In the news
■ Jonathan Horlock and Nathaniel Schauwecker, Indianapolis police officers who were on administrative leave, were acquitted of using excessive force to strike two women with batons during arrests at a May 2020 protest against racial injustice and police brutality.
■ Brian O’Hara, Minneapolis police chief, said a 44-year-old man was jailed on suspicion of murder after he used a golf club at a store “to assault and bludgeon the individual behind the counter in a very grotesque way.”
■ Hajur El-Haggan, a math teacher at Argyle Middle School in Silver Spring, Md., was placed on administrative leave for having “from the river to the sea” in her email signature, which “may be in violation of Montgomery County Public Schools Policy,” Principal James Allrich wrote in a letter to parents.
■ Cris Castor, 35, a former youth counselor for Celebrity Cruises, was charged with abusive sexual conduct of a minor under 12 as the FBI says he groped a 6-year-old girl while she was playing a video game in the Celebrity Silhouette’s youth center.
■ Michael Smith, 31, was sentenced to 45 years in prison after he was found guilty of assault and battery by mob, weapon possession and conspiracy for his role in the 2018 riot at the maximum-security Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, S.C., where seven prisoners were killed and 22 were seriously injured.
■ Jason Miyares, attorney general of Virginia, with help from state police, is undergoing a “criminal investigation” into over 100 animals, living and dead, taken from the Natural Bridge Zoo in Rockbridge County.
■ Peter Park, 18, a law clerk for the Tulare County, Calif., District Attorney’s Office, is the youngest person to pass the State Bar exam at 17 and was sworn in as an attorney, according to a news release issued by the District Attorney’s office.
Esmeralda Egurrola, m of Tucson, Ariz., said she plans to get new motion-activated cameras for her backyard, but “may leave one untied with a tracker” after a gray fox stole her three video surveillance devices.
■ Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, said she has refused to use the state flag or seal in official correspondence because it depicts “a Native person being driven off their land.”