Month: January 2023

Jurors have reached a guilty verdict in the federal death penalty case of a 34-year-old man who killed eight people on a Manhattan bike path five years ago. Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek national living in New Jersey at the time of the 2017 Halloween attack, was convicted Thursday by a federal court jury of murder and attempted murder in order to gain entry to ISIS, making him eligible for the death penalty. He was also convicted of providing material support to ISIS. Jurors will decide next month whether Saipov should face the death penalty.

Saipov drove a Home Depot rental pickup truck at least 10 blocks down the Hudson River Greenway bike path, hitting nearly a dozen pedestrians and bicyclists before crashing into a school bus. In addition to the eight people killed, nearly a dozen others were hurt, some seriously. Authorities described the incident as a “cowardly act of terrorism,” and witnesses said at the time that school bus crash appeared deliberate. Prosecutors said in closing arguments that Saipov allegedly showed no remorse. saying he was proud of what he did and asking to hang the flag of the Islamic State group in his Manhattan hospital room.

Saipov had pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including murder in the aid of racketeering and providing and attempting to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. The truck attack was the deadliest terror attack in New York since Sept. 11, 2001.

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy announced Thursday that the five former Memphis police officers who were fired for their actions during the arrest earlier this month of Tyre Nichols – a 29-year-old Black man – were indicted on charges including murder and kidnapping.

The former officers, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, and Desmond Mills Jr., have each been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, Mulroy said, adding, ‘while each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible.’ All five officers are in custody, Mulroy added. They were booked into the Shelby County Jail, and bond was set at $350,000 for Haley, 30, and Martin, 30, and $250,000 for Bean, 24, Mills, 32, and Smith, 28, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The criminal charges come about three weeks after Nichols was hospitalized after a traffic stop and “confrontation” with Memphis police that family attorneys have called a savage beating. Nichols died from his injuries on January 10, three days after the arrest.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that Nichols’ family “deserves a swift, full, and transparent investigation” into his death and and that the killing is a “painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all.”