National Roundup

California
Lawsuit seeks to stop homeless camp shutdown
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A religious organization that serves the poor in Southern California filed a lawsuit Monday to try to stop local governments from forcing homeless people out of a big encampment along a riverbed trail.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by the Orange County Catholic Worker group and seven homeless people claims a broad range of violations of constitutional protections by the governments of Orange County and the cities of Anaheim, Costa Mesa and Orange.

The filing came a week after sheriff’s deputies went tent to tent telling people the encampment was being closed down.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants forced homeless people from those jurisdictions into an area along the Santa Ana River and that the county is now trying to force those people back into surrounding areas without a plan for shelter or housing.

“The failure, if not the outright refusal of Orange County and its cities to adopt positive measures to address the housing crisis and the willingness to criminalize the mere act of existing in public spaces takes a toll on the County’s most vulnerable people,” the lawsuit said.

It added that “the County and its cities have invested in enforcement instead of housing, blaming other entities for the problem, and leaving unhoused people nowhere to turn, nowhere to live, and nowhere to sleep.”

In a statement, Orange County Counsel Leon Page said there would be no comment on the merits of the litigation, but “we look forward to discussing positive solutions that will benefit all stakeholders, including the population encamped in the Santa Ana Riverbed.”

The 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) camp lies along a bike trail paralleling the Santa Ana River, which flows at a trickle until storms bring it to life. The lawsuit estimates 800 to 1,200 people live along the trail, which passes by Angel Stadium of Anaheim, home of Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels.

It’s one of the latest crisis points as cities up and down the West Coast grapple with a surge in homelessness caused in part by soaring housing costs, rock-bottom vacancy rates, drug addiction and need for mental health services.

In addition to the issues of people living on sidewalks, authorities have had to deal with problems ranging from the hepatitis A epidemic that hit San Diego for nearly five months and the threat of wildfires ignited by homeless camp fires in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit seeks restraining orders and permanent injunctions against closing the bike path, citing individuals for trespassing or nuisance, citing or arresting people for violations of municipal camping and loitering ordinances, among other things.

Indiana
Man facing 24 child molesting counts back in jail
JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — An 18-year-old southern Indiana man has been returned to jail after 22 additional child molesting counts were filed against him alleging he assaulted 17 young children while working at a YMCA and as an elementary school teaching assistant.

Michael Begin Jr. was incarcerated Monday after a judge increased the Jeffersonville man’s bond to $100,000 cash-only from the $10,000 he posted after being initially charged in October with two counts of child molesting.
Begin’s attorney, Jennifer Culotta, waived the reading of rights on these new charges and entered a plea of not guilty for him. The children range in age from 3 to 7.

Begin had been on electronic monitoring since October.

The News and Tribune reports Culotta said after the hearing that her client maintains his innocence.

California
Court: Immigrant children don’t have right to free lawyer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court says immigrant children are not entitled to attorneys paid for by the government when facing deportation.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday rejected a lawsuit by a boy who fled Honduras with his mother after refusing to join a gang.

The court rejected the lawsuit’s claim that children have a constitutional due process right to a free attorney.

The boy’s case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and immigrant groups, who say most of the thousands of children the government seeks to deport each year appear before judges without a lawyer because they can’t afford one or find one to take their case for free.

A call to the ACLU of Southern California was not immediately returned.

Massachusetts
Violent gang member pleads guilty, gets  13-year sentence
BOSTON (AP) — A member of the violent MS-13 gang has been sentenced to 13 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to a conspiracy charge involving a brutal stabbing.

Federal prosecutors say 22-year-old Daniel Menjivar was also sentenced Monday to three years of probation and faces deportation upon completion of his sentence. He pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity, more commonly referred to as RICO conspiracy.

Prosecutors say Menjivar, a native of El Salvador living in Chelsea, and a gang associate repeatedly stabbed and shot a man they thought was a member of a rival gang in Chelsea in May 2014. He then openly boasted about the attack in an undercover recording.

The victim was stabbed 21 times, but survived.

Federal prosecutors believe MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, has thousands of members across the country, mostly Central American immigrants.

Ohio
Facebook sued by family of victim in fatal shooting video
CLEVELAND (AP) — The family of a Cleveland retiree whose shooting death was recorded and shared on Facebook is suing the social media company for failing to notify authorities about threats posted by the shooter.

The wrongful death lawsuit filed over the April slaying of Robert Godwin Sr. calls Facebook negligent because it has extensive data-mining capabilities but didn’t catch and report the shooter’s threats of violence before the shooting.

A lawyer for Facebook didn’t address those specific allegations in a statement to WJW-TV, but she expressed sympathy for Godwin’s family and noted that content violating Facebook’s policies is removed when users report it.
Gunman Steve Stephens shared video of shooting the 74-year-old Godwin along a Cleveland street. The 37-year-old Stephens killed himself two days later after a police chase in Erie, Pennsylvania.