Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

The Senate is Voting on…Something?

Today, the Senate will vote on something to do with health care, but it’s not clear exactly what. The Senate has been working to pass, or at least debate, some sort of bill to repeal and replace Obamacare for weeks, but the most recent efforts were derailed when senators couldn’t agree on the “replace” portion. After that, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started pushing for a “repeal now, replace later” approach.

One of the challenges for Senate Republican leadership is that no more than two Republican senators can defect. Senator Susan Collins of Maine has made it clear that she intends to vote “no.” While Senator John McCain, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last week, is reportedly returning to Capitol Hill to cast his vote, other defections could stop McConnell’s plan to move any sort of action forward. All eyes are now on two senators who seem likely to join Collins in dissension–Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

Regardless of what happens today, the secretive nature of the procedures have frustrated many:

Health care vote today.

– No final text
– No final Byrd guidance
– No final CBO score
– No public hearingshttps://t.co/SCxwL0g5Ev

— Dylan Scott (@dylanlscott) July 25, 2017

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: July 25, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

On Saturday evening, a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota called 911 to report what she believed might be a sexual assault taking place in an alley close to her home. But when police arrived, an officer fatally shot her. Police have not explained what happened and the officers’ body cameras were turned off at the time. The woman, Justine Damond, was originally from Australia and lived in Minneapolis with her fiancé Don Damond.

Don Damond’s son, Zach, called Justine his best friend in a video posted on Facebook. He said that she called the police because she thought something bad was happening to someone else. “And then the next thing I know they take my best friend’s life,” he said. “I’m so done with all this violence. It’s so much bullsh*t. America sucks.”

Minneapolis Police said the shooting was not captured by the officers’ dashboard cameras and no one seems to know why the body cameras were turned off. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety is investigating the incident, but the investigation is only in its early stages. On Monday night, the county medical examiner said that the cause of death was a gunshot to the abdomen.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the officer who shot Justine Damond is named Mohamed Noor. Three sources who spoke to the Star Tribune said that Justine Damond was outside in her pajamas talking to the officer in the driver’s seat of the police car, when Noor, who was sitting in the passenger seat, suddenly drew his weapon and shot her. No weapon was found at the scene.

Justine Damond planned to marry Don Damond next month. Her maiden name was Justine Ruszczyk, but she went as Justine Damond. She reportedly held dual citizenship in both the United States and Australia, as her father is a U.S. citizen.

On Sunday night, neighbors and others held a vigil at the scene of the shooting.

Vigil crowd swelled to 200 strong, all praying for Justine – the woman neighbors identified as who a MPD officer killed last night. @WCCO pic.twitter.com/uVOM61gRhD

— Jeff Wagner (@Jeff_Wagner4) July 16, 2017

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that it has been assisting Justine Damond’s family in Sydney and released a statement on behalf of her family members. “This is a very difficult time for our family. We are trying to come to terms with this tragedy and to understand why this has happened,” it said.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges demanded answers from the police on Sunday. “As mayor of our city, a wife, and a grandmother, I am heartsick and deeply disturbed by what occurred last night,” she said. “There are still many questions about what took place, and while the investigation is still in its early stages, I am asking the BCA to release as much information, as quickly as they are able to.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Minneapolis Police Officer Killed an Australian Woman After She Called 911 appeared first on Law Street.

Minnesota has one of the biggest groups of ISIS-recruit defendants in the country; a large diaspora of Somali immigrants, socially isolated from the rest of society and often facing racism, can be a breeding ground for extremism. Ten years ago there was the case of a few young Somali men leaving Minneapolis to fight for al-Qaeda, now it’s ISIS in Syria.

Since 2014 the FBI has arrested nine young Somali American men in the state for planning to join ISIS. They are charged with conspiring to commit murder abroad, and providing material support to a terrorist group, charges that carry life and 15 years in prison, respectively. Now officials in Minneapolis are turning to different approaches, by treating the young men with counseling instead of extended prison sentences.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who is in charge of the case, said that they have consulted a German researcher, Daniel Koehler, to investigate the young men before starting a de-radicalization program, a method that is common in European countries such as Germany and Denmark.

Six of the nine men have pleaded guilty to the crimes they are charged with, and all of those six have already volunteered for the program that Koehler is about to set up. The aim is to reintegrate the men into society, instead of locking them up without treating the actual causes of radicalization. These evaluations could lead to shorter prison sentences and a focus on probation.

Heartland Democracy is a local Minneapolis group that is conducting its own counseling for young radicalized men. Ahmed Amin, a high school teacher who moved from Somalia to the US with his family at the age of 12, is one of the counselors, and said to NPR:

I understand the difficulties of identity that lead people to join organizations like ISIS. It is hard trying to live in two worlds. From 9 to 5 these kids have to live one way when they are at school, they are socialized to be American. And then they go home, learn to be religious and are trying to cope with that. It is harder than you’d think.

One of the young men participating in the trial was Abdirahman Bashir, who agreed to become an informant for the FBI after his attempt to leave the U.S. for Syria failed. Since he cooperated by spying on his former friends, he is unlikely to face any charges, and told the court on Tuesday that he was looking to pursue a career in law enforcement. He even asked one of the FBI agents if he could use him as a reference on his school application. Hopefully, education, integration, and communication can help end extremism and radicalization as we know it.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ISIS Recruits in Minnesota to Receive Counseling appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

Apparently there is a serious problem in Minneapolis where students classified as minorities are being suspended at a higher rate than other kids. Except the district that Minneapolis School Board Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson represents has about 32,000 students, 70 percent of whom are “people of color.”

Johnson has implemented a new policy that non-violent suspensions given out to minority students must undergo a review process by the district. Shouldn’t any non-violent suspensions be reviewed no matter the color of the students’ skin if it is going to really work? Johnson claims that there is a ‘racial suspension gap’ that she is working to correct.

This new policy will also expand local government, with staff increases, the creation of a stronger data system, clarified suspension rules, and an increase in community and student engagement. Shouldn’t there already be clarifications on suspension rules? Obviously teachers and administrators are suspending these kids for a reason. There is some kind of disruption going on in the classroom that requires them to be removed.

I have never believed in suspending a kid who acts bad. In the eyes of a kid who gets suspended it is just an extra day off from school. One less day to worry about an assignment and they can do whatever they want.

I like the idea of giving more work to the local government and creating more jobs, but I don’t think it is right to second guess teachers. Lay out the rules and guidelines that the teachers should follow and they will follow them. Teachers are educated people who were hired to educate our youth not babysit them only to be second guessed when it comes time to implement the rules.

Let’s also take a moment and really see that everything is racially charged these days. I can’t turn on the television or read through a news outlet without seeing something about race and how one group is being treated more unfairly than another. For such an open-minded society that is supposedly desegregated, we certainly do spend a lot of time looking at the color of someone’s skin and not what’s underneath. Maybe if we didn’t have such a superficial culture we would be more advanced instead of on the decline.

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Does Minneapolis Have a Race-Based Suspension Gap? appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

Lately our lives have been beaten down by the constant news about terrorists. It seems like terrorism is everywhere we turn. What happened to the days when we all lived in the nice little American bubble where terrorism didn’t even seem to be a word we could rightly understand? Now it is a word that we use on a daily basis. 9/11 was the starting point of a scary reality for most of this generation and its connection to terrorism. Before that day we could get on a plane and not have to worry about if the person next to us had a bomb in their underwear or constantly wonder and worry about what might happen next. People are unpredictable and you never know what could happen. The security blanket of living in a nation considered a Super Power is no longer there; we walk around with a target on our backs.

Finally our government is getting it together and figuring out what to do to make our world a little bit safer. Even amid all things ISIS at least the government is finally trying to do something. Kudos to President Obama on the airstrikes the other night!

In an effort to deter people from becoming homegrown jihadists, our government has started a pilot program in three cities: Los Angeles, Boston, and Minneapolis. The administration is looking for new ways to intervene in the lives of people who may want to launch an attack on us, even American citizens. The ideas they have put together seem a bit strange and big brother-esque to me, but a necessary evil in terms of protecting the many from the few.

My biggest question though, is how do you know who to look for? How do you know who is thinking or planning anything?

I always think of the film Enemy of the State when it comes to trying to keep an eye on terrorism. What if some innocent person gets pulled into something they aren’t even aware of and the government ruins their entire lives? And once it figures out they aren’t “the guy” it just leaves them alone with a simple apology and they have to to pick the pieces of their life.

How much are we willing to give up to our government in order to be safe? This is something I struggle with all the time because I certainly do not believe in big government, but I do believe our citizens should be safe and protected from harm’s way. Unfortunately there is no right or wrong answer.

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post New Federal Pilot Program Aims to Deter Homegrown Jihadists appeared first on Law Street.