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artdecosupernova-writing · 10 months ago

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OC Kiss Week Day 2: Rain

WIP: WASTE Pairing: None Timeline: so this is interesting. for whatever reason I've decided to take a totally canon event and write it in a completely different POV cuz I had a beautiful vision idk call my lawyer about it CW: Death, minor drug mention Rating: T Words: 1,480

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I pride myself on being a level-headed woman. I pride myself on having the ability to stay focused under duress, and to maintain an air of confidence and wisdom that maybe I don't feel inside at times.

And very rarely does something happen to rock me to my core and shatter that illusion into millions of pieces.

I found myself sitting beside a shuttle pilot, tense and on edge because in the days leading up to this rendezvous—capturing one of the galaxy's most notorious criminals, leading to possibly the biggest victory in the careers of several individuals including myself—I felt in my gut that I had to be there. I had to be present and in the trenches, I had to see this out first-hand against the advisement of my peers.

The tip was, as I'd come to trust, that Oren Altavian planned to make a scheduled drug drop-off with a paltry two lackeys to guard him as he posted for a while on Earth. Two bodies was an unprecedented low number for the kingpin, who normally traveled with no fewer than a small troop of military disappointments wherever he shipped himself. He'd gotten comfortable on Earth, and it looked as if it were shaping up to be the slip-up that would get him off the streets for good.

We had to intercept him seconds after the exchange. Timing would be crucial; any sooner and we'd have nothing to pin on him, and any later and Altavian would disappear once again into the ether.

I strapped on a layer of armor and made sure the other operatives did the same before the shuttle landed. Eight of them, a good fraction trained by the Aerospace Force. Formidable soldiers armed to the teeth and prepared for everything and anything to go wrong.

The drop-off coordinates led us to an abandoned warehouse on the side of a lengthy highway to and from nowhere. Pouring rain. Slippery, muddy ground and puddles making our approach less than totally covert. We landed a distance away to not draw attention, and I grabbed a shotgun as the operatives began to file out of the shuttle.

"Recon the warehouse," I said to them via the comm in my armor collar. "Give the all-clear before taking a cover position. I want everyone spread out."

"Copy," everyone murmured individually. Montgomery, Neallson, Unssue, Yamin, Lorrie, Fitzhugh, Hermann, Rescho, all gave their callsigns and confirmation.

Neallson went in first to check the warehouse. He, Rescho, and Lorrie all reported the building clear. It wasn't a very big place, but it was large enough and full of enough broken-down shipping equipment and old containers that we had ample cover while we waited.

I took my position outside with Unssue behind a pile of aluminum crates, taking advantage of the ideal angles I could see of both possible entrances.

We waited for a long while, in rain that battered and cleared up and battered again, which we anticipated as the exact time given was unclear even to my trusted source. With nothing to accompany us but the sound of the deluge and the occasional vehicle driving up and down the highway, I peered around the corner of a crate and kept an eye on the stretch of shadow hugging the cliff face across the road. I couldn't help but feel that something was there, watching us.

Unssue nudged me with her elbow and nodded toward something on the ground beside us.

A cord? Some kind of wire? It looked to have been partially buried, and the rain washed away most of the dirt packed onto it. Oddly straight, trailing to the warehouse and through the door nearest to us.

I turned away from the direction of the highway. "Anyone in position by the back door?" I whispered into my collar.

"Yeah," said Montgomery. "Got eyes on the door."

"There's a wire leading into the warehouse. Where does it go?"

Radio silence for a moment or two. Unssue frowned.

"...It leads to a pressure sensor," Montgomery said. "...Rescho's standing on it."

"What kind of—"

The unmistakable sound of small aircraft—sky runners, decked in military-grade weaponry—cut through the rain and through my concentration. They found us fast, zipping practically around the drops to get to us.

Unssue was the first to fire at one of the manned vehicles converging on our positions...she was also the first to die. She went down a foot away from me and I could do nothing for a moment but stare in shock and horror.

"Fall back," I managed to wheeze into the comm, though the spray of bullets sliced through the warehouse like a red-hot knife. "F-fall back!"

"Delegate!" Lorrie cried out, and I could hear him from inside the warehouse. "Neallson's—Hermann and Yamin are down, we have to—Delegate DeCosta, get the fuck out of here! NOW!"

I jumped to my feet, about to rush in, when the entire ceiling of the warehouse imploded and collapsed on itself. Waves of mud and debris showered me, and I dove behind the crates to keep myself hidden from the destruction and the runners. Flaming bits of warped metal and stone fell to the ground around me, the hissing of the smoke and the sharp, tangy stench of chemicals and rain and then...

Unnerving silence.

I almost didn't dare move. I didn't hear the runners anymore, but I also didn't hear anybody else. With mud on my face and armor, I moved to talk into my comm.

"...S-sound off." I reached for my shotgun, which had fallen beside Unssue. "...Anybody."

Not a single reply.

Unssue told me as I recruited her for the mission that she looked forward to seeing her parents again, as this would be her big hurrah before leaving the Consortium and going home.

Neallson mentioned something the other day about reconciling with his ex-partner. Montgomery had four grown children. Yamin was also close with their family, Lorrie and Fitzhugh wanted to see where things went with each other, and like the others, Hermann and Rescho were damn good soldiers and people.

I got to my feet and shambled to the rubble. Shotgun clutched tightly in my hand, I peered around for any sign, anything to tell me any of them were alive. I dug, I shoved, I pulled apart...I couldn't move the pieces of rock and metal myself, called in for an emergency rescue effort.

I didn't know why I was limping at the time, but I staggered through the front door and stood on the side of the highway, gun in hand and no feeling left in my body. I glanced down at my leg to find a negligible piece of metal shrapnel sticking out of the shin, and when I raised my head again, something across the road caught my attention.

A pulse of purple light. Slow. It took my eyes several moments to adjust.

A man sat on a motorcycle, staring at me, a lazy purple light breathing in his temple, indicating activity from his SCOT. Guetry Sympa, the best operative the Consortium had ever hired, the best I'd ever hired, straddling his idling electric bike and watching me in the shadow of a cliff face.

Guetry Sympa, the former romantic partner of Oren Altavian. Guetry Sympa, whose parting ways with the drug lord was famously difficult and taxing on him emotionally and mentally. Guetry Sympa...the man who'd tipped me about the drop-off.

My chest hollowed out. I couldn't make out Guetry's face that well, but I knew he could see mine. Nothing made sense. He'd told me in person that the drop-off was happening. He'd had a lead and he shared it with me. He anxiously awaited the day Altavian would be locked up or taken out, and he didn't seem too concerned over which one happened first. I knew him as a survivor, a champion of strength and wherewithal when things turned abysmal for him from every angle.

Through the rain, I started to see him better. He had his arms folded over his chest, the invisible weather protection shield emanating from his bike keeping him dry, and I watched him bring his hand to his mouth, poised with his fingers over his lips...

And he blew me a silent, emotionless kiss.

And then everything came crashing down around me. Guetry revved up his bike and zoomed away faster than I could process. I raised the shotgun at him, knowing it would be pointless, that he was already out of range to begin with, that I had nothing to prove that he was behind this, that I would never have anything to prove he was behind this, that I was going to make sure I never let him out of my sight again.

I was going to make sure he never forgot the people whose trust he betrayed.

#ockiss24 #WASTE #hahaha I don't have a lawyer I am poor :3c #the problem here is that it works so much better in this POV than in the actual canon whoops

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piece-of-the-pie-if · 1 year ago

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woah... can we have some information on all the ROs parents/families? if i read that right it means J and Kinsley are cousins?????

sure! +yes, Kinsley and J are cousins, but only technically!

Dylan Quinn──

Reece Quinn, Dylan's father. 37 years old. He's an art restorationist painter! Reece and Dylan share a love of art, and Reece is very supportive that Dyl wants to take their art all the way. He's a bit clumsy in his concerns about Dylan's education that it gets them in a few arguments but Dylan knows that at the end of the day their father just wants the best for them!

Laurel Benson, previously Quinn, born Carter, Dylan's mother. 43 years old. She lives in Austria now. They haven't spoken in almost five years. She's an art museum curator. She might have a newborn but that's just speculation on Dylan's part.

Shayne Walker──

Andrew Walker, Shay's father. 48 years old. Recently promoted to a high ranking manager in a heavy duty vehicle manufacturing business─he looks over the presentations of new models and keeps track of their quality. He used to fly all over the world to make sure their machines were working properly in overseas countries but now has a more permanent spot. Shay gets his humour from his father and they have a very good relationship.

Deirdre Walker, Shay's mother. 47 years old. DeDe has a chronic illness that makes it hard for her to move for extended periods of time and as such has stopped working to take over full time at home. Shay and his mother bond over their love of food. She is very kind and full of heart to hearts──DeDe gives the best hugs in the world!

Danielle Walker, soon to be Peterson, Shay's older sister. 23 years old. Her fiance is Ryan Peterson (24). Owns her own flower shop! Danielle and Shay get along quite well, but they're not exactly talk every day close.

Ingrid Walker, Shay's younger sister. 8 years old. She likes to pla pranks on and with Shay, and is becoming quite the jokester like her brother!.

Kinsley Grace-Cameron──

Emilia Grace, Kinsley's mother. Emilia is Kinsley's birth mother, from her egg─she carried Kinsley to full term pregnancy (Kinsley was almost a week late.) She died two years ago, aged 36. She was a criminal defence lawyer. Kinsley and Emilia were extremely close.

Lavender Cameron, Kinsley's mother. 39 years old. Works as a corporate business lawyer, is currently the sole owner of Grace and Cameron, the law firm. Never got on the best with Kinsley and their relationship has only gotten colder since her wife's death. Lavender has very high expectations for her daughter, but deep down she just wants Kinsley to do her best and be happy.

Jared Montgomery, Kinsley's father. 32 years old. Works as an auditor for New York's state government. Doesn't take part in Kinsley's life as a father, but he does have a... amicable relationship with her.

The Grace Aunts/Cousins. Emilia's sisters, Elizabeth (40), Emberly (38) and Elise (28). Elizabeth's son Karden (21) and Emberley's twins Georgina and Gabriella (19).

The Cameron Aunts/Uncles/Cousins. Lavender's brothers, Malachite (46) and Flint (38) and sister Lilac (27). Malachite's sons Sterling (24) and Roland (23), Flint's daughter Jade (21) and Lilac's son Oliver (4).

bar Oliver, Kinsley is the youngest of the cousins and is now under the most scrutiny from her family to live up to their legacy. Kinsley doesn'y get along with most of her extended family, but used to be closer to her cousins Georgina and Gabriella before her mother died.

Jaxon/Jasmin Montomery──

Archibald Montgomery, J's father. 53 years old. CEO of a business company... something to do with stocks... oil or gold or something. Declared J disowned a few months ago.

Hannah Montgomery, previously Morgenstern, born Hastings, J's mother. 51 years old. Current Mayor for New York. Trying very hard to keep contact with J... trying very hard to keep control of J.

Arabella Montgomery, J's little sister. Newly turned 11 years old. Loves J so very much, it's caused tension between Bella and her parents... who are on the verge of a divorce!

Jared Montgomery, J's paternal uncle. 32 years old. Works for Hannah in their municipal government, he is an auditor.

Peter Hastings, J's maternal uncle. 44 years old. Working as an engineer for a train line company. Very protective of J and Arabella, currently letting J stay in his apartment.

Theodore/Theodora/Theo Wesley──

Miles Wesley, Theo's father. 42 years old. Neurosurgeon.

Paulina Wesley, born Prescott, Theo's mother. 43 years old. Pediatric Surgeon.

both of Theo's parents are very loving but they're also very busy... Theo tends to stay out of their way when they're at home because they don't want to bother their parents when they're so tired/supposed to be resting.

#piece of the pie if #general #all ros #dylan quinn #shay walker #kinsley grace-cameron #j montgomery #theo wesley

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justforbooks · 2 years ago

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The path from successful character actor to becoming a star is difficult. It’s even harder when you’re self-destructive. Tom Sizemore, who has died aged 61 after a brain aneurysm, will be best remembered for his roles in Saving Private Ryan, as Tom Hanks’s wise sergeant, and in Heat, as the muscle in Robert De Niro’s bank-robbing crew.

His characters were often informed by their volatility: affable nihilism could explode into violence, which made him a natural player of bent cops and detectives, as believable in straight roles as in over-the-top variations, such as Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. But his own personality bore many of those same traits. His career was sidelined repeatedly by addictions to heroin and methamphetamines, and his peripatetic drug-fuelled sex life led to repeated cases of domestic violence.

In 1998, after starring as the criminal gangster boss John Gotti in the television film Witness to the Mob, Sizemore received a visit from De Niro and his mother, who forced him into rehab. Steven Spielberg then hired him for Private Ryan, provided Sizemore be drug-tested regularly, and threatening to reshoot all his scenes if he failed a single test.

Five years later, on the verge of television success as the lead in Robbery Homicide Division, he was kicked off the set of a movie, Piggy Banks, accused of molesting an 11-year-old female actor, and convicted of domestic violence against his then girlfriend, “Hollywood madam” Heidi Fleiss. The double scandal contributed to the TV show’s cancellation.

The two sides of Sizemore’s talent could be traced back to childhood. Born in Detroit, he was the son of Thomas Sr, a lawyer and philosophy professor, and Judith (nee Schannault), who worked in the city ombudsman’s office. A self-described “wayward, angry teen”, he was drawn to acting after watching Montgomery Clift, James Dean and Marlon Brando playing such roles, and by De Niro in Taxi Driver.

He was also influenced by his father’s two brothers. His sober father won a scholarship to Harvard; his uncles were exuberant denizens of a world of drugs and crime. Sizemore tried for years to produce a script about them, An Honest Thief, written by his lawyer brother Aaron, which nearly got made in 2014, starring Sizemore and Danny Trejo. It fell through; a much different version, Good Thief, eventually appeared, without Sizemore, in 2021.

He studied theatre at Wayne State University, Detroit, taking a master’s at Temple, in Philadelphia. He began in off-Broadway theatre in New York; his friends included James Gandolfini, John McGinley and Edie Falco, with whom he had a relationship.

His first film role was in Lock Up (1989), and among his other three roles that year was a part in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. He did Blue Steel (1990) and Point Break (1991) for Kathryn Bigelow, the Wesley Snipes vehicle Passenger 57 (1992), and the Quentin Tarantino-scripted True Romance (1993), directed by Tony Scott, where he turned down the part originally offered him because he did not want to beat up Patricia Arquette on screen, and suggested Gandolfini, in his first Hollywood movie, for the role.

During the filming of Natural Born Killers (1994) he and Juliette Lewis began an affair; for four months they stayed in her mansion, doing drugs and having sex. “Temptation is impossible for me to resist,” he said. “Come on, this is Hollywood … it’s in the job description.”

From there he played Bat Masterson opposite Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp (1994) and was excellent in Bigelow’s overlooked Strange Days (1995). He had earned a lead role, which came in Peter Hyams’s The Relic (1997), but another small though telling part in Enemy of The State (1998), along with Private Ryan, seemed to lock him into supporting roles.

In his memoir By Some Miracle I Made it Out of There (2013), Sizemore detailed a long affair with the actor Elizabeth Hurley. In 1996 he married Maeve Quinlan, who had also been in Natural Born Killers; they divorced three years later amid accusations of drug use and physical abuse.

He had leads in three TV movies before Robbery Homicide Division, based on the original Michael Mann script that eventually became Heat. When he was not charged with molestation Sizemore returned to Piggy Banks (retitled Born Killers, to capitalise on his notoriety). Fifteen years later, the child actor, now 26, sued him for $3m, but a Utah court dismissed the lawsuit; Sizemore dismissed the allegations as “misconstrued”. His 2003 conviction in the Fleiss case resulted in seven months in jail after he failed drug tests during his probation.

At the same time he began a relationship with Janelle McIntire. In 2005 the couple had twin boys, named Jaden and Jagger. Yet at that point he made a video film called Triple X Tom, with Jersey Jaxin and three other porn actors, in which he claimed to have slept with Paris Hilton. When the celebrity denied it, he said he had made it up to impress the other actors . He did receive an XRCO award nomination as “Best New Stud”. When McIntire divorced him in 2006, he began an affair with Maxine Entwistle, the former wife of the Who bassist John.

Arrests for drug possession and spousal battery followed. He appeared on two Celebrity Rehab shows in 2010 and reunited with Fleiss on Dr Phil (2013). He ping-ponged between scandals and small parts in as many as 16 films in a year, yet still held recurring parts in series such as Hawaii Five-O and Shooter. He was dropped from Shooter when, after accidentally running over a stunt man, he was convicted in 2017 of two charges of domestic abuse against a girlfriend. He was allowed to finish his probation sentence despite a 2019 arrest for heroin possession. His last big film was playing Liam Neeson’s FBI rival William Sullivan in Felt (2017).

Sizemore wrote in his memoir: “There are so many guys who had good lives, great lives, and blew it … I think there are some guys who think they don’t deserve to have good lives.”

He is survived by his sons.

🔔 Tom (Thomas Edward) Sizemore, actor, born 29 November 1961; died 3 March 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Tom Sizemore #in memoriam

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architeuthis3 · 10 months ago

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Family of Lashawn Thompson Demands Justice After He Was “Eaten Alive” by Insects in Atlanta Jail STORYAPRIL 18, 2023. Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2023/4/18/lashawn_thompson_atlanta_jail_eaten_alive

Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Atlanta, Georgia, where over 600 prisoners are being transferred from the Fulton County Jail after the family of a Black prisoner said he was “eaten alive” by insects and bedbugs in his cell there last year. The family of 35-year-old Lashawn Thompson, who was being held in the jail’s psychiatric wing, is demanding a criminal investigation and that the jail should be shut down. On Monday, several of the jail’s executive staff resigned, including the chief jailer, assistant chief jailer and members of the criminal investigative division. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat said in a statement, quote, “It’s clear to me that it’s time, past time, to clean house.” In an earlier statement, the sheriff said, quote, “it’s fair to say that this is one of the many cases that illustrate the desperate need for expanded and better mental health services.”

This Thursday, the family and community members will rally outside the jail as awareness about the conditions there and this case grow. Photos shared with Democracy Now! by the lawyer for Lashawn Thompson show filthy conditions in what’s believed to be Thompson’s cell, where he was found dead on September 19th last year. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s autopsy report said Thompson’s cell was in, quote, “extremely poor condition with insect infection and other filthiness around him” and had a, quote, “severe bedbug infestation.” The Fulton County’s autopsy noted, quote, “The body is infested with an enormous number of small insects that are 2 mm in length.” Thompson’s cause of death is listed as undetermined.

Perhaps most shocking is a graphic image released by the family’s lawyer that shows Thompson’s face at the time of his death. His family has asked that the world see it, and with a warning to our viewers, we are showing it briefly now.

Lashawn Thompson’s death came after he had been held for three months on a misdemeanor charge and was put in the jail’s psychiatric wing after officials determined he was mentally ill. The corrections officer who wrote the incident report about his death noted, quote, “I have communicated with mental health staff about the living conditions of inmate Thompson on previous dates.”

For more, we’re joined in a global TV/radio/podcast broadcast exclusive by three guests. In Atlanta, Michael Harper is a lawyer representing Lashawn Thompson’s family. In Florida, we’re joined by Lashawn’s sister Shenita Thompson, and Lashawn’s brother Brad McCrae is in Montgomery, Alabama.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Brad, I want to start with you. You are Lashawn’s brother. We really weighed whether to show that photograph, that your family wants the world to see, of your brother’s head. And I’m wondering if you can talk about why you felt it was critical that the world see it.

BRAD McCRAE: Yes, ma’am. First off, I want to say good morning and thanks for having me on.

As far as with the photo, my personal feelings and emotion about the photos was Emmett Till. I thought about Emmett Till. It broke my heart to see those photos. And we wanted the world to see it, so the world can feel it, and the world can wake up and see what’s going on out here and get behind it and make a change. Make a change. We want the world to wake up and make a change.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to ask Shenita Thompson, the sister of Lashawn Thompson, when you first heard of what had happened to your brother, and your reaction when you realized the conditions that he was in.

SHENITA THOMPSON: When I first found out what happened to my brother, it just, like, broke my heart. Just to see the conditions that he was in, and especially the photos, just to see all the bugs in his face, his eyes, his nose, like, it really, really broke my heart just to see him like that and what he went through. Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And also, I’d like to ask Brad McCrae: The fact that the sheriff of Fulton County is now saying he vows to clean house, what’s your reaction to the actions of law enforcement subsequent to your brother’s death?

BRAD McCRAE: Well, I want to thank the sheriff for trying to clean house and do everything that he feels like he could do. I wish it was done earlier. I wish it would have been done so my brother might still be here, but I want to thank the sheriff for what he’s trying to do. And he’s trying to make it right on his behalf, but we’ve got a long way to go, and I hope it keeps going forward.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to point out, Brad, that, for our listeners, you are wearing a T-shirt that says “In Loving Memory,” and there’s a beautiful picture of your brother Lashawn on your shirt. Were you — and I also want to ask Shenita — if you both were in communication with him, if you were able to talk to him when he was in the jail? Shenita, let’s start with you. Did he talk to you about the bedbugs, the insects, the infestation, the conditions of the jail?

SHENITA THOMPSON: Like my brother had previously said, we didn’t even know he was in jail, so…

AMY GOODMAN: So the horror of this. A report by the Southern Center for Human Rights found at least 10 people died at the Fulton County Jail last year, and said, quote, “The Fulton County Jail has been understaffed and mismanaged for decades, leading to multiple lawsuits and consent decrees, but the problems have been particularly acute in recent months as Fulton County Sheriff Labat has failed to maintain even existing staff. On September 21st, Labat stated that he had lost more staff than he was able to hire, and as of October 10th there were at least 155 staff vacancies.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has issued a report on how to quickly depopulate the jail, that said, quote, “Fulton County’s failure to account for people’s ability to pay when setting bail is a significant factor in the number of people held in jail,” and found at least 12% of the people were held there due to “inability to pay bail — meaning a wealthier individual with the same charges and bail amount would be released.” Some were held for over two years.

Which brings us to Michael Harper, the attorney for Lashawn’s family. Michael, can you talk about why we are just learning about this case now, and the significance, the impact it has had, I mean, removing 600 prisoners? Talk about what you understand happened, how Lashawn was in that mental health unit of the jail, if you can call it that, what the autopsy means, the photographs that you have that are so horrific.

MICHAEL HARPER: Yeah. Good morning.

Let me start with the photographs, because there is some talk from the sheriff about the authenticity of those photographs and where they came from. Those horrific photographs came directly from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s jail death investigation that was provided to the family from the County Medical Examiner’s Office. They are the exact photos of the cell that Lashawn Thompson was housed in when he died. They are horrible.

But what happened here, as you noted, the jail knew that Lashawn Thompson had mental health issues in June of 2022. They put him in a psychiatric wing of that jail and neglected him. He was there for three months. There are reports, in the incident report from the death, that the officers, as you alluded to, were aware that he was declining, he was in a filthy cell. They complained to their superiors, and nothing happened. He was there until he died, and his body was found infested with those horrible bedbug bites and lice and insects. It is just beyond tragic, what happened to him. He’s mentally ill. He was not able, we believe, to contact his family. He was not able to speak for himself. They held him there. It was their responsibility to make sure he was safe and to make sure that his cell was clean. And remember, Lashawn Thompson was a pretrial detainee. He had not been convicted of any crime. He was being held there until he got his day in court. So they had an obligation to make sure that he was safe.

The new information about the sheriff cleaning house and moving inmates, that’s a wonderful thing to happen. But Lashawn Thompson died in September of last year. The sheriff was well aware of this case then. We believe the measures that he’s taken now are solely based on the international outrage of Lashawn Thompson’s death. We appreciate any change to keep inmates safe, but it should have happened before Lashawn Thompson died, and certainly after he died, before the media attention.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Michael Harper, you’ve represented others who died in the same facility, including William Barnett, a man charged with stealing a lawnmower, and also Antonio May, in 2018, who was beaten to death by six detention officers. Talk about these two related cases and what it indicates about how law enforcement has been dealing with this jail now for years.

MICHAEL HARPER: Yeah, there’s certainly a systemic issue of abuse and neglect at the Fulton County Jail here in Atlanta. Antonio May’s case was horrific. This is a man who also went into the jail with mental health issues. They were well aware. It’s well documented he had mental health issues. He was in a holding cell. When he first came in to be processed, he began removing his clothing, and he allegedly would not put his clothing back on when instructed to by the detention officers. For that small infraction, the DART team, the specialized team at the jail, Direct Action Response Team, went into his holding cell, tased him nine times in a minute and a half, beat him, put him in a restraint chair, took him to a shower area to wash the pepper spray off his face, and his heart went out. And they literally watched him, tied down to a restraint chair. And they had extra restraints. The evidence in that case showed that not just the restraints on the restraint chair, but they used additional restraints, against jail policy. And while he was restrained in that manner, his heart went out in front of them, and he died restrained in that chair. Just a horrific case for such a small, minor infraction.

William Barnett, another tragic case, went to the jail on a misdemeanor. The jail was aware that he had a chemical imbalance. He had low potassium. They sent him out, because he had some health issues, sent him out to the hospital. When he came back to the jail, the instructions from the hospital was for the jail to monitor William Barnett, check his potassium level to make sure that he did not decline. They did nothing. They never gave him more potassium. They never monitored him. And he was found unresponsive, went into cardiac arrest in his cell and died. I mean, these are just inexcusable, horrific deaths.

And let me also say this about the sheriff wanting a new jail. We applaud that, and we agree that we probably need a new jail in Fulton County, but these cases are about neglect. A new jail is not going to stop neglectful detention officers from not caring for mentally ill people. They have to do more training. They have to make sure that the officers are following policy to help those who are least served.

AMY GOODMAN: We wanted to end again with the family of Lashawn. Brad, you’re in Montgomery, in a studio in Alabama, a historic place, where Rosa Parks led the Montgomery bus boycott. You’re not far from Bryan Stevenson’s lynching museum. And, Shenita, I want to begin with your description of your brother. You’re in Winter Haven, Florida. Isn’t that where Lashawn grew up? Can you talk about Lashawn? And also, was he able to get help for his schizophrenia?

SHENITA THOMPSON: Yes, he grew up in Winter Haven, Florida. He went to Winter Haven High School. He loved music. He loved listening to his headphones, and he was always dealing with his headphones. He loved just music and stuff. Getting help for his mental health, yes, he was. But, you know, with mental health, it is hard. It’s just — it’s just heartbreaking, what happened. I’m sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Brad, how do you want us to remember your brother Lashawn?

BRAD McCRAE: Yes, ma’am. I want the world to remember him as I do, as a loving person, a playful person. He loved music. He loved to cook. I want the world to remember him as their cousin, their brother, their uncle, or whatever the case may be, because it could happen to their family, just like it happened to mine.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Michael Harper, there’s going to be a major protest outside the Fulton County Jail on Thursday. Can you talk about what you are demanding and if you have filed suit on behalf of Lashawn?

MICHAEL HARPER: We have not filed any civil suit yet. Right now we’re just trying to raise awareness and bring attention to this horrific case. The rally will be to call for a criminal investigation into the death of Lashawn Thompson. It’s fine to clean house. It is fine to make changes. But someone needs to be held responsible for the horrible neglect that Lashawn Thompson underwent. So we want a criminal investigation into this case. We will also demand that the jail is closed down and that Fulton County builds a new jail. We’re calling the Department of Justice in Washington to launch a civil rights investigation into the jail, as well. And there will be other community leaders there. The Georgia NAACP will be there. A lot of community leaders will be there. This is our jail in Fulton County, and we have to make change.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you all so much for being with us, Michael Harper, the lawyer for Lashawn Thompson’s family, and Lashawn Thompson’s family, sister Shenita Thompson, speaking to us from Winter Haven, Florida, and Lashawn’s brother Brad McCrae, speaking to us from Montgomery, Alabama. Thank you so much. Our condolences to you both.

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invcntions · 1 year ago

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— INVCNTIONS. indie, semi - selective ( and all over the place activity ) multi - muse rp blog. penned by casey, 27, she / her, gmt.

guidelines. wanted plots. muses. wanted opposites. starters.

psa: i've been on tumblr on and off for forever, 10+ years, and i truly mean it when i say things are chilled. drop threads, have hundreds of threads, yell with me till the early hours, send 500 memes. it's literally all good and encouraged.

up to date MUSES under the cut

THE CITY DWELLERS: finley 'finn' spencer-hastings - medical student, homosexual - fc: nick robinson andrew ‘ryder’ ellion - customer relations executive in his family business, pansexual - fc: thomas doherty jaiden walker - artist (trust fund baby), pansexual - fc: archie renaux banks donovan - heir to a luxury jewelry empire, homosexual - fc: mike faist lucas bradshaw - criminal defense lawyer, bisexual - fc: lucien laviscount charlie arlington - detective, homosexual - fc: matt bomber THE FIGHTERS: vance do luca - family leads a branch of an organized crime syndicate, pansexual - fc: adman dimarco radi fischer - gang member/underground boxer, bisexual - fc: emilio sakraya nathaniel 'nate' carrington - motel receptionist, pansexual - fc: aron piper THE SUPERNATURALS: caleb callaway - private investigator, vampire (verse dependent), homosexual - fc: adam brody ada harris - graphic designer, vampire (verse dependent), homosexual - fc: ashley moore juke prescott - bartender, vampire (verse dependent), bisexual- fc: drew starkey cooper prescott - freelance journalist/vampire hunter (verse dependent), bisexual - fc: callum turner THE RUNAWAYS: ashton prescott - app developer/programmer, addict, pansexual, fc: jack lowden sasha jane jones - barista and college student, fashion major, homosexual (closeted) - fc: chase sui wonders archibald 'archie' hart - environmental activist and barista, pansexual - fc: rudy pankow lincoln chandler - card-counter, gambler and occasional con-man, bisexual - fc: chase stokes koa connors - bartender, pansexual - fc: thomas weatherall ethan teller-watson - music student/pianist, pansexual - fc: alessandro bedetti / tom holland (previous)

SECONDARY / TEST MUSES

leo price - f1 driver, pansexual - fc: josh o'connor orlando montgomery - gang leader, bisexual - fc: glen powell oscar nilsson - pansexual - fc: adrian öjvindsson

#for more info on muses you can check out the muses page <3

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beardedmrbean · 2 years ago

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Texas executed Gary Green on Tuesday evening despite questions about whether his intellectual disability and history of mental illness should disqualify him from a death sentence.

Green, 51, was convicted in 2010 for the murder of his wife, Lovetta Armstead, and her 6-year-old daughter, Jazzmen Montgomery, the year before. After Green learned that his wife wanted to annul their marriage, he fatally stabbed Armstead and drowned Montgomery in a bathtub, according to court filings. Green turned himself in to police and confessed to the killings.

"I took not one, but two people that we all loved, and I had to live with that while I was here. I ask that you forgive me, not for me but for y'all. I'm fixing to go home and y'all are going to be here. I want to make sure you don't suffer. You have to forgive me to heal and move on," Green said in his final statement. He was pronounced dead at 7:07 p.m. Tuesday.

Green's lawyers wrote to Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot in late February asking him to join their request to delay Green''s execution so he could undergo further tests of his intellectual disability. Creuzot did not join the motion.

RELATED Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murdering wife, son

While experts testified at his trial that Green likely had schizoaffective disorder, his lawyers say his defense counsel did not adequately look at how the condition impacted his life, or what role it played in the murders. Under Texas law, jurors are allowed to consider mitigating evidence such as mental illness when deciding on a death sentence. Green appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which upheld his conviction and death sentence.

"An explanation of Green's manifestation of schizoaffective disorder would have aided the jury in weighing Green's moral culpability for his offense," Michael Mowla, one of Green's attorneys, said in a statement. "It is clear from Green's statements that his mental state at the time of the crime was heavily influenced by his severe and persistent mental illness, especially as filtered through his severe cognitive limitations."

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 prohibited the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Texas defines intellectual disability based on low IQ scores, with 70 generally considered a threshold; how inmates interact with others and care for themselves; and whether deficiencies in those areas occurred before the age of 18. The lowest IQ score that Green submitted in his state proceedings was 78, placing him in the "borderline" range of intellectual functioning.

Green had planned to "take five lives," he wrote in a letter to Armstead. He attempted to kill Armstead's sons, then ages 9 and 12, but they persuaded him not to, according to court filings. Green then attempted suicide by consuming a large amount of Tylenol and Benadryl. When Green turned himself in to the police hours later, he said he believed the family was plotting against him.

One month before the killings, Green tried to get help at Timberlawn psychiatric hospital in Dallas. He was incorrectly diagnosed, discharged after four days and later unable to continue the antipsychotic medication he was prescribed because of cost.

Green is also involved in an ongoing legal battle over the state's use of expired drugs to kill prisoners. With fewer pharmacies willing to produce execution drugs, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has for years extended the use-by dates for lethal injections, which could make the process more painful.

RELATED Florida executes first inmate since 2019

Inmates say the state prison system should not be allowed to extend the expiration dates of its execution drugs. They claim this practice violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

#nunyas news

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dankusner · 3 days ago

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CHAPTER 8

Yesterday, I had a lady come in that was a victim of family violence.

She had to leave her house with her children very quickly with no time to sather any necessities, such as dothing, medication, so and continued to receive threats through text messaging. She was too scared to go back to the house to get what she needed by herself. We were able to do a writ of retrieval, where a deputy went with her to the house to retrieve her Putting a human face on human misbehavior is something that Texas IPs do every day. And it's hard to forget the ones who slip away, as larrell Hedrick (Martin County) told me.

I had a girl I taught way back a long time ago and, bless her heart, she got picked up several times for incidents with alcohol, and she started running around with some old boys out here that are not savory citizens.

I'm sure they were using her for prostitution and all kinds of bad stuff, and she came in here for public intoxication again. She started to leave my office after I'd adjudicated her and she turned around and said, "Mr.

Hedrick, I love you." I don't know if she was drunk, but I took it as fact.

About a month later she died.

Every once in a while, I think about that.

*In case you're wondering, I-10 doesn't hold the record for highest posted speed limit in Texas. That honor goes to Texas State Highway 130 (officially designated the "Pickle Parkway" in honor of US Congressman J.J. "Jake" Pickle), a Central Texas tollway with a 41-mile section along which drivers may lawfully go 85. It's the highest speed limit in the country.

**A non-attorney JP can sign blood search warrants if two conditions are met: first, the constitutional county judge is not a lawyer, and second, the county doesn't have a statutory county court, whose judge is required to be an attorney. (See footnote at the end of chapter sixteen for the difference between constitutional county courts and statutory county courts.) There has been a recent move to convince the state legislature to add this warrant to the list of those all JPs are allowed to issue, which presently includes search and arrest warrants.

***As I was wrapping up this book, neighboring New Mexico's governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a state law, which, like Colorado, legalizes recreational cannabis. West Texas judges will now be facing an even greater incursion of pot smugglers into the state.

Juvenile Justice

You pull back the layers and there's a child in crisis, there's a child crying out for attention, for help. They're not doing bad things because they're bad kids. They're doing bad things because bad things have happened to them.

-HON. WAYNE L. MACK, MONTGOMERY COUNTY

IN 2015, THE TEXAS state legislature made a significant change in how truancy is handled by the three Texas courts that hear cases related to a child's failure to attend school: municipal courts, constitutional county courts in counties with more than 1.75 million residents, and justice courts. As of September 1 of that year, truancy stopped being classified as a criminal misdemeanor and, from then on, would only be prosecuted as a civil case. The truant child stopped being a "defendant" and became a "respondent." A child who admits to allegations in the petition filed against them, or who is found by the court to have been engaged in conduct that kept him out of class for a specific number of days and within a specified period of time, would be subject to a remedial order from the judge crafted to address the underlying causes for the truancy.

Just as significant: As of September 1, 2015, an individual who had been convicted under the previous applicable section of the Education Code would have her record related to the truancy expunged.

There are JPs who agree wholeheartedly with this decisive step to decriminalize truancy, but others, especially those who have been addressing the problem for many years, believe that the new paradigm for keeping kids in class has rendered the IP close to powerless in response.

Current truancy court procedures, as now mandated by law, require the

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auroraattorney · 24 days ago

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Turn to NED C Khan for reliable help with battery, assault, and aggravated assault cases. Our team knows Criminal Defense inside and out and is dedicated to giving you the best possible support and representation.

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lboogie1906 · 15 days ago

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Bryan A. Stevenson (November 14, 1959) is a lawyer, social justice activist, founder/executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and clinical professor at NYU School of Law. Based in Montgomery, he has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve SCOTUS decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or life imprisonment without parole. He has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for poor people, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.

He wrote the critically acclaimed memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. It was selected by Time magazine as one of the “10 Best Books of Nonfiction” for 2014 and was among the New York Times' “100 Notable Books” for the year. It won the 2015, Andrew Carnegie Medal, for Excellence in Nonfiction and the 2015 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Nonfiction. A film based on the book, called Just Mercy and starring Michael B. Jordan as him, premiered on September 6, 2019, at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released theatrically on December 25, 2019. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

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ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly · 2 months ago

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Republicans have unleashed a flurry of lawsuits challenging voting rules and practices ahead of the November elections, setting the stage for what could be a far larger and more contentious legal battle over the White House after Election Day.

The onslaught of litigation, much of it landing in recent weeks, includes nearly 90 lawsuits filed across the country by Republican groups this year. The legal push is already more than three times the number of lawsuits filed before Election Day in 2020, according to Democracy Docket, a Democratically aligned group that tracks election cases.

Voting rights experts say the legal campaign appears to be an effort to prepare to contest the results of the presidential election after Election Day should former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, lose and refuse to accept his defeat as he did four years ago. The lawsuits are concentrated in swing states — and key counties — likely to determine the race. Several embrace debunked theories about voter fraud and so-called stolen elections that Mr. Trump has promoted since 2020.

In Montgomery County, Pa., the state’s third-largest county, the party is seeking to force local officials to count ballots by hand, evoking debunked conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines. A case filed by the Republican National Committee in Nevada this month falsely asserts that nearly 4,000 noncitizens voted in the state in 2020, a claim that was rejected at the time by the state’s top election official, a Republican.

If successful, the Republicans’ lawsuits would shrink the electorate, largely by disqualifying voters more likely to be Democrats. They seek purges of voter rolls, challenge executive orders from President Biden aimed at expanding ballot access and create stricter requirements to voting by mail.

Election experts, including some Republicans, say a vast majority of the cases are destined to fail, either because they were filed too late or because they are based on unfounded, or outright false, claims.

The volume and last minute timing of the cases, along with statements from party officials and Trump allies, suggest a broader aim behind the effort: Laying the groundwork to challenge results after the vote. The claims in the lawsuits may well be revived — either in court or in the media — if Mr. Trump contests the outcome.

“Many of these cases reinforce particular narratives, particularly those about immigrants and voting,” said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that monitors elections. “Putting false claims in the form of a lawsuit is a way to sanitize and add legitimacy.”

Republican lawyers involved said their work was aimed at creating more confidence in elections.

“Our legal efforts are fighting to fix the problems in the system, hold election officials accountable, protect election safeguards and defend the law,” Gineen Bresso, who is running the election integrity operation for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “While Democrats want a system open to fraud without safeguards, that counts illegal votes, we are committed to securing the election so every legal vote is protected.”

The R.N.C. is leading a broad network of conservative legal groups in the effort. Mr. Trump’s allies, including his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, took over the committee last March, placing Ms. Bresso in charge of the legal operation and promising a more aggressive strategy. After the 2020 election, the party’s lawyers had at times refused to participate in Mr. Trump’s legal campaign, forcing him to rely on a collection of outsiders who filed cases rife with errors and false claims. Several Trump lawyers have since been criminally charged.

Among them is Christina Bobb, who is now senior counsel on the R.N.C.’s election integrity team. Ms. Bobb recently suggested that she was braced for more litigation after Election Day.

“I’m kind of holding my breath for that,” she said on a recent podcast. “I think we’re in probably, at least litigation-wise, as good of a place as we can be before the election.”

Democrats, too, say they are prepared. The Harris campaign says it has a legal team of hundreds of lawyers and thousands of volunteers. They have played more defense than offense, but have picked some key places to intervene. The campaign recently filed a lawsuit in Georgia against the State Election Board after it made refusing to certify results easier for its members.

“We’re doing more defensive interventions than we’ve ever done before,” Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer working for the Harris campaign, said in an interview. “I am a big believer that you do not allow the Republicans to bring serious litigation that goes unresponded to.”

The expanded legal effort represents a strategic gamble for the Republican National Committee. The party has typically spent much of its energy on turning out voters — funding extensive organizing operations that knock on doors, run phone banks and track voters. This year, the Republicans and the Trump campaign have largely outsourced those efforts to allied organizations and redirected resources to litigation and other so-called election integrity efforts.

Many of the leaders are new to the party’s legal team.

Several lawyers aligned with Mr. Trump from the last presidential election — including Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman — have suffered personal consequences, including disbarment and criminal charges, connected to their work.

Two of the G.O.P. lawyers facing felony charges in Arizona related to their work four years ago, Ms. Bobb and Boris Epshteyn, are still in the Trump fold. (All four lawyers have pleaded not guilty.)

Ms. Bobb has remained defiant. “I had the audacity to tell everybody that the election was stolen,” she said in the recent podcast interview, adding, “I think they thought that we would be easier to break.”

Ms. Bresso, however, has a history as an establishment Republican election lawyer. She served on the federal Election Assistance Commission and was for a time associated with a G.O.P. election law firm, Holtzman Vogel. She has said relatively little publicly about Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, although it appears her views may have shifted.

In the early days of the pandemic, she co-wrote an opinion piecearguing that state and local governments needed to be given “flexibility” to adjust to the crisis and that expanded access to mail-in votes “might be part of the solution” though it was “no cure all.”

That perspective was soon rejected by Republicans aligned with Mr. Trump, who came to see the surge of mail voting as an attempt to steal the election. After the 2020 election, Ms. Bresso blamed the Covid-era changes to voting procedures for “this landscape that we have in place right now.”

Since then, Ms. Bresso repeatedly participated in meetings of the Election Integrity Network, a leading group of activists who promote or buy into conspiracy theories about voting. During a panel discussion in 2022, she urged those in attendance to “go out and be a poll worker,” adding, “we need to have eyes on the process.”

Under her direction, the R.N.C. has filed several lawsuits seeking to restrict mail voting, including active cases in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan and North Carolina.

The committee has also sought to remove voters from the rolls, filing several recent cases based on false claims that Democrats are signing up vast numbers of illegal immigrants to vote. Some have already been dismissed.

“Democrats continue to put noncitizens first and Americans last as they allow noncitizens to vote,” Michael Whatley, the chairman of the R.N.C., said in a recent news release announcing the Nevada lawsuit.

Studies of prosecutions and state voter data have shown it is very rare for noncitizens to cast ballots.

“The one thing they need in court is evidence,” said Ty Cobb, a former White House lawyer under Mr. Trump, who bemoaned the revival of old falsehoods. “They didn’t have any last time, and they’re unlikely to have any this time.”

Yet, Republicans have found no shortage of allies eager to jump into the legal work.

The list includes America First Legal, a group run by Stephen Miller, a close Trump associate and former policy adviser, and the America First Policy Institute, led by Linda McMahon, a leader of Mr. Trump’s transition team.

The institute has filed election cases in Georgia, Arizona and Texas. In Wisconsin it is defending the town of Thornapple, a tiny community that last week was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for banning voting machines. The Justice Department says the ban violates accessibility requirements, and election experts argue it will disrupt the vote count.

Some of the institute’s lawsuits are aimed at giving local election officials authority to refuse to certify results.

United Sovereign Americans, a group that describes itself as nonpartisan, has filed lawsuits in nine states. The cases zero in on potential anomalies and minor errors in the voting rolls. The group contends the issues must be resolved before election officials certify the results.

State lawyers have pointed to problems with both the group’s numbers and its approach. A lawyer responding for Pennsylvania wrote in a filing, “Their questions about dates on paperwork, for example, are both factually baseless and irrelevant” to federal law.

Marly Hornik, a co-founder of the group, said it is trying to ensure that U.S. citizens can participate in “an election that is fairly and honestly conducted.”

The group’s lead lawyer is Bruce Castor, a former district attorney in Pennsylvania and Mr. Trump’s defense lawyer in his second impeachment trial. Mr. Castor acknowledged that if the group’s cases don’t succeed before November the arguments could be used to mount challenges after Election Day.

If the results are close enough, a losing candidate can look to the group for evidence of “anomalies” in the vote and decide to contest the result, he said.

“I’ll say, ‘How much money do you have left over from the campaign fund?’” Mr. Castor said. “If he has enough, I think I’d have to hire people to look into it.”

New York Times

By Danny HakimAlexandra Berzon and Nick Corasaniti

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/politics/trump-2024-presidential-campaign-election-lawsuits.html

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piece-of-the-pie-if · 1 year ago

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So, what exactly is the scope of Kinsley's influence over the school and the town? Because while I definitely don't advocate violence (well, duh), I will be very shocked if no one, you know, punched her since she likes (or used to like) being mean so much, in a "talk shit, get hit" kinda way. No way she didn't test some people's patience with her shenanigans that they willingly decided to face whatever the consequences that might come if they get to put some fear of God in her.

That's not to say I want there to be an option to beat her up, although I think a catfight would be fun because what high school drama doesn't have them (albeit I mostly saw the verbal catfights in my school years, but I know the girls in question always wanted to beat each other up so bad).

Plus the fun of said catfight being misrepresented in the rumor mill as being over Dylan instead of MC having had enough of Kinsley's bullshit.

Although I guess that would be problematic based on what gender you choose your MC to be: most wouldn't take lightly to a boy beating up a girl, after all.

Uh, basically, I'm just trying to ask if Kinsley ever met the consequences of her actions in the past or most people were too scared to do so for a variety of reasons.

So Kinsley's parents are all very influential people. Her mother's both come from quite wealthy families and are both lawyers in their respective fields. (Emilia Grace was a criminal defense lawyer and Lavender Cameron is corporate/business lawyer) Kinsley's father (Jared Montgomery), though he is only in her life sparsely as he is only a sperm donor, is part of New York's municipal government.

In all honesty, Kinsley is a bit of a nepotism baby──most of her popularity comes from her last name because Grace-Cameron is a private law firm that deals with very high class clients, and her connection to New York's governing people. (Fun fact, J's mother is the Mayor of New York in this story and Jared Montgomery is J's uncle)

Most people are scared of getting in trouble with the Grace-Cameron's more than Kinsley herself... so she gets away with a lot.

My main inspirations for KGC is Regina George (mean girls) Caroline Forbes (the vampire diaries) and Dylan Schoenfield (geek charming) so take from that what you will!

I might play around with the option of giving f!MCs the chance to... get into it with her if they continue to have a bad relationship.

Kinsley's not afraid to get scrappy... she just doesn't do it where others can see her do it🤭

#piece of the pie if #kinsley grace-cameron

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head-post · 2 months ago

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US soldier Travis King sentenced to one year for desertion after fleeing into North Korea

US Army soldier Travis King, who fled into North Korea last year, was sentenced to 12 months in prison after pleading guilty to desertion and prior incidents as part of a plea agreement.

“The outcome of today’s court martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offences committed by Pvt King,” Major Allyson Montgomery said.

King faced 14 charges. He pleaded guilty to five charges: desertion, assaulting a non-commissioned officer, and three instances of disobeying an officer among the charges in a deal that was accepted by a military judge on Friday. The US Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel confirmed King’s guilty plea as part of a deal and said that “pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement, all other charges and specifications were dismissed.”

Franklin Rosenblatt, the soldier’s lawyer, stated on Friday that King was released for good conduct and time served.

The judge, under the terms of the plea deal, sentenced Travis to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonourable discharge. With time already served and credit for good behaviour, Travis is now free and will return home. Travis King has faced significant challenges throughout his life, including a difficult upbringing, exposure to criminal environments and struggles with mental health. All these factors have compounded the hardships he faced in the military, according to his lawyer.

In July 2023, he was on deployment in South Korea and was due to return to Texas to face disciplinary hearings following a drunken bar fight and a stint in a South Korean prison. Instead, he exited the airport in the Seoul area, joined a tour group in the demilitarised zone, and crossed the border, where he faced detention. Pyongyang claimed that King fled to North Korea to escape abuse and racial discrimination in the US Army. However, after completing its investigation, North Korea decided in September to expel King for illegally entering its territory.