NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
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Ex-sheriff guilty: Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was convicted Wednesday of obstructing an FBI investigation into corrupt and violent guards who took bribes to smuggle contraband into the jails he ran and savagely beat inmates. The trial, the second Baca, 74, faced after a jury last year deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal on obstruction charges, cast a dark shadow over a distinguished 50-year law enforcement career that abruptly ended with his 2014 resignation from the nation’s largest sheriff ’s department as the corruption investigation spread from rank-and-file deputies to his inner circle. Baca, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, could face a 20-year prison sentence.
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Deadly violence: Three people were shot to death and a fourth fatally stabbed at an apartment complex in suburban New Orleans early Wednesday, authorities said. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff ’s Office got a call around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday from a woman who said she had been shot. Deputies found the wounded woman along with three bodies — two men and a woman, all shot in the head — at an apartment in Metairie. Investigators then found a fourth body in a nearby apartment after obtaining a search warrant to enter through its open door. That victim had been stabbed multiple times in the head. It was unclear how all the victims were connected.
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Parents charged: The parents of a 12-year-old St. Louis boy who was accidentally shot to death while playing with his younger brother are accused of causing the death. Prosecutors on Wednesday charged Donnie Holmes, 41, and Yolanda Jackson, 40, with second-degree involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in the death of Damian Holmes, who was killed with a gun he and his brother found.
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Police sued: A woman has filed a lawsuit against the Phoenix suburb of Avondale and two of its police officers, claiming they forced her to take a sobriety test at the side of a city street while she was naked from the waist down. The lawsuit filed earlier this month said the woman had removed her pants before the 2016 traffic stop because she had soiled them earlier due to an incontinence problem.
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“Stand your ground”: Florida, which spearheaded the country’s use of the “stand your ground” defense, is poised to significantly alter its self-defense laws, making it easier for defendants to use them. The Florida Legislature is on the verge of passing legislation in Tallahassee that would bolster self-defense laws and shift the burden to prosecutors during immunity hearings to show that such laws should not apply. The state Senate on Wednesday passed a revised stand your ground bill by a vote of 23-15, paving the way for the state House to take up the bill in the coming weeks. The stand your ground provision allows people to use deadly force, without first attempting to retreat from a dangerous situation, if they “reasonably believe” their lives are threatened.