Day: June 9, 2024

A suspect who was being held in a California jail on charges connected to a 2022 mass shooting in the state capital died in his cell Saturday, according to police and his attorney.

The 29-year-old male inmate died while in custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail around 2:15 a.m., the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted on social media.

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The San Francisco Chronicle reported public defender Norman Dawson identified the man as Smiley Martin, his client who was awaiting trial on three felony charges stemming from an April 3, 2022, shooting in Sacramento that killed six people and wounded 12 others, including two of the alleged shooters.

Jail deputies were conducting a cell check and found an unresponsive inmate. The deputies and then fire department personnel attempted life-saving procedures but he was pronounced dead, the sheriff’s office said.

The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office will determine the cause of death and release the man’s name after notification of his next of kin, according to the sheriff’s office, which said it will investigate.

Martin was “fighting to defend his innocence in the preliminary hearing process” at the time of his death, Dawson said in a written statement.

More than 100 shots were fired in rapid-fire succession in a downtown entertainment area near the state Capitol building during the shooting around 2 a.m.

Two groups of men connected to gangs began shooting as bars and clubs emptied out at closing time, sending hundreds of people desperately trying to reach safety. At least five gunmen were involved, police said.

Martin, who was 27 at the time, was arrested while hospitalized with gunshot wounds. He was charged with murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm and possession and transport of a machine gun.

Authorities also arrested his brother, Dandrae Martin, 26 at the time, as a “related suspect” on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and being a convict carrying a loaded gun. He suffered minor wounds.

Dandrae Martin posted a live video of himself with a handgun hours before the shooting, a law enforcement official said.

A third man, Mtula Payton, also was charged in connection with the shooting.

The Met chief says the number of abusive men is beyond the police’s capacity to cope with. Politicians need a plan for victims

Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan police, described the extent of violent crime committed by men against women as “eye-watering”. In a report last week for the London policing board, he said that with up to 4 million mostly male perpetrators of violence against women and children in England and Wales, the scale of the problem is “beyond policing and justice system capacity”. The Met’s figures show that 50% of violence suffered by women in London relates to domestic abuse, with 1m reports to police in England and Wales annually. New research from the National Police Chiefs’ Council will be published over the summer. The National Crime Agency estimates that 750,000 adults have a sexual interest in children.

Some in the women’s sector welcomed Mr Rowley’s bluntness. For England’s most senior police officer to outline the problem so clearly is preferable to it being ignored or shunted behind priorities such as counter‑terrorism and fraud. But for victims and those at risk, it is chilling to learn that that the police believe only a massively upscaled, multi-agency approach would enable them to do their job.

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Enthusiasm for Paris 2024 has yet to ignite, but Emmanuel Macron needs a successful Games to revive his flagging presidency

Emmanuel Macron has sometimes been criticised over a tendency to hector and lecture his fellow citizens, when a demonstration of empathy might have worked better. It was not, for example, a good look when, in 2018, the French president told a young jobseeker: “I can find you a job just by crossing the road.”

In the lead-up to the Paris Olympics – now less than 50 days away – Mr Macron has again been adopting a dubious tough love strategy, this time in relation to France’s athletes. Having previously lamented the modest size of the national medal haul at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he used a recent television interview to demand a top-five finish for France this summer on home soil.

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Yerevan, Armenia — Thousands of Armenians took to the streets in the capital Yerevan on Sunday in a fresh protest against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s concessions to arch foe neighbor Azerbaijan.  

The protests began in April, when the Caucasus nation’s government agreed to hand back to Baku territory it had controlled since the 1990s.  

Pashinyan has not changed his position, despite public opposition from influential archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan.  

On Sunday, several thousand anti-government protesters gathered in Yerevan’s central Republic Square, outside government headquarters, an AFP reporter at the scene said.   

Ahead of the rally, Galstanyan announced the protest movement had reached “a decisive stage”, vowing to “remove Pashinyan from power.”  

“We must act, we must increase pressure on Pashinyan,” said one of the demonstrators, 20-year-old student Shushan Sargsyan.  

“The very existence of our country is at stake,” said David Ohanyan, 36.  

“Armenians must all realize this and take to the streets.”  

Galstanyan has called for Pashinyan to be impeached and has temporarily stepped down from his religious post to run for prime minister.  

However he is not eligible to hold the office under Armenian law because he has dual citizenship with Canada, and opposition parties do not have enough seats in parliament to launch impeachment procedures.   

Last week, Armenia officially returned control over four border villages that it had seized decades earlier to Azerbaijan, a decision Pashinyan has defended as a step to securing peace with Baku.   

The Caucasus rivals have fought two wars for control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured last year from Armenian separatists who held sway over much of the mountainous enclave for three decades. 

From Mar-a-Lago to Nowhere: the countries Trump can’t visit as a felon  MSN

Drone strikes oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast  Ukrainska Pravda

Harold Terens volunteered to go to Normandy a few days after D-Day in 1944 to help bring back American and British POWs to England. This weekend, he returned to tie the knot with his sweetheart.

(Image credit: Jeremias Gonzalez)

Kristi Noem says Trump should pick a woman as his running mate  The Guardian US

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says Trump choosing a woman VP would help him win  CNBC

1. Noem looks to bounce back onto Trump’s VP shortlist  The Hill
2. For Trump, Doug Burgum Emerges as a Safe Option, and a Wild Card  The New York Times
3. Trump’s potential VP picks just received vetting documents. Here’s who got the papers.  CBS News