Florida
Black student dragged from his car and beaten by officers files federal lawsuit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jacksonville law enforcement officers violated the civil rights of a 22-year-old Black college student when they pulled him from his car and beat him during a traffic stop, according to a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Jacksonville on Wednesday.
A video showing a Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer punching and dragging William McNeil from his car during a stop in February went viral online this summer and sparked nationwide outrage.
Prosecutors announced in August they would take no action after determining the conduct of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office did not constitute a crime, according to an investigative report released by the State Attorney’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida.
McNeil’s attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels say Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s policies allow officers to engage in racial profiling and “illegal or excessive use of force” without fear of consequences.
Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence.
“It’s an unjustifiable, unnecessary and most importantly unconstitutional use of force,” Crump said.
The attorneys said the lawsuit is aimed not only at addressing the treatment of their client, but at changing the culture of policing in the area.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has said there’s more to the story than the viral cellphone video and that McNeil was repeatedly asked to exit his vehicle. Waters, who is Black, said the footage from inside the car “does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
The lawsuit names Waters, Bowers, and another officer named D. Miller, as well as the City of Jacksonville and Duval County government. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
According to a prosecutors’ report, Bowers stopped McNeil for failing to turn on his headlights and buckle his seatbelt, after seeing his SUV parked outside a house the officer was surveilling for “drug activity.”
Questioning the justification for the stop, McNeil requested a supervisor respond to the incident. Based on a review of body camera footage, interviews with officers and statements by McNeil, prosecutors said Bowers gave McNeil a dozen “lawful commands,” which he disobeyed.
Crump has claimed officers’ accounts of the incident are unreliable and has fiercely criticized prosecutors’ finding that officers did not commit any criminal wrongdoing, saying his client remained calm while the officers who are trained to de-escalate tense situations were the ones escalating violence. Crump said the case harkened back to the Civil Rights movement, when Black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
According to his attorneys, McNeil suffered a laceration to the chin and lip, a fractured tooth, and has been diagnosed with an “ongoing traumatic brain injury.” McNeil also continues to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms, including nightmares and flashbacks of the incident, his lawyers wrote in a legal filing.
McNeil’s attorneys have also formally called on the Department of Justice to conduct its own investigation of the incident and what they described as “excessive force” and “systemic failures” by Jacksonville officials.
Washington
Appeals court rules Trump doesn’t have the authority to fire Copyright Office director
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally remove and replace the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 to temporarily block Trump’s Republican administration from firing Shira Perlmutter as the register of copyrights, who advises Congress on copyright issues.
Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.
Circuit Judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs concluded that Perlmutter’s purported firing was likely illegal.
“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Pan wrote in the majority opinion.
The White House had no immediate comment on the court’s decision.
Perlmutter’s position is considered part of the legislative branch of government. Her office is housed within the Library of Congress. Its director is chosen by the librarian of Congress, who is also a legislative branch employee but is nominated by the president and is subject to Senate confirmation.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump nominee, ruled in May that Perlmutter failed to meet her legal burden to show how removing her from the position would cause her irreparable harm.
Pan and Childs, who were nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, concluded that Kelly abused his discretion and failed to weigh other factors favoring Perlmutter’s request for a preliminary injunction.
“The President’s purported removal of the Legislative Branch’s chief advisor on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the President trying to fire a federal judge’s law clerk,” Pan wrote.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said the register of copyrights “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”
“Recently, repeatedly, and unequivocally, the Supreme Court has stayed lower-court injunctions that barred the President from removing officers exercising executive power,” Walker wrote.
Pan said it appears Perlmutter is still serving as register despite her purported removal.
“And because she continues to serve as Register at the present time, ruling in her favor would not disrupt the work of the U.S. Copyright Office,” Pan wrote. “To the contrary, it is her removal that would be disruptive.”
Perlmutter’s attorneys say she is a renowned copyright expert who also has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.
Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.
The appeals court’s ruling says Blanche’s appointment to serve as acting librarian of Congress was likely unlawful, as well, because the position is subject to Senate confirmation.
Wisconsin
Woman charged in traffic deaths of 2 Marquette lacrosse players was drunk, prosecutors say
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin driver involved in a traffic crash last week that killed two Marquette University lacrosse players was drunk at the time, authorities alleged Wednesday in charging her with vehicular homicide.
Amandria Brunner, 41, of West Allis, faces two counts of homicide by an intoxicated use of a vehicle while having a prior intoxicant-related conviction She faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted of both counts.
According to a criminal complaint, the crash happened on Friday in Milwaukee when Brunner tried to turn left in front of an SUV that was taking six Marquette men’s lacrosse players to a thrift store.
Scott Michaud, a 19-year-old sophomore goalie and biomedical sciences major from Springboro, Ohio, and 20-year-old Noah Snyder, a sophomore attackman and business student from Irving, New York, were pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness told police that she helped Brunner out of her pickup truck and noticed Brunner smelled of alcohol and kept trying to put gum in her mouth. Police also found an open beer can in her truck, according to the criminal complaint.
Brunner’s blood, which was drawn about two hours after the crash, had a blood alcohol content of 0.133, which exceeds the state’s legal limit to drive of 0.08.
An analysis of the crash recorder in Brunner’s truck found that she had been stopped for about three seconds before she pulled into the intersection with the accelerator depressed almost all the way to the floor, according to the complaint. She was traveling just under 12 mph (19 kph) when she struck the SUV, and she never braked.
Brunner was convicted of operating while intoxicated in November 2003, the complaint says.
Online court records indicated Brunner was in custody in the Milwaukee County Jail on Wednesday. Records did not list an attorney for her.
Michaud and Snyder were named to the Big East’s all-academic team last year for maintaining grade-point averages of at least 3.0. Snyder played in 13 of Marquette’s 14 games last season, making three starts in the midfield and collecting nine goals and seven assists.
Tennessee
Man pleads guilty to charges that he meant to blow up a Nashville power site with a bomb-laden drone
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A 24-year-old man with ties to white nationalist groups pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he attempted to use a drone to bomb a Nashville electricity substation, according to prosecutors.
Skyler Philippi, of Columbia, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement. He faces up to life in prison at his Jan. 8 sentencing.
“For months, Philippi planned what he had hoped would be a devastating attack on Nashville’s energy infrastructure. He acquired what he believed to be explosives, surveilled his target, and equipped a drone to attack an electrical substation. Motivated by a violent ideology, Philippi wanted ‘to do something big.’ Instead, the FBI disrupted his plans, and Philippi now awaits sentencing,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in the statement.
Philippi’s lawyer, R. David Baker, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Philippi told a confidential FBI source in July 2024 that he wanted to attack several electricity substations to “shock the system,” an FBI agent wrote in the criminal complaint. That source later introduced Philippi to an undercover FBI employee, who began to collect information about Philippi’s plan with other undercover agents.
In November 2024, Philippi and undercover employees drove to his intended Nashville launch site and prepared to fly a drone that authorities say Philippi believed had 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) of C-4 plastic explosive attached to it. The material had been provided by the undercover employees, according to prosecutors.
When he was arrested, Philippi had the drone powered up and was preparing to attach the armed explosive device to it as undercover employees pretended to be acting as lookouts for him, prosecutors said.
Philippi allegedly told undercover officials that he was affiliated with several white nationalist and extremist groups, including the National Alliance, which calls for eradicating Jews and other groups of people. Such extremist groups increasingly view attacking the U.S. power grid as a means of disrupting the country.
Philippi pleaded not guilty in January. In a March letter to the judge from jail, Philippi claimed that the undercover FBI agents had violated his due process rights and that his public defender had provided ineffective counsel.
Black student dragged from his car and beaten by officers files federal lawsuit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jacksonville law enforcement officers violated the civil rights of a 22-year-old Black college student when they pulled him from his car and beat him during a traffic stop, according to a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Jacksonville on Wednesday.
A video showing a Jacksonville Sheriff’s officer punching and dragging William McNeil from his car during a stop in February went viral online this summer and sparked nationwide outrage.
Prosecutors announced in August they would take no action after determining the conduct of Officer D. Bowers of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office did not constitute a crime, according to an investigative report released by the State Attorney’s Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Florida.
McNeil’s attorneys Ben Crump and Harry Daniels say Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s policies allow officers to engage in racial profiling and “illegal or excessive use of force” without fear of consequences.
Crump is a Black civil rights attorney who has gained national prominence representing victims of police brutality and vigilante violence.
“It’s an unjustifiable, unnecessary and most importantly unconstitutional use of force,” Crump said.
The attorneys said the lawsuit is aimed not only at addressing the treatment of their client, but at changing the culture of policing in the area.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters has said there’s more to the story than the viral cellphone video and that McNeil was repeatedly asked to exit his vehicle. Waters, who is Black, said the footage from inside the car “does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
The lawsuit names Waters, Bowers, and another officer named D. Miller, as well as the City of Jacksonville and Duval County government. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
According to a prosecutors’ report, Bowers stopped McNeil for failing to turn on his headlights and buckle his seatbelt, after seeing his SUV parked outside a house the officer was surveilling for “drug activity.”
Questioning the justification for the stop, McNeil requested a supervisor respond to the incident. Based on a review of body camera footage, interviews with officers and statements by McNeil, prosecutors said Bowers gave McNeil a dozen “lawful commands,” which he disobeyed.
Crump has claimed officers’ accounts of the incident are unreliable and has fiercely criticized prosecutors’ finding that officers did not commit any criminal wrongdoing, saying his client remained calm while the officers who are trained to de-escalate tense situations were the ones escalating violence. Crump said the case harkened back to the Civil Rights movement, when Black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
According to his attorneys, McNeil suffered a laceration to the chin and lip, a fractured tooth, and has been diagnosed with an “ongoing traumatic brain injury.” McNeil also continues to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms, including nightmares and flashbacks of the incident, his lawyers wrote in a legal filing.
McNeil’s attorneys have also formally called on the Department of Justice to conduct its own investigation of the incident and what they described as “excessive force” and “systemic failures” by Jacksonville officials.
Washington
Appeals court rules Trump doesn’t have the authority to fire Copyright Office director
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally remove and replace the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 to temporarily block Trump’s Republican administration from firing Shira Perlmutter as the register of copyrights, who advises Congress on copyright issues.
Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.
Circuit Judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs concluded that Perlmutter’s purported firing was likely illegal.
“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Pan wrote in the majority opinion.
The White House had no immediate comment on the court’s decision.
Perlmutter’s position is considered part of the legislative branch of government. Her office is housed within the Library of Congress. Its director is chosen by the librarian of Congress, who is also a legislative branch employee but is nominated by the president and is subject to Senate confirmation.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump nominee, ruled in May that Perlmutter failed to meet her legal burden to show how removing her from the position would cause her irreparable harm.
Pan and Childs, who were nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, concluded that Kelly abused his discretion and failed to weigh other factors favoring Perlmutter’s request for a preliminary injunction.
“The President’s purported removal of the Legislative Branch’s chief advisor on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the President trying to fire a federal judge’s law clerk,” Pan wrote.
Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said the register of copyrights “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”
“Recently, repeatedly, and unequivocally, the Supreme Court has stayed lower-court injunctions that barred the President from removing officers exercising executive power,” Walker wrote.
Pan said it appears Perlmutter is still serving as register despite her purported removal.
“And because she continues to serve as Register at the present time, ruling in her favor would not disrupt the work of the U.S. Copyright Office,” Pan wrote. “To the contrary, it is her removal that would be disruptive.”
Perlmutter’s attorneys say she is a renowned copyright expert who also has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.
Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.
The appeals court’s ruling says Blanche’s appointment to serve as acting librarian of Congress was likely unlawful, as well, because the position is subject to Senate confirmation.
Wisconsin
Woman charged in traffic deaths of 2 Marquette lacrosse players was drunk, prosecutors say
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin driver involved in a traffic crash last week that killed two Marquette University lacrosse players was drunk at the time, authorities alleged Wednesday in charging her with vehicular homicide.
Amandria Brunner, 41, of West Allis, faces two counts of homicide by an intoxicated use of a vehicle while having a prior intoxicant-related conviction She faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted of both counts.
According to a criminal complaint, the crash happened on Friday in Milwaukee when Brunner tried to turn left in front of an SUV that was taking six Marquette men’s lacrosse players to a thrift store.
Scott Michaud, a 19-year-old sophomore goalie and biomedical sciences major from Springboro, Ohio, and 20-year-old Noah Snyder, a sophomore attackman and business student from Irving, New York, were pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness told police that she helped Brunner out of her pickup truck and noticed Brunner smelled of alcohol and kept trying to put gum in her mouth. Police also found an open beer can in her truck, according to the criminal complaint.
Brunner’s blood, which was drawn about two hours after the crash, had a blood alcohol content of 0.133, which exceeds the state’s legal limit to drive of 0.08.
An analysis of the crash recorder in Brunner’s truck found that she had been stopped for about three seconds before she pulled into the intersection with the accelerator depressed almost all the way to the floor, according to the complaint. She was traveling just under 12 mph (19 kph) when she struck the SUV, and she never braked.
Brunner was convicted of operating while intoxicated in November 2003, the complaint says.
Online court records indicated Brunner was in custody in the Milwaukee County Jail on Wednesday. Records did not list an attorney for her.
Michaud and Snyder were named to the Big East’s all-academic team last year for maintaining grade-point averages of at least 3.0. Snyder played in 13 of Marquette’s 14 games last season, making three starts in the midfield and collecting nine goals and seven assists.
Tennessee
Man pleads guilty to charges that he meant to blow up a Nashville power site with a bomb-laden drone
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A 24-year-old man with ties to white nationalist groups pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he attempted to use a drone to bomb a Nashville electricity substation, according to prosecutors.
Skyler Philippi, of Columbia, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy an energy facility, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement. He faces up to life in prison at his Jan. 8 sentencing.
“For months, Philippi planned what he had hoped would be a devastating attack on Nashville’s energy infrastructure. He acquired what he believed to be explosives, surveilled his target, and equipped a drone to attack an electrical substation. Motivated by a violent ideology, Philippi wanted ‘to do something big.’ Instead, the FBI disrupted his plans, and Philippi now awaits sentencing,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in the statement.
Philippi’s lawyer, R. David Baker, didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Philippi told a confidential FBI source in July 2024 that he wanted to attack several electricity substations to “shock the system,” an FBI agent wrote in the criminal complaint. That source later introduced Philippi to an undercover FBI employee, who began to collect information about Philippi’s plan with other undercover agents.
In November 2024, Philippi and undercover employees drove to his intended Nashville launch site and prepared to fly a drone that authorities say Philippi believed had 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms) of C-4 plastic explosive attached to it. The material had been provided by the undercover employees, according to prosecutors.
When he was arrested, Philippi had the drone powered up and was preparing to attach the armed explosive device to it as undercover employees pretended to be acting as lookouts for him, prosecutors said.
Philippi allegedly told undercover officials that he was affiliated with several white nationalist and extremist groups, including the National Alliance, which calls for eradicating Jews and other groups of people. Such extremist groups increasingly view attacking the U.S. power grid as a means of disrupting the country.
Philippi pleaded not guilty in January. In a March letter to the judge from jail, Philippi claimed that the undercover FBI agents had violated his due process rights and that his public defender had provided ineffective counsel.
