The Justice Department on Friday laid bare years of civil rights violations by Chicago police, blasting the nation’s second-largest department for using excessive force that included shooting at people who did not pose a threat and using stun guns on others only because they refused to follow commands. The report was issued after a yearlong investigation sparked by the 2014 death of a black teenager who was shot 16 times by a white officer. The federal investigation looked broadly at policing and concluded that officers were not sufficiently trained or supported and that many who were accused of misconduct were rarely investigated or disciplined. The findings come just a week before a change in administration that could reorder priorities at the Justice Department. Under President Barack Obama, the government has conducted 25 civil rights investigations of police departments, including those in Cleveland, Baltimore and Seattle. President-elect Donald Trump’s position on the federal review process is unclear. His nominee for attorney general has expressed reservations about the system, especially the reliance on courts to bring about changes. Asked about the investigation’s future, outgoing Attorney General Loretta Lynch said talks between Chicago and the government would go on regardless “of who is at the top of the Justice Department.” The federal government’s recommendations follow an especially bloody year on Chicago streets. The city logged 762 homicides in 2016, the highest tally in 20 years and more than the combined total of the two largest U.S. cities — New York and Los Angeles. The Chicago department, with 12,000 officers, has long had a reputation for brutality, particularly in minority communities. The most notorious example was Jon Burge, commander of a detective unit on the South Side. Burge and his men beat, suffocated and used electric shock for decades starting in the 1970s to get black men to confess to crimes they did not commit. Chicago officers endangered civilians, caused avoidable injuries and deaths and eroded community trust that is “the cornerstone of public safety,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. The investigation began in December 2015 after the release of dashcam video showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was walking away from police holding a small folded knife. The video, which the city fought to keep secret, inspired large protests and cost the city’s police commissioner his job. Friday’s report “confirms what civil rights lawyers have been saying for decades,” said attorney Matt Topic, who helped lead the legal fight for the release of the McDonald footage. “It is momentous and pretty rewarding to see that finally confirmed by the U.S. government.” Investigators described a class for officers on the use of force that showed a video made 35 years ago — before key U.S. Supreme Court rulings that affected police practices nationwide. When instructors spoke further on the topic, several recruits did not appear to be paying attention and at least one was sleeping, the report said. Justice Department agents who questioned Chicago officers found that only 1 out of 6 who were in training or who just completed the police academy “came close to properly articulating the legal standard for use of force,” the report said. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the results of the investigation were “sobering” and pledged to make changes beyond

The U.S. Justice Department will conclude in a report to be released Friday that the Chicago Police Department displayed a pattern and practice of violating residents’ constitutional rights over years, a law enforcement official said Wednesday. The official, who is familiar with the findings, spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. He declined to offer details. Based on other such investigative reports on other big cities, Chicago’s could run well over 100 pages. The Police Department has been dogged by a reputation for brutality, particularly in minority communities, so a finding of at least some violations isn’t a big surprise. Chicago has one of the nation’s largest police departments with about 12,000 officers, and the report stems from an investigation launched in 2015 after the release of video showing a white officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. Among the questions Justice Department investigators were expected to examine was whether Chicago officers are prone to excessive force and racial bias. A message seeking comment Wednesday from a police spokesman wasn’t immediately returned. The Justice Department under President Barack Obama conducted around 25 similar investigations of police nationwide, from Miami to Cleveland and Baltimore to Seattle. A report is one step in a process that’s typically led in recent years to plans to overhaul police departments that are enforced by federal judges. President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to such intervention isn’t clear. His nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has expressed some reservations about using federal courts to pressure police to reform. The Chicago investigation focused on institutionalized misconduct and sought explanations for why it happens. Investigators combed thousands of police records, interviewed officers and held town-hall meetings. (AP)

Democratic mayors of major U.S. cities that have long had cool relationships with federal immigration officials say they’ll do all they can to protect residents from deportation, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to withhold potentially millions of dollars in taxpayer money if they don’t cooperate. New York’s Bill de Blasio, Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Seattle’s Ed Murray are among those in “sanctuary cities” who have tried to soothe immigrant populations worried about Trump’s agenda. “Seattle has always been a welcoming city,” Murray said Monday. “The last thing I want is for us to start turning on our neighbors.” In Providence, Rhode Island, Mayor Jorge Elorza, the son of Guatemalan immigrants, said he’d continue a longstanding city policy of refusing to hold people charged with civil infractions for federal immigration officials, and Newark’s Ras Baraka echoed that, calling Trump’s rhetoric on immigration “scary.” During the campaign, Trump gave an immigration speech in which he promised to “end the sanctuary cities” and said those “that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars.” He blamed such policies for “so many needless deaths.” Trump didn’t elaborate further on his plans for cracking down on the cities, and in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday, he said his administration’s immediate priority will be on deporting criminals and securing the border. But significant questions — and unease — remain concerning his approach to sanctuary cities. There’s no legal definition of the term, which is opposed by some immigration advocates, who say it doesn’t reflect that people can still be deported. It generally refers to jurisdictions that don’t to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That can mean, for example, they don’t notify immigration officials when an undocumented immigrant is about to be released from custody. Some cities, like San Francisco, have long declared themselves safe havens for immigrants, issuing local ID cards to allow them to access government or other services. It’s also been used to refer to cities that bar employees, including police, from inquiring about a person’s immigration status, on the grounds that crime victims and witnesses might be less likely to talk to investigators if they’re worried about being deported. “We don’t want anybody to be afraid to talk to us,” said Sheriff John Urquhart in Washington’s King County, which includes Seattle. Since states and cities can’t be required to enforce federal law — and there’s no federal law requiring police to ask about a person’s immigration status — it’s likely that any Trump effort to crack down on sanctuary cities would focus on those that refuse to comply with ICE requests, said Roy Beck, chief executive of NumbersUSA, which wants to see immigration levels reduced. It’s also unclear what money Trump might pull from the cities. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that for Congress to impose conditions on the receipt of federal money by the states, the conditions must be reasonably related to the purpose of the money. For example, the feds threatened to withhold highway funds from any state that failed to adopt a 0.08 blood-alcohol limit: Both the limit and the highway funding were related to road safety. “If the funding is for improving childhood education, it’s hard to say that’s reasonably related to local law enforcement cooperation with deportations,” said Mary Fan, a

A day after Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, campaign divisions appeared to widen as many thousands of demonstrators — some with signs with messages declaring “NOT MY PRESIDENT” — flooded streets across the country to protest his surprise triumph. From New England to heartland cities like Kansas City and along the West Coast, demonstrators bore flags and effigies of the president-elect, disrupting traffic and declaring that they refused to accept Trump’s victory. Flames lit up the night sky in California cities Wednesday as thousands of protesters burned a giant papier-mache Trump head in Los Angeles and started fires in Oakland intersections. Los Angeles demonstrators also beat a Trump pi?ata and sprayed the Los Angeles Times building and news vans with anti-Trump profanity. One protester outside LA City Hall read a sign that simply said “this is very bad.” Late in the evening several hundred people blocked one of the city’s busiest freeways, U.S. 101 between downtown and Hollywood. City News Service reported that 13 people were arrested as officers in full riot gear walked the protesters off the freeway. By 1:30 a.m., the freeway was clear of demonstrators but lanes remained closed for cleanup. In Oakland, several thousand people gathered in Frank Ogawa Palaza, police said, clogging intersections and freeway on-ramps. In Chicago, where thousands had recently poured into the streets to celebrate the Chicago Cubs’ first World Series victory in over a century, several thousand people marched through the Loop. They gathered outside Trump Tower, chanting “Not my president!” Chicago resident Michael Burke said he believes the president-elect will “divide the country and stir up hatred.” He added there was a constitutional duty not to accept that outcome. Police said that an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 people participated in the Chicago protests. Police reported five arrests, including two for obstructing traffic, but said there were no major incidents. A similar protest in Manhattan drew about 1,000 people. Outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in midtown, police installed barricades to keep the demonstrators at bay. Hundreds of protesters gathered near Philadelphia’s City Hall despite chilly, wet weather. Participants — who included both supporters of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who lost to Clinton in the primary — expressed anger at both Republicans and Democrats over the election’s outcome. In Boston, thousands of anti-Trump protesters streamed through downtown, chanting “Trump’s a racist” and carrying signs that said “Impeach Trump” and “Abolish Electoral College.” Clinton appears to be on pace to win the popular vote, despite losing the electoral count that decides the presidential race. The protesters gathered on Boston Common before marching toward the Massachusetts Statehouse, with beefed-up security including extra police officers. Hundreds also gathered in Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine. A protest that began at the Minnesota State Capitol Tuesday night with about 100 people swelled at is moved into downtown St. Paul, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported. Protesters blocked downtown streets and traveled west on University Avenue where they shouted expletives about Trump in English and Spanish. There were other Midwest protest marches in Omaha, Nebraska, and Kansas City, Missouri. Marchers protesting Trump’s election chanted and carried signs in front of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. Media outlets broadcast video Wednesday night showing a peaceful crowd in front of

Hillary Clinton is poised to meet Thursday with a group of top law enforcement leaders, including the retiring New York City police commissioner who recently said Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy scared him. Clinton campaign aides said she will meet in New York with eight leading law enforcement leaders, including retiring commissioner Bill Bratton of New York City and his successor, James O’Neill; Charles Beck of the Los Angeles Police Department and former police chief Charles Ramsey of Philadelphia. Other participants include law enforcement leaders from Tucson, Arizona; Seattle; Camden County, New Jersey; and Dallas County, Texas. Bratton said in an interview earlier this month with CBS News that Trump’s “shoot from the hip” style and “lack of depth” on policy issues scared him. Clinton’s meeting comes as Trump, the Republican nominee, has accused her of being “against the police” and vowed to restore law and order if elected president. Aides said Clinton’s meeting had been planned for several weeks and would build upon her outreach to law enforcement during the campaign. Following a deadly shooting of police officers in Dallas, Clinton urged Americans to try to walk in the shoes of law enforcement and Democrats had law enforcement officials speak at their summer convention, including Ramsey. (AP)

Laws taking effect at the start of the new year show states diverging on some hot-button issues. Restrictions on carrying guns eased in Texas, for example, but got tighter in California. It is easier to register to vote in Oregon, but there is another step to take at the polls in North Carolina. The opposing directions in the states reflect a nation with increasingly polarized politics. In the debate over gun control, both sides say their arguments are strengthened by a string of mass shootings this year. That includes the December attack at a county health department gathering in San Bernardino, California, when a couple who investigators say pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group killed 14 people. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group backed by billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is seeking to be a counterweight to the National Rifle Association’s lobbying of state lawmakers. Both groups are expected to be active in legislatures in the coming year. Whether to raise the minimum wage has become another hot topic in states and cities, with the issue getting no traction in the Republican-led Congress. New voting laws, meanwhile, could help shape the outcomes in state and federal elections in the coming year. Democrats and others who want to boost voter participation have been pushing to expand access to the polls, while conservatives have pushed for measures aimed at preventing election fraud. Each side says the other is using legislation to help their favored party in elections. A look at some of the more notable laws taking effect in January: GUNS Texas, the second-most populous state, joins 44 other states in allowing at least some firearm owners to carry handguns openly in public places. Under the Texas law, guns can be carried by those with licenses and only in holsters. Meanwhile, California, the most populous state, has multiple new laws on gun control. One tightens a ban on firearms in and around schools. Under the new law, the prohibition applies even to most people who are allowed to carry concealed weapons generally. Another allows people to request that a judge order weapons be taken away from relatives who are believed to pose a threat. ___ VOTING California and Oregon become the first states that automatically register eligible voters when they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses. Critics of the measures — mostly Republicans — say that could lead to voter fraud and is part of a plan to register more voters who are likely to be Democrats. They say voters should register voluntarily. In both states, people are able to opt out of being registered. Similar measures have been proposed in other states but never adopted. This year, Republican Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the concept in New Jersey. In North Carolina, a voter identification law passed in 2013 that requires people to show a photo ID takes effect. An amendment adopted this year allows voters who have trouble obtaining the required ID to vote anyway. That provision keeps North Carolina from joining eight states in which a photo ID is strictly required. There are still legal challenges over the law, and opponents want a judge to delay implementation. In most states, voters are asked to show some kind of identification. ___ PUBLIC HEALTH Hawaii becomes

The use of police body cameras is spreading to keep officers honest about using force against citizens. But how and when the public gets to see the footage is up for debate. Videos of police shootings have become critical to determining what happened in situations that turn deadly. In some cases, strapping cigarette pack-size cameras to officers’ uniforms has been framed as a way to curb police brutality and stem deteriorating trust in law enforcement. It’s not that simple. While the recordings may help get to the truth of an incident with police, they also record distraught victims, grieving family members, people suffering from mental illness and citizens exercising their rights to free speech and civil disobedience. Cameras may solve one problem but create others. Existing laws that govern what information is released to the public are on the chopping block, as states try to strike the balance between a citizen’s right to privacy and making officers answer for their actions. The use of police body cameras is still in its infancy, with no official count for how many of the 18,000 state and local departments have turned to them. But dozens of agencies across the country are testing them, and many have plans to roll them out more broadly. A policy to release all police-recorded videos could mean footage of the inside of a person’s home or a hospital would be available. But if the policy is not to release footage in order to protect a person’s privacy, that could mean a video of an officer shooting someone would not be made public, defeating the main purpose of the use of these cameras. “What started as an effort to capture or prevent bad police behavior, I think now we’re starting to see the realities of it capturing true human suffering,” Frank Straub, chief of the Spokane, Washington, police department, said earlier this year at a policy forum on Capitol Hill. The solution is somewhere in the middle. Some departments redact the faces of bystanders or those arrested, or blur a video so much that little is recognizable. Others won’t release video if it’s part of an ongoing investigation. Some policies allow officers to turn their cameras on and off. Even completely uncensored footage may not crystalize an incident because it’s taken from one officer’s physical position, often a moving one. This can create shaky footage and in some cases won’t capture all details of a violent encounter. State laws vary about what the public can see. Existing recordings are covered under these laws, such as videos from cameras mounted inside patrol cars. But body cameras produce more footage than dashboard cameras — footage that can show officers inside peoples’ homes and other private places. “Any policy that categorically shields or opens up body-camera footage is probably wrong,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU is advocating for policies that flag video if it involves police use of force or relates to a public complaint. Body cameras have become an easy political answer to the complex problem of crumbling trust in police. In South Carolina, for example, police footage initially released after an officer shot a suspect in April showed the suspect running away during a routine traffic stop. Cellphone footage from

Months before Freddie Gray died of the broken neck he suffered during what Baltimore’s top prosecutor called an illegal arrest, the city’s mayor and police commissioner said the department needed reform and asked the Justice Department for help reviewing officer misconduct. Now that Gray is buried, six officers are charged in his death and an uneasy calm has returned to the streets, critics are wondering whether city leaders are capable of implementing the change the city needs without the direct, intensive oversight that comes with a full-fledged civil rights investigation resulting in a federal consent decree. Democratic Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has already pushed back against this possibility, saying it would deprive Baltimore’s leaders from having a say in fighting crime in one of the nation’s most violent major cities, with more than 200 homicides a year. “Nobody wants the Department of Justice to come and take over our city,” she said last week. Baltimore’s leaders should welcome federal oversight, because it’s doubtful any police department can fix itself from within, said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California-Irvine School of Law. Consent decrees have been mostly effective since Congress responded to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles by granting the Justice Department the power in 1994 to sue police departments for civil rights violations. Los Angeles went through it, and proved that it works, said Chemerinsky, who has studied reform efforts there. “I think that there is less likelihood of excessive force today, less racist policing today in Los Angeles, than prior to the consent decree,” he said. The Justice Department has negotiated settlements with 21 other police departments since then; Seattle and New Orleans are currently under consent decrees, and Cleveland’s police department is negotiating one. Justice officials are also negotiating with the department in Ferguson, Missouri, where an officer’s shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown sparked a national debate about use of force by police against blacks. The federal civil rights investigation in Ferguson found patterns of racial bias and discriminatory law enforcement tactics. A consent decree is a form of negotiated settlement with the Justice Department that averts a civil-rights lawsuit. Police departments agree to implement a series of reforms under the watch of an independent monitor. The Justice Department already announced a separate federal probe of Gray’s death. And a broad civil rights investigation would not begin unless federal authorities conclude the ongoing voluntary review is insufficient. Federal consent decrees also create new challenges. It can take more than a decade for police departments to satisfy their requirements, and meanwhile, expenses add up: It can cost tens of millions of dollars to retrain officers, hire new ones and modify use-of-force policies. “Cities don’t want to invest their scarce resources in the costly process of reforming a police department,” said Stephen Rushin, a visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Illinois who is working on a book about police reform. “Typically, it takes away from investments in schools, roads, parks, other things the city is going to value.” Then again, the city is already spending millions in legal settlements with people alleging officers have injured them or killed family members. The mayor and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts asked for the Justice Department review last year after The Baltimore Sun tallied $5.7 million in

The grand jury that declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was focused on whether he might have acted in self-defense when he shot and killed unarmed, 18-year-old Michael Brown. But the case raises another question: Could Wilson have avoided getting into a spot where he had to make that split-second, life-or-death decision? Departments around the country have in recent years stepped up their training in “de-escalation” — the art of defusing a tense situation with a word or a gesture instead of being confrontational or reaching for a weapon. Proponents, including the Justice Department, say the approach can improve trust and understanding between police and residents, curtail the unnecessary use of force and improve the safety of officers and civilians alike. “We haven’t taught officers to just walk away,” said Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Commissioner Robert Haas. “But if the only reason a person is acting up is because you’re standing there … isn’t that a viable approach?” Haas and other law enforcement officials said they didn’t want to second-guess Wilson’s actions because they weren’t in his shoes at the time of the Aug. 9 shooting. But, many said, the case should accelerate a national discussion about police culture and the potential for broader training in de-escalation, which is considered especially important in dealing with people in mental health or drug-related crises. In Missouri this month, a federal law enforcement team held training with St. Louis-area police, including top commanders from Ferguson, on how unintentional bias affects police work. That approach goes hand-in-hand with de-escalation. “In every police encounter, the officer and the civilian bring with them and see the world through their experiences. The more these views diverge, the more they immediately see the other as a threat,” said Jenny Durkan, the former U.S. attorney in Seattle who led the effort to curb excessive uses of force by city police. According to Wilson’s grand jury testimony, Brown and a friend were walking down the middle of the street when he drove up and asked them to use the sidewalk. When they declined, he suggested it again. Brown responded by cursing at him, Wilson said. He backed up his vehicle to confront Brown, who was carrying stolen cigars. Brown shoved the vehicle’s door shut as Wilson tried to open it, and then attacked the officer through the door’s open window, Wilson said. The officer began shooting, then got out of the car, chased Brown, and fired some more when Brown turned around. “My job isn’t to just sit and wait,” Wilson told ABC News. In its investigations of police agencies, the Justice Department has singled out poor de-escalation tactics. In a July report on the Newark, New Jersey, department, the DOJ faulted a “pattern and practice of taking immediate offensive action” rather than acting within the bounds of the Constitution and displaying the “thick skin and patience” needed for the job. In Seattle and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the DOJ blasted police for too quickly using flashlights, batons or stun guns as weapons when force could have been avoided. In Seattle in 2010, an officer killed a Native American woodcarver who had crossed the street while holding a small knife and a block of wood. The officer got out of his car, and when the carver — who turned

The word spread within minutes of Michael Brown’s death — a young black man with his hands raised in surrender had just been shot by a white cop. Soon, “Hands Up. Don’t Shoot!” became a rallying cry for protesters in the streets of this St. Louis suburb and a symbol nationwide of racial inequality for those who believe that minorities are too often the targets of overzealous police. Yet the witness accounts contained in thousands of pages of grand jury documents reviewed by The Associated Press show many variations about whether Brown’s hands were actually raised — and if so, how high. To some, it doesn’t matters whether Brown’s hands literally were raised, because his death has come to symbolize a much bigger movement. “He wasn’t shot because of the placement of his hands; he was shot because he was a big, black, scary man,” said James Cox, 28, a food server who protested this week in Oakland, California. Some witnesses said the 18-year-old had his hands held high toward the sky as Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned him down midday Aug. 9. Others thought they saw his hands partially raised, about shoulder high. To some witnesses, his palms appeared out, as if surrendering. To others, his palms seemed open, as if glancing at his wounded hand or gesturing with an attitude of “what are you going to do about it.” Some said Brown’s hands weren’t raised at all. The truth may never be certain. Despite a three-month state grand jury investigation and an ongoing federal probe, no one has publicly disclosed any photos or videos capturing exactly what transpired. After a Missouri prosecutor announced Monday night that the grand jury had decided not to indict Wilson, the symbolic chant of “Hands Up. Don’t Shoot!” rang out from protesters from Los Angeles to New York to London. In Ferguson, some protesters have been wearing shirts with the phrase as they demonstrate outside the police station. Protester Taylor Gruenloh, a 32-year-old white man from nearby Florissant, said that while he believes there’s truth to claims that Brown had his hands raised when shot, the lack of proof makes little difference to protesters who have found it to be a unifying force. “Even if you don’t find that it’s true, it’s a valid rallying cry,” he said. “It’s just a metaphor.” Brown had been walking with a friend down the center of Canfield Drive when Wilson, passing in his patrol vehicle, told them to move to the sidewalk. They did not. Wilson testified that he then realized Brown was a robbery suspect. A scuffle broke out at the vehicle. Wilson fired a shot that hit Brown in the right hand. When Brown ran, Wilson gave chase. At some point, Brown stopped and turned toward Wilson, who opened fire. Wilson told the grand jury that Brown had his left hand in a fist at his side and his right hand under his shirt at his waist, and was charging toward him. The phrase “hands up” is peppered throughout the grand jury documents, as prosecutors and investigators tried to clarify exactly what witnesses saw. In quite a few cases, it’s unclear exactly what the witnesses say they saw, because the gestures they made for grand jurors weren’t described in the transcripts. Some of

Police in U.S. cities from Los Angeles to New York prepared for another day of demonstrations Tuesday after thousands flooded the streets, some in peaceful protest and others in riotous anger over a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white officer who killed a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. Renewed plans for marches and rallies came as officials in cities such as Oakland, California, were still cleaning up after scores of people hurled bottles, broke windows, set small fires and vandalized a police car. At least 40 people were arrested in the melee that escalated after some protesters shut down traffic on a major highway in the San Francisco Bay Area, though no injuries were reported. In Seattle, police responded with pepper spray and flash-bang grenades after demonstrators threw canned food, bottles and rocks. Protesters also briefly shut down part of an interstate. Five were arrested. In New York, a man was arrested for throwing red paint that struck Police Commissioner William Bratton and his security detail. Elsewhere nationwide, demonstrators were mostly law-abiding Monday night, leading marches, waving signs and shouting chants of “hands up, don’t shoot,” a refrain that has become a rallying cry in protests over police killings across the country. Activists had planned protests even before the nighttime announcement that Officer Darren Wilson would not be charged in Michael Brown’s shooting death. The racially charged case in Ferguson has inflamed tensions and reignited debates over police-community relations even in cities hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. Rallies were planned Tuesday in many Newark, New Jersey; Portland, Maine; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; and elsewhere. In the nation’s capital, one group lay on the ground to stage a “die-in” in front of Metro police headquarters. The group plans to occupy various buildings in the district over 28 hours. “Mike Brown is an emblem (of a movement). This country is at its boiling point,” said Ethan Jury, a protester in Philadelphia, where hundreds marched. “How many people need to die? How many black people need to die?” Protests could continue Tuesday in California, including in Oakland, where marchers took over Interstate 580. In Los Angeles, demonstrations remained mostly small and peaceful, but about 200 people marching toward downtown briefly shut down Interstate 110, City News Service reported. After midnight, officers wearing riot gear fired hard-foam projectiles into the ground to disperse about 50 protesters downtown, the Los Angeles Times reported. Police Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday there were no injuries and no property damage during hours-long demonstrations across LA. Three people were arrested. After a night of rallies in Chicago, dozens of protesters upset with the grand jury’s decision camped out at the doors of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office inside City Hall and planned to remain there throughout the day and overnight. They were holding teach-ins on political issues and “healing circles” for people to discuss experiences with violence in Chicago. In New York, mostly peaceful protesters swarmed through traffic, closely trailed by police, as they marched to Times Square for a rally. Another crowd of several hundred continued north up Columbus Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side shouting “Don’t shoot!” They were flanked by police on foot and in vehicles with their lights flashing. The activists stopped traffic for more than a dozen blocks. Police

Thousands of people rallied late Monday in U.S. cities including Los Angeles and New York to passionately but peacefully protest a grand jury’s decision not to indict a white police officer who killed a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri. They led marches, waved signs and shouted chants of “hands up, don’t shoot,” the refrain that has become a rallying cry in protests over police killings across the country. The most disruptive demonstrations were in St. Louis and Oakland, California, where protesters flooded the lanes of freeways, milling about stopped cars with their hands raised in the air. Activists had been planning to protest even before the nighttime announcement that Officer Darren Wilson will not be charged in the shooting death of Michael Brown. The racially charged case in Ferguson has inflamed tensions and reignited debates over police-community relations even in cities hundreds of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. For many staging protests Monday, the shooting was personal, calling to mind other galvanizing encounters with local law enforcement. Police departments in several major cities braced for large demonstrations with the potential for the kind of violence that marred nightly protests in Ferguson after Brown’s killing. Demonstrators there vandalized police cars and buildings, hugged barricades and taunted officers with expletives Monday night while police fired smoke canisters and tear gas. Gunshots were heard on the streets and fires raged. But police elsewhere reported that gatherings were mostly peaceful following Monday’s announcement. As the night wore on, dozens of protesters in Oakland got around police and blocked traffic on Interstate 580. Officers in cars and on motorcycles were able to corral the protesters and cleared the highway in one area, but another group soon entered the traffic lanes a short distance away. Police didn’t immediately report any arrests. A diverse crowd of several hundred protesters marched and chanted in St. Louis not far from the site of another police shooting, shutting down Interstate 44 for a time. A few cars got stuck in the midst of the protesters, who appeared to be leaving the vehicles alone. They chanted “hands up, don’t shoot” and “black lives matter.” “There’s clearly a license for violence against minorities, specifically blacks,” said Mike Arnold, 38, a teacher. “It happens all the time. Something’s got to be done about it. Hopefully this will be a turning point.” In Seattle, marching demonstrators stopped periodically to sit or lie down in city intersections, blocking traffic before moving on, as dozens of police officers watched. Groups ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred people also gathered in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Washington, D.C., where people held up signs and chanted “justice for Michael Brown” outside the White House. “Mike Brown is an emblem (of a movement). This country is at its boiling point,” said Ethan Jury, a protester in Philadelphia, where hundreds marched downtown with a contingent of police nearby. “How many people need to die? How many black people need to die?” In New York, the family of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man killed by a police chokehold earlier this year, joined the Rev. Al Sharpton at a speech in Harlem lamenting the grand jury’s decision. Later, several hundred people who had gathered in Manhattan’s Union Square marched peacefully to Times Square. In Los

Thousands of immigrant-rights activists, families and elected officials cheered across the country as President Barack Obama announced on television his plan for relief from deportations for about five million people. But after the initial burst of emotion Thursday evening at hastily organized watch parties and in living rooms, many said Obama’s plan was just the first step in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform. Immigrant families pointed out the plan would only cover about 5 million of the 11 million without status, leaving many families and individuals in limbo. Republicans slammed the president’s action as an overreach, while advocates — including Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber and California Gov. Jerry Brown — praised Obama’s plan. Earlier Thursday, advocates held rallies in support of the plan, including one outside a federal building in Seattle that featured a series of speeches from politicians, activists, and immigrants. A couple of protesters held “no amnesty” signs outside a New York union office where advocates of the president’s expected plan watched the speech. Lawyers and immigrant-rights groups are already planning legal clinics and outreach efforts to inform immigrants about the new options and warn them about potential scams. Up to five million people could be granted relief under Obama’s plan. The New Mexico Immigrant Law Center, for example, said it will launch a text-messaging system targeting immigrants around the state and will use Skype to help immigrants living in rural areas Not everyone was happy with Obama’s planned action. A Northern California sheriff harshly criticized the president’s approach after the recent fatal shootings of two deputies. A group of Utah business leaders said Thursday that the country’s immigration system needs to be fixed, but Obama’s plans will hamper any permanent solutions from Congress. The following is a snapshot of reactions from people across the country: ___ “This will definitely help our family no longer live in fear, fear that we will have to drop everything if our parents are deported. But there is still fear, because this is a temporary, and we need something permanent,” said Isaura Pena, 20, of Portland whose father and mother lack legal status. ___ “This is how we get ready to fight for the many excluded ones, to fight for every immigrant worker in this country. We are America. And to those Democrats and Republicans, to opinion-makers and to those who are listening: The time is now. Our country is ripe what is right. Let’s do what is right: Let’s get immigration reform,” said 32 BJ Service Employees International Union President Hector Figueroa at a watch party in the union’s New York City office. ___ “This is a great day for farmworkers. It’s been worth the pain and sacrifice,” said Jesus Zuniga, 40, who picks tomatoes in California’ Central Valley and watched the speech at a union gathering in Fresno. ___ “Simply stated, you’re the only singular person in this entire country that can advance or adopt meaningful immigration reform. By that very definition then, it is your singular failure alone as to why we do not yet have reform, why America continues to be at risk, and new crimes and new victims are mounting each and every day in every single state,” said Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, addressing the president directly in the video posted by his office Wednesday

Police departments across the U.S. are using technology to try to identify problem officers before their misbehavior harms innocent people, embarrasses their employer, or invites a costly lawsuit — from citizens or the federal government. While such “early warning systems” are often treated as a cure-all, experts say, little research exists on their effectiveness or — more importantly — if they’re even being properly used. Over the last decade, such systems have become the gold standard in accountability policing with a computerized system used by at least 39 percent of law enforcement agencies, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. The issue of police-community relations was thrust into the spotlight after an officer fatally shot Michael Brown in Missouri. Since then, departments have held public forums to build trust with residents. Some are testing cameras mounted to officers to monitor their interactions with the public. Experts say the early warning system can be another powerful tool to help officers do their jobs and improve relations, but it is only as good as the people and departments using it. “It’s not a guarantee that you will catch all of those officers that are struggling,” said Jim Bueermann of the nonprofit Police Foundation, which is dedicated to better policing. “These systems are designed to give you a forewarning of problems and then you have to do something.” The aim is to avoid cases where the first evidence of a troubled officer is a YouTube video showing them excessively beating a suspect. Such incidents stoke public fears about police and can result in huge monetary settlements. The systems track factors such as how often officers are involved in shootings, get complaints, use sick days and get into car accidents. When officers hit a specific threshold, they’re supposed to be flagged and supervisors notified so appropriate training or counseling can be assigned. Some law enforcement agencies adopted the systems under agreements they entered into with the federal government after officers were accused of abuse, including departments in Seattle, which is currently working to implement such a system, and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department agreed to set up their $33 million early warning systems after the so-called Rampart scandal in which an elite anti-gang unit was found to have beaten and framed suspected gang members. The system was then implemented in 2007. The LAPD’s inspector general found in a recent review that the system was seemingly ineffective in identifying officers who ultimately were fired. The report looked at 748 “alerts” over a four-month period and found the agency took little action in the majority of cases and only required training for 1.3 percent, or 10 alerts, of them. Sam Walker, a University of Nebraska at Omaha professor emeritus and expert on such systems, said he was troubled by the department’s response to the report and concerned their follow-up study would be used to discredit the system a year after emerging from federal oversight. “These are not predictive devices,” he said. “Is the failure in the system itself or is the failure in how the department managed the system. If they did such a small amount of retraining did they ignore lots of training needs and fail to do it?” Maggie Goodrich, chief information officer for the LAPD,

When a gunman menaced a small Seattle college, a student pepper-sprayed the attacker, ending his rampage. Police say his actions probably saved lives. When an armed couple who had already killed two police officers entered a Las Vegas Wal-Mart, a shopper with a concealed weapon tried to confront them and got killed. Police say he died “trying to protect others.” And when an Oregon high school student fatally shot a classmate and wounded a teacher, the teacher made his way to an office and alerted officials. Police say he most likely prevented additional deaths. These scenarios, which all unfolded over the past week, demonstrate the risky and potentially life-saving decisions faced by anyone in the path of an active shooter. At a time when shootings seem to happen almost daily, The Associated Press asked experts: How should Americans react if someone opens fire at work, at school or at a theater or store? Q: WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE DO IN AN ACTIVE-SHOOTER SITUATION? A: Bo Mitchell, president of 911 Consulting, tells his clients that their first goal is to run away. “If you see this happening far enough away from you that you don’t have to be part of it, we want you to run,” Mitchell said. If that’s impossible, he advises hiding in a room and locking the door. “Find a place that you can close up and barricade so a guy with a gun can’t come after you.” Fighting back is a last resort. “You want to act with speed and total surprise, and you want to get a fire extinguisher or a pair of scissors or a chair and go after that guy because you have no other choice.” The Department of Homeland Security also suggests fighting back, but only as a final option. “Act with aggression. Improvise weapons. Disarm him. And commit to taking the shooter down, no matter what,” the department advises in an online video. Q: HAS THAT ADVICE CHANGED IN RECENT YEARS? A: No, Mitchell says. “The threat defines the response. These kinds of threats have been going on for a century or more, but the number of events is going up and that’s troubling,” he said. In each of the recent cases, people had to make swift choices about their own safety and protecting others around them. When the gunman opened fire June 5 at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others, a student building monitor named Jon Meis rushed out of his office, pepper-sprayed the gunman, grabbed the weapon and hid it in his office. The monitor and another student held the gunman down until police arrived. After the Las Vegas couple shot and killed the officers at a pizza parlor, they went to a nearby Wal-Mart and were confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon. Joseph Wilcox was killed by the wife as he attempted to stop the husband. The husband was later fatally wounded by police, and the wife committed suicide. A 15-year-old shot and killed a classmate Wednesday at a high school in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, and wounded teacher Todd Rispler, who was able to get to the school office and alert others to the situation. The gunman took his own life. Q: HOW CAN PEOPLE EXPECT POLICE TO RESPOND? A: Before the

Stung by plunging approval numbers at a low point in his presidency, President Barack Obama is urging donors to buck up while making a thread-the-needle appeal for bipartisanship with Republicans even as he calls for replacing the House GOP majority and holding his Democratic edge in the Senate. Obama is seeking to gain back his political standing in the aftermath of his administration’s botched launch of health care enrollment by defining himself as a pragmatic victim of tea party conservatives. At the same time he is casting his policies on the economy and immigration as popular remedies that could win bipartisan support. “Right now in this country there is at least one faction of one party that has decided they are more interested in stopping progress than advancing it, and aren’t interested in compromise or engaging in solving problems and more interested in scoring points for the next election,” he told Democratic donors in San Francisco on Monday. For Obama, the call for compromise is a veiled olive branch that also disguises a threat. “What we’re looking for is not the defeat of another party, what we’re looking for is the advancement of ideas that are going to vindicate those values that are tried and true,” he said at a fundraiser Sunday with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi seated among about 60 high-dollar donors. “But to do that we’re going to need Nancy Pelosi as speaker, because there’s just a lot of work to be done right now.” Less than 24 hours later, pressing for an overhaul of immigration laws, Obama extended a hand to House Republican Speaker John Boehner. “Speaker Boehner is hopeful we can make progress” on immigration, Obama said Monday in San Francisco. “I believe the Speaker is sincere, I believe he genuinely wants to get it done.” The diverging messages reflect Obama’s dual desire to win a legislative victory even as he performs his duties as leader of the Democratic Party. “I’m not a particularly ideological person,” he said at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday. Raising money in Washington and California, states he won handily in his two elections, Obama faced protests and hecklers from his liberal flank. During his immigration remarks in San Francisco, he was interrupted by a protester standing immediately behind him. The young man condemned the Obama administration’s record number of deportation of immigrants who are in the country illegally. “Stop deportation, stop deportation!” the young man yelled. Obama argued he is required to follow the law and said that could only change through the democratic process. “But it won’t be as easy as just shouting,” he said. “It requires us lobbying and getting it done.” Later, as he arrived at a fundraiser for Democrats at the San Francisco Jazz Center, a crowd of about 200 protested at a nearby corner against approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The administration has yet to make a decision on the pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Obama’s money tour comes after Democrats posted a successful fundraising month in October, benefiting from the partial government shutdown. Polls showed much of the public blamed Republicans for the inability to pay for government operations for 16 days. House Republicans say they expect to post better numbers in November than in October, in part

Federal officials who oversee the security clearance process for government employees were to face a Senate committee investigating the events leading up to a deadly shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. The hearing Thursday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is to examine the adequacy of background checks and the security clearance system for federal employees and contract workers. It comes as officials investigate how Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old defense contractor, was able to acquire and maintain a secret clearance despite a series of violent outbursts, repeated brushes with the law and concerns about his mental health. The former Navy reservist killed 12 people inside the Navy Yard building where he worked Sept. 16 before being fatally shot by police. He entered the property with a valid security badge. “The tragic events at the Navy Yard highlight the need to be ever-vigilant in ensuring that individuals entrusted with access to classified information, and, more generally, other individuals with logical and physical access to federal facilities and information do not present either a national security risk or a personal security risk,” Elaine Kaplan said in remarks prepared for the Senate hearing. Kaplan is acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees more than 90 percent of background investigations for the federal government. President Barack Obama has also ordered the White House budget office to examine security standards for government contractors and employees across federal agencies. Concerns about weaknesses in the security clearance system have surfaced not only with Alexis but also with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, currently imprisoned for leaking classified documents. “Many national security experts have long argued that the security clearance process is antiquated and in need of modernization. Given recent events, I think we have to ask whether the system is fundamentally flawed,” Sen. Tom Carper, the committee chairman, said in prepared remarks. Defense officials have said that when Alexis applied for security clearance with the Navy, he lied about a 2004 arrest in Seattle for shooting the tires of an unoccupied vehicle and he failed to disclose thousands of dollars in debts. An FBI fingerprint check revealed the arrest, but an investigative report from an OPM contractor omitted the fact that Alexis had fired shots, the Seattle police department did not turn over records of the arrest and no charges were filed. He was granted a secret clearance in 2008 and held onto it despite multiple subsequent encounters with police, including a 2010 arrest in Texas, where a neighbor told police she was nearly struck by a bullet fired from his downstairs apartment. No charges were filed. Kaplan said her staff has advised her that Alexis’s file “complied with all applicable standards,” but that OPM’s office of internal oversight and compliance is reviewing the matter. One month before the Navy Yard shooting, Alexis called police in Rhode Island to the hotel where he was staying and complained about voices wanting to harm him, according to the police report. The FBI has said he believed he was being bombarded with extremely low frequency radio waves. Four senators on Wednesday introduced legislation to require more frequent checks on government employees and contractors who are awarded security clearances. Clearances last for five or 10 years depending on

The former Navy reservist who slaughtered 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard had been hearing voices and was being treated for mental problems in the weeks before the shooting rampage, but was not stripped of his security clearance, officials said Tuesday. Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old information technology employee with a defense contractor, used a valid pass to get into the highly secured installation Monday morning and started firing inside a building, the FBI said. He was killed in a gun battle with police. The motive for the mass shooting — the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the attack at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 — was a mystery, investigators said. U.S. law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that there was no known connection to international or domestic terrorism and investigators have found no manifesto or other writings suggesting a political or religious motivation. Alexis had been suffering a host of serious mental problems, including paranoia and a sleep disorder, and had been hearing voices in his head, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation was still going on. He had been treated since August by Veterans Affairs for his mental problems, the officials said. The Navy had not declared him mentally unfit, which would have rescinded a security clearance Alexis had from his earlier time in the Navy Reserves. The assault is likely to raise more questions about the adequacy of the background checks and security clearances of contract employees and others in sensitive government positions — an issue that came up most recently with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, an employee with a defense contractor. In the hours after the Navy Yard attack, a detailed profile of Alexis began coming into focus. A Buddhist convert who had also had flare-ups of rage, Alexis, a black man who grew up in New York City and whose last known address was in Fort Worth, Texas, complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination. He also had two run-ins with the law over shootings in 2004 and 2010 in Texas and Seattle. In addition to those killed at the Navy Yard attack, eight people were hurt, including three who were shot and wounded, authorities. Those three were a police officer and two female civilians, authorities said. They were all expected to survive. Monday’s onslaught at a single building at the Navy Yard unfolded about 8:20 a.m. in the heart of the nation’s capital, less than four miles from the White House and two miles from the Capitol. It put all of Washington on edge. “This is a horrific tragedy,” Mayor Vincent Gray said. Alexis carried three weapons: an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun, and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene, according to two federal law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. The AR-15 is the same type of rifle used in last year’s mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that killed 20 students and six women. The weapon was also used in the shooting at a Colorado movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 70. For much of the day Monday, authorities said they were looking for

Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation’s Armed Forces at home. During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the Maine Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam. Thirteen people were killed and dozens more wounded at Fort Hood in 2009, and the number of alleged plots targeting the military has grown significantly since then. Lawmakers said there have been 33 plots against the U.S. military since Sept. 11, 2001, and 70 percent of those threats have been since mid-2009.  Major Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, who is being held for the attacks, allegedly was inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September.  The two men exchanged as many as 20 emails, according to U.S. officials, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero. The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the military has become a “direct target of violent Islamist extremism” within the United States. “The stark reality is that the American service member is increasingly in the terrorists’ scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting,” Lieberman told Fox News before the start of Wednesday’s hearing. In June, two men allegedly plotted to attack a Seattle, Wash., military installation using guns and grenades. In July, Army Pvt. Naser Abdo was accused of planning a second attack on Fort Hood. And in November, New York police arrested Jose Pimentel, who alleged sought to kill service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both Pimentel and Abdo also allegedly drew inspiration from al-Awlaki and the online jihadist magazine Inspire, which includes a spread on how to “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” Rep. Peter King of New York, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said military service members are “symbols of America’s power, symbols of America’s might.” “And if they (military personnel) can be killed, then that is a great propaganda victory for al Qaeda,” King told Fox News. King said there is also evidence that extremists have joined the services. “There is a serious threat within the military from people who have enlisted who are radical jihadists,” King said. “The Defense Department is very concerned about them. They feel they’re a threat to the military both for what they can do within the military itself and also because of the weapons skills they acquire while they’re in the military.” READ MORE: FOX NEWS