Louisiana
Officer freed on $25K bond after fatal shooting
SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — A white Louisiana police officer is free on $25,000 bond following his arrest for fatally shooting an unarmed Black man who was trying to flee police responding to a domestic disturbance call earlier this month, authorities said Friday.
After reviewing evidence and footage from officers’ body cameras, state troopers charged Shreveport Police Officer Alexander Tyler, 23, with negligent homicide in the death of Alonzo Bagley, 43. Louisiana State Police released body camera footage Thursday of the fatal Feb. 3 encounter, as well as audio from the 911 recording reporting the initial disturbance.
“We are disappointed that Louisiana State Police brought charges against Officer Tyler,” his attorney, Dhu Thompson, said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.
Thompson said they are prepared to defend the case in court.
“As the evidence has shown, Officer Tyler was placed with an unfortunate split-second decision in a highly charged atmosphere,” Thompson said. “We feel that the initial evidence shown at Thursday’s bond hearing supports his position in this case.”
Thompson told KSLA-TV it’s now up to the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s office to decide whether to present charges to a grand jury.
“We’re hopeful that a thorough review of the evidence will show that Officer Tyler didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.
Thompson said he’d seen the camera footage and some of the press conferences since the shooting.
“I’m saddened to see some of the irresponsible narratives that’s been put out through social media and other means,” he said. “Whenever this occurs a lot of incorrect information gets put into the public arena which inflames emotions and compounds the tragedy. We’ve urged the public and the media to let the process play out here. Let the case be judged by the facts and evidence and not be influenced by other cases because each case should stand on its own circumstances.”
Thompson said Tyler is obviously “upset” and “shook” from the incident.
“It’s an unfortunate situation for all involved,” Thompson said.
Family members of Bagley have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Tyler, who’s been on the force for about two years.
“The lethal force used against Mr. Bagley was unjustified, unreasonable, excessive, and in violation of Mr. Bagley’s rights under the United States Constitution and the laws of the State of Louisiana,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by Bagley’s wife, mother and stepdaughter.
The family has hired Louisiana attorney Ronald Haley, who has represented other high-profile clients including the family of Ronald Greene, a Black motorist whose 2019 death in state police custody in north Louisiana prompted lawsuits and criminal charges against law enforcement officers.
Thompson said he was not currently involved with the civil lawsuit.
Arraignment is set for April 3.
Tyler remains on paid administrative leave.
Georgia
Lawsuit over school ban on Black Lives Matter shirts dropped
SPRINGFIELD, Ga. (AP) — A federal judge agreed Friday to dismiss a lawsuit that had accused a Georgia school district of racial discrimination, including for barring students from wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts.
The dismissal was requested by attorneys for students who filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in Savannah. The attorneys said they are new to the case and plan to file a new version of the complaint later.
The lawsuit accused school administrators in Effingham County of a broad pattern of racial discrimination. Allegations included that students were prohibited from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts. to school events while white peers got to wear shirts with Confederate flags.
The lawsuit listed as plaintiffs three unnamed Black teenagers who attend high school in Effingham County, where 65,000 people live in rural and suburban communities west of Savannah. The original complaint was filed by the mother of one of the teens acting as their attorney.
Alabama
Man gets 17 years for gun trafficking
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — An Alabama man was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for burglarizing two gun stores, possessing stolen firearms and transporting those weapons to states in the Midwest and East, federal prosecutors said.
During a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills sentenced Marquis Devon McCray, 34, of Sheffield, Alabama, to prison and ordered him to pay restitution of more than $58,000 for the value of the weapons stolen and damage to property, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Mississippi said in a news release.
McCray orchestrated the Feb. 17, 2019 burglary of Oxford Pawn Shop in which 35 firearms were stolen, according to court documents. McCray and his co-defendants then transported those guns to New Jersey where they were sold on the streets, according to authorities. Law enforcement in the Newark, New Jersey area recovered 10 of those guns after they were used in violent crimes, authorities said.
McCray also led a group in the Aug. 1, 2019, burglary of TNT Pawn in Booneville, Mississippi, where 49 firearms were stolen and transported to Chicago, according to authorities. A number of those guns, sold on the streets, have been recovered by Chicago Police.
“This defendant callously helped contribute to violence and misery in communities that were already struggling with extreme levels of gun violence,” said U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner. “He deserves every day of his sentence, and we are proud to stand with ATF and our state and local partners to stem the illegal flow of firearms.”
McCray's co-defendant, Galvin Davis, was previously sentenced to 14 years for his role in one of the burglaries.
North Dakota
Woman sentenced in love triangle killing of husband
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A Bismarck woman was sentenced Friday to life in prison with a chance of parole for plotting with another man to kill her husband to collect life insurance payments.
Nikki Entzel, 41, was convicted in October of killing her husband, Chad Entzel, 42, on Jan. 2, 2020 at their home northeast of Bismarck. Authorities said Entzel died of gunshot wounds to the head and the house was set on fire to cover up the slaying.
She was sentenced Friday for three conspiracy convictions, including murder, arson and evidence tampering, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
South Central District Judge Douglas Bahr said she must serve at least 85% of her sentence — at least 36 years — before being eligible for parole.
Prosecutors alleged Nikki Entzel and Earl Howard, 42, of Belwood, Ontario, Canada, were in a relationship and plotted Chad Entzel's death.
Howard was sentenced in February 2022 to at least 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to four felonies. He must serve at least 21 years before being eligible for parole.
Authorities in May 2021 dismissed a murder charge against him when an evaluation of the gun did not confirm Nikki Entzel's claim that Howard shot the victim.
California
State to review cases for possible wrongful convictions
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Friday a review of criminal cases statewide to search for possible wrongful convictions, pledging to look for new evidence and scrutinize prosecutors’ conduct that could prompt a new round of exonerations for people in prison.
Bonta said the Post-Conviction Justice Unit within the California Department of Justice will have “broad discretion” to investigate wrongful or improper convictions. He said the unit will partner with local district attorneys, many of whom already have their own teams that review wrongful convictions. He said the unit will pay particular attention to cases in counties where local prosecutors do not have what he called a “conviction integrity unit.”
“We can’t be knee-jerk every time at all times, blindly defending convictions when they’re indefensible because of innocence, or because of error, or because of an excessive sentence,” Bonta said.
Prosecutors have historically not gone out of their way to overturn convictions secured by their offices. But technological advances in DNA testing and other forensic evidence have brought forward lots of new evidence on old cases, raising questions about the convictions.
Nationally, exonerations have been increasing steadily since 1989, with a peak of 282 recorded in 2022, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the Newkirk Center for Science & Society at University of California Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University College of Law. The project has recorded 3,381 exonerations since 1989, according to its website.
State and local prosecutors across the country have established internal review units to evaluate this evidence, including Minnesota and New York. In California, prosecutors in Contra Costa and Sacramento counties have similar units.
In San Francisco, the district attorney’s Innocence Commission spent 18 months investigating the conviction of Joaquin Ciria, who was sentenced in 1990 to life in prison for the shooting death of Felix Bastarrica. A judge overturned Ciria’s conviction last year after the district attorney’s office found new witnesses and evidence of “a cascade of errors” in how the case was handled.
Greg Totten, CEO of the California District Attorneys Association, said such cases are “truly rare, but they are very troubling.” The former district attorney in Ventura County started his own internal review unit, resulting in two high-profile exonerations during his time in office.
“When you see those things as a prosecutor and you recognize the grave, the solemn responsibility we have to individuals charged with crimes to ensure they are justly prosecuted and justly sentenced, it really compels a response,” he said.
Totten said the district attorneys association “wholeheartedly” supports Bonta’s review and said it “will largely be embraced” by local prosecutors. He said some jurisdictions in California have only one or two prosecutors, noting they don’t have the resources to conduct these types of reviews on their own.
Illinois
Police: Man broke court officer’s nose at hearing
WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) — A suburban Chicago man faces felony charges for allegedly breaking a court officer’s nose moments after a judge sentenced him to more than seven years in prison on a firearms conviction.
Maseo B. Rosser of Winthrop Harbor was charged with aggravated battery to a peace officer, resisting a peace officer causing injury and aggravated assault for Wednesday’s attack on a Lake County Court officer, the sheriff’s office said.
The state’s attorney’s office approved the charges for the attack, which happened after a judge sentenced Rosser to seven years and six months in prison for aggravated discharge of a firearm.
Rosser had been free on bond prior to the sentencing. As the court officer was taking him into custody, Rosser allegedly punched him in the face and head butted him, breaking his nose, the sheriff’s office said.
Another court officer and two sheriff’s deputies eventually subdued Rosser after a struggle lasting several minutes, the Lake County News-Sun reported.
After being subdued, Rosser verbally threatened a local police officer who had testified at his sentencing hearing.
“Instead of accepting accountability for his past actions, this individual made the poor choice to attack our staff, which is nothing short of cowardly,” Lake County Sheriff John D. Idleburg said in a news release.
