Exxon’s Imperial Shuts Oil-Sands Mine After Pipeline Spill

Robert Tuttle Bloomberg September 2, 2020



(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Imperial Oil shut down its oil-sands mine after a spill from a pipeline that supplies diluent to the operation, adding to the woes of Canada’s beleaguered energy industry.

Imperial announced the ramp-down of its Kearl mine in northern Alberta on Wednesday, following a leak Saturday that led Inter Pipeline Ltd. to shut the west segment of its 240,000-barrel-a-day Polaris system. The diluent Polaris supplies to sites operated by Imperial and Husky Energy Inc. is mixed with the sticky bitumen they produce, so that it can be shipped by pipeline.

The disruption is just the latest blow to Canadian crude producers that had been struggling with a lack of pipeline infrastructure and competition from shale before the Covid-19 pandemic slashed demand from the U.S. refineries they supply.


The Western Canadian Select crude benchmark for October delivery strengthened relative to West Texas Intermediate. Its discount to the U.S. benchmark has narrowed by $1.40 a barrel over the past two days to $9.40. Before Tuesday, the gap hadn’t fallen below $10 since Aug. 17, NE2 Group data show.

Imperial said the Kearl mine is ready to ramp up to full production rates once diluent supply is restored, and it’s pursuing steps to try to mitigate the impact of the outage.

The area where the break in the pipeline is believed to have occurred has been identified, and the company is working to remove “product” from the shut-in section, Shawn Roth, an Alberta Energy Regulator spokesman, said Wednesday. The AER hasn’t received a request to resume service on the line.
There was no estimate for a restart of the impacted segment of the Polaris system, Inter Pipeline said Tuesday. The east segment of the pipeline, which supplies some other oil-sands sites, is fully operational.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:

The leak in the Polaris diluent pipeline forced oil sands production to halt at a time producers are already struggling with weak margins and stretched balance sheets. Imperial Oil, 70% owned by Exxon Mobil, was forced to close its Kearl mining project in northeast Alberta Province that produces over 270,000 barrels a day. Husky, BP and Cenovus could also see effects on production and costs.

-- Fernando Valle and Talon Custer, BI analysts

Husky, operator of the Sunrise oil-sands site, has been affected by the pipeline shutdown, “however, we have other options to help mitigate the effects,” spokeswoman Dawn Delaney said Tuesday.

(Updates with regulator comment in sixth paragraph)

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

THE REAL ECONOMY USA VS WALL ST

Furloughs becoming permanent and pay bumps getting rolled back.

The crucial August jobs report is just one day away.

And ahead of this data, two readings on the labor market released Wednesday pointed to an employment slowdown in the first month since support from the CARES Act expired.

And should serve as a troubling backdrop for lawmakers who are still far apart on passing a new aid package for workers and businesses operating at levels well below those that prevailed before the pandemic.

Private payroll data from ADP published Wednesday morning showed that 428,000 jobs were added to private sector payrolls in August. This was more than the 212,000 added last month, but fewer than the 1 million jobs Wall Street expected were added last month.

Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said Wednesday that, “The August job postings demonstrate a slow recovery. Job gains are minimal, and businesses across all sizes and sectors have yet to come close to their pre-COVID-19 employment levels.”

And on Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book report showed the labor market remains mixed across the Fed’s 12 districts. The Beige Book is closely watched by investors as it forms the basis of the economic discussion that Fed officials will have during their next two-day policy meeting, set for September 15-16.

“Employment increased overall among Districts, with gains in manufacturing cited most often,” the Beige Book said. This positive commentary on manufacturing employment that jives with data received out of that sector earlier this week highlighted in the Morning Brief on Wednesday.

“However,” the report continued, “some Districts also reported slowing job growth and increased hiring volatility, particularly in service industries, with rising instances of furloughed workers being laid off permanently as demand remained soft.

“Firms continued to experience difficulty finding necessary labor, a matter compounded by day care availability, as well as uncertainty over the coming school year and jobless benefits. Wages were flat to slightly higher in most Districts, with greater pressure cited among lower-paying positions. Some firms also rescinded previous pay cuts. Others, however, have looked to roll back hazard pay for high-exposure jobs, though some have chosen not to do so for staff morale and recruitment purposes.” (Emphasis added.)

So, some positive indicators — wage pressures emerging lower-paying roles with pay cuts rescinded — and negative indicators with furloughs becoming permanent and hazard pay getting rolled back.

But with the post-lockdown recovery still in its early stages and overall employment in the U.S. economy down by more than 12 million since February, flat-to-mixed outlooks for the labor market are not what policymakers ought to be shooting for.

“Continued uncertainty and volatility related to the pandemic, and its negative effect on consumer and business activity, was a theme echoed across the country,” the Beige Book said.

So while stocks on Wednesday continued to rally and earnings suggest better days are ahead in Corporate America, the current on-the-ground reality for many workers and consumers is an economic recovery leveling off at depressed levels.

By Myles Udland, reporter and co-anchor of The Final Round. Follow him at @MylesUdland

Essential and vulnerable: COVID-19 takes hard toll on California's migrant farm workers

PAY THEM ESSENTIAL WAGES
Nadia Lopez, Report for America, USA TODAY Opinion•September 3, 2020

WINTON, Calif. — The 31-mile road that connects Modesto and Merced, cut between almond, apricot and plum orchards, leads to California’s agricultural heartland.

Many migrant agricultural workers such as Hugo Garcia call this small town, a few miles north of Merced, home. Garcia has worked at an almond processing plant in the region for more than 16 years, but he saw his life upended this year when he and his entire family contracted COVID-19.

Garcia, sitting in the home he shared with his 85-year-old mother, said he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with more than two dozen workers in an area that was shut down after nearly everyone tested positive for COVID-19. He tested positive June 16 and quickly spread the virus to his mother and other family members.

Garcia’s symptoms were mild and he recovered, but his mother, Sinforosa, died after more than three weeks in the hospital. He had to make the agonizing decision to take her off life support when doctors said she wouldn’t recover.- ADVERTISEMENT -


“She had a 1% chance of living; she wasn’t going to make it,” he said in Spanish. “She was only suffering at that point.”

Against the advice of health officials, county leaders abandoned contact tracing, saying the spread of the virus was “too wide” for it to be effective. So, despite a confirmed diagnosis, no one from Merced County asked Garcia about who he came in contact with.

Farm workers and their families wait for donated food and supplies, including surgical masks, on May 9 near Rolinda, Calif.

Garcia’s situation is far from unique. Farms and processing plants across the region have reported alarming COVID-19 outbreaks, leading to a disproportionate rate of cases among the Latino and migrant community.

Categorized as a high-risk group for COVID-19, Latinos make up 39% of the state population, but they represent 57% of coronavirus cases in California and 46% of deaths. About 90% of the state’s agricultural laborers are Latino.

Farm workers, who endure extreme heat and pesticide exposure daily, continue to work grueling hours standing shoulder-to-shoulder in processing centers across the state, often shuffling to and from the fields in clusters, then going back home to close quarters.

As cases surged, California focused efforts to combat the spread among Latinos and migrant farm workers in the Central Valley by allocating an additional $52 million in federal funding to the region and deploying three teams of health and safety workers.

In addition to the state’s $75 million in disaster relief for workers, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $50 million philanthropic effort to support the state’s roughly 2 million undocumented people.

But those dollars are running out, and experts say there’s enough to provide aid for only 150,000 people. Latino leaders in the Valley are calling for more state action.

Kings County Supervisor Richard Valle, who grew up in a farm worker community, helped draft a letter to state leaders asking for more financial assistance as well as protective equipment, mobile testing sites and translation services for workers. He said farm workers need the same protection and support as public safety and medical workers.

“The farm workers are catching COVID at high rates, and it’s spreading out in the communities," Valle said. "It’s driving up the numbers in the communities, and it puts our food chain at risk."

South of Merced County, in the secluded Kings County town of Avenal, Rosa Barajas, a line worker at an onion processing plant, worried about getting sick. But earning only $12 an hour, she couldn’t afford to take days off.

She said she worked more than eight hours a day standing next to a dozen co-workers without masks or gloves and in cramped quarters. Coworkers began to get sick, and Barajas, a mother of two, started to feel unbearably tired.

In a few days, she suffered from congestion and bone-chilling aches. Then a coworker died, terrifying Barajas, who is diabetic and has hypertension.

“Everything started feeling worse and I couldn’t even breathe,” she said. “I thought I was getting better, then it would start all over again. I prayed to God to take me because I felt like I couldn’t go through with it anymore.”

California’s $50 billion agricultural industry depends on workers like Garcia and Barajas, about 60% of whom are unauthorized to legally work in the U.S., according to a recent study.

Considered essential workers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, their undocumented status disqualifies them from unemployment, access to health care services and safety net programs put in place to help residents during the pandemic. They also don’t receive family sick leave if exposed to the virus.

Valle, the Kings County supervisor, knows how hard migrant laborers work to put food on the table for Americans and for their families. His grandparents used to take their five children, including his mother, to the fields where they picked grapes during the hundred-degree summers in Selma, Calif. They worked long hours while the kids played, then drove home, made dinner, put the children to bed and woke up at 4:30 a.m. the next day to do it all over again.

“I feel obligated because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my (grandparents) working in those fields,” he said. “So we owe it. I can't sit here knowing that farm workers are not getting protection while in the middle of a pandemic.”

Nadia Lopez covers Latino Communities for The Fresno Bee. This dispatch is part of a series called “On the Ground” with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Follow her on Twitter: @n_llopez.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: COVID-19 hits California's migrant farm workers hard

Donald Trump Would Like to Momentarily Pause This Campaign to Tell You How Good His Brain Is

https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-momentarily-pause-campaign-080310472.html

HISTORIC DEFEAT FOR US IMPERIALISM

 Iran nuclear deal members resolved to preserve agreement

DAVID RISING,Associated Press•September 1, 2020

 In this Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2020 file photo, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi from Argentina, speaks to the media after returning from Iran at the Vienna International Airport. Representatives of Iran and the world powers working to save the nuclear deal with Tehran agreed Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, in Vienna to do everything possible to preserve the landmark 2015 agreement in their first meeting since the United States announced a bid to restore United Nations sanctions against the Islamic Republic. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)


BERLIN (AP) — Representatives of Iran and the world powers working to save the nuclear deal with Tehran agreed Tuesday in Vienna to do everything possible to preserve the landmark 2015 agreement in their first meeting since the United States announced a bid to restore United Nations sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Helga Schmid, the European Union representative who chaired the meeting, said afterwards on Twitter that the “participants are united in resolve to preserve the #IranDeal and find a way to ensure full implementation of the agreement despite current challenges.”

Iranian representative Abbas Araghchi did not comment after the day of talks, but ahead of the meeting said the U.S. move would “definitely be an important discussion” topic with delegates from France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China.

President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action unilaterally in 2018, saying that it was a bad deal and needed to be renegotiated.


The deal promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, but with the reinstatement of American sanctions, the other nations have been struggling to provide Iran the assistance it seeks.

Complicating the matter, the U.S. announced recently it was triggering a 30-day process to restore virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran, invoking a “snapback” mechanism that is part of the JCPOA agreement. Washington's argument is that as an original participant it still has that right, even though it left the deal.

Other signatories to the JCPOA agreement have rejected that argument, setting the stage for a potential crisis in the Security Council later this month, with the U.S. claiming to have re-imposed sanctions and most of the rest of the world saying the Trump administration's action is illegal and ignoring it.

After U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to the U.N. to invoke snapback on Aug. 20, Indonesia’s U.N. Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, whose country held the rotating council presidency, said there was overwhelming opposition in the 15-member body to the U.S. position. He said it was unlikely there would be any action on Washington’s demand.

Niger’s U.N. Ambassador Abdou Abarry, who took over the rotating council presidency on Tuesday, said: “Up until there would be maybe new facts, and I haven’t seen any yet, we are staying at the level of the Security Council aligned with this position as expressed by the president, ambasador Djani.”

Chinese representative Fu Cong told reporters after the Vienna meeting that the member countries all agreed that the U.S. no longer has "the legal ground or legal standing to trigger snapback" and that in China’s view Washington was using it to “try to sabotage or even kill the JCPOA.”

He suggested the other countries were also not prepared to “just wait and see” whether Trump is reelected in November.

“The U.S., even though it is a superpower, is just one country,” Fu said. “So other countries are moving on.”

The Russian delegate to the JCPOA, Mikhail Ulyanov, took a swipe at the U.S. ahead of the meeting, tweeting that Tuesday's talks involved “participation of all (not self-proclaimed) participants of the nuclear deal.”

Afterward, he tweeted that the meeting “demonstrated that its participants are fully committed to the nuclear deal and are determined to do their best to preserve it.”

The ultimate goal of the deal is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, something Iran insists it does not want to do.

However, since the U.S. withdrawal, Iran has been steadily violating its restrictions on the amount of uranium it can enrich, the amount of heavy water it can possess, and the purity to which it enriches its uranium. That's all to put pressure on the other nations involved to come ahead with more economic incentives.

It now has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb, but nowhere near the amount — or the purity — it had before the nuclear deal was signed.

Those working to save the deal also note that despite the violations, Iran continues to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to access all sites in the country.

Last week, Iran held out an olive branch to end one issue of contention, agreeing to allow IAEA inspectors into two sites where the country is suspected of having stored or used undeclared nuclear material in the early 2000s.

Iran had insisted the agency had no right to inspect the sites, since they dated to well before the JCPOA came into effect.

_____

Iran nuclear deal parties stand by troubled accord amid US pressure

Julia ZAPPEI, AFP•September 1, 2020





Iran nuclear deal parties stand by troubled accord amid US pressure

Iran has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to visit two sites suspected of hosting undeclared activity in the early 2000sThe signatories to the Iran nuclear deal said Tuesday that they stood by the faltering accord and China slammed US efforts to restore international sanctions on the Islamic republic and extend an arms embargo.

Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are struggling to save the landmark 2015 accord with Iran, which has been progressively stepping up its nuclear activities since the United States pulled out of the deal in 2018.

Tehran insists it is entitled to do so under the terms of the accord -- which swapped sanctions relief for Iran's agreement to scale back its nuclear programme -- following Washington's withdrawal and reimposition of sanctions.

EU senior official Helga Schmid, who chaired the talks in Vienna on Tuesday, wrote on Twitter that the meeting's participants were "united in resolve to preserve the #IranDeal and find a way to ensure full implementation of the agreement despite current challenges".- ADVERTISEMENT -


Representatives from Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia all attended the talks -- part of a regular series of gatherings to discuss the accord, which have been increasingly tense since the US pullout began unravelling the agreement.


- 'Mockery' -


China's representative, senior Foreign Ministry official Fu Cong, told reporters after the meeting that Iran needed to come back to full compliance, but at the same time "the economic benefit that is due to Iran needs to be provided".

He slammed the US for "making a mockery of international law" in its "attempt to sabotage and to kill the JCPOA", referring to the abbreviation of the deal's formal name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

"The US is stopping at nothing in trying to sabotage other countries' efforts to provide economic benefits to Iran," he added.

The United Nations last week blocked the US bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran, while Washington also failed to rally enough support to extend an arms embargo that was scheduled to start being rolled back from October.

In a boost to Tuesday's talks, the Iranian atomic energy agency last week also agreed to allow inspectors of the UN nuclear watchdog to visit two sites suspected of having hosted undeclared activity in the early 2000s.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi had travelled to Iran on his first trip since taking up the top post last year and after months of calling for access.


- US 'isolated' -


Mark Fitzpatrick, an associate fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said last week's agreement on access kept "Iran generally in line with the rest of the world, against an isolated United States".

But Fitzpatrick pointed out that "Iran's nuclear activities remain of deep concern to those states that are dedicated to non-proliferation".

Iran reportedly recently transferred advanced centrifuges used to enrich uranium from a pilot facility into a new hall at its main Natanz nuclear fuel plant, which was hit by sabotage in July.

An IAEA assessment published in June said Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was almost eight times the limit fixed in the accord.

The level of enrichment is still far below what would be needed for a nuclear weapon, but parties to the deal have urged Iran's full compliance.

Iran has insisted it can reverse the steps it has taken since last year -- if it can again benefit economically again under the deal.

The IAEA, which regular updates its members on Iran's nuclear activities, is expected to issue a fresh report ahead of a meeting of member states to discuss the dossier later this month.

Trump-Nominated Postal Service Board Member Pushed Black Lives Matter Conspiracy Theories

Sam Brodey,The Daily Beast•September 2, 2020
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

A U.S. Postal Service board member, who reportedly played a key role in the selection of Louis DeJoy to lead the agency, called the Black Lives Matter movement violent and floated a conspiracy theory that it may be financially backed by foreign entities.

In June, John M. Barger, who serves on the Postal Service’s six-member Board of Governors, engaged in a back-and-forth on LinkedIn with a contact in Hong Kong. The exchange is publicly accessible on Barger’s profile on the platform. It began with that contact posting a photo of the strict public health measures in effect in Hong Kong due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When Barger’s contact offhandedly mentioned Black Lives Matter in the course of explaining the Chinese government’s aggressive posture toward Hong Kong, Barger teed off.

“Ummmm… BLM is a movement that is neither state sanctioned, nor about race these days,” responded Barger. “Further, its divisive violent core may be receiving ‘foreign funding.’”

Facebook’s Internal Black Lives Matter Debate Got So Bad Zuckerberg Had to Step In-

There is no evidence that the Black Lives Matter movement, which includes an official foundation of the same name but also many decentralized, unofficial groups nationwide, is benefiting from any kind of organized funding effort orchestrated from abroad. In his post, Barger cited nothing specific. The Black Lives Matter Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, bills itself as a “global movement,” but accepts donations through the online fundraising platform ActBlue, which prohibits non-Americans from making contributions.

Barger did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily Beast. But his comments could spark additional criticism that the USPS’ board of governors—already under scrutiny for DeJoy’s handling of postal reforms—is stacked with overtly partisan conservative figures.

Barger’s theory about Black Lives Matter echoes some writings from conservative media, which hold that the movement is the beneficiary of shady foreign interests. Pro-Trump corners of the Internet are rife with theories that BLM is a front for a left-wing coup or revolution. More established Republicans have raised broader questions about who is funding the movement. This week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) called for a federal investigation into that very question.

A recently deleted Twitter account, accessed by The Daily Beast via web cache, that appears to have belonged to Barger contains endorsements of Black Lives Matter criticism. On June 30, the account shared a post from the right-wing personality Ian Miles Cheong, which purports to show a BLM supporter assaulting a Black man who was removing BLM signs. “Outrageous,” was Barger’s apparent comment in retweeting the post.

Rep. Katie Porter Grills Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Basic Facts About the Post Office

Barger, a Los Angeles-based financier, was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve on the USPS Board of Governors and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in August 2019. He is an active GOP donor, having given over $70,000 to Republican candidates for office since 1989, according to federal campaign finance records. Barger has continued making campaign contributions since joining the USPS board, cutting a $10,000 check to the Republican National Committee in December.

An August 2020 investigation from House Democrats into the tenure of Postmaster General DeJoy, who took over the post in June, claimed Barger played a significant role in getting DeJoy in that post.

Barger was the USPS board member tasked with leading the search for a replacement for Megan Brennan, who held the Postmaster General position until October 2019. DeJoy, a fellow GOP mega-donor with no USPS experience, was not on an initial list of potential candidates provided to the board by an independent agency, Russell Reynolds Associates.

The Democratic probe found evidence that Barger got DeJoy’s resume in the mix. An Aug. 20 letter to Barger from Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Katie Porter (D-CA) cited “individuals familiar with the process” in saying “DeJoy was never recommended by this firm but was rather introduced by you to the selection committee. It would have been irregular for a member of the USPS Board of Governors, such as yourself, to recommend Mr. DeJoy without the consultation, research, or support of the contracted hiring firm Russell Reynolds Associates.”

A former member of the USPS Board of Governors who briefed House Democrats on the selection process, David C. Williams, said he raised concerns about DeJoy to Barger. When Williams resigned in April, he cited concerns over the process in his letter.

Barger claimed to the New York Times that Williams had never expressed concern over the Board’s consideration of DeJoy, and that if he had heard Williams’ concerns, he would have taken them seriously. He also told the Los Angeles Times that it was the Board’s chairman, Robert M. Duncan, who had brought DeJoy to the selection committee’s attention.

Duncan, who appeared alongside DeJoy on August 24 in heated testimony before the House Oversight Committee, has himself come under fire for partisan ties. On August 31, Duncan, a former chairman and general counsel for the Republican National Committee, was listed on official filings as the director of the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC that works to elect Republicans to the Senate. The native Kentuckian has a long history with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who reportedly recommended Duncan to Trump as a USPS board member before he was nominated in 2017.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

U.S. Attorney General Barr says antifa 'flying around' U.S. to incite violence

TRUMP SAID SOME MAN TOLD HIM ABOUT THIS
THIS IS THAT MAN
Jan Wolfe,Reuters•September 2, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday said the Justice Department was monitoring the protest movement antifa, saying that it is at the heart of violence in cities around the country.

"I've talked to every police chief in every city where there has been major violence and they all have identified antifa as the ramrod for the violence," Barr said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "They are flying around the country. We know people who are flying around the country."

"We see some of the purchases they are making before the riots of weapons to use in those riots," Barr added. "So, we are following them."

Antifa is a largely unstructured, far-left movement whose followers broadly aim to confront those they view as authoritarian or racist.

Republican President Donald Trump, who has been trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, has been appealing to his base of white supporters with a "law and order" message. In a visit Tuesday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a 17-year-old Trump supporter has been charged with killing two people during protests following the police shooting of a Black man in the back, Trump said the destruction that occurred was "really domestic terror."

Barr on Wednesday also said he thought there was no systemic racism in the U.S. justice system, and that there is a "false narrative" that the country is in an "epidemic" of unarmed Black people being killed by white police officers.

"I think our institutions have been reformed in the past 60 years and if anything has been built into it it's a bias toward non-discrimination," Barr said.

In a Fox News interview late on Monday, Trump said an investigation was under way into alleged “thugs” who boarded a plane seeking to cause damage last week during the Republican Party convention, without providing details or evidence.

Law enforcement, intelligence and Congressional officials familiar with official reporting on weeks of protests and related arrests said on Tuesday they were aware of no incidents or reports that would confirm Trump’s anecdote.

Trump signed a memo on Wednesday that threatens to cut federal funding to "lawless" cities, including Seattle, Portland, New York and Washington.

"My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones," said the memo, which was released by the White House.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Twitter that the memo was an "illegal stunt."

New video shows fatal police shooting of Black man in LA
STEFANIE DAZIO, Associated Press•September 2, 2020

Tensions rise after Black man fatally shot by LA deputies; victim’s family retains attorney Ben Crump

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A grainy video posted Wednesday shows the fatal shooting of a Black man by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies after he was stopped on a bicycle for a traffic violation, but the video does not confirm the police allegation that he “made a motion" for a gun.

Dijon Kizzee was shot and killed Monday afternoon in South Los Angeles. The video, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, shows the 29-year-old Kizzee scuffling with a deputy on a sidewalk. Kizzee broke free, stumbled and fell to the ground and two deputies opened fire.

Police have said a gun fell out when Kizzee dropped a jacket as he fell to the ground and he “made a motion” for the weapon — prompting deputies to open fire. But the video does not confirm whether that happened because a fence obstructs the view at that period in the sequence of events.
Kizzee's death came after another police shooting victim, Jacob Blake, was hit in the back and paralyzed last month in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake's shooting prompted large and violent protests in Kenosha. There have been two much smaller, peaceful protests in Los Angeles for Kizzee.


The shootings of Kizzee and Blake show the need for a national standard on police use of force to prevent more killings of Black men and increase accountability and transparency, said Lynda Williams, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

“It just hurts to see this recurring over and over,” she said. “It's just incredulous to think that a bicycle stop has led to deadly force.”

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, the Blake family's lawyer, announced Wednesday that he also is representing Kizzee's relatives and denounced the fatal shooting.

“We stand with Dijon’s family in demanding justice and transparency into this despicable and tragic killing perpetrated by Los Angeles County officers," Crump said in a statement. "When officers shoot first and ask questions later, precious lives are lost and police lose credibility and trust from those they are sworn to protect.”

There was no immediate response Wednesday evening to a request for comment about the video sent to an email address listed as Crump’s media contact.

The sheriff's department provided no new information about the case on Wednesday but a department statement Tuesday said deputies tried to stop Kizzee for riding his bicycle in violation of vehicle codes, without specifying the alleged infraction.

Statistics nationwide show that “biking while Black” can result in disproportionate citations for people of color. A 2015 Tampa Bay Times investigation revealing that eight out of 10 bicyclists ticketed by Tampa police were Black prompted a federal probe.

A Chicago Tribune review in 2017 found that more than twice as many citations were written in African-American communities than in white or Latino areas.

The office of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represents the district where Kizzee was shot, has not received complaints alleging police harassment of Black bicyclists. But Ridley-Thomas said he heard similar accounts anecdotally following Kizzee's death.

“It is not something with which those who are involved in criminal justice reform and representing clients are unfamiliar,” he said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department did not provide statistics regarding bicycle stops and citations on Wednesday and the Los Angeles Police Department's figures do not break down vehicle stops by category.

Donny Joubert, vice president of the Watts Gang Task Force group in Los Angeles that was created to reduce gang violence and improve community relations with police, said residents on bicycles in communities of color are regularly stopped for supposed vehicle violations.

But he said white cyclists in wealthy neighborhoods rarely face the same treatment.

“They’ll pull you over on a skateboard,” Joubert said. “It means our kids can’t even ride a bike in their community without being blamed for something or being accused of something.”

The sheriff's department has said Kizzee got off his bike and ran and the deputies briefly lost sight of him. The video shows a police SUV stop in a street. A deputy gets out, runs around a parked car and appears to try to grab Kizzee as he walks down the sidewalk. They tussle, standing, and move down the street together for several seconds. Kissee appears to throw a punch. Police have said he hit the deputy in the face but that's not clear from the video.

The video then shows Kissee breaking free, stumbling and falling to the ground. A second deputy arrives. Within about 2 seconds, they repeatedly open fire.

Police have not said how many shots the deputies fired. The video obtained by the Times does not have audio, but another video from a front door camera that does not show the shooting captured the sound of about 15 rounds fired.

Kizzee's relatives have described him as devoted to his late mother and 18-year-old brother. They said he was an energetic man who loved go-karts, cars and music and that he was working toward becoming a plumber.

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the largest in the nation, does not have body cameras for deputies, though that soon will change. The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved funding and the first group of deputies will be equipped with cameras next month.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva offered his condolences to Kizzee's relatives on Tuesday, who he said includes a cousin who is a Sheriff's Department member.

Villanueva did not offer any updates on the investigation during a live social media event on Wednesday.

He did not respond to repeated questions about the fatal shooting posted by The Associated Press during the event.

Eli Akira Kaufman, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, said his organization is trying to redefine street safety beyond the primary concern of many cyclists of good bicycle lanes for protection from cars.

“Bicycling, at the end of the day, is the freedom to move freely — without fear for your life,” he said.

Video in Black man’s suffocation shows cops put hood on him
by: MICHAEL HILL, Associated Press Posted: Sep 2, 2020 

In this image taken from police body camera video provided by Roth and Roth LLP, a Rochester police officer puts a hood over the head of Daniel Prude, on March 23, 2020, in Rochester, N.Y. Video of Prude, a Black man who had run naked through the streets of the western New York city, died of asphyxiation after a group of police officers put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020, by the man’s family. Prude died March 30 after he was taken off life support, seven days after the encounter with police in Rochester. (Rochester Police via Roth and Roth LLP via AP)

A Black man who had run naked through the streets of a western New York city died of asphyxiation after a group of police officers put a hood over his head, then pressed his face into the pavement for two minutes, according to video and records released Wednesday by the man’s family.

Daniel Prude died March 30 after he was taken off life support, seven days after the encounter with police in Rochester. His death received no public attention until Wednesday, when his family held a news conference and released police body camera video and written reports they obtained through a public records request.

“How did you see him and not directly say, ‘The man is defenseless, buck naked on the ground. He’s cuffed up already. Come on.’ How many more brothers gotta die for society to understand that this needs to stop?” Prude’s brother, Joe Prude, asked at a news conference Wednesday.

The videos show Prude, who had taken off his clothes, complying when police ask him to get on the ground and put his hands behind his back. Prude is agitated and shouting as officers let him writhe as he sits on the pavement in handcuffs for a few moments as a light snow falls.

Then, they put a white “spit hood” over his head, a device intended to protect officers from a detainee’s saliva. At the time, New York was in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Prude demands they remove it.

Then the officer’s slam Prude’s head into the street. One officer holds his head down against the pavement with both hands, saying “stop spitting” as Prude’s shouts turn to whimpers and grunts. Another officer places a knee on his back. The officers appear to become concerned when they notice water coming out of Prude’s mouth.

“My man. You puking?” one says.

Prude stops moving and falls silent. One officer notes that he’s been out, naked, in the street for some time. Another remarks, “He feels pretty cold.”

His head had been held down by an officer for just over two minutes.

Medics can then be seen on the video performing CPR before he’s loaded into an ambulance.

Spit hoods have been scrutinized as a factor in the deaths of several prisoners in the U.S. and other countries in recent years.

A medical examiner concluded that Prude’s death was a homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint.” The report lists excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP, as contributing factors.

Prude was from Chicago and had just arrived in Rochester for a visit with his family. Police responded after Joe Prude called 911 to report that his brother had left his house and was experiencing mental health issues.

The city halted its investigation into Prude’s death when state Attorney General Letitia James office began its own investigation in April. Under New York law, deaths of unarmed people in police custody are often turned over to the attorney general’s office, rather than handled by local officials.

James said Wednesday that investigation is continuing.

“I want everyone to understand that at no point in time did we feel that this was something that we wanted not to disclose,” Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said at press briefing. “We are precluded from getting involved in it until that agency (the AG’s office) has completed their investigation.”

One officer wrote that they put the hood on Prude because he was spitting continuously in the direction of officers and they were concerned about coronavirus.

Still, activists demanded that officers involved with Prude’s death be prosecuted on murder charges and that they be removed from the department while the investigation proceeds.

“The police have shown us over and over again that they are not equipped to handle individuals with mental health concerns. These officers are trained to kill, and not to deescalate. These officers are trained to ridicule, instead of supporting Mr. Daniel Prude,” Ashley Gantt of Free the People ROC said at the news conference with Prude’s family.

Protesters gathered Wednesday outside Rochester’s Public Safety Building, which serves as police headquarters. Free the People ROC said several of its organizers were briefly taken into custody after they entered the building while Warren was speaking to the media.

They were released on appearance tickets, said Iman Abid, regional director of the NYCLU, who was among those taken into custody.

___

Hill reported from Albany. Associated Press writers Mary Esch, Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz and Dave Collins contributed to this repo

Trump Invites All To Remove Masks, Interrupts Black Attendees At Kenosha Roundtable

FOR GEORGE FLOYD CHOKING WAS FATAL

FOR TRUMP IT MEANS YOU'RE A LOSER

Jeremy Blum, HuffPost•September 2, 2020

At a Tuesday roundtable with local officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin, President Donald Trump invited all present to remove their face masks and repeatedly answered questions that reporters asked of the only Black attendees.

“If you feel more comfortable, if you’ll say a couple of words, you might want to take the masks off, otherwise you can leave them on,” the president said at the start of the event. “Either way you want.”

Trump then pointed to one of the members in attendance, saying, “Look how fast you took that off.”

The indoor roundtable, where attendees sat at a distance from the president but within close proximity of each other, was focused on community safety in Kenosha. Trump used the meeting to condemn protests in the city that began after Jacob Blake, a now-paralyzed 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer on Aug. 23.-

The president also dismissed concerns about police brutality, arguing that “bad apples” on the police force would be “taken care of through the system” and that law enforcement needed to be supported.

“You know, the sad thing is you can do 10,000 great jobs as a policeman or a policewoman,” Trump said. “You can do an incredible job for years, and then you have one bad apple or something happens that’s bad. And that’s the nightly news for three weeks. That’s all they talk about.”

When a reporter directed questions about systemic racism in policing to James and Sharon Ward ― the only Black attendees and the pastors for Julia Jackson, Blake’s mother ― Trump repeatedly cut in to answer for them.“I think the police do an incredible job, and I think you do have some bad apples,” Trump said. “I think you’d agree every once in a while you’ll see something. And you do have the other situation, too, where they’re under this tremendous pressure, and they don’t handle it well. They call it ‘choking,’ and it happens.”

Trump previously referred to “bad apples” who “choke” under pressure in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday, when he bizarrely compared police officers to golfers who miss easy putts.

See the entirety of the roundtable below, courtesy of NBC: