Georgia authorities identify suspect in CDC shooting as a 30-year-old man from suburban Atlanta
The GBI statement says White died and Officer David Rose with the DeKalb County Police Department was shot and killed during the shooting Friday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exclusive: Former NFLPA leader DeMaurice Smith talks about league's upcoming CBA tussle
This might be perfect timing for DeMaurice Smith to promote a book reflecting on his personal journey and tenure as executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA). Lloyd Howell, the man elected in 2023 to replace Smith, resigned last month in shame. JC Tretter, the former center and union president who gained powerful influence in recent years, stepped down, too, from his role as chief strategy officer. And with so many questions linked to a lack of transparency, particularly involving the election process and information from arbitration rulings not shared with the membership, the players union is mired in a big mess as David White begins as interim executive director. Smith's book, "Turf Wars: The Fight for the Soul of America's Game" (Random House, 368 pages, $32), was released on Aug. 5 as quite the coincidence. Leadership is a key theme. 'In no small way, we saw that play out over the last two months, in an unfortunate way,' Smith told USA TODAY Sports. 'My hope is that the players learn from it and spend time with what I'd call 'ruthless introspection' of how did they get here? And with the hope they turn it around. But it has to start and end with the players. It has much less to do with who their leader is.' NFLPA CONTROVERSIES: Everything to know about scandals that rocked union That last point is debatable, given turmoil stemming from the damning revelations exposed by Pablo Torre on his podcast, "Pablo Torre Finds Out." Torre published a 61-page ruling from independent arbitrator Christopher Downey from a 2022 lawsuit filed by the NFLPA alleging collusion by team owners that was kept secret from the union. He revealed that another ruling determined Tretter encouraged players to fake injuries while engaged in contract talks. And he revealed that Howell was a part-time consultant for The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm approved by the NFL to invest in NFL teams, an apparent conflict of interest. Then ESPN reported that Howell's expense reports for visits to strip clubs ignited further scrutiny into his actions as union chief. Smith, citing a non-disparagement clause in his separation from the union, wouldn't specifically address the cases that blew up for the NFLPA, but he shared perspective on the role that White (the runner-up when Howell was elected) steps into on an interim basis while the search begins for a permanent executive director. White, formerly executive director and chief negotiator of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), was elected by a vote of player representatives from all 32 teams on Aug. 3. Key issues for White? 'First of all, 2030 is not as far off as you'd want to think,' Smith said, alluding to the expiration of the 11-year collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and NFLPA. 'The changing media landscape is interesting. But I think the most pressing issue is how do you come in and take a group of players who haven't been in a fight and teach them about what a labor union is supposed to do.' When Smith replaced the late Gene Upshaw and began his 14-year tenure in 2009, surely there was no acclimation period. The fight was already on as NFL owners, on the short end of the last CBA that Upshaw negotiated, had already declared that it would opt out of the labor pact and lock out the players in 2011. 'It made teaching and the role of getting players ready for a war a little bit easier, because one was on the horizon,' Smith said. Ultimately, Smith led the NFLPA into two long labor pacts, the last one struck in 2020 during the pandemic, which was passed by players by a razor-thin margin, with the key pushback involving the 17th game the union agreed to. Now, the league is going full-steam ahead on desires to eventually expand the schedule to 18 games, which would need to be negotiated as part of the CBA – and perhaps before the current labor pact expires. FREEMAN: Will there ever be such a thing as too much NFL? That the NFLPA's leadership is in flux undoubtedly looms as an advantage for the NFL in ramping up for the next CBA. The current labor pact allows players to receive 48% of NFL revenues, which fuels the record $279.2 million salary cap for 2025. 'The biggest job for a labor leader is teaching, and how important it is to focus on the right issues,' Smith said. 'Understand you are in labor-management paradigm. That's always a battle.' Reflecting on his tenure – which included the COVID-19 crisis, the Colin Kaepernick-ignited player protests and the evolving concussion protocols – Smith said that one of his regrets is that he got away from the hard-core teaching that he stressed from 2009 to 2017. 'Now is that opportunity for players to go back to their roots,' said Smith, mindful of the turnover in membership that comes when the average player career span is roughly three years. He cites key figures from the timeline over several decades on the NFL front and beyond. 'Even the players who are not going to be there for 2030, if they don't know who Bill Radovich is, if they don't know who Freeman McNeil is, if they don't know who Reggie White was, if they don't understand the significance of Curt Flood or Oscar Robertson, man, you won't get it right. 'Whether the issues are Commissioner discipline, an 18th game or practice time, if players don't understand the history and necessity of fighting, you won't get it right.' Shortly after the resignations of Howell and Tretter, I reached out and asked Smith if he would consider returning to his former role on an interim basis to help the NFLPA navigate through its adversity. He scoffed. 'Absolutely not,' he said. 'This is a challenge the players need to resolve for themselves.' DRAGON: What's next for the NFLPA after stunning resignation of Lloyd Howell? In his book, Smith recalls a frosty exchange with Howell during the transition. Smith said that he wrote a letter for his successor and planned to leave it in his old desk – in the tradition of U.S. presidents – but had second thoughts after his single interaction with Howell. He folded up the letter and stuffed it in his pocket. 'I wrote that letter in the hope that it would help frame what the job is, if someone were truly curious about getting it right,' Smith said last weekend. He wanted to be a resource. Especially having never met Upshaw, who died on Aug. 20, 2008, three days after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 'There wasn't a day on the job where I didn't wake up and wish that I could talk to Gene,' Smith said. 'I kid you not. There wasn't a frickin' day.' He pledged that he's available for White. It's unclear how much White might tap that resource. Smith would certainly share thoughts about how players need to absorb how they are impacted by changing NFL business dynamics. The deal announced last week, with the NFL acquiring 10% equity in ESPN, resonated. 'It reminds you of the scale of this business,' Smith said. 'They're going to do what, $25 billion in revenue next year? This is the competition, and the ruthlessness of this business is far more intense off the field than it is on the field. And it's pretty intense on the field. 'You would want to know if there's a change in the rights fee (for ESPN),' he added. 'Those are the things the union needs to figure out. But most importantly, once you understand it, you're going to have to decide how do you fight it for your fair share? If anybody thinks that was just an idle, off-the-cuff comment from Roger (Goodell) – I forget when he said it, maybe a couple months ago – that he thought the players share was too high, you know that's what they do. They start messaging early.' Which means NFL players are pressed to reset their union priorities in a hurry and buckle up early for the next labor war that is surely coming. Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@ or follow on social media: On X: @JarrettBell. On Bluesky: This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DeMaurice Smith talks NFLPA direction under David White, new CBA fight
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘I'm sitting behind the bench': Inside sports' escalating stalking problem
On Valentine's Day 2023, Latyr Thiaw, a 19-year-old maintenance worker living in Washington, D.C., saw a picture of UCLA women's basketball player Kiki Rice on Instagram. He then watched interviews with her on YouTube and felt something 'magnetic' between them. She reminded him of a character from 'Avatar: The Last Airbender.' In the months that followed, Thiaw sent Rice dozens of unanswered messages on social media, and he changed the background screen on his phone to a picture of her. Then, in mid-December 2023, Thiaw flew to Los Angeles, rented a U-Haul van, parking near the UCLA campus for days and sleeping in the back. On several occasions, Thiaw stood outside of UCLA's practice facility waiting for Rice. Once, he sat on a bench for hours alongside a glass vase of white and red roses and a handwritten card that read, 'Kiki Carroll Rice once upon a time you caught my sight through a life full of strife…you got me through the night…I want do something kosmik with you that will be enough till the end of time.' On Dec. 21, as Rice warmed up for the UCLA/Hawaii game in Pauley Pavilion, she felt eyes on her. It was Thiaw — in the second row, standing up, wearing a suit, and staring intently at her. Soon after, UCLA banned Thiaw from all its facilities and events, and the athletic department posted a flyer with a photograph of Thiaw that read, 'Please do not engage with this individual or allow entry into any athletic facility.' Despite the ban, Thiaw attempted to attend another UCLA game by entering through the student-only section and, according to a police report, he pushed past security in an attempt to make contact with Rice. He was arrested and charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with stalking and two counts of resisting a police officer. He pleaded not guilty to those three charges, but his behavior continued. 'I do not know Latyr, I do not have any relationship with him, and his incessant efforts to track me down and confront me cause me to worry for my safety and are deeply disturbing,' Rice stated in her request for a restraining order in January 2024. 'I have no protection when I am off campus or at away games.' More American athletes and other celebrities have been stalked and attacked in the last decade than in all previous U.S. history, said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and one of the first to study the stalking of public figures. Dietz made that proclamation in 1994, the year after tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a fan obsessed with her opponent, Steffi Graf. More than 30 years later, the trend line Dietz spoke of has continued to spike. 'I do know with certainty that new media have increased dramatically the number of threats and stalking incidents' of athletes and celebrities, particularly women, Dietz told The Athletic. There are currently no scientific studies around the stalking of athletes, and no law enforcement agency is publicly tracking such cases. The Athletic identified at least 52 stalking cases involving athletes, male and female, since 2020, but that list is incomplete. Many stalking cases go unreported in the media and even to police. But even a partial list indicates an alarming pattern. Female tennis players Iga Świątek, Yulia Putintseva and Emma Raducanu dealt with stalking incidents this year. Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and other women's basketball players were subjected to stalking that led them to fear for their safety. Gymnasts Gabby Thomas, Simone Biles and Livvy Dunne have been targeted; American hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones had someone break into her training facility and attempt to do the same at her home, one of three men she said have stalked her in recent years. Among the male victims are former Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald; a woman has harassed and stalked him and his family for years. Another former NFL player, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, was stalked by a woman with a 'bizarre and extreme obsession,' according to a restraining order application. She changed her last name to his and used it to access the gated community where his family lives. A woman nicknamed 'devil baby' pleaded guilty to stalking then-Chelsea players Mason Mount and Billy Gilmour. Stalking has become part of the sports landscape: Matches are being interrupted, players are acknowledging that fixated strangers are impacting their mental health and performance, leagues and colleges are directing more money and resources toward security. On social media, athletes share stories, ask for advice, connect and commiserate. Consider what Rice said in March about her ordeal: 'It's unfortunate that a lot of us players have to go through that. … I think just knowing that as the sport continues to have a bigger platform and is broadcasted on a higher level, those instances are gonna increase.' That Thiaw's fixation with Rice began after he saw her on social media is consistent with many stalking incidents. As athletes chronicle their careers and lives, often to promote their sport, they increase the odds that someone will become dangerously obsessed with them. A string of strange posts and comments on Facebook and TikTok was one of the first indicators that 40-year-old Robert Cole Parmalee, a resident of Grants Pass, Ore., had become fixated on Bueckers, then a University of Connecticut senior. On social media, Parmalee professed his love for Bueckers and his desire to marry her. One TikTok caption read: 'And if I cannot live with a woman of my choosing, (Paige), then I will choose to die, and I will choose to take all of you that pose me, oppose us, to hell, and return, king…I love you (Paige), if you allow them to touch you, you allow them to die.' Online fan accounts began tagging Bueckers in an attempt to warn her. In August 2024, Parmalee was arrested by Connecticut State Police while walking alongside a highway on an unrelated warrant out of Oregon. Prior to his arrest, he posted on social media that he was coming to propose to Bueckers. Bueckers told UConn police she felt 'the need to look over her shoulder more often in large groups' and 'worried about the safety of herself as well as her family members and basketball teammates.' In September, Parmalee was rearrested and charged with breach of peace, electronic stalking, and harassment. In December, he pleaded guilty to a stalking charge and received a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation, during which time he is barred from Connecticut and any arenas, hotels and practice facilities where the UConn women's basketball team is present. The WNBA also barred him from all arenas and practice facilities. A protective order is in place until Jan. 4, 2064. This January, a 55-year-old Texas man, Michael Lewis, was arrested and charged with stalking Clark, the Indiana Fever star. Lewis sent a series of sexually violent messages and threats to Clark via social media before he drove 13 hours to Indianapolis with the 'intent to be in close proximity' to her. 'Been driving around your house 3x a day,' one message read, according to court documents. 'But don't call the law just yet.' 'I'm getting tickets. I'm sitting behind the bench,' read another. An implicit or explicit threat was also made 'with the intent to place Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual battery,' prosecutors wrote in the Marion County Superior Court filing. Clark told police she feared for her safety and had even begun to alter her appearance in public. In late July, Lewis was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing Clark. There is currently a no-contact order in place, and Lewis is banned from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Fever play home games, and Hinkle Fieldhouse, the team's former arena. 'No matter how prominent a figure you are, this case shows that online harassment can quickly escalate to actual threats of physical violence,' Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement. 'It takes a lot of courage for women to come forward in these cases, which is why many don't.' Women's basketball has had to quickly adapt as the sport's surging popularity has increased the risk to its players. The University of Iowa, Clark's alma mater, beefed up security for women's basketball home games from 2022 to 2024 as Clark rose to become the most popular women's player in history. During Clark's sophomore season, security expenditures for women's basketball home games reached $153,780. During Clark's final season, it was $466,169, according to public records. In 2023, the NCAA hired an outside firm to track social media interactions directed at coaches, referees and players. 'If the vendor who's running this program sees really nasty stuff coming at somebody, we notify the platforms,' NCAA president Charlie Baker said in March. 'And the platforms, generally speaking, will block those people and take them down.' In some cases, the NCAA has forwarded communications to law enforcement for follow-up. But there are more than 90,000 female college athletes just at the Division I level, spread across 365 schools. It is impossible to institute all-encompassing protective measures across such a vast landscape. How, for example, could the University of Colorado have prevented a then 43-year-old man from downloading images of some of its female cross-country runners and combining them with pornographic images, and then messaging those runners about how he was stalking them and planning to rape, torture and kill them? (That ordeal, which occurred in 2015-16, led to the man being sentenced to more than 14 years in federal prison.) After swarms of young men with posters and a full-sized cutout of Livvy Dunne disrupted LSU's gymnastics season opener in 2023 at the University of Utah, LSU amped up its security at away meets, which included creating a perimeter when the team boarded its bus. But Dunne is also among several female athletes who recently spoke about men finding out their flight information and then aggressively accosting them at various airports. You can't create a perimeter around someone's entire life. Women's tennis and golf are perhaps the professional sports that have grappled with this issue the longest. While the tennis cases — involving Seles, Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova and others — have been well chronicled, golf's struggles with fixated individuals have been less spotlighted. Among the incidents reported: A former caddie for Michelle McGann sent over 30 packages professing his love for her. Once, at Michelle Wie's sunrise practice session, security spotted a man in a powder blue suit and floppy hat who had taken a bus from Iowa to Portland to propose to the golfer. And, a man tried to break into Morgan Pressel's gated community in Boca Raton, Fla., after claiming Jack Nicklaus and the CIA had instructed him to speak with her. Historically, the LPGA has assigned plainclothes police officers to specific players, but more recently the organization has used specialized security firms, often run by former U.S. Secret Service agents. It's not uncommon for photos of individuals of interest to be posted at all tournament entry gates and security officials look for red flags: aggression in the autograph area, requests for an athlete's used clothing and attempts to take up-skirt photos, according to Scott Stewart, who works for TorchStone Global, an international risk mitigation firm used by the LPGA and other sports leagues. 'Golf is different than the other sports because spectators have access to players before, during and after we play,' said Rick Pano, father and caddie of LPGA player Alexa Pano. 'The NFL, Major League Baseball, you have distance, but in golf you don't.' About five years ago, a red button was added to the LPGA Player Portal, a digital hub for all tournament details. One press of the button, and security is immediately deployed to the player's location. After Seles, the WTA posted security guards on courts at events. Security tightened even further in 2008 when the league announced players, parents, agents, coaches and other entourage members must agree to criminal background checks for full tournament access. And in 2024, the WTA set up a monitoring service for social media threats. Just this March, Świątek was given extra security protection during the Miami Open after being verbally attacked at practice by a man who had harassed her on social media. The WNBA has also amplified and modernized its security protocols. Not long after the Clark and Bueckers incidents, the league assembled an offseason task force, which includes monitoring of social media to detect threats and added security measures at the league and team levels. Other leagues and organizations have taken similar steps. Even though all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have had anti-stalking laws in place since the mid-1990s, most statutes designed to address and prohibit stalking are toothless, and prosecution of the crime falls almost entirely on the victim. 'Restraining and protective orders become sort of your first line of defense,' said Carlos Cuevas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University. 'But one of the difficulties is that the burden of protection is so much on the victim. They have to report it, they have to get the restraining order, it's temporary. They have to go in there and go back and make it permanent. And then in most states or most places, that needs to get renewed every year, so there's a lot of, sort of, labor, if you will, that the victim has to engage in to protect themselves.' Legal documents such as protective orders are often only a paper shield. Forty to 50 percent of protective orders are violated, according to the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center. Some studies even found there was an increase in physical or psychological abuse after an order was granted. 'The criminal penalties for stalking are oftentimes not that severe,' said Dr. J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist who consults on public figure stalking cases. 'Then they're back in action, and we know that … repetition, reoffense is very high.' For Rice, the temporary restraining order granted by the court in January had little effect. The summer of 2024 was filled with messages from Thiaw, in direct violation of the order. 'THEY ARE TRYING TO TELL ME THAT I DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO LOVE KIRA KIKI CARROLL RICE,' reads a portion of an email sent to Rice's email address in June. 'THE DAY I GOT ARRESTED I SAID THIS STORY WILL BE TOLD AT THE DINING TABLE AT OUR WEDDING, AND TO OUR CHILDREN,' reads one from July. On Oct. 17, 2024, the court issued a more permanent, five-year restraining order against Thiaw. At the trial, Thiaw testified, 'I would like to be your husband one day. And I'm not some love bird. I have already thought of strategies on how to be your dedicated husband.' In the weeks since then, Thiaw, who is now 22, has filed a series of motion papers in an effort to terminate the restraining order, citing 'no credible evidence.' In an email, Thiaw wrote to The Athletic: 'My entire ordeal began with a rightful ticket — one I obtained legally. That act was distorted by false statements and misrepresentations in a police report designed to criminalize me without cause.' In June, he successfully completed a mental health diversion program, after which the criminal case against him was dismissed. (The civil restraining order case is independent from the criminal matter.) This month, Rice had to submit an additional plea to the court for the continuance of the restraining order against Thiaw. In opposition to Thiaw's request to remove the restraining order, Rice submitted the following declaration: 'Latyr's relentless stalking and harassment caused me significant emotional distress. … I have just started to be able to live my life again without the constant worry of Latyr disturbing my peace. … I am forced to relive the stress I experienced over the last two years which has triggered a fear that my peace will be greatly disturbed knowing that he could contact me at any time or appear wherever I may be.' Just last week, the court denied Thiaw's request, and the restraining order will remain in place until October 2029. Athletes who have been stalked talk about the lasting impact it has on their lives. (Many choose not to speak about it at all due to fear of copycats, or a refusal to give their stalkers more power or notoriety.) After her stabbing, Seles was out of tennis for nearly 28 months. She fell into a deep depression and developed an eating disorder. 'And yes, the physical scars healed in a few months. But the emotional damage cut much deeper and I was plunged into a fog of darkness and depression that I couldn't see my way out of,' Seles wrote of the attack in her 2009 autobiography. Eleven years after a man tried to abduct her with duct tape, two loaded guns and a wooden club, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson told ABC in 2019 that the experience still haunts her. After her three-year ordeal with a stalker, Olympic runner Emily Infeld remains careful with what she posts on social media, no longer receives mail at her condo, and still keeps a metal bar by the front door. The fear among women's sports activists is that any behavioral changes female athletes make could stymie the momentum women's sports has built in recent years. 'There's a long history of when women's sport becomes popular, visible, lucrative, that we see a plethora of ways in which women's value, popularity, and visibility is undermined, marginalized, silenced and erased,' said Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport. 'I think harassment and stalking is one exemplar of that.' — 's Gabby Herzig contributed to this report. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, UCLA Bruins, Connecticut Huskies, WNBA, Golf, Women's College Basketball, Culture, Olympics, Tennis, A1: Must-Read Stories, women's college basketball, Women's College Sports, Women's Golf, Women's Olympics, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
New York Times
26 minutes ago
- New York Times
Ex-Premier League defender Ronnie Stam sentenced to seven years for drug-smuggling
Ronnie Stam, the former Dutch title-winner and Premier League footballer, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his part in a multi-million-pound drug-smuggling operation. Stam, whose career included three years at Wigan Athletic, was charged with plotting to smuggle more than two tons (2,217 kilos) of cocaine into the Netherlands with a street value of €41.5million (£48.6 million; $65.7m). Advertisement The Dutch Public Prosecution Service had described Stam as being a big-hitter in the Dutch underworld and asked the judge to impose a 13-year sentence. However, the judge at Breda courthouse acquitted the former footballer of two of the more serious charges. Stam was convicted instead for trafficking 724 kilos of cocaine, as well as quantities of MDMA and possession of nitrous oxide, aka laughing gas. The prosecution alleged that Stam and his accomplices colluded to smuggle the drugs from South America and that he was responsible for money-laundering to a value of £2.2m, as well as possessing 18 litres of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. Stam, 41, admitted that he had been involved in a plot to smuggle 20 kilos of cocaine from Brazil to the German city of Frankfurt. His payment, he said, was 'an amount worth one kilo.' But that, he insisted, was his sole involvement and he said he regretted his association with the criminal ringleaders. Stam was part of Steve McClaren's title-winning FC Twente side in 2010 before signing for Wigan Athletic, going on to play 73 games for the English club. However, he missed the 2011 FA Cup final win over Manchester City after breaking his leg in Wigan's previous match. He later moved to Belgian club Standard Liege before returning to the Netherlands to rejoin NAC Breda, the club where he began his 14-year playing career. However, the police investigation revealed that, after his retirement as a footballer in 2016, he had turned to serious crime. As part of his punishment, Stam will also have to repay €1.7m in illegal profits. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
