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      Parole Denied for Native American Activist Convicted in 1975 Killings

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      Supporters say Leonard Peltier, 79, was unfairly blamed for the deaths of two F.B.I. agents in a shootout with activists.A Native American activist who was convicted of killing two federal agents nearly 50 years ago has once again been denied parole, the U.S. Parole Commission announced on Tuesday. The decision came despite decades of complaints from supporters that the activist, Leonard Peltier, did not get a fair trial and was unjustly convicted.Mr. Peltier, 79, was given two life sentences for his role in a shootout between activists and F.B.I. agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 that left two agents and an activist dead. His health has greatly declined in recent years, after multiple bouts of Covid-19, a stroke and an aortic aneurysm.Mr. Peltier’s supporters — who over the years have come to include members of Congress, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, former members of the prosecution and the judge who originally sentenced him — say that F.B.I. agents coerced witnesses in the case and that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.“Obviously, they deserve justice,” James Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said of the families of the federal agents who were killed. But keeping Mr. Peltier in prison, he said, “is not justice.”Supporters of Mr. Peltier have tried repeatedly over the years to win his release through parole or through a presidential pardon or commutation of his sentence.In a letter to the Justice Department in 2022, Christopher Wray, director of the F.B.I., firmly opposed granting Mr. Peltier clemency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Man in Custody in Fatal Shooting of N.Y.P.D. Officer

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      Guy Rivera, 34, fired on Officer Jonathan Diller, 31, after being ordered out of an illegally parked car in Queens, the authorities said.A 34-year-old man was in police custody on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of Police Officer Jonathan Diller during a traffic stop in Queens.The man, Guy Rivera, 34, was sitting in the front seat of an S.U.V. parked in Far Rockaway shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday when Officer Diller and his partner approached, the police said. Mr. Rivera refused to step out of the illegally parked car and then fired his weapon through the passenger window, the authorities said.His shot hit Officer Diller, 31, in the torso, just beneath his protective vest, the police said.Officer Diller’s partner, Officer Veckash Khedna, returned fire, shooting Mr. Rivera in the back, according to the police and an internal Police Department report.A memorial for Officer Diller at his precinct’s satellite location in Queens.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesA second man, Lindy Jones, 41, was sitting in the driver’s seat, the police said, and was taken into custody after the shooting. He has not been arrested or charged.Mr. Rivera had surgery at Jamaica Hospital and is expected to survive. He has not yet been arrested or charged in the killing because of his medical condition, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Police Officer Is Killed During a Traffic Stop in Queens

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      The authorities arrived in the Far Rockaway neighborhood at about 6 p.m. and found the police officer and a man wounded by gunfire.A police officer died on Monday after being shot during a traffic stop in Queens, the police and city officials said.The suspected gunman, who was also wounded, was the first to fire his gun during the evening encounter in Far Rockaway, striking the officer, Jonathan Diller, in the torso below his protective vest, Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban said at a news conference at Jamaica Hospital, where Officer Diller was taken.The officer’s partner returned fire, striking the man, who was also taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he is being treated for his injuries, officials said at the news conference. “This is a devastating moment,” said Mayor Eric Adams, who also spoke at the news conference. “We have to bury another cop,” he added. Officer Diller joined the Police Department in February 2021, according to city records. He has been recognized three times for “excellent police duty.”In a social media post, Commissioner Caban said Officer Diller and his wife had a young child.“We struggle to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” the commissioner wrote.Police officials said the officer approached the car in Far Rockaway because it had been illegally parked. Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesOfficials did not identify the suspect or the second person who was in the vehicle. It was unclear on Monday whether the driver or the passenger had shot Officer Diller, but the driver was arrested on a gun charge last year, police officials said. The police said the episode had begun shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday, when Officer Diller and his partner from the Police Department’s community response team approached the car because it was illegally parked at a bus stop on Mott Avenue. Officer Diller asked the suspect several times to get out of the car, said Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, but the suspect refused, pointed a gun at the officer and fired.Officers in the area heard the shots and sprinted toward the scene, according to security footage from a Mott Avenue deli about two blocks away. Jummai Ezedebego, 57, who was nearby at the Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue subway station, also heard the gunfire and watched as other passengers scattered and helicopters whirred overhead. “Everybody was running and the police started coming,” Ms. Ezedebego said. Later that night, officers put yellow police tape around a gray S.U.V. parked on Mott Avenue. Shards of glass littered the sidewalk, and the front passenger door window appeared to have been pierced by a bullet. Before Monday, the two most recent New York police officers killed in the line of duty were Wilbert Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera. The officers were gunned down in January 2022 as they answered a domestic disturbance call in Harlem.“We should never be here,” Commissioner Caban said at the news conference. “And we’re here far too many times,” he added. Dakota Santiago More

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      Idaho Prison Gang Member and Accomplice Arrested After Hospital Ambush

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      The two men fled from a hospital in Boise, Idaho, after an ambush in which three corrections officers were shot. The authorities were investigating whether they had killed two people while at large.An Idaho prison gang member and an accomplice who fled a Boise hospital on Wednesday in a brazen escape in which three corrections officers were shot were arrested on Thursday, according to the authorities, who said they were investigating whether the men had killed two people while they were at large.The episode began about 2 a.m. Wednesday, when Idaho Department of Correction officers took Skylar Meade, 31, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence, to the Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, for medical treatment, the Boise Police Department said on Wednesday.As the officers were about to take him back to prison, they were attacked by someone who was later identified as Nicholas Umphenour, 28, according to the authorities. Three officers were shot — two by Mr. Umphenour, and one by a police officer who arrived at the hospital just after the ambush, the authorities said. Mr. Meade and Mr. Umphenour, who were prison mates for about four years, fled before Boise Police officers arrived at the hospital, the Police Department said.While Mr. Meade and Mr. Umphenour were on the loose, the police warned that the two men were considered “armed and dangerous.” They were caught without incident around 2 p.m. Thursday after a brief vehicle pursuit in the Twin Falls area, about 120 miles southeast of Boise, Chief Ron Winegar of the Boise Police Department said at a news conference.Lt. Col. Sheldon Kelley with the Idaho State Police said at the news conference that the authorities were investigating whether separate homicides of two men — one in Nez Perce County and another, about 100 miles northeast in Clearwater County in Idaho — are tied to Mr. Meade and Mr. Umphenour.Colonel Kelley said that shackles found at the scene of one of the killings helped the authorities establish a potential link to the two suspects.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Bodies Found at Burned Pennsylvania House Where 2 Officers Were Shot

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      The authorities said on Friday that they believed they had recovered the remains of six family members, including the person believed to have shot a young niece and two police officers.The remains of six family members have been recovered from a burned home in southeastern Pennsylvania, including those of a man who is believed to have shot two police officers on Wednesday, the authorities said on Friday.Jack Stollsteimer, the Delaware County district attorney, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon that the recovery of the bodies was “gruesome work” that had lasted into Friday.Mr. Stollsteimer said on Thursday that three adults and three children had been feared dead in a fiery episode that began on Wednesday afternoon when the police responded to a report that an 11-year-old girl had been shot at a home in East Lansdowne, Pa., just west of Philadelphia.When police officers arrived at the home, they were immediately met with gunfire, and two officers were injured, according to Mr. Stollsteimer. Some time after the officers were shot, the home burst into flames, and officials had to wait overnight for the fire to subside before they could begin recovering the bodies, Mr. Stollsteimer said.The names of the dead people were not released by officials on Friday. Mr. Stollsteimer referred to them only as the Le family. Mr. Stollsteimer said that a medical examiner would soon begin the process of positively identifying the victims.“From seeing it firsthand, these are charred remains,” Mr. Stollsteimer said. “They are unrecognizable human beings. Not only was there an intense fire, but the building collapsed on these folks as they were in there.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Least 6 Missing After Fire at Pennsylvania Home Where 2 Police Officers Were Shot

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      Officers were responding to a report that an 11-year-old girl had been shot at a house in East Lansdowne, Pa., outside Philadelphia, the authorities said.The fire in East Lansdowne, Pa., broke out where two police officers were shot on Wednesday afternoon. Several people were missing.Charles Fox/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressAt least six people, including children, were unaccounted for in a house fire in southeastern Pennsylvania where two police officers were shot on Wednesday afternoon, the authorities said.Jack Stollsteimer, the Delaware County district attorney, said at a news conference that police officers responded to a call at 3:47 p.m. reporting that an 11-year-old girl had been shot at a house in East Lansdowne, Pa., just west of Philadelphia. More

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      Harry Dunn, Who Defended Capitol on Jan. 6, Will Run for Congress

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      Harry Dunn, who endured racist slurs as he fought off a pro-Trump mob and gained fame with his emotional testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, is joining a crowded Democratic primary.Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who rose to prominence for his defense of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for his emotional public testimony describing the attack, announced on Friday that he was running for Congress in Maryland’s third district.“On Jan. 6, 2021, I did my duty as a police officer and as an American and defended our nation’s Capitol from violent insurrectionists,” Mr. Dunn said in a statement. “Today, I’m running for Congress because the forces that spurred that violent attack are still at work, and as a patriotic American, it is my duty to defend our democracy.”Mr. Dunn, 40, will enter a crowded Democratic primary field to replace Representative John Sarbanes, the retiring 17-year incumbent. Five state lawmakers have already announced their campaigns to represent the central Maryland district, which snakes between Washington and Baltimore. Whoever emerges from the primary in the overwhelmingly Democratic district is almost certain to win the general election.Mr. Dunn, a member of the Capitol Police for 15 years, was one of four officers who testified at the first public hearing of the House committee that investigated the attack by the pro-Trump mob on the Capitol, where lawmakers had gathered to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. He described how fellow officers bloodied in the battle and how rioters used racist slurs against him.“I sat down on a bench with a friend of mine who is also a Black Capitol Police officer and told him about the racial slurs I had endured,” Mr. Dunn recalled during a memorable portion of the testimony. He added that he “became very emotional,” asking how such a thing could happen and yelling, “‘Is this America?’”“I began sobbing, and officers came over to console me,” he said.In 2023, President Biden awarded Mr. Dunn the Presidential Citizens Medal in recognition for his role in protecting the Capitol.Mr. Dunn grew up in the Washington suburbs of Prince George’s County, Md., and graduated from James Madison University in Virginia, where he played football and helped lead the team to its first national title.He has written a book called “Standing My Ground.” More

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      A Jan. 6 Defendant Pleads His Case to the Son Who Turned Him In

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      The trial was over and the verdict was in, but Brian Mock, 44, kept going back through the evidence, trying to make his case to the one person whose opinion he valued most. He sat at his kitchen table in rural Wisconsin next to his son, 21-year-old A.J. Mock, and opened a video on his laptop. He leaned into the screen and traced his finger over the image of the U.S. Capitol building, looked through clouds of tear gas and smoke and then pointed toward the center of a riotous crowd.Listen to This ArticleOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.“There. That’s me,” he said, pausing the video, zooming in on a man wearing a black jacket and a camouflaged hood who was shouting at a row of police officers. He pressed play and turned up the volume until the sound of chants and explosions filled the kitchen. “They stole it!” someone else yelled in the video. “We want our country back. Let’s take it. Come on!”A.J. shifted in his chair and looked down at his phone. He smoked from his vape and fiddled with a rainbow strap on his keychain that read “Love is love.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More