Protester killed on Seattle freeway was dedicated to cause
SEATTLE (AP) — A person killed Saturday when a man who drove his car onto a closed Seattle freeway and into a crowd protesting police brutality was remembered Sunday as someone who was dedicated to the cause.
The other person hit in the incident, meanwhile, remained in serious condition Sunday at a Seattle hospital.
The deceased, Summer Taylor, 24, spent the last six weeks “tirelessly standing up for others while working full time and supporting everyone around them,” wrote Urban Animal on Instagram, the veterinarian clinic where Taylor worked in Portland, Oregon.
Taylor, who the post said used they and them pronouns, was “a positive force of nature” and brought joy, the post said. “Anyone that works for Urban Animal will tell you that Summer Taylor’s laugh makes any bad day better.”
Katelyn Hoberecht, who worked with Taylor at the veterinary clinics, told the Seattle Times that Taylor had been a frequent presence at protests.
Newspaper owner: Sorry for equating mask rule to Holocaust
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas county Republican Party chairman who owns a weekly newspaper apologized Sunday for a cartoon posted on the paper’s Facebook page that equated the Democratic governor’s coronavirus-inspired order for people to wear masks in public with the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Dane Hicks, owner and publisher of The Anderson County Review, said in a statement on Facebook that he was removing the cartoon after “some heartfelt and educational conversations with Jewish leaders in the U.S. and abroad.” The newspaper posted the cartoon Friday, and it drew dozens of critical responses and international attention. A blog post by Hicks on Saturday defending it also drew critical responses.
Hicks is the GOP chairman for Anderson County in eastern Kansas. The state party chairman deemed the cartoon “inappropriate.” Gov. Laura Kelly, who is Catholic, called for it to be removed and she and other critics called it anti-Semitic.
“I can acknowledge the imagery in my recent editorial cartoon describing state government overreach in Kansas with images of the Holocaust was deeply hurtful to members of a culture who’ve been dealt plenty of hurt throughout history — people to whom I never desired to be hurtful in the illustration of my point,” Hicks said in his statement.
The cartoon depicted Kelly wearing a mask with a Jewish Star of David on it, next to a digitally altered image of people being loaded onto train cars. Its caption is, “Lockdown Laura says: Put on your mask … and step onto the cattle car.”
Facebook groups pivot to attacks on Black Lives Matter
CHICAGO (AP) — A loose network of Facebook groups that took root across the country in April to organize protests over coronavirus stay-at-home orders has become a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories that have pivoted to a variety of new targets. Their latest: Black Lives Matter and the nationwide protests of racial injustice.
These groups, which now boast a collective audience of more than 1 million members, are still thriving after most states started lifting virus restrictions.
And many have expanded their focus.
One group transformed itself last month from “Reopen California” to “California Patriots Pro Law & Order,” with recent posts mocking Black Lives Matter or changing the slogan to “White Lives Matter.” Members have used profane slurs to refer to Black people and protesters, calling them “animals,” “racist” and “thugs”— a direct violation of Facebook’s hate speech standards.
Others have become gathering grounds for promoting conspiracy theories about the protests, suggesting protesters were paid to go to demonstrations and that even the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police, was staged.
7-year-old among 13 killed in weekend shootings in Chicago
CHICAGO (AP) — At least 13 people, including a 7-year-old girl at a family party and a teenage boy, were killed in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend, police said. At least 59 others were shot and wounded.
In one shooting, just before midnight Saturday, four males opened fire on a large gathering in the street in the Englewood neighborhood, police spokesman Tom Ahern said. Two males died at the scene and two more, including a 14-year-old boy, died at a hospital, Ahern said.
Four others were injured; one was in critical condition and the other three were in fair condition, Ahern said. The four attackers fled the scene. No one was arrested.
The 7-year-old girl was fatally shot in the head while standing on the sidewalk at her grandmother’s house during a Fourth of July party around 7 p.m. in the Austin neighborhood, police said.
Suspects got out of a car and began shooting, police said. No one has been arrested.