Georgia teacher in custody after allegedly opening fire in classroom, police say
March 1, 2018 by admin
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Teacher allegedly fires gun in classroom, taken into custody
Raw video: Police spokesperson Bruce Frazier updates media on incident at Dalton High School in Georgia where a teacher allegedly barricaded himself in a classroom before opening fire.
A teacher has been taken into custody after allegedly firing at least one shot inside a Georgia high school classroom Wednesday, police said.
The Dalton Police Department identifed the teacher as Jesse Randall Davidson, 53, a social studies teacher who also does play-by-play announcements during the school’s football games. He has been employed with the school since 2004.
The teacher involved in this morning’s incident is Jesse Randall Davidson, 53, social studies teacher. Also serves as play by play voice of the Dalton football team.
— Dalton Police (@DaltonPD) February 28, 2018
Davidson was charged with aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of a gun during commission of a crime and disrupting public school, police said in a tweet.
Jesse Randal Davidson has been charged with aggravated assault, carrying weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of gun during commission of a crime, and disrupting public school.
— Dalton Police (@DaltonPD) February 28, 2018
The department earlier tweeted a person, believed to be a teacher, was barricaded inside a classroom. The person allegedly would not allow students into the room, police said.
Dalton High School was placed on lockdown and police confirmed no children were in any danger and there weren’t any students inside the classroom at the time of the incident, they said. The school and the area surrounding it were evacuated.
Police said Jesse Randall Davidson, 53, was the teacher involved in Wednesday’s incident.
(Dalton Public Schools)
During an afternoon news conference, Dalton High School Principal Steve Bartoo said he was notified of the situation around 11:40 a.m. After arriving to the area of the building, he said students were being shuffled into another classroom and he was told that Davidson wasn’t letting anyone in.
Bartoo said he tried to go inside the classroom but Davidson slammed the door in his face and told him to “go away.”
One student sustained an ankle injury Wednesday following an incident at Dalton High School.
(AP)
The school resource officer, who was off-campus at a nearby middle school, was called, the principal said, and other students were moved from a nearby classroom.
After that, Bartoo said he tried again to enter the classroom, this time putting his key in the door and announcing himself, only to have it slammed on him again. He said Davidson told him not to come in and said “I have a gun.”
The school was immediately placed under threat lockdown mode and shortly after, Bartoo said he heard a gunshot. He added that it seemed like only minutes before officers arrived to the school. Students were moved and part of the hallway was evacuated before police ultimately told them to clear out the entire school, the principal said.
Police did not say what type of firearm was used but confirmed it was a handgun. The gun has been recovered.
One student was injured after sustaining an ankle injury while running inside the school during the building evacuation, the Dalton Police Department tweeted. No faculty or staff were reported injured in the incident.
Bartloo said he has known Davidson since he was employed by the district and described him as an “excellent teacher” who was “well thought of.” When asked if this event was a surprise, the principal said, “absolutely.”
“Certainly shocking … probably shock any school principal if one of their staff members pulled out a gun in a classroom and fired it,” Bartloo said.
Asst. Chief Cliff Cason of the Dalton Police Department said authorities are currently aware of one shot going off and that it was fired through the classroom window and went outside the building.
Davidson was taken into custody and brought to Whitfield County Jail, Cason said.
He added that the teacher would face “appropriate charges because this is a very egregious act that took place at the school.”
Cason commended the work of the school resource officer, who he said convinced Davidson to surrender to authorities, as well as the school for their response to the situation. He called their execution of the lockdown “flawless.”
“Our job would not have nearly been as easy to execute today if it weren’t for how well they did in doing their lockdown drill,” Cason said.
The school has about 2,000 students, according to their website.
Dalton is about 90 miles north of Atlanta.
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Trump Calls Sessions’s Handling of Surveillance Abuse Allegations ‘Disgraceful’
March 1, 2018 by admin
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But the president’s options are constrained, advisers said, because he recognizes that he would have a difficult time winning Senate confirmation for a replacement. Mr. Sessions served there for 20 years, and his former colleagues have bristled at Mr. Trump’s attacks. Any dismissal of Mr. Sessions would be taken by Democrats and even some Republicans as an effort to seize control of the Russia investigation and could trigger a bipartisan backlash.
The exchange on Wednesday began when the president lashed out at Mr. Sessions for seeming to suggest that the Justice Department’s inspector general would look into Republican charges of misconduct in the opening stage of the Russia investigation rather than opening his own examination.
“Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!”
Republicans have accused Justice Department and F.B.I. officials of abusing their powers while President Barack Obama was still in office by using information from a dossier prepared by a former British spy paid by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. Officials did not fully inform the court that issues warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, of the origin of the information, Republicans complained. Democrats have called that a distortion and distraction.
The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, was appointed by Mr. Obama in 2012, but previously worked for the Justice Department under Republican and Democratic presidents. He has already been investigating how James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director until Mr. Trump fired him last spring, handled the inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Mr. Sessions seemed to take umbrage at the president’s latest message. “We have initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary,” he said in his statement.
“As long as I am the attorney general,” he added, “I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.”
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Mr. Sessions’s response, polite but pointed, was all the more striking because he had largely kept quiet after previous attacks by the president. Mr. Trump has never forgiven Mr. Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, a decision that helped lead to the appointment of Mr. Mueller. Mr. Trump has publicly called Mr. Sessions “weak” and said he would not have appointed him had he known Mr. Sessions would step aside.
His latest eruption was prompted by Mr. Sessions’s comment on Tuesday that if a FISA surveillance warrant was wrongfully obtained, the matter would be “investigated” by the department’s inspector general. His comment was interpreted as confirmation that the inspector general had opened a second official inquiry on top of the Comey review.
But Mr. Sessions only meant to reiterate what he said after a memo drafted by House Republicans was released alleging abuse of the FISA process. At the time, Mr. Sessions said he would “forward to appropriate D.O.J. components all information I receive from Congress regarding this.”
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The nuance was lost on Mr. Trump, who among other things did not seem to understand that an attorney general cannot order an inspector general to investigate anything, only refer information.
“The president’s tweet reveals that he really doesn’t understand how the government works and how the Justice Department works,” said Michael Bromwich, a former department inspector general.
He added that the inspector general’s office has a reputation for professionalism. “It’s incredibly demoralizing to have the chief executive of the government not only not understand and appreciate what you do, but attack what you do on a constant basis,” Mr. Bromwich said.
Inspectors general at cabinet agencies are kept separate to preserve their independence. Paul Light, a New York University professor and specialist on the offices, recalled that President Ronald Reagan fired all of the inspectors general but was forced by Congress to rehire some of them. “They have protections in statutes against arbitrary dismissal,” he said.
After Mr. Trump’s tweet, Mr. Horowitz, the inspector general, received support from Republicans, including Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that confirmed him.
“I have complete confidence in him and hope he is given the time, the resources and the independence to complete his work,” said Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
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Several Republicans expressed dismay at the president’s continued campaign against Mr. Sessions. “It’s kind of mind-boggling that he would call out his own attorney general,” former Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah said on Fox News.
Representative Peter T. King of New York, also on Fox, expressed sympathy with Mr. Trump’s desire for a second investigation run by Mr. Sessions, but added that the president should not berate him. “Jeff Sessions is loyal to the president and he’s one of the first to support him, and he’s often in very difficult positions and I think he’s trying to reconcile as best as he can,” he said.
Michael W. McConnell, a former appellate judge now at Stanford Law School, said a president has every right to direct his attorney general.
“What raises eyebrows is the form and tone of the tweet, which appears to be a commentary on the attorney general’s decisions rather than an exercise of presidential supervisory authority,” he said. “Mr. Trump is the president. If he wants something done differently, he should order that it be done differently, with serious reflection, through proper channels and in the proper form.”
Jamil Jaffer, a law professor at George Mason University and former associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush, said social media was not the best way to direct action by an attorney general. “The president has a lot of tools that are a lot more effective than putting the A.G. on blast on Twitter,” he said.
But Mr. Trump got support from other quarters. Representative Lee Zeldin of New York and a dozen other Republicans sent a letter to Mr. Sessions on Wednesday urging him to appoint a special counsel to investigate the handling of Mrs. Clinton’s case and the FISA warrant targeting Mr. Page.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, suggested that Mr. Sessions had never really supported Mr. Trump in the first place.
“@USAGSessions must be part of the Bush/Romney/McCain Republican Establishment,” he wrote on Twitter. “He probably supported @realDonaldTrump early in campaign to hide who he really is. Or he could just be a coward.”
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