Illinois
Lawyers offer different view about why police stopped man before shooting
CHICAGO (AP) — A man killed in March in a shootout with Chicago police was stopped because of illegally tinted windows, city attorneys said in a court filing, contradicting earlier information that officers had pulled him over because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
Police fired their guns nearly 100 times, striking Dexter Reed at least 13 times, according to an autopsy.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, which investigates police shootings, said Reed fired first. Reed’s mother has filed a lawsuit, alleging excessive force in her son’s death.
In a court filing last week, the city asked a judge to dismiss key portions of the lawsuit. Attorneys also disclosed that Reed, 26, was stopped because of tinted windows, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday.
COPA had said the shooting was preceded by a stop for not wearing a seatbelt, raising questions about the legitimacy of the stop.
Ephraim Eaddy, COPA’s deputy chief administrator, said the department stands by the “statements made previously and supporting materials released publicly by our agency in the ongoing investigations.”
Washington
Washington, DC, sues StubHub, saying the resale platform inflates ticket prices with deceptive fees
WASHINGTON (AP) — The attorney general for Washington, D.C., sued StubHub on Wednesday, accusing the ticket resale platform of advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping up prices with extra fees.
The practice known as “drip pricing” violates consumer protection laws in the nation’s capital, Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.
“StubHub intentionally hides the true price to boost profits at its customers’ expense,” he said in a statement.
The company said it is disappointed to be targeted, maintaining its practices are consistent with the law and competing companies as well as broader industry norms. “We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms,” the company said in a statement.
The lawsuit, meanwhile, says StubHub hides mandatory “fulfillment and service” fees until the end of a lengthy online purchasing process that often requires more than a dozen pages to complete as a countdown timer creates a sense of urgency.
That makes it “nearly impossible” for buyers to know the true cost of a ticket and compare to find the best price, he said. Fees vary widely and can total more than 40% of the advertised ticket price, the lawsuit alleges.
StubHub, which is based in New York, is one of the world’s largest resale platforms for tickets to sports, concerts, and other live events.
Sally Greenberg, CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group National Consumers League, applauded the lawsuit. “Hidden fees in the ticketing industry have truly gotten out of control. The price that is advertised is the price that we should pay — full stop,” she said. Ticket fees were also part of a sweeping antitrust lawsuit the Justice Department filed against Ticketmaster and its parent company in May.
StubHub used to advertise the “all-in” cost of a ticket about a decade ago, but changed after finding that people are more likely to buy tickets at higher prices with the “drip pricing” model, he said.
Washington residents’ per-capita spending on live entertainment outpaces that of many other major U.S. cities and since 2015, StubHub has sold nearly 5 million tickets in Washington and reaped about $118 million in fees, the suit states.
The lawsuit seeks damages and to block the pricing practices. Schwalb settled another lawsuit last year with the Washington Commanders over fans’ season ticket deposit money.
Alabama
Families seek answers after inmates’ bodies returned without internal organs
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Agolia Moore was shocked to get a call telling her that her son was found dead in an Alabama prison of a suspected drug overdose. She had spoken to him earlier that evening and he was doing fine, talking about his hope to move into the prison’s honor dorm, Moore said.
When his body arrived at the funeral home, after undergoing a state autopsy, the undertaker told the family that the 43-year-old’s internal organs were missing. The family said they had not given permission for his organs to be retained or destroyed.
Moore said her daughter and other son drove four hours to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where the autopsy had been performed, and picked up a sealed red bag containing what they were told was their brother’s organs. They buried the bag along with him.
Six families, who had loved ones die in the state prison system, have filed lawsuits against the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections and others, saying their family members’ bodies were returned to them missing internal organs after undergoing state-ordered autopsies. The families crowded into a Montgomery courtroom Tuesday for a brief status conference in the consolidated litigation.
“We will be seeking more answers about what happened to these organs and where they ended up,” Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing the families said after court. Faraino said there are additional families who are affected.
In one of the lawsuits, another family said a funeral home in 2021 similarly told them that “none of the organs had been returned” with their father’s body after his death while incarcerated.
The lawsuits also state that a group of UAB medical students in 2018 became concerned that a disproportionate number of the specimens they encountered during their medical training originated from people who had died in prison. They questioned if families of incarcerated people had the same ability as other patients’ families to request that organs be returned with the body.
UAB, in an earlier statement about the dispute, said that the Alabama Department of Corrections was “responsible for obtaining proper authorizations from the appropriate legal representative of the deceased.” “UAB does not harvest organs from bodies of inmates for research as has been reported in media reports,” the statement read.
UAB spokesperson Hannah Echols said in an emailed statement Tuesday that sometimes that organs are kept for additional testing if a pathologist believes it is needed to help determine the cause of death.
The University of Alabama System, which includes UAB, is a defendant in the lawsuits. Lawyers for the university system indicated they will file a motion to dismiss the lawsuits. UAB no longer does autopsies for the state prison system.
Lawyers offer different view about why police stopped man before shooting
CHICAGO (AP) — A man killed in March in a shootout with Chicago police was stopped because of illegally tinted windows, city attorneys said in a court filing, contradicting earlier information that officers had pulled him over because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
Police fired their guns nearly 100 times, striking Dexter Reed at least 13 times, according to an autopsy.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA, which investigates police shootings, said Reed fired first. Reed’s mother has filed a lawsuit, alleging excessive force in her son’s death.
In a court filing last week, the city asked a judge to dismiss key portions of the lawsuit. Attorneys also disclosed that Reed, 26, was stopped because of tinted windows, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday.
COPA had said the shooting was preceded by a stop for not wearing a seatbelt, raising questions about the legitimacy of the stop.
Ephraim Eaddy, COPA’s deputy chief administrator, said the department stands by the “statements made previously and supporting materials released publicly by our agency in the ongoing investigations.”
Washington
Washington, DC, sues StubHub, saying the resale platform inflates ticket prices with deceptive fees
WASHINGTON (AP) — The attorney general for Washington, D.C., sued StubHub on Wednesday, accusing the ticket resale platform of advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping up prices with extra fees.
The practice known as “drip pricing” violates consumer protection laws in the nation’s capital, Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.
“StubHub intentionally hides the true price to boost profits at its customers’ expense,” he said in a statement.
The company said it is disappointed to be targeted, maintaining its practices are consistent with the law and competing companies as well as broader industry norms. “We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms,” the company said in a statement.
The lawsuit, meanwhile, says StubHub hides mandatory “fulfillment and service” fees until the end of a lengthy online purchasing process that often requires more than a dozen pages to complete as a countdown timer creates a sense of urgency.
That makes it “nearly impossible” for buyers to know the true cost of a ticket and compare to find the best price, he said. Fees vary widely and can total more than 40% of the advertised ticket price, the lawsuit alleges.
StubHub, which is based in New York, is one of the world’s largest resale platforms for tickets to sports, concerts, and other live events.
Sally Greenberg, CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group National Consumers League, applauded the lawsuit. “Hidden fees in the ticketing industry have truly gotten out of control. The price that is advertised is the price that we should pay — full stop,” she said. Ticket fees were also part of a sweeping antitrust lawsuit the Justice Department filed against Ticketmaster and its parent company in May.
StubHub used to advertise the “all-in” cost of a ticket about a decade ago, but changed after finding that people are more likely to buy tickets at higher prices with the “drip pricing” model, he said.
Washington residents’ per-capita spending on live entertainment outpaces that of many other major U.S. cities and since 2015, StubHub has sold nearly 5 million tickets in Washington and reaped about $118 million in fees, the suit states.
The lawsuit seeks damages and to block the pricing practices. Schwalb settled another lawsuit last year with the Washington Commanders over fans’ season ticket deposit money.
Alabama
Families seek answers after inmates’ bodies returned without internal organs
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Agolia Moore was shocked to get a call telling her that her son was found dead in an Alabama prison of a suspected drug overdose. She had spoken to him earlier that evening and he was doing fine, talking about his hope to move into the prison’s honor dorm, Moore said.
When his body arrived at the funeral home, after undergoing a state autopsy, the undertaker told the family that the 43-year-old’s internal organs were missing. The family said they had not given permission for his organs to be retained or destroyed.
Moore said her daughter and other son drove four hours to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where the autopsy had been performed, and picked up a sealed red bag containing what they were told was their brother’s organs. They buried the bag along with him.
Six families, who had loved ones die in the state prison system, have filed lawsuits against the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections and others, saying their family members’ bodies were returned to them missing internal organs after undergoing state-ordered autopsies. The families crowded into a Montgomery courtroom Tuesday for a brief status conference in the consolidated litigation.
“We will be seeking more answers about what happened to these organs and where they ended up,” Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing the families said after court. Faraino said there are additional families who are affected.
In one of the lawsuits, another family said a funeral home in 2021 similarly told them that “none of the organs had been returned” with their father’s body after his death while incarcerated.
The lawsuits also state that a group of UAB medical students in 2018 became concerned that a disproportionate number of the specimens they encountered during their medical training originated from people who had died in prison. They questioned if families of incarcerated people had the same ability as other patients’ families to request that organs be returned with the body.
UAB, in an earlier statement about the dispute, said that the Alabama Department of Corrections was “responsible for obtaining proper authorizations from the appropriate legal representative of the deceased.” “UAB does not harvest organs from bodies of inmates for research as has been reported in media reports,” the statement read.
UAB spokesperson Hannah Echols said in an emailed statement Tuesday that sometimes that organs are kept for additional testing if a pathologist believes it is needed to help determine the cause of death.
The University of Alabama System, which includes UAB, is a defendant in the lawsuits. Lawyers for the university system indicated they will file a motion to dismiss the lawsuits. UAB no longer does autopsies for the state prison system.
