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Alvin Bragg

'We'll Kill You All': MAGA Goons Post Disturbing Threats To Alvin Bragg

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been inundated with death threats following former President Donald Trump's 34 felony convictions, according to new reporting.

NBC News reported Friday that in the last three months alone, there have been dozens of death threats made against Bragg, his family and his staff, according to the New York Police Department (NYPD). And since April, the DA's office has forwarded more than 500 threatening phone calls and letters to the NYPD. At least two bomb threats were phoned in to the residences of two people involved with the case on the first day of Trump's New York criminal trial.

NYPD Sergeant Nicholas Pistilli noted that some of the threats contained overtly violent messaging like "we will kill you all," "you are dead," "your life is done" and "RIP," among others. Pistilli also said Bragg's office received "a post showing sniper shots on people involved in this case or a family member of such a person, and a post disclosing the home address of a DA Office employee."

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace also pointed out that some of the death threats are racist in nature, as Bragg is Black. One threat sent to Bragg's office showed an image of Bragg's neck in a noose, along with a threatening message. In a Friday segment, legal analyst Lisa Rubin told Wallace that when she spoke with investigators, they confirmed to her that some of the threats were so graphic in nature that they were unwilling to share them with reporters.

"The universe of threats to Alvin Bragg, and the people around him working with him are far larger in all likelihood than that which we can know," she said. "As bad as the images are that I saw today, and had to describe for you and our colleagues, I want us all to pause and think about: If those are the ones that they chose to share with us, imagine what else is out there that we haven't seen."

"These are just so upsetting to everyone who has seen them and everyone who has lived with them," Rubin said.

While Trump has been convicted on all counts in the original indictment, the gag order Judge Juan Merchan imposed has remained in place. The former president's legal team unsuccessfully argued to have it lifted, suggesting Trump is chomping at the bit to get back to attacking the groups protected by the order like jurors, witnesses, court staff and their families.

The gag order will stay in place until Trump is sentenced on July 11, and the ex-president is still banned from attacking jurors, court staff and family members of both. However, Bragg has agreed that the gag order can be lifted for witnesses, allowing Trump to attack his former attorney Michael Cohen and adult film star and director Stormy Daniels.

"Now that the jury has delivered a verdict, however, the compelling interest in protecting the witnesses’ ability to testify without interference is no longer present," Bragg's office told NBC. "The relevant balancing of interests has thus shifted from the time that this Court issued the orders restricting defendant’s extrajudicial statements."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

U.S. Court

What Stanford Could Learn From New York About Defending Free Speech

Officials at Stanford University could learn something from the New York City Police Department about defending free speech while maintaining order. When hecklers prevented an invited speaker from addressing an audience at Stanford's law school, what could have been a peaceful protest turned into an act of verbal violence. It's easier to stop people from crossing these boundaries when you've established boundaries.

In this case, the scheduled speaker was a conservative judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Stuart Kyle Duncan's views on transgender people's use of bathrooms and gay marriage are not relevant here. He was officially sanctioned to present his views, however controversial.

Stanford Law Dean Jenny Martinez won justified praise from free-speech advocates for sending an apology to the judge and issuing a 10-page rundown of what the disrupters did wrong.

"Some students might feel that some points should not be up for argument and therefore that they should not bear the responsibility of arguing them," she wrote. But that "is incompatible with the training that must be delivered in a law school."

Or, frankly, in a high school.

However, she could have gone a step further. Toward the end she did support forging a "more detailed and explicit policy" for dealing with disruptions, including enforcement "through disciplinary sanctions." Too bad she wasn't more explicit about the possibility of expelling those who forcibly prevent invited speakers from sharing their views.

There has to be punishment with teeth. The prospect of getting kicked out of an elite law school could well have deterred the self-appointed censors. (How students seeking a profession dedicated to using words for argumentation — rather than drowning out the other viewpoints with volume — got into Stanford in the first place is worth asking.)

Compare this with the sophisticated approach of the NYPD when faced with the two volatile days of Donald Trump's recent arrival and arraignment. Around both Trump Tower and the courthouse, the department had deployed a first line of experts in maintaining order and lowering temperatures. They wore bright blue slickers with the words NYPD Community Affairs written on the back.

At the courthouse they kept pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators separated by erecting barriers with a path between. There were mental health issues on both sides, but here's one example of how they worked: When a fuming young Trump supporter tried to force her tantrum on the anti-Trump crowd, the Community Affairs guys surrounded her and coaxed her back to the Trump side.

And importantly, there was another layer of policing for keeping the peace: the NYPD's uniformed army. The officers carrying battle gear were largely kept in the background, but the demonstrators knew they were there. If they got violent, they knew the consequences would be arrest, not discussion of possible "disciplinary sanctions."

How did they know that? They knew because of the recent coverage of how big the NYPD was and how prepared. They knew because Mayor Eric Adams famously kicked off the events with a public address wrapped in steely promise of enforcement.

"New York City is our home, not a playground for your misplaced anger," the former police captain said, the police commissioner by his side. "While you're in town, be on your best behavior." These carefully chosen words, stripped of overt threat, effectively got the point across to the politically charged crowds descending on two cramped corners of Manhattan. Imagine the message a law school dean could deliver if she had a genuine enforcement mechanism at her disposal.

Martinez did a good job given what she had to work with. But at the end of the day, one needs muscle to preserve free speech. The dean probably already knows that.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

NYPD Union Claimed Vaccine Mandate Would Sideline ’10,000’ Cops – But Only 34 Went On Leave

NYPD Union Claimed Vaccine Mandate Would Sideline ’10,000’ Cops – But Only 34 Went On Leave

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

On Thursday the union representing 50,000 current and former New York City Police Dept. officers claimed Mayor de Blasio's vaccine mandate would force "10,000" officers off the streets. According to the NYPD Police Commissioner, that number is actually just 34.

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Don’t Blame Bail Reform For Spike In Violent Crime

Don’t Blame Bail Reform For Spike In Violent Crime

The Fourth of July is an occasion for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. But a better project might be the reading of the Constitution, a document that many Americans revere without fully understanding.

Among this group are many police officers, even though they take an oath to uphold it and are greatly affected by it in the course of their duties. One provision that sometimes gets short shrift is the Eighth Amendment, which says, "Excessive bail shall not be required."

That provision rests on the longstanding right of criminal defendants to be granted bail except when no amount would ensure their appearance in court — notably in capital cases. But for others, the right to be released before trial is implicit in the amendment. Denying bail, after all, has exactly the same effect as imposing excessive bail.

Some states, recognizing this fundamental liberty, have enacted laws ending the use of cash bail. The reason is that requiring a money payment leaves huge numbers of defendants languishing in jail not because they have been proven guilty or are deemed dangerous but because they are poor. The vast majority of them will show up in court without it, and judges can require electronic monitoring to make sure they do.

But bail reform has coincided with a spike in violent crime across the country, and some cops have said this is no coincidence. New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea decried his state's changes as a "challenge to public safety." When Illinois enacted a law this year abolishing cash bail, the head of the Chicago police union said it had "just handed the keys to the criminals."

The evidence for the charge is skimpy. Violent crime surged last year even in places that didn't reform bail laws, which suggests something else — such as the pandemic or the economic shutdown or both — was the real cause. And overall crime in the United States fell in the first half of 2020, according to the FBI — which is not what you would expect if hordes of unrepentant criminals were streaming out of the jails.

The opponents of bail reform miss some major points. Bail isn't supposed to guarantee that no one accused of a crime will commit crimes while awaiting trial. It's inherent in bail that some defendants will do exactly that. The only way to prevent it is to lock them all up before the government has proven they did anything wrong.

"This traditional right to freedom before conviction permits the unhampered preparation of a defense, and serves to prevent the infliction of punishment prior to conviction," the Supreme Court said in 1951. "Unless this right to bail before trial is preserved, the presumption of innocence, secured only after centuries of struggle, would lose its meaning."

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx understands this even if her detractors don't. In a videoconference Wednesday sponsored by the Illinois Justice Project, she noted that some people think defendants should be locked up even before being convicted.

"They missed the step in the middle, where we haven't actually gotten to a trial yet," she said pointedly. But "the presumption of innocence maintains with the accused until there's a finding of guilt."

The logic of those who oppose eliminating cash bail is that dangerous suspects shouldn't go free. But the only sure way to determine which ones are dangerous is to put them on trial. Besides, requiring monetary bonds doesn't keep the more dangerous defendants behind bars. It keeps the poorer ones behind bars.

Cash bail is a form of punishment that may actually generate more crime rather than less. Defendants who can't raise the money may lose jobs, homes, and custody of their children. Dooming these people to poverty and dislocation is not a formula for putting them on the straight and narrow.

In Illinois, as in many other states, judges may deny bond to defendants whom they find would pose a risk to public safety if set free. Getting rid of money bail doesn't prevent judges from simply denying bail to this select group. The right to bail is not unlimited.

But selling freedom only to those who can afford it is not a formula for fairness or safety. Our system of criminal law and justice rests on the presumption of innocence. The critics of bail reform prefer a presumption of guilt.

Steve Chapman blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or at https://www.facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Steve Chapman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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