assaulted a flight attendant who asked her husband to put on his mask to comply with Federal requirements.
The flight attendant was assaulted for doing her job.
The assailant has been indicted and will now pay the price for her arrogance and stupidity. The State of Texas has been one of the most strident about ignoring and disobeying Covid-19 safety mandates. It should come as no surprise that the accused hails from the Lone Star State.
San Francisco Chronicle 11.14.2021
A Texas woman accused of assaulting a flight attendant who told the woman’s husband to put on his face mask while en route to San Francisco was charged with interfering with aircraft operations, and faces a potential 20-year prison term if convicted.
Debby Dutton, 50, of Cypress, Texas, who is out of custody, appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Houston on Friday in the case involving the incident on a June 29 United Airlines flight from Anchorage to San Francisco, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California. Prosecutors were pursing a judge’s order to require she face the charge in federal court in San Francisco.
The alleged assault was among a string of recent violent incidents reported on aircraft, a number of them confrontations over pandemic mask rules. Mask requirements, meant to stop the spread of COVID-19, are fueling a dramatic increase in reports of unruly passengers interfering with air crew duties, putting staff and passengers and employees at risk, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The federal government this month reported that 5,114 unruly passenger reports have been filed this year, a fivefold increase from 2020.
Dutton and her husband had been in the air about 3½ hours when the flight attendant walked down the aisle to collect trash and check for mask compliance, officials said.
The attendant tapped the shoulder of Dutton’s sleeping husband and asked him to replace his mask, which had slipped down his face, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The husband complied, but Dutton appeared to become enraged, getting up from her seat and yelling, “You don’t touch my husband, why you wake him!” according to the criminal complaint.
Dutton followed the flight attendant down the aisle, shouting and pushing the attendant multiple times, according to the complaint. She finally returned to her seat at her husband’s request, according to prosecutors. The flight attendant reported the incident to the captain.
The altercation left bruises on the flight attendant’s bicep, prosecutors said.
After landing, San Francisco International Airport police officers interviewed the flight attendant and several passengers.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Texas-woman-charged-with-assaulting-flight-16621106.php
Lee's Perspective 