The U.S. at a glance ... NEWS 7
Rochester, N.Y.
Child endangerment: Three officers were
taken off the beat this week after body
camera footage showed them wrestling a
9-year-old girl into the snow, handcuff-
ing her, and then pepper- spraying her in
the face. The incident began with a call
to police about “family trouble.” When
cops arrived, the little girl said she wanted
to kill herself and her mother, before try-
ing to run away. As the officers tried to
put the girl in a police car, one told her,
“You’re acting like a child,” to which she
replied, “I am a child.” The youngster,
whose mother is black, repeatedly called
out for her father during the episode. “I’m
not going to stand here and tell you that
for a 9-year-old to have to be pepper-
sprayed is OK,” said Rochester Police
Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan. “I can
tell you that this video, as a mother, is not
anything that you want to see.”San Francisco
Replacing Abe
Lincoln: The San
Francisco Board
of Education
voted 6-1 last
week to rename
44 schools hon-
oring Abraham
Lincoln,
George Wash ing ton, sitting California
Sen. Dianne Fein stein, and other
prominent figures, accusing them of
racism or sexism. Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, and James Madison were
marked for removal for their owner-
ship of slaves, while Lincoln was faulted
for his role in the mass execution of 38
Native Americans in the Dakota War
of 1862. An elementary school named
for Feinstein was included because,
as mayor of San Francisco,
she replaced a vandalized
Confederate flag that was
part of a display outside
City Hall. The school board
is reportedly consider-
ing renaming one of the
schools after Grateful Dead
front man Jerry Garcia. San
Francisco schools remain
closed because of the pan-
demic, and Mayor London
Breed criticized the board’s deci-
sion to focus on school renaming
“when there isn’t a plan to have our
kids back in the classroom.”Albany, N.Y.
Undercounting
deaths: New
York State
Attorney General
Letitia James last
week accused
Gov. Andrew
Cuomo’s admin-
istration of undercounting the number
of Covid-19 fatalities at nursing homes
in the state by as much as 50 percent.
The report issued by James’ office
prompted an acknowledgment by the
health department that an additional
3,829 deaths should be added to the offi-
cial nursing-home tally. Nursing-home
residents who contracted Covid but
died in the hospital were originally not
counted by the Cuomo administration.
James’ report also criticized a March
health department directive ordering
nursing homes to readmit hospital-
ized Covid-19 patients, saying
it “may have put residents at
increased risk of harm.” The New
York Times reported this week that
nine senior New York health officials
have quit over conflicts with Cuomo.
Raising the fatality count to reflect the
numbers in James’ report would drive
up New York’s nursing-home fatality
count to among the highest in the nation.Sunrise, Fla.
Deadly standoff:
Two FBI agents
were killed and
two more seri-
ously wounded
this week while
serving a search
warrant on a man
suspected of com-
mitting violent crimes against children.
Details of the predawn raid at the Water
Terrace apartments remained murky,
including the name of the shooter as well
as what he’d done to draw the interest
of federal investigators. But cops did
say that he barricaded inside his home
before killing himself. Special Agents
Daniel Alfin, 36, a father of one from
New York, and Laura Schwartzenberger,
43, a mother of two from Colorado,
were named as those killed. Two other
agents were shot and hospitalized. The
shooting was one of the bloodiest days
in the bureau’s history and the first
time since 2008 that an FBI agent had
been killed in the field. Both Alfin and
Schwartzenberger worked on teams
hunting child pornographers and those
who trade in the images they produce.Washington, D.C.
Impeachment arguments: House impeach-
ment managers and former President
Trump’s defense lawyers filed legal briefs
this week laying out their cases for next
week’s Senate impeachment trial—with
House managers accusing Trump of aim-
ing an angry mob “like a cannon down
Pennsylvania Avenue.” Trump’s newly
hired lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce
Castor Jr., argued that the ex-president’s
claims of election fraud were protected
by the First Amendment because he
actually believed that he’d won in a
“landslide.” Schoen also argued in
an interview that Trump couldn’t
have incited a riot because members
of the Jan. 6 crowd had already
planned an attack before Trump
addressed them. Finally, Trump’s
attorneys said that since Trump
no longer holds office, the Senate
“lacks jurisdiction” to impeach
him. House managers seized on
that point, arguing that “there isno ‘January Exception’ to impeachment”
and that “a president must answer com-
prehensively for his conduct in office
from his first day...through his last.”
They cited historical precedents for
post-tenure impeachments—and noted
that the Senate will also weigh whether
to prohibit Trump from ever holding
public office again. House managers
called Trump “singularly responsible”
for the riot and said he had created “a
powder keg” with false claims of elec-
tion fraud. Castor disputed that in a
radio interview, saying, “Just because
somebody gave a speech and people
got excited, it doesn’t mean it’s the
speechmaker’s fault.” Trump’s ear-
lier five-person legal team quit
last week, reportedly over
his insistence that they use
the trial to litigate his claims
of election fraud. Castor said that
he has felt no such pressure and
plans to focus on the “technical”
arguments against impeachment.
AP
(^4
)
No more ‘Roosevelt’A nursing-home tragedyFBI mourns two deaths.Refusing blame