Latest news with #CivilRightsCorps
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Civil rights groups sue to end cash bail in Riverside County, alleging dangerous jail conditions
A cadre of civil rights groups brought a lawsuit late Wednesday challenging Riverside County's use of cash bail to detain people as they await trial, citing squalid conditions inside the county's jails where dozens of inmates have died in recent years. The class-action suit is the latest to challenge the legality of cash bail systems in California after a 2021 state Supreme Court ruling found it is unconstitutional to jail defendants solely because of their inability to pay their way out from behind bars. 'Every day, Riverside County imprisons people based on nothing more than their inability to pay an arbitrary, pre-set amount of cash that Defendants demand for their release," attorneys for the civil rights groups argue in the 80-page complaint. 'These individuals are not detained because they are too dangerous to release: The government would release them right away if they could pay. They are detained simply because they are too poor to purchase their freedom.' The suit was brought by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice in Oakland and several other law firms on behalf of two people incarcerated in Riverside County jails and two local faith leaders. It names as defendants the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Superior Court system and the county. Lt. Deirdre Vickers, a sheriff's department spokesperson, said she could not comment on pending litigation, as did a representative for the county court system. The county executive's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. While the suit argues money bail is unconstitutional across California and seeks an injunction ending its use, attorneys said they are focusing on Riverside County following a spate of deaths in the jails in 2022. That year, Riverside County recorded 18 inmate fatalities, the highest number in a decade. The following year, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Democrat, opened what remains an ongoing investigation into complaints about living conditions in the county jails and allegations that deputies use excessive force against detainees. Inmate deaths have fallen since 2022. The county reported 13 jail fatalities in 2023 and six last year, according to Vickers. Bianco — a law-and-order conservative who has joined a crowded field of Democrats to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2026 election — has previously dismissed the state's investigation into his jails as politically motivated. Bianco maintains the jail deaths, many of which authorities attribute to drug overdoses and suicides, are a reflection of the inmates' life choices rather than a sign of any problem with the jail system. 'Every single one of these inmate deaths was out of anyone's control,' Bianco said after news of the state investigation broke. 'The fact of the matter is that they just happened to be in our custody.' The cash bail system has deep roots in the U.S. as a means of pressuring defendants to show up for scheduled court appearances. Attend trial, and the sizable cash payments are returned to you or your family; skip court, and you forfeit your deposit. Critics argue it effectively creates a two-tiered justice system, allowing wealthy defendants to pay their way out while awaiting trial, and leaving low-income defendants stuck behind bars. Proponents of eliminating the bail system contend that decisions about whether to jail defendants ahead of trial should be based on the severity of their crimes and the risk they pose to public safety, and not hinge on their income status. Brian Hardingham, a senior attorney with Public Justice, said people sometimes spend days in jail awaiting their first court appearance, only for a prosecutor to decline to file a case presented by local police. That stint behind bars can have an outsize effect on people's lives, especially if they are low-income, Hardingham said. 'You meet people with 6-month-old kids in jail who, if they're lucky, there is a partner or a parent or someone who can watch their kids," he said, adding that even a brief stretch in a county jail can result in people losing their job, vehicle or even their residence. Supporters of the cash bail system, including many law enforcement groups, say that doing away with it would leave too many defendants free to potentially flee and re-offend, leading to crime spikes. Read more: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco enters the 2026 California governor's race The issue grew increasingly controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus spread with deadly consequences through the state's jails and prisons. Los Angeles County instituted a zero-bail policy for most offenses in 2020, trying to reduce jail crowding at a time when the virus was spreading rapidly. That policy was rescinded in June 2022. Despite concerns from police groups, a 2023 report to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors showed re-arrest and failure-to-appear rates remained relatively static among those freed pre-trial while the zero-bail policy was in place. A similar lawsuit to the one filed against Riverside County prompted Los Angeles County court officials to revise their bail policies in 2023. Under the new system, the vast majority of defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies are now cited and released, or freed under specified conditions after a judge reviews their case. Defendants accused of serious offenses, including murder, manslaughter, rape and most types of assault, still face a stiff cash bail schedule. Fears that the new system would result in a crime spike have not been borne out. Total crime in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department fell by about 2% in 2024, the first calendar year the reduced bail policy was in place, according to department data. The city of Los Angeles has seen significant decreases in the number of robberies, property crimes and aggravated assaults committed this year, as of mid-May, records show. Given the 2021 state Supreme Court ruling and the changes in Los Angeles, Hardingham said he is hopeful other counties will shift their bail policies without having to engage in a court fight. "We would hope that they would be willing to see the writing on the wall and make the changes that are necessary," he said. 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.
Los Angeles Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Civil rights groups sue to end cash bail in Riverside County, alleging dangerous jail conditions
A cadre of civil rights groups brought a lawsuit late Wednesday challenging Riverside County's use of cash bail to detain people as they await trial, citing squalid conditions inside the county's jails where dozens of inmates have died in recent years. The class-action suit is the latest to challenge the legality of cash bail systems in California after a 2021 state Supreme Court ruling found it is unconstitutional to jail defendants solely because of their inability to pay their way out from behind bars. 'Every day, Riverside County imprisons people based on nothing more than their inability to pay an arbitrary, pre-set amount of cash that Defendants demand for their release,' attorneys for the civil rights groups argue in the 80-page complaint. 'These individuals are not detained because they are too dangerous to release: The government would release them right away if they could pay. They are detained simply because they are too poor to purchase their freedom.' The suit was brought by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice in Oakland and several other law firms on behalf of two people incarcerated in Riverside County jails and two local faith leaders. It names as defendants the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Superior Court system and the county. Lt. Deirdre Vickers, a sheriff's department spokesperson, said she could not comment on pending litigation, as did a representatives for the county court system. The county executive's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. While the suit argues money bail is unconstitutional across California and seeks an injunction ending its use, attorneys said they are focusing on Riverside County following a spate of deaths in the jails in 2022. That year, Riverside County recorded 18 inmate fatalities, the highest number in a decade. The following year, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Democrat, opened what remains an ongoing investigation into complaints about living conditions in the county jails and allegations that deputies use excessive force against detainees. Inmate deaths have fallen since 2022. The county reported 13 jail fatalities in 2023 and six last year, according to Vickers. Bianco — a law-and-order conservative who has joined a crowded field of Democrats to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2026 election — has previously dismissed the state's investigation into his jails as politically motivated. Bianco maintains the jail deaths, many of which authorities attribute to drug overdoses and suicides, are a reflection of the inmates' life choices rather than a sign of any problem with the jail system. 'Every single one of these inmate deaths was out of anyone's control,' Bianco said after news of the state investigation broke. 'The fact of the matter is that they just happened to be in our custody.' The cash bail system has deep roots in the U.S. as a means of pressuring defendants to show up for scheduled court appearances. Attend trial, and the sizable cash payments are returned to you or your family; skip court, and you forfeit your deposit. Critics argue it effectively creates a two-tiered justice system, allowing wealthy defendants to pay their way out while awaiting trial, and leaving low-income defendants stuck behind bars. Proponents of eliminating the bail system contend that decisions about whether to jail defendants ahead of trial should be based on the severity of their crimes and the risk they pose to public safety, and not hinge on their income status. Brian Hardingham, a senior attorney with Public Justice, said people sometimes spend days in jail awaiting their first court appearance, only for a prosecutor to decline to file a case presented by local police. That stint behind bars can have an outsize effect on people's lives, especially if they are low-income, Hardingham said. 'You meet people with 6-month-old kids in jail who, if they're lucky, there is a partner or a parent or someone who can watch their kids,' he said, adding that even a brief stretch in a county jail can result in people losing their job, vehicle or even their residence. Supporters of the cash bail system, including many law enforcement groups, say that doing away with it would leave too many defendants free to potentially flee and re-offend, leading to crime spikes. The issue grew increasingly controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus spread with deadly consequences through the state's jails and prisons. Los Angeles County instituted a zero bail policy for most offenses in 2020, trying to reduce jail crowding at a time when the virus was spreading rapidly. That policy was rescinded in June 2022. Despite concerns from police groups, a 2023 report to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors showed re-arrest and failure-to-appear rates remained relatively static among those freed pre-trial while the zero-bail policy was in place. A similar lawsuit to the one filed against Riverside County prompted Los Angeles County court officials to revise their bail policies in 2023. Under the new system, the vast majority of defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies are now cited and released, or freed under specified conditions after a judge reviews their case. Defendants accused of serious offenses, including murder, manslaughter, rape and most types of assault, still face a stiff cash bail schedule. Fears that the new system would result in a crime spike have not been borne out. Total crime in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department fell by about 2% in 2024, the first calendar year the reduced bail policy was in place, according to department data. The city of Los Angeles has seen significant decreases in the number of robberies, property crimes and aggravated assaults committed this year, as of mid-May, records show. Given the 2021 state Supreme Court ruling and the changes in Los Angeles, Hardingham said he is hopeful other counties will shift their bail policies without having to engage in a court fight. 'We would hope that they would be willing to see the writing on the wall and make the changes that are necessary,' he said.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A Lawyer's Crusade Against 'Copaganda'
Sharnalle Mitchell was at her home in Montgomery, Alabama, one evening in January 2014, watching TV with her two young children, when police showed up and took her into custody. It seems she'd neglected to pay a traffic fine issued years before. Unable to make bail, Mitchell spent the night locked up, after which she was brought into court, where a judge informed her that, due to additional surcharges, she was now on the hook for several thousand dollars. She could either pay up or serve 58 days in jail, a sentence reduced somewhat when she agreed to perform unpaid labor cleaning the facility during her incarceration. Watching the exchange from a seat in the gallery, inconspicuous in a hooded sweatshirt, was a lawyer named Alec Karakatsanis. Then just 30 years old, the newly minted civil rights attorney instantly saw in Mitchell's plight the makings of his first case. Mitchell v. City of Montgomery was the beginning of what would become an epic, long-running battle with the U.S. criminal justice system—or, as he puts it, ever mindful of the semantic underpinnings of our dehumanizing legal apparatus, the 'punishment bureaucracy.' Since then, Karakatsanis and his nonprofit, Civil Rights Corps, which now employs more than 35 people, have successfully brought suits against numerous municipalities for what he considers the criminalization of poverty. As a result, hundreds of thousands of indigent defendants have been released from illegal detention, and many more have been spared it altogether. Karakatsanis has an impressive track record as an attorney—and is also the author of the well-received 2019 book, Usual Cruelty, which took his colleagues in the legal profession to task for perpetuating an unjust system. He is more widely known, however, for his work as a media critic, tirelessly laying bare the pro-policing biases of The New York Times and other outlets. Between 2003 and 2017, the Times employed an independent public editor, whose job was to mediate between disappointed readers and the newsroom, rapping knuckles when appropriate. When the paper cut the position in 2017, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. fobbed off the role of holding the institution accountable to 'our followers on social media and our readers across the internet.' Enter @equalityalec, who in a series of Twitter threads, and eventually a free newsletter, has dismantled the paper's criminal justice reporting with prosecutorial zeal. Based on those efforts, Karakatsanis's new book, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, is an instructive, often enraging look at how elite publications mounted a sustained defense of the status quo after the police murder of George Floyd touched off the largest political mass movement in U.S. history. Karakatsanis makes a persuasive case that the establishment media—spoon-fed a diet of self-serving spin by taxpayer-funded flacks (the NYPD's press shop has more than doubled in size since the protests) and a busy cadre of criminology 'experts'—has misled the public about the causes of crime, forestalled meaningful reforms, and distracted us from pervasive social holy war against the Times began in 2022, when the paper printed a series of articles suggesting that the Covid-era rise in homicides was in part attributable to the protests against police violence, either because cops 'pulled back,' as the paper put it, or because disrespect for police 'prompted more people to try to take the law into their own hands.' The paper presented no evidence for such claims, nor did its sources, who were often lumped together under phrases like 'experts say' and 'analysts noted.' Perhaps more problematic, Karakatsanis pointed out in Twitter threads viewed millions of times, was the omission of any experts who might have offered a contrary view. As it happens, such researchers do in fact exist. For instance, Karakatsanis cites a 2017 meta-analysis conducted by three criminal justice scholars at the University of Cincinnati, which found, as the authors wrote, that 'the effect on crime of adding or subtracting police is miniscule [sic] and not statistically significant.' Another 2017 study determined that when the NYPD chose, in late 2014, to engage in a work stoppage (a so-called blue flu) amid a beef with Mayor Bill De Blasio, reports of major crimes substantially decreased. And then there was the 2021 meta-review of 116 studies demonstrating that jailing people has 'no effect on reoffending or slightly increase[s] it when compared with the effects of ... sanctions such as probation.' On the other hand, researchers in 2022 identified an across-the-board 20 to 32 percent drop in arrest rates, attributable not to aggressive policing, pretrial detention, or increased respect for law enforcement but to … Medicaid expansion. Nonetheless, when murder rates fell in 2023, the Times was at it again, identifying three 'likely' reasons for the decline: the end of the pandemic (a reason it mostly dismissed), the waning of anti-police protests, and the hiring of more officers. Again, the paper cited no evidence for these claims, despite their significant policy implications. Perhaps paying heed to what had by then become a virtual army of online critics, however, it did include a conspicuous caveat. 'Experts caution that these three explanations are not proven,' reporter German Lopez noted, adding, 'Crime is an incredibly complicated topic, involving personal disputes, the economy, social services, the political system and more.'In 1978, Jamaican-born sociologist and cultural theorist Stuart Hall and a team of academics published the landmark study Policing the Crisis, an in-depth look at how the British press elevated 'mugging'—a new term, imported from the United States, for a very old crime—to the top of the national agenda. As it happened, there was no crisis. An increase in street robberies that had begun two decades earlier was declining. But armed with a new label, one bearing a distinct racial subtext, the press sensationalized the issue, using it as a stand-in, Hall argued, for broader national anxieties. Judges began imposing ever-harsher sentences, slapping one teenager with an extraordinary 20 years. Mugging had become what sociologist Stanley Cohen called a 'moral panic,' when a phenomenon or group 'emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.' More recent examples aren't hard to find, as Karakatsanis amply documents. In 2021, a video of a man stealing items from a San Francisco Walgreens went viral. The timing proved convenient for the pharmacy chain, which two years before had quietly announced plans to close 200 stores and now found shoplifters a scapegoat. But it was also useful for a coalition of right-leaning politicians, tech billionaires, real estate interests, and especially police unions who were then mounting a recall effort against progressive D.A. Chesa Boudin. The video quickly became national news, resulting in more than 300 articles, many of which framed the incident as part of a terrifying wave of petty theft attributable to Boudin's reforms, which included an emphasis on diversion programs (and, perhaps not incidentally, an effort to hold police responsible for misconduct, including one homicide). Boudin's approach had emboldened thieves, they charged. Eventually, it turned out there had been no wave of shoplifting, as even Walgreens's CEO admitted a few years later, when he commented on an earnings call that 'maybe we cried too much' about retail theft. But by that time the narrative had been firmly embedded in the public mind and the D.A. forced from office, with others soon to follow. Only certain crimes—often ones committed by the poor, with minimal societal impact—are treated as emergencies and often described as 'surges.' The incident highlights the aggressive P.R. battle waged against progressive prosecutors and bail reform, but it also underlines another of Karakatsanis's key points: that only certain crimes—often ones committed by the poor, with minimal societal impact—are treated as emergencies, frequently described as 'waves' and 'surges.' As the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting noted, when Walgreens paid $4.5 million to California employees who'd sued the chain for wage theft (a crime that robs workers of some $50 billion per year), it occasioned just a single news item, in a legal trade publication. No one demanded a crackdown by law enforcement, or the firing of the state attorney general for refusing to 'get tough' on the chain's white-collar perps. As Karakatsanis writes, 'Addressing financial crimes could significantly alter the distribution of wealth, the array of life opportunities, and physical safety for hundreds of millions of human beings. But neither the police nor the media pay much attention to them, and they certainly don't foment panic about them.' Karakatsanis details a number of other ways copaganda distorts our sense of just what behavior qualifies as crime, how prevalent it actually is, and how society might address it. Individual incidents of street-level crime, for instance, are often addressed as breaking news (with reporting based almost entirely on police tips and press releases). More prevalent and vastly more consequential criminal behavior involving fraud, corruption, tax evasion, and other systemic abuses is covered, when covered at all, by investigative units, resulting in deep dives more likely to win prizes than spark sustained public outrage. As for violence perpetrated by police themselves—who frequently assault peaceful protesters and have killed more people in each consecutive year since the George Floyd protests—it's considered routine and is not even counted in crime stats. And many of us are by now familiar with the journalistic habit of using a passive voice ('an officer-involved shooting occurred') in reporting such incidents. Other editorial chestnuts that subtly warp our thinking include the beloved 'tough on crime' (never mind research indicating that 'proactive' policing may actually increase crime) and 'quality of life,' which focuses public attention on the discomfort of having to step over a homeless person, for instance, rather than society's failure to provide enough homes. Indeed, the number of homeless increased by 18 percent last year to its highest level ever recorded. And yet, somehow we were spared breathless wall-to-wall coverage of a 'surge in evictions,' daily interviews with destitute families, or urgent calls for elected officials to immediately address the 'crisis.' Instead, we're treated to the ugly spectacle of armed government agents assaulting suffering people and stealing their belongings, typically referred to as a 'sweep.'When, during Hillary Clinton's 2016 run for president, a Black Lives Matter activist pressed her to account for her 1996 reference to 'the kinds of kids that are called superpredators—no conscience, no empathy,' it was a welcome reminder, two decades on, of the incalculable damage done by one of copaganda's greatest triumphs. Clinton had borrowed the comparison of urban adolescents to bloodthirsty beasts of prey from a highly influential 1995 cover story in The Weekly Standard. In that story, Princeton political scientist John DiIulio claimed Americans were 'sitting atop a demographic crime bomb' that would soon 'unleash an army of young male predatory street criminals who will make even the leaders of the Bloods and Crips ... look tame by comparison.' Due to what he termed the 'moral poverty' of urban neighborhoods, these teenagers 'will do what comes 'naturally': murder, rape, rob, assault, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, and get high.' Though his prediction was racist nonsense—juvenile crime was already falling when the piece was published and declined considerably thereafter—its effect was profound. Newsmagazines, broadsheets, and TV networks ran hundreds of stories about the hypothesis, amping up the hysteria. Despite being thoroughly discredited and soon partly renounced by the author, DiIulio's nightmarish image of remorseless youth of color had touched a dark place in the public psyche. Before long, nearly all 50 states passed legislation allowing the prosecution of children as adults. Many would be sent to adult prison, where they were likely subject to violence and sexual assault; some would receive life sentences, which they are serving to this day. DiIulio duly resigned in disgrace and left academia. Nah, just kidding—he went on to lead George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, co-wrote a U.S. government textbook that falsely downplayed the threat of global warming and misrepresented the separation of church and state, and is now the Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion, and Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Karakatsanis, who confines his study to the period between 2020 and 2024, mentions the 'superpredator' frenzy only in passing. Hall's study of the mugging panic also goes largely unexplored, as does the insidious role played by popular entertainment. That feels like a missed opportunity. Placing contemporary copaganda in a larger historical and cultural context would allow us to see more clearly how a drumbeat of vivid crime stories and their fictional 'ripped from the headlines' counterparts, inevitably focusing on the innate goodness of individual police officers, have misled us about the failures of a system that has victimized millions of people. It would illuminate copaganda's devastating human impact over the long term. And it might stand as a permanent refutation rather than a maddening snapshot of bad faith in action. It would likely also have made for a more interesting book. Remixed from Karakatsanis's newsletter and social media threads, the same critiques that felt so revelatory and damning when they appeared on Twitter in real time offer diminishing returns when consumed one after another. That's too bad, because Karakatsanis's argument is so essential and the onrush of copaganda is so corrosive. As he points out, while data on reported crimes, arrests, and convictions lends itself to easy number crunching, the profound social costs of policing are all but impossible to quantify. Yet the media's habit of addressing street-level crime through the lens of alarming waves and sensational panics rather than as a consequence of long-term social conditions means that 'getting tough'—rolling back modest reforms, ramping up arrests, implementing stiffer sentences, sacrificing civil liberties for 'public safety'—always seems like the only available solution. 'It is a widespread but fatal trap—precisely, a trap of 'liberal opinion'—to split analysis from action,' Stuart Hall wrote in 1978, 'and to assign the first to the instance of the 'long term,' which never comes, and reserve only the second to 'what is practical and realistic in the short term.'' Indeed, there's no evidence that crime trends are influenced by police tactics, staffing levels, cash bail, or sentences. As Karakatsanis puts it, 'playing whack-a-mole with minor tweak after minor tweak helps powerful people in any given moment avoid the public making linkages between violence and poverty, lack of access to health care, the affordable housing shortage, under-resourced schools, and other root causes.' Maybe rather than hiring more police, equipping them with ever more deadly weapons, and setting them loose on people like Sharnalle Mitchell and her children, we could begin to envision a society that supports all of its citizens, enforces laws equally, and makes adherence to the rules by rich and poor alike a more appealing option. To do that, we'd need to stop pretending that the constant threat of state violence is some kind of solution rather than what it really is—evidence of a catastrophic societal failure. 'Copaganda convinces people that, sadly, much to our discomfort as caring people, there is no way to solve the serious problems of our society,' Karakatsanis writes. 'Having reluctantly come to that conclusion, we now have to expand authoritarian measures to manage those problems through violence. We wish we didn't have to do this, but we've tried everything else.' Of course, there's another consequence to flooding our streets with cops: the near certainty that they will be utilized not only against a shadowy 'other' but against people we know and love. Indeed, it's not difficult to imagine the remarkable surveillance apparatus, the sweeping investigatory powers, the physical brutality, and the carceral system turned against the comfortable classes who have long relied on this sprawling ecosystem of repression to protect their precarious sense of well-being. Police will be used to infiltrate dissident groups and crush peaceful social movements with unchecked violence. They will be deployed to round up immigrants and separate families. They will come for women seeking medical care, their providers, and anyone who offers them assistance. And trans people. And the political opponents of those in power. And eventually, they might even come for professors, the pundits, and the journalists themselves.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Howard University professor among victims in midair collision
A Howard University professor and former Miss Kansas contestant known for her bright smile and zest for life was among the victims in Wednesday's midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines plane near Reagan National Airport. Kiah Duggins, 30, was named as a victim in the disaster by Howard University President Ben Vinson III, who called for privacy and respect for her family, students, and colleagues during this difficult time. In a statement, the university said Duggins was set to begin a new chapter as a professor at Howard University School of Law this fall. Victims Identified In DC Plane Crash Involving American Airlines Jet And Military Helicopter "As a civil rights lawyer, she dedicated her career to fighting against unconstitutional policing and unjust money bail practices in Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C.," the statement reads. "Plans to honor her legacy will be shared in coming days." Duggins was also a civil rights attorney with the non-profit Civil Rights Corps, based in Washington D.C. Read On The Fox News App The group's website says she worked with the ACLU of Northern California and with Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin LLP to "challenge police misconduct and other harms of the criminal legal system" before coming to the Civil Rights Corps. She studied the prison industrial complex abolition and lawyering movement as a Law For Black Lives fellow, a Black liberation group. She earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as the president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Before that, she earned a bachelor's degree from Wichita State University and completed a Fulbright grant in Taiwan, according to the Civil Rights Corps. Reagan National Airport Crash: Military Black Hawk Helicopter Collides Midair With American Airlines Jet Larry Strong, who was Duggins' local pageant director when she competed for Miss Kansas and Miss Butler County, told KBTX that Duggins had "such a bright future ahead." In a Facebook post, he described her as "Miss Butler County 2014, 2015." "Kiah was a top 10 finalist in 2014 and 2015 at the Miss Kansas Pageant. She was preparing to be a law professor at Howard University in the fall. Keep her family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time." Annie Montgomery, minister of Tabernacle Bible Church in Wichita, told KMUW that she will remember Duggins for her bright smile and her zest for life. "Kiah was the most beautiful young lady inside and out," Montgomery said. "She was adventurous. She made friends so easily. She had the kind of personality that you just could not resist." Lacey Cruse, a former Sedgwick County commissioner, described Duggins as "a brave and beautiful soul, a light in the fight for civil rights." "Her loss is heartbreaking, not only for her family and friends but for everyone who believes in justice and equality," she wrote on Facebook. "May her work, her message, and her spirit continue to inspire and create change. Gone too soon but never forgotten." Duggins was one of 67 people to lose their lives in the disaster. The cause of the collision is being article source: Howard University professor among victims in midair collision
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kiah Duggins, Civil Rights Attorney and Former Miss Kansas Contestant, Killed in D.C. Plane Crash: 'Beautiful Soul'
Kiah Duggins, a 30-year-old civil rights lawyer and former Miss Kansas contestant has been confirmed as one of the victims in the American Airlines crash that occurred on Wednesday, Jan. 29. Duggins was returning to Washington, D.C., after visiting Kansas to be with her mother during a surgical procedure. Friends and family remember Duggins as a "brave and beautiful" soul who dedicated her life to fighting for justice. Among the 64 people on board the American Airlines flight, which crashed into a U.S. Army Black Hawk Helicopter on Wednesday, Jan. 29, was 30-year-old civil rights attorney and former Miss Kansas contestant Kiah Duggins. Several of Duggins' family and friends identified her on social media as having been one of the passengers lost on the tragic flight. Her family told NPR affiliate KMUW that she had been flying back to Washington, D.C., where she worked as an attorney for the Civil Rights Corps, after spending some time in Wichita, Kan. to support her mother, who was going through a surgical procedure. 'We are coming to terms with the grief associated with the loss of our beautiful and accomplished firstborn. Please respect our family's privacy at this time,' her father Maurice Duggins said in a statement to the outlet. Duggins graduated from Wichita East High School and Wichita State University before going on to earn a degree from Harvard Law School, where she served as president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, according to her profile on the Civil Rights Corps website. Related: American Airlines Plane Crashes into Potomac River After Black Hawk Helicopter Collision: Live Updates In her job, she litigated 'on behalf of movements' and challenged 'unconstitutional policing and money bail practices in Tennessee, Texas and Washington, D.C.' She also previously worked with the ACLU of Northern California and challenged 'police misconduct and other harms of the criminal legal system.' Several of the civil rights attorney's friends paid tribute to her online, including Anna Bower, who wrote on Blue Sky : 'I'm sad to learn that my law school classmate, Kiah Duggins, died in the DC plane crash last night. Kiah was an exceptionally talented civil rights lawyer and aspiring legal scholar.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Another friend, former Sedgwick County Commissioner Lacey Cruse, described Duggins' death as 'devastating,' adding on Facebook, 'She was a brave and beautiful soul, a light in the fight for civil rights. Her loss is heartbreaking, not only for her family and friends but for everyone who believes in justice and equality.' 'May her work, her message, and her spirit continue to inspire and create change. Gone too soon but never forgotten,' she concluded her message. However, Duggins not only tried to change the world through the legal system, but through her pageant work as well. She previously competed in the Miss Butler County 2014-2015 pageant, where she placed in the top 10, Larry E Strong shared on Facebook. Related: Man Lost His Wife and Daughter, Who Survived Cancer as 4-Month-Old, in American Airlines Crash: 'She Was Such a Fighter' Strong wrote in his post that she 'was preparing to be a law professor' at Howard University — a private, historically Black research university in Washington — 'in the fall.' '[She had] such a bright future ahead, such a bright future ahead,' Strong told CBS affiliate KWCH-TV. 'I know this is a difficult time for [Duggins' family] and they're in my thoughts and prayers.' There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board the jet, according to a statement from American Airlines. There were also three soldiers on board the Black Hawk helicopter, a U.S. Army official confirmed to CNN. During a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 30, Washington, D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John A. Donnelly said that 'at this point we don't believe there are any survivors from this accident,' and they were switching from a 'search and rescue operation' for the passengers on both flights to a 'recovery' operation. Also among those on the American Airlines flight were several members' of the U.S. Figure Skating team. This included 1994 pairs figure skating world champions and coaches Evgenia Shishkova, 52, and Vadim Naumov, 55, and figure-skating sisters Everly and Alydia Livingston, 14 and 11, according to reports. Read the original article on People
