Red Bluff Daily News

July 08, 2016

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J.SCOTTAPPLEWHITE—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS FBI Director James Comey pauses while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. ByEricTuckerand Matthew Daly The Associated Press WASHINGTON Summoned before Congress and ag- gressively questioned by Republicans, FBI Director James Comey on Thurs- day strongly defended the government's decision to not prosecute Hillary Clin- ton over her private email setup. He said there was no evidence that she knew that anythingshewasdoingwas against the law or had lied to federal investigators. Comey's appearance be- fore the House Oversight and Government Reform Committeemarkedhisfirst public statements since an FBI announcement that re- moved the threat of crim- inal charges against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee but also revived public scru- tiny of her handling of clas- sified information. A number of Republi- cans suggested there was a double standard for charging everyday people accused of crimes as op- posed to high-level peo- ple like Clinton. Lawmak- ers asked Comey if he had been hearing that, too. "I've heard it a lot," he said. "It's not true, but I've heard it a lot." "I totally get people's questions," he said, but the FBI was obliged to follow the law. Comey gave his most de- tailed explanation to date about why the Justice De- partment concluded with- out charges a yearlong investigation that had dogged Clinton's presiden- tial campaign and raised questions for voters about her trustworthiness. Republicans said they were infuriated with the FBI's decision and con- fused by the way it was presented. Comey on Tues- day gave a scathing assess- ment of Clinton's email practices, followed by his conclusion that "no rea- sonable prosecutor" would charge her with a crime. On Thursday, Comey said the legal decision came down to a simple lack of a criminal intent. When agents investi- gate allegations of crimi- nal wrongdoing, they look for evidence not only that a statute was violated but also that a person knew that what he was doing was wrong. That evidence did not exist in this case, Comey said. Although there is a law that allows for felony prosecution for mishandling classified in- formation due to gross negligence, that law has been used only once in the 99 years since it was en- acted — and that was in a case involving espionage, Comey said. FBIdirector:Nodouble st an da rd i n Cl in to n pr ob e PRIVATE EMAIL SETUP By Kyle Potter The Associated Press FALCON HEIGHTS, MINN. A woman who watched as a police officer fatally shot her boyfriend during a traf- fic stop streamed the grue- some aftermath of the slay- ing live on Facebook, telling a worldwide audience that her companion had been shot "for no apparent rea- son" while reaching for his wallet. Within hours, the Minne- sota governor was pressing for the Justice Department to open its second investi- gation of the week into the death of a black man at the hands of police. The latest shooting hap- pened late Wednesday in the St. Paul suburb of Fal- con Heights, a community of 5,000 people that is also home to Minnesota's an- nual state fair and part of the massive University of Minnesota campus. In the video, Diamond Reynolds describes being pulled over for a "busted tail light" and says her boy- friend had told the officer he was carrying a gun for which he was licensed. As word of the shooting spread, relatives of the man joined scores of people who gathered at the scene and outside the hospital where he died. They identified him as Philando Castile of St. Paul, a well-liked 32-year- old cafeteria supervisor at a Montessori school. Reynolds said Thurs- day that he was killed even though he complied with the officer's instructions. She told reporters that Cas- tile did "nothing but what the police officer asked of us, which was to put your hands in the air and get your license and registra- tion." In addition to seeking help from the Justice De- partment, Gov. Mark Day- ton said the Minnesota Bu- reau of Criminal Apprehen- sion had opened its own investigation. Speaking to CNN, Cas- tile's mother said that she suspected she would never learn the whole truth about her son's death. "I think he was just black in the wrong place," Valerie Castile said Thursday, add- ing that she had underlined to her children that they must do what authorities tell them to do to survive. "I know my son ... we know black people have been killed ... I always told them, whatever you do when you get stopped by police, comply, comply, comply." Police did not release any details about the officer who fired except to say he had been placed on paid admin- istrative leave. Reynolds de- scribed him as Asian. It was the second fatal police shooting this week, coming only days after a black 37-year-old man was killed by officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Alton Sterling's death was caught on video. On Wednesday, the Jus- tice Department launched a civil rights investigation into Sterling's shooting, which took place after he scuffled with two white po- lice officers outside a conve- nience store. The Facebook footage shows Castile lying mo- tionless in the car for sev- eral minutes, his shirt cov- ered in blood, while Reyn- olds speaks calmly to the camera. The video posted Wednesday night on Face- book Live shows the woman in a car next to a bloodied man slumped in a seat. A clearly distraught person who appears to be a police officer stands at the car's window, telling the woman to keep her hands where they are and intermittently swearing. MINNESOTA Video shows a ermath of police shooting JIM MONE — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile of St. Paul, cries outside the governor's residence in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Thursday. By Mike Kunzelman, Melinda Deslatte and Cain Burdeau The Associated Press BATON ROUGE, LA. Four previous "use of force" com- plaints were lodged against the two white police offi- cers in the video-recorded shooting death of a black man and they were cleared in all of them, according to internal affairs documents released Thursday. The complaints included three black men and a black juvenile. One of them was shot when police said he pointed a gun at them and the others were injured dur- ing arrests and a police pur- suit in a vehicle. The documents were re- leased a day after the Justice Department opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of37-year-old Alton Sterling, who was killed by police during an altercation outsideofaconveniencestore wherehewassellingCDs.Po- licesayhewasarmedandan eyewitnesssaidhehadagun in his pocket. Cellphone video posted online set off angry pro- tests in this city of about 229,000, where 54 percent of the population is black and more than 25 percent live in poverty. Baton Rouge officials said Wednesday that police would do an internal inves- tigation but that they would otherwise let federal offi- cials handle the civil rights probe. The officers in the shoot- ing were Blane Salamoni, a four-year member of the de- partment, and Howie Lake II, who has been on the force for three years. Each had two prior "use of force" complaints. Lake was involved in a police shooting in Decem- ber 2014. He told detectives investigating that shooting that he fired six or seven times when a black man refused to drop his gun, threatened to kill himself and pointed his revolver at officers. The man was wounded by police. Salamoni's complaints involved punching a black man on Aug. 5, 2015, when he tried to grab the officer's stun gun, according to doc- uments. The man had a cut on his head and needed stiches. SH O OT IN G DE AT H Louisiana officers cleared in prior use of force complaints | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2016 4 B

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