Thieves steal $2 million in jewelry in Seattle smash-and-grab
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Former Walmart worker indicted after trying to intervene in immigration arrest
A former Walmart employee who tried to intervene as Border Patrol agents arrested an undocumented custodial worker in Pico Rivera in June was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday. Adrian Martinez, 20, was indicted by a Santa Ana jury on the charge of conspiracy to impede a federal officer tied to the events of June 17, which unfolded at the height of the Trump administration's immigration raids in the Los Angeles area. Martinez's violent arrest was caught on video and quickly went viral. According to the three-page indictment, Martinez confronted Border Patrol agents as they tried to arrest the custodial worker in the parking lot of a shopping center and blocked the agents' vehicle with his own. Prosecutors allege that he positioned himself with a growing crowd to surround the agents' vehicle and prevent it from leaving the area. Martinez then allegedly grabbed a large trash can and moved it in front of the agents' vehicle, blocking them from being able to pass. According to the U.S. attorney's office in L.A., Martinez faces up to six years in prison if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in downtown L.A. on Thursday. "Make no mistake: There are serious, life-altering consequences for impeding law enforcement," acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said in a news release Wednesday. Martinez's lawyers released a statement noting that "just as in other cases arising out of recent illegal and inhumane ICE raids, the U.S. Attorney's Office had to travel out of Los Angeles county to secure this indictment." The Times previously reported on Essayli's struggles to secure indictments in protest cases. Read more: Trump's top federal prosecutor in L.A. struggles to secure indictments in protest cases "Although we are disappointed that Adrian's case has not been dismissed, we always anticipated being required to litigate this case post-indictment," the Miller Law Group, which represents Martinez, said in its statement. The lawyers also criticized Essayli for posting on X, "before we had even officially been notified of the outcome of the indictment" and using it "to maliciously spread falsehoods and fearmonger at our client's expense." In a June interview with The Times, Martinez said he was on break when he spotted the custodial worker, 'getting grabbed very aggressively, getting manhandled,' by the agents. Martinez said he drove over, told the agents that their actions weren't right and they should leave the worker alone. Surveillance and spectator video captured at the scene and looped in social media feeds show an agent rushing Martinez and shoving him to the ground. Martinez gets back up, there is more shoving, and he exchanges angry words with a masked officer carrying a rifle. Then other agents swarmed him, pushed him back down and dragged him to their truck. Agents ultimately arrested both the custodial worker and Martinez. In the June interview, Martinez said after his arrest he was taken to a parking structure, where he was told he'd been arrested for assaulting a federal officer by striking an agent in the face and breaking his glasses. Martinez, who weighs around 150 pounds, said the agents arresting him pointed to the colleague he was being accused of attacking, who looked 'like a grizzly bear.' 'I don't even remember you,' Martinez recalled saying. 'It just seemed like they were trying to get me to say like, 'Yes, you assaulted him,' but I knew I didn't.' The next day, Essayli posted a photo on X of Martinez, still in his blue Walmart vest. Martinez, he wrote, had been arrested 'for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face.' Martinez was charged in a June 19 criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. The complaint makes no reference to a punch and neither does Wednesday's indictment. Bloomberg Law previously reported that Essayli had rejected office supervisors' advice not to charge Martinez for assaulting a federal officer and that an FBI agent felt there was insufficient evidence and declined to sign a complaint attesting probable cause to a judge. Within a day, the outlet reported, another agent signed off on the charge of conspiracy to impede. In an interview a week after his arrest, Martinez wore a brace on his right leg, where he'd suffered a contusion, and said he'd been bruised and scratched all over his body. Walmart later terminated Martinez, citing 'gross misconduct," according to a separation notice reviewed by The Times. "I was just speaking up for a man," Martinez said. "How can I go from that to this? "People have the right to speak up for themselves and for someone else," he added. "You don't have to get treated like this, thrown on the floor and manhandled because of that." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
CBS News
4 minutes ago
- CBS News
Family of Colorado cyclist killed in crash spearheads effort to make roads safer
A family that suffered tragedy when a driver hit and killed their loved one has spearheaded a new organization and statewide community effort. The ultimate goal is prevention. But it's also a chance for families like theirs to share their loved ones' stories, while those who need to know and want to know listen. Jill and Michael White launched The White Line after the death of their son, cyclist Magnus White. He was hit and killed in 2023 by a driver along Highway 119 in Boulder while he was training. The organization, advocating for better protections for cyclists, launched a bus tour and Route2Change event. On the bus, there are two kinds of passengers -- those in yellow who share their stories, and those in blue who join to listen. "We are asking a lot of them, really, to relive, to talk about what happened to them or to a person that they loved," Jill White explained. Some of the speakers recount their own life-changing moments. "I was riding to school," Anna Needy shared. "I was in the crosswalk." Others at Route2Change speak for those who no longer can. "The SUV hit him with such tremendous force that the impact shattered the entire windshield. The driver didn't stop," read Jacqueline Claudia, The White Line executive director, from a statement provided by the family of John Wilkinson. Among the quiet listeners are lawmakers, city officials and concerned citizens. Some have joined the ride out of duty, others out of solidarity. "It's really powerful to be here and talk to victims outside of the courthouse," Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said. Each stop brings new voices, new stories and new urgency. "It's actually been really moving," Democratic state Sen. Judy Amabile said. Each site promotes discussion about confusing intersections, poorly designed roads and the lack of accountability in the justice system. Many of the crashes weren't tragedy alone; they were preventable. Some drivers had long histories of violations. "Her complete rap sheet included 13 other motor vehicle-related cases, including three charges of driving with a suspended license," Claudia shared about the crash that changed Myers Graham's life. The outcomes of the resulting court cases are difficult for families to understand. The White family was among those sharing their story. In June, the driver who killed their son Magnus was sentenced to four years in prison. The family's hope is that, by hearing these stories not in courtrooms but at the crash sites themselves, decision-makers will leave with more than notes. They'll leave with a new perspective, and that perspective might just be the route to change. "It's everywhere," Michael White said. "Every single state has this issue where we've normalized our right to drive so much that we've forgotten about human lives, and we just have to bring that back into balance."
News24
4 minutes ago
- News24
Trump administration should release its 100 000 pages on Jeffrey Epstein, judge says
The Trump administration should release its Jeffrey Epstein files rather than ask the courts, ruled a US judge. The government has 100 000 pages, compared to the 70-odd grand jury pages, said Judge Richard Berman. Berman said that the Trump administration's motion appeared to be a diversion. A US judge said on Wednesday that the Trump administration is in a better position than federal courts to release materials that would satisfy public curiosity about the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case. In rejecting the Justice Department's bid to unseal records from the grand jury that indicted Epstein in 2019, Manhattan-based US District Judge Richard Berman wrote that the 70-odd pages of materials the grand jury saw paled in comparison to the 100 000 pages the government had from its Epstein investigation but was not releasing. The judge said the bid to persuade him to unseal the records was an apparent distraction from the Justice Department's decision in July not to release its files and directly cited another judge's decision earlier this month not to release similar materials from the grand jury that indicted Epstein's longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. 'The instant grand jury motion appears to be a 'diversion' from the breadth and scope of the Epstein files in the Government's possession,' Berman wrote. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Berman's decision came as US President Donald Trump has faced criticism from his conservative base of supporters and congressional Democrats over the Justice Department's decision not to release the files from its Epstein investigation. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. He had pleaded not guilty. His death in jail and his friendships with the wealthy and powerful sparked conspiracy theories that other prominent people were involved in his alleged crimes and that he was murdered. Trump, a Republican, had campaigned for a second term in 2024 with promises to make public Epstein-related files, and accused Democrats of covering up the truth. But in July, the Justice Department declined to release any more material from its investigation of the case and said a previously touted Epstein client list did not exist, angering Trump's supporters. To try to quell the discontent, Trump in July instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek court approval for the release of grand jury material from Epstein's case. READ | Trump's name appears in Jeffrey Epstein files - but it's 'fake news' says White House Evidence seen and heard by grand juries, which operate behind closed doors to prevent interference in criminal investigations, cannot be released without a judge's approval. Justice Department investigations typically collect more material than prosecutors ultimately present to grand juries. Some of that evidence is sometimes eventually disclosed to the public during criminal trials. The Justice Department does not routinely disclose its evidence in cases where a defendant pleads guilty or, like Epstein, never faces trial, but it would not require judicial approval to release such materials. The grand jury that indicted Epstein heard from just one witness, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and saw a PowerPoint presentation and call logs, Berman wrote. READ | Under pressure, Trump urges Bondi to release 'whatever she thinks is credible' on Jeffrey Epstein On 11 August, a different Manhattan-based judge, Paul Engelmayer, denied the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury testimony and exhibits from Maxwell's case, writing that the material was duplicative of public testimony at her 2021 trial. Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence following her conviction for recruiting underage girls for Epstein. 'A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government's motion for their unsealing was aimed not at 'transparency' but at diversion - aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such,' Engelmayer wrote. Maxwell had pleaded not guilty. After losing an appeal, she asked the US Supreme Court to review her case.
