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Ohio police review finds 8 officers acted reasonably in shooting death of Jayland Walker
The Akron Police Department on Tuesday said it had completed its internal investigation of the eight officers involved in the June 2022 shooting death of Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, and found that the officers complied with department policies.
Akron Police Chief Steve Mylett’s review came a little more than seven months after a special grand jury found that the eight officers’ use of deadly force was legally justified and did not warrant the filing criminal charges.
Walker, who was a resident of Akron, Ohio, was pulled over shortly after midnight on June 27, 2022, for minor equipment and traffic violations. Police say Walker fled and fired a shot from his car less than a minute into the pursuit. Police released body camera footage a week later that showed Walker dying in a hail of gunfire.
A handgun, a loaded magazine and a wedding ring were found on the driver’s seat of his car.
JEFF LANGE/USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters
Mylon wrote that he directed the Akron Police Department to conduct an internal investigation of the shooting after the grand jury had completed its review.
“The most important and significant question that needs to be answered is whether the officers’ use of deadly force … was in accordance with APD policies,” Mylett wrote.
He found that the officers complied with the department’s policies, and that the grand jury’s decision was “predicated on the use of force being objectively reasonable.”
Once Walker shot at officers from his vehicle, the situation “dramatically changed from a routine traffic stop to a significant public safety and officer safety issue,” Mylett wrote, describing the ensuing dynamic as “very fluid and very dangerous.”
Mylett pointed to Walker wearing a ski mask “on a warm June night,” refusing multiple commands to show his hands, and reaching into his waistband before raising his arm in a shooting posture. “This caused officers to believe he was still armed and intended on firing upon officers. Officers then fired to protect themselves,” Mylett wrote.
The blurry body camera footage released after the shooting did not clearly show what authorities say was a threatening gesture Walker made before he was shot. Police chased him for about 10 seconds before officers fired from multiple directions, a burst of shots that lasted 6 or 7 seconds.
Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Citing the use of deadly force being justified when an officer is at imminent risk of serious bodily harm of death, Mylett said the shooting, “while certainly tragic,” was objectively reasonable.
Walker’s death received widespread attention from activists in the weeks following the shooting. The NAACP and an attorney for Walker’s family called on the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation.
Walker’s family described his death as the brutal and senseless shooting of a man who was unarmed at the time and whose fiancée recently died, the Associated Press reported.
After the grand jury’s decided in April to acquit the officers of criminal charges, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said it was critical to remember that Walker had fired at police, and that he “shot first,” according to the AP.
A county medical examiner said Walker was shot at least 40 times. The autopsy also said no illegal drugs or alcohol were detected in his body.
The eight officers initially were placed on leave, but they returned to administrative duties 3 1/2 months after the shooting.
A man suspected of the brutal killing of two women in Australia nearly a half-century ago has been arrested in Rome on an international arrest warrant, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Saturday.
The 65-year-old suspect, who has dual Greek and Australian citizenship, was detained at Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Thursday after landing on a flight that had departed from Greece, ANSA said. Australia’s Victoria Police said in a news release that the suspect was arrested on Thursday at an airport in Rome. There was a warrant and arrest out for his arrest, police said, and the suspect is currently in custody in Italy.
Police said they will now work to seek the suspect’s extradition to Victoria.
The man reportedly lived in Greece, where he was protected by the country’s statute of limitations, according to Australian media.
Australian police said on Saturday they would start the process of extraditing the suspect, and Italian courts would set the timeline.
The suspect is accused of killing two friends – Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28 – in a knife attack that shocked Australia in January 1977.
The young women were found dead in their rented house on Easey Street in Melbourne, while Armstrong’s 16-month-old son was left unharmed in his cot in another room. Both Armstrong and Bartlett had been stabbed multiple times.
“This was a crime that struck at the heart of our community – two women in their own home, where they should have felt their safest,” Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said in a statement.
The crime, known as the “Easey Street murders,” became Melbourne’s longest and most serious cold case, but no one had been arrested until now.
Victoria Police offered a $1 million reward in 2017 to catch those responsible. That same year, new technology led to a breakthrough in the case, as the suspect became a fugitive following a request for a sample of his DNA.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday will visit the Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces.
He is expected to go to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant to kick off a busy week in the United States shoring up support for Ukraine in the war, according to two U.S. officials and a third familiar with Zelenskyy’s schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public. He also will address the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering in New York and travel to Washington for talks on Thursday with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155 mm artillery shells. They are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns with long barrels that can fire at various angles. Howitzers can strike targets up to 15 miles to 20 miles (24 kilometers to 32 kilometers) away and are highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.
Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of the 155 mm shells from the U.S.
With the war now well into its third year, Zelenskyy has been pushing the U.S. for permission to use longer range missile systems to fire deeper inside of Russia.
So far he has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions. The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.
At one point in the war, Ukraine was firing between 6,000 and 8,000 of the 155 mm shells per day. That rate started to deplete U.S. stockpiles and drew concern that the level on hand was not enough to sustain U.S. military needs if another major conventional war broke out, such as in a potential conflict over Taiwan.
In response, the U.S. has invested in restarting production lines and is now manufacturing more than 40,000 155 mm rounds a month, with plans to hit 100,000 rounds a month. During his visit, Zelenskyy is expected to meet and thank workers who have increased production of the 155 mm rounds over the past year.
Two of the Pentagon leaders who have pushed that increased production through — Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology and Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer — are also expected to join Zelenskyy at the plant, as is Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Pa.
The 155 mm rounds are just one of the scores of ammunition, missile, air defense and advanced weapons systems the U.S. has provided Ukraine — everything from small arms bullets to advanced F-16 fighter jets. The U.S. has been the largest donor to Ukraine, providing more than $56 billion of the more than $106 billion NATO and partner countries have collected to aid in its defense.
Even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, commitment to its defense is seen by many of the European nations as a must to keep Putin from further military aggression that could threaten bordering NATO-member countries and result in a much larger conflict.
Federal agents have boarded a vessel managed by the same company as a cargo ship that caused the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse, the FBI has confirmed to CBS News.
In statements Saturday, spokespeople for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland confirmed that authorities have boarded the Maersk Saltoro. The ship is managed by Synergy Marine Group.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division and Coast Guard Investigative Services are present aboard the Maersk Saltoro conducting court authorized law enforcement activity,” the FBI told CBS News in a statement.
The agency said it was “unable to comment further.”
In a lawsuit Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department has alleged that Dali owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine Group, both of Singapore, recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel that had a power outage moments before it crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. Six men who were doing work on the bridge died.
The Justice Department is seeking to recover more than $100 million the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.
Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean spokesperson, confirmed that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning.
Wilson has previously said the owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight” about the Justice Department’s lawsuit.