(AURORA, Colo.) — Five attendees of a rally and vigil for Elijah McClain held last month in Aurora are suing the Colorado city and its interim top cop over what they say was an unconstitutional police response that “terrorized” peaceful protesters.
On June 27, thousands of demonstrators gathered for a “violin vigil” to celebrate the life of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died last year a few days after police confronted him as he was walking home from a convenience store.
In social media footage of the gathering, held on the lawn of the Aurora Municipal Center, serene violin music contrasted with images of officers approaching in riot gear and spraying the crowd with pepper spray.
“Against the backdrop of the violinists’ beautiful and haunting soundtrack, these officers under [Aurora Police Department] direction bullied and indiscriminately deployed chemical agents on the men, women, and children who had gathered to peacefully remember Elijah. Some even wielded batons and shot projectiles,” states the class action lawsuit, which names the city of Aurora and Interim Chief Vanessa Wilson, among others, as defendants. “They terrorized an already reeling and grieving community.”
The plaintiffs are seeking damages for “emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life and other pain and suffering,” according to the complaint. The lawsuit is also calling for injunctive relief regarding police behavior at demonstrations, including requiring body-worn cameras to be recording and unobstructed at all times, to only give orders to disperse when there is “imminent danger of harm to persons (not property)” and to bar the use of chemical agents, including pepper spray, against those “exercising their rights of free speech and assembly.”
“Today, we are proud to represent leaders of the Aurora community who have filed this class action lawsuit to do what Aurora’s officials refuse to: hold Aurora’s out-of-control police department accountable,” said Mari Newman, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit Thursday, in a statement.
The five plaintiffs include two members of the city’s new community police task force and the chairwoman of the Arapahoe County Democratic Party.
The city has not been served yet, according to Aurora City Attorney Daniel Brotzman.
“As soon as we obtain a copy of the complaint from the Court, we will begin analyzing it,” Brotzman said in a written statement. “Since we haven’t seen it, only accounts from the media, we will need time to evaluate the claims.”
ABC News has reached out to the Aurora Police Department for comment.
At a June 30 virtual meeting called to address the police department’s widely criticized response, Aurora’s interim police chief defended the officers’ actions, saying they were trying to protect peaceful demonstrators from a small group of agitators.
“I’m deeply concerned that children were frightened by that,” Wilson said. “People were confused by that, and I profusely apologize for that.”
McClain’s death has gotten renewed attention amid calls for justice for George Floyd, who died while in police custody on May 25. Nationwide protests have included violin vigils in honor of McClain, a certified massage therapist and self-taught violin player.
On the night of Aug. 24, 2019, while McClain was out buying soft drinks, someone called 911 to report a suspicious person who was reportedly wearing a ski mask and waving his arms as he walked down a street.
When responding police officers grabbed him, police body camera video captured McClain telling them, “I am an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking.” Several minutes into the video, he also could be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” and told the officers he was in pain as they applied a chokehold.
When paramedics arrived, they gave him ketamine, a sedative. He suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital and was later declared brain dead. He died on Aug. 30.
After an investigation by the county’s district attorney, the three officers did not face any charges.
Last month, following a series of rallies and protests demanding justice for McClain, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed state Attorney General Phil Weiser as the special prosecutor to investigate the death and potentially file charges.
(NEW YORK) — California State University voted to make ethnic and social justice studies a requirement for graduation amid ongoing calls for related reforms in the wake of national unrest.
The university’s Board of Trustees approved the measure on Wednesday, marking the first change to the school’s general education curriculum in more than four decades, school officials said.
Cal State, the country’s largest four-year public university system with 23 campuses, said it hopes to create “a more just and equitable society” with the new curriculum, which will be implemented beginning with the 2023-2024 academic year.
“This action, by the CSU and for the CSU, lifts Ethnic Studies to a place of prominence in our curriculum, connects it with the voices and perspectives of other historically oppressed groups,” CSU Chancellor Timothy White said in a statement. “It will empower our students to meet this moment in our nation’s history, giving them the knowledge, broad perspectives and skills needed to solve society’s most pressing problems.”
He said the one-course requirement “will further strengthen the value of a CSU degree” and create better workplace leaders.
The requirement can be fulfilled through a “broad spectrum of course offerings” that address historical, current and emerging ethnic studies and social justice issues, school officials said.
The course offerings will be grounded in the traditional ethnic studies discipline, the school said, and composed of African American, Asian American, Latinx and Native American studies.
The announcement comes as California legislatures mull a bill that would require ethnic studies but not social justice classes.
If approved and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, the state-backed requirements would trump California State University’s recent measure.
ABCBY ASHAN SINGH, DEBORAH KIM, and ALLIE YANG, ABC NEWS
(NEW YORK) — For almost a year now, Taylor Cassidy has been creating TikToks. However, her short, creatively edited videos have been so much more than viral dance challenges.
One of Cassidy’s latest videos posted to her nearly two million followers is an explainer on “Blaxploitation.” In the video, which racked up nearly 400,000 views in one day, she teaches viewers that the genre emerged in the 1970s as films made by Black creators featured Black characters at the forefront. She also notes the characters often played into negative stereotypes.
At 17 years old, Cassidy’s account has been verified on the social platform and her videos have amassed over 38 million likes.
“Hundreds of thousands of people started coming to this little Black girl’s channel just to support her,” Cassidy told “Nightline.” “I still can’t fully fathom it, but I’m so thankful that I have an audience that I can educate and they want to be educated.”
Cassidy quickly realized the platform’s potential as a megaphone for social issues.
“I had started doing these little motivational pep talks on Instagram,” she said. “Whenever I was on TikTok, I was like, ‘I’m just going to see what happens and put it on here, too.’ And then people really loved it.”
She’s covered a range of topics on her page, from figures in Black history to speaking out about the killing of Breonna Taylor to the history of the United States’ two-party system.
One story she shared with her followers that really caught her attention was that of the Black American creator of the famous Playboy bunny costume.
“I had found out about Zelda Wynn Valdés a few months prior,” Cassidy said. “I was really captivated that this Black woman created such an iconic costume. I was like, ‘I need to share this woman.’”
Cassidy said it was especially important to make her voice heard during this time of reckoning for generations of racial inequality in the United States.
“I think that the representation of Black creators on this app really proves how important this is, that we provide authentic information and real information so that people don’t mistake the Black Lives Matter movement as something that it’s not,” she said.
TikTok, best known as a launch pad for chart-topping hits, eye-popping stunts and endless dance crazes, is now becoming a go-to space for young people itching to voice their opinions and enact change.
Kudzi Chikumbu, the director of TikTok’s creator community, says the new role the app has taken on is an organic progression for the platform.
“People have really been opened up to be able to express their authentic voice and things that they also care about … not just only having fun, but inspiring people, educating people, informing people,” Chikumbu told “Nightline.”
On TikTok, the Black Lives Matter hashtag has racked up more than 17 billion views, pride hashtags have surpassed seven billion views and posts about safe quarantining have amassed more than 21 billion views.
“TikTok is a place where teenagers go to post information about how to protest, where protests are happening, what’s happening on the ground,” Taylor Lorenz, a tech reporter for The New York Times, told “Nightline.” “TikTok is the real time news platform for Gen Z.”
The platform is also a hotbed of political commentary, most notably from the conservative end of the political spectrum. Among the conservative voices is Cam Higby.
“There was a period of time where I posted, like, just normal TikTok. I tried to be funny or whatever on my personal account, but it didn’t really work out,” he told “Nightline.” “But then I noticed I would start making like Trump-related videos or something, talking about what I agree with or disagree with. … They just were massively successful.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called TikTok a national security threat because it’s a Chinese-owned company. And White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said last week that a ban could come in “weeks, not months.”
“I would be upset if it gets banned. I really don’t think it’s going to get banned,” Higby said. “I think there’s very little likelihood of it. But I would also understand why he’s doing it.”
In a statement to “Nightline,” TikTok refuted the White House’s claim saying in a statement, “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok out there. TikTok has an American CEO … and a U.S. team that works diligently to develop a best-in-class security infrastructure. TikTok U.S. user data is stored in the U.S. and Singapore, with strict controls on employee access. These are the facts.”
Both Higby and Cassidy find that TikTok is an important place for people to express their ideologies.
“It’s better that people both on the right and left start getting into politics when they’re younger,” Higby said. “Because then by the time they’re an adult, maybe they’ll actually know what’s happening.”
Still a minor and unable to vote in a presidential election until 2024, Cassidy uses the platform to amplify her voice.
“If I can’t vote, I can influence others to vote for the candidate that best suits their beliefs and what can really improve our society,” she said. “If you can vote, you can help spark that change.”
Cassidy also offered advice to other young activists.
“If you’re going to go on TikTok to use your voice to make a change, make sure that your heart is in the right place to make [an] impact first,” she said. “That’s how you’re going to reach people. That’s how you’re going to make an impact.”
ABC NewsBY: IGNACIO TORRES, JESSICA HOPPER, and ALLIE YANG
(HOUSTON) — For years, the highlight of Candido’s day has been returning home from work to his wife and children, Caleb and Emma. He has carried the pride of his job as an essential worker in the construction industry.
That was until he brought COVID-19 home.
“The first symptom was at work. I felt different types of chills. Then my legs felt shaky,” Candido, who asked to be identified by only his first name, told “Nightline” in Spanish.
Although Candido doesn’t know if he contracted the virus at work, he says he became ill in early June. He eventually lost his senses of taste and smell and says he feared for his family. His wife and children all have asthma, and he worried about how they would be impacted if he passed the virus to them.
“We were going to be in an economic situation where we wouldn’t be able to pay the rent,” he said. “We don’t have any support. We didn’t know if the sickness was going to affect us or if we would end up in the hospital. If we were going to die, what was going to become of our kids.”
It is a situation many essential workers across the country are dealing with every day. They keep our country’s economy running amid a pandemic, despite their vulnerabilities to the virus.
Now, so many people like Candido are forced to weigh the fears of transmitting the virus and still providing for their family or staying home without being able to earn a living. “My fear is that at any moment I could get contaminated again and bring the sickness home and that it turns out to be catastrophic,” Candido said.
Nearly four months into the pandemic, at least 40 states are now reporting a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“This is the greatest public health crisis that our nation’s faced in more than a century,” Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC News. “We’re very new in learning about this virus so it is very hard to predict. Clearly though, we have a significant upsurge of the outbreak now.”
As the numbers continue to rise, a clear picture of those most affected is emerging. Nationwide, Hispanic people now account for nearly a third of all COVID-19 cases.
In Texas, where Candido lives, the majority of construction workers are Latino like him. He said that in early June he became so sick with the virus that he went to the hospital. A native of Honduras, Candido is undocumented and uninsured. He feared his immigration status would impact his treatment.
“I did get worried that I would end up at the hospital connected to a ventilator,” he said. “Because I’m an immigrant I wondered if they would remove me from the ventilator to give it to a U.S. citizen. That really worried me.”
Candido said he was sent home to recover, quarantining without sick pay. He said he received a hospital bill for $7,000 a few days later. He says the hospital has reduced the bill down to $3,500, forcing him into credit card debt. He says he had to borrow money from relatives in Honduras.
“Not being able to work meant I wasn’t going to have a salary,” he said. “It won’t allow me to pay the bills.”
For Candido, no work truly means no pay. Due to his immigration status, he has been ineligible for the stimulus check provided under the federal government’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and he cannot apply for unemployment benefits. Candido soon passed the virus to his wife, which forced both of them to distance themselves from their own children.
“It’s not easy because you want to hug and kiss them,” he said of his kids. “They ask for it and it’s sad because you can’t do it.”
He said that when it comes to the construction industry, employers should care for their employees. Instead, he says, the responsibility to protect themselves often falls on the workers.
“They aren’t giving the tools to protect us,” he explained. “They say, ‘Bring a mask’ but they don’t provide masks. The employee has to bring their own mask. The employee needs to come with their own gloves, and that should be provided by them and they don’t do it.” His experience is just one of many illustrating COVID-19’s disproportionate and growing grip on the Latino community.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, the latest census shows Latinos make up only about 6% of the population. Yet, 40% of all COVID-19 cases in the city are Latino.
“We knew that the Latinx population would be hit, but we didn’t know it would be hit so hard,” said Stacy Johnson, the executive director at La Paz Chattanooga, a nonprofit serving a growing Guatemalan and Mexican community.
Local organizations like La Paz have now joined forces to help and support this community. “From day one when COVID-19 came to Chattanooga, we knew that the Latinx population would be hit,” Johnson said. “We knew … the majority of them were essential workers.” Since the beginning of the pandemic, the calls were already coming in.
“We’ve gotten lots of calls from … a wife, for instance, that her husband works in the construction field. She and the children have stayed home,” Johnson said. “She’s afraid because she knows that her husband is at risk every single day. We have had calls from people in the service industry now that restaurants and hotels are starting to open back up.”
Johnson says she knew it was too early when the state began to reopen on April 30, and that local officials made the decision without prioritizing the growing outbreak in the Latino community.
“I don’t feel like any of those entities recognize the Latino community wasn’t part of the strategy. It wasn’t part of the plan,” Johnson said. “They only noticed this population subgroup when the numbers increased… Honestly, it was a little too late.”
Johnson’s group has focused on providing much-needed information on COVID-19 in Spanish — information she says has been lacking from city and state institutions.
“We feel like language is a huge barrier — language and culture,” she explained. “We made sure that anything that was going out to the community was available in Spanish. We have a large Guatemalan community here and many of them speak a Mayan language. [We’re] making sure that even those community members can have access to this really important information.”
Johnson says stay-at-home orders have been a challenge, especially for the city’s essential workers, who are undocumented and unable to get sick pay. Often, the only support comes from private relief funds donated by organizations like La Paz.
“A large percentage of the Latinx population are not eligible for any sort of government assistance. They’re not eligible for the stimulus package,” she said. “If we’re not able to provide financial assistance to this population, they will continue to work because [no income] is a much bigger challenge than maybe catching the virus.”
Dr. Kelly Arnold, who runs Clinica Medicos in Chattanooga, says this pandemic is “like nothing” she’s seen in the last 15 years. She is now part of the city’s coronavirus task force.
“As a family physician and a community physician, [I’m] really grappling with how do we, beyond the test results, stabilize families inside of such a vulnerable situation,” she told “Nightline.”
“We know by and large that these active measures of socially distancing, washing your hands, wearing a mask … those seem simplistic in nature, but [what] if your job and your vitality depends upon being rubbed up against someone’s elbows to be on an assembly line or in a kitchen,” she said. “Not only that, [but] your employer might not be providing you with adequate [personal protective equipment], then the decision is, ‘What do I do for my family?’ And most times, people are going to decide to protect your family economically.”
Compounding it all, many of Arnold’s patients are uninsured and undocumented, meaning they can’t get sick pay.
“I realized that when jobs shut down and jobs end, especially [in] the uninsured community, the first thing to go is people taking care of themselves and prioritizing their health care,” Arnold said. “That is one of the things that they set aside to save, to keep a roof over their head, to feed their children.”
“The weight of that moment is incredible,” she added. “‘Am I going to be on a ventilator? Am I going to die? We’re undocumented. What’s going to happen?’ All of these ponderings are palpably present in the lives of our patients and we see it every day.”
Betty Delgado, a Mexican immigrant, said paid sick leave made it easier for her to stay home and recover after she tested positive for the virus.
Delgado cleans homes for a living. She said her mother works at a chicken processing plant and her father, now retired, babysits her children. She said it only took one person to get sick to force everyone to stop working. It started with her father. Delgado, who says she has diabetes and kidney issues, eventually started feeling symptoms — first a fever, and then a cough that knocked the wind out of her.
“I was so scared that I would die because every time I coughed I felt like my heart would stop from so much coughing,” Delgado said in Spanish. “I lost all my strength.”
Delgado and her parents have now recovered from the virus and gone back to work. Still, Delgado says she is far from feeling safe.
“I’m trying to take care of myself now because I don’t want to relapse,” she said. “I feel safe when I’m in my house, but when I go out to buy food, I don’t feel safe because people aren’t careful… No one knows who is infected or who isn’t.”
Despite her fears, Delgado and her mother are back to work. It’s a risk for her, but not a choice, for another employee both essential to her family and our country.
(PHILADELPHIA) — A Philadelphia police officer has been charged with three counts of simple assault after video purportedly showed him spraying peaceful, kneeling protesters with pepper spray during protests against police brutality, officials said.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced the charges against Officer Richard Nicoletti, 35, on Wednesday.
Nicoletti was seen on social media videos on June 1 spraying the three protesters “without provocations,” according to a statement from Krasner’s office.
He was also seen physically pulling down the goggles of a protester who was kneeling in the street and spraying her in the face and “violently” throwing another protester, who was sitting hunched over to protect his face, onto his back and “continually spraying him with [pepper spray] while he was lying down and standing back up,” the statement said.
The protester, unable to see because of the pepper spray, swung at the officer without contact and was left on his feet in close proximity to moving traffic on the other side of the highway, according to Krasner and online videos.
The incident took place during the protests against police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by Minneapolis police in May.
The protesters had caused a traffic stop on 1-676 in Philadelphia around 5 p.m. that day, prompting state and local police to respond.
Nicoletti was among those to respond.
Although the protest was peaceful, Krasner’s office said “tear gas was deployed, causing physical harm, panic and confusion.”
While many scrambled to get away from the tear gas, three protesters remained kneeling and another stood closely by.
As the canisters of tear gas landed near them, the protesters would push them away.
“There is no indication that a thrown canister hit an officer or state trooper,” according to Krasner’s office, who said it was then that Nicoletti approached the four protesters and pepper sprayed them.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw have since publicly apologized for the deployment of tear gas during the protest and declared to end the use of pepper spray to disperse crowds under certain conditions.
The three protesters who were sprayed were offered medical treatment and eventually made it off I-676. The protester who was standing when Nicoletti approached the group was not sprayed.
“The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office will not make excuses for crimes committed by law enforcement that demean the democratic freedoms so many Americans have fought and died to preserve,” Krasner said in a statement.
John McNesby, the president of FOP Lodge 5, the Philadelphia police union, said in a statement to ABC News that Krasner was “only charging Philadelphia police officers following the recent unrest in the city.”
“Krasner refuses to hold unlawful protesters accountable, those who set fire and looted our great city … his top priority is to push his anti-police agenda,” McNesby said.
The union will provide defense for Nicoletti, according to the statement.
In addition to the simple assault charges, Nicoletti was charged with possession of an instrument of crime, recklessly endangering another person and official oppression.
The Philadelphia Police Department did not immediately respond to ABC News for comment. Nicoletti was suspended from the department for 30 days with intent to dismiss, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
nazarethman/iStockBy MEREDITH DELISO, ABC News
