Chief, mayor apologize after report finds 2019 Hamilton Pride police actions ‘inadequate’
Don Mitchell CBC 12/6/2020

© Lisa Polewski / 900 CHML Hamilton Police Chief Eric Girt and Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger speak with media following after a police services board meeting on June 17, 2019.Hamilton Ont., police chief Eric Girt apologized to the LGBTQ2 community in a prepared statement during the city's police services board meeting.

The apology comes following an independent review of the Hamilton Police Service's (HPS) actions before and at the city's 2019 Pride festivities in Gage Park.

"As chief, I take full responsibility for what took place at Pride before, during and after," said Girt, "And I do apologize to the community for inadequate planning and preparation for Hamilton Pride 2019."

READ MORE: Independent review says police response to violence at 2019 Hamilton Pride ‘inadequate’

On Thursday, the mayor, chief and a number Hamilton councillors on the board heard Toronto lawyer Scott Bergman read the highlights of his 125-page report, which examined whether the HPS acted too slowly when protesters attacked festival-goers.

The report also suggested the HPS "fell short in its planning and preparation for Pride 2019" with months of miscommunication and a lack of communication with organizers attempting to work out a plan with police for the June event.

"We can do better. We must do better," said Girt.

The chief also apologized for comments made on and around a town hall segment with the Bill Kelly Show on Global News Radio 900 CHML in June 2019 when the chief said police were not invited to the event and that forces remained on the perimeter.

“To many, the Chief’s comments on the Bill Kelly Show seemed to imply that policing of the event was contingent upon event organizers endorsing and welcoming police” Bergman said in his report.

READ MORE: Hamilton LGBTQ2 residents react to Pride 2019 review — ‘We knew that we were right about this’

The Bergman report said the public messaging coming from the HPS after Pride was seen by the LGBTQ2 community as an “abdication of the service’s essential function — to serve and protect.”

"I'm also sorry for statements made during and after the event that created the impression our response would have been different had we been invited," Girt said.

"Hamilton Police Service is committed to ensuring public safety where everyone is respected and protected, regardless of whether we asked or invited to participate."

Mayor Fred Eisenberger also offered up an apology on behalf of the Hamilton police services board, saying they "sincerely and unreservedly" apologize to the LGBTQ2 communities for the events prior to and as they transpired.

He also said the city denounces all organizations, groups or individuals that promote "hate, violence, intolerance, discrimination and hate speech" in the community.

READ MORE: Board approves independent review of police response to Hamilton Pride violence

"The board thanks Mr. Bergman, for his report and accepts his findings and recommendations. We commit to work with the chief senior command of the Hamilton police service to implement all 38 recommendations," said Eisenberger.
Bergman suggests LGBTQ2 liaison officer should be a full-time job

During the board meeting, Ward 6 councillor Tom Jackson asked Bergman to elaborate on his recommendation (#22) which suggested that the city's LGBTQ2 liaison officer Det. Const. Rebecca Moran, hired in mid-February as a “conduit” for community concerns, should be a full-time position.

Bergman said he saw "significant issues" within the Hamilton community and that having an officer doubling the liaison job with a full caseload as a detective gives an "image" that potentially the police service isn't taking LGBTQ2 issues as seriously as it could.
Cultural review and organizational cultural diversity audit

In the report, Bergman also suggested improving ties with the LGBTQ2 community with more "in-depth hands-on" training with the community and undertaking a diversity audit or organizational culture review which he says has been done by other police services across Canada.

"The suggestion is to get a snapshot of where the Police Services Act is currently and then figure out where it wants to go and then assess where it is, you know ... six, eight, 12 months after the fact."
OIPRD report on Hamilton police activities around Pride 2019

Two separate police reviews tied to 2019 Pride activities in Gage Park were on the agenda as part of the Hamilton Police Services (HPS) board meeting on Thursday afternoon.

READ MORE: LGBTQ2 comments made by Hamilton police chief during radio interview dismissed by watchdog

The other report was submitted to the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) by Hamilton police which was an internal review that concluded that complaints against the HPS were "thoroughly" investigated and found to be "unsubstantiated."

The 110-page report, completed by an HPS staff sergeant in November centred around three reported service complaints. The complaints allege that police failed to properly plan for the Pride event at Gage Park, that officers took too long to respond to the disturbance among "attendees and protesters" and that police failed to arrest protesters.

After interviewing the complainants, witnesses and officers involved, an investigator was "satisfied" with the operational plan, saying it "reflected the most current information and intelligence" available to officers at the time.

The review also said that police followed proper response protocol in deploying 48 officers within a half-hour of being alerted about a confrontation at Gage Park.

Bergman's conclusions in the report were based on interviews with 42 community members, 24 HPS officers and civilian staff as well as submissions from a wide range of individuals and local news stories.

Mayor Eisenberger said recommendations from the report will be addressed at a board meeting in September.

Hamilton, Ontario to consider calls to defund police despite skepticism from board

Don Mitchell 13/6/2020
© Lisa Polewski / Global News Activists rally in Gore Park in Hamilton, Ont. on June 1, 2020, a week after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Hamilton's police services board has agreed to look at a potential 20 per cent defunding of local police following protests across Canada and the U.S. by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement in connection with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.


City councillor and police services board member Chad Collins said the move was in response to the city's inbox being "inundated" by emails from a number of Hamiltonians asking for the redirection of funds to social programs.

"I think this motion will help in responding to the messages that we've received as a board and as a council," said Ward 5 rep Collins who admittedly was less than supportive of the possibility, saying his constituents want "more policing, not less."

READ MORE: ‘They’re targeting us’: Why some advocates want to defund Canadian police

"To me, it means less resources for police, which will ultimately lead to less police officers. And it's become quite obvious that the defund the police campaign, whether it's here or elsewhere, is an attempt essentially to neuter the police," Collins said.

A 20 per cent cut would equate to about a $34 million reduction in the city's current policing budget of $171 million, according to the board.

On June 2, a list of demands was issued by organizers of a series of virtual protests, live-streamed from Toronto’s Black Lives Matter Twitter account, with some filmed from various locations across Hamilton.

Gachi Issa, one of the protest organizers, told Global News that anti-Black racism is pervasive in Hamilton and needs to be addressed by elected officials in the city.

“It not only happens in Canada, but it happens in our city,” said Issa during an interview on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly Show.

“We should focus on it and we should work toward a more just society for Black and racialized people. And that means defunding the police, that means allocating these resources back into the community.”

READ MORE: ‘Defunding’ police and funding mental health resources will save lives, experts say

Dr. Greg Brown, from the department of sociology and anthropology and legal studies at Carleton University, says the current ideology of defunding is a theory that potential deadly interactions between officers and people can be avoided through preventive investments in communities, mental health services, and social service programs.

"I think it's sort of coalescing is around a definition of the police maybe eliminating or transferring some of the current work that they do, outside of core law enforcement, responding to citizens in distress, nine when one type of calls, and downloading that service onto another," said Brown.

Hamilton Police Association president Clint Twolan says 89 percent of the city's police budget goes to staffing costs and that a 20 percent cut in the budget means a significant decrease in staffing.

Twolan says he doesn't believe that redirecting policing funds will remove police from dealing with confrontation in a given community saying officers are a downstream institution that deals with the social issues that have come as a result of shortcomings of institutions above them.

"Whether it's health care, whether it's mental health, whether it's education or socio-economic issues involving housing and drug addiction, those kinds of things. We are the ones who we are the catch basins, and we deal with those people," said Twolen.

READ MORE: Activists call for defunding of police to address anti-Black racism in Hamilton

Mayor Fred Eisenberger concurs with Twolen's assessment, saying that a lot of the "social ills" in society have ultimately landed on police.

"It's a very complex issue that has many layers," said Eisenberger.

"Certainly social services and supports that are out there being delivered by federal and provincial governments have been and continue to be inadequate to serve the very people that are in need those resources and services more than ever."

— With files from Lisa Polewski

Activists call for defunding of police to address anti-Black racism in Hamilton

BY LISA POLEWSKI 900 CHML Posted June 4, 2020
 

A group of Hamilton activists took over Toronto's Black Lives Matter Twitter account on Tuesday to call for changes to address anti-Black racism in the city, including defunding the Hamilton Police Service. (@BLM_TO on Twitter)

A call from local activists to defund the Hamilton Police Service is the latest addition to a growing conversation about anti-Black racism in policing.

That call was among a list of demands issued by organizers of a series of virtual protests, which were live-streamed from Toronto’s Black Lives Matter Twitter account on Tuesday and filmed from various locations across Hamilton.

READ MORE: Toronto lawyer reflects on local incidents of anti-Black racism, police brutality

Gachi Issa, one of the organizers of the protest, said anti-Black racism is pervasive in Hamilton and needs to be addressed by elected officials in the city.

“It not only happens in Canada, but it happens in our city,” said Issa during an interview on Global News Radio 900 CHML’s Bill Kelly Show. “We should focus on it and we should work toward a more just society for Black and racialized people. And that means defunding the police, that means allocating these resources back into the community.”
https://t.co/0NQqZDFOJ0
— Black Lives Matter — Toronto (@BLM_TO) June 2, 2020

Issa and the other activists argue that some of the money that the city has dedicated to the police budget — which is $172 million for 2020 — could be better spent if it were used to fund anti-racism initiatives and social programs, including food security and housing.

“We have to question if police actually keep us safe,” said Issa. “Because I would say Black and Indigenous and people of colour don’t feel safe around police. So who are they really serving? Not us.”

READ MORE: ‘We have to stand up’: 10-year-old Ontario boy releases poignant video on racism, George Floyd

Greg Dongen, a student from Bernie Custis High School, was among those who appeared in the live-streams. He said the demands listed in those videos are not issues that sprung up overnight, but have been growing in importance for young racialized people for a long time.

“These demands have been long in the works,” said Dongen. “I feel like the support we are getting from the community — we’ve been getting the signatures on our petitions, as well as people just trying to reach out and figure out how they can support — and I feel like that in itself is helping the community come together behind the demands.”
2:23George Floyd death: Freeland says ‘there can’t be any tolerance for racism or bias’ in Canadian police forces George Floyd death: Freeland says ‘there can’t be any tolerance for racism or bias’ in Canadian police forces

The group’s live-streamed protests also included demands for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board to end its program with police that puts officers in Hamilton high schools, which they say disproportionately target Black and racialized students, and for the province to restructure the Special Investigations Unit, which is in the midst of investigating the death of a Black woman during an interaction with Toronto police.

READ MORE: Regis Korchinski-Paquet’s death reinforces need for major mental health, policing reforms: advocates

Mouna Bile, a social worker with the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic, said the city has the power to appoint Black people in leadership positions, including the Hamilton Police Services Board, which has been criticized for a lack of diversity.

“We need folks that understand — through not only experience — but experts that can apply an anti-Black racism lens in the way that these officers operate, in the ways that they respond to mental health crises,” said Bile.

“I think there are opportunities where the city can certainly take a leadership role, and by taking that first step — that meaningful first step — it will hopefully influence other institutions in doing the same.”

Bile said she can understand why marginalized people are frustrated and calling for funding to be distributed in a different way, simply because there are situations that police may not be trained to handle.

“The police aren’t social workers. The police are not counselors. We can use our funds, our money, our taxpaying dollars toward these social services and programs that will actually support and help and use trained experts to deal with these issues, as opposed to calling an officer to respond to them at all times. Officers are not meant to deal with all of the elements of our society.”

In an emailed statement to Global News, Hamilton police spokesperson Jackie Penman said the service “remains committed to growing with, and learning from, all of our communities.”

“We know we are not perfect and there is much work to do,” the statement from Penman reads. “We appreciate the issues raised by Black Lives Matter and look forward to engaging in an open and transparent dialogue.”

READ MORE: Bill Kelly: Are we part of the problem or part of the solution?

Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who is chair of the city’s police services board, also issued a statement on anti-Black racism on Wednesday.

“I understand that I will never experience the pain and injustice experienced by Black people,” the statement said. “I will, however, continue to further educate myself on the Black Lives Matter movement and reflect on what I, as an individual, can do to work better together with our Black-led community organizations.”

“My role as Chair of the Hamilton Police Services Board enables me to provide guidance and recommendations to our police force. I am committed to having these conversations on how we can continue to serve and protect all members of our City equitably and respectfully.”

© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

‘They’re targeting us’: Why some advocates want to defund Canadian police


BY OLIVIA BOWDEN AND MEGHAN COLLIE GLOBAL NEWS
Updated June 8, 2020 

VIDEO 

https://globalnews.ca/news/7025246/defunding-police-in-canada/

AUDIO AT THE END

 In Toronto, thousands rallied to honour 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black and Indigenous woman who fell to her death off her apartment's 24th-floor balcony during an interaction with police

In recent days, protests against anti-Black racism and police brutality have erupted across the U.S. and Canada in response to the deaths of Black Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.

Now, some advocates are calling for police forces to be defunded and taxpayer money to be redirected — a conversation that is also happening in Canada, stemming from the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Black and Indigenous woman who fell from her Toronto apartment balcony after police entered the unit.

Police claim they were responding to a reported assault, but the family has questioned the role of the police in her death. The Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s police watchdog, is currently investigating.

READ MORE: Advocates call plan to boost Black history B.C. school curriculum ‘long overdue’

Defunding the police means redirecting the budget for Canada’s police forces to other services that focus on social supports, mental health and even spaces like transit, said Sandy Hudson, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter Toronto and a law student at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“There’s no reason why we can’t start a service that is another emergency response service where people can call a number and have someone who is trained in de-escalation,” Hudson said.

Now, with more incidents of police brutality in the news, calls for defunding the police both in the U.S. and Canada are louder than ever.
The history of police in Canada

This is hardly the first time defunding the police has been talked about in Canada, experts told Global News.

Examining the way police uphold and participate in anti-Black racism and violence towards Black and Indigenous communities in Canada has been a discussion for decades, said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“Part of it is discrimination within policing — both implicit and explicit — but then the other parts of it are how the police operate and what we’re asking police to do,” he said.

The origins of policing in the southern United States were based on preserving the slavery system, as Time magazine reports, and police were primarily tasked with being “slave patrols” to prevent Black slaves from escaping. After the Civil War ended, these patrols still existed to uphold segregation and discrimination towards Black people.

Police in Canada were historically also tasked with “clearing the land” to steal the property of Indigenous Peoples, said Hudson.

“Those two focuses of the police, Indigenous and Black people, controlling us … there’s a through line to today and how the police interact with our communities,” she said

READ MORE: The RCMP was created to control Indigenous people. Can the relationship be reset?

Policing has been used to enforce the dominant narrative in Canada, which is colonization, said Alicia Boatswain-Kyte, a social work professor at McGill University whose research examines systemic oppression.

“These institutions are a product of (colonialism); they stem from that,” she said. “Right now we’re seeing what it looks like at this stage … and it gets manifested in the form of police brutality.”
Mental health, homelessness and other social issues

Experts are concerned that police in Canada are tasked with issues related to poverty, mental health and homelessness, and they are “ill-equipped and an inappropriate resource to be addressing those issues,” Owusu-Bempah said.

A 2018 report on racial profiling by the Ontario Human Rights Commission found that a Black person was 20 times more likely than a white person to be involved in a fatal shooting by Toronto police. The report was the result of an inquiry launched after Andrew Loku, a father of five who was experiencing mental health issues, died after being shot by police.

A coroner’s inquest ruled that Loku’s death was the result of a homicide and recommended that police are better trained if they are to deal with mental health calls.

“The violence we see inflicted by the police are often happening with people who are having a mental health crisis,” said Hudson.

Shifting the money to fund organizations that understand the nuances of mental health issues and the challenges faced by racialized communities would be a better use of taxpayers’ money, she said.

 How racism affects Black mental health

Out of the nearly one million calls the force responds to, Toronto police respond to about 30,000 mental health calls every year, spokeswoman Meaghan Gray told the Canadian Press.

The force’s mobile crisis intervention teams ⁠— which include a trained officer and a mental health nurse ⁠— attend only 6,000 of those calls each year because they do not go to calls where a weapon may be involved.

Annual training for the force includes courses on communication and deescalation techniques, said Gray.

“The Toronto Police Service believes that mental health is a complex issue that requires the involvement of multiple entities, including but not limited to community support, public health, and all levels of government, to render any meaningful change,” she said.

READ MORE: Marches in Toronto, Ottawa to honour Black lives lost at hands of police officers

It would be better if a mental health nurse or some other trained expert was always present, Boatswain-Kyte said.

“Are they (police) really the ones that are best suited?” she said.

“Social workers, for instance, go to school to understand how to form relationships, to understand how people are excluded and what factors contribute to their exclusion.”

READ MORE: George Floyd death draws scruitiny on police use of force. What’s Canada’s protocol?

By making police the body available to provide help in these situations, Boatswain-Kyte said, it sends a message that people with those health issues aren’t welcome in our society.“Regardless of the amount of training … the implicit bias as a result of what (police) have been socialized to believe and understand about the ‘dangers’ of Black and brown bodies is going to influence them at the time when they have to make a decision.”  DISARM THE POLICE!

Boatswain-Kyte points to a study published in May from Columbia University that found there is “no evidence that enhanced police training focused on mental health crises” can reduce fatal shootings towards those having a mental health crisis, or racialized people in general.
By the numbers

In Toronto, the largest portion of a resident’s property tax bill — around $700 out of an average bill of $3,020 — goes to the Toronto Police Service. The lowest portion of property taxes goes to children’s services, Toronto employment and social services and economic development and culture.

The situation is similar elsewhere in the country, as the Vancouver police budget has grown by more than $100 million in the last decade, representing about one-fifth of the city’s $1.6-billion 2020 operating budget.

Backlash mounting over Premier Doug Ford’s comments on racism in Canada Backlash mounting over Premier Doug Ford’s comments on racism in CanadaA 2014 report published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute found that policing budgets in Canada had doubled compared to the GDP since 2004, even though the public calls to police have “remained stable.”

“Police associations have been happy to stoke public fears about safety, but the correlation between numbers of officers, crime rates and response times has long been shown to be spurious,” the report said, authored by Christian Leuprecht, a political science professor at Queen’s University and Royal Military College.

Police work that is essentially unrelated to policing could be done by other groups, Leuprecht explains.

Moving forward

Owusu-Bempah is calling on city mayors like Toronto Mayor John Tory to review which roles and functions we want the police to provide and which should be provided by other agencies.

“Then we need a lot of (the) funding currently spent on police … given to other organizations” that are better equipped to help with issues like homelessness and mental illness, he said.

Given the recent incidents of anti-Black racism and brutality perpetuated by police, Hudson says defunding the police would also give agency and safety to Black communities.

READ MORE: George Floyd’s death still a homicide despite evidence of medical issues: experts

“How could the body that is ostensibly meant to provide safety for our communities … be one of the reasons we keep getting hurt?” Hudson said.

“Most people don’t have to interact with police at all … but for our communities, they’re targeting us.

“We just want to live like everybody else.”


Olivia.Bowden@globalnews.ca
© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Chief Allan Adam arrest: Cameras not enough to solve RCMP systemic racism, experts say

THE RCMP ARE A MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL FORCE, THAT PROVIDED ACCESS TO INDIAN LANDS WEST OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY, FOR THE RAILROADS. 

SEE MY  http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/07/rebel-yell.html

Beatrice Britneff
13/6/2020

© RCMP dashcam video, supllied by Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation released a nearly 12-minute long RCMP dashcam video on Thursday showing the violent arrest of Chief Allen Adam and the moments leading…

Dashcam footage of the RCMP's arrest of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam in Alberta shows that capturing such incidents on camera isn't enough to address issues of systemic racism in the policing of Indigenous communities in Canada, experts say.

Chief Adam was arrested outside a casino in Fort McMurray, Alta., by RCMP officers early on March 10. A RCMP dashboard camera recorded the events and the footage was filed as a court exhibit on Thursday.

READ MORE: Alberta RCMP dashcam video shows violent arrest of First Nation chief, moments leading up to it

The nearly 12-minute video shows the back-and-forth between Adam and an RCMP officer leading up to the arrest, which culminated with a second police officer running into view and tackling Adam to the ground.

"It's horrific and it's barbaric," said Lori Campbell, a two-spirit Cree/Métis and director of the Waterloo Indigenous Students Centre.

Before the release of the video, Adam had held a news conference to publicize his arrest — the latest in a number of violent police confrontations with Indigenous people that came to light in recent weeks.

READ MORE: Chantel Moore’s death prompts renewed calls for New Brunswick police watchdog

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he wants police to be equipped with body-worn cameras to help overcome what he said was public distrust in law enforcement.

He added he had raised the issue with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki.

Lucki later announced she would "engage in work and discussion… on a broader rollout of body-worn cameras" to in an effort to increase trust between the national police force and the communities it serves, as well as boost accountability and transparency.

READ MORE: RCMP chief to seek ‘broader rollout’ of body cameras in wake of anti-racism protests


Chad Haggarty served for 17 years in the RCMP in Alberta and now works as a student-at-law in criminal defence in Calgary — the only city in Canada to have equipped all its front-line officers with body cameras.

From a legal perspective, he said body-worn cameras are "indispensable" and "the best tool" the public has right now to ensure appropriate conduct by police officers.

But he added those cameras may not prevent improper conduct from occurring.

"It may not stop them from the terrible things that they're going to do, but it certainly allows us to go back and examine the propriety of their actions," he said.

Campbell said that's exactly what she took away from watching the footage of Adam's arrest, saying the presence of the dashcam didn't "stop the outcome of what occurred."

"It doesn't matter whether there's cameras there or not," she told Global News.

READ MORE: Police body cameras in Canada — How common are they and do they reduce excessive force?

Campbell argued the cameras haven't been proven to accomplish what many advocates originally thought they would — which was to serve as a deterrent. Several studies conducted on use of body-cameras have concluded the cameras have had no measurable impact on police behaviour, but others have found some benefit.

"For police services now who haven't been using the body cameras in Canada to decide that that is going to be their next proactive reform decision to make and to spend money on, we already know it's not working, so they don't need to do that," Campbell argued.

"All it is doing is filming essentially this violence porn against Black and brown people that people are now watching. And every time we see it, it's devastating and trauma-inducing."

In recent weeks, video footage also circulated of an RCMP officer hitting an Inuk man with the door of a moving truck during an arrest in Nunavut. Days later, Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman from B.C., was shot dead by police in Edmundston, N.B.
RCMP created to control Indigenous people

The RCMP as an institution was never built to keep Indigenous communities safe, Campbell said. Rather, it was used to confine Indigenous peoples on reserves and clear the way for western settlement.

Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, got the idea for the Mounties from the Royal Irish Constabulary, a paramilitary police force the British created to keep the Irish under control.

"He decided that instead of it being too expensive to send military out west, that he would form his own essentially Royal Irish Constabulary, but he called it the North-West Mounted Police," Campbell said.

"He enlisted 200 men and sent them out west to contain the Indigenous peoples and to surveil them and to protect settlers from Indigenous people.

"Then, of course, later that becomes the RCMP and that is still who polices and surveils and confines us in our communities."

During the years residential schools were in operation, it was RCMP officers who were tasked with going into Indigenous communities and forcefully removing the children, added Gabrielle Lindstrom, an assistant professor in Indigenous Studies with Mont Royal University's department of humanity.

"The RCMP are definitely part of the colonial legacy and play a huge role in that. And they continue to play a huge role in that today," Lindstrom said.

Because of this history, many Indigenous people grew up fearing police and have a visceral reaction to the sight of law enforcement, said Reuben Breaker, an elected councillor with the Siksika Nation, east of Calgary.

"I don't drink or do drugs or anything like that, but nonetheless, the image of a police car... there's automatic fear and guilt because that's what we associate with the RCMP," he said on Friday.

"In our language, they're called Inakiikowan. That means people that capture."

Breaker told Global News seeing the video of Adam's arrest "automatically brings anger" to Indigenous people.

"It's so common," he said, speaking from Strathmore, Alta.

"That has happened in many communities for many, many years. But it just has gone unreported or unresolved."

READ MORE: Canada’s prison watchdog disturbed by ‘Indigenization’ of correctional system

Today, Indigenous people are over-represented in Canada's corrections system. The federal prison ombudsman sounded the alarm about this earlier this year, warning that the proportion of Indigenous people in federal custody had reached a record high of more than 30 per cent due to entrenched imbalances.

After backlash, RCMP acknowledges systemic racism

As outrage mounts across Canada about the treatment on Indigenous people, one first step is for RCMP leadership to acknowledge there is systemic racism within the national police force, Campbell and Haggerty argued.

The RCMP's deputy commissioner in Alberta was criticized this week for denying systemic racism existing in the force. In a later interview with Global News, Lucki, for her part, said she believes there is "unconscious bias" among members in the police force but that she's "struggling" with the definition of systemic racism and how that applies to the institution of the RCMP.

She walked back those statements on Friday afternoon, after Trudeau contradicted her and others criticized her comments.

"I did acknowledge that we, like others, have racism in our organization, but I did not say definitively that systemic racism exists in the RCMP. I should have," she wrote.

"As many have said, I do know that systemic racism is part of every institution, the RCMP included. "Throughout our history and today, we have not always treated racialized and Indigenous people fairly."

RCMP media relations declined Global News' request for an interview with Commissioner Lucki about the released video of Adam's arrest on Friday.

The deputy commissioner in Alberta also backpedalled on his comments in a press conference late Friday.
Cultural, structural changes needed in RCMP, experts argue

After an acknowledgement, "changing the behaviour of race-based policing is going to require ... a cultural shift within the RCMP," Haggarty argued.

Accomplishing that requires concrete action, he and Campbell agreed.

In the immediate future, Campbell said a good place to start would be the release of the delayed federal action plan, promised in response to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

That report stated: "The RCMP have not proven to Canada that they are capable of holding themselves to account."

But given the foundations on which the RCMP was built, Campbell is not optimistic the massive police service can be appropriately reformed and instead favours defunding the force and reallocating the resources.

Instead of investing in body cameras, Campbell argued, "take that money and invest it in things like social services, child services, community programming, mental health supports, social workers."

In her statement on Friday, Lucki said the RCMP is focused on "thoughtful action."

"We now have the opportunity to lead positive change on this critical issue. It is time to double down on these efforts -- there is so much more to do," she said.

"There is no one answer, no single solution, no one approach. It is the ongoing commitment to work and continue to learn that will help us make real progress and I am motivated and determined to make change."

-- With files from Global News' Amanda Connolly, Heather Yourex-West, Jane Gerster, Mercedes Stephenson, Phil Heidenreich the Canadian Press and Reuters

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/this-happened-in-alberta-premier-kenney.html

Four Years Embedded With the Alt-Right

DOCUMENTARY FILM "WHITE NOISE"
Daniel Lombroso 12/6/2020

© The Atlantic

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of our content partner and do not represent the views of Microsoft News or MSN

White nationalists have always been able to find one another in America, but the recent resurgence of the white-nationalist movement—and the extent to which its ideas have seeped into the mainstream alongside Donald Trump’s political ascent—is stunning.

In November 2016, I captured footage of Trump supporters throwing Nazi salutes in celebration of his presidential victory, a moment that became an explosive story in the days that followed, and set the tone for the Trump presidency. In the nearly four years since then, I have focused all of my journalistic energy on the “alt-right,” documenting the figures leading a swelling, and splintering, movement that centers around racism and hate. I saw far-right rhetoric rising on college campuses and in mainstream American politics, and white nationalists reaching millions online. I found my way into the heart of the movement, witnessing violent protests and wild parties, and sitting in the rooms where populist and racist ideologies were refined and weaponized. Through it all, I wanted to understand: What made white-power ideology so intoxicating, especially among my generation?

This question is deeply personal. Both of my grandmothers are Holocaust survivors. My father’s mother, Shulamit Lombroso, fled Nuremberg in 1939 with the Kindertransport, a rescue effort that saved 10,000 German Jews. She left with only one photo album, never to see her parents again. My mother’s mother, Nina Gottlieb, spent World War II hiding in Poland, losing her sister to the war. Six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe’s total, were killed at the hands of Nazism, an ideology consumed by a belief in the supremacy of whiteness. What began with inflamed rhetoric and scapegoating soon turned into industrialized slaughter.

© Provided by The Atlantic Shulamit Lombroso, second from left , in Nuremberg with her parents and her sister, who soon perished (Courtesy of Daniel Lombroso)Meaningful journalism begins with bearing witness. Over four years, I visited 12 states and five countries, and spent hundreds of hours with conspiracy theorists, far-right influencers, and politicians sympathetic to white nationalism. My goal was to understand the movement’s most prominent extremists—those who already had followings in the millions and were shaping the public conversation.

The result is The Atlantic’s first-ever feature-length documentary, White Noise, which focuses on the lives of three far-right figures: Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist and a sex blogger turned media entrepreneur; Lauren Southern, an anti-feminist, anti-immigration YouTube star; and Richard Spencer, a white-power ideologue.

Progressives like to believe that racism is an opiate of the ignorant. But the alt-right’s leaders are educated and wealthy, groomed at some of America’s most prestigious institutions. The more time I spent documenting the movement, the more ubiquitous I realized it was. I bumped into one subject dancing in Bushwick with his Asian girlfriend, and another walking around DuPont Circle hitting a vape. Their racism is woven into the fabric of New York, Washington, D.C., and Paris, just as much as Birmingham, Alabama, or Little Rock, Arkansas.

© Thomson Reuters Supporters prepare to depart a Proud Boys rally in Portland, Oregon, U.S., August 17, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

During a visit to Richard Spencer’s apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, I began to understand how the alt-right works. Evan McLaren, a lawyer, wrote master plans on a whiteboard. A band of college kids poured whiskey for Spencer, adjusted his gold-framed Napoleon painting, and discussed the coming “Identitarian” revolution. Spencer offered a sense of historical purpose to his bored, middle-class followers. In his telling, they weren’t just “white Americans,” but descendants of the Greeks and Romans. “Myths are more powerful than rationality,” Spencer told me. “We make life worth living.”

© Thomson Reuters A member of the Proud Boys gestures to counter protesters as the ultra-conservative group Turning Point USA holds a campus talk at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S. October 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

White Noise is about the seductive power of extremism. Hatred feels good. But the fix is fleeting. As the film progresses, the subjects reveal the contradictions at the heart of their world. Southern advocates for traditional gender roles, but resents the misogyny and sexism of her peers. Cernovich warns that “diversity is code for white genocide,” but has an Iranian wife and biracial kids. Spencer swears he’ll lead the white-nationalist revolution—until it’s more comfortable for him to move home to live with his wealthy mother in Montana. For so many who feel lost or alone, these avatars of hate offer a promise: Follow us, and life will be better.

White Noise shows how empty that promise is.

© Provided by The Atlantic Left : Richard Spencer in 2018 as he fell from grace within the alt-right. Right : Lauren Southern describes dealing with sexism and misogyny.

Toward the end of my reporting, my family traveled to Kielce, Poland, with my sole surviving grandmother, Nina Gottlieb, to retrace her steps fleeing the Nazis. “They had signs: Jews and dogs are not allowed,” she told us, as we gathered near her childhood home. My grandmother spent the war hiding under a Polish Catholic name, Janina Wiśniewski, until she was eventually resettled by HIAS, the Jewish refugee resettlement organization targeted by the white nationalist who murdered 11 people as they worshipped at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. “We’re all born innocent babies. What happens to us?” my grandmother asked.

© ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2017, file photo, white nationalist Richard Spencer speaks at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla. Spencer's wife has accused him of physically, verbally and emotionally abusing her throughout their eight-year marriage. Spencer told The Associated Press on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018, that he is "not an abusive person" and said his wife was "never in a dangerous situation." (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File) 

Walking through one of Poland’s decaying Jewish cemeteries, I reflected on my grandmother’s question. White nationalists aren’t dumb, or poor. They’re scared of losing power. By 2045, white Americans will become a minority in the United States. This demographic change isn’t a conspiracy—what those in the alt-right call “white genocide”—but a choice. Millions have decided that they want an inclusive society with equality and justice for everyone. As protesters march to fight structural racism against African Americans, it is clear how much work is left to be done. To defeat hate movements as widespread and damaging as white nationalism, we must understand why people are drawn to them in the first place, and what they’re willing to give up in order to belong.

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic’s film, White Noise, premieres on June 20 at the AFI Docs documentary film festival. Tickets are available on AFI’s website.

'Finally' say activists as Swiss same-sex marriage bill advance

© Reuters/DENIS BALIBOUSE A rainbow flag is pictured on the window at Vogay in Lausanne

ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's lower house of parliament approved draft legislation on Thursday to let same-sex couples marry in a country that has lagged other parts of western Europe in gay rights.

Despite opposition from conservatives, legislators also voted to let lesbian couples use sperm donations to conceive children. The legislation will now move to the upper house for a final vote.

"By 132 votes to 52, with 13 abstentions, the National Council says YES to #Ehefüralle with real equality!" rights group Pink Cross wrote on Twitter, using a hashtag meaning "marriage for all".

© Reuters/Denis Balibouse FILE PHOTO: Marmier and Bugnon walk in their garden in Lausanne

Campaigners said the change had been a long time coming. Switzerland passed a law specifically protecting lesbian, gay and bisexual people from discrimination only in February.

"Finally, it was about time for this basic human right!" wrote one Twitter user, using the name you_can_call_me_flower.

The draft law is moving through parliament 13 years after civil partnerships became legal in Switzerland, helped in part by progressive parties' electoral gains in October that shifted parliament more to the left 

.

© Reuters/Denis Balibouse FILE PHOTO: A poster is picture on a wall at Vogay in Lausanne

A survey commissioned by Pink Cross in February showed more than 80% of Swiss support same-sex marriage.

However, the country's political institutions have tended to be more conservative than the general public, and the upper house is typically more cautious about social change.

"In the future, marriage should be open to all opposite- and same-sex couples, that is the core of the proposal," Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter told the debate.

"The Federal Council (the government) welcomes the fact that this will eliminate today's unequal treatment," he added.
Click here https://www.openlynews.com/i/?id=76a38722-856c-475c-be31-30b54b45ed68 for a Thomson Reuters Foundation Factbox on gay marriage around the world.

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

USA
As insurance companies take over pension plans, are your payments at risk?

LONG READ
Gretchen Morgenson and Lisa Cavazuti
14/6/2020

© Provided by NBC News

How safe is your pension? As COVID-19 shutdowns hobble the U.S. economy, the question has taken on more urgency.

While risks associated with underfunded pensions for state and local government employees have been known for years, a new concern has arisen, pension rights advocates say. It centers on the growing trend of insurance companies taking over pensions for employees of private companies.

“This is what we’ve worried about — when companies sell off their pension plans,” said Karen Friedman, policy director at the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit focusing on workers’ retirement security. “Is it safe to transfer money out of pension plans insured by the [government-backed] Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to insurance companies where the protections for consumers are scant?”

Pension obligations are costly and companies have been eager to jettison them in recent years. Insurers have been happy to take on their assets — such deals have totaled $110 billion since early 2015.

But pensions taken over by private insurers are not protected from default by the government-backed PBGC, which protects the pensions of most private company employees. In addition, insurers are regulated by the states, not the federal government, and some are now affiliated with private equity firms, whose focus is often on short-term profits which can conflict with insurers' long-term obligations.

Insurance company Athene Holding, a relative newcomer to the arena, has vaulted to the number-two position in pension buyouts. Created in 2009, Athene is affiliated with Apollo Global Management, the publicly traded private equity giant co-founded by billionaire Leon Black. Athene, whose stock trades publicly, is Apollo’s biggest investment. Apollo has $330 billion in assets under management, with over $100 billion related to Athene, its filings show. The insurer pays significant fees to Apollo each year — Athene's investment management fees to Apollo accounted for 27 percent of Apollo's total such fees in 2019.

Athene has acquired $12 billion in corporate pension obligations recently, including those of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dana Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. Today, roughly 178,000 people rely on Athene for pension benefits, the company says. The entity taking most of the obligations is Athene Annuity & Life Co.

Athene Holding has performed well, but in the first quarter of 2020, it reported a $1.1 billion loss, in part reflecting financial market turmoil. Some $300 million of that loss came from Athene’s 7 percent stake in Apollo.

Financial markets have recovered since March 31, shoring up Athene’s Apollo holding.

Still, the loss raises questions about risks in Athene’s investments.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Board published a paper in February warning of risks among a handful of insurers that are structured like Athene. The study, which cited Athene as an example, concluded, “Life insurers have become more vulnerable to an aggregate shock to the corporate sector.”

© Michael Nagle Trading On The Floor Of The NYSE As U.S. Stocks Extend Gains While Crude Oil Advances (Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)

Joseph M. Belth, professor emeritus of insurance at Indiana University and a longtime authority on the industry, told NBC News that he thinks private equity firms like Apollo are not well-suited to partner with insurance companies.

“I think private equity firms are in it for the quick buck and that is what troubles me,” Belth said. “Policyholders are pawns in the hands of people like Black.”

Asked to respond, Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for Apollo and Black said in a statement that Athene’s and Apollo’s interests are closely aligned. “Athene was founded with long-term capital from blue-chip insurance investors, not from a private equity fund,” she said. "Athene does not invest in Apollo’s flagship PE funds, nor does it lend to Apollo’s PE portfolio companies."

Athene's spokeswoman, Karen Lynn, said in a statement: "Athene strongly disagrees with various characterizations of our business asserted in this article. We are highly rated, disciplined and financially strong as one of the best-capitalized businesses in the financial sector."

8.6 million Americans

About 8.6 million Americans over 65 are receiving pension payments from a private company plan, and millions more who are still working are paying into private plans. Most of those plans are insured through the government-backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. PBGC says it protects around 40 million workers in 23,400 pension plans.

When a company defaults on its pension obligations, PBGC pays the pension, in most cases. Some 84 percent of participants in private company plans taken over by the PBGC received all their vested benefits, a 2019 study showed. The remaining 16 percent saw their benefits fall by an average 24 percent. As of 2019, PBGC has assumed the pension obligations of almost 5,000 plans and more than 900,000 retirees.

When private insurance companies take over pension plans, they typically offer participants a group annuity that pays the same amount as the private plan. An annuity is an insurance contract that can provide lifetime monthly income. The U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees enforcement of pension rules, has not objected to these takeovers.

However, those pensions are no longer backed by the PBGC. They are backed by the insurers, which must be disclosed when the transfer takes place.

Insurers are not regulated by the federal government. That task falls to each state in which the companies do business.

Athene Holding is based in Bermuda, while its unit Athene Annuity & Life Co. is in Iowa. In April, the New York insurance overseer accused Athene Holding of failing to register its pension takeover business there. Athene Holding paid $45 million to settle the matter, neither admitting nor denying the allegations.

State insurance regulators require insurers to file annual reports detailing their investment portfolios and the assets they have to cover policyholders’ claims. The key figure — surplus — is the difference between an insurer’s assets and liabilities. The bigger the cushion, the better.

Athene Annuity & Life, the insurer backing most of the pension obligations, has $54 billion in assets, filings show. And a $1.2 billion surplus — which is roughly $1 billion above the level at which the regulator overseeing the company would have to move in to protect policyholders.

If an insurance company gets into trouble, its assets are sold to pay policyholders' claims. If insufficient, policyholders must rely on state guaranty funds financed voluntarily by other insurers. Unlike the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has a pre-funded insurance pool protecting depositors against bank failures, state guaranty funds raise money only after a failure occurs.

States impose limits on how much policyholders can receive in a failure. In Alabama, Colorado and Iowa for example, the most annuity holders can receive is $250,000.

When Athene Annuity & Life takes over a pension, it receives assets backing those obligations from the company that formerly ran it. Athene sends 80 percent of those assets and liabilities to an affiliated reinsurer in Bermuda, the company’s filings say, and keeps the remaining 20 percent in U.S. entities.

Thomas Gober, a certified fraud examiner in Virginia who analyzes insurance companies and has worked as a consultant to and witness for the U.S. Department of Justice, questioned Athene’s heavy reliance on related companies to reinsure or backstop its policyholder obligations.

© Courtesy Thomas Gober Thomas Gober, CFE. (Courtesy Thomas Gober)

“A strong group of independent, well-capitalized reinsurers can strengthen an insurer’s financial backbone,” said Gober.

In a typical reinsurance or coinsurance arrangement, an insurer will pay an unrelated company to provide a backstop to cover the initial insurer’s obligations if necessary. Under such an arrangement, the initial and secondary insurers share profits and losses based on a preset ratio.

Athene Annuity & Life’s most recent regulatory filings show 95 percent of its reinsurance and coinsurance deals were with affiliates — $54 billion of $57 billion. This defeats the purpose of a backstop, Gober said. New York Life Insurance Co., which carries the highest ratings from Moody's and Standard & Poor's, has zero reinsurance or coinsurance deals with affiliates.

One affiliated reinsurer is Athene Re USA IV, which provided a $1.4 billion backstop to Athene Annuity & Life as of 2019. The reinsurer’s risk-based capital falls well below mandatory levels, under National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ rules, filings show. That’s because one of the assets it uses to compute its capital — letters of credit for $137 million — is not admitted per the NAIC. Its rules don’t allow letters of credit as assets because they represent the risk of a bank, not the insurance company, said David Provost, deputy commissioner of the captive insurance division of the Vermont department of regulation.

Vermont regulators, where Athene Re is domiciled, did allow the letters of credit to be included as an asset. “We are making a regulatory judgment that this is acceptable,” said Provost. He did not disclose the identity of the banks backing them.

Karen Lynn, a spokeswoman for Athene, said its Bermuda-based reinsurers are strong and have capital “consistent with a AA-rated company.” (An AA rating is considered high quality; AAA is the highest.)

But outsiders can't analyze the reinsurers' books because Bermuda doesn't require extensive public disclosures. Athene’s annual Bermuda filings consist of 5 pages and few details, versus the Iowa subsidiary’s over 1,000-page annual state filing. And policyholders can typically collect only from the insurer that wrote their policies, which is why the $1.2 billion in surplus held by Athene Annuity & Life Co. should be the focus, according to Gober.

© Demetrius Freeman Key Speakers At The Bloomberg Invest Summit (Demetrius Freeman / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)

Policyholders who are unfortunate enough to get caught up in an insurance company failure face another challenge: litigation can drag on for decades. In January 2020, for example, a federal appeals court ruled on a case involving money owed on an annuity written by Executive Life. That company failed in 1991.

After Executive Life collapsed, many of the insurer’s assets were picked up at significant discounts by Black’s firm, Apollo.
‘Special and symbiotic’

The relationship between Apollo and Athene, the subsidiary that backs pensions, is “special and symbiotic,” Black told investors in March.

For Apollo, the arrangement is lucrative. Over the past three years, Athene has paid Apollo $1.1 billion in management fees.

For Thomas Gober, however, the relationship between the companies is problematic. There is nothing illegal about Athene's practices, but Gober sees problems with the company's relatively thin surplus, the quality of Athene’s investments, and the habit of Athene of investing in Apollo-related entities. Apollo owns 35 percent of Athene, and Athene owns seven percent of Apollo.

The Federal Reserve researchers also expressed concerns, concluding that private-equity backed insurers may test the ability “of the insurance industry, and the financial system more broadly” to withstand “direct and indirect shocks to the corporate sector."

The Athene spokeswoman said the Fed report did not provide "comprehensive insight into how we manage our business. We have maintained, and will continue to maintain, very strong liquidity within our diversified investment portfolio, and we take great care to invest behind predictable, surrender charge protected, long-dated policyholder obligations."

In a corporate pension buyout, a company, say Bristol-Myers, hands its pension assets and obligations over to Athene. To meet these obligations, insurers typically invest policyholders’ money in corporate bonds, government obligations, and mortgages.

When an insurance company sells a policy or annuity, it agrees to pay the holder a set amount under certain circumstances. To meet these obligations, insurers typically invest policyholders’ money in corporate bonds, government obligations, and mortgages.

With Apollo guiding Athene’s portfolio, the insurer has invested heavily in Apollo-related entities, regulatory filings show. Athene Annuity & Life holds $4.1 billion in stocks, bonds and mortgage loans of its "parent, subsidiaries and affiliates," up from $172 million in 2015.

Compared with the insurer’s surplus of $1.2 billion, this is a troubling concentration of assets, said Gober.

“That’s too many eggs in one basket and an affiliated basket,” he said. “If the insurer gets into trouble, the question would be whether the affiliates’ bonds would be collectible because the affiliates are so dependent upon the insurer for revenues.”

By comparison, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corp. has total assets of $54 billion and surplus of $6.4 billion — roughly the same assets as Athene but five times the surplus. Its investments in parent, subsidiaries and affiliates total just $231 million.

NBC News asked Lynn, the Athene spokeswoman, how its policyholders can be sure these investments are good for them and not just good for Apollo affiliates. Because Apollo owns 35 percent of Athene, she said it is "completely aligned with all Athene stakeholders to find the highest quality risk-return assets for Athene’s balance sheet as possible." She also said Athene's investment in Apollo shares would not be used to pay insurance policyholders’ claims, including pension benefits.

Bill Wheeler, Athene's president, said in a statement: "The premise of your story contains the assertion that an affiliation with Apollo means more risk. This is clearly untrue." Moreover, all of its pension takeovers "have been vetted and selected by plan fiduciaries and committees whose sole responsibility is to consider the interest of participants and beneficiaries."

Asked how Athene shareholders and policyholders can assess whether amounts paid in investment management fees to Apollo are fair, Lynn said Athene’s relationship with Apollo has fueled the insurer’s high performance in recent years.

To manage the conflicts of interest arising from Athene’s ties to Apollo, Lynn said the company’s board has a committee that approves the deals. The transactions are also vetted by disinterested directors at Athene, with both groups advised by independent legal and financial advisers.

The conflicts committee “is comprised solely of directors who are independent of Apollo,” she said.

But the Athene proxy filings show all three conflicts committee members are or were directors of Apollo affiliates, including Apollo Residential Mortgage Inc., Apollo Tactical Income Fund and Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc.

Asked about these affiliations, Lynn said Athene’s governance practices adhere to requirements set out by the New York Stock Exchange, where its shares trade. Athene declined to make the directors available.

While corporate bonds dominate Athene’s investments, it is also a big buyer of commercial mortgages and securities that bundle debt together, known as collateralized loan obligations. The company also holds securities backed by aircraft leases, retailers, oil companies, car rental companies and hotels, all hurt by COVID-19 closures.

Gober studied thousands of pages in regulatory filings of Athene’s major subsidiaries comparing risks in their investments with the cushion the companies have to pay policyholder claims — the surplus.

“The biggest problem with the investment portfolio is it is high risk and illiquid,” Gober told NBC News. “Given how thin their surplus margins are, it’s relevant to compare how much more they have in risky stuff.”

Lynn disputed the view that the company’s policyholders face risks. “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any of our subsidiaries are inadequately capitalized,” she said, “when considering the strength and accessibility of capital across our consolidated business. Athene has more than $12 billion of consolidated statutory capital supporting $112 billion of policyholder reserves, reflecting a ratio which is meaningfully higher than other A+ and AA- rated insurers, as well as other fixed annuity providers."

The quality of Athene’s investments raises questions as well, said Gober. Its most recent filings show more than one-quarter of the securities it intends to sell before they mature were either nonrated or rated below investment grade by agencies such as Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s.

Asked whether policyholders should be concerned about these holdings, Athene says it prefers to use the ratings method put forward by NAIC. Under this system, only 5.7 percent of the securities are rated below investment grade, its filings say.

Athene’s filings also warn that “many of our invested assets are relatively illiquid,” meaning potentially difficult to sell. The company relies on Apollo for risk management support, its filings say.

Historian Charles King wins Francis Parkman Prize
Charles King's “Gods of the Upper Air,” a group biography on such groundbreaking anthropologists as Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston, has received a prominent history award. 

12/6/2020

© Provided by The Canadian Press

NEW YORK — Charles King's “Gods of the Upper Air,” a group biography on such groundbreaking anthropologists as Franz Boas, Margaret Mead and Zora Neale Hurston, has received a prominent history award. Frances Fitzgerald won the first-ever Tony Horwitz Prize, established after the celebrated historian and journalist died last year.

Also Tuesday, Robert Colby's “The Continuance of an Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South" was given the Allan Nevins Prize for outstanding doctoral dissertation.

The awards were announced by the Society of American Historians, based at Columbia University.

King's book won the Francis Parkman Prize, named for the 19th century historian and awarded for literary and scholarly achievement. Previous recipients include Robert A. Caro, David W. Blight and Eric Foner.

Fitzgerald, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam War book “Fire In the Lake,” was given the Horwitz Prize for “an author whose work in American history holds wide appeal and enduring public significance.” Horwitz was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Wall Street Journal who also wrote for The New Yorker. His books included “Confederates in the Attic” and “Spying on the South.” He is also a former president of the historians society.

___

This story was first published on June 9, 2020. It was updated on June 10, 2020, to correct the publication where the late Tony Horwitz won a Pulitzer Prize. He won the prize while with the Wall Street Journal, not The New Yorker.

The Associated Press

USSA
US government spy planes monitored George Floyd protests

By Pete Muntean and Gregory Wallace, CNN
2 days ago






5 SLIDES © adsbexchange.com
A RC-26B flew this path over Las Vegas on June 2 and 3. Map courtesy of adsbexchange.com.

5 SLIDES © Courtesy of United States Air Force

Thermal imaging devices are typically mounted on RC-26B planes, like this one, according to US military documents.

A small Cessna Citation jet flying straight into Washington's highly restricted airspace would typically be met with fighter jets on its wing. But when one flew over the nation's capital on June 1 and circled the White House 20 times, it was hardly an accident.

The plane was only one of several aircraft -- both piloted and unpiloted -- that CNN has been able to track flying over protests in Washington, Minneapolis and Las Vegas. Government watchdogs fear the planes were used to track protesters and perhaps capture cell phone data.

The government's use of surveillance planes to watch over those protesting the police killing of George Floyd has captured the attention of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who want to know whether the planes -- typically equipped with live video cameras and heat sensors -- were used for "surveilling of Americans engaged in peaceful protests."

In a June 9 letter to the heads of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection and the National Guard, lawmakers demanded an end to the practice "immediately and permanently" and called the use of aircraft above protests a "deep and profound" breach of Americans' First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The letter points to a trio of government aircraft flown over protest cities. CNN has independently verified that the flights took place, using publicly available flight path data from websites such as ADS-B Exchange. The site is known as "the world's largest source of unfiltered flight data."

The FBI has not specifically confirmed or denied the use of aircraft to surveil protests. But in a statement to CNN when asked about the flights, the FBI said it has been "focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity."

ADS-B Exchange data shows an RC-26B -- a twin-engine turboprop typically used by the FBI and the National Guard for drug interdiction -- over Washington and Las Vegas. A National Guard fact sheet says the same type of plane is normally outfitted for thermal imaging and "can be used both day and night to monitor illegal activity."

An RC-26B did at least 50 circles above Washington for nearly four hours on the evening of June 2nd, the city's fourth straight night of protests. A similar flight occurred over Washington the following night. Data shows a different RC-26B flew over Las Vegas as protests took place there on June 2 and June 3.

Of the flights over Washington, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted, "I have questions," adding that this was the "first time I can find that this aircraft, normally used for war zones/disasters/narcotics, has been used to gather intel at a protest."

The letter also says that the FBI may have flown a Cessna Citation jet "equipped with 'dirtboxes,' equipment that can collect cell phone location data," over Washington.

ADS-B Exchange data shows the same type of aircraft departed from Manassas Regional Airport in northern Virginia at 11:11 p.m. on June 1, hours after police forcibly cleared peaceful protesters from in front of the White House.

The jet climbed to an altitude of 17,000 feet and did at least 20, eight-mile-wide, counterclockwise circles centered on the White House before landing at back at Manassas after 1:30 a.m.

Data shows that the same plane took off from Manassas around the same time on the next two nights as well as June 6, flying a nearly repeat flight path over Washington.

The National Guard confirmed to Murphy that an RC-26B surveillance aircraft, operated by the West Virginia Air National Guard, was involved in responding to protests in the DC area but that such flights have since been suspended, according to a Senate staffer with direct knowledge of the situation.

"The national guard confirmed that it was air national guard and that it was an aircraft out of Lester, West Virginia. But the Department of Defense has not given any more information," the staffer told CNN, adding that the directive to hcalt these flights was made after lawmakers raised questions. Early appearances of surveillance flights began as early as May 29 when flight data shows a US Customs and Border Protection MQ-9 Predator B making a hexagonal pattern at 22,000 feet above Minneapolis where Floyd was killed days earlier.

In a letter to Congress, the Department of Homeland Security said that the unpiloted drone "was preparing to provide live video to aid in situational awareness at the request of our federal law enforcement partners in Minneapolis," but when "no longer needed for operational awareness" returned to base in North Dakota. The letter did not say which agency initially requested the flights.

Customs and Border Protection has been using the remotely piloted Predator B since 2005, agency documents show, "to safely conduct missions in areas that are difficult to access or otherwise too high-risk for manned aircraft or CBP ground personnel."

Agency fact sheets say the aircraft can record video to "document suspect activities for evidentiary use." An armed, United States Air Force version of the Predator B, known as a Reaper, was used to shoot the Hellfire missiles that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani on January 3.

"The use of aerial surveillance is deeply disturbing, especially as we're seeing so much misconduct against protesters across the country," said Jake Laperruque, senior council with the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group.

"Aerial surveillance can be used to identify and track individuals in a number of ways, so it's certainly improper to deploy this powerful surveillance tools to monitor protesters," he said. "Even if abuse isn't occurring, the mere risk could significantly chill free speech."

Witnesses with a background in identifying aircraft types spotted other airplanes circling overhead Washington on protest nights -- what appeared to be a Cessna Caravan and Cessna 182.

The single-engine private airplanes are typically banned from loitering in the highly restricted airspace over Washington, but CNN was not able to track the aircraft using flight path databases. Those who routinely monitor flight path data tell CNN it is possible that the flights had special FAA approval to operate with their transponders turned off, making tracking more difficult. Light general aviation aircraft typically cannot operate in the Washington, DC, Flight Restricted Zone without a transponder.

It was not just high-altitude flights taking place over protest cities. The District of Columbia National Guard said it is reviewing its own use of helicopters over the demonstrations, including "an investigation into a June 1 low-flying maneuver conducted by one of our rotary aviation assets." That helicopter blew debris around protesters who remained on the street after a city-imposed curfew.