Daily Archives: October 6, 2022

from the killing-dogs-is-still-regular-police-business dept

Cops kill dogs literally all the time. It happens so often even the DOJ has taken notice.

Laurel Matthews, a supervisory program specialist with the Department of Justices Community Oriented Policing Services (DOJ COPS) office, says its an awful lot. She calls fatal police vs. dogs encounters an epidemic and estimates that 25 to 30 pet dogs are killed each day by law enforcement officers.

So, when Loveland (CO) police officer Matthew Grashorn arrived on the scene of a non-crime, he did what cops do: he killed someones dog. This killing happened only 13 seconds after Officer Grashorn arrived, something confirmed by his own body camera recording.

Colorado residents Wendy Love and Jay Hamm had done nothing more than stop in the vacant parking lot of a local business to give their dogs a chance to stretch their legs while the couple took a look at the second-hand ice machine they had acquired. The business owner called the police after noticing this on his security cameras, claiming he felt the couple was perhaps attempting to tamper with his locked dumpster.

Officer Grashorn arrived, exited his vehicle, and was greeted by one of the couples dogs running toward him. He yelled at the couple to get their dog, which the couple did, calling back their 16-year-old dog, Bubba, who was first to greet the officer. However, another of their dogs, a terrier/boxer mix named Herkimer trotted towards the officer. Grashorn shot the second dog. Then he prevented the couple from comforting the wounded animal or seeking help for its wounds, delaying any medical care until after a supervisor had arrived. By that time it was too late for Herkimer. He was euthanized after spending four days in intensive care.

Adding insult to injuries resulting in death, Grashorn issued a summons for unlawful ownership of a dangerous dog to the grieving couple, a charge that was ultimately dismissed.

The couple sued the city of Loveland, along with Officer Grashorn. Grashorn claimed the dog aggressively approached him, justifying his ultimately deadly force. The couple claimed the dog merely approached the officer with normal curiosity and never posed a threat.

A year after the filing of the lawsuit, the couple has finally secured a bit of justice. As Colorado Politics reports (and, even better, provides a copy of the ruling), Officer Grashorn has been denied qualified immunity by the federal court.

The court comes to this conclusion despite never having viewed the body cam video, which the couple inexplicably failed to enter into evidence. No doubt this will be corrected as the case moves forward to trial, but its still an unforced error.

Despite this lack of evidence that would likely resolve a bunch of disputed facts, the court agrees that the killing of the couples dog was not only a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, but an unreasonable one at that. From the decision [PDF]:

[T]he Court finds it would be clear to a reasonable officer that killing a pet dog is a Fourth Amendment seizure and would violate the Fourth Amendment, absent a warrant particularly describing the things to be seized or circumstances justifying an exception to the warrant requirement. Whatever lawful justifications may exist for the seizure in this case, the Court finds the circumstances alleged in the Complaint do not establish an exception to the warrant requirement as a matter of law. And regardless of whether Defendant Grashorn believed Herkimer posed an imminent threat justifying the use of deadly force, the allegations do not establish that the shooting the dog was reasonable.

The court doesnt bother to discuss whether or not this violation of rights is clearly established. That will likely come into play during the inevitable appeal of the decision. It merely states flatly that a reasonable officer would not believe deadly force was justified in this situation. If that ruling withstands an appeal, cops who kill dogs in this jurisdiction will be on notice theyll need to provide more than subjective statements about feeling threatened by the mere approach of mans best friend.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, colorado, dogs, jay hamm, loveland, matthew grashorn, police, qualified immunity, wendy love

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Court Strips Immunity From Cop Who Shot A Dog Within Seconds Of Arriving On The Scene Of A Non-Crime - Techdirt

First Amendment

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 4, 2022, 12:03 pm CDT

A cover of the Onion parody news publisher. Image from Shutterstock.

Updated: The satirical website the Onion deems itself to be the single most powerful and influential organization in human history in an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of an Ohio man who was prosecuted for creating a parody Facebook page for the local police department.

The Onion brief supports Anthony Novak, who lost his lawsuit against Parma, Ohios police department when the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati ruled that police had qualified immunity from his constitutional claims.

The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purelyincidentally, forms the basis of the Onions writers paychecks, the amicus brief says.

The petition for certiorari should be granted, the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied. The Onion would welcome any one of the three, particularly the first.

The brief argues that a satire works best when told with a straight faceand that means that Novak didnt have to include a disclaimer on his fake Facebook page for the Parma, Ohio, police department. The page, which was up for 12 hours, claimed that the department was offering free abortions in a police van and was hosting a pedophile reform event with a no means no learning station.

About a dozen people called police about the page, including some who wanted to know whether it was real. Police then posted a warning about the fake page on the departments website, which Novak copied onto his fake Facebook page.

After learning Novaks identity through a Facebook search warrant, police arrested Novak, who spent four days in jail before making bond. He was later acquitted on a charge of disrupting police functions.

Novak sued for violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights. The 6th Circuit ruled against Novak in April.

Novak is represented by the Institute for Justice, according to a Sept. 27 press release. Its cert petition asks the Supreme Court to decide whether government officials are entitled to qualified immunity when they arrest someone based purely on speech. The Institute for Justice argues that the Supreme Court should do away with qualified immunity altogether.

The Onion brief argues that a parody has to plausibly mimic the original to work. The brief cites instances in which its parody was taken as reality, as when:

Chinas state-run news agency republished a news story by the Onion proclaiming Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, the sexiest man alive.

An Iranian news agency uncritically picked up a headline by the Onion titled: Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama.

A Republican congressman thought that he had to warn his constituents about the abortion-rights movement after reading a headline by the Onion titled: Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex.

The brief also says its headlines have forecast future events and provides this 2017 headline as an example: Mar-a-Lago Assistant Manager Wondering If Anyone Coming to Collect Nuclear Briefcase From Lost and Found.

The brief began with a tongue-in-cheek description of the Onion, complete with claims that it has a daily readership of 4.3 trillion, and that it supports more than 350,000 full- and part-time journalism jobs in its numerous news bureaus and manual labor camps stationed around the world. The brief also asserts that the publication owns and operates the majority of the worlds transoceanic shipping lanes.

The Onion intends to continue its socially valuable role bringing the disinfectant of sunlight into the halls of power, the brief says. And it would vastly prefer that sunlight not to be measured out to its writers in 15-minute increments in an exercise yard.

The listed authors of the Onion brief are two lawyers from Michigan law firm Miller Johnson: Steve van Stempvoort, chair of the firms appellate practice group, and litigator D. Andrew Portinga.

But Mike Gillis, head writer for the Onion, wrote much of the brief, NPR reports. Gillis told the publication that he wrote most of the arguments and jokes, and then the lawyers added legal precedent and historical context in an extremely collaborative process.

Hat tip to Bloomberg Law, CNN and the Associated Press which had coverage of the brief.

Updated Oct. 5 at 8:45 a.m. to add information on Mike Gillis, the Onion writer who wrote much of the brief.

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Claiming to have 4.3 trillion readers, the Onion supports parodist and its writers' paychecks in SCOTUS brief - ABA Journal

Item 1.01 Entry Into a Material Definitive Agreement

On October 3, 2022, Inhibrx, Inc. (the "Company") and Oxford Finance LLC("Oxford") entered into a sixth amendment (the "Sixth Amendment") to the Loanand Security Agreement between the Company and Oxford, dated as of July 15,2020, as amended by the First Amendment dated November 12, 2020, the SecondAmendment dated December 15, 2020, the Third Amendment dated June 18, 2021, theFourth Amendment dated February 18, 2022, and the Fifth Amendment dated June 15,2022 (collectively, the "Oxford Loan Agreement").

The Sixth Amendment amends and restates the Seventh Draw Period (as originallydefined in the Fourth Amendment) to be the period commencing on the later of (i)June 30, 2022 and (ii) the date of the occurrence of the FDA Announcement Event(as defined in the Sixth Amendment), and ending on the earliest of (i) December31, 2022, (ii) the date that is thirty (30) days immediately after theoccurrence of the FDA Announcement Event and (iii) the occurrence of an Event ofDefault (as defined in the Loan and Security Agreement); provided, however, thatthe Seventh Draw Period shall not commence if on the date of the occurrence ofthe FDA Announcement Event an Event of Default has occurred and is continuing.

Except as noted above, the terms of the Oxford Loan Agreement remain unchanged.

The foregoing description of the Sixth Amendment is qualified in its entirety byreference to the Sixth Amendment attached as Exhibit 10.1 to this Current Reporton Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 2.03 Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation Under anOff-Balance Sheet Arrangement of a Registrant

The information set forth in Item 1.01 of this Current Report on Form 8-K isincorporated by reference herein.

Item 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure.

On October 4, 2022, the Company posted an updated copy of its corporate slidepresentation to the "Investors" tab of its website at http://www.inhibrx.com. Theseslides are also attached to this Current Report on Form 8-K as Exhibit 99.1. TheCompany from time to time presents and/or distributes to the investmentcommunity at various industry and other conferences slide presentations toprovide updates and summaries of its business. It undertakes no obligation toupdate, supplement or amend the materials attached hereto as Exhibit 99.1.

Item 8.01 Other Events.

On October 4, 2022, the Company issued a press release announcing the potentialto pursue an accelerated approval pathway in the United States for INBRX-101, anoptimized recombinant human AAT-Fc fusion protein, in patients with emphysemadue to alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD). The Company also announced thedetection of INBRX-101 in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) data in allAATD patients tested in its Phase 1 study. The full text of the Company's pressrelease regarding this announcement is filed as Exhibit 99.2 to this CurrentReport on Form 8-K and incorporated herein by reference.

The information in Item 7.01 of this Current Report on Form 8-K, includingExhibit 99.1 attached hereto, is intended to be furnished and shall not bedeemed "filed" for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934(the "Exchange Act") or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section,nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under theSecurities Act of 1933 or the Exchange Act, except as expressly set forth byspecific reference in such filing.

Item 9.01. Financial Statements and Exhibits.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edgar Online, source Glimpses

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INHIBRX, INC. : Entry into a Material Definitive Agreement, Creation of a Direct Financial Obligation or an Obligation under an Off-Balance Sheet...

PennLive and two other central Pennsylvania news organizations are asking a federal court to unseal records related to the FBIs seizure of U.S. Rep. Scott Perrys cell phone on Aug. 9.

PennLive is joined by The York Daily Record and The York Dispatch, two other leading news organizations in the 10th U.S. House District, which is represented by Perry. The district covers Dauphin County and parts of York and Cumberland counties.

The FBI took Perrys phone while he was vacationing with his family in New Jersey. The FBI made a copy of the phone and returned it to him the same day.

The seizure is believed to be part of a U.S. Justice Department investigation into alleged efforts by allies of former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The Justice Department hasnt publicly stated why Perrys phone was seized.

The news organizations are asking the federal court to unseal documents including the search warrant, the application for the warrant and any judicial records related to the warrant.

Perry has said the seizure of his phone was politically motivated and hes not the target of any investigation. He has sued to prevent the Justice Department from viewing the copied contents of his phone.

The news organizations motion argues theres a powerful public interest in matters that involve potential misconduct by a sitting public official.

It also argues its important for the public to understand government actions and investigations that impact important constitutional rights such as the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Perry is a close ally of Trump and was a major purveyor of false claims of significant fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The special U.S. House committee investigating events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol alleges Perry was among those who plotted to overturn the election results and enable Trump to stay in power.

Perry is running for a sixth two-year term in the U.S. House. His Democratic opponent is Shamaine Daniels, an immigration lawyer and member of Harrisburg City Council.

The news organizations motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The case number is 1:22-mc-00756-SES.

For information on candidates, campaigns and voters, subscribe to our weekly Elections 2022 newsletter at http://www.pennlive.com/newsletters or text alerts at https://joinsubtext.com/pennliveelection?embed=true.

RELATED COVERAGE FROM PENNLIVE:

Rep. Perry insists seizure of cell phone about abuse of power, not Jan 6 attack on Capitol

Scott Perry sues for return of cell phone data seized in Jan. 6 investigation

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PennLive goes to court for records related to U.S. Rep. Scott Perrys cell phone - PennLive

Ms. Dennis brings nearly a decade of experience to the Hardin team

HOUSTON, Oct. 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rusty Hardin & Associates, LLP is pleased to announce that Aisha Dennishas joined the firm as a senior associate. The addition of Ms. Dennis adds strength and depth to the firm's already robust team of skilled litigators.

"Aisha is an awesome lawyer who also happens to be a delightful person," said firm founder Rusty Hardin. "And when it comes to talent, intellect, and experience, she has it all and then some. I know she will be an incredible asset to our team and most importantly, to our clients."

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Dennis was part of the trial team for the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Southern District of Texas. There, she served as lead defense counsel on hundreds of federal cases, securing numerous dismissals and other favorable results for her clients. Ms. Dennis then went on to become a staff attorney for the Fourth Amendment Center of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Ms. Dennis began her legal career as a law clerk to Judge J. Michelle Childs of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, and later for Judge James E. Graves, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She obtained her law degree from New York University School of Law, and she has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Government from Harvard University.

"I am so excited to be able to work with this amazing team and to be able to learn from a legend like Rusty," said Ms. Dennis. "I look forward to working hard for our clients and using my experience and everything I know to help move their cases forward."

Rusty Hardin & Associates, LLP has built a solid reputation for taking on the causes of its clients and obtaining favorable results in commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense, plaintiffs' personal injury, appellate matters, and general civil and criminal litigation. To learn more about the firm's representative matters, visithttps://www.rustyhardin.com/.

Media Contact:April Arias[emailprotected]800-559-4534

SOURCE Rusty Hardin & Associates, LLP

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Rusty Hardin & Associates Strengthens Litigation Team with Addition of Attorney Aisha Dennis - PR Newswire

The Vancouver City Council is poised to approve a six-figure settlement agreement Monday with the family of a man who was fatally shot by Vancouver police in 2020.

Three Vancouver police officers fatally shot William Abbe, 50, while responding to an April 28, 2020, assault at Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard and Stapleton Road.

A review of the shooting by the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorneys Office deemed the shooting was lawful and justified.

Abbes daughter, Kara Brandon, filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 26, 2021, in U.S. District Court in Tacoma against the city of Vancouver and Vancouver police Sgt. Jay Alie and Officers Sean Suarez and Sammy Abdala.

The lawsuit alleged wrongful death, negligence, assault and battery, excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment and a 14th Amendment due process violation. The complaint also alleged the officers were acting in accordance with the Vancouver Police Departments policies when they violated Abbes civil rights, and it accused the department of an invalid investigation. Court records show the claim under the 14th Amendment was later dismissed.

Brandon had previously filed a tort claim with the city demanding $5 million, according to a staff report for the city council. After a Sept. 13 mediation session, the City Managers Office, Brandon and her attorney agreed to a settlement of $725,000, pending city council approval Monday, the report states.

The settlement does not concede any wrongdoing by the involved officers or the department, the report states. However, both the city and Ms. Brandon agreed that juries can reach different conclusions based on the same evidence.

Brandons attorney, Angus Lee, said the parties also agreed to a joint statement that he said would be the only comment to media.

A human life was lost, and everyone involved in this case on both sides recognizes the significance of that loss, the statement reads. Every human life is important and has dignity. Both parties agree that settlement is in the best interest of all involved.

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Vancouver City Council asked to OK $725000 deal with family of man killed by police - The Columbian

The government plans to auction 22 mineral blocks in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Goa in November and December.

The mines to be auctioned include six iron ore blocks, three blocks each of limestone and gold, two blocks of bauxite, one block each of copper, phosphorite and glauconite, according to the mines ministry.

The notice inviting tenders for the blocks were floated in September.

While the mines in Maharashtra will be auctioned next month, those in Uttar Pradesh and Goa will be put on sale in December.

So far, more than 180 mineral blocks have been put on sale since the system of auctioning of mineral blocks began. The government started the process of allocating mineral blocks through auctions in 2015-16.

The ministry has expressed hopes of auctioning 500 mines by the end of 2024.

The Centre is aiming to increase the mining sector's contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 5 per cent from 2.5 per cent at present.

The ministry has also notified the Minerals (Evidence of Mineral Contents) Second Amendment Rules, 2021, and the Mineral (Auction) Fourth Amendment Rules, 2021.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Govt plans to auction 22 mineral blocks in 3 states within next two months - Business Standard