Thursday, June 25, 2020

Police training programs have a pseudoscience problem

Kelly McLaughlin  Jun 17, 2020
Police officers stand guard during a June 3, 2020 protest against the police killing of George Floyd. Eduardo Munoz/Reuters 

Police training programs often have little basis in scientific research, and experts say misinformation runs rampant without anyone to regulate it.

According to the California-based Institute on Criminal Justice Training Reform, police trainings rely too much on assumptions, anecdotal information, and unverified information.

Bill Lewinski, who trains police officers and often serves as an expert witness in cases, has been criticized by experts for relying too much on studies that lack rigor.

Experts from the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing have called for a nationally recognized, independent, nonpartisan organization that could help provide resources to police departments across the US.

As Black Lives Matter protests continue to be held throughout the US following the death of George Floyd, many people are evaluating the role of policing in society.

Activists have since called for police departments to be defunded or abolished, and those calling for reform say use-of-force maneuvers should be banned and that police need more de-escalation training before they're allowed to patrol the streets.

There's also another issue that needs attention: Pseudoscience. Experts say beliefs falsely regarded as scientific are pervasive in the world of policing.

Renee Mitchell, an executive committee member of the American Society of Evidence, told Insider that every state has its own regulations when it comes to police training, but many academies lack empirical research when teaching new policies.

"Police don't do a literature review examining research before they implement policy or practice," she told Insider. "They do what's called best practice, which is essentially common practice. They call another agency to see what agencies do, but there's nothing that verifies whether that approach works or not."

The underlying issue, experts told Insider, is not only that there's a lack of science in police training, but there's also no one to regulate the spread of misinformation.
Police often rely on assumptions, anecdotal information, and unverified information instead of data when it comes to training

According to the California-based Institute on Criminal Justice Training Reform (ICJTR), police training programs often rely on assumptions, anecdotal information, and unverified information over scientific research when educating new hires.

As put in a 2008 study from the University of Emory titled "Science and Pseudoscience in Law Enforcement: A User-Friendly Primer," law enforcement has "long struggled with the throne problem of distinguishing scientifically supported from scientifically unsupported practices."
HIDALGO, TX - NOVEMBER 05: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), agents in riot gear take part in a training exercise at the international port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border on November 5, 2018 in Hidalgo, Texas. Days before, U.S. Army soldiers put up razor wire at the same location as part of "Operation Faithful Patriot." John Moore/Getty Images
"Police and other law enforcement workers, like individuals in all applied disciplines, must keep a watchful eye on pseudoscientific and otherwise unsubstantiated claims," the study said. "If they do not, they can end up making flawed decisions that result in confessions, erroneous convictions, confabbed memories of early trauma, and a plethora of other harmful real-world consequences."

The study's authors recommended that police go through training programs that would help them distinguish science from pseudoscience.

"By attending to the differences between scientific and pseudoscientific assertions, police officers and other law enforcement officials can minimize their risk of errors and make better real-world decisions," the study said.
A leading trainer in policing has become a controversial figure because of his data

One of the police industry's leading training institutions is the Force Science Institute, run by psychologist Bill Lewinski, who in 2015 was the subject of a New York Times article about his work serving as an expert witness for police in shooting cases.

Lewinski also hosts use-of-force and deescalation training courses for police, and much of his research looks into police reaction times. In one study, he argued that suspects can draw guns more quickly during the time it takes for an officer to draw their own gun, aim, and shoot. He has also studied how suspects can end up shot in the back by police officers and why officers "continue to fire 'extra' rounds in high-adrenaline confrontations, even after the threat has ended," according to the Force Science website.

In recent years, police departments in New York and Ohio have backed out of trainings with Lewinski, and his work has been criticized by Lisa Fournier, a Washington State University professor and an "American Journal of Psychology" editor.
NYPD police officers detain a protester as they clash during a march in Brooklyn, New York, May 30. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

I
n an interview with Insider, Lewinski said his company does not teach pseudoscience, but did acknowledge that such practices are an issue in police training programs.

"In law enforcement, it is expert opinion that still drives much of training, and so our research started off by looking at the threats that officers face and the type of dynamic situations that they got into," he said.

Lewinski urged police academies to use more research in their courses and said officers should spend more time on science-based studies, de-escalation techniques, and communication while learning policing techniques.


"Most of the people who criticize us don't look at what the main purpose of our research is," Lewinski said. "You got to understand what the problem is, and nobody has researched that problem like we have."

Lewinski has a list of journals he has had studies published in on his website, and he also publishes findings in police magazines and his company's newsletter in hopes of reaching more of an audience in law enforcement.
A protester confronts police while rallying against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Portland Reuters

Von Kliem, a spokesperson for Lewinski, told Insider that government agencies and police departments regularly rely on his work and that Force Science uses research-based methods to teach officers "to recognize and safely de-escalate threats before any force becomes necessary."

"Decades of research have gone into understanding force encounters so that officers are able to manage safer outcomes for all involved," Kliem said.

But Fournier told Insider that the work of Lewinski's that she has evaluated often lacked control groups, and drew conclusions without the support from data. She said she had issues with Lewinski's peer-review processes, and said she didn't believe enough scientists were involved.

"It's amazing to me that the Force Science Institute gets away with this stuff," she told Insider.
The 21-foot Tueller Drill is still taught as science, even though its creator says it shouldn't be

Randy Shrewsberry, the founder of the ICJTR, used the Tueller Drill as an example of a "junk science" self-defense exercise that police departments sometimes use to prepare officers for short-range attacks.

The technique was named after Salt Lake City Police Officer Dennis Tueller, who in 1983 published an article in SWAT Magazine about the "reactionary gap" that he said was needed for police to react decisively and effectively. The article said that if the suspect was any closer than 21 feet, the person could charge before an officer could unholster their gun. Many officers have used the drill as an argument to justify use of force.


In the years since, the Tueller Drill has been debunked by a number of publications, and even Tueller himself has said it's not a hard-and-fast rule.

But police training programs still teach the drill.

"What we hear daily is that it's not a rule — it's a guideline," Shrewsberry told Insider. "Dennis Tueller has come out and said 'This wasn't intended to be literal.' But it's taught all over, and it's used for justification for force all the time."

Shrewsberry called the drill "dangerous," and urged police training programs to stop teaching militarization concepts in which officers are told to put their own safety over the community's.

"If we train police officers to be soldiers, we dress them like soldiers, and equip them like soldiers, we can never be surprised that they act like soldiers," Shrewsberry said.

Tens of thousands of people across the US have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest militarization, brutality, and systemic racism within police departments. The protests emerged after the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he repeatedly said he couldn't breathe.

And while protests have focused on police brutality and use of force among officers, even some de-escalation techniques lack basis in research.
Demonstrators march during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., June 16, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Gary Klugiewicz, a former sheriff's department captain who now teaches courses at Vistelar, a conflict-management institute, told Wired in 2015: "Most of the stuff we have done and I've done is at a personal level. A lot of them use our own experience."

Insider reporter Rhea Mahbubani reported last week that implicit bias training used to address underlying racist attitudes don't even have evidence to back them up. Studies show that trainings meant to address implicit bias don't change people's behaviors.

Obed Magny, a Sacramento police officer with a doctorate in education who also works with the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, told Insider that one of the main issues with police training is that much of it is based on the idea of "We've always done it this way so this is why how we're going to do it."

"I can give you eight billion examples of where that has actually caused people their lives," he said. "You can also see in some instances today where pseudoscience is literally eroding the trust and legitimacy of the institution of policing."
Experts think there should be an independent, nonpartisan body providing research and education to police departments

The past several weeks of protests have fostered a distrust toward police, and there have been several reports of police officers driving squad cars into crowds, shoving protesters, attacking people with pepper spray and batons, and shooting rubber bullets at journalists and demonstrators.

And the distrust in Black communities is especially high. A Black person is more than twice as likely to be fatally shot by a police officer than a white person, according to the Washington Post.

show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a police officer knelt on his neck in Minneapolis. DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images
Magny told Insider that unlike physicians and dentists, who have guidelines, research, and resources accessible to those in the industry, policing has "no such thing."

"Because you don't have anything like that, you have 2,000 police departments doing 18,000 different things," he said. "That's a problem. Because what happens is one agency affects agencies across the country. And if you don't have a uniform model, everybody's not speaking the same language."

Magny's colleague Mitchell agreed that there should be a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, independent body much like the American Medical Association or American Psychological Association that can have experts and research on hand to provide national policing recommendations.

She said that organization should be created alongside a college of policing, in which students can learn the skills they'd need to become police officers through education featuring both law enforcement officers and academics.

"And it's gotta be both — you can't just have academics in there telling cops, 'here's how to be a cop,' because the first thing they're going to say is 'You've never been on the street.' That's not how stuff works," Mitchell said. "I try to teach cops that yes, your experience is very important to add to the conversation, but you don't study what happens as a whole."

Magny said, however, that putting these policies in place could take time.

"Here's the biggest mistake we're making right now: Everybody things there's some kind of quick fix, you know, just a couple things here and there, then everything changes tomorrow," Magny told Insider.

He said that because of how institutionalized policing is, it could take years to make actual polity changes within police departments and police training programs.

"We need more science and we need more data. And we need evidence-based practices in everything we do," Magny said.

The 'TikTok grandma' who started the prank targeting Trump's Tulsa rally has only been a Democrat for one year and voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson in 2016

Rachel E. Greenspan Jun 23, 2020
The noticeably scarce attendance at Trump's Tulsa rally, after the campaign bragged about the expected turnout, has been credited to an Iowa woman. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images; @MaryJoLaupp/TikTok

After low attendance was observed at President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, TikTok teens and K-pop stands took a victory lap, claiming that their prank flooding the event with false ticket requests led to the campaign's inflated expectations.

Mary Jo Laupp, the newly-dubbed "TikTok grandma" with volunteer experience on Pete Buttigieg's Democratic nomination campaign, started the trend. 

Laupp, who only became a Democrat in 2019 to caucus for Buttigieg and says she's "voted all over the place," will soon begin volunteer work with a grassroots group supporting Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. 

Many have praised TikTok teens and K-pop stans for seemingly inflating the Trump campaign's expected attendance for a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma Saturday. But it was a grandmother from Iowa who originated the idea for claiming the event's free tickets as a massive trolling effort.

Ahead of the rally, Trump's 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said on Twitter that the campaign had received more than one million ticket requests for the free event, which would admit guests on a first-come, first-serve basis.

But the nearly 20,000-person Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Center was noticeably empty on Saturday, with at least one-third of the venue's seats empty, The New York Times reported. The campaign had constructed a second stage outside of the arena, which Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could have used to directly speak to an overflow of attendees. That idea was dashed when the real number of attendees proved to be much lower than projected.

Mary Jo Laupp, who's been dubbed the "TikTok grandma" and previously volunteered for Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, appeared to be one of the first TikTok users to spread the idea. She said she knew the best way to bother Trump would be to have empty seats at his first-rally, which Tulsa's public health head called the "perfect storm of potential over-the-top disease transmission," referencing the possible spread of COVID-19.


In a June 11 TikTok video, Laupp explained that people could book the free tickets for the rally, originally planned for June 19, with no intention of going, because holding the rally in Tulsa, the site of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, on Juneteenth, was "a slap in the face to the Black community." The campaign later acquiesced to outrage over the Juneteenth rally and postponed it to the following day, Saturday.


"I recommend all of those of us that want to see this 19,000-seat auditorium barely filled or completely empty go reserve tickets now, and leave him standing there alone on the stage," Laupp, 51, said in her original video. Thousands of people on TikTok followed the call, each claiming to have reserved their two free spots at the rally with their cell phone numbers or with Google Voice-created numbers.

TikTok users largely took credit for the underwhelming turnout, claiming they reserved free tickets online in an effort to irk Trump and reduce the crowds following Laupp's video, though the actual effect that the reservations had on real turnout is unclear. Anonymous Trump campaign officials told The New York Times that many of the reservations to the event were trolls, which theoretically would have led to inflated attendance expectations, though the campaign claims they took those into account in their estimates.

Mary Jo Laupp was a lifelong independent voter who voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, until Pete Buttigieg changed her mind.
Mary Jo Laupp poses with Pete Buttigieg in Iowa in November 2019. Courtesy of Mary Jo Laupp
Laupp only registered as a Democrat last year after lifelong independent voter status, during which she "voted all over the place."

"I've never been an official member of a political party," she told Insider. But then, in 2019, she decided to register so that she'd be able to caucus for Buttigieg in Iowa. "That's what pushed me to make that decision," she said. While she has no plans to leave the Democratic party, Laupp did say she has never voted a straight-party ticket, and probably won't in November. In the 2016 election, she said she voted for Gary Johnson.

Since her newly viral moment, Laupp confirmed to Insider that she will be supporting Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and is collaborating with a grassroots organization called Biden's Digital Coalition to support the campaign. (The group is not officially affiliated with Biden's campaign, which has its own digital team.)

While many TikTokers spreading the ticket-claiming prank said they wanted to make the president angry, Laupp said she did this not to harm Trump, but on behalf of her friends in the Black community who dealt with the trauma of the rally being held in Tulsa close to Juneteeth.

"This was always about, for me, the location and the date," she said, adding that Black Wall Street, the site of the 1921 massacre, is close to the BOK Center, where "an entire neighborhood was wiped out because of racism."
When asked for her opinion on Trump, Laupp said, "I think there are times that he says things without thinking carefully first."

"I think he is trying to be president in a way a CEO would run a company," she continued. "America's not a company."

The popularization of the trend has also been largely credited to the K-pop fandom community, which has been a huge source of activism during worldwide racism and police brutality protests sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Laupp, a musician who has always worked with local high schoolers, has been impressed with the activism of teens, particularly on TikTok during the Black Lives Matter protests.

"It's important for them to see that the older generations are supporting the material because they hear so much about how useless they are, how lazy they are, how entitled they feel. And that's not what I'm seeing out of that [generation] at all," she said.

Read more:
TikTok teens say they tanked Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa by reserving thousands of tickets then not showing up
Protesters join class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department alleging they were shot in the head or torso by projectiles


Charles Davis Jun 23, 2020
Protesters march past LAPD officers during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis Police custody, in downtown Los Angeles, California, June 6, 2020. - Demonstrations are being held across the US following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, while being arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kyle Grillot/AFP

A class-action lawsuit accuses Los Angeles police of using excessive force against Black Lives Matter protesters.

An amended complaint filed this week details a number of cases where protesters say they were shot in the face or torso in violation of police training.

LAPD Capt. Gisselle Espinoza told the Los Angeles Times that the department was "fully committed to investigating every allegation of misconduct or excessive force related to the recent protests."

A lawsuit filed against the City of Los Angeles, its chief of police, and the department he leads alleges that peaceful protesters were shot in the head or torso with rubber bullets and other projectiles, causing lasting injury in defiance of the law. Thousands were also detained for hours in conditions conducive to the spread of COVID-19, according to the suit.

Noting that the vast majority of those arrested during recent protests were nonviolent, per the testimony of Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, the lawsuit — filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and others alleging harm at the hands of law enforcement — accuses police of "unreasonable and excessive force" that deprived protesters of their right to free speech.

The class-action lawsuit, filed by a number of local civil rights attorneys earlier this month and amended with new details this week, describes a number of cases where nonviolent protesters were shot in the face with "non-lethal" projectiles of the sort that, since 1990, have left hundreds of people with permanent disabilities.

Tina ÄŚrnko, who attended a Black Lives Matter protest on May 30, was shot in the head with a rubber bullet soon after Chief Moore addressed the crowd while in riot gear. "She still suffers nerve damage in the area of the impact," the lawsuit states.

Abigail Rodas attended another rally that day to protest the killing of George Floyd. It was while leaving that protest that she was "struck in the face by a projectile and momentarily lost consciousness," the lawsuit states. The object fractured her jaw, requiring surgery and a 48-hour hospital stay; she now has screws in her gums, with rubber bands immobilizing her jaw while she heals, according to the complaint.

Steven Roe was walking backward away from a line of police when one officer "shot him in the stomach with a kinetic impact projectile," the lawsuit states. The resulting injury remains visible over two weeks later.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs believe there are many others like them: over 3,000 people were arrested and, the lawsuit notes, detained for hours in close quarters amid a pandemic. They are asking the court for compensatory damages for those harmed or improperly detained, and for the deletion of all arrest records for those who were engaged in nonviolent protest.

An LAPD spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. But Capt. Gisselle Espinoza earlier told the Los Angeles Times that the department was "fully committed to investigating every allegation of misconduct or excessive force related to the recent protests."
Meet the artists behind Time magazine and the New Yorker's powerful cover images about police brutality and racism

Natalie Colarossi
Jun 15, 2020,
Titus Kaphar (Left) and Kadir Nelson (Right) both designed magazine covers about police brutality in the US. Getty Images

Time magazine and the New Yorker both commissioned Black artists to create powerful cover images of police brutality and racism.

In Time, artist Titus Kaphar honors victims of racist killings by painting a grieving mother holding a hallowed-out baby, while the red border lists the names of 35 Black Americans who have died at the hands of police or other Americans.

In The New Yorker, artist Kadir Nelson created a piece called "Say Their Names," which includes a painting of George Floyd with the faces of other Black men and women who have been killed.

Both artists have a prominent record of depicting African American history in their work.

Following the death of George Floyd and the massive wave of protests across the US, Time magazine and the New Yorker both commissioned Black artists to create cover images to reflect the issue of police brutality and racism in America.

Both images make a powerful statement at a time when many Americans are grappling with the harrowing reality of systemic racism and violence against Black Americans.

Titus Kaphar and Kadil Nelson are both renowned for their work, and have a prominent history of featuring African American history into their pieces.

Here's a look at their recent pieces, and acclaimed careers.





Titus Kaphar, 'Analogous Colors'

In Time magazine, artist Titus Kaphar created a piece called "Analogous Colors," in which a grieving Black mother holds the silhouette of a child. Kaphar chose to cut the baby out of the canvas to signify the loss of African American mothers whose children have been killed by police or other Americans.

In a poem to accompany the piece, Kaphar writes, "In her expression, I see the Black mothers who are unseen, and rendered helpless in this fury against their babies."

Along the border of the cover, Kaphar lists the names of 35 Black Americans who have been killed in acts of racial violence.

Kaphar was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1976. He received an MFA at the Yale School of Art, and has since become a nationally recognized artist whose work has appeared in The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, among many others.

—TIME (@TIME) December 10, 2014

As a multimedia artist, Kaphar has created paintings, sculptures, and installations that often explore ideas of history and representation. According to his website, "his practice seeks to dislodge history from its status as the 'past' in order to unearth its contemporary relevance."

Kaphar works with a variety of materials and methods with the "aim to reveal something of what has been lost and to investigate the power of a rewritten history."

In some of his previous work, Kaphar has investigated the criminal justice system and its relationship to Black Americans. When a series of protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown in 2014, Kaphar created a painting titled "Yet Another Fight for Remembrance," that was also featured in Time magazine.

Throughout his career, Kaphar has received a number of awards, and has since created a program in New Haven, Connecticut, called NXTHVN to give early-career artists opportunities for mentorship and networking.




Kadir Nelson, 'Say Their Names'

In the New Yorker, artist Kadir Nelson created a memorializing cover image in which the faces of 18 Black Americans who have been killed by racial violence are shown within the outline of George Floyd.

The piece, titled "Say Their Names," includes the faces of Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Trayvon Martin, and Eric Garner, as well as icons of the civil rights movement.

According the Washington Post, Nelson said the cover was a "memorial to all of the African Americans who were and continue to be victimized by the long shadow cast by racism in America and around the globe."

Nelson, 46, practices art in Los Angles and has become widely recognized for his work.


After receiving a BFA at the Pratt Institute in New York, DreamWorks Pictures commissioned Nelson to create pieces for two separate films, including Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated film, "Amistad," about a slave uprising on a ship.

This work led him to create children's books about African American history, including, "Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom and Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story of the Underground Railroad," and, "We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball," which was a New York Times bestseller.

In his work, Nelson often focuses on history and heroes within American culture. His art has been featured on the cover of albums by Michael Jackson and Drake, and he has created imagery for National Geographic, HBO, and Nike, among others.

He also has artworks on permanent display in the US House of Representatives, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to name a few.

See more of Kaphar's and Nelson's work at their websites.


Pedestrians pass by Steve “ESPO” Powers' Black Lives Matter mural in New York's Union Square neighborhood.



Lower Manhattan's boarded-up storefronts are being transformed into powerful murals dedicated to racial justice

SEE REST OF MURAL ART HERE
https://www.insider.com/boarded-up-windows-in-soho-turned-into-black-lives-matter-murals-2020-6



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Someone did a really bad job trying to restore this painting of the Virgin Mary

MY COUSIN THE FURNITURE RESTORER CAN FIX IT
A furniture restorer reportedly attempted to fix up a copy of a painting of the Virgin Mary, but left it badly disfigured instead. YouTube/Europa Press


A copy of a famous Baroque painting of the Virgin Mary has been badly disfigured after a furniture restorer attempted to clean it, the owner told Europa Press.

The disastrous attempt drew instant comparisons to that of ElĂ­as GarcĂ­a MartĂ­nez's "Ecce Homo," which was mangled by an untrained parishioner in 2012 and has since been dubbed "Potato Jesus."

Spain's Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators has called for regulation over art restoration in the country, and said such botched efforts by amateurs were nothing but "vandalism."

An effort to clean a copy of a Baroque painting of the Virgin Mary ended with yet another botched artwork that looks comically disfigured and nothing like the original.

A private art collector in Spain paid a furniture restorer to clean a copy of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's "The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial," according to Europa Press, a Spanish-language news outlet.

The collector was shocked when he saw the finished product, and has found a trained specialist to restore the piece, the collector told the news outlet.

The mishap drew instant comparisons to the infamous "restoration" of ElĂ­as GarcĂ­a MartĂ­nez's "Ecce Homo" in 2012, when a fresco depicting Jesus was left horrifically mangled after an untrained parishioner attempted to fix it up.

The ill-fated project is now a major tourist attraction for the small Spanish town of Borja, and the artwork has become known as "Potato Jesus" or "Monkey Christ."

Spain's Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators (ACRE) told Europa Press in Spanish that the blunders are "unfortunately much more frequent than you think." The group condemned restoration attempts from non-professional, untrained individuals and called for the industry to implement regulations.

ACRE said in a statement that the group was unfamiliar with the art collector who owned the Murillo copy, nor whether the copy was authentic. The group urged people not to poke fun at the incident since it could represent a serious threat to valuable artwork and Spain's cultural heritage.

"Should the facts be confirmed, we would have to regret, once again, the loss of a Cultural Asset," ACRE's statement said. "We all must be alarmed to think that our Heritage [is] disappearing because these disastrous actions."


The group also asked that the media not refer to the incident as a "restoration," since it "causes confusion on who are the skilled professionals coherently exercising this activity." ACRE said the act was not restoration, but "vandalism."


COVID AMERIKA*

In a move to make coronavirus cases trend downward, Trump is halting support for testing sites in 5 states. But that could have 'catastrophic cascading consequences,' health officials say.

*WE HAVE DROPPED TYPHOID MARY AND NOW DESIGNATED IT CORONAVIRUS TRUMP AKA COVID AMERICA 
Residents wait in line at a mobile COVID-19 testing site set up in a vacant lot in Chicago, Illinois, on June 23, 2020. Scott Olson/Getty Images


State officials around the US are scrambling to deal with a surge in coronavirus cases, while the federal government is poised to end support and funding for 13 testing sites.

The screening locations are in Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, TPM first reported.

This decision could "have catastrophic cascading consequences" when it comes to identifying and isolating new cases, Dr. David Persse of the Houston Health Department wrote in a letter to the deputy surgeon general. 

Experts told Business Insider that frequent and widespread testing is crucial because the coronavirus is still in our midst and can easily overwhelm the nation's already strained healthcare system.
Coronavirus cases are spiking across a broad swath of the American South and West.

But the Trump administration is slated to discontinue funding for 13 federal testing sites across five states, starting at the end of June, Talking Points Memo revealed on Tuesday.

This move comes following President Donald Trump's comments last week at a roundtable for seniors in which he argued that "if we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, actually."

He employed similar rhetoric on Saturday at a rally in Tulsa in which he complained that the country's caseload is up due to an overall increase in the availability of coronavirus tests. He touted responding to the surging pandemic by telling his team to "slow the testing down please."

Trump has been promoting this flawed logic for the past month.

In May, he told Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, "So the media likes to say we have the most cases, but we do, by far, the most testing. If we did very little testing, we wouldn't have the most cases. So in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad."

Seven of the sites slated for defunding are in Texas, which just this week reported record-high hospitalization rates for 10 consecutive days and an upward trend in new infections. New Jersey and Illinois each have two facilities, and Colorado and Pennsylvania both have one, according to TPM. Colorado is the only state that's not on the list of 10 worst-hit states in the US.

Despite the administration's decision to stop providing federal support for these sites, some states are securing funding to keep them open. New Jersey's Gov. Phil Murphy announced to reporters on Tuesday that he has "secured continued assistance" from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Health and Human Services for both the state's screening locations.

"This partnership among state, federal government and our pharmacy chains, which has led to a significant increase in community-based testing centers, and which had also been scheduled to end on June 30th will now continue through at least the end of August. I am grateful for this partnership and that it will continue," Murphy said.
Loss of federal support can trigger 'catastrophic cascading consequences'

Officials in other states weren't as lucky.

"Illinois did request an extension for continued federal support at the two Illinois community-based testing sites the federal government was funding, but unfortunately, the request was denied," Melaney Arnold, a public information officer for the Illinois Department of Public Health, told Business Insider in an email.

The onus is now on the state to bolster testing efforts and officials plan to "continue to support these sites," she added.
A woman takes a COVID-19 test on June 20, 2020 in Livingston, Montana. William Campbell/Getty Images
In Pennsylvania, a testing site at Montgomery County Community College has been affected.


Officials are in the "planning stages of setting up six walk-up testing locations around the county" so residents can continue to be screened for the coronavirus. The new facilities are "being paid for with CARES Act funding," county spokeswoman Teresa Harris told Business Insider.

Officials in Texas, too, have requested an extension and are awaiting a reply.

The county, is experiencing "a nearly four-fold increase in hospital admission not only within hospitals in the city but across Harris County since May 21st," Dr. David Persse, public health authority for the Houston Health Department, wrote in a letter to the Surgeon General's office.

"Losing the support of the Federal government for testing sites will undoubtedly have catastrophic cascading consequences in the region's ability to adequately test, quarantine, and isolate" new patients, which is necessary to curb the transmission of the highly contagious illness, he wrote.


In Houston alone, the two FEMA-operated sites have helped screen an estimated 60,000 people, Scott Packard, the Houston Health Department's chief communications officer, told Business Insider. But with the federal government poised to back away next Tuesday, local officials and agencies will assume the responsibility of screening residents at Butler and Delmar stadiums, Packard said.
Experts are anxious about decisions 'that will reduce testing in any way during this critical time'

Dr. Melissa DuPont-Reyes, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Texas A&M University's School of Public Health, told Business Insider an effective response to an infectious disease outbreak hinges on early and widespread testing.

"Testing helps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and allows for epidemiological and scientific efforts to continue to track and understand the pandemic," she said.

Testing is particularly important when it comes to the coronavirus because people who don't fall sick or display symptoms can still be asymptomatic carriers who are spreading the disease to others they come in contact with.


"We cannot estimate prevalence or spread without testing," DuPont-Reyes said.

Testing has also proven to be critical because the transmission of the coronavirus has been "dynamic over space and time with human movement and physical closeness," she added.

"Epicenters have moved from one part of the country to another. Cases have been reported in each state, in rural, suburban, and urban areas alike. The virus does not discriminate, so it is essential to continue to provide testing everywhere," DuPont-Reyes said.
A Florida resident gets tested for the coronavirus on April 30, 2020. Florida is among 19 states that hasn't met testing standards set by the federal government or Harvard. David Santiago/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty

And it's for these reasons that Dr. Laura Rasmussen-Torvik, the epidemiology chief at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, is worried by recent steps taken by the Trump administration.


"I'm tremendously concerned about any action that will reduce testing in any way during this critical time in the pandemic," she told Business Insider. "I'm even more concerned about actions that might reduce testing in racial and ethnic minorities, as these groups have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and, in some cases, these groups may have less access to testing through the traditional health care system."

As it is, Rasmussen-Torvik said, policies have varied so drastically among states and even municipalities that some parts of the US are seeing a rapid increase in coronavirus cases, while the infection's rate of spread is staying stable or declining in others.

The "increased numbers of positive cases and high utilization of hospital beds and ICU resources" in states like Texas and Arizona are disturbing, Rasmussen-Torvik said, because it's possible that area hospitals could "soon be overwhelmed with COVID cases, which will lead to lower quality of care for those with COVID as well as those with other health conditions."

However, no one would be aware of these trends without testing, DuPont-Reyes added.


"If we don't continue testing and managing the spread of infection, it is possible to exceed the capacity of our healthcare system still, which has already been stretched thin. Healthcare workers are burned out and resources are running low," she said.
The IRS wants prison and jail inmates to return their coronavirus stimulus checks
Economic stimulus checks are prepared for printing at the Philadelphia Financial Center May 8, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jeff Fusco/Stringer

The IRS is asking state officials to help get stimulus payments back from people who are incarcerated.

According to the Associated Press, states have returned hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS that had originally been issued to people who are incarcerated. 

When the stimulus package was first announced, there was no language specifically banning inmates from receiving funds, but the IRS added a line to its website about banning inmates on May 6, according to the Prison Policy Initiative — a think tank focused on criminal justice reform.

The IRS hasn't explained the legality behind the decision.

The IRS wants prison and jail inmates to return any stimulus money they received from coronavirus relief payments, saying the funds were sent by mistake.

According to the Associated Press, the IRS is asking state officials to help get money back, and they've already received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The IRS did not explain to the Associated Press the legal justification for taking the money back. The agency has not responded to a request for comment from Insider.
The Prison Policy Initiative, a think tank focused on criminal justice reform, said in May that the IRS's website didn't initially have language banning incarcerated people from receiving coronavirus relief funds. On May 6, the IRS added a line to it's frequently asked questions page, which said people in jail or prison cannot qualify for stimulus money.

"I can't give you the legal basis. All I can tell you is this is the language the Treasury and ourselves have been using," IRS spokesman Eric Smith told the Associated Press. "It's just the same list as in the Social Security Act."

The Social Security Act bans people who are incarcerated from receiving some insurance benefit payments, including old-age and survivor benefits.

It's not yet known how many prisoners have received stimulus funds, but officials in Utah, California, Vermont Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Kansas, Idaho, Montana, and California have all intercepted checks.

Tax attorney Kelly Erb told the Associated Press that there's no hard rule that the money needs to be taken, and it remains unclear what would happen if an inmate kept his or her money.


"I think it's really disingenuous of the IRS," Erb said Tuesday. "It's not a rule just because the IRS puts it on the website. In fact, the IRS actually says that stuff on its website isn't legal authority. So there's no actual rule — it's just guidance — and that guidance can change at any time."

"It appears that the IRS is just making this up," Wanda Bertram, a spokeswoman for the Prison Policy Initiative, told the Associated Press.

In a blog post about incarceration and stimulus money, the Prison Policy Initiative's Stephen Raher said the funds could be lifesaving for people behind bars.

He said that many prisons and jails now charge inmates for toiletries and communication with loved ones, and that many inmates rely on money transfers from relatives and friends.

"Providing stimulus funds to incarcerated people helps protect the health and well-being of those behind bars and provides relief to their loved ones at home," he wrote.
KOREA LAND OF CHRISTIAN CULTS
A South Korean doomsday church linked to thousands of coronavirus cases is being sued for $82 million in damages
Rosie Perper
Lee Man-hee, leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, speaks during a press conference at a facility of the church in Gapyeong, South Korea, on March 2, 2020. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

The South Korean city of Daegu is suing a doomsday church for 100 billion won ($82 million) in damages.

The Shincheonji Church of Jesus and its controversial founder, Lee Man-hee, were accused of hindering Daegu's lockdown efforts and leading to thousands of infections spread by churchgoers. 

Over 5,000 of South Korea's recorded coronavirus cases
have been linked to the fringe religious group.


The South Korean city of Daegu is suing a doomsday church for 100 billion won ($82 million) in damages. At present, over 5,000 of South Korea's recorded coronavirus cases have been linked to the religious group.


According to the Korea Herald, the city filed the civil suit with the Daegu District Court last week against the Shincheonji Church of Jesus and its controversial founder Lee Man-hee.

The city accused the fringe religious group of hindering its lockdown efforts and leading to thousands of infections spread by churchgoers, according to the Herald. It is seeking financial compensation equal to about two-thirds of the city's coronavirus-related spending.

The church was set up by Lee in 1984 and has grown to nearly 250,000 members, mostly in South Korea. A member of the group's Daegu congregation was confirmed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus on February 18, though at the time, the church continued to hold large gatherings despite guidelines in place. Within two weeks, over 2,000 cases of the virus were linked to the church.

At the beginning of South Korea's coronavirus outbreak, it was considered to be the worst-hit nation other than China, with a majority of its new cases linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus.

According to CBS News, Daegu has spent large sums of money trying to stem the outbreak and estimated that the total financial loss from the outbreak was $121 million. City officials said the church did not hand over a complete list of all of its members, making it difficult to track the virus, though the church has blamed "human error" for the miscount, CBS said.

In March, the mayor of the South Korean capital of Seoul sued the group for "murder" and "injury." Lee publicly apologized for the group's role in the virus spread in response, saying that it is a "great calamity," Reuters reported.

As of Wednesday, South Korea has reported 12,535 cases and 281 deaths.

The owner of an iconic DC restaurant who donated free food to Black Lives Matter protesters did the same 57 years ago for the March on Washington

Anneta Konstantinides
Virginia Ali has owned Ben's Chili Bowl for more than 60 years, feeding protesters from boththe March on Washington and the Black Lives Matter movement. Ben's Chili Bowl/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via  Getty Images


From the March on Washington in 1963 to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, Virginia Ali has been there to feed protesters. 

Ali and her husband Ben opened Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street — then known as "Black Broadway" — in 1958. 

The restaurant is now considered a landmark in DC's dining scene, famous for its half-smoke covered in the family's secret homemade chili sauce. 

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with Martin Luther King Jr., and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali has witnessed the course of history — both the flames of great change, and the d
heartening tolerance of the status quo — through a big window at the front of Ben's Chili Bowl.is 

Ali was 24 when she and her husband Ben, yes the Ben, opened their restaurant on U Street in Washington, DC, when the city was still segregated and the neighborhood was known as "Black Broadway."

She was 29 on that historic day in August 1963, when she and Ben fed some of the hundreds of thousands of people who streamed into the city for the March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King Jr. tell the world about his dream.

Now, on the cusp of turning 87, Ali is feeding Black Lives Matter protesters who are fighting the same fight for civil rights that she has witnessed her entire life.


"It would certainly be nice to have them before I leave this earth," she told Insider. "And I'm old."

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with MLK, and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali left her hometown in Virginia and came to Washington, DC — which was still segregated — in 1952.
Ben and Virginia Ali on their wedding day in 1958. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram

It was there that she met and fell in love with Ben, who immigrated to the US from Trinidad and attended Howard University.

Shortly after they tied the knot in 1958, the newlyweds converted a former silent movie theater into their own "little restaurant" on U Street. It cost them $5,000.

"We wanted to be self-employed," Ali told Insider. "We decided on chili dogs because there were a lot of hamburger places already around."

From the cabinet maker to the electrician, the couple hired local African-American businesses to help build their restaurant.
Ben's Chili Bowl during its early days. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was very new and modern-looking at the time," Ali recalled with a laugh. "Definitely colorful."
"And we had a big glass window in the front, you could see through the whole thing. It was a new and exciting place."
Ben's Chili Bowl became well-known (and loved) for its half-smoke, now considered a signature DC dish.
The iconic half-smoke, accompanied by potato chips, at Ben's Chili Bowl. Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images )

Tucked inside a warm steamed bun with mustard and onions, the half-smoke is topped with a generous heap of Ben's spicy homemade chili sauce — still a secret family recipe.

"Sober up with a chili dog," the restaurant's slogan used to read.

Just two blocks up from Ben's Chili Bowl was Martin Luther King Jr.'s satellite office.
Martin Luther King Jr. during CBS' "Washington Conversation" program in DC on May 20, 1962. CBS via Getty Images

"Whenever he was in town, he'd make his way to the Chili Bowl," Ali said. "I had the opportunity to sit with him and listen to his dreams and hopes, what he was going to do and accomplish."


Before they watched MLK speak during the March on Washington in 1963, Ali and her husband were handing out sandwiches to protesters as they streamed into the city.
Ali on the front grill in the early days of Ben's Chili Bowl. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was an ecstatic day," Ali said. "Filled with hope and pride because so many people came from all walks of life. Thousands of people were there, and Dr. King delivered that amazing 'I Have a Dream' speech."

"It was just a glorious day, that's how I remember it," she added. "A history-making day, a very peaceful day of demonstration and love and hope."

Less than five years later, MLK was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1964. The mayor of DC put the city under curfew as days of protests began.
Flames engulf a building during the DC riots in 1968. Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
"I remember that evening so vividly," Ali said, speaking of the day MLK died. "When someone rushed through the front door at Ben's Chili Bowl and said, 'Dr. King has been shot.' Then we found someone with a transistor radio and heard, 'He's no longer with us.'"

"People were crying, we're all in tears. That sadness turned to frustration, the frustration turned into anger, and that rising began."

In the days following MLK's assassination, referred to as the Holy Week Uprisings, there were protests in cities across the US. The nation's capital saw days of unrest that led to 13 deaths, according to a 2018 Washington Post article, which noted that MLK's "assassination ignited an explosion of rioting, looting and burning that stunned Washington and would leave many neighborhoods in ruins for 30 years."

Civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael obtained special permission to keep Ben's Chili Bowl open after curfew to provide food and shelter. The restaurant kept its usual business hours, staying open until 3 a.m. during the week and 4 a.m. on the weekend.

"You could see the fire across the street, glass windows shattering, buildings burning, tear gas all over the place," Ali said. "It lasted for three nights. When that period was over, we noticed that a lot of the businesses didn't reopen."

In 1988, Ben's Chili Bowl was hit by another challenge. The city dug up the entire street in front of the restaurant and began building a new Metro station.
The city of DC dug up the entire street in front of Ben's to build a new Metro station in 1988. Ben's Chili Bowl
"That was very, very hard," Ali said. "But I did make them have signs made, metal signs that said, 'This way to Ben's.' And I went down blocks and blocks and directed traffic to come to the one-way street behind us. If there happened to be three cars, they'd have to wait until everyone was served."

"We managed to hold on and hang in there and survive," she added. "In 1990, the subway opened and I had a banner across the building that said, 'We survived Metro.' The new businesses began to roll in."

In the last three decades, Ali has witnessed the revitalization of U Street, celebrated the restaurant's 60th anniversary, and served President Barack Obama.
Obama orders his lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl restaurant on January 10, 2009. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Ben's Chili Bowl was one of the first establishments that Obama visited when he moved to DC two weeks before his inauguration.

"You don't get a warning or anything," Ali said. "The next thing you know, someone looks up and the Secret Service is there and he opens the door and here he comes!"


"He was escorted in by our mayor at the time and it was just, it was a dream come true to have him there," she added. "At my age, we certainly had no idea we'd see an African American become president of the United States of America."

As Obama was sworn in on his first Inauguration Day in 2009, the line was out the door to get into Ben's Chili Bowl. Many waited for up to three hours.
A line stretches around the corner at Ben's Chili Bowl on the day of Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. Mario Tama/Getty Images

"Many people had read that his first outing in Washington, DC, had been at Ben's Chili Bowl, so can you imagine how many people wanted to come to Ben's because of that?" Ali said. "There was a line out there all day long on that cold January day."

Ben died in October 2009 from natural causes. The couple's three sons now run the restaurant.
Ben and Virginia Ali. The Washington Post/Michael Williamson/Getty Images
"I'm not in the day to day things at my age," Ali said. "I have three wonderful sons that surprised us by becoming part of the business, and their wives as well. They do the hard work now. Restaurant work is truly hard work now."

While Ali is no longer at Ben's Chili Bowl every day, she is still very much involved. This month she joined her family's efforts to feed hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters, just as she did with Ben over 50 years ago.
An image of George Floyd is seen at Ben's Chili Bowl as a customer leaves during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Ali and her family have prepared and handed out hundreds of sandwiches, chili dogs, and burgers for protesters during the demonstrations in DC.

"I'm very proud of what we're seeing today in terms of protesting," she said. "I find it rather disheartening to know that they had to come back and do this again all these many years later, and fight for the same basic human rights laws that we fought for in the '60s. But I'm proud of the fact that they're doing it, and doing it well."

Ali and her family have also been donating as much food as they can to frontline workers, even as Ben's Chili Bowl faces new businesses challenges due to the pandemic.
Ali with her sons and daughters-in-law. Ben's Chili Bowl

"The pandemic has certainly affected our business severely, as it has all businesses in our community," Ali said.

But an outpouring of donations from locals and fans has allowed Ben's Chili Bowl to keep giving back to the community that it loves so much.

"Our Ben's Chili Bowl community has been tremendous, and I'm so grateful to them for that," Ali said. "We've got donations to help us and whatever we get, we turn into feeding the community and the local hospitals."

As with the many obstacles that Ben's Chili Bowl has faced in its 62 years, Ali said she knows it will survive the pandemic as well.
Ali sits near photos of her and Ben at their restaurant during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
"This too shall pass," she said. "I'm the optimist."

And when it comes to the challenges of American society, Ali has hope that the next generation will bring change.
Ali told Insider she has hope in the next generation. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram
"Today we have the young people just coming out based on their own hearts, to protest for the basic human rights laws that we fought for, without that strong leadership of Dr. King that we had back then," Ali said. "And I just think that's tremendous. They're diverse — people from all walks of life, backgrounds, races. And not only is it in Washington, it's in every city in this country and all over the world."

"That's amazing to me, and that certainly has to speak to hope," she added. "And I encourage them to keep the pressure on and not give up."

"Because we need basic systemic human right laws — and we need them now."