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What's Going On With Michael Sam?

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What's Going On With Michael Sam?

The last time we checked in with Michael Sam, he had signed a two-year contract with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. But just three weeks later, and the day before the Alouettes’s first exhibition match, Sam has left the team amidst murky circumstances. The Alouettes released a curious statement regarding it:

The Montreal Alouettes organization would like to clarify the situation surrounding international defensive end Michael Sam. Friday morning, Michael asked the team for special permission to leave training camp and return home for personal reasons.

Out of respect for Michael Sam, the nature of this decision will remain confidential.

The Montreal Alouettes fully respect Michael Sam’s decision and we rally around him to offer all the support needed. The team has left the door open and Michael is welcome to come back whenever he feels ready.

This isn’t the type of wording normally used when a player leaves a team due to something like injury or bereavement, and Alouettes coach Tom Higgins doesn’t seem to have a clue about what’s going on with his team. Via the Montreal Gazette:

Following Friday’s workout, head coach Tom Higgins said Sam had attended team meetings Thursday night. “This surprises me right now. I thought he would have been out here,” Higgins said.

After being cut from two different NFL squads, it looks like Sam’s Canadian adventure might be over before it even really began.


E-mail or gchat the author: kevin.draper@deadspin.com | PGP key + fingerprint | Photo via Getty


Twenty-five percent of women and seven percent of men who participated in a poll of recent college g

5 Injured in Accidental Shooting at Waldorf Astoria

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5 Injured in Accidental Shooting at Waldorf Astoria

On Saturday, during a wedding reception at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, a guest was playing with a gun and accidentally fired a bullet that injured five people, NBC New York reports.

The bullet hit one person after it ricocheted off the floor, the New York Times reports. Three were injured by broken glass, marble, and tile.

According to NBC, four people were taken to hospitals. Their injuries were not life threatening. One person refused attention at the scene. (Presumably their injury was also not life threatening.)

The New York Post reports that the gun allegedly belonged to one Vladimir Gotlibovsky. It, apparently, went off in his pocket:

The bullet blasted a gaping hole with burnt edges in his pants before the gun fell to the ground.

Gotlibovsky, of Mill Basin, Brooklyn, was unscathed, but the slug ricochetted and grazed the head of Maya Rafailovich, 55, of Brighton Beach.

She was wheeled out of the hotel on a gurney, shoeless and with orange straps criss-crossing her little black cocktail dress. A white bandage covered her forehead.

Her eyes were open — and angry — as she was rolled into a Bellevue Hospital-bound ambulance.

According to the Post, Gotlibovsky told police he had a permit. The gun has not yet been recovered: police believe Gotlibovsky gave it to a relative, who they expect will turn it in as evidence.

“It’s looking accidental — there’s a hole in his pocket. The woman hit was in no way the intended target,” a police source told the New York Daily News.

“We need to know what happened. Guns just don’t go off... And we know it wasn’t a shotgun wedding.”


Photo credit: Jeffrey Zeldman/Flickr. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Police: Off-Duty Corrections Officer Shoots and Kills Robber In Queens

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Police: Off-Duty Corrections Officer Shoots and Kills Robber In Queens

Police said an off-duty state corrections officer shot and killed an armed robber who brandished a gun at him and four other men in Queens on Saturday. The New York Daily News reports the would-be thief demanded they give him the keys to their motorcycles.

A scuffle ensued, an NYPD spokesman told the Daily News, and the officer shot the 35-year-old man in the head. The incident took place on Rockaway Boulevard, near 95th Avenue.

The man was in cardiac arrest when EMS workers arrived. He died later, at Jamaica hospital.

Police found what they believe is the dead man’s gun at the scene.


Image via Shutterstock. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Orlando Police Dog Mangled Arm of Child Allegedly Breaking Into School

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Orlando Police Dog Mangled Arm of Child Allegedly Breaking Into School

An Orange County attorney has said Orlando police used excessive force against his client, a 12-year-old boy accused of breaking into an elementary school, who was badly mauled by a police dog, News 13 reports.

Police arrested the boy earlier this month, with two others, after they broke into Shingle Creek Elementary School, according to News 13. Authorities say they ordered the three boys to stop and get on the ground; two complied, and the third, they say, did not. In response, they set the police dog on him.

The boy, who turned 13 on Friday, spent three days in the hospital. Now, he has to return to the doctor on a weekly basis to check for nerve damage. Bradley Laurent, his attorney, told the Orlando Sentinel that his arm is still too swollen to diagnose.

“This kid is going to need extensive rehab,” Laurent said, counting three separate bites. “There’s no telling if he needs surgery to repair any nerve damage, and he may need plastic surgery.” News 13 reports that the stolen items were school supplies.

According to the Sentinel, the two other boys also charged in the burglary say that their friend had stopped and was complying with officers when the dog attacked him.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Laurent told News 13. “No matter what they were doing in terms of being on the property, that didn’t warrant harming anyone.”

“I would imagine that they have enough training to restrain a 12-year-old. I don’t see why it would be necessary to release a dog. A dog that you know is going to cause some serious injury.”


Image via Shutterstock. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Cool Guy Does Cool Thing

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Cool Guy Does Cool Thing

This is, apparently, David Achter de Molen, the lead singer of a band called John Coffey, at something called Pinkpop Festival 2015, in Holland, catching a thrown cup of beer while walking across the crowd.

Pretty cool, guy.


Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

OTL Report: How College Athletes Avoid Criminal Charges

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OTL Report: How College Athletes Avoid Criminal Charges

College athletes at major schools across the country often avoid charges in criminal cases. They have access to high-profile lawyers; the athletic departments play major roles in the investigations; and witnesses are intimidated, indirectly or otherwise, according to an investigative report by ESPN’s Outside the Lines.

After an examination of over 2,000 documents culled from police reports at 10 different schools from 2009-2014, Outside the Lines found male basketball and football players frequently avoided criminal charges or prosecution when named as suspects in police reports, results “exceeding that of non-athlete males in the same age range.” Florida and Florida State were the biggest offenders in this category. Other schools, such as Michigan State, saw almost no discrepancy.

The report details numerous ways in which athletes at major programs avoid charges, noting preferential treatment from police happens, but is not necessarily the driving force behind the lack of prosecutions.

For example, at Oklahoma State, men’s basketball coach Travis Ford testified he “conducted his own investigation” after a player was accused of rape and sexual battery to explain why he never contacted police when he received a letter of the allegations from one of the alleged victims.

At Florida State, assistant athletic director Monk Bonasorte is known as a “fixer,” and his name appears in multiple players’s police reports. He’s often tasked with arranging legal representation for players. The report also found nine examples of FSU athletic department officials or coaches trying to schedule police interviews at a time and place of the athlete’s convenience. Willie Meggs, the chief prosecuting attorney in Tallahassee, described that as a “classic example of poor police work.”

“You don’t do an interview of a suspect — football, non-football, athlete, non-athlete — in their own comfortable environment. That’s common sense,” Meggs said.

In Gainesville, the report found police will “refer certain incidents to coaches or school officials instead of pursuing criminal charges.”

The entire report is fascinating, if not earth-shattering. The athletes’s access to high-profile lawyers was certainly eyebrow raising—Tallahasee attorney Tim Jansen, who represented Jameis Winston two years ago, charges some clients up to $500 an hour, but he’s always a quick call away from Bonasorte when a player faces criminal trouble. Jansen says the athletes’s families pay for his services, but the entire arrangement reeks of shadiness.

Go over to ESPN and read the whole report, which has more about the methodology of the investigation, as well as individual reports about each of the 10 schools examined and many more examples of how these athlete criminal cases are blatantly mishandled.

[Outside the Lines]

Photo via Associated Press

Rich Californians Don't Think They Should Have To Ration Their Water

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Rich Californians Don't Think They Should Have To Ration Their Water

California’s wealthiest do not think that they should be subject to the same restrictions on water consumption as everyone else, the Washington Post reports. Rich people pay higher property taxes and are therefore entitled to more water and poor people are just going to have to suck it up.

“We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” Steve Yuhas, a resident of the affluent Rancho Santa Fe, said. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”http://gizmodo.com/californias-we...

According to the Post, water consumption in Rancho Santa Fe actually went up by nine percent after Governor Jerry Brown called for a 25 percent reduction in water use in April. That, however, is going to change: As of July 1, Rancho Santa Fe will be subject to water rationing.

In a place where the median income is $189,000, where PGA legend Phil Mickelson once requested a separate water meter for his chipping greens, where financier Ralph Whitworth last month paid the Rolling Stones $2 million to play at a local bar, the fine, at $100, was less than intimidating.

“It’s no longer a ‘You can only water on these days’” situation, Santa Fe Irrigation District spokeswoman Jessica Parks said. “It’s now more of a ‘This is the amount of water you get within this billing period. And if you go over that, there will be high penalties.’”

And man, oh man are people upset about that! “I’m a conservative, so this is strange, but I defend Barbra Streisand’s right to have a green lawn,” said Yuhas, who hosts a radio talks show and also has a home in Los Angeles. “When we bought, we didn’t plan on getting a place that looks like we’re living in an African savanna.”

“I call it the war on suburbia,” Brett Barbre, of Orange County’s Yorba City, said.

“It angers me because people aren’t looking at the overall picture,” Gay Butler, an interior designer who the Post apparently interviewed while she was out riding her show horse (!) said. “What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our house on four acres?” What, indeed.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.


Hillary Clinton is hiring veteran political operatives and making them work her campaign for free, t

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Hillary Clinton is hiring veteran political operatives and making them work her campaign for free, the Guardian reports. Must be rough. But also: “If you need to work for free to get your foot in the door with the Clintons, you have be from a wealthy family.” Hmm!

Escaped Zoo Animals Stream Through Tbilisi After Flooding

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Escaped Zoo Animals Stream Through Tbilisi After Flooding

At least 12 people are dead and 24 people missing after floodwaters swept through Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, the New York Times reports. An unknown number of animals—including lions, wolves, bears, and at least one hippo—have escaped from a zoo and are roaming the city’s ruined streets.

According to the Times, local television reports that a special police unit has been dispatched to the area around the zoo to hunt down the animals. Some have been killed, including six wolves found on the grounds of a children’s hospital, though it is not yet known how many.

“If an animal attacked people, it’s one thing,” zoo director Zurab Gurielidze told Russian news agency Interfax. “I know that no order was issued to kill animals. Some policemen exceeded their authority.” Officials said that the dead animals were too aggressive to be captured. An escaped hippopotamus was reportedly subdued with a tranquilizer.

Interfax reported that, so far, zoo workers have identified 20 wolves, eight lions, and several tigers and jaguars as missing. Only three of 17 penguins survived the flooding. Some parts of the zoo are still underwater.

Escaped Zoo Animals Stream Through Tbilisi After Flooding

The flooding came after heavy rains on Saturday turned what is “a usually burbling stream” in downtown Tbilisi “into a raging torrent,” the Times reports.

“It’s so surreal. Helicopters are circling overhead and they’ve warned people to stay indoors but not everyone’s doing that,” Paul Rimple, a journalist based in Tbilisi, told Al Jazeera. “People are walking around with their babies just a few blocks from where a wolf was shot in the south of the city. Apparently a jaguar was reported in the north.”

“Until somebody gets mauled or killed, no one’s going to panic.”

Escaped Zoo Animals Stream Through Tbilisi After Flooding

The Associated Press reports that three zoo workers have been killed, but it is not known whether they—or the other people who have died after the river burst its banks—died in animal attacks or other flood-related accidents.

Escaped Zoo Animals Stream Through Tbilisi After Flooding

“When Communists came to us in this country, they ordered that all crosses and bells of the churches be melted down and the money used to build the zoo,” head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, reportedly told a Sunday Mass.

“The sin will not go without punishment. I am very sorry that Georgians fell so that a zoo was built at the expense of destroyed churches.”


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

“The next neat thing that’s going to happen is cloud robotics: that’s where, when one robot learns s

Here Is Video of Bobby Flay Busting a Move at a Puerto Rican Day Party

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Here Is Video of Bobby Flay Busting a Move at a Puerto Rican Day Party

A tipster sent us this video of Bobby Flay getting down to Big Pun’s classic “Still Not a Player” at a Puerto Rican Day Parade party in New York City:

The tipster writes,

It’s in NYC and Bobby was made an Honor Puerto Rican because of his dance moves and love of big pun music... The woman in the blue jumper is clearly his date.

Incidentally, who is that woman in the blue jumper? Is it his assistant, Elyse Tirrell, with whom Flay is accused of having carried on a three-year affair? Or is it...someone else?

Bobby Flay: Not player, just fucks a lot.


Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Raccoon Chills on Alligator for a Second, Isn't Worried About It

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On Sunday morning, Florida man Richard Jones took this photograph of a raccoon standing on an alligator’s back in Ocala National Forest, WFTV 9 reports.

Jones said his son, while walking along the Ocklawaha River, startled the raccoon, which jumped onto the gator in the water nearby.

“I snapped a lucky picture right when the gator slipped into the water and before the raccoon jumped off and scurried away. Without the context you’d think the raccoon was hitching a ride across the river. Pretty amazing,” Jones wrote in an email to WFTV. “Definitely the photo of a lifetime.”


Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.

Cops: Ice Cream Driver Fatally Shot as Children Watched

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Cops: Ice Cream Driver Fatally Shot as Children Watched

A 27-year-old Maryland man is accused of shooting and killing an ice cream truck driver as he sold his frozen treats to gathered children, Reuters reports.

According to police, Larnell Lyles, seen above, gunned down Big Daddy Ice Cream driver Brandon Brown on Saturday outside Lucas Village, a subsidized housing complex in Fredrick, Maryland. From the Associated Press:

Lt. Clark Pennington, a police spokesman, says Brown drove into the community around 5 p.m., playing music to announce the arrival of the truck. Pennington says small children were lined up to buy ice cream when Brown stepped out of the truck and was approached by a man who shot him in the chest. Brown died on the scene.

On Sunday, Lyles was arrested for first-degree murder and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony with additional charges reportedly to follow.

Authorities have not revealed a potential motive for the crime.

[Image via Frederick Police Department]

Beach Goers Demonstrate Only Wrong Way to Throw a Frisbee

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Beach Goers Demonstrate Only Wrong Way to Throw a Frisbee

There are many correct ways to throw the toy flying disc commonly known as the Frisbee. Backhand, for instance, is a popular and acceptable method, as is the hammer throw. There is, in fact, only one objectively improper Frisbee-throwing technique. This one:

“Ah yes, Frinsbee, I am familiar with this object and it’s purpose!” one of the two Martians seen above probably said to the other.

“Hahah, yes. Love to jerk the ol’ Fransbone around!” his flopping partner surely replied.

According to the clip’s uploader, the video was shot in Croatia, a country that boasts almost 10 Ultimate Frisbee teams. Presumably neither of these men are on them.

[Image via LiveLeak//h/t Uproxx]


Rachel Dolezal Tries to Delay NAACP Meeting Addressing Controversy

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Rachel Dolezal Tries to Delay NAACP Meeting Addressing Controversy

On Sunday, Spokane NAACP President Rachel Dolezal announced she was postponing a Monday meeting expected to include her first public statement regarding accusations she lied about her race.

“Due to the need to continue discussion with regional and national NAACP leaders, tomorrow’s meeting is postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date,” said Dolezal in a message to Spokane NAACP members. “We appreciate your patience and understanding at this time.”

Dolezal previously told members that she and the chapter’s executive committee would release statements addressing the controversy at the meeting.

Shortly after Dolezal’s announcement on Sunday, board member Lawrence Burnley wrote a response challenging her authority to delay the meeting:

I’m puzzled by your decision to arbitrarily cancel/postpone the meeting without input from the executive committee which is scheduled to meet today. The Association’s by-laws provides specific guidelines concerning monthly general/branch meetings. Article V, Section 1 states, “Regular meetings shall be held on a fix day or date each month.” That date, as agreed upon by the executive committee, is the third Monday of each month which is tomorrow. I don’t see any language in the by-laws that empowers you, or any one member, to arbitrarily cancel/postpone tomorrow’s meeting.

Burnley also objected to Dolezal attributing the announcement to “Spokane NAACP Chapter,” writing, “This is misleading as it conveys a decision has been made by ‘the chapter’ or the executive committee of the chapter which not the case.”

According to The Spokesman-Review, chapter members currently plan to hold the meeting as scheduled.

[Image via AP Images]

Rachel Dolezal Resigns as President of Spokane NAACP

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Rachel Dolezal Resigns as President of Spokane NAACP

Rachel Dolezal has resigned from her position as president of Spokane’s NAACP chapter. “Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me,” she wrote in a Facebook statement. “It’s about justice. This is not me quitting; this is a continuum.”

On Thursday, Spokane officials opened into an investigation into Dolezal after her parents claimed in several interviews that their daughter was white. When asked by journalists if she was black, Dolezal feigned confusion. “That’s a very—I don’t know what you’re implying,” Dolezal said. “I don’t understand the question.”

In 2012, Dolezal reportedly told her adopted brother, who identifies as 25 percent black, not to “blow her cover.” Dolezal also reportedly identified as white when she attended Howard University in the early 2000s.

Yesterday, Dolezal announced that she was postponing a press conference initially scheduled for Monday morning. In the statement posted this morning, Dolezal said Naima Quarles-Burnley, the chapter’s current vice president, would take over as president. From the statement:

I have waited in deference while others expressed their feelings, beliefs, confusions and even conclusions - absent the full story. I am consistently committed to empowering marginalized voices and believe that many individuals have been heard in the last hours and days that would not otherwise have had a platform to weigh in on this important discussion. Additionally, I have always deferred to the state and national NAACP leadership and offer my sincere gratitude for their unwavering support of my leadership through this unexpected firestorm.

While challenging the construct of race is at the core of evolving human consciousness, we can NOT afford to lose sight of the five Game Changers (Criminal Justice & Public Safety, Health & Healthcare, Education, Economic Sustainability, and Voting Rights & Political Representation) that affect millions, often with a life or death outcome.


Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

The Haircut Is True: Kristen Stewart Dating Female Assistant, Says Mom

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The Haircut Is True: Kristen Stewart Dating Female Assistant, Says Mom

For years, people have been obsessed with Kristen Stewart’s love life, and for months people have been speculating that it’s taken a turn for the sapphic. In an interview with The Mirror, Kristen’s mom Jules Stewart confirms that it has—Jules says Kristen is dating her assistant, Alicia Cargile. Ah yes, the old “personal assistant” trick. Classic.

Here’s the tea, as only a mum could steep it:

Jules, 55, told the Sunday Mirror she has met personal assistant Alicia Cargile and that the couple are very happy together.

She added: “What’s not to be accepting about her now having a girlfriend? She’s happy.

“She’s my daughter, I’m just her mom so she knows I would accept her choices.

“I’ve met Kristen’s new girlfriend, I like her. What’s not to accept? She’s a lovely girl.”

Jules, who also has a Hollywood career as a script supervisor, added: “I feel like people need to be free to love whoever they want. I accept my daughter loves women and men. It’s OK to be who you are in my world. We all choose our friends so we should be free to choose our lovers.”

Kristen Stewart “loves women and men” according to her mother, but calling this an “outing” doesn’t quite seem right. I’m willing to bet that Kristen Stewart is way too complicated to just be a lesbian, or a bisexual, even. She’s fluid, she’s queer, she doesn’t believe in labels, etc. Maybe one day she’ll tell us, maybe she won’t. Whatever, it’s a free country.

[h/t Out]

[Image via Getty]

A New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled that Brooklyn’s Pierhouse development—an expensive lu

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A New York State Supreme Court judge has ruled that Brooklyn’s Pierhouse development—an expensive luxury condo that blocks the public’s view of the Brooklyn Bridge—is not technically illegal, though he conceded that the building could be considered an aesthetic monstrosity.


Contact the author at Hamilton@Gawker.com.

Gawker Reader: Escaped Convicts Likely Hiding in Tree House Utopia

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Gawker Reader: Escaped Convicts Likely Hiding in Tree House Utopia

Apples, spry monkeys, fresh air, falling blossoms—we associate the treetops with only the best things in life, but what if our nation’s leafy canopies are also holding two murderous fugitives? A Gawker reader thinks that cops need to start looking up.

Cops are having a lot of trouble finding these two bad boys—could it be because they’re looking down at the Earth for clues, rather than skyward? Is the investigation missing a little bushy-tailed conventional squirrel wisdom? We received this tip in our email inbox (tips@gawker.com!) earlier today, and have have been unable to confirm its claims:

THE ONLY PLACE THE 2 ESCAPED CONVICTS COULD BE IS IN A TREE HOUSE STOCKED WITH PROVISIONS. AT THIS TIME OF YEAR THE DENSITY OF THE TREES COULD HIDE ANYTHING.

Manny

Thanks Manny. Could it be? Two killers, one with a giant cock, camping out in a rural New York tree? Sounds “crazy,” but so did a lot of the things one other notorious American duo once did—the Wright Brothers.

Photo: ShutterStock


Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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