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The White Sox have enough talent to make up for Eloy Jimenez’ absenceon March 31, 2021 at 6:21 pm

Not much can take away from the buzz of Opening Day. Every year, the promise of summer is mixed with the joy of what is, essentially, a kid’s game, as long as you’re willing to ignore the fact that 5-year-olds don’t have contract disputes.

No, Opening Day is almost always all good, especially this year, especially for the White Sox and especially with a pandemic that won’t seem to let go of us. More relief is always welcome on the COVID-19 front. And with this team, there’s not just the anticipation of the first game of the season but the hope for a deep run in the playoffs.

Somewhere in there, though, is the bummer of Eloy Jimenez’ chest injury, which necessitated surgery Tuesday to repair a torn pectoral tendon, which will require five to six months to heal before he can play again.

Which stinks.

The left fielder is one of the many talented cogs in the Sox’ machine, but it’s going to be a challenge to replace the kind of production he put up in 55 games during a pandemic-shortened 2020: a .296 average, 14 home runs and 41 runs batted in. It looks like veteran Leury Garcia will get the Opening Day start in left against the Angels on Thursday night in Anaheim.

Jimenez was injured in a spring-training game last week while trying to rob Oakland’s Sean Murphy of a home run. Sox first baseman Jose Abreu said he cried after learning of the severity of Jimenez’s injury, knowing the role the 24-year-old plays on the field and in the clubhouse. I’m sure the tears had some therapeutic value in the moment, but they can’t loiter. Not with the Angels waiting and not with so much anticipation on the South Side for a big season.

The Sox are built for this kind of body blow, built to absorb something like this. There’s talent all across the roster and, hypothetically, at least, the other cards in the team’s deck should be able to help fill the Jimenez-sized hole in the lineup. It’s what good teams do when a player or two is slumping. Others pick up their games while teammates wage war with their hitting or pitching demons.

You’re right, Jimenez’ injury isn’t a slump. It’s a five- to six-month kick in the teeth. And, no, you can’t replace everything that Jimenez is – hitter, motivator, life of the party… OK, maybe not great leftfielder. But the lineup around him has the talent to take the edge off his absence: Abreu, the reigning American League Most Valuable player; Tim Anderson, the 2019 A.L. batting champion who hit .322 last season; masher of baseballs Luis Robert; Yoan Moncada, who seems primed to have a bounce-back season after a poor 2020; and Yasmani Grandal, a 2019 All-Star.

Andrew Vaughn, the Sox’ 2019 first-round pick, also will get a shot at playing left field this season. He hasn’t played above Class A, which might seem like a giant red flag. But it’s not as if the Sox are a rock band that asks the audience if anyone out there can keep a beat because the drummer is passed out on stage. Vaughn can play baseball. He was the third pick overall in the 2019 draft. Let’s hope it will be fun to find out how that translates at the big-league level.

The alternative is more of Abreu’s tears, and how much fun is that?

Maybe Jimenez will get an opportunity to be the conquering hero just in time for the playoffs. And perhaps earlier than that.

“There’s a chance, certainly, that he beats that traditional time frame for this type of injury of five to six months,” Sox general manager Rick Hahn said. “But quite candidly, no one’s going to know that for at least 12 weeks until he’s completed the healing process and the rehabilitation side of this injury.”

Until then, the Sox simply have to put their collective shoulder down and barrel ahead. “Simply” doesn’t mean “simple,” of course. You’re not supposed to replace a 2020 Silver Slugger without missing a beat. There are supposed to be hardships involved.

But have you seen the White Sox’ rotation? Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel, Lance Lynn, Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodon. Pretty good. If the pitching staff excels, perhaps the Jimenez’ injury doesn’t hurt the team so much.

It’s good to be spread thick. Play ball.

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The White Sox have enough talent to make up for Eloy Jimenez’ absenceon March 31, 2021 at 6:21 pm Read More »

City blew 40% of police consent-decree deadlines last year; Lightfoot points to ‘substantial progress’on March 31, 2021 at 6:40 pm

Even though Chicago Police Supt. David Brown says he’s committed to reforming the department, the changes are continuing to come slowly — with the city missing about 40% of last year’s deadlines under a federal consent decree, according to a watchdog report released Wednesday.

The 2019 consent decree — a sweeping court order requiring reforms to discipline, supervision, training and recruiting — stems from a 2017 lawsuit by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

Raoul was concerned about cops engaging in civil-rights abuses — highlighted by the 2015 release of a video of a Chicago police officer shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times. Officer Jason Van Dyke went to prison for the killing.

Now, the department faces scrutiny over the more than 500 citizen complaints filed against police during the protests and rioting that gripped the city last summer.

“CPD’s response to the protests over George Floyd’s death also epitomized entrenched problems in its practices and culture,” Raoul wrote in a response to the latest of three watchdog reports on the consent decree since 2019.

“Whether through visibly refusing to comply with health precautions like wearing masks, obscuring badge numbers and nameplates, or using excessive force, a significant number of CPD officers (though not all) took actions that were openly hostile to the culture of accountability required by the consent decree,” Raoul said.

Maggie Hickey.
Maggie Hickey.
Provided

Maggie Hickey, the independent monitor of the consent decree, said its purpose is to ensure cops have the “training, resources and support they need to perform their jobs professionally and safely.” She noted last year’s deadlines were extended by more than two months because of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order in the spring.

Hickey said her team spent thousands of hours monitoring the city’s compliance with the decree and found the police department failed to comply — even on a preliminary basis — with 120 of 315 requirements. Also, only 17 of the 43 agreed-upon deadlines last year were met, she said.

“In sum, the city and the CPD did not meet most of the deadlines and compliance obligations in the third reporting period,” the report said.

Hickey’s report noted that three superintendents, including Brown, have been in office in the years since the consent decree was approved. The changes in administrations can “create logistical and cultural challenges that can slow reform,” she said.

She also pointed to two new citywide units of officers, the Critical Response Team and the Community Safety Team, saying, “We continue to have concerns regarding the challenges that these types of teams present and Chicago’s history with roving teams.” Corruption was rampant, for example, in the now-disbanded Special Operations Section, in which officers were convicted of ripping off drug dealers.

On Wednesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot tried to get out ahead of the latest critical report card from the independent monitor by issuing a joint statement with Brown that claimed a “threefold increase” in compliance during the most recent reporting period.

She also accentuated the positive Wednesday after a ceremony opening a new firehouse at 1024 W. 119th St., the largest in Chicago history, which will serve as the new headquarters for Engine Co. 115.

“What the report reflects is that, even through a pandemic, the police department made up a lot of unfinished business from the previous two reports and then, really focused like a laser beam in making sure they got a lot of things right, a higher percentage of meeting deadlines, but importantly, making real, substantive progress,” she said.

“I’m not going to be satisfied until we believe that we have reached the end of a long journey, and we’re not there yet. But I’m very happy with the progress the department has made. I know that there’s a seriousness and a commitment that maybe hadn’t been there in the same way before.”

The city has at least five years from the beginning of the consent decree to comply with it. But it could take longer than that based on the experiences of other cities like Los Angeles, New Orleans and Seattle, the mayor said.

Lightfoot rejected a claim from the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois that the police department has made insufficient and late progress toward “community engagement.” There are always “new people that you need to reach,” she said, adding that Brown made a “significant commitment around community engagement” that represents a “sea change in the mindset” of the police brass.

Brown mandated that “every front-facing department member and unit engage in some kind of act of community engagement or service every week,” Lightfoot said. That includes tactical officers and members of specialized units like the Community Safety Team.

To underscore the “sea change,” Lightfoot said cops are now coming up with their own projects to help serve children and seniors in Chicago neighborhoods. “Where there may have been reluctance early on, now there’s enthusiasm on the part of members of this department. And that is a big sea change,” she said.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
AP

Raoul previously told the Sun-Times that it’s like “pulling teeth to get compliance with just producing documents.” In his response to the latest report, he said a lot of the police department’s commitments to transparency and accountability haven’t been implemented. He also complained about the Civilian Office of Police Accountability’s failure to comply with court-ordered mandates.

Lightfoot responded by pointing fingers.

“With due respect to the attorney general, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done also at the state level. And it would be good if they also focus on making sure that their house was clean,” she said.

Also Wednesday, the Chicago Police Department was the focus of a separate critical report by city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, who said police have made “minimal progress” in developing a new gang intelligence system after the older version was blasted for “widespread data quality issues.”

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City blew 40% of police consent-decree deadlines last year; Lightfoot points to ‘substantial progress’on March 31, 2021 at 6:40 pm Read More »

Assault Weapons Jar My Rideon March 31, 2021 at 6:28 pm

Getting More From Les

Assault Weapons Jar My Ride

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Assault Weapons Jar My Rideon March 31, 2021 at 6:28 pm Read More »

Two mass vaccination sites opening Monday in Chicago as vaccine eligibility expands (LIVE UPDATES)on March 31, 2021 at 4:54 pm

Latest

City opening mass vaccination sites at Wrigley conference center, Chicago State

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Chicago will open two new mass vaccination sites on Monday — one at Chicago State University, the other at a conference center adjacent to Wrigley Field.

The decision to open two more mass vaccination sites in addition to the one already operating in a United Center parking lot comes just one day after the city expanded vaccine eligibility to include all essential workers and adults with underlying medical conditions, excluding smokers.

The Wrigley Field site will be at the American Airlines Conference Center at Gallagher Way, the open-air plaza adjacent to the stadium. The Cubs play their home opener on Thursday.

It will be operated by Advocate Aurora Health and have the capacity to administer roughly 2,000 daily doses of the coronavirus vaccine, by appointment only. Appointments will be posted on zocdoc.com/vaccine later this week with additional appointments added each day.

Chicagoans also will be able to book appointments by phone; details on that process will be announced in the coming days. There will be no on-site registration.

Read the full story from Fran Spielman here.

News

11:53 a.m. 26 Chicago restaurants chosen for DoorDash accelerator program

Geri Hernandez’s restaurant, Savory Crust Gourmet Empanadas, switched to solely takeout and delivery in October 2020 as the pandemic put a major strain on the costs of its branches in Morton Grove and Carol Stream.

As a small business “you’re hanging on a thread anyway,” said Hernandez, the CEO and co-founder. “When the pandemic hit, I thought we were done, that we were going to close. It was a scary time, scary for the whole year. Even now, you don’t know what’s going to happen, there’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Savory Crust is one of 26 Chicago-area restaurants picked to participate in DoorDash’s inaugural Main Street Strong Accelerator Program.

In all, 100 restaurants nationwide will receive a $20,000 grant, access to training support through an eight-week hands-on restaurant operator course that involves small business advising and mentorship, one-on-one financial, legal, and technological expert advice as well as free marketing and merchandising from DoorDash.

More than three-quarters of the Chicago-based restaurants picked for the program are owned by women, 92% by people of color and nearly 40% by immigrants.

Ms. B’s Kitchen & Catering owner and manager Tawanda Stange said she applied to the program for the financial assistance and the additional support services that come with the training, as well as access to the communities and networks of other restaurant owners participating.

“I was super excited. I’m still really excited. I really need this,” Stange said. “Just being involved in something like this will give me the extra push I need to take my business to another level, with confidence.”

Read the full story here.

9:50 a.m. Reopening retreat: State’s move into less restrictive ‘bridge phase’ pushed back as cases rise, hospital beds fill

Reopening plans are being pushed back in Illinois as COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations rise yet again statewide, public health officials announced Tuesday.

With 70% of seniors vaccinated with at least one dose, the state had been on pace to see some business restrictions lifted this week under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “bridge phase” before a full reopening by May.

Not so anymore, as coronavirus cases mount and more people head to hospitals with the deadly respiratory disease. The governor’s intermediate reopening plan also required hospitalizations to “hold steady or decline over a 28-day monitoring period.”

That count has risen almost daily since hitting a one-year low of 1,082 beds occupied by COVID-19 patients March 12. A total of 1,396 beds were taken up Monday night — the most since late February.

“As long as new hospital admissions continue to increase, the state will not advance to the Bridge Phase and on to Phase 5 of the Restore Illinois Plan,” officials from the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement. “The number of cases of COVID-19 has seen an increasing trend as well. Health officials continue to urge all residents to continue to mask up, socially distance, and avoid crowds to reduce transmission and bring the metrics back in line to transition to the Bridge Phase.”

Read the full story from Mitchell Armentrout here.

New Cases & Vaccination Numbers

  • The state reported 2,404 new cases were diagnosed among 51,579 tests, raising the state’s average testing positivity rate over the past week to 3.4%.
  • About 473 residents are testing positive each day, up 34% compared to a week ago, according to the city’s Department of Public Health.
  • The state reported 17 more deaths, including that of a McHenry County man in his 30s.
  • The state also reported 86,812 vaccine doses were administered Monday. About 105,040 shots are going into arms every day.

Analysis & Commentary

9:52 a.m. I didn’t expect ‘doom’ to be so exhausting

“Impending doom.”

I read the words aloud to my wife.

“Now there’s a phrase that you just don’t see very much,” I continued. “I wonder if other things ‘impend.’ Or is it just doom?”

She started to read something on her phone. The winds buffeted the old house, which groaned like a clipper ship rounding the Horn Monday night, as we fished the internet for news which, despite an upswing in positive developments — vaccines rolling out more and more, weather improving, that ship stuck in the Suez Canal finally freed — suddenly seems grim.

“The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of ‘impending doom’ from a potential fourth surge of the pandemic,” I read. “CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, appeared to fight back tears as she pleaded with Americans to ‘hold on a little while longer’ and continue following public health advice, like wearing masks and social distancing, to curb the virus’s spread.”

When government officials start to cry, that’s usually bad, right? Despite everything that’s gone on for the past … ah … year plus, the people in charge do not generally weep.

Read the full column from Neil Steinberg here.

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Two mass vaccination sites opening Monday in Chicago as vaccine eligibility expands (LIVE UPDATES)on March 31, 2021 at 4:54 pm Read More »

Chrissy Teigen graces the cover of People’s ‘Beautiful Issue’on March 31, 2021 at 5:04 pm

LOS ANGELES — Chrissy Teigen will grace the front of People magazine’s “The Beautiful Issue” in a cover story that delves into her evolved definition of beauty, facing racism growing up and her heartbreaking miscarriage last year.

The magazine revealed the cover Wednesday of the annual issue, which hits newsstands Friday.

On this year’s cover, Teigen appears smiling along with her children Luna, 4, and Miles, 2, with the quote “I’ve learned how strong I am.” The 35-year-old model and cookbook author is married to R&B crooner John Legend, who was named Sexiest Man Alive by the magazine in 2019.

Teigen, who is of Thai-Norwegian descent, said she wants to follow her Thai tradition in remembering her son, Jack, who died at 20 weeks of her pregnancy. She was hospitalized with excessive bleeding before the miscarriage. She said it’s important for Luna and Milles to stayed connected with their late brother and always “embrace the ones that we’ve lost” based on her tradition.

“We have this new home that we’re building, and this tree being planted inside,” she told the magazine. “The whole reason why I wanted it was so Jack’s ashes could be in that soil, and he could be with us all the time and grow through the beautiful leaves.”

Over the years, Teigen said her definition of beauty has evolved after giving birth to her children. She has taken a proud stance of embracing her healed scars as a mother.

“Beauty is being able to see how powerful your body is,” she said. “It’s really, really nice to be able to come to an age where I can appreciate every little scar and see my body as something that’s done incredible, miraculous things. The difference is these two beautiful, wonderful babies, and these scars are the things I’ve been through and the journeys I’ve healed from.”

Motherhood has also changed Teigen’s views on her wellness. She used to enforce a strict eating regimen during her modeling days, dealing with the ups and downs of the diet culture.

But now, Teigen is focused on what makes her feel good and does her best to “indulge in it.”

“I’ve spent way too many years counting calories and scheduling way too many workouts and trying to figure out what ‘wellness’ meant to me,” she said. “Now I know that it’s on the ground playing with my kids or going to an aquarium or a park.”

Teigen touched on enduring racism while growing up. She often had friends — Black or white — who protected her after racist comments. She said some of her friends got suspended from school for defending her.

As Teigen grew older, she saw more racism occur during her modeling career.

“I experienced more everyday casual racism once I entered the modeling world,” she said. “When they needed someone racially ambiguous — that’s what they called it — that was always going to be me.”

People’s announcement comes a week after Teigen quit Twitter, citing it as a negative influence on her life. She wrote in a final series of posts that criticism she’d endured on the site had left her “deeply bruised.”

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Chrissy Teigen graces the cover of People’s ‘Beautiful Issue’on March 31, 2021 at 5:04 pm Read More »

Supreme Court justices appear sympathetic to college athletes in dispute with NCAAon March 31, 2021 at 5:18 pm

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed ready to give college athletes a win in a dispute with the NCAA over rules limiting their education-related compensation.

With the March Madness basketball tournaments in their final stages, the high court heard arguments in a case about how colleges can reward athletes who play Division I basketball and football. Under current NCAA rules, students cannot be paid, and the scholarship money colleges can offer is capped at the cost of attending the school. The NCAA defends its rules as necessary to preserve the amateur nature of college sports.

But the former athletes who brought the case, including former West Virginia football player Shawne Alston, say the NCAA’s rules are unfair and violate federal antitrust law designed to promote competition.

The outcome will help determine how college athletes are compensated and whether schools can offer tens of thousands of dollars in education benefits for things such as postgraduate scholarships, tutoring, study abroad opportunities and vocational school payments.

During an hour and a half of arguments conducted by phone because of the coronavirus pandemic, both liberal and conservative justices sounded sympathetic to students.

Justice Elena Kagan suggested that what was going on sounded a lot like price fixing. “Schools that are naturally competitors … have all gotten together in an organization,” she said, and used their power to “fix athletic salaries at extremely low levels.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed. He told a lawyer for the NCAA that “it does seem … schools are conspiring with competitors … to pay no salaries for the workers who are making the schools billions of dollars on the theory that consumers want the schools to pay their workers nothing.” Kavanaugh said that was “somewhat disturbing.”

A ruling for the former players would not necessarily mean an immediate infusion of cash to current college athletes. It would mean that the NCAA could not bar schools from sweetening their offers to Division I basketball and football athletes with additional education-related benefits. Individual athletic conferences could still set limits.

Still, if the athletes were to win, there would be pressure on schools to offer additional benefits, and that could create bidding wars for the best players. The NCAA says that could turn off fans and erase the distinction between professional and college sports.

Whatever happens at the high court, changes seem on the way for how college athletes are compensated.

The NCAA is in the process of trying to amend its rules to allow athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses. That would allow athletes to earn money for things like sponsorship deals, online endorsement and personal appearances. For some athletes, those amounts could dwarf any education-related benefits.

The former college athletes have some big-time supporters. The players associations of the NFL, NBA and WNBA all urged the justices to side with the ex-athletes, as did the Biden administration. So far, the former players have won every round of the case.

A decision in the case is expected before the end of June, when the high court traditionally breaks for summer.

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Supreme Court justices appear sympathetic to college athletes in dispute with NCAAon March 31, 2021 at 5:18 pm Read More »

Bears chairman George McCaskey voted against NFL’s 17th game: reporton March 31, 2021 at 5:34 pm

There was never any doubt the NFL’s owners would vote in favor of a 17-game scheduled beginning next season. In fact, it was such a foregone conclusion that it was expected to be unanimous.

Not so. Bears chairman George McCaskey voted against the extra game, ESPN reported Wednesday, and is the only owner known to have done so.

The league announced the expanded schedule Tuesday, and the expected move factored significantly into new television contract negotiations. The NFL is scrapping a preseason game and move the Super Bowl back a week to make room for the extra game.

The scheduling model will remain the same except the additional matchup will be a cross-conference game that rotates among divisions based on teams’ finish the previous season. The home-road split will alternate by conference, with the entire NFC playing on the road this season and the AFC doing so in 2022.

The Bears will visit the Raiders next season after both teams finished second in their division.

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Bears chairman George McCaskey voted against NFL’s 17th game: reporton March 31, 2021 at 5:34 pm Read More »

Scientists: Grizzlies expand turf but still need protectionon March 31, 2021 at 5:36 pm

BILLINGS, Mont. — Grizzly bears are slowly expanding the turf where they roam in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains but need continued protections, according to government scientists who concluded that no other areas of the country would be suitable for reintroducing the fearsome predators.

The Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday released its first assessment in almost a decade about the status of grizzly bears in the contiguous U.S. The bruins are shielded from hunting as a threatened species except in Alaska.

Grizzly populations grew over the past ten years in two areas — the Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, with more than 700 bears; and around Glacier National Park in Montana, which is home to more than 1,000 of the animals.

Grizzly numbers remain low in other parts of the Northern Rockies, and scientists said their focus is on bolstering those populations rather than reintroducing them elsewhere in the country.

The bears now occupy about 6% of their historical range, up from 2% of that range in 1975.

Conservationists and some university scientists have pushed to return bears to areas including Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and California’s Sierra Nevada.

The 368-page assessment makes no recommendation on the topic, but scientists looked at the possibility of bears in more areas as part of an examination of their remaining habitat.

That analysis showed grizzlies would be unable to sustain themselves in the San Juans, the Sierra Nevada or two other areas that officials examined — Utah’s Uinta Mountains and New Mexico’s Mongollon Mountains.

“They were looking for areas that could sustain grizzly bears as opposed to areas that would continuously need for humans to drop bears in there,” said Hilary Cooley, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s grizzly bear recovery coordinator.

In each case, officials said, bears would face the same challenge: not enough protected public lands, high densities of humans and little chance of connecting with other bears populations to maintain healthy populations.

Tens of thousands of grizzlies once populated western North America before hunting, trapping and habitat loss wiped out most by the early 1900s. The bears were last seen in California in the 1920s and the last known grizzly in Colorado was killed by an elk hunter in 1979.

Grizzly bears have been protected as a threatened species in the contiguous U.S. since 1975, allowing a slow recovery in a handful of areas. An estimated 1,900 live in the Northern Rockies of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington state.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019 in a bid to force officials to consider restoring grizzlies to parts of California, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Oregon. A U.S. District judge ruled last year that the government was not compelled to draft recovery plans for the bears in new areas.

Protections for bears in the Yellowstone region were lifted under President Donald Trump but later restored under a court order just as Idaho and Wyoming prepared to hold public hunts for grizzlies for the first time in decades.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, co-sponsored legislation to increase protections for bears while she was a member of Congress. She declined to say how she would approach the issue when questioned during her February confirmation hearings.

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Scientists: Grizzlies expand turf but still need protectionon March 31, 2021 at 5:36 pm Read More »

Store cashier expresses ‘disbelief, guilt’ over George Floydon March 31, 2021 at 5:40 pm

MINNEAPOLIS — The convenience store cashier who was handed a counterfeit $20 bill by George Floyd — setting in motion the Black man’s ill-fated encounter with police — testified Wednesday that he watched Floyd’s arrest outside with “disbelief — and guilt.”

“If I would’ve just not tooken the bill, this could’ve been avoided,” 19-year-old Christopher Martin lamented at Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial, joining the burgeoning list of onlookers who expressed a sense of helplessness and lingering guilt over Floyd’s death last May.

Prosecutors used Martin to help lay out the sequence of events leading to the arrest, and also played store security footage showing Floyd in Cup Foods for about 10 minutes, adding to the mountain of video documenting what happened.

Martin said he immediately believed the $20 that Floyd gave him in exchange for a pack of cigarettes was fake, but accepted it even though store policy was that the amount would be taken out of his paycheck.

Martin said he initially planned to just put the bill on his “tab” but then second-guessed himself and told a manager, who sent Martin outside to ask Floyd to return to the store.

He said a manager asked another employee to call police after Floyd and a passenger in Floyd’s vehicle twice refused to go back into the store to resolve the issue.

Floyd was later arrested outside, where Chauvin pinned his knee on the man’s neck for what prosecutors said was 9 minutes, 29 seconds, as a handcuffed Floyd lay face-down on the pavement. Floyd, 46, was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Martin said that inside the store, he asked Floyd if he played baseball, and Floyd said he played football, but it took Floyd some time to respond, so “it would appear that he was high.” But he described Floyd as friendly and talkative.

The defense has argued that the now-fired white officer did what his training told him to do and that Floyd’s death was not caused by Chauvin’s knee on his neck, as prosecutors contend, but by a combination of illegal drug use, heart disease, high blood pressure and the adrenaline flowing through his body.

Martin went outside as people were gathering on the curb and yelling at officers, then called his mother, who lived in an apartment upstairs, and told her to stay inside before he took out his phone and began recording.

He said he saw Officer Tou Thao push one of his co-workers, and Martin said he also held back another man who was trying to defend himself after being pushed by Thao.

Martin later deleted his recording, explaining that the ambulance didn’t take the fastest route to the hospital so he thought Floyd died.

“I just didn’t want to have to show it (the video) to anyone,” he said.

Chauvin, 45, is charged with murder and manslaughter. The most serious charge against him carries up to 40 years in prison.

Floyd’s death, along with the harrowing bystander video of him, triggered sometimes violent protests around the world and a reckoning over racism and police brutality across the U.S.

On Tuesday, a parade of witnesses testified that they and other bystanders became upset as they repeatedly begged Chauvin to take his knee off Floyd’s neck, but Chauvin refused to ease up, and Thao forced back those on the sidewalk who tried to intervene.

One of those who happened upon the scene, Minneapolis firefighter Genevieve Hansen, wept as she recalled being prevented from using her EMT training to help Floyd.

“There was a man being killed,” said Hansen, who testified in her dress uniform and detailed her emergency training. “I would have been able to provide medical attention to the best of my abilities. And this human was denied that right.”

Chauvin appeared unmoved by their pleas, according to the bystanders, including the teenager who shot the video that set off nationwide protests, 18-year-old Darnella Frazier. She said Chauvin gave the bystanders a “cold” and “heartless” look.

The testimony from the prosecution witnesses was apparently aimed at showing that Chauvin had multiple opportunities to think about what he was doing and change course.

But Chauvin attorney Eric Nelson also repeatedly sought to bring out evidence that the onlookers were becoming agitated, in an apparent attempt to show that the police were distracted by what they perceived as a growing and increasingly hostile crowd.

Witnesses testified that no bystanders interfered with police.

Wednesday morning’s testimony was briefly interrupted when a juror stood and raised her hand and gestured toward the door. She later told the judge that she had been feeling stress and having trouble sleeping, but told the judge she was OK to proceed.

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Store cashier expresses ‘disbelief, guilt’ over George Floydon March 31, 2021 at 5:40 pm Read More »

‘Moment of Truth’ asks: Did the right man take the rap for killing Michael Jordan’s father?on March 31, 2021 at 4:00 pm

It’s hardly a surprise that Michael Jordan turned down an interview request from the filmmakers behind “Moment of Truth,” a stunningly revelatory five-part IMDb TV documentary series about the murder of Michael’s father James Jordan and the subsequent investigation and trial. We would imagine the last thing MJ would want to do is revisit such a dark and tragic period from his life. So, we see Michael only in archival footage, most notably an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he’s asked if he’d ever want to ask his father’s killers, “Why?,” and Michael replies, “No, because I don’t want to know. Because it would probably hurt me even more to know their reasons, because it’s going to be totally meaningless. It’s better that I don’t know.”

A five-part docuseries available Friday on IMDb TV (at IMDb.com/tv, on Fire TV devices, and in the Prime Video App).

We get that. We respect that. Still, there are a myriad of unanswered questions about the tragedy as well as the trial and conviction of Daniel Green, who in 1996 was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery and was sentenced to life in prison in what appeared to be a slam-dunk case at the time but is at the very least worth re-examining.

The celebrity hook for “Moment of Truth” is of course the fact that James Jordan was the father of arguably the most beloved sports figure in the world at the time. But director Matthew Perniciaro devotes the vast majority of this exhaustively researched, well-documented and provocative film providing invaluable context and digging deep into the deeply flawed case against Green, from the questionable testimony of his criminal partner Larry Demery to the racially charged history of the county where the defendants lived to the borderline incompetent performances of not only Green’s first defense team but the prosecutor who went after him. “Moment of Truth” is filled with moment after moment of the truth being manipulated, bent and broken to serve various agendas.

Larry Demery (left) and Daniel Green were teenagers when they were arrested and charged with killing James Jordan.
IMDb TV

The shorthand narrative of this story follows a distinct series of events. On July 22, 1993, James Jordan was driving to Charlotte, N.C., in a red Lexus when he pulled over to the side of the highway, apparently to get some rest. Sometime that night, Daniel Green, 18, and Larry Demery, 19 — two troubled teenagers with histories of criminal activities — approached the vehicle and robbed and murdered Mr. Jordan, whose body was found a week and a half later in a South Carolina swamp. (These small-time punks reportedly didn’t realize who their victim was until after the crime.)

Green infamously appeared in an amateur video, dancing and posing and preening while wearing an NBA championship watch and a 1986 All-Star ring Michael had given to his father. It was a sickening spectacle and further solidified the case against him and his partner Demery.

“Moment of Truth” doesn’t try to paint Green as innocent; he’s clearly guilty of accessory to murder after the fact at the very least. But it raises serious and quite reasonable doubts about whether Green was the triggerman, as Demery testified — or was even present when the murder occurred. Before getting into great detail about the numerous holes in the prosecution’s case against Green, the filmmakers provide a thorough history of long and often corrupt political and law enforcement communities of Robeson County, and explore the racially charged tensions between the Black, white and Native American populations. Even before the James Jordan tragedy, there’s enough corruption and crime and even murder to fill a docuseries.

Prosecutor Luther Johnson Britt, who came precariously close to causing a mistrial in his closing arguments, appears in a present-day interview, vigorously defending his actions and brushing aside any questions about Green’s guilt as jailhouse poppycock. Much more convincing are the interviews with Christine Mumma, an Erin Brockovich-like figure who has made it her life’s mission to vindicate wrongly convicted prisoners and is Green’s current lawyer; TV journalist Amanda Lamb, who has covered the case from the beginning and is in constant contact with him, and Chicago Tribune reporter Daniel John Wiederer, who wrote a comprehensive and well-researched piece in 2018 that raised many of the questions brought up in this series.

Michael Jordan (left) serves cake to his mother, Doloris, and father, James, at his 26th birthday party in Chicago in 1989.
AP File

Green was convicted largely on the strength of Demery’s testimony, which has changed drastically time and again. Eyewitnesses claim Green never left a house party on the night Mr. Jordan was murdered. There was a noticeable lack of blood evidence in the car, one of several indications the murder took place elsewhere. Legitimate concerns are brought up regarding possible tampering with James Jordan’s shirt, a phone call placed from the car phone in the Lexus to the county sheriff’s drug-dealing biological son; and even the trajectory of the bullet that killed Jordan.

Daniel Green remains in prison and continues to maintain his innocence. Efforts to re-open his case and grant him a new trial or freedom have been denied. Last year, North Carolina officials announced Larry Demery will be released from prison in 2023. “Moment of Truth” has us wondering if the man who pulled the trigger that night in 1993 is the one who will remain behind bars — or the guy who will be free in a little more than two years.

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