August 19, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Jennifer McLeggan talks to reporters in front of her home in in Valley Stream, N.Y., where she says she was the target of racial harassment from neighbors. – (WABC)By BILL HUTCHINSON, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — When numerous complaints made to police failed to stop the alleged harassment from several of her white neighbors, Jennifer McLeggan, a single Black mother, posted a large handwritten sign on the front door of her New York residence informing the community “I live in FEAR for my life at home.”

McLeggan, a registered nurse, listed on the sign a litany of allegations against her neighbors, including dropping dog feces on her property in the Long Island town of Valley Stream and shooting a pellet gun across her yard in a dangerous way at a nearby sign.

The three years of alleged harassment culminated on Monday with the arrests of two of her neighbors, John McEneaney, 57, and his live-in girlfriend, Mindy Canarick, 53.

“The last straw was the dead squirrels for me,” McLeggan, 39, told ABC News of the rodents she said she found in her yard and accused McEneaney of placing them there. “I think enough was enough at that point. That to me was a sign — you meant me harm.”

Up until that point, McLeggan “suffered in silence,” one of her attorneys, Heather Palmore, told ABC News.

“She thought that they were really going to do something to her. So, she posted the sign on her door and that’s really what caused this whole thing to go viral,” Palmore said.

McLeggan said she put the sign up at her home out of fear for her life.

“I put [up] the sign in case something would happen and … someone would see there’s a baby inside and kind of, at least, call my mom to pick up the baby,” said McLeggan, who wrote on the sign, “My name is Jennifer and I am a single mom and Registered Nurse.”

Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said she immediately launched an investigation into McLeggan’s complaints once she was informed of the sign posted on her home in early July.

“I was heartbroken when I saw the sign on Ms. McLeggan’s door,” Singas said in a video statement announcing the arrests of McEneaney and Canarick. “Nassau County is a very safe place to live and no one should feel threatened in their own home. I hope that [McLeggan] and her daughter can sleep better tonight knowing that we have her back and that those who harass their neighbors will be held to account for their actions.”

Singas said that while investigators from her office did not find evidence to support a hate crime, the alleged conduct of McEneaney and Canarick “crossed the line between being a bad neighbor and into the realm of criminality.”

McEneaney was charged with criminal mischief in the fourth degree and harassment in the first degree, both misdemeanors. Canarick was charged with criminal tampering in the third degree, also a misdemeanor.

The couple was released following an arraignment at the Hempstead District Court.

Singas said that in an attempt to “prevent future contact and harassment,” Judge Erica L. Prager granted a request from her office for an order of protection against the suspects.

But McLeggan told ABC News that she feels even less safe for her and her baby knowing the suspects are still living next door.

“I just feel like now they’re more dangerous because now they’ve been arrested,” McLeggan said.

Following the arraignment, McEneaney told reporters that the charges against him and Canarick were “absolutely ridiculous.”

“When she moved in, I thought, ‘This is great, I finally have a neighbor I can talk to, I can help her with things around her house,'” said McEneaney as Canarick stood next to him.

“We’re the victims,” McEneaney said without elaborating. “I am not a racist. I never was.”

McEneaney’s lawyer, Jason Kolodny, told ABC News that his client “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body” and described the dispute with McLeggan as “squabbles as neighbors.”

Palmore said that McLeggan, 39, was pregnant with her now 2-year-old daughter when she moved to Valley Stream in 2017 from an apartment she was renting in Queens, New York.

“She found this house. It was a foreclosure and she got it for a discounted price,” Palmore said. “She wanted to provide a safe place for her daughter and her to live. And it’s unfortunate that she had to experience this.”

Palmore said the house was badly in need of repairs and that McEneaney and Canarick immediately began complaining about the house being in disrepair the moment she moved in.

“Then she started to see that this was more than just about the upkeep of the house, that they did not want her there because she is Black,” Palmore claimed.

She said McLeggan made numerous complaints to the Nassau Police Department to no avail.

“They didn’t act on any of her complaints,” Palmore said. “Some of the officers would ask her, ‘Were you hurt?’ Just downplaying the incident and she became increasingly frustrated over the course of the last three years.”

She said McEneaney would allegedly shoot pellet guns from his backyard across McLeggan’s property, leaving a street sign near McLeggan’s yard pockmarked.

“Many of these incidents have been caught on surveillance tape,” Palmore said.

After McLeggan’s placed the sign on her home, community residents rallied in support of her and a group of men even took shifts guarding her home.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder called a news conference on July 14 in hopes of “ratcheting down” the tensions.

Ryder said that after McLeggan’s posted her sign, detectives interviewed her extensively. He said detectives also interviewed McEneaney’s father and seized a pellet rifle and a pellet handgun from the family home.

“At this time, we do not have any evidence of any bias. But that does not mean that it is not there,” Ryder said at the time. “We have more work to do.”

Ryder confirmed that his officers have responded to up to 50 complaints made to his agency by both McLeggan and her next-door neighbors about each other since 2017, including the allegation from McLeggan about dead squirrels left in her yard.

“There are allegations that [the suspects] have shot squirrels. There are neighbors who have found dead squirrels in their yards,” Ryder said. “None of those squirrels have been shown to have been shot by a BB to our knowledge. We’re still looking into that matter.”

Singas said the charges against McEneaney and Canarick came after investigators interviewed other neighbors, police witnesses, code enforcement officers and reviewed surveillance videos.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is now representing McLeggan, called it “outrageous” that McLeggan had to endure the alleged harassment for so long before action was taken by law enforcement.

“Ms. McLeggan was simply trying to live while Black — and her life was turned into a living hell by neighbors whose aim was to drive her away,” Crump alleged. “Enough is enough. This long-overdue arrest sends an important message: That in America in 2020, people of color have the right to breathe, the right to live, the right to own a home, and the right to protection by their government. That is what we demand, and we will not accept less.”

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

August 19, 2020 • No Comments • National News

LightFieldStudios/iStockBy LUKE BARR, ABC News

(CHICAGO) — When Jonathan Zumkehr woke up Thursday morning with mild symptoms of COVID-19, he said he figured he should get tested for the virus.

Later that day he found out he was COVID-19 positive, he said, making him the 20th staff member to test positive at the United States Penitentiary Thomson just outside of Chicago, Illinois.

But Zumkehr, like his colleagues, did not get tested at work, or through the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Zumkehr said he had to find an independent testing site on his own.

“Testing for staff isn’t available at the prison but they test inmates for COVID-19 at the prison,” Zumkehr, who also serves as the institution’s union president, told ABC News.

“Staff also can’t get tested due to being forced to work double 16-hour shifts almost on a daily basis,” he said.

Zumkehr says the overtime combined with the lack of testing for staff on site at the prison means that staff regularly don’t get tested. Zumkehr contends that if the Bureau would mandate testing for staff or provide on-site testing, the number of positive cases would rise.

Meanwhile, according to the Bureau of Prisons, only three inmates have tested positive for the virus and they list no staff as having contracted the virus.

“We cannot require that staff members be tested for COVID-19. However, for those staff that are presenting with symptoms or have been identified as a close contact of a COVID-19 diagnosed individual, given the critical role our staff play with regard to public safety, we have developed a letter for staff who are in close contact of a COVID-19 positive individual to provide to the local Health Department, to ensure such persons receive priority COVID-19 testing,” the Bureau said in a statement to ABC News. They also said that the facility is following Center for Disease Control guidelines, just like all other BOP facilities.

The BOP has been under scrutiny for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, so much so that Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Fred Keller introduced a bill to require Senate confirmation for the BOP director.

In a letter to the Warden dated Aug. 4 and obtained by ABC News, Council of Prison Locals President Shane Fausey wrote that Thomson is operating at 55% capacity — and calls this development “alarming.”

In addition, the facility as a whole is operating at just 67% capacity with 193 vacancies at the facility.

“Who is going to man the prison if everyone tests positive,” Zumkehr asked.

Union officials have long said that the BOP has a staffing crisis, but the COVID-19 pandemic has further strained the system, they say.

Fausey said that the Warden at USP Thomson and others have done an “outstanding job” trying to hire the staff required.

“The staffing crisis is not unique to USP Thomson, however, Thomson is one of the lowest staffed facilities in the agency,” Fausey said in a statement to ABC News. “The Correctional Officers and employees of Thomson are extremely hardworking and dedicated men and women. Their efforts are nothing short of heroic and selfless during the current staffing shortfalls and limited resources at that facility. Their drive and focused motivation is to protect the surrounding community and each other. “

“The staffing crisis at Thomson is more concerning for me because it is one of the highest security prisons in the world. Operating with inadequate staffing, relying on excessive and mandatory overtime, leads to fatigue and a potential for an increase in errors. Errors that in such a serious environment can have dire consequences,” he continued.

In his letter to the Warden, Fausey said multiple employees at the facility are suffering from “extremely low morale.”

“This is in no way the fault of the employees at Thomson. Immediate intervention to alleviate the staffing crisis is necessary to reduce the immediate dangers facing the employees,” Fausey writes.

The low staffing levels at USP Thomson have drawn the attention of members of Congress.

“We write to support the efforts of the correctional staff at the United States Penitentiary (USP) Thomson to recruit qualified staff to work at the facility,” Rep. Cheri Bustos, Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Tammy Duckworth, all Democrats from Illinois, wrote to the Director of the BOP.

The members quote a letter written by Warden Chris Rivers to the staff in June underscoring just how overworked employees at the facility are.

“You have handled more correctional services issues than most correctional staff across the Bureau deal with in a 20+ year career.”

The Bureau of Prisons told ABC News that they do not respond to Congressional letters in the media.

“Out of respect and deference to Members, we do not share our Congressional correspondence with media,” a BOP spokesman told ABC News.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

August 19, 2020 • No Comments • National News

Ovidiu Dugulan/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 781,000 people worldwide.

Over 22 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.

Since the first cases were detected in China in December, the United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 5.4 million diagnosed cases and at least 171,823 deaths.

Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:

9:19 a.m.: Iran’s coronavirus death toll tops 20,000

There were 168 additional coronavirus-related fatalities in Iran on Wednesday, bringing the country’s death toll past 20,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

It’s another grim milestone for the nation of 80 million people, which has the largest COVID-19 outbreak in the Middle East with more than 350,000 diagnosed cases.

Nevertheless, Iran still plans to hold university entrance exams for over one million students. The Islamic Republic is also preparing for mass commemorations at the end of the month for the ninth and tenth days of Muharram, which marks the start of the Islamic New Year.

7:15 a.m.: Pope warns against vaccine priority for the rich

Pope Francis said Wednesday that a COVID-19 vaccine should be “for everyone” and not made a priority for the rich.

“How sad it would be if for the COVID-19 vaccine priority is given to the richest,” Francis said during his weekly general audience at the Vatican, which was held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It would be sad,” he added, “if the vaccine became property of such and such nation and not universal for everyone.”

The pope noted how COVID-19 “has uncovered the plight of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world.”

“The pandemic is a crisis. You don’t come out of it the same — either better or worse,” he said. “We must come out better.”

6:34 a.m.: India records 1,092 more deaths

India’s health ministry recorded 1,092 additional coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide toll to 52,889.

The latest single-day rise in fatalities is lower than India’s record of 2,003 deaths reported on June 16.

The country of 1.3 billion people has the world’s fourth-highest death toll from COVID-19, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico, according to a real-time tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 2.7 million people in India have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began — the third-highest count in the world.

5:39 a.m.: ‘We are not seeing a surge in community cases,’ says New Zealand PM

New Zealand reported six new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, five of which were locally transmitted and are linked to a cluster of cases in the country’s most populous city.

The national total now stands at 1,299 cases, 96 of which are active, according to data published on the health ministry’s website.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the latest figures were “encouraging.”

“At this stage, we are not seeing a surge in community cases,” Ardern said at a press conference Wednesday. “We have not seen any new cases outside of that identified Auckland cluster.”

Health officials are still investigating how the outbreak in Auckland started after the country went 102 days without any local transmission. The new cluster of cases was discovered there last week, prompting authorities to impose a two-week lockdown in the region and to reschedule national elections.

4:45 a.m.: France will require face masks in offices starting next month

France’s labor ministry announced Tuesday that face masks will be required in enclosed shared office spaces starting Sept. 1, citing an “upsurge” in COVID-19 cases.

Mask will not be mandatory in individual offices so long as only one person is present, the ministry said.

The wearing of face masks is already compulsory in public indoor spaces across France. Several cities, including Paris and Marseille, have imposed mask requirements in some outdoor areas, such as popular beaches.

There were 2,238 new cases of COVID-19 identified in France on Tuesday, according to the health ministry, which is requiring on-the-spot tests for travelers coming from over a dozen nations with active virus circulation, including the United States.

3:50 a.m.: US reports more than 1,300 new deaths in a single day

There were 44,813 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the United States on Tuesday, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Tuesday’s tally is well below the country’s record set on July 16, when 77,255 new cases were identified in a 24-hour reporting period.

An additional 1,324 coronavirus-related deaths were also recorded Tuesday — a nearly threefold increase from the previous day but still under the record 2,666 new deaths that were reported on April 17.

A total of 5,482,602 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 171,823 of them have died, according to Johns Hopkins. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C. and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.

By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up and crossing 70,000 for the first time in mid-July.

While week-over-week comparisons show that the nationwide number of new cases has continued to decrease in recent weeks, the number of new deaths has increased, according to an internal memo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, obtained by ABC News on Tuesday night.

Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

August 19, 2020 • No Comments • National News

sshepard/iStockBy HALEY YAMADA, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Back-to-school season is off to a challenging start.

As new cases of the coronavirus are reported at K-12 schools that have reopened, many others are facing the difficult decision of whether or not to return to in-person classes. At some of the nation’s top universities, administrators are also struggling to formulate a cohesive plan to keep students on campus and safe from the virus.

After reopening last week, the University of Notre Dame reported 89 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, saying they were linked to a campus party. The school announced new restrictions that would go into effect for the next two weeks, including remote instruction for undergrads, closed public spaces and requiring off campus students to remain off campus.

“If these steps are not successful, we’ll have to send students home as we did last spring,” announced Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of the university.

The university’s decision comes as 1,800 high school students are currently quarantining in Cherokee County, Georgia following a return to in-person school on Aug. 3.

At the University of Texas Austin, where students moved in on Monday, sophomore Sophia Gurin is already worried that she will be sent home because of the virus.

“I have an in-person class, so I do have to go to class. I’m going to do my best and practice safety and wear my mask, wash my hands often, but I feel like … it’s spreading pretty fast,” said Gurin.

School administrators at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill had to change their plans after just a week since students arrived back on campus. Most in-person instruction was cancelled Monday and the school is now encouraging students to leave campus.

“I think we’re going to wait it out and once they kick us out, we’ll go home. I think that’s our plan for now,” said freshman Fiona Kincaid.

Health officials are warning college students, many of whom are known to party, that large gatherings are not helpful.

“We can’t have these large parties because of the level of asymptomatic spread,” said Dr. Deborah Birx on Aug. 18 at a briefing in Jefferson City, Missouri.

At Ithaca College in New York, freshman Rita Aucker was notified in an email from her university president on Monday that school will be online this semester.

“And just for general public health and safety reasons, it makes sense for all of us to stay home,” Aucker told ABC News.

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