Sunday follies.
Nursing home workers demand living wage on Friday. Logan Square, Chicago. Photo: Fred Klonsky
Faced with an expiring supply of a controversial sedative, the state of Arkansas plans to execute eight men over 11 days — a pace that is unprecedented in recent U.S. history and that has been criticized by lawyers and former corrections officials.
The state is set to carry out the executions two a day on four days between April 17 and April 27. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the schedule, citing concerns about the speed. Arkansas’ governor and attorney general say the deaths will bring closure to victims’ families.
Arkansas carried out a triple execution in 1994 and another in 1997. (Those executions were also unusual at the time, compared with other states.)
But it’s been more than a decade since Arkansas killed any death row inmates. And the state has never before used midazolam, one of the three drugs used in the state’s lethal injection protocol. NPR
One video shows Schneider and Crooms perched on a concrete platform taking turns with a bullhorn and leading chants of “Hands off Syria!” and “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East” when a counter-protester who goes by Gary Snow, waving a Donald Trump flag and a bullhorn of his own, climbs up alongside them.
The two sides jaw back and forth briefly before a scuffle ensues over the flag. At one point, Snow is seen shoving Crooms, who later lunges at him as Snow reaches over an officer to flash an obscenity. Officers nearby swarm the pair and can be seen placing Crooms in a chokehold and bringing him to the ground.
Crooms, whose police report lists him at 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, can be seen flailing while face down on the ground as several officers pin him down. An officer, identified Sunday follies. | Fred Klonsky:
