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A police department in Maryland has released body camera video that captured two of its officers berating a 5-year-old boy who had walked away from his elementary school, calling him a “little beast” and threatening him with a beating.

The video released Friday by the Montgomery County Police Department shows one of the officers repeatedly screaming at the crying child, with her face inches from his.

“Oh, my God, I’d beat him so bad,” the officer said in the child’s presence before telling him, “You do not embarrass me like this at school.”

The boy’s mother has filed a lawsuit over the January 2020 interaction. Lawyers for the child’s mother, Shanta Grant, said the video shows the officers treating her son “as if he were a hardened criminal.” They said Grant is seeking “justice and fair compensation for the trauma he endured.”

“She also hopes that the incident will lead to changes in policy and training, both with the school and the police,” the attorneys, Matthew Bennett and James Papirmeister, said in a statement.

The Washington Post reports that the police department and the county’s public school system declined to address the incident in detail, citing the mother’s pending lawsuit. But the school system issued a statement describing the video as “extremely difficult” to watch.

“There is no excuse for adults to ever speak to or threaten a child in this way,” the school system said. “As parents and grandparents, we know that when families send their children to school, they expect that the staff will care for them, keep them safe and use appropriate intervention processes when needed.”

A police department spokeswoman told the newspaper that the two officers in the video remain employed by the department after an internal investigation.

“A thorough investigation was conducted of the entire event,” the department said in a statement.

The officers found the boy about one block from East Silver Spring Elementary School and drove him back to the school, where they were met by a school administrator. The video shows an officer forcing the crying child onto a chair in the principal’s office.

“Shut that noise up now!” the other officer shouted near the boy’s face. “I hope your momma let me beat you.”

One of the officers pulled out his handcuffs and closed one of loops around the child’s right wrist.

“You know what these are for?” he asked the boy. “These people that don’t want to listen and don’t know how to act.”

Both of the officers involved in the incident are Black, and so is the 5-year-old boy, according to police department spokesman Rick Goodale.

Montgomery County Council member Will Jawando said the video “made me sick.”

“We all saw a little boy be mocked, degraded, put in the seat of a police car, screamed at from the top of an adult police officer’s lungs, inches from his face. This is violence,” Jawando said.

Nseobong David (Staff Reporter)

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Bizarre Epstein files reference to Trump, Putin, and oral sex with ‘Bubba’ draws scrutiny in Congress

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The latest tranche of emails from the estate of late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein includes one that contains what appear to be references to President Donald Trump allegedly performing oral sex, raising questions the committee cannot answer until the Department of Justice turns over records it has withheld, says U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Garcia insists the Trump White House is helping block them.

In a Friday afternoon interview with The Advocate, the out California lawmaker responded to a 2018 exchange, which was included in the emails released, between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, Mark Epstein. In that message, Mark wrote that because Jeffrey Epstein had said he was with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he should “ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”

“Bubba” is a nickname former President Bill Clinton has been known by; however, the email does not clarify who Mark Epstein meant, and the context remains unclear.

Nseobong David (Staff Reporter)
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USDA head says ‘everyone’ on SNAP will now have to reapply

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday said the Trump administration is planning to have all Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries reapply for the program due to alleged fraud.

The secretary said after receiving data on SNAP recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”

“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we’re going to find?” she asked during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she added.

Every state has a periodic recertification process that requires SNAP or food stamp recipients to update their whereabouts and earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most municipalities require updated data every six to 12 months.

“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of State data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with States. “

Earlier this month, food stamps were threatened amid the government shutdown as the Trump administration argued against using contingency funds to fuel the welfare program.

Nseobong David (Staff Reporter)
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Trump orders Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to Clinton and other political foes

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NEW YORK (AP) — Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.

Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.

Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.

Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.

Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”

In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.

It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.

None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimes

Nseobong David (Staff Reporter)
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