News from NL, Canada, 8 June
Convicted killer Brian Doyle has been granted more freedom by the National Parole Board despite concerns over his evasive answers during the hearing.
Doyle had previously allowed an innocent man to go to jail for his crime and had broken release conditions on his first attempt at parole.
The victim's son expressed concern for the community where Doyle may end up and believes he should be under stricter watch.
2. The skyline in Placentia Bay, NL looks a little different these days following the completion of the slip form operation on the West White Rose project.
This added 92.35 metres to the existing project structure, bringing it to a height of 139.2 metres. The slip form took 69 days, working 24/7, and used 8,000 cubic metres of concrete – the equivalent of three Olympic sized swimming pools!
3. Three individuals have been arrested and charged in connection with seven break-ins in St. Anthony.
The trio was identified by the public and alleged to have been involved in five break-ins in a week.
Dominick Igloliorte faces multiple charges including break and enter, theft, and mischief, while the other two face charges of break and enter and breach of probation, and theft and mischief.
4. Water bomber pilots in Newfoundland and Labrador are facing a staffing crunch with the lowest staffing levels in the province's history.
The shortage of pilots is having far-reaching impacts as neighbouring provinces rely on their assistance during disasters.
Despite government accolades, the pilots are urging politicians to address the staffing issue, as they currently only have enough pilots to operate on a full-time basis with just three pilots.
5. The regulated price of gas has decreased by up to 5.2 cents a litre and there is a break on diesel, furnace oil, and propane in Newfoundland.
6. The Bank of Canada has raised its key lending rate by 0.25 percentage points.
7. Smoke from wildfires in Canada has caused air quality alerts across multiple US states, highlighting the threat of harmful microscopic particles to people's health even hundreds of miles away from fire sites.
Western Canada's dozens of fires have prompted some oil production to be curtailed, impacting the region's economy.
8. The Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corp. has issued a request for proposals for the creation of new affordable homes in the province’s rental market.
9. The Folk Arts Society has announced the lineup for this year's Music @ Concert Series in St. John's, featuring 16 concerts across three venues over three months.
10. NL Pet Expo is taking place in Mount Pearl this weekend.
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Ahmaud Arbery's murder: Four years later Ahmaud Arbery's murder: Four years later 05:29
Attorneys are asking a U.S. appeals court to throw out the hate crime convictions of three White men who used pickup trucks to chase Ahmaud Arbery through the streets of a Georgia subdivision before one of them killed the running Black man with a shotgun.
A panel of judges from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was scheduled to hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that followed a national outcry over Arbery's death. The men's lawyers argue that evidence of past racist comments they made didn't prove a racist intent to harm.
On Feb. 23, 2020, father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and drove in pursuit of Arbery after spotting the 25-year-old man running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. A neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, joined the chase in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery in the street.
More than two months passed without arrests, until Bryan's graphic video of the killing leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. Charges soon followed.
In legal briefs filed ahead of their appeals court arguments, lawyers for Greg McMichael and Bryan cited prosecutors' use of more than two dozen social media posts and text messages, as well as witness testimony, that showed all three men using racist slurs or otherwise disparaging Black people. The slurs often included the use of the N-word and other derogatory terms for Black people, according to an FBI witness who examined the men's social media pages. The men had also advocated for violence against Black people, the witness said.
Bryan's attorney, Pete Theodocion, said Bryan's past racist statements inflamed the trial jury while failing to prove that Arbery was pursued because of his race. Instead, Arbery was chased because the three men mistakenly suspected he was a fleeing criminal, according to A.J. Balbo, Greg McMichael's lawyer.
Greg McMichael initiated the chase when Arbery ran past his home, saying he recognized the young Black man from security camera videos that in prior months showed him entering a neighboring home under construction. None of the videos showed him stealing, and Arbery was unarmed and had no stolen property when he was killed.
Prosecutors said in written briefs that the trial evidence showed "longstanding hate and prejudice toward Black people" influenced the defendants' assumptions that Arbery was committing crimes.
"All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions — not on fact, not on evidence, on assumptions. They make decisions in their driveways based on those assumptions that took a young man's life," prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said in court in November 2021. Three men found guilty of hate crimes in the death of Ahmaud Arbery 02:18
In Travis McMichael's appeal, attorney Amy Lee Copeland didn't dispute the jury's finding that he was motivated by racism. The social media evidence included a 2018 Facebook comment Travis McMichael made on a video of Black man playing a prank on a white person. He used an expletive and a racial slur after he wrote wrote: "I'd kill that .... ."
Instead, Copeland based her appeal on legal technicalities. She said that prosecutors failed to prove the streets of the Satilla Shores subdivision where Arbery was killed were public roads, as stated in the indictment used to charge the men.
Copeland cited records of a 1958 meeting of Glynn County commissioners in which they rejected taking ownership of the streets from the subdivision's developer. At the trial, prosecutors relied on service request records and testimony from a county official to show the streets have been maintained by the county government.
Attorneys for the trio also made technical arguments for overturning their attempted kidnapping convictions. Prosecutors said the charge fit because the men used pickup trucks to cut off Arbery's escape from the neighborhood.
Prosecutors said other federal appellate circuits have ruled that any automobile used in a kidnapping qualifies as an instrument of interstate commerce. And they said the benefit the men sought was "to fulfill their personal desires to carry out vigilante justice."
The trial judge sentenced both McMichaels to life in prison for their hate crime convictions, plus additional time — 10 years for Travis McMichael and seven years for his father — for brandishing guns while committing violent crimes. Bryan received a lighter hate crime sentence of 35 years in prison, in part because he wasn't armed and preserved the cellphone video that became crucial evidence.
All three also got 20 years in prison for attempted kidnapping, but the judge ordered that time to overlap with their hate crime sentences.
If the U.S. appeals court overturns any of their federal convictions, both McMichaels and Bryan would remain in prison. All three are serving life sentences in Georgia state prisons for murder, and have motions for new state trials pending before a judge.
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So like I have that fic I wrote already completed in my google docs but I'm rethinking posting it because of both traction and reception given the genre.
I'm defs at a time where I am quite empty without writing but with too much going on rn to write properly so it was a wonder I could finish it.
In essence, I'm too wary on posting it even though the idea is really good and I was so happy writing it. I know it's "Do what you love" and "don't worry about what others think" but like, I would like my work to be recognized and appreciated if the reader likes it. I lowkey don't care about likes anymore because it's something a writer here can't really run from but I know I've fallen off and it's not easy to swim in this fandom's fanfic pool because you're likely not gonna get attention if you don't write any form of sexual act
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and what if it was the mafia boss collecting all the Stone variants? would criminal Stone assist?
Criminal!Stone would assist, yes he would. He'd be like "I don't understand why I'm not enough for you, but if you want the rest of them, you will get them."
Cue Serial Killer!Stone being like "Do you, Grim Reaper!Stone, & Feral!Stone not have any morals??" And the answer is yes, they don't really have morals.
Honestly, Serial Killer!Stone needs to get off his high horse and let Criminal!Stone put him in the truck with the rest of the Stone variants.
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I'm sure this has been mentioned before but the media really needs to stop being like "the case is solved" once a suspect is arrested for a crime. current example is the supposed serial killer in stockton california. it's been big news for a few weeks and they just arrested a suspect and now everyone is like "crime solved" but last I checked everyone is innocent until proven guilty? how do they know for sure he did it? the only thing they were showing on the news was a dark video of him walking away from a camera.
idk man, I know everyone just wants speedy assurances when someone is arrested for a crime but what a lot of crime TV shows don't show is often the cops fucked up and the evidence doesn't add up perfectly. from a legal standpoint, the media making claims that cases are solved is never really a good thing. I know the cops don't help since they do press releases saying the case is solved but like. if you think about it, how does this help anyone have a fair trial? when most people go into it believing the suspect did it? whether or not the suspect is guilty has to be proven in court, that's up to the district attorneys/the state to prove, not the media.
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