AP
Virginia Capitol Police are investigating after a bullet pierced a window at the office of the Attorney General in downtown Richmond. News outlets report that police said officers were called to the Barbara Johns Building on Monday evening and found a small round hole at the top of the window. The Attorney General’s office says housekeeping staff found the bullet in a sixth-floor office. The Attorney General’s office says there’s “no indication that this incident was targeted at the OAG specifically or any individual employee.” Capitol Police say there will be additional patrols in the area in coming days and an increased presence at the building for the foreseeable future.
NEW YORK (AP) — Workers at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, filed paperwork Tuesday with federal labor regulators to hold a union election, joining a wave of union organizing at other retailers around the country.
Workers at the store, which employs about 100, are seeing their pay not keeping pace with surging costs for basics like food and rent, said Adam Ryan, who has been working at the Christiansburg store for five years and founded Target Workers Unite in 2019. He also noted employees feel like they are having to do too many tasks, from filling online orders to unloading trucks.
“The cost of living is going up and their pay isn’t meeting that,” said Ryan, 34, who filed the petition with the National Labor Relations Board. “That is causing a lot of anxiety and stress. People are stretched too thin. They need more support and compensation.”
He said the filing was sparked by veteran workers at the Christiansburg store organizing a petition in April demanding additional pay.
Ryan said he collected more than 30 authorization cards from workers at the store, about 30% of the staff, enough to meet the threshold mandated by NLRB, although the signatures still need to be reviewed. Ryan said he is hoping for other stores to join in, noting that Target workers are watching labor organizing at other companies. The Minneapolis-based company has about 350,000 employees.
Target said in statement Tuesday that it is committed to listening to its workers and creating an environment of mutual trust.
“We want all team members to be better off for working at Target,” the company said. Target cited industry leading starting hourly wages of $15 to $24, expanded health care benefits, personalized scheduling and opportunities for career growth. It said it raised the starting wage at its Christiansburg store last fall and increased wages for longer-tenured workers.
The Target workers filing comes as nearly 60 Starbucks locations around the country have voted to unionize.
The fledgling Amazon Labor Union scored a victory last month at an Amazon warehouse on New York City’s Staten Island, becoming the first U.S. Amazon warehouse to be unionized. But Amazon workers in a later election in a nearby facility rejected a union bid.
Meanwhile, the final outcome of a separate union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is still up in the air with several hundred outstanding challenged ballots hanging in the balance. Hearings to review those ballots are expected to begin in the coming weeks.
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — William & Mary has dedicated a brick memorial that recognizes people who were enslaved by the university.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the memorial is 20 feet high and 16 feet wide. It cost more than $2.9 million to build, including construction and material costs that were impacted by supply chain delays and construction inflation.
The university was chartered in 1693. It benefited from enslaved labor for 170 years.
It’s unclear how many people the university enslaved, but historians have discovered the names of more than 100 people owned by the college or its employees and students.
Enslaved people made the bricks that built the Wren Building, and they erected the building itself.
“Slaves were as inseparable a part of the college as the old bricks of the College Building itself,” Jennifer Oast wrote in a book about slavery in Virginia.
The design for the memorial, created by Richmond-based architectural firm Baskervill, was chosen in 2020. Richmond-based Kjellstrom & Lee built the memorial.
Its cost was covered by private funds and contributions from the board of visitors.
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — There’s not much room for middle ground in the testimony thus far from Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in Depp’s libel suit against his ex-wife.
One of them is lying.
Heard has not yet finished telling the jury her side of things. Her testimony will continue May 16 once the trial — which has already stretched on for four weeks — resumes after a one-week break. Then she will face what one can safely assume will be an aggressive cross-examination in a case where both sides have employed scorched-earth tactics going back years to when the suit was first filed.
Depp is suing Heard in Virginia for libel over an op-ed she wrote in December 2018 in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article doesn’t mention Depp by name, but his lawyers say the article defames him nevertheless because it’s a clear reference to the highly publicized allegations Heard made when she filed for divorce in 2016 and obtained a temporary restraining order against him.
Depp says he never physically abused Heard, while Heard says she was assaulted on more than a dozen occasions.
AMBER HEARD
He said, she said: Accounts from Depp and Heard rarely match
Heard takes stand, accuses Depp of violent sexual assault
Amber Heard testifies she was assaulted by Johnny Depp
Depp trial: Psychologist testifies actor assaulted Heard
Below are synopses of a few incidents and their divergent accounts.
THE FIRST TIME
Heard says the first time Depp ever struck her was in 2013, when she made the mistake of laughing at one of his tattoos. Heard said there was an older tattoo she couldn’t make out, and Depp told her it said “Wino.”
In fact, it used to say “Winona Forever,” a tattoo that Depp got when he was dating actor Winona Ryder. He had it altered to “Wino Forever” when they broke up.
Heard said she laughed, and Depp responded by slapping her. Thinking the slap must be a joke, she laughed. Depp responded by slapping her twice more, with the third slap knocking Heard off balance.
“It was so stupid, so insignificant,” Heard told the jury. “I thought it must be a joke.”
Depp, while he was on the stand, flatly denied it occurred.
“It didn’t happen,” he said. “Why would I take such great offense to someone making fun of a tattoo on my body? That allegation never made any sense to me.”
THE FINGER AND THE BOURBON BOTTLE
Both sides say the worst violence occurred in March 2015 in Australia, when Depp was shooting the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
Heard said Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle — for the first time Thursday she identified a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon as the offending instrument after she said she saw a photo of the distinctively square bottle — as part of an alcohol-fueled rage. Heard came to Australia after shooting her own film and Depp immediately accused her of sleeping with her co-stars, she said.
Depp, for his part, says he was the victim of the violence. He testified that Heard was irate over efforts by Depp’s lawyers to have her sign a post-nuptial agreement, as well as the fact that Depp wasn’t adhering to pledges of sobriety to Heard’s satisfaction.
He said he escaped the argument by pouring himself a drink, at which point Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. Depp said he responded by pouring another drink, and this time Heard threw another vodka bottle at him that smashed against his hand while it rested on a counter and severed the tip of his middle finger.
Photos of the aftermath show Depp wrote vulgar messages to his wife in blood on the walls of the house. Jurors have also seen contemporaneous text messages Depp sent to others in which he said he cut off his own finger. Depp said he made up that story to protect Heard and avoid police involvement.
ALCOHOL AND DRUGS
While not a specific incident, Depp and Heard painted very different portraits of Depp’s drug and alcohol use.
Heard said drugs and alcohol — along with paranoid jealousy — is what turned him from the man she loved into the “monster” who made her fear for her life. She said he hid his drug and alcohol use from her and from his family but his behavior made it clear he was high or drunk, often to the point of incoherence.
”Johnny on speed is very different from Johnny on opiates. Johnny on opiates is very different from Adderall and cocaine Johnny, which is very different from Quaaludes Johnny, but I had to get good at paying attention to the different versions of him,” Heard said.
Indeed, Heard sys Depp’s denials of physical abuse lack credibility in part because he would black out and forget what he’d done.
Depp, for his part, admitted that he’d become addicted at one point to oxycodone and underwent a detox process in 2014. But he said the allegations of uncontrolled drug and alcohol use are grossly embellished.
“I’ve always had a pretty big tolerance for alcohol,” he testified. “I’ve never had a physical addiction to alcohol.”
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A former commissioner of revenue for a Virginia county has pleaded guilty to attempted witness tampering, and his son pleaded guilty to a related charge of heroin distribution, prosecutors said.
Larry Vernon Snow, 73, pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge related to efforts to harass and dissuade a confidential informant from cooperating in a federal investigation of both himself and his son, and to prevent the confidential informant from aiding law enforcement in other investigations, said a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Bryant Austin Snow, 33, pleaded guilty to one related count of distributing heroin.
Court documents indicate Bryant Snow was arrested on two state drug charges in November 2017. Bryant Snow pleaded guilty in April 2018 to one count of distribution of methamphetamine in Greene County, Virginia.
While imprisoned, Bryant Snow received video and audio of the recorded narcotics buys by the confidential informant from him. He made multiple calls to his father, Larry Snow, to discuss one of the confidential informants.
After being notified in May 2019 that they were the targets of a federal investigation involving their conduct toward the informant, Larry Snow drafted approximately 12,000 leaflets to be mailed to residents of Greene County in an attempt to harass the informant from helping prosecutors, the news release said.
In connection with his guilty plea, Larry Snow resigned as commissioner of revenue in Greene County, a position he has held since 1987 and had been re-elected to while under federal indictment.
The Snows are scheduled for sentencing on July 25.
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal grand jury indicted a Virginia man Thursday on charges of possessing and selling unregistered machine guns, a federal prosecutor said.
According to the indictment, Patrick Tate Adamiak, 28, of Virginia Beach was obtaining unregistered machine guns and selling them online between October and April, U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber announced in a statement.
After the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives bought eight machine guns from Adamiak through a confidential source, the agency executed a search warrant at Adamiak’s home and found 25 more unregistered machine guns, according to a news release.
Adamiak is charged with receiving, possessing, and transferring unregistered machine guns, and selling firearms without a federal firearms license, the news release said. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if he is convicted.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — U.S. service members were injured Thursday when a helicopter they were riding in made a hard landing at a military base in Virginia, U.S. Navy officials said in a statement Friday.
The service members were participating in a routine training at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story in Virginia Beach, according to the statement from Capt. Sarah Self-Kyler, director of public affairs for U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
The statement did not say how many service members were involved. The statement also did not detail the extent of their injuries, although they were taken to local medical facilities for treatment.
The joint base is shared between the U.S. Army and Navy and is located at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The base houses and trains some of the nation’s “expeditionary forces,” which are troops mobilized for action. The base is also home to some of the nation’s elite Navy SEAL teams.
The cause of the incident remains under investigation, the U.S. Navy stated.
(AP) Boeing Co., a leading defense contractor and one of the world’s two dominant manufacturers of airline planes, is expected to move its headquarters from Chicago to the Washington, D.C., area, – Arlington specifically – according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision could be announced as soon as later Thursday, according to one of the people. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly before Boeing’s announcement. Boeing did not immediately comment.
The decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. A move to Arlington, Virginia, would put Boeing executives close to officials for their key customer, the Pentagon, and the Federal Aviation Administration, which certifies Boeing passenger planes. Boeing’s roots are in the Seattle area, and it has assembly plants in Washington state and South Carolina. The company moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2001 after an unusually public search that also considered Dallas and Denver.
US Senator Mark Warner has commented on Boeing’s planned move if its headquarters to Arlington, saying that “for well over a year, I’ve been making my case to Boeing senior leadership that Virginia would be a great place for its headquarters.” Warner also said in a statement today he found out about that planned move from Chicago late last year.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a settlement in a civil complaint against a Virginia county and the state’s retirement system over the employment rights of a Virginia Army National Guard soldier.
His rights were guaranteed under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, according to a Justice Department news release on Friday.
In its complaint, the federal government said Guard Maj. Mark Gunn had been a Prince George County Police Department detective for 14 years when, in January 2016, he was called to active duty. The Justice Department also alleged that when Gunn returned from active duty service, the county refused to allow him to return to his detective position and assigned him to a patrol unit officer position.
Also, the complaint said the county denied Gunn employment benefits that he would have accrued during his active-duty service, including a bonus. The county’s actions, acccording to the federal government, led Gunn to leave his police department job and return to active duty with the Guard.
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has dropped an effort to prosecute two U.S. Park Police officers who fatally shot an unarmed motorist back in 2017.
The Attorney General’s Office filed a motion Friday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond withdrawing the appeal in the shooting of Bijan Ghaisar, 25, of McLean.
Miyares’ decision ends a nearly five-year legal saga in which Ghaisar’s family, police reform advocates and some members of Congress sought to see officers Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya face criminal charges for shooting Ghaisar after a stop-and-go chase on the George Washington Memorial Parkway in November 2017.
The FBI investigated the shooting for two years, but federal prosecutors ultimately opted against filing charges.
At that point, Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, who had recently been elected on a police accountability platform, filed manslaughter charges against the officers in state court. Descano was supported by then-Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat.
Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria dismissed the prosecution, ruling that the officers’ actions were “necessary and proper” in the context of the chase.
Herring and Descano appealed Hilton’s ruling in October, but Herring in November lost his re-election bid to Miyares, a Republican.
Miyares and Descano have feuded openly for months, with Miyares accusing Descano of being soft on crime and refusing to support police. Descano has accused Miyares of trying to meddle in local affairs and undermine him and other reform-minded prosecutors in northern Virginia.
In a statement, Miyares said and others in his office reviewed the evidence and ultimately concluded that Hilton’s ruling was correct and should not be appealed.
“I will not perpetuate the continued prosecution of two officers who were doing what they were trained to do under tremendously difficult circumstances,” he said.
At a press conference Saturday, Ghaisar’s mother, Kelly Ghaisar, said she is outraged and disgusted by the decision and holding out hope the appeals court will refuse to allow Miyares to drop the appeal.
“I am here to plead with anyone who can hear me — please do not dismiss this case,” she said.
State Sen. Scott Surovell, a Democrat who lives a few blocks from where Ghaisar has shot and who has supported the family’s effort to have the officers prosecuted, spoke at the press conference and said Miyares filed his notice late on a Friday to avoid calling attention to what he had done.
“As news of this gets out, people will be highly disturbed,” he said.
Descano said he’s “heartbroken” by the decision but holds out hope that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland will reconsider the decision made during the Trump administration not to bring its own charges.
“For Attorney General Miyares to not even allow this case to be heard in the Fourth Circuit for purely political reasons is shameful – especially considering all of his rhetoric about supporting victims,” Descano said.
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., whose district encompasses the location of the chase and shootin, called Miyares’ decision “misguided” Saturday.
““Giving officers a get-out-of-jail-free card for a fatal shooting after a grand jury indictment for involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm cannot help but undermine trust in law enforcement in the community,” Beyer said in a statement. “This is not how you support the police.”
Ghaisar was fatally shot after authorities say he left the scene of an accident on the parkway, outside the nation’s capital, and led officers on a stop-and-go chase.
Dashcam video released by Fairfax County Police, which played a supporting role in the chase, shows the pursuit starting on the parkway, then continuing into a residential neighborhood. It shows the car driven by Ghaisar stopping twice during the chase, and officers approaching the car with guns drawn. In both cases, Ghaisar drives off.
At the third and final stop, the officers again approach with guns drawn, and Amaya stands in front of the driver’s door. When the car starts to move, Amaya opens fire. Seconds later, when the car begins moving again, both Amaya and Vinyard fire multiple shots.
Miyares’ decision ends the criminal prosecution, but Ghaisar’s family has filed a civil suit that has been on hold while a criminal case was being pursued.