Las Vegas

US COVID Deaths Top 250,000 as New York City Schools Halt in-Person Classes

Nearly 79,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in US hospitals as of Wednesday, the highest number yet for a single day, up from about 75,000 on Tuesday.

New York: The US death toll from COVID-19 surpassed a grim new milestone of 250,000 lives lost on Wednesday, as NewYork City‘s public school system, the nation’s largest, called a halt to in-classroom instruction, citing a jump in coronavirus infection rates.

The decision to shutter schools and revert exclusively to at-home learning, starting on Thursday, came as state and local officials nationwide imposed restrictions on social and economic life to tamp down a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations heading into winter.

But eight months after New York City emerged as the nation’s first major flashpoint of the epidemic – its hospitals besieged and streets virtually devoid of human activity – the epicentre of the public health crisis has shifted to the upper Midwest.

Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, one of several states in the region dogged by the country’s highest case rates per capita, ordered all restaurants, bars, fitness centres and entertainment venues closed, and all youth sports cancelled, for four weeks.

More than 90% of hospitals’ intensive-care unit beds are already occupied in the eastern half of the state, Walz told an evening news briefing, adding: “We are at a dangerous point in this pandemic.”

The action by New York schools, announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio via Twitter, doubtless came as a relief to some teachers, many of whom have expressed fear of being placed at increased risk of exposure to the highly contagious respiratory virus.

But it will bring renewed hardship for working parents forced to make childcare arrangements once more.

“I could lose my job. … I am stuck between bills and my son, and it’s a hard choice. Really hard,” said Felix Franco, 30, a US Postal Service employee who has been on leave recovering from COVID-19 himself since spring and was planning to return to work in two weeks.

Franco, who said he had no one else lined up to care for his 6-year-old son during the school day, is already behind on his monthly car bill and racking up credit card debt.

New York City has seen a late-autumn resurgence of the virus after a summertime lull. Schools have been following a staggered, part-time system of classroom instruction since September, with 1.1 million students dividing their school week between in-person and online learning.

But de Blasio said all instruction would switch back to distance learning again because of the positive rate on coronavirus tests in the city rose to a seven-day average of 3%, the threshold for ceasing in-person classes.

Also read: COVID-19: Moderna Vaccine Is Second To Exceed Expectations

“We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19,” he said.

New York joins other large school districts in cities like Boston and Detroit that have recently cancelled in-person learning. Within the past week, the Clark County School District, which includes Las Vegas and is the fifth-largest in the United States, and Philadelphia’s public school system both postponed plans to return to in-person instruction.

Hospitalisations surging

As of Wednesday, COVID-19 had claimed at least 250,016 lives in the United States, which has documented about 11.5 million infections since the pandemic emerged, according to a Reuters tally of public healthcare data. The United States leads the world in both categories.

More than 1,400 of those victims perished during the past 24 hours.

Nearly 79,000 COVID-19 patients were reported in U.S. hospitals as of Wednesday, the highest number yet for a single day, up from about 75,000 on Tuesday, Reuters’ tally showed.

Health experts say greater social mixing and indoor gatherings during the holiday season, combined with colder weather, could accelerate the surge, threatening to overwhelm already strained healthcare systems.

NBC News reported on Wednesday that more than 900 Mayo Clinic personnel in Minnesota and Wisconsin had been diagnosed withCOVID-19 in the past two weeks – nearly a third of the cases among the medical centre’s Midwestern staff since March.

The Midwest has become the new U.S. epicentre of contagion, reporting almost a half-million cases during the week ending on Monday.

Students ride on a scooter after exiting school, following the announcement to close New York City public schools, as the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to rise, in Brooklyn, New York, US, November 18, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, which encompasses Cleveland, ordered residents on Wednesday to stay at home “to the greatest extent possible” through December 17, 2020, in response to “an unprecedented recent surge of severely ill patients requiring hospitalization.”

Government officials in at least 21 states, representing both sides of the U.S. political divide, have issued sweeping new public health mandates this month. Those range from stricter limits on social gatherings and non-essential businesses to new requirements for wearing masks in public places.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday called the wave of new restrictions an overreach by state and local officials.

Also read: COVID-19 Has Shown Why Latin America Needs Active Non-Alignment

“The American people know how to protect their health,” she told Fox News in an interview. “We don’t lose our freedom in this country. We make responsible health decisions as individuals.”

Public health experts were less sanguine.

“I’m the most concerned I’ve been since this pandemic started,” Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNN on Wednesday.

Forty-one U.S. states have reported daily record increases in COVID-19 cases on November 20, 2020, have registered all-time highs in coronavirus-related deaths from day to day and 26 have reported peaks in hospitalisations, according to the Reuters tally.

In Washington, pressure for a fresh COVID-19 economic relief bill mounted in Congress. Senate Democrats also unveiled legislation to ramp up the national supply of personal protective equipment for healthcare and other frontline workers.

(Reuters)

Autopsy Finds Gunman Who Killed 58 People in Las Vegas Took Anti-Anxiety Drug

The autopsy also confirmed that the gunman, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired real estate investor and high-stakes gambler, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

People gather at a makeshift memorial in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard following the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, October 4, 2017. Credits: Reuters/Chris Wattie

The Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people and himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history was found to have had anti-anxiety medication in his system, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, citing a newly obtained autopsy report.

The autopsy also confirmed that the gunman, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired real estate investor and high-stakes gambler, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the newspaper said.

The Clark County Coroner’s Office declined to immediately respond to a request from Reuters seeking a copy of the report, which the Review-Journal said it obtained after a judge ordered the medical examiner to release it last week to news organisations.

Paddock strafed a crowd of outdoor concertgoers with rapid-fire gunshots from his 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel the night of October 1 before police stormed his room to find him dead amid a large cache of high-powered weapons and ammunition.

Authorities said in the immediate aftermath of the rampage that the gunman had fatally shot himself but left no suicide note. No motive for the massacre, which also left several hundred people injured, has ever been established.

There was nothing in the Review-Journal’s story on Friday to suggest that the autopsy records shed any additional light on what may have driven Paddock to carry out the bloodiest US shooting spree on record.

It said that the Clark County coroner, John Fudenberg, had found anti-anxiety medication in Paddock’s system, but the Review-Journal did not make clear whether further details of that finding were disclosed in the new autopsy report.

The newspaper reported several days after the killings that a local doctor had prescribed Paddock the drug diazepam, known by the brand name Valium, which is used for treating anxiety and alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

The Review-Journal also has reported that Fudenberg sent a sample of Paddock’s brain tissue to Stanford University School of Medicine in October for a neuropathological examination to look for signs of possible disorders that might have explained Paddock’s violent behaviour.

Lawsuit Filed Against Bump Stock Makers by Las Vegas Shooting Victims

The lawsuit by three Nevada residents who attended the festival does not involve the injuries that hundreds of people suffered as a result of the shooting, or the families of the 58 people who were killed.

A bump fire stock that attaches to a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firing rate is seen at Good Guys Gun Shop in Orem, Utah, US, October 4, 2017. Credit: Reuters

New York: A lawsuit seeking to represent the victims of the Las Vegas rampage, the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, was filed against the makers of so-called bump stocks, which the shooter used to achieve a near-automatic rate of fire.

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed in state court in Clark County, Nevada, over the weekend and announced on Tuesday, accuses Slide Fire Solutions and other unnamed manufacturers of negligence leading to the infliction of emotional distress on thousands of people who witnessed or were injured in the October 1 shooting at a Las Vegas music festival.

Moran, Texas-based Slide Fire did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Authorities said shooter Stephen Paddock’s ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute over a 10-minute period from his perch in a 32nd-floor hotel suite was a major factor in the high casualty count. Paddock, 64, killed himself before police stormed his suite.

Bump stocks allow semiautomatic rifles to operate as if they were fully automatic machine guns, which are heavily restricted in the US.

Timothy Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University and author of a book on gun litigation, said the lawsuit faced very long odds due to a law passed by Congress in 2005 that shields manufacturers of firearms, component parts or ammunition from liability if their products are used to commit a crime.

“The only way the plaintiffs can survive is if the court accepts the idea that a bump stock accessory is not covered under the US Congress’ components parts definition,” Lytton said, adding that the lawsuit did not present novel legal arguments.

The lawsuit was filed with support from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a US nonprofit organisation that advocates gun control.

In a rare embrace of a new gun control measure, the National Rifle Association last week said it was open to regulating bump stock devices.

The lawsuit said Paddock used a bump stock manufactured by Slide Fire and alleged the company did nothing to prevent the devices from being sold to people they were not intended for.

The complaint accused Slide Fire of misleadingly marketing its bump stocks as intended to aid people with limited hand mobility, allowing them to sell the product under federal law.

The lawsuit said the company acted with fraud, oppression and malice towards plaintiffs and showed an intention and willingness to injure people. The Nevada plaintiffs are seeking unspecified punitive damages.

They also asked the court to approve a supervised programme of psychological monitoring for everyone affected by the shooting at the expense of Slide Fire.

(Reuters)

New Las Vegas Shooting Timeline Raises Questions on Police Response

Stephen Paddock shot a hotel security guard six minutes before beginning to fire on the crowd, not after, as first thought.

The “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign is surrounded by flowers and items, left after the October 1 mass shooting, in Las Vegas, Nevada US October 9, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Las Vegas police faced new questions on Tuesday over their response to last week’s deadly mass shooting, after releasing a revised chronology in which the gunman shot a security officer before, not after, opening fire from his high-rise hotel window.

The updated timeline for the bloodiest case of gun violence in recent US history raised new uncertainty over why Stephen Paddock ceased firing on concertgoers once he began, and whether hotel security and police coordinated as well as first believed.

Aden Ocampo-Gomez, spokesman of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, declined to comment on the revised chronology, saying the agency would discuss the implications later.

Paddock, 64, killed 58 people and injured hundreds in a hail of bullets from his suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, overlooking a music festival, and then shot himself to death before police could storm his room.

Nine days later, his motive remains a mystery.

Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who oversees the police department, on Monday said Paddock shot a hotel security guard six minutes before beginning to fire on the crowd. By coincidence, the security officer, Jesus Campos, had been sent to check an open-door alarm on the same floor.

Officials initially said Paddock began raining gunfire onto the concert first, then stopped shooting after strafing the 32nd-floor hallway through the doorway of his room, when Campos was apparently detected via security cameras the gunman had set up outside his suite.

Earlier police accounts said a wounded Campos helped direct police to the room occupied by Paddock, who had quit firing on concertgoers by then. Lombardo originally said police officers reached the 32nd floor within 12 minutes of the first reports of the attack.

That sequence of events was changed in Monday’s new timeline issued by Lombardo.

“What we have learned is (the security guard) was encountered by the suspect prior to his shooting to the outside world,” Lombardo said.

Lombardo did not address whether the mass shooting could have been prevented, or halted sooner, based on the new chronology, but said it remained unclear why Paddock stopped firing on the concert when he did.

In an active shooter situation, response time can be as fast as three minutes, said Sid Heal, a retired Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department commander and tactical expert.

He questioned why it took police as long as it did to reach the room, if hotel security had called them immediately.

“Someone needs to account for those minutes,” he added.

Nevada Lieutenant Governor Mark Hutchison acknowledged to CNN on Tuesday that Paddock did not stop firing because of the guard, Jesus Campos, as had been assumed initially.

Campos immediately alerted the hotel’s in-house security team after he was shot at 9:59 pm, six minutes before Paddock first opened fire on the concert, according to Lombardo.

But police were not aware Campos had been shot until they met him in the hallway, Lombardo said on Monday. The sheriff has estimated the time of their rendezvous at 10:18 pm, three minutes after Paddock had stopped firing.

Rather than storm Paddock’s suite immediately, police paused to assemble their SWAT team and burst into his room to find him dead 81 minutes after the shooting began, according to the original account.

Protocol for Las Vegas hotels and casinos is to barricade the corridor where a shooting takes place and wait for police to arrive, said David Shepherd, a security expert who advises Las Vegas police and who ran the security team at the Venetian hotel on the Vegas Strip for eight years.

Police are trained to wait and negotiate with a shooter, rather than storm the room immediately, he said. Initial reports of multiple shooters at several hotels that night would also have confused police, he added.

“One of the biggest priorities is not to lose the life of a police officer,” Shepherd said by telephone. “So in those six minutes, it is highly unlikely police would have stormed that room.”

Police and security officers acted as quickly as possible in the circumstances, said David Hickey, the president of the union that represents Campos, based on what he had heard.

Officials with MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay, questioned the latest chronology from police.

“We cannot be certain about the most recent timeline that has been communicated publicly, and we believe what is currently being expressed may not be accurate,” the company said in a statement late on Tuesday.

(Reuters)

Las Vegas Gunman’s Girlfriend Denies Any Advance Knowledge of Massacre

Marilou Danley, who returned late on Tuesday from a family visit to the Philippines, is regarded by investigators as a “person of interest”.

Flowers are seen next to the site of the Route 91 music festival mass shooting outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. October 3, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Las Vegas: The girlfriend of the Las Vegas gunman who killed 58 people and himself in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history was questioned by the FBI on Wednesday and said she had no idea he was “planning violence against anyone”.

Marilou Danley, who returned late on Tuesday from a family visit to the Philippines and is regarded by investigators as a “person of interest,” said through a lawyer that the carnage Stephen Paddock unleashed while she was abroad caught her completely unaware.

“He never said anything to me or took any action that I was aware of that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen,” Danley, 62, said in a written statement read to reporters by her attorney in Los Angeles, where the FBI was questioning her.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation official in Las Vegas, meanwhile, said no one has been taken into custody.

But Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters he found it hard to believe that the arsenal of weapons, ammunition and explosives recovered by police in their investigation could have been assembled by Paddock completely on his own.

Image released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department of Marilou Danley in connection to a shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, US, October 2, 2017. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/Handout. Credit: Reuters

“You have to make an assumption that he had some help at some point,” Lombardo said at a news briefing. Lombardo said the attack was the obvious outcome of meticulous planning.

“What we know is that Stephen Paddock is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and living a secret life, much of which will never be fully understood,” the sheriff said.

Nearly 500 people were also injured when Paddock, 64, strafed an outdoor concert with gunfire on Sunday night from his 32nd-floor suite of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

He took his own life before police stormed his room, bringing the total death toll to 59.

Police recovered nearly 50 firearms from three locations they searched, nearly half of them from the hotel suite. Twelve of the rifles there were fitted with so-called bump stocks, officials said, allowing the guns to be fired almost as though they were automatic weapons.

In response to a question, Lombardo said investigators were examining the possibility Paddock’s purchase of more than 30 guns in October 2016 may have been precipitated by some triggering event in his life. He did not elaborate.

If Paddock did have any accomplice, there remained no evidence as yet “to indicate terrorism” in the shooting spree, said Aaron Rouse, FBI special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office.

Earlier in the day, US President Donald Trump visited Las Vegas, marking the first time since taking office that he has had to confront a major mass shooting.

‘Caring, quiet man’

In her statement after being questioned in Los Angeles, Paddock’s girlfriend Danley insisted she knew Paddock as “a kind, caring, quiet man.”

“It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone.” Her lawyer, Matt Lombard, said Danley was “fully cooperating” with the investigation.

Danley, an Australian citizen of Filipino heritage, said she flew back to the US voluntarily “because I know that the FBI and Las Vegas Police Department wanted to talk to me, and I wanted to talk to them.”

Danley, who was twice married before her relationship with Paddock, became a focus of the investigation for having shared his retirement community condo in Mesquite, Nevada, northeast of Las Vegas, before leaving the US for the Philippines in mid-September.

FBI agents met her plane at Los Angeles International Airport before interviewing her, two US officials briefed on the case told Reuters. As of midday Wednesday, there was no indication she was aware of Paddock’s plans, they said.

Investigators questioned her about Paddock’s weapons purchases, a $100,000 wire transfer to a Philippine bank that appeared to be intended for her, and whether she saw any changes in his behavior before she left the US

“Assuming she had no role in his actions, the most important thing is any light she can shed on Paddock’s motive,” said one official, who spoke about the investigation on condition of anonymity.

Danley said Paddock had bought her an airline ticket to visit her family and wired her money to purchase property there, leading her to worry he might be planning to break up with her.

Paddock’s brother Eric told reporters the $100,000 transfer was evidence that “Steve took care of the people he loved,” and that he likely wanted to protect Danley by sending her overseas before the attack.

She arrived in Manila on September 15, flew to Hong Kong on September 22, returned to Manila on September 25 and was there until she flew to Los Angeles on Tuesday night, according to a Philippine immigration official.

Discerning Paddock’s motive has proven especially baffling given the absence of the indicators typical in other mass shootings. He had no criminal record, no known history of mental illness and no outward signs of social disaffection, political discontent or extremist ideology, police said.

Trump, touring a hospital in Las Vegas, told reporters Paddock was “very demented,” and he asked Lombardo if investigators were any closer to establishing a motive.

“We’ve had a couple good leads and we’re working our way through it,” Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told the president.

(Reuters)

Even in His Own Retirement Town Las Vegas Suspect Was a Mystery

By all accounts, Paddock was a man of few words who never sought to interact with others beyond his live-in companion, Marilou Danley, a 62-year-old former casino employee.

Stephen Paddock, 64, the gunman who attacked the Route 91 Harvest music festival in a mass shooting in Las Vegas, is seen in an undated social media photo obtained by Reuters on October 3, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Mesquite, Nevada: In the quiet cul-de-sac where Stephen Paddock lived, even his immediate neighbors say they didn’t know him.

Some say they never set eyes on the man accused of spraying an outdoor concert with bursts of gunfire from high above in a Las Vegas hotel window on Sunday, killing 58 and wounding more than 500, before shooting himself.

Tracing Paddock’s footsteps in Mesquite, the Nevada desert retirement community about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Las Vegas, provides scant clues about why, according to authorities, he carried out the worst mass shooting in recent US history. Hardly anyone noticed the man.

“Nobody knew him. I literally never saw him,” said a neighbor who lives two doors down from Paddock’s home and who declined to be named. “The house was so quiet, we thought they were snowbirds,” he added, referring to retirees who spent the winter months in warm-weather places like Mesquite.

Garbage cans were put out on the street before anyone else was even awake, leaving no opportunity for casual chats with neighbors living just feet away. Yard work was done by gardeners. Pizza came directly to the door, and as far as anyone knew, Paddock never took part in bingo or bocce, or any of the social activities provided by the retirement community.

By all accounts, Paddock was a man of few words who never sought to interact with others beyond his live-in companion, Marilou Danley, a 62-year-old former casino employee described by authorities as person of interest in the investigation.

Neighbours immediately next to Paddock’s mustard-colored stucco home, landscaped with stones and desert plants, displayed a sign on their door: “We did not know him.”

The mangled remains of Paddock’s garage door sat in his driveway, after authorities searched the home on Monday, uncovering a cache of 19 firearms, explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Paddock, who worked as an apartment manager and aerospace industry worker over the years, was known as an avid gambler. He would venture out of his Mesquite home frequently to play poker at the local casinos, where regulars recalled his face but little more.

The 64-year-old would often stop at Starbucks, where baristas remembered him as quiet and “in his own world.”

And according to one barista, Paddock appeared “rude” when he ordered a Mocha Frappucino for Danley, instead of letting her order for herself.

“He didn’t let her talk,” the employee said.

Paddock seemed more sociable to those who delivered him pizza from Domino’s 14 times in recent months. A good tipper, Paddock paid cash and always ordered the same thing – two medium mushroom pizzas with extra cheese.

Sometimes he would tell the delivery person he was trying to lose weight and the pizza was only for his companion.

Domino’s employee Jessie Givens recalled that Paddock would joke to her: “It’s not fair! She gets to eat pizza – and I don’t.”

Danley, who was in the Philippines at the time of the attack, returned to the US late on Tuesday, arriving in Los Angeles from Manila. She could reveal more clues about Paddock’s motives when investigators interview her.

Paddock was known to have previous relationships, none of them recent.

Court records show that he got married in 1977. The couple separated in 1979 before their divorce was finalised in 1980 in Los Angeles County.

Five years later, Paddock married again, separating in 1989 and divorcing in 1990, also in Los Angeles County, according to court and public records.

In both cases, divorce papers cited irreconcilable differences.

(Reuters)

Las Vegas Attack: 59 Killed, 512 Injured In Deadliest Mass Shooting in Modern US History

ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre, but US officials said there was no evidence of that.

Las Vegas Metro Police and medical workers stage in the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. Credit: Reuters/Las Vegas Sun/Steve/Marcus

Las Vegas, Nevada: A retiree armed with multiple assault rifles strafed an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas from a high-rise hotel window on Sunday, slaughtering at least 59 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history before killing himself.

The barrage of gunfire from the 32nd-floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people came in extended bursts that lasted several minutes, as throngs of terrified music fans desperately cowered on the open ground, hemmed in by fellow concertgoers, while others at the edge tried to flee.

More than 525 people were injured – some by gunfire or shrapnel, some trampled – in the pandemonium adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip as police scrambled to locate the assailant.

Police identified the gunman as Stephen Paddock, 64, who lived in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada. Authorities said they believed he acted alone, though his motive was unknown.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre, but US officials said there was no evidence of that.

At least a dozen people were in critical condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas where the most seriously injured victims were taken, a spokeswoman said.

Las Vegas Metro Police officers gather near the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. early October 2, 2017. Reuters/Las Vegas Sun/Steve Marcus

The preliminary death toll, which officials said could rise, surpassed last year’s record massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS.

The dead in Las Vegas included a nurse, a government employee and an off-duty police officer.

Shocked survivors, some with blood on their clothing, wandered streets after the shooting, where the flashing lights of the city’s gaudy casinos blended with those of emergency vehicles.

Police said Paddock had no criminal record. The gunman killed himself before police entered the hotel room from where he was firing, Clark county sheriff Joseph Lombardo told reporters.

“We have no idea what his belief system was,” Lombardo said. “I can’t get into the mind of a psychopath.”

Federal officials said there was no evidence to link Paddock to militant organizations.

“We have determined to this point no connection with an international terrorist group,” Aaron Rouse, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Las Vegas, told reporters.

CIA spokesman Jonathan Liu, said in a separate email: “We advise caution on jumping to conclusions before the facts are in.”

(Reuters)

White Las Vegas Police Officer Charged for Choking Black Man to Death

The officer said he believed the man was trying to hijack a truck, but evidence from body cameras and witnesses suggests no such potential crime.

Officer Kenneth Lopera, charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a black man, is seen in this booking photo released by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, June 5, 2017. Courtesy LVMPD/Reuters

A white police officer in Las Vegas was arrested on Monday and charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of a black man held in a chokehold for more than a minute, officials said.

Officer Kenneth Lopera was charged on the same day the Clark County Coroner’s Office ruled the May 14 death of Tashii Farmer, 40, near the Las Vegas Strip was a homicide due to police restraint.

The coroner also found Farmer’s enlarged heart and methamphetamine intoxication were contributing factors.

The two charges of involuntary manslaughter and oppression under color of office brought against Lopera, which could each carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison if he is convicted, follow a number of deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of the police in the US that have spawned protests and the Black Lives Matter movement.

“The charges are the result of the coroner’s findings along with evidence gathered from video surveillance, [police] body-worn cameras and witness statements,” Las Vegas Sheriff Joseph Lombardo, who overseas the police department that employs Lopera, said at a news conference.

Farmer, who also went by the last name Brown, approached the officer on May 14 inside the Venetian Hotel, saying he believed people were chasing him, police have said. Farmer, who was sweating and looked panicked, then ran into a restricted area.

Lopera ran after Farmer, catching up to him outside the hotel where he tried to arrest Farmer, police have said.

With hotel security guards helping him, the officer used a Taser in an unsuccessful attempt to stun Farmer into submission and later held him in a chokehold, according to police.

After Lopera released Farmer from the chokehold, Farmer was no longer breathing. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Lopera, who has been placed on unpaid leave, was arrested and booked into jail on Monday. The Las Vegas Police Protective Association paid $6,000 to have him released on bail, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, citing the police union’s president, Steve Grammas.

“We will be representing the officer to the fullest extent that we can,” Grammas told the newspaper.

Grammas could not be reached for comment late on Monday.

Lopera tried to arrest Farmer because the officer believed Farmer was trying to hijack a truck, but investigators later concluded Farmer would not have been charged with a crime for his actions had he lived, police have said.

(Reuters)

Can Trump Create Millions of Jobs? Don’t Bet On It

A study of the three casinos Donald Trump owned in Atlantic City shows they performed far worse than their rivals, losing more jobs and revenue.

There’s little left of the Trump legacy in Atlantic City. Credit: Reuters/Mark Makela

Donald Trump claims he should be president in part because he has succeeded at creating jobs and businesses.

While the foundation of his business empire was in New York real estate and construction – thanks to “a million-dollar loan” from his father – he spent about 25 years owning and/or managing casinos in Atlantic City, which sought to rival Las Vegas as America’s gambling capital.

These experiences, he argues, make him uniquely qualified for the oval office. He also claims he would create 25 million jobs over the next decade as president. This, in his mind, entitles him to speak for America’s working class.

“I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people,” he said during a Republican primary debate earlier this year. “I’ve created tens of thousands of jobs and a great company.”

Trump’s business background is one of the top reasons people cite for supporting him. His claims of corporate success and the creation of “tens of thousands” of jobs invite scrutiny, however, which I provide in my new working paper, ‘Making America worse: Jobs and money at Trump casinos, 1997-2010.’

In the paper, I compare the performance of his three Atlantic City casinos – the Trump Taj Mahal, the Trump Plaza and the Trump Marina – against that of their rivals over a 14-year period.

Even if one does not ordinarily vote on the basis of evidence, I hope that the details presented in my paper help clarify a critical issue in this election.

Why focus on casinos

The casino data presented and analysed in my working paper are not like other anecdotes about Trump.

His job-creating performance in other industries, such as construction, is much harder to compare with his peers. Like unsubstantiated claims about his personal wealth and taxes, we cannot assess Trump’s claims about job creation in other contexts because there is no available evidence about it.

His casinos are different. New Jersey requires casino licensees to report extensive jobs and revenue data, which are readily available on the internet. The data are also audited, making them more reliable.

As for why I focused on this time frame, 1997 was the peak year of employment for Atlantic City casinos and it is also the first year for which New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission (CCC) posted casino jobs and revenue data on its website (revenue data start in 1999). I end in 2010 because that was the year Trump lost control of his casinos after the third of their four bankruptcies. I use data for all casinos in Atlantic City except The Sands and The Borgata, as they did not report data for all years in the study.

During this period, while Trump was the casinos’ chief executive officer, board chair and/or dominant shareholder, Atlantic City went from a booming resort to an eventual bust. All its casinos were hurt, but, on average, Trump’s suffered worst of all. Indeed, all three Trump casinos have closed or soon will.

What the data show

The average headcount at Trump’s Atlantic City casinos declined by 50% during the period, from 4,926 employees in 1997 to 2,463 in 2010, for a mean loss of 2,463 per location. The average non-Trump casino, by contrast, lost 35% of its employees, dropping from 4,468 to 2,921 for a loss of 1,547 jobs. In other words, Trump lost an average of about 900 more employees per casino than his competitors, a 37% difference.

Graphical representation of ‘losing job’. Credit: CCC

As for their financial performance, average revenues for Trump’s casinos fell 42%, from US $377 million in 1999 to $220 million in 2010. Revenue at the average non-Trump casino, by contrast, declined 27% in the same period, from $394 million to $286 million. While the entire Atlantic City casino industry suffered as neighbouring states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut eased gambling laws, Trump’s performed significantly worse, as their revenue on average fell $50 million per casino more than his rivals’ – or a third more.

Graphical representation of Credit: CCC

These findings are statistically significant, meaning that the Trump casinos’ poor performance was not random. It had something specifically to do with how they were run. In particular, it means that if you worked at a Trump casino, you were nearly 40% more likely to lose your job than if you worked at one of the others.

If that is what he did for his casinos’ employees, it is fair to ask whether he would do better for American workers as president.

Trump supporters may object and point out that he did, indeed, create jobs, even if his casinos ultimately lost half of them under his watch. They could also emphasise that all Atlantic City casinos were in trouble, due to regional competition as well as two economic recessions in the period.

The response to these objections is that this is about relative performance. In head-to-head competition – with the same businesses in the same place and time, facing the same challenges – Trump’s casinos performed worse, on average, than their peers at creating sustainable jobs.

His casinos were not the “best” and not even “average” – they were the worst.

Why this matters

These findings are important for three reasons.

First and perhaps not surprisingly, even as his casinos languished, Trump certainly did well for himself. He has bragged that “Atlantic City fuelled a lot of growth for me” and that “[T]he money I took out of there was incredible.”

Based on securities and court filings, I found that from 2001 to 2005, he earned at least $16 million from the casinos, or $3.2 million per year. This included a base salary of $1.5 million per year as CEO and chairman of Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts until 2004, when the casinos commenced their second bankruptcy. Although he lost his position as CEO, he remained chair of the board and agreed to make promotional appearances for the casinos. For doing so, he got a raise – to $2 million.

This means that, according to one report, Trump earned about six times the average base pay of US casino executives. According to CCC data, it also means that Trump received about 120 times the $26,000/year employees at his casinos earned on average.

Second, Trump did not get rich in Atlantic City because the casinos were profitable in this period. Instead, his wealth came in part from causing the casinos to borrow heavily and then slashing that debt in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Trump himself admitted that he “used the Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws of our country in four instances, much as many of our country’s elite business people do.”

Trump has failed to acknowledge, however, that no major business in America has gone through bankruptcy as often as his casinos. According to the LoPucki-UCLA Bankruptcy Research Database, only a few large companies have used Chapter 11 more than twice. Among large businesses, only the Trump casinos went through the process four times (three while under his ownership or control).

Trump has justified his casinos’ repeated use of bankruptcy as “an effective and commonly used practice … to restructure a business and ultimately save jobs.” While this is one reason Congress created Chapter 11, the evidence shows that Trump somehow twisted the process to benefit himself, even as the casinos continued to haemorrhage jobs and lose money.

Third, Trump’s claims about job creation are unusually important. Presidential candidates often make improbable claims and Trump is no exception. Voters may dismiss such claims as electoral exaggerations and so neither expect them to be honoured nor worry about their breach.

Jobs are different. His promise to improve the plight of workers who have lost jobs to foreign competitors is both powerful and plausible. A recent Gallup Poll shows that members of both major political parties consider jobs and economic security two of the top three most important issues in the election. Trump has forcefully articulated a vital issue that “traditional” candidates from both parties have struggled to address.

At the same time, Trump’s ability to solve the problem is, at face value, plausible. He has run many businesses and certainly could have “created” many jobs (I put to one side the difficult question whether any individual can take credit for “creating” jobs). Unlike building a border wall at Mexico’s expense, this might seem like something Trump could actually do as president.

The data from the CCC are a red flag, warning that he probably can’t – because he hasn’t. Those data show the performance of Trump and his competitors in a substantially similar line of business (gaming), in the same place (Atlantic City), in the same time period (1997-2010), subject to the same threats and across dimensions (employment and business acumen) that have become central to Trump’s presidential campaign. On average, Trump was worse than all of them.

Make America worse again?

Over the course of the campaign, Trump has tapped into a deep sense of economic anxiety among American workers.

Many believe he can be their champion because he created jobs in the past. Usually, claims like that cannot be assessed and are dismissed as campaign puffery.

Here, however, we have hard data by which to judge the very track record on which Trump says he can “Make America Great Again.” Contrary to Trump’s claims, my study of that data indicates that he is more likely to make America worse.

Jonathan Lipson is a professor of Law at Temple University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.