Court Digest

Florida
Families sue Dollar General firms and others over lax security
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Family members of three Black people fatally shot at a Dollar General store in north Florida by a racist gunman have sued the store’s landlord, operator and security contractor for negligence, claiming lax security led to their loved ones’ deaths.

The 21-year-old gunman had attempted to enter another store and the campus of a historically Black college, but he was stopped by the presence of security guards at both places. The probes by Ryan Palmeter took place in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Jacksonville last August, ending in the fatal assault at the Dollar General.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of the families of Angela Carr, Jerrald Gallion and A.J. Laguerre.

“While Palmeter was deterred from harming the public at his two preceding stops, at this Dollar General, there was nothing in place to again deter Palmeter from attacking and killing innocent persons,” the families’ lawsuit said.

Better security measures should have been in place by the store operator and landlord before the shooting last August since the area around the store had seen a rash of shootings, assaults, burglaries, robberies and drug dealing, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit was filed in state court in Jacksonville. Palmeter killed himself at the scene of the attack, leaving behind racist writings and a suicide note.

The families of the victims also named Palmeter’s estate and his parents as defendants in the lawsuit.

Investigators have said Palmeter made clear in his writings that he hated Black people. During the attack, he texted his father and told him to break into his room and check his computer. There, the father found the note and the writings. The family notified authorities, but by then the shooting had already begun, detectives said.

Palmeter had been involved in a 2016 domestic violence incident that did not lead to an arrest and was involuntarily committed for a 72-hour mental health examination the following year. Palmeter used two guns in the shooting, a Glock handgun and an AR-15-style rifle, according to authorities.

An email seeking comment from Dollar General’s corporate offices was not immediately returned.


Minnesota
Prosecutors won’t charge officers in death of a man who drowned after fleeing police
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — No law enforcement officers will face criminal charges in the death of a man who fled a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale. The death was ruled an accidental drowning, prosecutors said Monday.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement that her office found no evidence of inappropriate behavior by law enforcement in the death of Khalil Azad, whose body was found last July on the shore of Crystal Lake. His body was discovered two days after he fled on foot from police who stopped him near the lake on suspicion of drunken driving. He eluded a ground and air search.

Black Lives Matter of Minnesota released a statement in February saying Azad’s family believed he was bitten by police dogs and beaten by officers. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension then reviewed the case at the request of the Robbinsdale Police Department.

Moriarty said the BCA’s investigation established that Azad’s death was a “tragic accidental drowning.”

“The BCA uncovered no evidence that any member of law enforcement had any physical contact with Khalil after the initial traffic stop,” Moriarty said. “The investigation also did not reveal evidence that any member of law enforcement did anything other than seek in earnest to locate Khalil, utilizing multiple officers from multiple agencies, multiple K9s, a State Patrol helicopter, and thermal imaging, and trying to acquire information from the two others who had been in the same vehicle.”

Moriarty said she shared the decision with the relevant law enforcement agencies and in a private meeting with Azad’s family.

Washington
Man who posed as agent and offered gifts to Secret Service sentenced to nearly 3 years
WASHINGTON (AP) — A man accused of pretending to be a federal agent and offering gifts and free apartments to Secret Service officers has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

Arian Taherzadeh, 41, was sentenced to 33 months in prison Friday. He and a second man, Haider Ali, were indicted in April 2022, accused of tricking actual Secret Service officers, offering expensive apartments and gifts to curry favor with law enforcement agents, including one agent assigned to protect the first lady, prosecutors said.

Ali, 36, was sentenced in August to over five years. Attorneys for the two did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.

Prosecutors alleged Taherzadeh falsely claimed, at various times, to be an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, a former U.S. Air Marshal, and a former U.S. Army Ranger. He used his supposed law-enforcement work to trick owners of three apartment complexes into letting him use multiple apartments and parking spaces for fake operations, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Taherzadeh pleaded guilty to conspiracy, a federal offense, as well as two District of Columbia offenses: unlawful possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device and voyeurism. He was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $700,000.

The case was thrust into the public spotlight when more than a dozen FBI agents raided a luxury apartment building in southwest Washington in April 2022. They found a cache of gear, including body armor, guns and surveillance equipment, as well as a binder with information about the building’s residents, prosecutors said. Taherzadeh also installed surveillance cameras in his apartment and made explicit content that he showed to others, prosecutors said.

Taherzadeh provided Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — as well as electronics, authorities said. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady, prosecutors said.

The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.

Taherzadeh’s lawyer has previously said he provided the luxury apartments and lavish gifts because he wanted to be friends with the agents, not try to compromise them.

Washington
High court throws out case that could have limited lawsuits over disability access
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a case surrounding a Maine hotel that could have made it harder for people with disabilities to learn in advance whether a hotel’s accommodations meet their needs.

Hotels and other business interests had urged the justices to limit the ability of so-called testers to file lawsuits against hotels that fail to disclose accessibility information on their websites and through other reservation services.

The information is required by a 2010 Justice Department rule. People who suffer discrimination can sue under the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, signed into law in 1990.

The justices did not issue a decision on the substance of the case. Instead, they dismissed the case and threw out a lower court ruling in favor of tester lawsuits. The outcome leaves the issue unresolved nationally.
Federal courts in some parts of the country allow such lawsuits. In others, those suits are barred.

The case in front of the court involved whether Deborah Laufer, a woman with disabilities, has the right to sue a hotel in Maine that lacked the accessibility information on its website, despite having no plans to visit it.
In an effort to forestall an unfavorable ruling, Laufer withdrew her lawsuit against the hotel.

Missouri
Man who avoided prosecution as teen in young boy’s killing found guilty of murder
CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A suburban St. Louis man who narrowly avoided prosecution as a teen in the killing of a 13-year-old has been convicted of fatally shooting a father of two during an attempted carjacking.

Ramon White, 21, of Pine Lawn, was found guilty Thursday of second-degree murder, attempted robbery and two weapons offenses in the July 2020 death of Dwight Henderson, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

It all happened after Henderson, a 32-year-old manager of Amazon delivery dispatchers, went to a gas station. While inside buying water, he spotted a man trying to drive off with his rental car and ran outside. He then tried to grab the robber’s gun and was shot once in the chest.

White’s public defender, Jay Kanzler, suggested people in the car with White might have been the culprits. Prosecutors presented DNA evidence tying White to Henderson’s rental car, footage of a police interrogation with White and social media messages that showed White trying to sell a gun two days after the killing.

Three years before killing Henderson, White was charged in the killing of a 13-year-old boy, Anthony Wilson Jr., near a St. Louis playground. White was 15 at the time but was charged as an adult.

St. Louis prosecutors dropped all charges in February 2019, the same day his trial was set to begin. Former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner’s office said key witnesses were not available to testify.

“Most people don’t get second chances, but Ramon did. And what did he do with it?” Shayla Powell, Henderson’s fiancée and mother of his two children, said after the verdict. Henderson’s daughter was just a newborn and his son just 1 when he was killed.

White was charged again just two months after his release with stealing cars out of driveways in St. Charles County. He was out on bond in those cases when he shot and killed Henderson.

The Bail Project, a nonprofit that helps people who can’t afford their cash bonds, paid $1,000 — 10% of White’s $10,000 bond — to bail him out on the St. Charles County cases in October 2019. The nonprofit has faced criticism over crimes committed by other people after posting their bond.

The nonprofit argued on Friday that the purpose of bail is to ensure that defendants follow bond conditions and show up for court dates — not as a means to keep someone imprisoned indefinitely before trial.