Robert Morales Named as FSU Shooting Victim
Robert Morales was identified as one of the two Florida State University (FSU) shooting victims who were killed in the mass shooting.
His brother, Ricardo Morales Jr., confirmed his death on X.
"Today we lost my younger Brother, He was one of the victims killed at FSU. He loved his job at FSU and his beautiful Wife and Daughter. I'm glad you were in my Life. Him with our Dad on the left and with our other Brother Sister, Gma and cousin," he wrote, sharing a series of photos showing Robert Morales with family members.
According to NBC Miami, Morales was a native of South Florida.
Morales's friend Carlos Cruz told NBC Miami that Morales "was one of the original founders of Gordos Cuban Cuisine, a very popular Cuban restaurant in Tallahassee."
He was a graduate of Hialeah Senior High School and Florida State University, "where he worked as the dining director on campus," according to the television station.
Morales was one of two victims who died in the attack.
Authorities said in an April 17 news conference that the suspect, Phoenix Ikner, is the son of a Leon County Sheriff's deputy. They said six other people were also injured in the mass shooting, and Ikner is in the hospital after being shot by first responders.
Morales's brother added on X, "You deserved better Robert. Thank you for being in my life."
According to The Miami Herald, Morales was attending a meeting on campus when he was killed.
The newspaper noted that Morales was the son of Ricardo Morales, "a shadowy Cuban-American CIA operative and anti-Castro militant throughout the 1960s and '70s who died in a bar fight in Miami in 1982."
CBS News reported that the living victims are in stable condition as of April 18.
The second deceased victim has not yet been identified.
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The Hill
27 minutes ago
- The Hill
ICE raids accelerate, protests spread
Evening Report is The Hill's P.M. newsletter. Sign up here or subscribe in the box below: Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here THE WHITE HOUSE vowed Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids would continue 'unabated,' as protests spread from Los Angeles into other major American cities. Demonstrations have sprung up in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, Denver, San Francisco and other major cities. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sought to rally the nation to his side, as U.S. Marines prepared to join National Guard troops dispatched to keep the peace in Los Angeles. 'This isn't just about protests here in Los Angeles,' Newsom said in a direct-to-camera address. 'This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes.' The White House warned protesters there would be consequences if demonstrations in other cities get out of hand. 'Let this be an unequivocal message to left-wing radicals in other parts of the country who might be thinking about copy-catting the violence in an effort to stop this administration's mass deportation efforts,' said press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 'You will not succeed. Any lawlessness will only strengthen this president's resolve to defend the majority of Americans who want to live their lives peacefully, free from the fear of violent criminal illegal aliens.' The New York Police Department said at least 80 people were arrested at anti-ICE protests in lower Manhattan on Tuesday night. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) deployed the National Guard to deal with protests in his state. 'Peaceful protest is legal,' Abbott posted on X. 'Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest. @TexasGuard will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order.' ICE took more than 70 people into custody during an immigration enforcement operation at a meat packaging facility in Omaha. Leavitt said more than 330 people in the country illegally have been arrested in Los Angeles over the past few days, and that more than 100 had prior criminal convictions. 'This administration is going to continue the mass deportation effort that the president promised the American public,' she said. President Trump's border czar Tom Homan said the protests are making immigration raids and deportations 'difficult' and 'dangerous' for the officers seeking to carry them out. 'They're not going to stop us,' Homan told 'NBC Nightly News' anchor Tom Llamas. 'They're not going to slow us down.' Organizers with 'No Kings' are planning about 1,500 demonstrations across the country to protest the military parade scheduled for Saturday in D.C. to mark the Army's 250th birthday. It's also Trump's 79th birthday. 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Los Angeles Times
30 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Images of unrest, political spin distort the reality on the ground in L.A.
Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags. The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America's second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes. In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it's one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is 'out of control' and on the brink of total collapse. The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants. As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media. The state's political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California. Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are 'calcified,' said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA. 'The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,' said Vavreck, who has focused on the country's extreme political polarization. 'And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.' As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news. The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration's handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump's deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California. But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel. Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed. In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, 'Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.' In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January. Trump's hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: 'If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.' The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease. His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. 'Congress steps in amid 'out-of-control' Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,' Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County. A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles 'is descending into a full-blown warzone.' Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed. 'To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,' his post on X said, 'your actions are interfering with Veterans' health care.' A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested 'Democrats have lost their mind,' as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots. Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: 'Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.' In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. 'Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!' the caption read. 'Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!' And many people noted on social media that Sunday's Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route. But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump's position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti. On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: 'Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,' the mayor wrote. 'You will be held accountable.' The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage. 'The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,' the advisory suggested. 'The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.' Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans' homes. 'It's inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,' Silverman said via email. 'It's particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what's happening.' Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. 'The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,' Schnur said, 'but they don't do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.' Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom 'effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile' by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city's wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil. What was not disputed was that Trump's rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump's power. The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency. California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency. Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass' opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily. 'There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,' Caruso wrote on X Sunday. 'And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.' 'We must call for calm in the streets,' Caruso added, 'and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.'
NBC Sports
43 minutes ago
- NBC Sports
Miami Marlins join efforts to restore defaced Jackie Robinson and Minnie Miñoso mural
MIAMI — The Miami Marlins are joining efforts to restore the defaced mural of baseball legends Jackie Robinson and Minnie Miñoso in Miami's Overtown neighborhood, which was marked with racist graffiti last week. City of Miami Chairwoman Christine King announced Wednesday that she along with the Marlins, Urgent, Inc., Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, Southeast Overtown/Park West Community Redevelopment Agency and other community activists will lead the restoration at Dorsey Park, where community leaders said a 7-year-old boy first discovered the vandalism last Sunday and asked his mother what the words and the Nazi symbols meant. 'This vile assault was an attack on our values, history, and community,' King said in a statement. 'We are actively working with law enforcement and the public to identify the individual(s) responsible for this intolerable act. However, even in the darkest hours, light finds its way to shine. This is a reminder and testament to the strength of our community, coming together to restore peace, beauty, and pride to this neighborhood.' Police were investigating the incident but have not made any arrests. City workers have since partially covered the murals of Robinson and Miñoso, an Afro-Cuban player, with wooden boards. The murals are along a fence at Dorsey Park, where Negro League teams once played baseball. The Marlins' home ballpark loanDepot park is just a few miles from the park. 'In light of the deeply troubling acts of vandalism at Dorsey Park, the Miami Marlins today proudly stand in solidarity with the City of Miami Chairwoman Christine King, and our local leaders in unequivocally condemning this hateful and racist act,' said Marlins owner Bruce Sherman. 'Dorsey Park is not only a landmark of historical and cultural significance in South Florida — it is a powerful symbol of resilience, pride, and the enduring contributions of trailblazers to the game of baseball.' Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 to become the first Black player. Miñoso became the league's first Afro-Latino player and the first Black player for the Chicago White Sox. The murals have been displayed in the park since 2011 and are a collaboration between artists Kyle Holbrook and Kadir Nelson and various community groups.
