Witnesses: Teen had hands raised when shot
Witnesses: Teen had hands raised when shot
FERGUSON, Mo. — A black teenager who was fatally shot by a police officer had his hands raised when the officer approached him with his weapon drawn and fired repeatedly, according to two men who said they witnessed the shooting, which sparked a night of unrest in suburban St. Louis.
The FBI opened an investigation Monday into the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who police said was shot multiple times Saturday after being confronted by a white officer in Ferguson, a 21,000-resident suburb that’s nearly 70 percent black. Authorities were vague about exactly what led the officer to open fire, except to say that the shooting was preceded by a scuffle of some kind. It was unclear whether Brown or a man he was with was involved in the altercation.
Investigators have refused to publicly disclose the race of the officer, who is now on administrative leave. But Phillip Walker said he was on the porch of an apartment complex overlooking the scene when he heard a shot and saw a white officer with Brown on the street.
Brown “was giving up in the sense of raising his arms and being subdued,” Walker told The Associated Press on Monday. The officer “had his gun raised and started shooting the individual in the chest multiple times.” The officer then “stood over him and shot him” after the victim fell wounded.
Dorian Johnson offered a similar account when he told WALB-TV that he and Brown were walking home from a convenience store when a police officer told them to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. Johnson said they kept walking, which caused the officer to confront them from his car and again after getting out of his car.
Johnson said the first time the officer fired, he and Brown got scared and ran away.
“He shot again, and once my friend felt that shot, he turned around and put his hands in the air, and he started to get down,” Johnson said. “But the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and fired several more shots.”
“We wasn’t causing harm to nobody,” Johnson said. “We had no weapons on us at all.”
Walker acknowledged that he did not see a scuffle or the circumstances surrounding the first gunshot.
Robin Williams, manic comedy star, dies at 63
SAN FRANCISCO — Robin Williams, the Academy Award winner and comic supernova whose explosions of pop culture riffs and impressions dazzled audiences for decades and made him a gleamy-eyed laureate for the Information Age, died Monday in an apparent suicide. He was 63.
Williams was pronounced dead at his home in California on Monday, according to the sheriff’s office in Marin County, north of San Francisco.
The sheriff’s office said a preliminary investigation shows the cause of death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.
“This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken,” said Williams’ wife, Susan Schneider. “On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief.
As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions,”
Williams had been battling severe depression recently, said Mara Buxbaum, his press representative.
From his breakthrough in the late 1970s as the alien in the hit TV show “Mork and Mindy,” through his standup act and such films as “Good Morning, Vietnam,” the short, barrel-chested Williams ranted and shouted as if just sprung from solitary confinement. Loud, fast, manic, he parodied everyone from John Wayne to Keith Richards, impersonating a Russian immigrant as easily as a pack of Nazi attack dogs.
He was a riot in drag in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” or as a cartoon genie in “Aladdin.” He won his Academy Award in a rare, but equally intense dramatic role, as a teacher in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting.”
Traffic agency slow on investigation requests
DETROIT (AP) — People are waiting longer than they should for an answer when they petition the government to open an investigation into what could be serious safety problems.
The Associated Press reviewed all 15 petitions filed by drivers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 2010 and found the agency missed the legal deadline to grant or deny the requests 12 times. One petition from 2012 has yet to be resolved.
A 1974 law passed to make the agency move faster requires a decision within four months of receiving a petition.
But even though the agency has fined automakers such as General Motors and Toyota millions for missing deadlines to disclose safety issues, there is no penalty when it’s tardy itself.
NHTSA concedes it has missed the deadlines but says it often must ask petitioners for more data to complete its analysis. Still, in eight petitions reviewed by the AP, it took more than a year to open an investigation or close the case.
Safety advocates say a delay that long can put lives at risk. And given the recent criticism of the agency for its role in GM’s delayed recall of cars with defective ignition switches, these advocates question whether it is functioning well enough to protect the public.
“Everything is just really slow,” says Matt Oliver, executive director of the North Carolina Consumers Council, which petitioned the government in February 2012 on behalf of drivers seeking an investigation of Nissan truck transmission failures. It has yet to get a decision. “You have to ask is everything going as efficiently as it can?”
Car owners have two ways to ask safety regulators for action. They can file a complaint, or submit a petition. A complaint has information about a single incident and usually is filed via the agency’s website. Petitions are formal requests for investigations, with evidence of a problem in many vehicles.