National Roundup

Oklahoma
Officer to be disciplined for racist email about virus masks
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma police officer will be disciplined for violating department policy when he responded to an email about coronavirus protective masks that were issued by sending racist images of people with white bags over their faces carrying torches, reminiscent of black victims being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Spokeswoman Sarah Jensen’s announcement comes as Norman police Officer Jacob McDonough remains on duty while the department’s internal affairs division investigates the May 15 email that he sent to about 250 colleagues. It featured men dressed in KKK masks from Quentin Tarantino’s violent slave-revenge saga, “Django Unchained.”

“The investigation into this incident has sustained an allegation of violation of department policy against the involved employee,” Jensen said in a news release. “The process has now transitioned into the disciplinary phase.”

The photos include the captions, “I think we all think the bag was a nice idea,” followed by, “But not pointin’ any fingers, they coulda been done better.”

Within 15 minutes of McDonough’s post, police Lt. Lee McWhorter responded.

“McDonough, I really hope you didn’t mean that the way it looks because that’s MORE than inappropriate. I’d say this is a fantastic time to stop this email thread,” McWhorter wrote.

“Sir, I would like to apologize,” McDonough wrote in response, saying he was using satire from the movie.

Police chief Kevin Foster has said McDonough, who’s worked for the department since February 2018, could be terminated for sending the images.

Foster added that he was “very offended” and “couldn’t believe an officer had sent that out.”

McDonough noted in the apology that he “did not mean any disrespect at all,” according to a portion of the email thread provided by the police department. Foster said some officers raised concerns about the masks during the email discussion about “breathing and fitting right and staying on in the field.”

“This is the judgement of one officer sending a photo out like that,” Foster said at a news conference May 19. “Regardless of what he was thinking, the inappropriateness of it and how it offends people is still there.”

Tennessee
Officials: Prison reform advocate rehearsed jail break plans
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A longtime prison reform advocate accused of preparing to stage an escape at a Tennessee jail that’s under construction had a builder create a concrete room in his condominium’s basement so he could learn how to break into the walls, authorities say.

The room built in a storage area were discovered in March after investigators obtained a search warrant for Alexander Friedmann’s condo in Nashville, according to a federal complaint filed Tuesday.

The federal charge, of weapons possession by a felon, follows the discovery in March of a cache of 21 firearms at the home of a friend of Friedmann’s, U.S. Attorney Don Cochran announced.

The former convict turned crusader against private prisons was a longtime editor at Prison Legal News until his arrest in January. Authorities reviewed many hours of security video they said show him gaining access to the new jail on at least 10 occasions, sometimes accompanied by an accomplice who acted as a lookout, federal prosecutors said.

They accuse him of dressing as a construction worker, stealing keys, and covering guns and other weapons with a material after placing them inside the jail’s block walls and window areas.

“It was discovered that Mr. Friedmann, over many months, had developed and implemented an extremely deliberate and, in my opinion, evil plan,” Nashville Sheriff Daron Hall said in a news conference in February.

Hall said he believes Friedmann was designing a massive jail break that would endanger “every inmate, every visitor and our entire community.”

The Tennessean reported authorities said the basement room used materials similar to that of the new jail, and was constructed by Friedmann’s builder friend, who thought it was going to be used to store legal documents.

Friedmann also had a sketch of the jail that he tried to chew and swallow when police detained him at the Davidson County Downtown Detention Center construction site in January, authorities said.

Before his most recent charge, Friedmann was charged in January with attempted burglary and with vandalism in February. Friedmann was previously convicted of armed robbery and assault. His bond was set at $2.5 million in February.

“Mr. Friedmann is presumed innocent and will respond through the appropriate legal processes,” his attorney, Ben Raybin, said in a statement in February.

Prison Legal News is a project of the nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center. Friedmann resigned as editor after his arrest in January, executive director Paul Wright said in a telephone interview.

Minnesota
St. Cloud diocese  to pay abuse victims $22.5M
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Cloud in Minnesota will pay sexual abuse victims $22.5 million and file for bankruptcy, according to a settlement agreement.

Some 70 people say they were abused by 41 priests in cases that date back to the 1950s. If the bankruptcy plan is approved, the diocese will become the fifth of Minnesota’s six dioceses to settle its clergy abuse claims and declare bankruptcy.

Attorney Jeff Anderson negotiated the settlement agreement and terms were announced Tuesday. He said it gives validation to the victims, some of whom Anderson first represented in lawsuits filed in the 1980s, the Star Tribune reported.

“Every single survivor with whom we worked has felt some measure of recovery of power by having come forward to share secrets,” Anderson said. “We believe they have made the community safer because of it, and they have been a part of a massive cleanup of a massive coverup in the Diocese of St. Cloud. It has been a journey born of great tribulation.”

St. Cloud Bishop Donald Kettler said in a statement that he apologized on “behalf of the Church for the harm” that victims suffered. Kettler said he hoped the settlement will help heal the victims of abuse.

The Diocese of Saint Cloud includes 16 central Minnesota counties, including some of the state’s most rural areas.