Manuel Diaz's mom condemns Anaheim violence in protests against fatal police shootings

Genevieve Huizar, third from left, the mother of Manuel Diaz, who was shot to death by Anaheim police, breaks down after a news conference in Santa Ana, Calif., July 25, 2012. (AP Photo)

Fury In China Over Flood Deaths Cover Up

Chinese people fed up with a lack of official updates are compiling their own death tolls from deadly floods in the capital.

The move reflects public anger and mistrust of the city government, which has not updated its death toll since Sunday - the day after a record downpour hit the city outskirts.
Beijing says 37 people were killed after drainage systems were overwhelmed by the deluge, leaving city centre underpasses flooded and flash floods in the suburbs.
State media reported the toll could be as high as 61, while online rumours put it in the hundreds.
Beijing city government spokesperson Wang Hui said: "I want to say I hope everyone will not speculate that the Beijing government is hiding the death toll. Doing the inspection work is not easy. Do believe us that we will speak the truth. If there are new figures we will immediately tell you."
Xinhua News Agency, citing the Civil Affairs Ministry, said there were 111 storm deaths.
But authorities were still trying to pump water from sections of a flooded road after the heaviest rain in six decades.
The scale of the disaster was a major embarrassment for Beijing after billions of dollars were poured into modernisation programmes including 2008 Olympic venues, the world's second-largest airport and skyscrapers.
The criticism mirrors some of that seen after a high-speed train crash in southeastern China last year.
Mistrust of perceived underreporting of fatalities has seen thousands of messages posted on to microblogging sites.
Officials have kept a tight lid on information on the disaster, mindful that any failure to cope with the flooding could undermine the country's leadership as it undergoes a once-a-decade transition.
China's communist government has justified its one-party rule in part by delivering economic growth and maintaining stability in the face of bubbling unrest and periodic mass disasters like Saturday's flooding.

Emergency workers rescue an elderly woman in Chongqing, southwest China

In worst-affected Fangshan district, residents were compiling their own death toll online using both public and private chat rooms on the popular Baidu website. The toll was not being posted publicly, but some online accounts said the number was more than 300.
Li Chengpeng, a writer based in the southwestern province of Sichuan, said he was collecting names of the dead from flooding in Beijing and elsewhere.
He said: "We need to commemorate the people who have died in tragic events. But there are so many of them now, and they go uninvestigated, unaccounted for.
"Nothing happens after these incidents, and the people die and no figures are given to the public? No acknowledgment? No explanation?
"Now people are using the internet... to do the job the government does not want to do."
The Changjing Daily newspaper reported online that Beijing city officials said the death toll had yet to be finalised because officials were still trying to identify the bodies.
The flooding was triggered by heavy rain at the weekend and caused damage across China.
Authorities issued a yellow alert - the third highest in a five-tier disaster warning system - ahead of further rain storms, as people snapped up survival gear.
Online retailers including the Taobao shopping website reported spikes in the sales of a keychain device for smashing car windows after people drowned when they were trapped inside their vehicles on submerged underpasses.

Firefighter Critically Injured in 6-Alarm BK Blaze That Displaced Scores of Residents

Fire marshals will determine whether the blaze was caused by lightning

Check out this raw video of flames leaping from the roof of a Brooklyn building where firefighters battled a huge blaze Thursday.

Two dozen firefighters have been hurt -- one critically -- in a massive six-alarm fire in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn that fire officials believe was sparked by lightning, authorities said.

One civilian was treated on the scene, fire officials said.

More than 200 firefighters battled the blaze at the seven-story apartment building Thursday afternoon. The fire was reported under control by 1:45 p.m., about three and a half hours after it started, the FDNY tweeted from the scene.

The entire seventh floor of the building was gutted and hundreds of tenants have been displaced, officials said. Fire marshals have yet to determine for certain whether lightning was the cause, according to FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer.

A planned news conference was postponed after Charles Wells, of the Red Cross, fainted. He was conscious and breathing a short time later.

FDNY tweeted photos from the scene that show flames leaping from the roof of the building as thick black smoke billows into the sky. The complexes houses 115 residential units.

Representatives from the Red Cross are on scene to displaced families.

Olympic torch greeted by royals at Buckingham Palace

 

The torch is on the 69th - and penultimate - day of its journey around the British Isles

The Olympic torch has been welcomed to Buckingham Palace by members of the royal family, including Princes William and Harry and the Duchess of Cambridge.

Defector: 'The battle for Damascus is coming'

(CNN) -- Increasing violence in the Syrian capital is pointing toward a major fight ahead, a rebel spokesman told CNN Monday.

"The battle for Damascus is coming," said Abdulhameed Zakaria, a Syrian army colonel and doctor who defected and joined the opposition Free Syrian Army in Istanbul.

Video from the capital on Monday showed regime tanks in some streets and clashes with members of the opposition.

Video from activists in the central Damascus neighborhood of Medan showed people running and screaming amid loud sounds. It was unclear whether the blasts were gunshots or mortar fire.

Another video shows rebel fighters facing off against what appears to be a tank in the southern Damascus neighborhood of Tadamon, firing rifles, a heavy machine gun and a rocket-propelled grenade. They shoot at it repeatedly from behind a barricade down a rubble-strewn street, only to have a man tell them to stop wasting ammunition.

'CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the videos. Meanwhile, state-run TV showed a woman driving a car in Medan saying there was "nothing going on right now."

Asked about reports that there was shelling in Medan, she responded, "No, nothing is happening, thank God." But apparent gunfire could be heard in the background as she spoke.

With violence spreading throughout the country, the Red Cross announced that the conflict is a civil war throughout the country.

The declaration officially applies the Geneva Conventions to violence throughout the country. International humanitarian law now applies "wherever hostilities take place," the organization said Monday.

The Red Cross does not use the general term "civil war," and instead declares a "noninternational armed conflict." In April, the organization declared such a conflict in Homs, Hama and Idlib, but hostilities have spread enough that the conflict exists throughout the country, ICRC spokesman Sean Maguire said.

"Part of its legal mandate is to determine when international humanitarian law applies," Maguire told CNN. "We make a determination as to whether a conflict exists."

"In theory," he said, the Red Cross announcement could affect prosecutions by the International Criminal Court in the future. If a prosecuting authority is established for Syria, it could point to the announcement that the Geneva Conventions applied and to ways that they were violated. However, for the court to look at the situation in Syria, a referral from the U.N. Security Council would be required, Maguire noted.

At least 97 people were killed Monday, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC). There were 30 deaths in Hama, 21 in Homs, 13 in Aleppo, 11 in Damascus, eight in Daraa, seven in Deir Ezzor, four in the Damascus suburbs and three in Idlib, the LCC said.

Monday's fighting in Damascus follows what opposition activists called a massacre of more than 200 people in the town of Tremseh, near Hama, last week. But a top Syrian official disputed the death toll and the massacre allegation, telling reporters over the weekend that government troops were fighting armed opposition.

U.N. monitors reported Sunday that the attack appeared to target "army defectors and activists," citing accounts by more than two dozen villagers.

The monitors said Syrian forces began shelling the town on Thursday morning. Soldiers entered after the bombardment, conducting house-to-house searches and demanding identification from the men they found. "Numerous" people were then killed after their identification was checked, and some other men were taken from the village, the monitors said.

The monitors found more than 50 homes that had been burned or destroyed, with "pools of blood and brain matter" seen in several homes. The dead included a Free Syrian Army leader who was shot and doctor and his children who died when their home was struck by a mortar shell, the monitors said in a statement issued Sunday. However, the monitors said the number of dead and wounded in Tremseh remained unclear.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters Sunday that opposition fighters had used the village as a base for attacks on government forces. He said only 37 "gunmen" and two civilians were killed in the operation in Tremseh and that no heavy weapons or aircraft were used, according to comments carried by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

'Massacres in Syria send terror message'

Syria's chemical weapons

U.N. sets deadline for Syria

CNN cannot confirm details of reported violence because Syria has restricted access to the country by international journalists.

Amid the ongoing fighting, U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan headed to Moscow for talks with the Syrian government's leading ally. Annan met Monday with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and is set to hold talks on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin, Annan spokesman Ahmed Fawzi told CNN.

No details of the talks were immediately available. But Lavrov complained Monday that Western diplomats are trying to "blackmail" Russia into signing onto a tough new U.N. Security Council resolution targeting Damascus. Britain has proposed new steps to press Syria's government to end the conflict under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which carries the threat of additional sanctions or even military force.

"Unfortunately, we have seen some elements of blackmail," Lavrov said. He said Moscow has been told that unless it signs onto a Chapter 7 resolution, "They will not agree to extend the U.N. observers' mandate. I consider it a totally counterproductive and a dangerous approach, because it is unacceptable to use the observers as the bargaining chip."

He slammed Western countries that are trying to change Russia's stance.

"The track record of those who try to make us step aside from this position has a lot of deplorable instances of unilateral military actions, and the results are well remembered by everybody," Lavrov said.

Russia and China, which have commercial deals with Syria, have used their veto power to block some of the toughest draft resolutions against the Syrian regime in the Security Council.

During a visit to the Middle East on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States is trying to get other countries to lobby Beijing and Moscow to support tougher steps against embattled Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.

"We are trying to intervene in a way that brings about an end to the violence and a transition to a democratic future that doesn't require adding to the violence further militarizing the conflict, perhaps killing more people and pushing them across the borders," Clinton said.

As long as al-Assad has the support of its longtime ally Iran and has Russia "uncertain about whether to side in any more dramatic way that it already has, he feels that he can keep going," Clinton said.
"That's the message we want to reverse."

Numerous countries, including the United States, have criticized Russia, saying its actions in the Security Council have helped the Syrian regime continue a brutal crackdown on the opposition.

Meanwhile, many nations have expelled Syrian ambassadors, with Morocco becoming the latest to do so Monday. Syria responded by declaring Morocco's ambassador persona non grata.

Since the crisis began in March 2011, the United Nations estimates more than 10,000 people have been killed in the violence; opposition activists say more than 15,000 have died.

Throughout the conflict, al-Assad's government has consistently blamed violence on "armed terrorist groups," and reported on its security forces "martyred" in attacks.

Police shooting, protests rock Los Angeles suburb

(CNN) -- Authorities in the Los Angeles suburb of Anaheim, California, have asked for a federal investigation into a pair of weekend police shootings that have sparked days of protests, the city's mayor said Wednesday.

Police Chief John Welter said officers made 24 arrests after a protest that began at a City Council meeting Tuesday night turned violent, with demonstrators breaking windows and throwing rocks and bottles at police. Police responded with batons and nonlethal "bean-bag" and pepper spray projectiles, he said.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait told reporters Wednesday that he asked the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles to investigate the fatal shootings of two men by police, but said violent protests "will simply not be tolerated in our city."

"When the investigations are concluded, we will have a clear and complete understanding of these incidents," Tait said. "At that time, we will have additional public dialogue about any actions that need to be taken. ... We will not, however, accept any violent protests, vandalism or arson perpetrated under the guise of public protest."

The family of the first man killed, 25-year-old Manuel Diaz, filed a civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit against the city and Police Department Tuesday seeking $50 million in damages.

The suit, filed in state court, says police shot the unarmed Diaz in the back and that when he fell, they shot him in the head and killed him.

Welter said there were more than 1,000 protesters Tuesday night, about two-thirds of whom were not from Anaheim -- but 20 of the 24 people arrested were local.

"Our job is to protect property and life. Our job isn't to stand back in the back and let anarchists or rioters damage property and injure people," he said. "And if we don't do that, you'll be the first one criticizing me for where were the police, how come they weren't out there protecting property and people."

Those arrested face charges ranging from failure to disperse to assault with a deadly weapon. One man was found with a handgun, Welter said.

Tuesday night's demonstration began with protests outside the City Council's meeting at the Anaheim City Hall, less than a mile and a half north of Disneyland, the city's most famous tourist attraction.

Demonstrators disrupted the meeting and blocked access to the building, forcing a delay in the session as police moved to clear emergency exits, Welter said.

The protest moved to downtown streets, where demonstrators blocked a major intersection and refused to move, Welter said.

"After allowing the crowd to protest for a couple of hours, the violence escalated to the point where an unlawful assembly was declared and the streets were then cleared of protesters," he said.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Bob Dunn told CNN's "Newsroom" that once the protest was broken up, "the crowds kind of moved around, sometimes fighting between each other, breaking windows and lighting fires and trash cans."

It was Saturday afternoon's fatal shooting of Diaz, whom police described as a gang member, that sparked the protests, CNN affiliate KCAL reported. Cell phone video taken at the scene and posted to YouTube showed residents confronting police officers as they ordered bystanders to back away from the man lying face down on a lawn before they cordoned off the area with yellow police tape.

Dozens of people surrounded the police officers; some threw objects at them and rolled a burning trash bin in their direction, according to CNN affiliate KTLA. Police responded with rubber bullets and pepper spray. One demonstrator showed the television news station bruises she said she got from rubber bullets fired at the crowd.

At one point, police lost control of a dog that attacked and bit at least one person. Welter apologized for the dog attack and said the city will cover the cost of treatment.

Sunday, protesters jammed the Anaheim Police Department to complain about shootings involving police officers. But later the same night -- in a separate incident -- police shot and killed a second man, whom they also considered a gang member, when he allegedly fired at police, CNN affiliate KABC reported.

Monday, hundreds held a vigil for Diaz, chanting in Spanish, according to KTLA.

The family cites witnesses who say Diaz was talking with two friends around 4 p.m. when a police car drove up with lights on "and an intent to confront the young men." Diaz responded "instinctively when he saw people chasing him and began to run," they say in the suit.

"There is a racial and economic component to this shooting," said Dana Douglas, an attorney for the family. "Police don't roust white kids in affluent neighborhoods who are just having a conversation. And those kids have no reason to fear police. But young men with brown skin in poor neighborhoods do. They are targeted by police, and something as simple as a friendly conversation is deemed 'suspicious activity' by police."

Dunn said Wednesday the Diaz shooting took place when officers in the "high-crime gang neighborhood" attempted to stop three men, who ran off.

"It was during that foot pursuit that the officer-involved shooting occurred," he said. "The circumstances surrounding that shooting are under investigation by the district's attorney."

Police say Diaz was unarmed but throwing unknown objects while running from police, KABC and KCAL reported, but the family called those comments "flat-out fabrications."

The suit says Diaz committed no crime and was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs when he was shot.

Police in Anaheim were involved in six shootings in 2012, all but one of which were fatal, according to KTLA.