Free Idea: What If Senate Democrats DIDN’T Vote For The Fascist Anti-Immigrant Bloody Shirt Bill? by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Oh, we’re helping Trump deport people for more minor offenses now, to avoid being ‘soft’ on immigration? Read on Substack

(I’m not putting the piece here, because it’s obvious to me that I’m not the only one who dislikes the news of the day. However, if your writingtapping fingers are warm or want to be, there’s an action within; writing or calling to our US Senators to oppose the Laken Riley Act. The article, couched in angry humor/humorous anger, gives good insight on the act, along with listing unintended consequences, because of course Republicans don’t read what they write and can’t think ahead about what words mean. Anyway, go read, or not; just call or email your Senators. And thanks!)

I made a mistake, read what I shouldn’t, now can not stop thinking about it.

**** Trigger warning, talk of abuse with a few graphic details. ****

I had stopped going to the male survivor site as it was causing me to spiral badly into the bad places in my head, triggering my negative emotions, getting seriously depressed and spending hours stuck in my memories, crying, then having horrible nightmares as I tried to sleep.

Look even without going to the site I still scream out in my sleep. It is agonizing because in my dreams I am struggling to verbalize the words, get them out and it feels like my mouth is locked shut, sort of my like my lips are sewn together. In my nightmares I can speak and scream normally until it gets so intense it seems I struggle to get the sounds out and they become much more guttural. That seems to be when I am getting audible in the awake world. When it seems I am able to unlock my jaws or rip my lips open is when I am in reality shouting out in my sleep. Ron had to wake me just two days ago when I was shouting help help help. I spared him the description of the abuse even though he is always willing for me to tell him the memories or nightmares because he knows it is very helpful for me to talk about it or get it out. Especially when it has just happened.

Anyway back to this morning. So a new friend who is a survivor who has been on the Male Survivor site much more than I have been and posts there often about everything going on in his life, like I do here, this person has been saying to me that they wrote about their holidays so could I go to their posts to see what had been going on with them. I went to the MS site, I started reading new posts before I got to his posts. And I never made it to Steve’s posts.

The post was about being anally raped and the person leaving their cum inside you that you try to prevent leaking out. The post and the people replying / joining the conversation all also wrote about their underwear being stained with poop and cum or in some cases blood. The conversation was about trying to get rid of or wash the evidence out before it was discovered by a mother or other who cared for them and they did not want to find out they were being abused.

I did not have this problem. My abuse was much more open and known in the house so I did not have to hide it or wash my sheets after. I did get in trouble if I wore my white underwear after without cleaning myself up which would leave stains / marks in the white underwear. So those if I saw that I would wash them myself soon as I could like the people in the conversation said they did. When the wet underwear was discovered after a few times of me doing that, I was caught in the act cleaning them. I was yelled at for it, told I was so stupid then pulled to the kitchen in front of everyone while naked, while my adoptive mother “taught me how to wipe my bottom and clean myself” after being raped. I was told to rather than lay in the bed or put my underwear on, that as soon as the person was finished with me and they did not want to use me anymore I should go empty myself. Then wipe / wash my bottom. I then had to repeat and show I knew how to do this in front of the laughing hell spawn. All that taught me was to wash and dry them before I put them in the laundry basket.

So this brings me to what I can not get out of my head this morning. Before I got side tracked by my memories and started the downward spiral, I was busy reading news articles, adding to my posting of crazy stuff that the right was doing, and gathering memes of Sunday’s meme post. Then it all came to a halt and I started to crash. Writing this out is helping. So what about the above triggered me?

See I could hold it in, the fluids inside me normally while laying in the bed, or in the short timeframe from when it was over until I could get to the bathroom or if outside until I could dump / empty my bowels, but that left nothing to wipe with so I would have to carry my underwear until I could do so hoping not to soil my pants. But there was one place and time I couldn’t do any of that. It was when raped and abused at school.

Please stay with me and try to understand the feelings / thinking of a small kid as I try to describe this without being too graphic. It started at school when I was 7 and continued but tapered off as I became a teenager. So imagine being 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 and being taken to a supply closet, empty room, or after school hours to the principal’s office. Once there told to drop my pants. Being fondled and touched. Then ordered to my knees to give oral sex to a male. So far none of that deals with what I wrote about above, soiling myself. But that comes from when instead of being told to kneel, I was instead told to turn around and stand on something, or picked up and draped over something, (more than once being forced to lay over the copy machine as it dug into my chest / belly while my ass was used to make the male staff / teachers happy) when I was very small I would be made to take my pants off then placed on my back on a shelf with my legs pined up as my back was bent to position my butt hole correctly for their use.

Ok I tried to put if off as long as I could. This is the part I was trying to get to and that the conversation on the site was about. After being used, trusted into sometimes with lube and sometimes without, filled with those fluids and possible messiness, my bottom full of the ejaculate of the guy who just … fucked me, I would be told to get dressed and go back to class. Of course the person who used me wanted to make the time I was away from class as short as possible if I was taken from class for the abuse. So if I had been summoned or escorted from the classroom, I would be told to get dressed quickly and return to class. I knew better than to tell. If it had been painful and hurtful, I would be told to stop crying and wipe my face on my shirt.

So this gets back to the stained underwear. I would have to put my underwear on, no choice, and go back to class not knowing if I was messy or not. I would only know my butt hurt, maybe my belly, back, or legs would also hurt. I would have to enter the classroom trying to not show anything wrong, feeling like everyone in the room was looking at me knowing what had just happened, what I had just done. Again if it was oral all I struggled with was the taste in my mouth. But if it had been anal specially if it had been forceful, in a bad position for me, or if no lube had been used, then my butt / asshole would be very sore and full of fluids. I would be forced to try to sit still, and desperately pinch my butt cheeks together as painful as that was or let the liquids mixed with poop ooze out creating both smell and stains. Most teachers soon understood and did not scold me for not paying attention or being not being still in my seat. It was the same as when I had been given a belting, spanking, or bad paddling before school, they seem to understand the pain I was in that my clothing / pants covered.

As soon as I could or when the teacher would quietly whisper in my ear asking if I needed to use the bathroom, I would leave the classroom walk carefully to the bathroom where I would rush into a toilet stall. I would also check my underwear as best I could. I would do the same as I walked or rode my bike home. I lived about a mile and half from the school. It was so much better in the warm months trying to do it in when bundled up for the cold was horrible. Because in warm months I could run in to the woods or somewhere not able to be easily seen, strip off my lower clothing and then remove my underwear, and redress. Then I could take the underwear to a brook like the one we had behind our home, wash the underwear, hang it in the sun to dry off something where I should be able to retrieve it later. Stories of what happened the few times I was caught doing this another time.

Many abuse victims just threw their soiled clothing out. I couldn’t do that. Punishment for losing my clothing was as severe as for soiling them.

So that was what has destroyed my emotions and focus for the last 7 hours. Taking the time to write this has helped me calm down and recenter. But the remembered pain of being so small, the over whelming emotion of feeling that everyone knew when I entered the classroom, and the fear that it was leaking into my underwear knowing that I would be publicly punish and possibly also privately punish if they were stained. Maybe most parents finding semen, blood, or poop stains all over the back of their child’s underwear would cause them to question what happened or rush to defend / help their son. Not mine, if they felt anything at all maybe they were happy it was happening to me. Maybe it relieved their own guilt knowing others did the same to me. I don’t know.

Just more from my childhood I have to deal with. Anyway, no more meme hunting today, nor news about the stuff the right is doing. Today I am going to answer comments and concentrate on the love and out pouring of support I get from this community. Oh and tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment. Hugs.

So About Meta

Personally, I don’t think it’s surrender on the part of Meta, nor any of the other media moguls. It’s all of one piece-they’re all in it together with the new 47th president. I’ve read this from others, too, both last night and this morning. We the people are not part of the club. Anyway, here is this.

Meta surrenders to the right on speech

“I really think this a precursor for genocide,” a former employee tells Platformer

Casey Newton

Jan 7, 2025 — 12 min read

Snippet:

I. The past

Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the 2016 US presidential election sparked a backlash against tech platforms in general and against Meta in particular. The company then known as Facebook was battered by revelations that its network dramatically amplified the reach of false stories about Trump and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, and was used as part of a successful effort by Russia to sow division in US politics and tilt the election in favor of Trump.

Chastened by the criticism, Meta set out to shore up its defenses. It hired 40,000 content moderators around the world, invested heavily in building new technology to analyze content for potential harms and flag it for review, and became the world’s leading funder of third-party fact-checking organizations. It spent $280 million to create an independent Oversight Board to adjudicate the most difficult questions about online speech. It disrupted dozens of networks of state-sponsored trolls who sought to use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to spread propaganda and attack dissenters.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had expected that these moves would generate goodwill for the company, particularly among the Democrats who would retake power after Trump lost in 2020. Instead, he found that disdain for the company remained strongly bipartisan. Republicans scorned him for policies that disproportionately punished the right, who post more misinformation and hate speech than the left does. Democrats blamed him for the country’s increasingly polarized politics and decaying democracy. And all sides pilloried him for the harms that his apps cause in children — an issue that 42 state attorneys general are now suing him over.

Last summer, the threats against Zuckerberg turned newly personal. In 2020, Zuckerberg and his wife had donated $419.5 million to fund nonpartisan election infrastructure projects. (Another effort that had seemingly generated no goodwill for him or Meta whatsoever.) All that the money had done was to help people vote safely during the pandemic. But Republicans twisted Zuckerberg’s donation into a scandal; Trump — who lost the election handily but insisted it had been stolen from him — accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him.

“We are watching him closely,” Trump wrote in a coffee-table book published ahead of the 2024 election, “and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

By the end of 2024, Zuckerberg had given up on finding any middle path through the polarized and opposite criticisms leveled against him by Republicans and Democrats. His rival Elon Musk had spent the past year showing how Republican party support can be bought — cheaply.

In business and in life, Zuckerberg’s motivation has only ever been to win. And a doddering, transactional Trump presented Meta with a rare opportunity for a fresh start.

All they would have to do is whatever Trump wanted them to do.

II. The announcements

On Tuesday, Meta announced the most significant changes to its content moderation policies since the aftermath of the 2016 election. The changes include:

Ending its fact-checking program, which funds third-party organizations to check the claims in viral Facebook and Instagram posts and downrank them when they are found to contain falsehoods. It will be replaced with a clone of Community Notes, X’s volunteer fact-checking program.
Eliminating restrictions on some forms of speech previously considered harmful, including some criticisms of immigrants, women, and transgender people.
Re-calibrating automated content moderation systems to prioritize only high-severity violations of content policy, such as those involving drugs and terrorism, and reviewing lower-severity violations only when reported by users. (This sounds boring but might be the most important change of all, as we’ll get to)
Re-introducing discussion of current events, which the company calls “civic content,” into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Moving content moderation teams from California to Texas to fight the perception that Meta’s moderation reflects a liberal Californian bias. (Never mind that the company has always had content moderation teams based in Texas, or that it was Zuckerberg and not the moderators who set the company’s policies.)

Zuckerberg announced these changes in an Instagram Reel; Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative and longtime Meta executive who last week replaced Nick Clegg as the company’s president of public policy, discussed the changes in an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” (See transcripts of both here.)

One way to understand these changes is as a marketing exercise, intended to convey a sense of profound change to an audience of one. In this, Meta appears to have succeeded; Trump today called the company’s changes “excellent” and said that the company has “come a long way.” (“Mr. Trump also said Meta’s change was ‘probably’ a result of the threats he had made against the company and Mr. Zuckerberg,” dryly noted the Times’ Mike Isaac and Theodore Schleifer.)

Whether this will be enough to get Trump to end the current antitrust prosecution against Meta, or otherwise advocate for the company in regulatory affairs, remains to be seen. By the cynical calculus of the company’s communications and policy teams, though, one assumes that Trump’s comments inspired a round of high-fives in the company’s Washington, DC offices.

But these changes are likely to substantially increase the amount of harmful speech on Meta’s platforms, according to 10 current and former employees who spoke to Platformer on Tuesday.

Start with the end of Meta’s fact-checking partnerships, which perhaps generated the most headlines of the company’s changes on Tuesday. While the company has been gradually lowering its investment in fact-checking for a couple years now, Meta’s abandonment of the project will have real effects: on the fact-checking organizations for whom Meta was a primary source of revenue, but also in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of which Meta is an increasingly begrudging steward. (snip-MORE. Go read; he left Substack because of the nazis, and made Platformer to get his writing to people. It’s free to read, and you don’t have to subscribe, either.)

I Don’t Know About Happy, But Whatever…

Happy Insurrection Day by Clay Jones

Is Trump confused or just lying again? Read on Substack

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Donald Trump’s white nationalist insurrection, when he called MAGA terrorists to come to Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory over him.

Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square.

Trump is the first president to refuse a peaceful transfer of power. He refused to cooperate with Biden’s transition team, a courtesy President Barack Obama extended in 2016 and after Trump’s victory last November (gag), President Biden extended to him as well. Both Democratic presidents hosted President-Elect (sic) Trump in the White House.

Trump ordered his MAGAts to attempt the insurrection after failing to overturn the election through court challenges, installing fake electors, calling election officials to intimidate them into giving him extra votes that didn’t exist, and even having his goons harass and intimidate election workers.

Trump’s white nationalist terrorists assaulted at least 174 Capitol Police officers on January 6, 2021, with 15 hospitalized. There was one death from a stroke and four suicides afterward. They also caused over $30 million in damages which Trump should pay for.

Two of the terrorists died from natural causes, one died from a drug overdose, and another, Ashley Babbit, died from a gunshot wound.

Over 1,500 were arrested, including Donald Trump. This nation has forgotten about the insurrection and has returned Trump to the presidency (sic). After January 20, Donald Trump plans to pardon all of the white nationalist terrorists who attacked our nation.

These people were looking to murder Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. Now, they will be rewarded.

I had a Lyft driver on New Year’s Eve ask me why I don’t support Donald Trump and I answered, “Because I love my country.” The elderly white driver (surprise) replied, “Donald Trump does too.” I have a serious inability to tolerate bullshit and I probably got a one-star rating from him after I replied to his response, “Donald Trump does too.” Thankfully, he made his dumbass ignorant comment near the end of the ride, where a guy ambushed me with Jesus pamphlets. I went straight from Trump freak to Jesus freak. I was glad I was getting out of town.

That’s our country for you today. Half this nation believes Donald Trump was right to send white nationalist terrorists to attack the Capitol to make him an unelected dictator or they don’t care.

Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t just want to ignore January 6, but she wants to make it a national holiday. Hey, we’ll all get a day off. MTG is also concerned that a snowstorm tomorrow will “disrupt” Trump’s certification. That’s rich.

Speaker-hanging-by-a-thread Mike Johnson doesn’t want to investigate January 6 but investigate the investigators. The new Department of Justice under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi will be looking to prosecute people like Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the J6 Committee, and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who co-chaired the committee. The DOJ may also be weaponized against people like Special Counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and even President Joe Biden.

Other Republicans encouraged J6, attempted to dox Speaker Pelosi’s location, gave them pre-insurrection tours, and later called the attackers “protesters” and “tourists.” Goons gotta goon.

On January 6, some will celebrate. I will encourage you to remember that our incoming president (sic) is a terrorist and a national security threat.

Two days that will make me sick to my stomach this month is tomorrow, January 6, and January 20.

I’m gonna get drunk.

Creative note: Both of my proofers had disgusted reactions to this cartoon which is exactly what I was going for. Also, I hate layers in Procreate. This cartoon has nearly 40 of them. I would usually just write “pardon” over and over again, but I thought the placement would work better with the layers, but that’s just as much of a PITA to me as lettering. My layer-loving friend and colleague Phil Hands should be happy.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (go watch!)

Trigger Warnings. My feelings about Christmas what happened to me as a child.

Hello everyone. This is a hard post but one I feel I must make for my own continued healing and to explain why this season hits me so hard. Before I get to the abuse let me tell everyone that yesterday taking things out of the car I was standing sideways with my knee pressed hard against the seat of the car as I reached across needing just an inch or two to grab the package … and as I strained to grab the parcel my knee snapped, I heard a grinding sound and fell to the ground. I fell to the ground seeing stars.

Ron rushed to me as soon as he saw me on the ground, we got me into my room and realized that my knee cap had been pushed into the cartilage beneath the cap. What ever happened to my knee caused me agony and lost me the ability to stand or use my leg. The pain made moving my leg in any way mind-blowing excoriating pain. Remember I take two kinds of morphine and other pain relievers. Ron got my walker from the bedroom but even using that was not able to help me move around. I went to bed. During the night I was OK if I did not move. The longer I stayed still the more the knee healed and the few times I had to get up to pee, well I had the walker and now understood how to hold my leg. The more it healed, the better it got. So this morning I was able to get up, and using the walker make my way to the kitchen and make my coffee. Then on to the Pink Palace to start my day.

====================================================================

Now to the reason for my post. I seriously warn for abuse trigger warnings. Please. The reason for this post, I am going to post something I wrote to a fellow survivor about why I get so withdrawn during this time. I appreciate his care and concern, plus I want you to know that it was Randy my grand real brother who talked to me this morning and made it possible for me to deal with posting this time in my life. I won’t include what he replied when I showed him the stuff I wanted to post but I assure you he was a comfort unparalleled in giving me the strength to do this. When I look to the past, what happened in late 2013 and in 2014 forward I wonder if I would be here if not for the unflagging love and care of my grand brother Randy.

Below is what I wrote to a fellow survivor who was worried about me.

=========================================================

…

Christmas always brings depression and a desire to hide or withdraw from life for me. Short story … it provided more time for abusers to use me and more of them around. During the weeks leading up to Christmas day as presents were placed under the tree which I knew better than go near the hell spawn would mess with their presents to figure out what they were, then when it was discovered I was of coursed blamed and punished for it in front of everyone.

But the worst was Christmas day, and despite what I knew had happened in the past and would happen that day I would get excited thinking of the gifts. After the nighttime / early morning rapes / giving oral to both males and females, I would be told where to sit. One of the hell spawns would pass the gifts out, one at a time. When it was my turn I would carefully unwrap the present even though I was being told to speed up, then give the required thanks to the person it was from, then place it on the floor next to me.

After all the gifts had been unwrapped while the adults gathered their gifts to stash in their room, the hell spawn gathered around me where I still sat. They took what they wanted of what I was “given”, most of which would have been bought knowing they would be the ones to get it. I was left with the clothing, socks, shirts, a pair of pants or two. One Christmas I got a coloring book that they let me keep but they took the crayons. I would take my gifts to my hallway mat until I was nearly 8 and got a bed of my own in the male hell spawns room as we moved and there was no longer a hallway for me to be made sleep in. I knew better than to complain or make a fuss, it was just the way things were, my place there, my life. To cry or complain would get me a public punishment and then a private worse punishment for ruining their Christmas. The private one would be very humiliatingly to insure it stuck with me. I learned not to complain, just shut down.

Anyway you asked if I have gotten any help. No. Two of my doctors want me to get a therapist, along with a neurologist, and several other specialists for different symptoms I have. I do not have the income for all the doctors, tests, and scans these doctors claim I need. Maybe this year. I get through Christmastime by withdrawing and shutting down, kept sane only by my husband and my best friend, and the little internet communications I feel well enough to doing. Mostly during this time I watch videos, movies, not really seeing the screen, not even remembering what I watched, just existing for one more minute, one more hour, one more day.

==============================================================

Grand for me this year I got a true real Christmas gift. One with no costs of my body for exchange as in my childhood if I wanted something. When at my youngest even food came with me providing sexual favors.

Yes this year I got a Christmas gift with no strings attached. Yes Ron gives me those but this one was special. My brother Randy gave me money to spend on me, not on the house, not on others, but just on me. I have been working for years with a broken keyboard which the backlighting has given out, and my mouse now takes many clicks to make work. Even Ron was frustrated by it during the times we sat together paying bills and wanted me to replace them.

So remembering the spirit this gift was given, I used it to buy the following things. It will make my life so much better. I got them in white. Thank you my grand brother. Hugs

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/mx-master-3s.910-006558.html

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/mx-keys-s.920-011559.html

Peace & Justice History for 1/4

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january4

Peace & Justice History for 1/2

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january2

Peace & Justice History for 1/1

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january1

‘Shocking’ bodycam video released of New York officers fatally beating prisoner

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna185537

Robert Brooks, 43, died a day after being attacked by several correctional officers at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9. His death has prompted a state investigation.

*** There is a video at the site linked above that is very informative and shows the man before the police killed him. ***

Dec. 27, 2024, 3:34 PM EST

By Erik Ortiz

The office of New York’s attorney general released body camera footage Friday showing the fatal beating of a state prisoner this month by correctional officers who punched and kicked him repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.

The incident, which has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the officers’ union as “incomprehensible,” is being investigated by state Attorney General Letitia James. The inmate, Robert Brooks, 43, died in the hospital a day after the Dec. 9 attack.

“I do not take lightly the release of this video, especially in the middle of the holiday season,” James said at a virtual news conference.

“These videos are shocking and disturbing,” she added.

Brooks can be seen in the videos with his hands cuffed behind his back. In one video, he is sitting up as an officer presses his foot down on him. He is then punched by two officers.

At another point, he is forcefully yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and held up above the ground, his face visibly bloodied.

Robert Brooks as seen in body camera footage at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, New York, on Dec. 9.Office of the New York State Attorney General

Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to begin the process of firing 14 workers at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, where the incident occurred. They include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse. In the interim, all have been suspended without pay, except for one officer, who already resigned. In a statement following the release of the videos, Daniel Martuscello, the commissioner of the state corrections department, said his office has launched its own investigation in an effort to bring “institutional change.”

“Watching the video evidence of Robert Brooks’ life being taken left me feeling deeply repulsed and nauseated,” Martuscello said. “There is no excuse and no rationalization for a vulgar, inhumane act that senselessly took a life. This type of behavior cannot be normalized, and I will not allow it to be within DOCCS.”

James said the officers had not activated their body cameras, but they were still on and recorded in standby mode. As a result, she added, they did not capture audio and only recorded for 30 minutes.

Her office released the entirety of the four officers’ videos, which included some blurring.

On Dec. 9, James said, Brooks was being transferred from the Mohawk Correctional Facility, also in Oneida County, to Marcy Correctional Facility. The events unfolded in a medical exam room before 9:30 p.m. Brooks was carried into the room hanging upside down with his hands handcuffed behind his back, one video shows.

The entrance to Marcy Correctional Facility state prison on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in Marcy, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)Will Waldron / Albany Times Union / Getty Images

Without audio, it’s unclear what words were exchanged between Brooks and the officers. While he does not appear to physically retaliate in the footage, the videos present different angles, and at times it’s unclear what is happening to Brooks as officers move and stand around the room. After the officers yank Brooks from the bed, he is brought to a corner. Later, he is seen on the bed wearing only his underwear and being tended to by the nurse.

Brooks was taken to the hospital and died the following day. An autopsy was conducted, and “preliminary findings show concern for asphyxia due to compression of the neck as the cause of death, as well as the death being due to actions of another,” according to a state corrections office investigative report obtained by NBC affiliate WKTV in Utica.

In the wake of the initial media reports, James said her Office of Special Investigation would conduct a review and make the video public after Brooks’ family viewed it first.

“I have a responsibility and duty to provide the Brooks family, their loved ones and all New Yorkers with transparency and accountability,” she said Friday.

Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press briefing on Nov. 6.Lev Radin / Pacific Press / Getty Images

Brooks had been imprisoned since 2017 on a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault involving a longtime girlfriend. State corrections officials declined to detail what led Brooks to be transferred to the Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison, that night. The New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday, but the union has previously said it viewed parts of the videos.

“What we witnessed is incomprehensible to say the least and is certainly not reflective of the great work that the vast majority of our membership conducts every day,” the union said in a statement this week, adding what transpired is the “opposite of everything NYSCOPBA and its membership stand for.”

Hochul said in a statement that the “vast majority” of correctional officers “do extraordinary work under difficult circumstances,” but “we have no tolerance for individuals who cross the line, break the law and engage in unnecessary violence or targeted abuse.”

Martuscello said the agency has expanded its body camera policy effective immediately, requiring all corrections officers to have their cameras activated any time they are engaging directly with inmates.

The Correctional Association of New York, an independent prison oversight group, released a report last year after monitoring the Marcy Correctional Facility in October 2022. The report noted complaints of “rampant” physical abuse by staff members, with 80% of incarcerated people reporting having witnessed or experienced abuse and nearly 70% reporting racial discrimination or bias.

Brooks’ family thanked Hochul in a statement this week for taking action “to hold officers accountable.”

“We cannot understand how this could have happened in the first place,” the family said. “No one should have to lose a family member this way.”

Erik Ortiz

Erik Ortiz is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.

Daniel Arkin contributed.

Colorado Man Accused Of Attacking Reporter, Saying ‘This Is Trump’s America Now’

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colorado-man-accused-attacking-tv-reporter-trump-america_n_676f8133e4b03f311afdc4bd

The Colorado TV reporter told police that he believed he had been followed by the man because he is Pacific Islander.

Colleen Slevin

A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents.

Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.

After arriving in Grand Junction, Egan, who was driving a taxi, pulled up next to Alex at a stoplight and, according to an arrest affidavit, said something to the effect of: “Are you even a U.S. citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”

Alex, who had been out reporting, then drove back to his news station in the city. After he got out of his vehicle, Egan chased Alex as he ran toward the station’s door and demanded to see his identification, according to the document laying out police’s evidence in the case. Egan then tackled Alex, put him in a headlock and “began to strangle him,” the affidavit said. Coworkers who ran out to help and witnesses told police that Alex appeared to be losing his ability to breathe during the attack, which was partially captured on surveillance video, according to the document.

According to the station’s website, Alex is a native of Detroit. KKCO/KJCT reported that he was driving a news vehicle at the time.

Egan was arrested on suspicion of bias-motivated crimes, second degree assault and harassment. He is scheduled to appear in court Thursday to learn whether prosecutors have filed formal charges against him.

Egan’s lawyer, Ruth Swift, was out of the office Friday and did not return a telephone message seeking comment.