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Bribery trial reveals Jeff Sessions’ role in blocking EPA action targeting major donor

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When a coal executive and two lawyers stood trial in Alabama last month for bribery and related crimes, it was clear from the start that things might get uncomfortable for Jeff Sessions. The attorney general’s name, after all, appeared on a list of possible witnesses.

Though he was never called to the stand, detailed references to Sessions and key members of his staff thread their way through the record of the four-week trial, which concluded on July 20 when David Roberson, vice president of Drummond Coal, and Joel Gilbert, a partner in the Birmingham-based law firm Balch & Bingham, were found guilty of paying off an Alabama lawmaker to oppose a federal environmental cleanup effort that could have cost Drummond millions. (The judge dismissed the charges against a second Balch lawyer, Steve McKinney.)

Sessions has long had close ties to Balch and Drummond — the companies respectively ranked as his second- and third-biggest contributors during his Senate career, collectively donating nearly a quarter of a million dollars to his campaigns. And as Mother Jones and the Project on Government Oversight have previously reported, then-Senator Sessions directly intervened with the Environmental Protection Agency to block the cleanup at the center of the federal bribery case.

Upon becoming attorney general, Sessions had a glaring conflict of interest in a criminal prosecution that he was technically overseeing as the nation’s top law enforcement official. Yet despite questions from Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont,  and others, he repeatedly refused to say whether he had recused himself from the matter. His silence seems even more questionable given evidence introduced as part of the case.

Billing statements, meeting minutes, and other records briefly made public during the trial — and quickly placed under seal by the judge presiding over the case, but not before Alabama columnist Kyle Whitmire saved copies — reveal that Sessions and his Senate staff coordinated more closely with the defendants than previously known. The documents indicate extensive contact on the EPA action between Sessions’ office and Roberson, Gilbert, and McKinney, including at least 13 phone calls and two in-person meetings in Washington, D.C. And they show that Drummond’s attorneys at Balch & Bingham coached Sessions’ staff on how to attack the EPA’s position and that Sessions’ staff reported back to the lawyers about their interactions with the agency.

The backdrop for the bribery case is North Birmingham’s 35th Avenue neighborhood — an impoverished, largely black enclave sandwiched between the city’s airport and various industrial sites, including a Drummond plant. For years, residents have reported unusually high levels of cancer and respiratory illness, and they have complained about the dark soot that coats their homes. In 2013, the EPA found such high levels of toxins in the area that it designated a 400-acre section of the neighborhood a Superfund site; federal health authorities warned parents not to allow their children to play outside in their own yards. The EPA determined that Drummond was one of the companies potentially responsible for the pollution, and thus possibly on the hook for some of the cleanup costs.

When, in 2014, EPA officials tried to elevate the neighborhood to the National Priorities List — a select group of highly polluted sites picked for accelerated and more extensive cleanups — they hit a brick wall of resistance from Alabama’s mostly Republican political establishment. But to the surprise of EPA officials, a local Democratic state lawmaker, Oliver Robinson, also joined the opposition, sending a February 2015 letter to Alabama environmental authorities decrying the EPA effort.

It would later turn out that this letter was ghostwritten by Balch & Bingham’s Joel Gilbert, who, on behalf of Drummond, was funneling money to Robinson’s personal foundation in order to secure the lawmaker’s cooperation in blocking the EPA cleanup. Last summer, Robinson pleaded guilty to accepting $360,000 in bribes. He then began cooperating with prosecutors as they built their case against the Drummond and Balch officials he said were at the heart of it: Roberson, Gilbert, and McKinney (lawyers for all three men declined to comment for this article.)

Like Robinson, Sessions also sent a letter ghostwritten by Balch lawyers, this one to the EPA. Records released during the trial shed light on how this letter, sent a year after Robinson’s, came to be, as well as the extensive actions Sessions took on behalf of his top political donors to thwart EPA action in North Birmingham. Sessions’ office did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

On Feb. 4, 2015, Balch lawyers convened to discuss their plan to derail the 35th Avenue site’s inclusion on the National Priorities List. According to notes of that meeting released at trial, Balch had prepared a draft “letter but no signatures” for Alabama’s congressional delegation that disputed the methods the EPA had used to determine responsibility for the pollution (and thus potential liability for the cleanup). The Balch meeting notes list a Sessions staffer named Brandon Middleton as the only lobbying contact for Alabama’s congressional delegation on the matter. The day after the meeting, internal Balch records show that Gilbert reached out to Sessions’ office. And they note that on Feb. 18, McKinney spoke with Middleton “regarding North Birmingham.”

The next month, Drummond and Balch’s political action committees contributed a combined $10,000 to a political action committee controlled by Sessions — and run in part by a former Sessions staffer named Ed Haden,who is now a senior partner at Balch.

During the rest of 2015 and into early 2016, Sessions staffers communicated extensively with representatives of Balch and Drummond over the letter, sending drafts back and forth. On September 15, 2015, Drummond’s Roberson and Balch’s Gilbert flew from Birmingham to Washington, D.C., for meetings with staffers for Sessions, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), and Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama). In an “Environmental Update” subsequently posted on Balch & Bingham’s website (and since removed), the firm said its attorneys “met with Senator Jeff Sessions” and predicted that a letter issued “shortly” from “key members of the Alabama congressional delegation” would make the case for opposing the effort to make Drummond and other companies pay for cleaning up the polluted site in Birmingham. Two months later, on Feb. 26, 2016, Middleton delivered a letter signed by Sessions, Shelby, and Palmer to the EPA. The letter also summoned top EPA officials to a meeting “to discuss the concerns.”

“Any information given to Senator Shelby’s office would have been one of many tools used to help inform the senator,” said a spokesperson. Palmer’s office did not respond to questions.

After the letter was delivered, Sessions’ office continued to work in close coordination with the Balch attorneys at the center of the bribery case to aggressively undermine the possibility of a cleanup. In March 2016, the EPA responded to Sessions’ letter, expressing disagreement but offering to meet. According to an email obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Middleton told an EPA official that he was “waiting to hear back from our folks and boss on how they’d like to approach meeting.” But Sessions’ staffers weren’t just looking for feedback from Sessions. Balch records show that over the course of several months, Balch attorneys and Middleton exchanged emails and spoke over the phone about how to deal with the EPA’s response and prepare for the meeting with EPA officials.

Meanwhile, Balch’s political action committee continued contributing to Sessions’ campaign coffers. On June 30, 2016, Balch donated $1,000 to Sessions’ political action committee. That day, according to another email obtained under FOIA, Middleton sent the EPA a message setting the agenda for a July 7 sit-down in Sessions’ office to discuss why the proposed Birmingham cleanup should not go forward.

The day before the meeting, McKinney met Sessions staffers to prep them, according to the firm’s billing records.

On July 7, two high-level EPA officials met with members of Sessions’ staff, who grilled them on the Birmingham cleanup and attacked the methods the agency had used to measure toxins in the neighborhood. Sessions himself was scheduled to attend, but at the last minute he backed out to spend the day with then-candidate Donald Trump, who had decided to make a round of visits to Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

One of the EPA officials who attended the meeting told Mother Jones that he was surprised by the stridency with which Sessions staffers opposed the EPA’s actions in North Birmingham, especially considering the situation on the ground. “For residents, there was an immediate threat,”said Mathy Stanislaus, who was then an assistant EPA administrator, but “the public health risk didn’t seem to be a prominent concern from those who opposed it.”

During his confirmation process to become attorney general, Sessions was asked how he would handle an investigation involving campaign donors. Sessions said he would consult with Justice Department ethics officials on any investigation where a possible conflict might exist, but his office has repeatedly refused to discuss whether he insulated himself from the Drummond bribery case.

And he isn’t the only Justice Department official linked to matters involving the 35th Avenue Superfund site. When Sessions became attorney general, he installed in key positions at least two people involved in the conversations his office had on the subject. Among them was Brandon Middleton, who served as the liaison between Sessions’ office and the Balch lawyers working to undermine the 35th Avenue cleanup. Sessions appointed Middleton as a top deputy in the Justice Department’s environmental and natural resources division — the office responsible for bringing cases against corporate polluters, such as Drummond, to force them to fund environmental remediation. (Middleton has since moved on to a position at the Interior Department.) And Sessions named Jeff Wood, a Balch & Bingham partner who was part of the firm’s 35th Avenue lobbying effort, to the top job in that division. (Wood recused himself from the matter.) Middleton and a spokesman for Wood did not respond to questions.

With the convictions of Gilbert and Roberson, the lead prosecutor in the case claimed victory for the people of North Birmingham. “We’re happy for the citizens of Birmingham that someone is finally speaking on their behalf,” prosecutor George Martin told reporters after the trial ended. “This is a righteous verdict.”

Balch’s managing partner Stan Blanton said in statement, “Although our firm was not a party to the case, I and the rest of our partners, associates and staff are deeply disappointed in any conduct that does not adhere to our commitment to the rule of law and to the communities in which we are fortunate to live and work.” Yet Drummond blamed Balch for Roberson’s legal troubles. “We consider David to be a man of integrity who would not knowingly engage in wrongdoing,” according to a company statement, “When an environmentalist group raised allegations regarding our operations in the Birmingham area, Drummond responded by hiring one of Alabama’s most well-respected environmental law firms … We were assured the firm’s community outreach efforts on our behalf were legal and proper.”

If anything, what the trial exposed was just how intricate the ties were between powerful corporate interests such as Drummond and Balch and members of the Alabama political establishment, notably Sessions.

If justice was delivered for North Birmingham, it still may not feel that way to the people who continue to live there. Roberson and Gilbert may have been convicted on bribery charges, but the plan they carried out has worked so far. With the help of Sessions and other Alabama lawmakers, they blocked the EPA from mounting a large-scale cleanup — and Drummond has yet to pay a dime for any role it might have played in turning an impoverished neighborhood into a Superfund site.

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Bribery trial reveals Jeff Sessions’ role in blocking EPA action targeting major donor

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NYC Building Collapse Was Probably Gas-Related

Mother Jones

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Update: The New York Daily News reports that at least two people are missing, as firefighters continue to contain the fire. The injury toll has risen to at least 19, with four people in critical condition.

An apparent gas explosion caused two New York City buildings to collapse on Thursday, injuring at least a dozen people, with at least three in critical condition.

Fire crews first responded to calls of a building collapse at 3:17 p.m. on Second Avenue near Seventh Street in Manhattan. Less than an hour later, about 250 firefighters rushed to the scene as the fire upgraded to a seven-alarm blaze. Two other buildings were damaged in the fire, and at least one of them is at risk of collapsing. Thursday’s blast comes a year after a gas explosion destroyed two buildings in East Harlem and left eight people dead. National Transportation Safety Board investigators later found a crack in the city’s aging gas pipeline near one of the buildings.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference with reporters that preliminary findings suggest the explosion may have been caused by plumbing and gas work. He added that Con Edison inspectors arrived at the site more than an hour before the blast to examine private gas work being done at one of the buildings, but found the work had not passed inspection. No gas leaks were reported before the explosion. A Con Edison spokesperson told the New York Times a few of the buildings on Second Avenue had been “undergoing renovations” since August. The gas and electric utility company planned to shut down gas in the area.

We’ll continue to update as we learn more.

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NYC Building Collapse Was Probably Gas-Related

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With a New Musical, Punk Icon Fat Mike Aims for Broadway

Mother Jones

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I ring the buzzer at a downtown San Francisco rehearsal space and the door swings open. Mike Burkett, sporting a fading pink mohawk, offers a handshake as he shows me up the stairs.

Burkett, 48, is best known as Fat Mike, founder of the San Francisco record label Fat Wreck Chords, and the irreverent frontman of legendary punk band NOFX. With its unique brand of raucous pop-punk and onstage antics, the band has sold millions of records, cultivating generations of fans in the three decades they’ve been performing.

Now, after five years of writing, finessing, reworking, rehearsing, and self-medicating to complete Home Street Home, his new Broadway-style musical production, Fat Mike is hoping to win over a different audience, and bring them into his world, for a couple of hours at least.

Home Street Home tells the story of a young runaway who joins a “saucy tribe of slutty, castaway street punks,” according to the website description. Along with a catalog of infectiously catchy songs, it offers audiences a “celebratory exploration of sex work, drug use, pain, and BDSM power exchange.”

But don’t expect another cheesy rock opera or genre-bending attempt. In addition to writer/director Soma Snakeoil (a professional Dominant and fetish-movie star who is now Burkett’s fiancé), he’s brought in Jeff Marx, co-writer of the Tony Award-winning musical “Avenue Q,” and veteran Los Angeles stage director Richard Israel. On the day of my visit, with just two weeks left before opening night, the cast and crew were working out the final kinks and last minute changes. It was almost ready.

“We are just about to rehearse the roughest scene,” Burkett tells me over his shoulder as we walk into the bustling studio. We sit across from the performers, and he whispers explanations about what we’re seeing. The scene is a flashback that reveals why Sue, the lead character, ran away from home. When Burkett starts describing the accompanying song, I tell him I’ve already listened to the entire soundtrack. “What did you think?” he asks anxiously.

Writers Jeff Marx, Soma Snakeoil, and Fat Mike. Shervin Lainez

In truth, I hadn’t just listened to it, I’d devoured it. The soundtrack was released in advance of the show, and featured plenty of punk-world notables. A partial list includes Frank Turner, Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, Tony Award winner Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Dance Hall Crashers’ Karina Denike, and members of Descendents, Lagwagon, the Mad Caddies, and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Even the late, great, Tony Sly shows up on one of the tracks.

I already knew most of the words, had picked out my favorite songs, and had been unsuccessfully fighting to get them to stop looping in my head. Even with limited knowledge of the plot, the songs stood on their own, a strange but perfect marriage of the peppy show tunes I grew up on and the punk rock that helped me find myself as a teen.

NOFX, and many of these other bands, played a big part in that, so it was surprising to learn that Fat Mike cared about my opinion. Wasn’t he, after all, the fearless role model of the “don’t give a fuck” philosophy so many of us tried to embody as insecure teenagers?

“I liked it a lot,” I answer simply, before Burkett concedes his anxiety over how the soundtrack would be received. He’d written it, after all, more with Broadway in mind than 924 Gilman Street. Breaking into the theater world was a lifelong dream.

“The first record I ever heard was Rocky Horror Picture Show,” he recalls. “I saw it on TV—too young, like 8 or 9—and I taped it on my tape recorder. Held it up to the TV and taped it. And that is what I listened to for years. That is what I am trying to do. Just how Rocky Horror changed my life when I was a kid. Growing up, that phrase—’Don’t dream it, be it.’—that stuck with me forever.”

But there’s still work to be done and Burektt won’t be satisfied with good-enough. He jumps up frequently to weigh in on the details, from costume fittings to vocal range. “We have to train these people to sing punk,” he says with a smile. “No vibrato allowed!”

With Home Sweet Home, he’s had to pick his battles—frustratingly foreign territory for a guy used to calling the shots. “For a NOFX record, I write usually 15 songs, finish em, no one says shit to me, and I decide which 12 I like best. For this, I had 28, 29 songs, and one by one they just keep getting cut, cut, cut. I write the song and the director goes, ‘This doesn’t make any sense’ and ‘You can’t write this’ and, ‘This is not what we are trying to go with here.’ Songs I spent months working on!” he says. “So, people are telling me what to do, from fucking every direction!”

Even the way he writes songs needed to be adjusted. “All the songs I wrote for this originally were just songs, and I thought we could build a story around it. But the songs have to be story-driven. The goal in the musical is to have people talking and then suddenly they just go into song. It is not like, ‘Hey, here we go!’ and ‘Watch this one!’ and then you start singing a song about elephants or whatever. You have to write lyrics thinking about what’s happening.”

He and Soma often acted out the roles as they wrote to make sure the lyrics were realistic and that the song was building the story. It wasn’t that much of a stretch, considering that much of the storyline was culled from their own lives. Both spent time on the streets as teens, relishing in the freedom and seeking solace in the company of other street kids—many of whom are reflected in the play’s characters.

Some of them turn to prostitution to survive. Others to drugs and alcohol. And the story includes many situations that may be hard for some people to stomach. But Burkett sees it as an honest portrayal of teens living on the street. They don’t want your pity, he emphasizes. These kids are not lost souls.

“The show is about chosen family. How all these kids move to the street because it was better. How these kids were all screwed over but they are all happy and they are in a great family,” he says. “Looking down your nose at people is ridiculous. And that’s what this shows, that these kids are happier than most of the fucking people in the world—even if they are homeless and hookers and drug addicts.”

Burkett hopes his new audiences will be open to a culture and experience that might seem to them far removed. “You feel a little bit odd to the world. You feel different. And that’s why it all started right? People don’t fit in. That is what is punk about it,” he says. “These kids are outcasts and had really shitty childhoods and they came together.”

Home Street Home opens February 20 at Z Space in San Francisco. For now, there are only 11 performances scheduled. Burkett hopes it will go far beyond that. “I hope it is as successful as Avenue Q or Hedwig. My goal was to write something similar to Rocky Horror—a cult classic musical. And I think we have done that.”

If nothing else, Burkett offers audiences a new way to see stories from the streets. “None of this was about anything except writing something that is going to be really remembered,” he says. “I think people’s attitudes will change from this—maybe they will look at street people and drug users and prostitutes and get a good glimpse of people who chose their family.”

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With a New Musical, Punk Icon Fat Mike Aims for Broadway

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I Told a Grand Jury I Saw a Cop Shoot and Kill an Unarmed Man. It Didn’t Indict.

Mother Jones

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Many years ago, during the 1980s, I witnessed a killing: a New York City cop shooting an unarmed homeless man near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was later called as a grand jury witness in the case. The grand jury did not indict the officer.

It was a summer evening. I was heading to play softball in Central Park. At the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, I got off my bicycle to walk toward the Great Lawn. The west side of Fifth was crowded with New Yorkers enjoying the beautiful night. People were streaming in and out of the park. Sidewalk vendors were doing brisk business. The vibe was good. And in the midst of the hubbub, I spotted a fellow wearing dirty and tattered clothing. His hair was filthy, his face worn. It was hard to determine his age. He reminded me of Aqualung. (See this Jethro Tull album cover.) He was carrying a large and heavy rock with both of his hands, pushing his way through the throng, and muttering unintelligible words. I wondered, what’s his story? But I didn’t give it much more thought.

Most of the people on the corner were not paying attention to him. Those in his direct path, as he lumbered north, did quickly step out of his way. But no one seemed much alarmed by the guy. In New York City, unfortunately, you often saw broken people—and shrugged them off as just another crazy.

I was about to head down the footpath toward the baseball fields, when I saw a commotion to my right. Several police officers—four or so, I recall—were approaching the man with the rock. And their guns were drawn. As they neared the fellow, he dropped the rock, he then began to run in the same direction he had been walking. The cops were not grouped together; they were spread out—in a circle that was drawing tighter. The man, displaying a fair degree of agility, leaped into the street and tried to cut between two of the officers to get away.

Shots were fired. Two or three. Maybe four. And he went down.

The cops surrounded the man. He didn’t move. This was no longer a person. This was a body.

I moved closer to the scene. Passersby had stopped to watch. It was still difficult to assess his age. His clothes were a grimy gray. I saw his dirty hands. Both were empty.

Soon police cars and an ambulance arrived. The paramedics did not move fast. They covered the body with a sheet. Several police officers were standing around a female officer. She was in anguish. They were consoling her. It was obvious: She had fired the shots that killed the man.

Her race? She was white. His skin color? I thought it was dark, but it was tough to tell if it was dirt or pigment.

Cops were buzzing about the scene. Flashing lights illuminated this ritzy stretch of Fifth Avenue. On-lookers gawked. And I noticed something that struck me as odd: The police officers were not talking to any of the witnesses. They were talking to each other and the paramedics. I approached one cop and said that I had seen it all. He wasn’t impressed and looked at me as if to say, “So what?” I had thought the police would want to round up eyewitnesses to the shooting.

“Shouldn’t I talk to someone?” I asked this officer. He nodded his head toward another policeman. I went up to that cop. “Excuse me, officer,” I began. “I saw what happened.” Again, I received a look of disinterest. “Shouldn’t I….” He cut me off: “Talk to him.” He was looking at another officer who was barking instructions to other cops.

I tried once more. I approached this officer who seemed to be in charge. “Officer, I saw….” He shut me up with a wave of his hand, signaling I should wait. And wait I did, as he directed other cops to do this or do that. The paramedics were preparing to cart off the body. After a few minutes, I went up to this officer again and told him I had witnessed the whole episode.

“Okay,” he said.

He said nothing else. He didn’t ask me for my name. He didn’t ask if I would provide a statement. I was surprised by his lack of interest.

“Shouldn’t I tell someone what I saw,” I said.

“If you want to,” he said, not in an encouraging tone.

“Okay, who do I talk to?” I ask.

“If you want to make a statement,” he said, as if I was inconveniencing him and the entire police force, “you can go down to the station and do it there.” Now I got it: He didn’t want my statement, even though he had no idea what I would say. He was not interested in taking my name and contact information. It was my job apparently to make it to the police station on my own, and the station was a mile or so south.

This ticked me off. He was essentially trying to shoo me away. As the paramedics were loading the body on to the ambulance and as the cop who had shot the man was surrounded by her colleagues, I got on my bike and started to ride down Fifth.

At the station, I approached the front desk and told the officer staffing it that I had witnessed the shooting and had been told to come to the station to provide a statement. This fellow looked surprised to see me. He asked me to wait on a bench. I waited. Five minutes, fifteen minutes. I went back to the desk. Yes, yes, I was told, someone will be with you shortly. Another five minutes, another fifteen minutes. Obviously, no one would have minded if I gave up and left.

Sitting next to me in this waiting area was a woman—middle-aged and white (if that matters)—who was also a witness. We probably weren’t supposed to compare our accounts, but we did. (No one had told us not to.) She mentioned that she thought she had seen the victim holding something in his hand, perhaps a knife, when he started to run. Her vantage point had not been as good as mine, and I told her that I had seen the man drop the big rock and immediately begin to run. There had been no time for him to pull out a knife. Moreover, I had been in a position to see his hands—before and after he was killed—and I saw no knife. We looked at each other and didn’t know what else to say.

Finally, a detective—I think he was a detective, he didn’t say—came over and gave me a form on a clipboard and asked me to write a statement of what I had seen. I did. I stuck to the facts: nutty-looking homeless man carrying a small boulder, approached by cops, drops rock and runs, cops get closer, he darts between two of the officers, cop fires on him.

It was clear to me that the officer did not have to shoot the man. He was not threatening the officers. He was trying to run from them. But I didn’t write down this conclusion. I presented the facts; I believed their implication were undeniable.

When I finished, I handed my statement to one of the officers. I was told, “You’ll be contacted, if that’s necessary.” None of my interactions with the police led me to believe that a thorough investigation was in the works.

As I left the station, I saw the female officer who had fired the fatal shots. She was with several colleagues. She was upset and appeared to be crying. The other cops were being supportive. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. My interpretation was that she had screwed up; she had overreacted or panicked and fired her shots too soon. My hunch was that she knew that.

The next day—this was long before the internet era—I checked the newspapers and saw no stories on the shooting. Some time later—I think it was a couple of months—I received a call. A grand jury was examining the shooting, and my presence was requested.

I went to the courthouse at the appointed hour and waited to be called into the grand jury room. My time in the drab conference room with the grand jury was brief. The jury was, as they say, a diverse group. But most of the jurors looked bored. A few seemed drowsy. The prosecutor asked me to identify myself and certify I had filed the statement. He asked me to describe where I had been and whether I had seen the full episode. But he never asked me to provide a complete account. The key portion of the interview went something like this:

Prosecutor: You saw him start to run?

Me: I did.

Prosecutor: Did you see anything in his hand?

Me: No.

Prosecutor: Did you see him holding a knife?

Me: No. But I….

Prosecutor: Thank you.

I had wanted to say that I had seen him drop the heavy rock and bolt and that it was unlikely he had been able to grab and brandish a knife while sprinting. And I thought the grand jurors should know that he had not charged at any of the officers; he had been trying to dash through an opening between two of the cops in order to flee. And if they were interested in my opinion regarding the necessity of firing on him, I would have shared that, too.

But the prosecutor cut me off. He didn’t ask about about any of this. And not one of the jurors asked a question or said anything.

I left the room discouraged. This was not a search for the truth. It appeared to be a process designed to confirm an account that would protect the officer who had killed the man. The prosecutor was in command and establishing a narrative. (A knife!) The jurors appeared to be only scenery. (Insert your own ham sandwich reference here.) Long before the present debate spurred by the non-indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, it seemed clear to me that the system contained a natural bias in favor of police officers. That certainly makes sense. Police officers have damn tough and dangerous jobs, and they are going to look out for their comrades-in-blue who slip up. And prosecutors work closely with cops to rack up convictions, and they don’t want to alienate their law enforcement partners. No one in that grand jury room was there to serve the interests of the dead guy.

On the way out of the courthouse, I realized I did not know the name of the victim.

I subsequently called a reporter who worked on the metro desk of the New York Times to tell him about my experience, hoping the paper would dig into the case. But I never saw a Times story on it. (At the time, I was working for a magazine that covered arms-control issues and in no position to write about the event. And back then, there was no equivalent to tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking.)

Several weeks, or a month or two, after my grand jury appearance, I called the person who had contacted me about testifying. Whatever happened? I asked. Oh, the man said, the case is over. I took that to mean the officer was not charged. Before I hung up, another question occurred to me. I don’t know why I thought about this, but I asked, “Whatever happened to the body of the man who was shot?” He was never identified and buried somewhere, he replied. And I wondered, never identified? How hard did they try?

Originally posted here – 

I Told a Grand Jury I Saw a Cop Shoot and Kill an Unarmed Man. It Didn’t Indict.

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Elizabeth Warren’s Latest Comment About Running For President Is the Most Cryptic Yet

Mother Jones

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With 106 weeks until the next presidential election, speculating about a potential Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) candidacy is like going on a long car ride with a six-year-old. “Are you running?” No. “How about now?” No. “Now?” No. “Now?” No. “What about now?” No. “Are you running?” No. “Are you running?” exasperated sigh “Aha!”

But Warren does continue to do the things people who are considering a run for president tend to do—flying to Iowa to rally the troops on behalf of Rep. Bruce Braley, for instance, and going on tour to promote a campaign-style book. Her latest venture, a sit-down interview in the next issue of People magazine, isn’t going to do much to quiet the speculation, even as she once more downplayed the prospect of a run:

Supporters are already lining up to back an “Elizabeth Warren for President” campaign in 2016. But is the freshman senator from Massachusetts herself on board with a run for the White House? Warren wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t think so,” she tells PEOPLE in an interview conducted at Warren’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, home for this week’s issue. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”

She just doesn’t see the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being one of them. Not yet, anyway. “Right now,” Warren says, “I’m focused on figuring out what else I can do from this spot” in the U.S. Senate.

“Amazing doors”; “I don’t think”; “right now”—what does it all mean? Warren’s not really saying anything we haven’t heard from her before. But after then-Sen. Barack Obama’s furious denials about running for president eight years ago, no one’s ready to take “no” for an answer. At least not yet, anyway.

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Elizabeth Warren’s Latest Comment About Running For President Is the Most Cryptic Yet

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Death toll from East Harlem gas explosion rose to seven overnight

Death toll from East Harlem gas explosion rose to seven overnight

MTA

The leak-prone system that delivers natural gas to homes and power plants has claimed at least seven lives, with emergency workers continuing to search rubble in East Harlem for survivors of a building-leveling gas explosion.

More than 60 people were hurt and more were still missing Thursday morning after an apparent gas leak exploded and leveled two apartment buildings at Park Avenue and 116th Street in New York City.

The buildings erupted in a nightmarish urban conflagration at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, 15 minutes after Con Edison received a call about a suspected gas leak. Its inspectors arrived after the buildings had been enveloped in flames.

“It was very dark,” survivor Elhadj Sylla told USA Today. “There was smoke, dust. … I thought it was the end of the world. I thought my life was ending.”

The blast was the deadliest of its kind in the U.S. since a gas pipeline exploded beneath San Bruno, a suburb of San Francisco, in 2010, killing eight people. But it was just the latest installment in a tragic, fossil-fueled trend. Bustle reports that an average of nine people are killed every year and 45 more are left injured following gas leaks.


Source
Death toll in Harlem gas leak explosion rises, USA Today
How common are gas leak explosions like the East Harlem blast?, Bustle

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Death toll from East Harlem gas explosion rose to seven overnight

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