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WASHINGTON (AP) —
The man accused of killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic brought several guns, ammunition and propane tanks that officials say he assembled around a car.
For hours, he holed up inside the clinic, unleashing a fusillade that wounded nine others and sent shoppers scattering inside surrounding buildings during a standoff with police.
To some in the community, the attack resembled an act of domestic terrorism, sparking a debate over what to call Robert Lewis Dear's rampage even before he was taken into custody.
But the legal system may not resolve that question.
Dear faces state charges of first-degree murder, and the federal criminal code has no specific, catchall charge for acts of domestic terrorism. That means federal prosecutors pursuing charges for ideologically motivated violence often turn to other statutes — such as those for firearms, explosives, hate crimes or murder — to cover offenses that could arguably be labeled as terror. The punishment may be the same, but generally without the branding more typically associated with international terrorism.
"There has long been some interest in defining acts of domestic terrorism as terrorism. It's become quite a partisan issue," said William Yeomans, an American University law fellow and former high-ranking official in the Justice Department's civil rights division.
But given the number of laws already available to federal prosecutors, he added, "Whether it's domestic terrorism or not, it doesn't really matter."
Police have refused to detail a motive in the Friday killings of one police officer and two civilians at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, though one law enforcement official said Dear said "no more baby parts" during rambling comments after his arrest.
Dear used a rifle in the shooting and also brought other firearms and ammunition, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the case who was not authorized to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has called the killings a "form of terrorism," and Planned Parenthood has said witnesses believe the gunman was motivated by opposition to abortion. But Dear also has been described by acquaintances as a loner who once gave neighbors anti-Obama literature but never any indication he would target a clinic.
Federal authorities have the option of filing charges but haven't said whether they will do so, though a coalition of advocacy groups is calling on the Justice Department — which is reviewing the case — to investigate violence against abortion clinics as domestic terrorism. Among the federal government's potential avenues is a 1994 law known as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a crime to injure or intimidate abortion clinic patients and employees.
Federal law defines domestic terrorism as dangerous acts that take place inside the U.S. intended to intimidate the public or coerce government policy or conduct — a description meant to encompass, among others, anti-government anarchists, white supremacists and animal-rights activists. But the actual charges vary.
In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, for instance, Timothy McVeigh faced charges including conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, malicious destruction of federal property and the murders of law enforcement officials. A Florida man in 2012, meanwhile, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of arson and damaging a reproductive health facility after firebombing an abortion clinic.
While the Justice Department consistently charges individuals who look to join organizations like the Islamic State group with providing material support for a foreign terror organization, there's no comparable statute for prosecuting domestic crimes motivated by extremist ideologies and no catchall "domestic terrorism" charge or offense in the federal criminal code.
That lack of clarity can make it hard to count the number of domestic terror prosecutions, or differentiate that crime from other illegal activity, according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report.
"Individuals considered to be domestic terrorists by federal law enforcement may be charged under nonterrorism statutes, making it difficult to grasp from the public record exactly how extensive this threat is," the report said.
The issue arose in July when the Justice Department brought federal hate crime charges against Dylann Roof in the massacre a month earlier at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Asked about the absence of domestic terrorism charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch replied, "Well, as you know, there is no specific domestic terrorism statute." But she did describe hate crimes as "the original domestic terrorism."
The Justice Department in the last year has stressed that it takes the domestic terrorism threat as seriously as it does international terrorism. Last year, it revived a domestic terrorism executive committee that had fallen into disuse after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as the government shifted focus to international terrorism. More recently, officials appointed a domestic terrorism counsel to coordinate the flow of information.
Heidi Beirich, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Dear "should be charged with crimes that take him away forever" and that the federal government has many tools to do just that.
But, she added, "I think it's very important for the government to call a terrorist, a terrorist. I think a reluctance to do that is a terrible thing."
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) —
Two men, called "cowards" by a sheriff, stole a cellphone from a suburban Detroit man with cerebral palsy, beat him, recorded the assault on his cellphone and posted it to his Facebook page, authorities said.
Nikey Dashone Walker and Shadeed Dontae Bey were arrested following the Sunday morning attack in a stairwell at the 23-year-old victim's apartment complex in Pontiac, the Oakland County sheriff's department said.
"Preying on those in our community who suffer from disabilities will not be tolerated and furthermore, to have the audacity to post their actions on the victim's page is beyond belief," Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a statement. Police have released video of the attack.
Authorities have not released the name of the victim, but Frankie Santana, a resident at the complex, told WJBK-TV that he was the man who was assaulted.
"Why would they do that and put it on Facebook? That's how you are going to get caught real quickly," Santana said.
Bouchard credited the work of his investigators for bringing "these two cowards to justice."
The 20-year-old suspects were arraigned Tuesday on charges including assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder, and ordered held on $25,000 bond ahead of a Dec. 8 court date. If convicted, they could be sent to prison for 10 years.
The men didn't yet have lawyers on record to comment on the case, according to a check of 50th District Court records on Wednesday.
Santana said the men spit and stomped on him, injuring an eye, but that "nothing is broke." Investigators believe they followed someone to get inside the building and then walked into the victim's unlocked apartment.
"I crawled through the hallway and knocked on someone's door and that's how I got help," Santana told the TV station.
Investigators responding to a report of the assault said they were told the suspects also posted the video to their own Facebook pages. The victim's phone, which was taken while he was inside his apartment, was found at the home of one of the suspects, the department said.
Cerebral palsy is a brain disorder that can affect movement, posture and muscle coordination.
CHICAGO (AP) —
The release of squad-car video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times set off a dramatic chain of events, from days of demonstrations to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's firing of the city's police superintendent.
But it's unclear what will happen next.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says it is still actively investigating the case. Emanuel said Tuesday that the federal probe includes whether local authorities investigated the shooting properly, and that the city handed over all evidence in the case to federal authorities within weeks of the incident. Activists contend city and police department officials dragged their feet on the investigation and video release and perhaps even sought to cover up what happened.
Here's a look at some unanswered questions about the case and what might be ahead:
INITIAL ACCOUNTS
The video footage of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald's fatal shooting the night of Oct. 20, 2014, contradicts initial accounts police officials gave.
Pat Camden, at the time a police union spokesman, described McDonald lunging at officers before shooting began, while a police statement just after the shooting said McDonald had refused to drop a knife and "continued to approach the officers." Initial media reports based on police information suggested McDonald was killed by a single shot to the chest.
But the video shows McDonald walking down the middle of a four-lane street. He then appears to veer away from police as Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is now charged with murder, opens fire. The video seems to show McDonald with something in his hand. Prosecutors say a 3-inch blade recovered from the scene had been folded into the handle.
In a phone interview Tuesday evening, Dean Angelo Sr., the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7, agreed McDonald didn't appear to lunge. But he also said McDonald did seem to slightly "square his shoulders" toward Van Dyke, which he says Van Dyke may have perceived as a threat.
He said Camden, who is still affiliated with the union but not as a spokesman, is currently declining interviews. He added that he hasn't asked Camden about his initial comments because "one of the investigative agencies wants to talk to him," so it wouldn't be appropriate for the union to question him.
LACK OF AUDIO
The dashcam video of the shooting initially released by the city has no sound, nor do videos released later from other police cruisers at the scene. But they typically should have.
Chicago police cars are set up so audio records along with video, police have said.
Sound is often critical to understanding what's happening and why an officer or suspect acted the way they did, said Ed Primeau, a Michigan-based audio and video forensics expert.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi suggested that the absence of audio was most likely a technological glitch. In an emailed statement, he wrote: "As with any technology, at times software issues or operator error may keep the cameras from operating as they normally should."
But Primeau said it is hard to believe none of the police vehicles had workable audio.
"It's a red flag," he said. "I see it all the time — not just by police, but by people trying to cover things up." Most officers, Primeau said, would want to make sure the video equipment is working properly so "internal affairs or investigators know exactly what was going on."
MISSING VIDEO
Among witnesses who testified before a federal grand jury investigating the shooting was a district manager for a Burger King near the shooting scene.
Jay Darshane told reporters that several police officers entered his restaurant and viewed surveillance video. Police spent almost two hours going through the footage, Darshane said, and staff determined later that around 90 minutes of footage had been erased. He said the deleted portions included the timeframe when McDonald would have been shot.
The camera angle would not have caught the actual shooting, but it could have provided clues about how matters escalated or how officers treated the scene and witnesses afterward.
Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who approved the murder charge against Van Dyke, said that forensic testing was done on the Burger King video as part of the investigation, and that no tampering was found. In a statement, a spokesman for the independent police review board also said it had "no credible evidence at this time that would cause us to believe CPD purged or erased any surveillance video."
ONGOING INVESTIGATION
The U.S. attorney's office has not specified what issues it's investigating.
If it found evidence of a cover-up, any indictment would most likely involve a charge of obstruction of justice, which carries a maximum 20-year prison term and $250,000 fine on each count.
Another possibility is that prosecutors are looking into whether to charge Van Dyke with violating McDonald's civil rights. Because the shooting resulted in the teen's death, Van Dyke could face a maximum life sentence if convicted of such a federal charge.
Van Dyke's attorney, Dan Herbert, maintains that Van Dyke feared for his life, acted lawfully and that the video does not tell the whole story.
On Tuesday, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan requested that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate whether the Chicago Police Department's practices violate federal and constitutional law. Madigan in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked that the investigation weigh, among other things, the department's use of deadly force and whether a pattern or practice of discriminatory policing exists.