Mornings on the Mall

Friday, July 8, 2016

Hosts: Larry O’Connor and Jessie Jane Duff

5am – A Dallas sniper attack: 5 officers killed during protests against police

Shooters killed five officers during protests against police in downtown Dallas, marking the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since September 11, 2001.The gunfire started Thursday night as demonstrators marched against the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota. A total of 11 officers were shot, and some of the six officers injured are undergoing surgery, authorities said it was the deadliest single attack on law enforcement since the 2001 terror attacks, when 72 officers died, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

• A total of 10 police officers were shot by snipers during the protests, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. An 11th officer was shot during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, authorities said.
• Brown said it’s unclear how many suspects were involved, but three people are in custody.
• Dallas police negotiated and exchanged gunfire with a suspect for hours at a parking garage in downtown. That suspect is dead, a law enforcement official told CNN. The official did not say how the suspect died. “The suspect told our negotiators that the end is coming,” Brown said. The suspect at the garage also told negotiators more officers are going to get hurt, and that bombs are planted all over downtown Dallas.
• Police found no explosives during primary and secondary sweeps of the area, Dallas police Maj. Max Geron said Friday morning on Twitter.
• Two of the shooters were snipers, who fired “ambush-style” from an “elevated position,” Brown said.

5am – B/C     Reporter Alan Scaia updates us from Dallas on protest shooting

5am – D         Rep. William Hurd responds to James Comey

At a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday, Rep. Will Hurd grills FBI director James Comey about Hillary Clinton’s email server security.  “I’m offended” Hurd said after listening to Democrats casting questions over the investigation as nothing more than “political theater.”
“I spent 9 1/2 years as an undercover officer in the CIA. I was the guy in the back alleys, collecting intelligence, passing it to lawmakers. I’ve seen my friends killed. I’ve seen assets put in harms way” an angry Hurd declared. “Does SAP inclue Humint and Sigint?”
Comey responded that it was possible, but he could not say in this setting.
“The Secretary of State had an unauthorized email server in her basement, those are your words,” said Hurd. “Who or what was protecting that server?”
“Not much,” Comey responded.
“You don’t think this sends a message to other employees that if the former Secretary of State can have an unauthorized server in their basement that transmits top secret information… that’s not a problem?” Hurd asked in response.
“There will be discipline from termination to reprimand–and everything in between–for people who mishandle classified information.” Comey said.

5am – E         Dallas Update

6am – A/B/C Dallas sniper attack: 5 officers killed during protests against police

Shooters killed five officers during protests against police in downtown Dallas, marking the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since September 11, 2001.The gunfire started Thursday night as demonstrators marched against the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota. A total of 11 officers were shot, and some of the six officers injured are undergoing surgery, authorities said it was the deadliest single attack on law enforcement since the 2001 terror attacks, when 72 officers died, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

• A total of 10 police officers were shot by snipers during the protests, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. An 11th officer was shot during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, authorities said.
• Brown said it’s unclear how many suspects were involved, but three people are in custody.
• Dallas police negotiated and exchanged gunfire with a suspect for hours at a parking garage in downtown. That suspect is dead, a law enforcement official told CNN. The official did not say how the suspect died. “The suspect told our negotiators that the end is coming,” Brown said. The suspect at the garage also told negotiators more officers are going to get hurt, and that bombs are planted all over downtown Dallas.
• Police found no explosives during primary and secondary sweeps of the area, Dallas police Maj. Max Geron said Friday morning on Twitter.
• Two of the shooters were snipers, who fired “ambush-style” from an “elevated position,” Brown said.

6am – D FBI Director James Comey Grilled About Precedent in Clinton Investigation

FBI Director James Comey faced congressional Republicans this morning in a hastily called hearing on Capitol Hill to question his findings in the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

In his opening statement, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, accused Comey of setting a “dangerous” precedent that will allow officials to “sloppily” handle classified information with “no consequence.”Chaffetz said Comey’s determination that charges weren’t warranted in the case sent a message that “if your name isn’t Clinton or you aren’t part of the powerful elite … Lady Justice will act differently” toward you.But Comey strongly defended his recommendation that charges not be brought against Clinton or her aides for mishandling classified information by using a private email server when she was secretary of state.”The decision was made and the recommendation was made the way you would want it to be, by people who didn’t give a hoot about politics but who cared about what are the facts, what is the law and how have similar people -— all people —- been treated in the past,” he told the House panel.In explaining his decision, Comey said two things matter in a criminal probe: “What did the person do … and when they did it, did they know they were doing something that was unlawful?””That is the characteristic of all prosecutions of mishandling classified information,” he added. wile there is a federal law dealing with “gross negligence,” Comey said that does not mean prosecutors shouldn’t consider the mindset of a subject when deciding whether to bring charges, by “American tradition.”He said that because of “grave concerns” over use of the gross negligence law, it has been used by federal prosecutors only once in its 99-year history, and that case involved espionage.”When I look at the facts we gathered here, as I said, I see evidence of great carelessness, but I do not see evidence sufficient to establish that Secretary Clinton or those with whom she was corresponding both talked about classified information on email and knew when they did it that they were doing something that was against the law,” Comey said today. “No reasonable prosecutor would bring this case … Nobody would. Nobody did.”He called the FBI probe “apolitical,” “competent, honest and independent. Nevertheless, Chaffetz told Comey he and others were “mystified” and “confused” by the FBI’s findings and recommendation.

6am- E Local law enforcement call in to give their opinion on the circumstances surrounding the Dallas shootings.

7am – A         INTERVIEW– AMIE HOEBER– Running for Maryland’s 6th Congressional Distric and served as President Reagan’s Deputy Under Secretary of the Army

Topic: Amie weighs in on James Comey and Hillary Clinton’s emails.

7am – B/C    Reporter Alan Scaia updates us from Dallas on protest shooting

7am – D/E INTERVIEW– KATIE PHANG–FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST

Topic:

— Opening Statements In Next Freddie Gray Trial To Begin

Lieutenant Brian Rice is the highest-ranking officer charged in Freddie Gray’s death and faces assault, misconduct, manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges.

The controversy stems from evidence prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense until just days ago  Rice’s training records. They said it took months to get them from the police department, but police now say that’s not true.

Prosecutors will stress his role as the highest-ranking officer and focus on his training. But the judge ruled prosecutors can’t use 4,000 pages of documents detailing that training because they waited too long to turn them over to the defense.

“It’s certainly a setback that the state didn’t get the chance to probe and mine through those documents to find out whether there was any smoking gun in there that said that this officer specifically knew that he had an obligation to seat belt Freddie Gray,” said Adam Ruther, Rosenberg Martin Greenberg.

Even stressing Rice’s supervisory role, prosecutors face the same judge who’s rejected their arguments in the past.“I don’t think there’s any chance that the case is going to get better. I think it’s going to be more difficult to prosecute the remaining officers,” said Warren Alperstein, lawyer and courtroom observer.

8am – A INTERVIEW–RICH ANDERSON–VIRGINIA DELEGATE

TOPIC: Pr. William School Board seat up in the air ahead of reservist’s deployment

Prince William County School Board member Gilbert A. “Gil” Trenum Jr., a Navy reservist, has been called up to active duty, which means he’ll soon serve in Africa as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. How the mobilization will affect his elected office, however, is unclear. renum (Brentsville) said last month that Virginia’s Division of Legislative Services in Richmond told him that he can continue to hold office while deployed and that he can choose to have a temporary replacement serve in his stead while he is in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa.

8am –B INTERVIEW–JIMMY WHITE—SECRETARY TO THE FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT LABOR COMMITTEE (FOP)

TOPIC: Jimmy gives his input on the negativity surrounding law enforcement and the shootings in Dallas.

8am C/D/E Dallas sniper attack: 5 officers killed during protests against police

Shooters killed five officers during protests against police in downtown Dallas, marking the deadliest incident for U.S. law enforcement since September 11, 2001.The gunfire started Thursday night as demonstrators marched against the shooting deaths of two African-American men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota. A total of 11 officers were shot, and some of the six officers injured are undergoing surgery, authorities said it was the deadliest single attack on law enforcement since the 2001 terror attacks, when 72 officers died, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

• A total of 10 police officers were shot by snipers during the protests, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. An 11th officer was shot during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect, authorities said.
• Brown said it’s unclear how many suspects were involved, but three people are in custody.
• Dallas police negotiated and exchanged gunfire with a suspect for hours at a parking garage in downtown. That suspect is dead, a law enforcement official told CNN. The official did not say how the suspect died. “The suspect told our negotiators that the end is coming,” Brown said. The suspect at the garage also told negotiators more officers are going to get hurt, and that bombs are planted all over downtown Dallas.
• Police found no explosives during primary and secondary sweeps of the area, Dallas police Maj. Max Geron said Friday morning on Twitter.
• Two of the shooters were snipers, who fired “ambush-style” from an “elevated position,” Brown said.