Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-31 Friday

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Headlines for October 31, 2025; Chicago’s Militarized Immigration Raids “Coming to Other Cities” as Trump Plans 10,000-Bed Jails; Did U.S. Cover Up Shireen Abu Akleh Killing? Whistleblower Says Report Was Watered Down for Israel; “Mamdani of the Midwest”: Meet Omar Fateh. Could He Be the Next Mayor of Minneapolis?

From New York, this is Democracy Now. I've sent a letter to Christy Knoem and to the Department of Homeland Security leadership, asking them to pause all of their federal agent operations for the entirety of the Halloween weekend. I'm asking for basic human decency. No, we're absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe. The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is shameful. As ICE refuses to pause, its immigration raids in Chicago till after Halloween, federal border patrols replacing ICE at half their field offices nationwide. It's also

been reported the Trump administration plans to build a new network of mass immigration jails that could hold up to 100,000 prisoners across the United States. Then the Israeli military's killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shereen Abuakla was intentional. So says a retired U.S. colonel, who is the lead U.S. investigator, he's now speaking out. On May 11th, 2020, Abakla was killed intentionally by an IDF soldier. The evidence clearly backed that up, and yet we as the American people failed to hold the IDF accountable for that. The Biden administration failed to do things that need to be done, to hold them accountable,

make Israel take responsibility for that action. This is something that needs to be addressed and continues to be an issue today. Then to the mayoral race of Minneapolis and a candidate being called the Mamdani of the Midwest, Omar Fata is the son of Somali immigrants and a Democrat. socialist. There's one city for donors, developers, and insiders. The people with access, the people whose priorities always come first. And then there's the rest of us, renters, transit riders, working class families, navigating a system that was never built for us. We'll speak with Omar Fata. He's seeking to unseat the incumbent mayor, Jacob Fry, who's running for a third term

in office. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warrant Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's continuing strikes on Khan Yunus in southern Gaza and neighborhoods of northern Gaza city, even as Israeli officials claim they're abiding by the U.S. brokered ceasefire. The attacks came. As Israel confirmed, Hamas had returned the bodies of two Israeli hostages, while the NASA medical complex in Gaza reported Israel had returned the bodies of 30 Palestinian prisoners, some exhibiting signs of torture. Al Jazeera's reporting a Palestinian has been killed by Israeli gunfire in Gaza City. Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting a classified report from the State Department's Office of Inspector General

found Israeli military units committed hundreds of possible violations of U.S. human rights law in Gaza that would take U.S. years to investigate. It's the first time a U.S. government report has reviewed the scope of Israeli actions in Gaza under the Leahy laws, legislation that bars U.S. military assistance to foreign military personnel accused of human rights abuses. A new investigation details how the tech giants, Google, and Amazon, violated their own terms of service in a liquid of contract with the Israeli government to provide cloud computing and AI services used during Israel's two-year assault on the Gaza Strip. The investigation by 972 magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian finds that as part of the $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon are obliged to secretly notify Israel if a foreign court orders them to hand over data stored on the company's cloud platforms.

This comes just weeks after a campaign by current and former workers at Microsoft compelled the tech giant to cut off Israel's access to its Azure Cloud computing. platform, which Israel have been using to spy on millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls. The death toll from Hurricane Melissa has risen to 49. On Thursday, Jamaica's Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, shared images of the hardest hit areas of Jamaica, showing homes lying in ruin amidst twisted, corrugated metal, dangling power lines, flooded neighborhoods, and streets covered in mud. Holness says the southern beach town of Black River, is almost totally destroyed.

At least 19 deaths were recorded across Jamaica. Meanwhile, Haiti reported 30 deaths due to days of torrential rains from the hurricane. Twenty others remain missing. On Thursday, Venezuela said it's sending aid to Jamaica and Cuba. Meanwhile, officials in Favana said they're open to receiving disaster assistance from the United States. More than 730,000 Cubans evacuated ahead of the storm, and he returned to scenes of destruction and an uncertain future. future. Life before the cyclone was already difficult because we don't have resources. Here we're

surviving however we can with a lot of fear about what's to come, because for today at least, we have food, but tomorrow we don't even know what we're going to eat. In the United Kingdom Palace say Prince Andrew will be stripped of his royal titles and will vacate his home at the Royal Lodge in Windsor. He will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. This follows new revelations about the extent of Andrew's friendship with the late serial sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations by survivor Virginia Joufrey that Andrew forced her to have sex with him three times beginning when she was 17. Joufrey died in April of an apparent suicide.

Her family said Thursday she'd, quote, brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage, unquote. A recent poll showed 91% of Britons have a negative opinion of Andrew. This is London resident Harry Humphreys. I'm happy he's got a stripper of his titles, his royal titles as well. He should be kicked out of the country because, you know, these guys live off us. We're the working class. We're the people in charge, basically.

Meanwhile, across the pond here in the United States House Speaker Mike Johnson is continuing to refuse to seat Arizona Congress member elect Adelita Gajalva. She would be the final vote needed for the discharge petition demanding Congress release the Epstein files being held by the Department of Justice. The U.S. federal government shutdown has entered its 31st day. On Thursday, President Trump urged congressional Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster to pass a funding bill that would end the shutdown. Vice President J.D. Vance warned holiday travel could be a disaster if the shutdown continues.

Meanwhile, food benefits for about 42 million Americans are set to expire this weekend as the Trump administration refuses to tap into. to the $5 billion contingency fund for SNAP, that's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. On Thursday, a federal judge in Boston signaled she would order the Trump administration to fund SNAP, saying, quote, Congress has put money in an emergency fund. It's hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency, she said. Meanwhile, several states, including Louisiana, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia have declared states of emergency to disperse state funds for food assistance.

programs. And several other states have boosted funding to food pantries to mitigate the looming hunger crisis. This is Rezaan Hawkins-Jones, a sophomore at Georgia State University, a recipient of SNAP. Your country is supposed to be supporting you. And the last thing you want to worry about is if you're going to have food on your table at the end of the night, if you're working every day, the last thing you, the main thing you want is food. You shouldn't have to worry about all these expenses plus if you're going to eat or if your family's going to eat. The Trump administration sharply reducing the number of refugees admitted annually into the U.S. to 7,500 people. Most of them will be white South Africans. That is a steep decline from last year's

cap of 125,000, said under President Joe Biden. Shari Vali, president of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said, quote, by privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration's once again politicizing a humanitarian program, unquote. Federal agents are actively using facial recognition technology in the field to identify people and their immigration status during stops that seem to have little justification beyond the color of someone's skin. That's according to a report in 404 media, which cites several videos in which mass federal

agents are seen using smartphones to photograph people after banding, they show, ID. In this example, a Border Patrol agent confronted a pair of teenagers in Chicago. If you just tell me that you were born here and give me an ID, you'll be good. I was born here, by the only ID. You don't have no ID? Are you going here? Can you do facial? Can you do a facial, one of the mass federal agents said to another.

It's not clear what smartphone app the agents were using 404 media previously reported immigration agents have been using Mobile Fortify, an app built on a database of 200 million. images, which can return the subject's name, date of birth, alien number, and whether they've been given an order of deportation. In more immigration news, new video shows federal agents in Rockingham County, Virginia, violently arresting a mother, driving her daughter to school after she failed to recite her social security number during an immigration stop. Video of the incident shows the 16-year-old daughter of Jakey Funes Andrade crying out as the agents tackle her mother to the ground, press her face down into the pavement and handcuff her.

Before the violent arrest, Funes Andrade reportedly showed agents her work permits, social security card, driver's license, and car registration, but they arrested her anyway. She was taken to the Harrisonburg Regional Jail. Her daughter said, quote, I want this video out there because I want my mother home, unquote. Meanwhile, in Chicago, a federal judge on Thursday ordered Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino to appear for a deposition to explain federal agent's use of tear gas and other less lethal weapons against protesters who've taken to the streets to oppose the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. We'll have more on this story after headlines. A top U.S. military official, major general Ronald Burkett, has ordered the National Guard of all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories to form, quote, quick reaction forces. for riot control purposes. That's according to an internal Pentagon memo reviewed by The Guardian, which details how

23,500 troops will be trained in the use of batons, body shields, tasers, and pepper spray on crowds. The memo also says the Pentagon will deploy military trainers to all states and territories with the goal of making the quick reaction forces ready by January 1st, with each state reporting on its monthly progress. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to provide dozens of lawyers to the Justice Department for temporary assignments in Memphis and near the U.S.-Mexico border that could run through next fall. That's according to the Associated

Press, citing a memo sent Monday to all branches of the military in the chair of the Joint Chiefs' staff seeking to bolster the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. This follows the Pentagon's recent move to send up to 600 military lawyers to the Justice Department to serve as temporary immigration judges. The UN Security Council Thursday condemned the mass killings by the rapid support forces in El Fasher in Sudan's North Darfur region. It comes as Sudan's government says the RSF has killed at least 2,000 people in the three days since the paramilitary group has seized control of the city. Here's Martha Ama Akiat Pobie, the Assistant Secretary of General of the UN for Africa. Despite commitments to protect civilians, the reality is that no one is safe in Elfasha.

There is no safe passage for civilians to leave the city. There are also reports of large-scale atrocities perpetrated by the rapid support forces in Barra, in North Cardiffon, following the recent capture of the city. And in Brazil, protests erupted after a massive police raid on a drug gang in favelas in Rio de Janeiro that left 119 people dead. The favelas residents demonstrate against the use of excessive force. by police and called on Rio's governor to step down. Earlier this week, over 2,500 law enforcement agents stormed the favelas home to some 300,000 people considered to be the headquarters of one of Brazil's most powerful organized crime groups.

This is Gracielli Fernandez-Dokaramo, the sister of a victim of the police operation described as the deadliest raid in Rio's history. My brother wasn't a bum, you understand? My brother was 22 years old and had finished high school. He had a formal job, and so they destroyed him. They ruined my brother's life. They ruined our family. They destroyed our family.

And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is calling for federal agents to pause their immigration enforcement in Chicago until after Halloween amidst widespread condemnation of chaotic and violent arrests confrontations with residents. I've sent a letter to Christy Knoem and to the Department of Homeland Security leadership, asking them to pause all of their federal agent operations for the entirety of the Halloween weekend.

I'm asking for basic human decency. I think their response will be revealing. They've disrupted everything for more than two months already. Give the children and the families of Illinois a person. break. Governor Pritzker also wrote in the letter to Nome, quote, No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood, unquote.

But on Thursday, DHS Secretary Nome rejected Pritzker's request. She was speaking from Gary, Indiana. Absolutely not willing to put on pause. Any work that we will do to keep communities safe. The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is, um, shameful and I think unfortunate that he doesn't recognize how important the work is that we do to make sure we're bringing criminals to justice and getting them off our streets. This comes as a federal judge Thursday ordered the person at the center of much of Chicago's

enforcement Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino to appear for a deposition to explain federal agents' use of tear gas and other less lethal weapons against protesters who've taken to the streets to oppose the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nomes replacing ICE leadership at half the country's field offices with border patrol officials in regions where President Trump's demanding more immigration raids and arrests. In recent weeks, CNN's report of the Trump administration plans to build a new network of mass immigration jails that can hold up to 100,000 prisoners by funneling billions of dollars through the nation. Navy to help facilitate the construction. To talk about this and more, we're joined in Washington, D.C. by Aaron Reiklin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. Welcome back to Democracy Now, Aaron. Let's start with the plea from the Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, not to tear gas

children while they're trick-or-treating. And the Homeland Security, the Homeland Security Secretary's response. Yeah, what I think you see here is that Secretary Nome wants these mass deportation operations to keep going no matter the consequences, no matter the day, no matter the disruption that it has on American communities. And they are more and more aggressive as they expand the workforce and really try to make Chicago an example for the country so that people understand what is coming to other cities throughout the Trump administration. Talk about what's happening, for example, right now in Chicago and particularly talk about what it means that Border Patrol is replacing ice at about half the field offices across the United States. And what exactly that means and how Bovino, the head of CBP, has been called before a judge and another hearing next week.

Yeah, well, I think what it means is that the administration wants enforcement on the streets, immigration enforcement, to look more like what has happening in Chicago. Commander Bovino, or Chief Bovino, has been the one in charge of the Los Angeles raids. Then he was moved to Chicago. He's in charge of the Chicago raids. And that style of aggressive, militarized enforcement is something that the Trump administration loves because it plays very well for them among their base. even see that they often bring videographers to these arrest operations themselves masked and in camouflage uniforms so that they can capture it and post these videos on social media. And the Trump administration believes that that kind of enforcement is the model that they want to pursue because it lets them give this perception to their base that they are being

more aggressive than ever before than any previous administration, even than ICE itself was doing. If you can talk about specifically how unusual it is, while a judge has stopped this for the moment, that the judge in Bovino's case said she wanted him to report her every day. That's not at the moment happening, but the issue of body cam and what is causing Judge Ellis's response. Yeah, so Judge Ellis is presiding over a case about the use of riot control munitions. things like tear spray or pepper balls, aggressive uses, aggressive munitions that are used to disrupt civil unrest. And what they've found here is that despite an order requiring ICE and their DHS and the Border Patrol,

basically any component of this federal operation to give people warnings before deploying riot control munitions, that it does appear that they are not doing that, or at least certainly not following the court order as she has wanted them to do. She called Bovino in because he is the one in charge of this operation, and she really said, you need to get a control of your officers and said, I want to see you back in court every single day to talk about what's going on. Now, the Seventh Circuit has temporarily put a hold on that order, but it may go into effect once that case has a chance to be briefed by the Seventh Circuit. And I wanted to ask you about CNN's report that the Department of Homeland Security is funneling $10 billion to the Navy in order to construct a sprawling network of migrant detention centers

nationwide. The states expected to have these jails built in them, Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Utah, and Kansas. Each of these immigration jails would hold up to 10,000 people, 100,000 over all, an expedited building of these jails. Yeah, this is part of the funding that came in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That law provided ICE $45 billion to spend on immigration detention over the next four years, which when you combine it with the annual appropriations that ICE gets through the normal

budget cycle could give ICE about $15 billion per year to hold. people in detention. And by comparison, the entire budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is $8.4 billion. So we're looking at nearly twice the budget of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to be used solely on immigration detention. And to spend that money in four years to get the system up and running quickly as possible, it means tent camps. And tent camps are something that the U.S. military has a lot of experience constructing. So we have already seen one such facility go up, on Fort Bliss in El Paso, formerly known as Camp East Montana. The Trump administration calls it the Lone Star Lockup.

It is set to hold 5,000 people, and they are reportedly adding about 250 beds per week, and it's already holding more than 2,000 people, and that number is growing daily. So we are looking at a network of Camp East Montana's being built around the country in the next couple of years. I wanted to ask you about a ProPublica report that finds more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE at raids and protests across the country. More than 20 citizens were held in detention without being able to contact loved ones or a lawyer. ICE agents also arrested 130 citizens, including a dozen elected officials for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers. Those cases were dropped.

This is Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem speaking during news conference in Indiana. There's no American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally. And anything that you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true in false reporting. Aaron Reikland-Mellick, your response. Yeah, Secretary Nome is either ignorant of the facts or not telling the truth about the facts. Because, of course, U.S. citizens have been arrested and detained. by ICE. Now, sometimes that has been a deliberate arrest because a DHS officer believes the

person is interfering with federal agents, but other times it's been because officers believed the person was undocumented immigrant, largely because they were Latino. And we've seen this in Los Angeles, and we've seen this in Chicago, and we've seen this in other places around the country, that now that the Supreme Court has endorsed these so-called Kavanaugh stops, where ICE officers and border patrol agents can question people on the basis of their ethical. or where they are or what language they're speaking, that U.S. citizens are being swept up in this, sometimes even when those citizens have real IDs available and ready to show people. Let me ask you what happened in Rockingham County, Virginia. New video shows federal agents there

violently arresting a mother, driving her daughter to school. After she failed to recite her social security number during an immigration stop. Video of the incident shows the 16-year-old daughter of Jakey Funez Andrade. We're going to pick up the sound here. Crying out as the agents tackle her mother to the ground, press her face down into the pavement and handcuff her. Before the arrest, Funez Andrade reportedly showed agents her work permit, her social security card, driver's license, and car registration. But they arrested her anyway and took her to jail.

What kind of recourse do people have? Yeah, I haven't seen that video itself, so I can't comment on the specifics of what happened. But this is part of a broader pattern of officers really not caring to look at the paperwork people have or engage with them before these are. arrests are actually ongoing. Now, if that person is legally present, if they do have a right to stay here, then they could theoretically bring a lawsuit against the government to seek damages for an unlawful arrest, but those lawsuits are complicated, difficult, and time-consuming. And if the arrest was ultimately lawful but cruel, there may be little that she can do. I think this is why community support, access to counsel, getting people an opportunity to have a

lawyer is so important at a time like this. And let me ask you about asylum seekers and the dramatic cut right now in asylum seekers allowed in the United States. The Trump administration reducing the number of refugees admitted annually from 125,000 to 7500, most of them white. Africans. Aaron. Yes. So crucially, these are not asylum seekers. These are people coming in through the U.S. refugee admissions program, which means they have already gone through a legal process overseas that has approved them as refugees to come to the United States legally

with status on a path to a green card and eventually on a path to citizenship. And for 45 years, the U.S. refugee program has saved people from things like ethnic cleansing around the world. But now the Trump administration is trying to turn the U.S. refugee admissions program into a new immigration program for white South Afrikaners and conservatives who they believe are being discriminated against because of their anti-migrant viewpoints. And that is just an abdication of the humanitarian work that the United States has done to so much success over the years and a replacement with this ideological program intended to bring over like-minded conservatives. and only like-minded conservatives to the United States. Erin Rackland-Melnick, I want to thank you for being with us, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, speaking to us from Washington, D.C.

Next up, the Israeli military's killing of an American journalist, a Palestinian-American, Shereen Abuakla, was intentional. So says a retired U.S. colonel, who is the lead U.S. investigator, he is now speaking out. Stay with us. I'll never fly away from here that's my home I stop I stop trying to understand why I stop trying to understand why I'm wrong I ain't going to leave this place because that's my home I'll never fly away from here because that's my home.

That's my home And whatever I see in my dreams, that's my home I'll stop trying to understand Why I'm wrong, my home. Yeah, I ain't going to leave this place, because that's my home. My home. Yeah, yeah, I'll never fly away from here. That's my home.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. U.S. officials who closely examined the May 11th, 2020, shooting death of an American journalist, Palestinian American Shereen Abu Akla in the occupied West Bank, were deeply divided over the Biden administration's public conclusions with some officials convinced that her killing was intentional. That's according to the New York Times, citing five current and former U.S. officials who worked on the case, including a career military policeman with 30 years experience. Speaking publicly for the first time, Colonel Steve Gabevix

said the U.S. government had soft-pedaled his office's findings to appease the Israeli government. He said he and his colleagues were left flabbergasted by the Biden State Department's statement attributing Shereen's killing to, quote, tragic circumstances. Colonel Gavovic was a key source in the is a Teo documentary who killed Shereen. This is Diane Nissenbaum, interviewing him when he was still anonymous. Would you say that the Biden administration failed, Shereen Albuakley? I would say so. The U.S. should have absolutely come forward and actually depressed the fact that an American citizen was killed intentionally by, I guess.

For more, we are joined by retired Colonel Gavivik's in Washington. D.C. We welcome you to Democracy Now, Colonel Steve Gavivik. You are speaking out after Zateo for the first time in this global radio television broadcast. If you can talk about what your involvement was exactly in the investigation of the killing of this American journalist, leading Palestinian-American journalist on Al Jazeera known around the world, tell us how you came to be involved. the case and how you investigated it? Absolutely. Good morning. So I was at the time, I was the chief of staff for the Office of the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority. So we had interactions on a regular basis with the Palestinian Authority,

the Palestinian Authority security forces, and then also the Government of Israel and the IDF. When Shrinabakka was killed on May 11, 2020, the media became a large concern for the United States to try to figure what had happened for this. On that, same day, we started looking, okay, what can we possibly do for an investigation into her killing? Because there were reports initially that it was by a Palestinian gunman. There was no reports initially that it was by an IDF, at least not from the Israeli side. And the ambassador at the time asked our office just because of the relationships we had to talk to the FBI and see if they'd be possibly that they could do an interview, sorry, do an investigation into her killing.

At that point in time, we waited for the FBI to get back. like a day or two, and they came back and said that we cannot do so. The government of Israel has not asked us to and does not appear to be an act of terrorism as such that did not have jurisdiction. After this determination was made, Lieutenant General Fenzel talked with Ambassador Nides and indicated that we had law enforcement capacity, trained individuals within the U.S.S.C., myself being at that point in time 27 years as a military police officer, as well as other members from different nations that were part of the U.S.S.C. So since there was no one else to do that investigation inquiry, I was tasked to lead that

on behalf of the embassy to look into the killing of Srinabakla. Once that was initially determined, we started looking at all the different evidence that existed from every type of communications that were there, video, sound recordings, immediately went out and met with the Attorney General for the Palestinian Authority, We had one of our other officers go and meet with the IDF, the Central Command G3 to get a rundown of what had happened that day and how their forces were aligned. And we started to see the different things happening in the media at the same point in time. So we continued to build up our capacity and understanding of the event before we went out actually to the site and put ourselves in position to see what actually happened on the ground, knowing what the disposition was of the Israeli forces, and knowing exactly the timing and location of Shrinibahakla,

and the rest of the journalist crew that was out there that morning. So just to set that scene, May 11, 2020, she's outside with a team of journalists, the Janine refugee camp, clearly wearing that press vest and a helmet. So the vest goes up near to her neck. You've got the helmet. So you have to really aim to get her in the neck. So explain what your conclusion was, who you were allowed to speak to, who you were prevented from speaking to, and what was the Israeli military unit in charge there on the ground at the time? Yeah, absolutely. So after we reviewed all the video evidence, we looked at the autopsy as well and where the bullet had struck her.

When we went out to the ground, we wanted to see exactly what type of aiming that the sniper had in relation to his targets and verify whether or not he would have had the ability to see Srinaba Akla and the rest of the media crew walking down the middle of the street. So when we went out there, the day was basically the same thing as exact it was on May 11th. Beautiful sunny day, clear as could be, no obstructions from where the IDF sat at 190 meters away down to where Shrinaba was at where she was actually shot. And a clear view also down to the road where they had actually staged to start their movement up there to do recordings of, you know, what was going on with the IDF interactions that day. We looked at not only the video first to see the different shots that were fired and how they were fired, you know, Elsa Moody was shot first, and then there was a break in between, and then it was Shrinabakla who was shot. And we went to the location of the carib tree. We looked at the bullet holes himself. There were three actually in the carib tree.

one else you hit her as well, and we saw where other ones had hit between the video. All the shots that were at the Carib Tree and where she was hit in the head were aimed shots in a very tight group, which means that they were aimed for headshots at that location. You could see it very easily. From there, we walked up the street to the location where the IDF was set. When they were there on May 11th, they actually had armored vehicles, five armored vehicles, two that were perpendicular to the road. So they had protective fire to the north and south.

and the three that were in the middle, they were the extraction team for the element that had conducted the raid in Janine itself. From there, we had representatives from the Palestinian Authority Security Forces in blue vests, and then have a helmet with as well so we could see them at the same exact locations that the Sri Naba Akla was at. And from 190 meters away, we could clearly see just with their plain eyes that this was a blue vest and a blue helmet. From there, we looked and did a straight-line trajectory, utilizing some capabilities to see exactly how the angles of the shots would have gone from where they were at, and then also with an optic to see how clearly we'd be able to see that the individual is wearing a blue vest,

it would have said media and a blue helmet. So after we conducted that analysis, we were able to disprove very quickly the assertion that there was an idea, that there was a Palestinian gunman in front of, of Shrina Baakla that the IDF had shot at and they had accidentally shot her instead for multiple reasons. One, the actual shots, if they were shooting at a Palestinian gun

and where they said they were at based upon the elevation change and the distance, the bullets would hit about 75 to 100 meters in front of Shruna Baakla. So there's no way that could have happened. And then when we look at the angle trajectory of where they were shot from the vehicle that the sniper would have been in with a scope and with the

basically a fixed position, as the barrel actually goes out through the door and you can turn it around and move it, so it's a stable firing position. The shots were directly angled at where they hit the tree and at Tree Baakla from that location. With the unit itself, it was the Dutavan unit, which is a special operations counterterror unit, highly trained and highly skilled. So we knew also definitively that the person who would have been conducting the security on both sides were trained in operation on that unit.

unit, and also the unit has excellent optics that they utilize on their weapons. At a minimum it would be an egg hog. It could have been any other type of scope as well. We do not know. The Israelis never gave us that information. So after we gather all this up, the indications of everything we read from the reports that we got from the IDF on their locations and proximity to where the event happened, what we got from the investigation from the Palestinian Authority. And our investigation. To us, it was very clear that the individual in the vehicle who took the shots and it was one individual would have had a clear line of sight and would have had visibility of Trinabakla walking down the middle of the street for a period of time before he took the shots.

Even one of the examples they said from the IDF, well, you know, it was a rapid thing. They were responding to other fires. You know, they didn't see the, the target on you know, they did not see Shruna Baakla as a potential media person because it was so rapid. That's, you know, is dispelled also by the fact that there was the break after he already taken aim and hit Elsa Moody, and then subsequently took aim shots then. So no matter what, they would have had the scope and optic down the road by the time Shrewna Blakwa was shot. And they were in clear view in the middle of the road. Did the Israeli military, did the Israeli government allow you to,

question the Israeli military? No, they did not. The only thing that we got was them giving us the initial report of their operations that day, which basically just laid out what they were doing in their timeline and where the forces were at. This was also at the same point in time that they were saying that it wasn't us. It was a Palestinian gunman. And if it was us by any chance, it was an absolute accident, never would have known that she was actually there. And we did not try to shoot her. Now, I believe they didn't know that it was Shrina Baakla. I think they knew she was in the area, but they would have known as a journalist for sure. Tied to that also very quickly, so one of the pieces that sort of drove the U.S. perspective on

this was that Major General Fuchs, who was the Central Command commander, on the very same day Shranabalak was shot May 11th. He met with Lieutenant General Fenzel and basically sketched out where his forces were and said that it was most likely a Palestinian who had shot her, but there was a possibility that could have been an accidental shooting based upon the fog of war from the IDF. And that's pretty much the stance that the, you know, the USG sort of stayed with in spite of all the evidence that transpired after that first day. So then if you can talk about what was said at the time, at the conclusion of the report, I want to go to the Zateo documentary who killed Shireen, in which Dionysbaum speaks to the former

State Department official Andrew Miller, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli Palestinian Affairs when Shereen was killed in 2022. It's nearly 100% certain that an Israeli soldier, likely a sniper, fired the shot that killed or the shots that killed Shereen Abouacla. Based on all the information we have, it is not credible to suggest that there were targets either in front of or behind Shirina Boakla. The fact that the official Israeli position remains that this was a case of crossfire. The entire episode was a mistake as opposed to potentially a mistake in identification or the deliberate targeting of this individual

points to, I think, a broader policy of seeking to manage the narrative. And did these Israelis ever make the soldier available to the U.S. to talk about it? No. And the Israelis were not willing to present the person for even informal questioning. So that is the former State Department official Andrew Miller. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs when Shireen was killed back in May, 2022. not to be confused with Matthew Miller. And we want to play a clip from him from last year under President Biden. A reporter is questioning the State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller.

I'm asking like, why USA in, like, didn't take a shanuri case and Shereen-Arafa case seriously and suspended military aid to Israel? We have taken those cases. We have taken those cases extremely seriously. If you heard me yesterday when I talked at this podium, I talked at length about our interactions with the government of Israel, about most recently the Aysinger-Eggie case where he had made clear to them that her death was unacceptable, that it should have been avoided, it should have never happened in the first place, that we want to see the results of their investigation, and we want to see them change their rules of engagement.

So that was Matthew Miller. If you can explain your response, I think the term was flabbergasted, a number of the people engaged in this investigation like you were, retired colonel. Explain what exactly the responses of the State Department, their conclusions, that this was tragic, tragic circumstances? Yeah, absolutely. And I'll actually back it up a little bit because it ties very well into the comments from Andrew Miller as well. So after we had completed this, we were on regular video calls, classified and unclassified with the State Department. I spoke with Andrew Miller several times about our findings. I spoke to Ambassador Nides about my findings as well, and I

indicated to both of them in different times that the evidence to me indicated that there would have been enough if we actually built a criminal case to have enough information and facts to be on a reasonable doubt for a conviction at some level, it would be a manslaughter or something of that nature. So that was briefed to both the ambassador, to General Fenzel, and then also to, you know, the State Department during these different engagements. So that's one reason why, you know, I've worked very closely with Andrew Miller since that point in time as well. So we were anticipating and we were pushing for the fact that they needed to formally admit the fact that it was not an accident, that a soldier killed Shrinevahakla, that it was an intentional shooting. And unfortunately,

that was not what came out on July 4th. I had been going back and forth predominantly with Lieutenant General Fenzel and saying we need to make this and hold them accountable for their actions. We need the Biden administration to absolutely press Israel to follow through on this and give us answers for the killing of American citizen where all evidence indicates that it was an intentional thing. And we saw the false narratives that Israel was trying to press continuously all the until September of actually 2022.

when they finally admitted that it was the IDF that likely killed her, but still as an accident. So when the actual statement came out on July 4th, that was absolutely not what I expected. I know General Fenzel had been involved in writing that statement. I was not involved in the final component of the statement that was written for the State Department to release on July 4th. So I was shocked sitting there with several other members of our team, with the public diplomacy team at the Office. the Palestinian affairs as well, and we couldn't understand what actually happened. We're like, how can we even possibly say this? Number one, there's still data out there.

All the data indicates the exact opposite. It was not fog of war. There was no way, there was any, you know, Palestinian gunmen in the way or anything else that would go to the Israeli narrative. So when that came out, it's like, took the sales out of us, because this was not what we had found. And this continued to be a point of contention for me for the next two years as he report was written with the findings for the killing of Shrinobakla. Would you call this cover-up by the Biden administration?

Definitely a lack of action. Cover-up? Maybe to a degree, yes, because many people knew within there and had the ability to reach out and find all the rest of information from us and chose not to after that narrative was said. So the fact that initially Biden came out and said when it was a Palestinian gunman, what was thought to be a Palestinian gunman, that we will find who this was, we will make sure there's justice for the killing of Sri Namaakla. But then after that statement came out on July 4th,

we never heard anything again from the administration whatsoever to hold Israel accountable for anything. And once there was no Palestinian gunman, they weren't after looking to find an answer for who actually killed her. So in that sense, it was an inaction, cover up to some degree, and it all came down to, in my mind, not trying to anger the Israelis by holding them accountable for intentionally killing an American citizen. You would later retire from the State Department. You went unidentified in the Who Killed Shereen Zateo documentary. Why have you decided to come out fully now, identifying. yourself and speaking out? So while it's still in the military prior to January, I couldn't really speak out about this, not tied to being secret or anything of that nature, but just within the context of being

within the military, I would have to listen to the directives of the public affairs and everything else on what they would allow me to talk about or not talk about. So after I retired, this had, like I said, remained on my conscience continuously. And a friend of mine introduced me to die on and we talked and we agreed that I would participate in the documentary. I had been, you know, concerned to a degree about coming forward because potential ramifications both personally, you know, from threats and everything else I could possibly come from it. But after the documentary came out, I was looking to come forward in about the May-June time frame. and that's when I decided I need to keep this going.

I need to talk about it because what we need to have happen is there needs to be action taken. We cannot let our American citizens be killed anywhere around the world without someone taking action and actually look into it and hold people accountable for it. So I figured that the best way for me to do this and try to prevent that from happening again to journalists to other American citizens, whatever may be, is we have to keep this on. on the news cycle in the discussions with congressional leaders, in discussions with the White House for what has to be done. And when I also saw what the current administration is doing and holding people accountable globally, which I very much appreciated compared to what the Biden administration did,

I thought there's a hope also that we might be able to have additional pressure and efforts to hold Israel accountable for what they've done. Not only just with Srinaba Akla, we also had another American killed literally that same year in January in the hands of the IDF. And then, of course, we had an American citizen who was killed by settlers with IDF a presence in July. So we have to make sure that this stuff is being dealt with seriously. That's why I wanted to come out and be a voice for the protection of Americans. Retired Colonel Steve Gavivik, I want to thank you for being with us when the U.S. officials closely examining the May 11th, 2022, Israeli military shooting death of Palestinian-American journalist Shereen Abluaka. He concluded her killing was intentional. This is democracy now. When we come back, a man who's being described as the Mandani of the Midwest, Omar Fata, the son of Somali immigrants, Democratic Socialists, seeking to unseat the incumbent. Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Fry.

Back in 20 seconds. Once I had a dream that made me sad, how so many people can be bad. Everybody wants all they can grab. No one's ever happy with their sham. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Mimi Goodman. As voters cast early ballots ahead of Election Day this coming Tuesday, we end today's show with the mayoral race in Minneapolis. Omar Fata, the son of Somali immigrants, a Democratic socialist, is a leading candidate seeking to unseat incumbent mayor, Jacob Fry, who's

running for a third term. In 2020, Fata made history as the first Muslim, first Somali American to be elected to Minnesota's state Senate. Fata's surging campaign has drawn comparisons to Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist, who polls indicate may be the first Muslim mayor of New York. Minneapolis Congress member Ilhan Omar has endorsed Fata, along with Jewish Voice for Peace Action and labor unions like SCIU. Minneapolis implemented ranked choice voting in 2009, which allows voters to choose up to three candidates in order of preference on their ballot. The winning candidate must receive at least half the vote.

There are a total of 15 mayoral candidates on the ballot with four Democrats, including the two frontrunners, Mayor Jacob Fry and Omar Fata. Fata is the only top candidate who's asked voters not to rank Fry, a centrist who's faced widespread criticism over his crackdown on Black Lives Matter protesters following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. Fry has received the endorsement of Minnesota governor failed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Minnesota state senator and Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fata joins us now. We welcome you to democracy now. If you can start off by talking about what the slate is that you are a part of, for people to understand around

the country, this issue of ranked choice voting and what you're moving forward. on now, your major issues? Yeah, first, thank you for having me. So we came up with the slate for change, myself, candidate Janice Hampton and candidate Duane Davis, because we believe it's the best, we are the best three candidates to move our city forward. We came together around our collective vision, and yet despite our differences, showing that Minneapolis can have a different kind of politics where if you think differently,

if you have slight differences in opinion around different issues, that we shouldn't have an adversary relationship and that we can still be partners in doing the work for our people, for the people of Minneapolis. And so our vision includes one, or my vision includes one, in which we make Minneapolis a more affordable city, increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour, passing rent stabilization to protect our renter so they don't get priced out.

It includes having a public safety system, that reflects the needs of everyone five years after the murder of George Floyd. The mayor doesn't have a plan or doesn't intend to have a plan. And finally, we have a hostile federal government with Trump back in office who has the trifecta. He has both the House and the Senate and the presidency. And on top of that, he has a Supreme Court that's going to do and has been doing whatever he wants. And so as a city, we need to build a strong line of defense to protect all of our vulnerable residents. How do you feel, Omar Fata, about being called the Mamdani of the Midwest?

And one of the issues that Zoran Mamdani raises in this New York mayoral race is the issue of big money. If you can also talk about the role of big money in your mayoral race, PACs, protecting the interests of developers and funneling millions of dollars into campaigns, and your chief rival, Mayor Frye. Yeah, what we're seeing with Zoron's campaign and campaigns across the nation is that we're seeing progressive candidates running on a sincere and authentic message

around affordability and making the lives of working families better. For far too long, the Democratic Party has lost the message around how to improve the lives around the costs of living, around renters that are struggling with paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make the next month's rent, struggling to pay for basic food and health care costs. And so this is kind of the reason why we saw a hard swing in 2024 with Trump winning at the presidency and now candidates on the left in the Democratic Party winning with a similar message around affordability.

Now, was Trump lying when he was running? of course he was. But he knew that that was a message that would resonate the most with the population. And so right now what we're seeing here in Minneapolis is that Mayor Fry has five packs right now, not one, not two, but five packs that have been well funded, that have been sending out glossy mailers, nonstop ads on social media and on YouTube and things like that. And the reality is that if an incumbent has been doing the underground work, connecting with residents, connecting with stakeholders, working well with city council and cross-jurisdictionally across different levels of government, there wouldn't be the need to spend that much money

and having five different packs to defend you. It's very telling that right now that the mayor doesn't have a single county endorsement, county commissioner endorsement, or state legislator endorsement. And it's because he hasn't been able to work well with others and has handed the city off in his last two terms to the wealthy and the well-connected and not the working families. And so that has been evident throughout this campaign. State Senator, your headquarters, your campaign headquarters for mayor and the predominantly East African neighborhood of Cedar Riverside, Minneapolis, was vandalized with graffiti that read Somali Muslim.

This warning is no joke in black marker. You're certainly not the only Muslim politician to receive. these threats in Minnesota and nationwide. I think about Ilhan Omar, who is also endorsed you, the Congress member from Minneapolis. But can you talk about the rise of anti-Muslim hate, racism in the country? And do you think the Democratic Party and other Democratic candidates and politicians are pushing back hard enough? Well, what we are seeing here in Minnesota, I believe is a direct result of our welcoming, the way we welcome everyone and the way we uplift everyone.

And what I mean by that is that we were the first state to have a Muslim congressman in Keith Ellison. We were the first state to have a Muslim congresswoman in Ilhan Omar who has been serving honorably and serving CD5 and has been a rock star for all of us and a voice that we truly, truly needed. What we've seen in the last few years is that I think since 2024, there has been over a dozen instances of attacks on mosques, for example. Minnesota has had, I believe, the first and only mosque being bombed in the entire nation. Over $3 million in damages, three mosques fully burned to the ground. Myself and other Muslim elected officials, I've been receiving threats on email and social media. We have 20 seconds. Yes, and through social media.

And so the rise in hate we've been seeing has been a direct result of also Trump being elected. But in terms of campaigns, we've seen also Democratic campaigns latch onto this and use it in their own messaging and through their packs to try to win their elections. And so rather than going on the defense for one another, they've been using it to sow more hate. Well, I want to thank you, Omar Fata, for joining us. Socialist, Minnesota State Senator, Minneapolis mayoral candidate. The election is Tuesday.