How a rock band's gunpoint robbery quickly became politicised
Sports Team, a British indie rock band, were robbed at gunpoint in Vallejo, California, while touring the U.S. in December 2024.
Masked thieves broke into their van while they stopped at a Starbucks, stealing personal items after pointing a gun at them.
Lead singer Alex Rice said the band had a song on their new album, Boys These Days LP, called "Bang Bang Bang" that eerily predicted the incident.
Rice expressed his belief that "America is the greatest country in the world" but finds the gun culture a "blind spot".
He said the incident quickly became politicised when media outlets like Fox News sought to connect it to debates around defunding the police.
UK band robbed at gunpoint on US tour say 'America is the greatest country in the world'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
6 minutes ago
- The Independent
Jury deliberations near in Weinstein sex crimes retrial
Jurors in Harvey Weinstein 's sex crimes retrial are due to start deliberating Thursday, with dozens of witnesses, scores of documents and two days of closing arguments to sift through. The seven-woman, five-man jury will start its private discussions after getting legal instructions from the judge Thursday morning. Closing arguments concluded Wednesday, with prosecutor Nicole Blumberg saying the former movie studio boss 'held the golden ticket' to show-business success and used it to sexually assault women who were afraid to cross him. Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty to raping a woman in 2013 and forcing oral sex on two others in 2006. Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala told jurors Tuesday that Weinstein had entirely consensual encounters with the women, arguing that they were 'using him' to advance their fledgling careers in entertainment. Over the last seven years, the case has been seen as something of a crucible for the #MeToo movement. The anti-sexual-misconduct outcry took flight after allegations against Weinstein became public in 2017. He was later convicted of sex crimes in New York and California. The New York conviction was overturned last year, and the case was sent back for retrial. The new trial was expanded to include an accuser who wasn't part of the first trial. One of the criminal sex act charges is based on her allegations. Weinstein chose not to testify.
The Independent
6 minutes ago
- The Independent
Judge blocks private prison operator from housing ICE detainees at shuttered Kansas center
A judge on Wednesday barred a major U.S. private prison operator from housing immigrants facing possible deportation in a shuttered Kansas City area detention center unless it can get a permit from frustrated city officials. Leavenworth County Judge John Bryant agreed after a packed hearing to grant the city of Leavenworth's request for a temporary restraining order against CoreCivic, one of the nation's largest private prison operators. CoreCivic had claimed in legal filings that halting the opening of the 1,033-bed facility on the northwest outskirts of the Kansas City area would cost it $4.2 million in revenue each month. City officials said they anticipated the arrival of detainees apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was imminent under a Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigration. Leavenworth isn't the first city where controversy has surrounded the reopening of a private prison as an ICE detention facility. In Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka sued the state's top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his recent arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility in that state, saying the Trump-appointed attorney had pursued the case out of political spite. Scott Peterson, the city manager for Leavenworth, said he didn't know if the case in Kansas marked the first time a municipality had prevailed in court. 'I would point out that maybe the reason we have seen some success here today is this is not about immigration,' Peterson said. 'This is not about private prisons. This is about land use.' In late 2021, CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service in the Leavenworth facility after then-President Joe Biden called on the Justice Department to curb the use of private prisons. In the months leading up to the closure, the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders urged the White House to speed up the closure, citing inmate rights violations there along with stabbings, suicides and even one homicide. But with President Donald Trump pushing for mass deportations under a wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, the facility that CoreCivic now calls the Midwest Regional Reception Center is in demand again. It is located just 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of the Kansas City International Airport. As part of his crackdown, Trump has vowed to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from the budgeted 41,000 beds this year. Tennessee-based CoreCivic initially applied for a special use permit from the city in February but then withdrew that application the next month, arguing in court filings that it didn't need the permit and that the process would take too long. 'It became clear to CoreCivic that there was not a cooperative relationship,' said Taylor Concannon Hausmann, an attorney for the private prison operator, speaking in court. The city sued CoreCivic, the lawsuit claiming that CoreCivic impeded the city police force's ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes. The lawsuit contended that the permitting process was needed to safeguard itself from future problems. 'Just follow our rules," an attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said in court. 'Go get a permit.' The first version of the lawsuit, filed in March in federal court, was tossed out in May on technical grounds. But Bryant sided with Hatley in the case refiled the same month in state court, finding that the proper procedures weren't followed. Concannon Hausmann, CoreCivic's attorney, declined to comment as the crowd filtered out of the courtroom Wednesday. Norman Mallicoat held a sign reading, 'CoreCivic Doesn't Run Leavenworth' as he left. 'I see this as basically a large company trying to bully a small city into getting what it wants and not having to follow the rules and ordinances of the city,' Mallicoat said.
The Independent
6 minutes ago
- The Independent
We gave $7B to California for a high-speed rail line and no track was ever laid: ‘Trains to nowhere'
The federal government handed $7 billion to California to build a high-speed rail line, but the Golden State never laid a single foot of track, according to a new report. This prompted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to threaten that he may remove federal grants to the state's High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The 310-page report states that there were numerous missed deadlines and budget overruns. Duffy handed the authority a deadline of July 11 to respond or risk losing approximately $4 billion in grants. 'I promised the American people we would be good stewards of their hard-earned tax dollars,' Duffy said in a statement. 'This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget.' 'CHSRA is on notice — If they can't deliver on their end of the deal, it could soon be time for these funds to flow to other projects that can achieve President Trump 's vision of building great, big, beautiful things again,' he added. 'Our country deserves high-speed rail that makes us proud – not boondoogle [sic] trains to nowhere.' The rail line was passed as a ballot initiative in 2008 and was supposed to run for 800 miles, connecting Sacramento and San Diego. The budget was $33 billion and the work was supposed to have been completed by 2020. However, in 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said there was nowhere to go after costs had reached $77.3 billion and the rail line had been restricted to run from Merced to Bakersfield. Subsequently, officials with the CHSRA applied for grants totaling $8 billion from the funds passed in former President Joe Biden 's infrastructure legislation to finish that shorter rail line. However, in a letter sent Wednesday, the Federal Railroad Administration's acting administrator, Drew Feeley, said that nine months after the first batch of funding was sent in September last year, the authority had crossed a deadline to buy rail cars. Feeley went through other procurement problems and tallied up as much as $1.6 billion in misspent funding because of changed orders. In the end, it's considered unlikely that the project will be finished by its new deadline of 2033. 'CHSRA relied on the false hope of an unending spigot of Federal taxpayer dollars,' Feeley wrote. 'In essence, CHSRA has conned the taxpayer out of its $4 billion investment, with no viable plan to deliver even that partial segment on time.' The California rail authority inspector general found in February that there was a budget shortfall of $7 billion. The federal government had handed the project $6.9 billion since 2010. Speaking to reporters last month, Newsom noted that a high-speed rail project connecting Dallas and Houston had been abandoned. 'You can see the progress we've actually made,' he said at the time. 'We're now on the other side of the environmental reviews; we're on the other side of the land acquisition.' But a spokesperson for the rail authority said the findings of the four-month review were 'misguided' and didn't reflect the project. 'The Authority will fully address and correct the record in our formal response,' a spokesperson said, according to The Los Angeles Times. 'We remain firmly committed to completing the nation's first true high-speed rail system connecting the major population centers in the state.'
