Latest news with #humaneTreatment
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hays County Judge calls for humane immigration practices amid rising detentions
HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) – The Hays County Commissioners Court will consider adopting a resolution Tuesday calling for due process and humane treatment of immigrants. Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra said he's bringing forward the resolution because of recent federal immigration activity that has caused disorder across the county. 'The resolution I'm presenting on Tuesday is about us being Americans, being respectful, respecting the rule of law,' Becerra said. 'What I want to do is help support peace, unity, and harmony throughout our county.' Becerra said there has been an increase in federal immigration officers detaining people in Hays County since the Trump Administration took office. According to a KXAN special project, over 12,000 undocumented immigrants living in Texas were detained from January to March, the most of any other state. 'I'm not looking for anything except to treat people like humans, be respectful, follow the rule of law, and let's move in an orderly manner without causing havoc and destruction,' Becerra said. Texas immigration attorney Adrian Resendez said immigrant detainments have steadily risen in the last several months. 'There are only certain amounts of ICE agents available, and only a certain amount of resources that the government allocated. Now what we're seeing is a larger allocation of resources, we are seeing a ramping up across the board,' Resendez said. Fox News reported in May that the Trump Administration raised its ICE arrest target to 3,000 undocumented immigrants per day. Resendez said he has clients who were following the proper procedures but were still arrested and detained. 'The controversy is now that they are detaining people who technically followed all the rules that were asked of them,' he said. 'We are seeing some people being detained who have been here [several years] – they're permanent residents.' Resendez said that due process in an immigration context could involve someone arriving in the U.S. to flee danger in their home country. If that claim is deemed credible, they would be given a court date to make their case. 'That court date, that's the due process that they get,' Resendez said. 'In my opinion, I am seeing a lack of due process.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
BBC News
16-05-2025
- BBC News
Dead squirrels caught in Weston Park traps spark outrage
The sight of injured and dead squirrels caught in traps in the grounds of a stately home has sparked outrage from some visitors.A number of people have taken to social media with descriptions of "heartbreaking displays of animal cruelty" at Weston Park, near Shifnal, near the border of Staffordshire and have been posted online of a squirrel hanging out of a trap with its head inside and another squirrel caught in a tube.A spokeswoman for Weston Park said humane traps were used on part of the estate and added: "We understand how upsetting this was and sincerely apologise to anyone affected." On Facebook, one commentator, Jeneen Schive, wrote: "Visitors to Weston Park have been confronted with a distressing sight: Squirrel traps placed high in the trees, leaving injured or even dead squirrels caught and visible for all to see."This heartbreaking displays of animal cruelty cannot be ignored….these traps are causing unnecessary suffering to innocent creatures."The spokeswoman for the park said estate managers were now carrying out a review of everything they do to manage the squirrel population on the estate."We have a responsibility to control the population of grey squirrels, a non-native invasive species, in a humane and controlled manner," she added."We fully understand our visitors care and concern for the park and its wildlife and we remain committed to ensuring that all necessary actions are carried out responsibly in accordance with best practices." Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Daily Mail
09-05-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Blood-chilling autopsy reveals how firing squad 'BOTCHED' execution of death row inmate
State marksmen missed the heart of a South Carolina cop killer who chose to die by firing squad last month, botching his execution and causing him to suffer an excruciating, prolonged end, his attorneys claim. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was put to death on April 11 for murdering an off-duty police officer in 2004. Mahdi's attorneys said he opted to be executed by firing squad over lethal injection or electrocution because he believed it would be the quickest and most painless method of the three options. However, an independent autopsy has suggested Mahdi's execution did not go according to plan and that the convicted killer endured pain well beyond the '10-to-15 second' window that was expected. In documents filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday, Mahdi's attorneys claim that the state's three marksmen shot their client lower than expected, missing his heart and striking him just above the abdomen, piercing his liver and pancreas. As the shots were fired, Mahdi cried out and his arms flexed, the AP reported. He was heard breathing and groaning for at least a minute after and wasn't officially pronounced dead for four minutes. 'The autopsy confirms what I saw and heard,' David Weiss, an attorney for Mikal Mahdi, told in a written statement. 'Mikal suffered an excruciating death. We don't know what went wrong, but nothing about his execution was humane. 'The implications are horrifying for anyone facing the same choice as Mikal. South Carolina's refusal to acknowledge their failures with executions cannot continue.' Mahdi, with a hood over his head, cried out as the three bullets to the heart hit him and his arms flexed. He groaned about 45 seconds afterward and his breaths continued for around 80 seconds before he took his final gasp Mahdi's death marked the second time a death row inmate has been executed by firing squad this year in South Carolina. The autopsy ordered by his attorneys found that Mahdi suffered only two distinct gunshot wounds to his torso, even though there were three gunmen, each possessing a live round. His lawyers believe the execution was botched because either the volunteer prison employees missed or the target over Mahdi's chest to mark the location of his heart wasn't properly placed. South Carolina's Corrections Department had earlier conducted its own autopsy on Mahdi, and suggested all three bullets had struck him, with two of them entering his body at the same spot and following the same path. That has happened before during target practice, Corrections Department spokeswoman Chrysti Shane said to AP on Thursday. Mahdi's legal team claimed the autopsy provided by the state was 'incredibly sparse, with far fewer details and photographs than normally issued.' They also claim that there isn't enough evidence to support the Corrections Department's claim that two bullets entered the same spot. 'The shooters missed the intended target area and the evidence indicates that he was struck by only two bullets, not the prescribed three,' said Dr. Jonathan Arden, the pathologist hired by Mahdi's team. Arden said it likely took Mahdi 30-60 seconds to lose consciousness, two to four times longer than predicted by experts hired by the state. During that time, Mahdi likely endured intense pain as his lungs attempted to expand against shattered ribs and a broken sternum, while also experiencing "air hunger" - a desperate, suffocating sensation - as his damaged lungs failed to draw in enough oxygen, according to Dr. Arden. 'Mr. Mahdi elected the firing squad, and this Court sanctioned it, based on the assumption that SCDC could be entrusted to carry out its straightforward steps: locating the heart; placing a target over it; and hitting that target,' Mahdi's attorneys wrote in a letter to the South Carolina Supreme Court. 'That confidence was clearly misplaced.' In a report summarizing his findings, Arden said the state's official autopsy did not include X-rays, which would have allowed for the results to be independently verified. Arden also said that only one photo was taken of Mahdi's body, and no close-ups of the wounds; and his clothing was not examined to determine where the target was placed and how it aligned with the damage the bullets caused to his shirt. 'I noticed where the target was placed on Mikal's torso, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I'm certainly not an expert in human anatomy, but it appears to me that target looks low,'' said Mahdi's attorney, David Weiss. Dr. Arden said that in his 40-year career, he has never heard of two bullets entering the same spot on a human body before. The autopsy found damage in only one of the four chambers of Mahdi's heart - the right ventricle. There was, however, extensive damage to his liver and pancreas, suggesting the marksmen aimed too low. In contrast, in the execution of Brad Sigmon, who was killed by firing squad in South Carolina in March - the first to be carried out in the US for 15 years - his autopsy showed three distinct bullet wounds and his heart was 'obliterated', Arden said. Sigmon's autopsy also included X-rays, multiple photographs, and an examination of his clothing. Without X-rays or other internal scans, the state's two-bullets-through-one-hole claim cannot be substantiated, Arden added. Attorney Weiss said the alleged errors in Mahdi's execution pose a major problem. 'I think that raises incredibly difficult questions about the type of training and oversight that is going into this process,' Weiss told AP. 'It was obvious to me, as a lay person, upon reading his autopsy report, that something went wrong here. 'We should want to figure out what it was that went wrong when you've got state government carrying out the most serious, most grave possible type of function.' Mahdi's body has since been cremated, preventing any further tests. The 42-year-old admitted to killing Public Safety officer James Myers in 2004, shooting him at least eight times before burning his body. Myers' charred remains were discovered by his wife in a shed in their backyard, which had been the backdrop to their wedding just over a year earlier. Mahdi also pleaded guilty to murdering a convenience store clerk three days before he killed Myers. He was arrested in Florida while driving Myers' unmarked police pickup truck. His attorneys had sought clemency from Governor Henry McMaster, but South Carolina's Republican chief executive has never granted any previous clemency petitions. 'Mr. Mahdi's life is a tragic story of a child abandoned at every step,' his lawyers said in a statement. When Mahdi was four years old, his mother fled her abusive husband, and the boy was raised by his volatile, mentally ill father, they said. 'Between the ages of 14 and 21, Mikal spent over 80 percent of his life in prison and lived through 8,000 hours in solitary confinement,' his lawyers said. 'Now 42, Mikal is deeply remorseful and a dramatically different person from the confused, angry, and abused youth who committed the capital crimes.' Mahdi's final appeal was rejected hours before his execution. His sentence was carried out on the evening of April 11 at the death chamber at a Columbia prison with fewer than a dozen witnesses sitting behind bulletproof glass. Mahdi was strapped to a chair, a hood put over his head, and a white square with a red bull's-eye was placed over his heart. He made no final statement before his death and avoided eye contact with the gathered witnesses. At his trial in 2004, prosecutor David Pascoe called Mahdi the 'epitome of evil.' 'His heart and mind are full of hate and malice,' Pascoe said.
