Tag Archives: Memorial

Israel’s Nova massacre site was “where the juxtaposition between good and evil is most apparent”

Nova music festival memorial

Important Takeaways:

  • ‘The pain will never leave’: Nova massacre survivors return to site one year on
  • As mourners gathered at the site of the Nova music festival to commemorate the victims of Hamas’s attack one year ago, low sobs and murmured prayers were punctuated by the sound of artillery being fired by soldiers into nearby Gaza.
  • Relatives gathered around the homemade memorials to the estimated 365 people killed at the festival on that day in 2023, while attack helicopters whirred overhead and occasionally let loose bursts of automatic gunfire toward Gaza, only three miles away from the festival site in Re’im, southern Israel.
  • Police had before the ceremony warned attenders that if they heard a siren, they had just seconds to drop to the ground before a rocket from Hamas could hit.
  • “Many relatives still come here to try to hug the ground and feel the warmth that remains from their relatives. It’s a pain that will never leave them.”
  • Noa Tishby, an Israeli activist and actor, said the Nova site was “where the juxtaposition between good and evil is most apparent”. “That’s really close,” she said, as another artillery round was fired off toward Gaza.
  • Many of the families said they strongly supported the Israeli response in Gaza. Few could predict how or when the war would end.

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George Floyd hailed as ‘cornerstone of a movement’ at funeral; family calls for justice

By Jennifer Hiller and Gary McWilliams

HOUSTON (Reuters) – George Floyd, a black man whose death under the knee of a white police officer roused worldwide protests against racial injustice, was memorialized at his funeral on Tuesday as “an ordinary brother” transformed by fate into the “cornerstone of a movement.”

The family of of George Floyd comes to the podium to speak during the funeral for George Floyd, June 9, 2020, at The Fountain of Praise church in Houston. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis Police officers on May 25. Godofredo A. Vasquez/Pool via REUTERS

During a four-hour service broadcast live on every major U.S. television network from a church in Floyd’s boyhood home of Houston, family members, clergy and politicians exhorted Americans to turn grief and outrage at his death into a moment of reckoning for the nation.

The funeral followed two weeks of protests ignited by graphic video footage of Floyd, 46, handcuffed and lying face down on a Minneapolis street while an officer kneels into the back of his neck for nearly nine minutes. The video shows Floyd gasping for air as he cries out, “Mama,” and groans, “Please, I can’t breathe,” before falling silent and still.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, has since been charged with second-degree murder and three other officers with aiding and abetting Floyd’s May 25 death. All were dismissed from the department a day after the incident.

Floyd’s dying words have become a rallying cry for hundreds of thousands of protesters around the globe who have since taken to the streets, undaunted by the coronavirus pandemic, demanding justice for Floyd and an end to mistreatment of minorities by U.S. law enforcement.

“I can breathe. And as long as I’m breathing, justice will be served,” Floyd’s niece Brooklyn Williams declared in a eulogy that drew applause from mourners inside the Fountain of Praise Church. “This is not just a murder but a hate crime.”

The hands of the funeral home team push the casket of George Floyd into the hearse after the funeral service for Floyd at the Fountain of Praise church, in Houston, Texas, U.S., June 9, 2020. David J. Phillip/Pool via REUTERS

‘BIG FLOYD’

Williams was one of several relatives and friends who addressed the service, remembering Floyd as a loving, larger-than-life personality. The memorial was punctuated by gospel music and a video montage of shared memories of the man affectionately known as “Big Floyd.”

His younger brother, Terrence Floyd, spoke about awakening in the middle of the night in recent days traumatized by the memory of seeing his older sibling calling out for their mother as he lay dying.

His older brother, Philonise, sobbing in grief, told mourners, “George was my personal superman.”

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton called Floyd “an ordinary brother” who grew up in a housing project but left behind a legacy of greatness despite rejections in jobs and sports that prevented him from achieving all that he once aspired to become.

“God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that is going to change the whole wide world,” Sharpton said, invoking a biblical parable from the New Testament.

Sharpton said the Floyd family would lead a march on Washington being organized for Aug. 28 to mark the 57th anniversary of the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech given from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968.

‘HOME-GOING CELEBRATION’

Some 2,500 people attended the funeral, after more than 6,000 people filed past Floyd’s open casket on Monday.

Two columns of uniformed Houston police officers saluted the golden casket as it was wheeled from the hearse into the church before the service. A horse-drawn carriage later bore the coffin on its last mile to the cemetery in Pearland, Texas, where Floyd was buried in a private ceremony.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate in the Nov. 3 election, addressed the funeral service via a video recording, lamenting that “too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life.”

“We must not turn away. We cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism,” he said.

Two voter registration tables were set up outside the church.

MOURNING FAMILIES

Among those in attendance were loved ones of several other black men killed by white police or white civilians.

The mother of Eric Garner, the New York man who died in a police chokehold in 2014, was present, as was the family of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Georgia man who was shot and killed in February while jogging. Three white men were charged in his death.

Fallout from Floyd’s death, and reaction to a spate of arson and looting that accompanied some of the otherwise mostly peaceful protests, also plunged President Donald Trump into one of the biggest crises of his tenure.

Hundreds of protesters packed Seattle’s city hall late Tuesday night, chanting demands for the resignation of the mayor and the defunding the police force.

Days after Seattle’s mayor and police chief promised a month-long moratorium on tear gas, the department used it again on protesters overnight Sunday, bringing severe criticism.

A Republican, Trump repeatedly threatened to order the military onto the streets to quell protests, focusing on restoring order while saying little about the U.S. racial wounds at the root of the upheavals.

For Special Report: How union, Supreme Court shield Minneapolis cops –

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-culture-specialrep/special-report-how-union-supreme-court-shield-minneapolis-cops-idUSKBN23B2LL

For Before the court: A united front takes aim at qualified immunity:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-police-immunity-opposition/

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller and Gary McWilliams in Houston; additional reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York, Rich McKay in Atlanta and Sabahatjahan Contractor in Bengaluru; Writing by Grant McCool and Steve Gorman; Editing by Frank McGurty, Howard Goller, Cynthia Osterman and Lincoln Feast.)

‘I should have stopped them’ -Note left at slain Georgia man’s memorial

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – The family of Ahmaud Arbery, the black jogger whose fatal shooting in Georgia triggered a national outcry, appealed on Thursday for any new witness to the killing to step forward after a note reading “I should have stopped them” was found on his memorial.

The single-page note was discovered earlier this week by a television news crew at the memorial, set up in the victim’s hometown of Brunswick, about 300 miles (480 km) southeast of Atlanta.

More two months after the Feb. 23 slaying, a white former law enforcement officer and his son, who were seen on the video chasing the 25-year-old jogger, were arrested last week and charged with aggravated assault and murder.

S. Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Arbery family, said in a statement that the family believes that the person who left the note is a witness to the Feb. 23 shooting.

“They feel great sympathy for the person who wrote that note and would like to speak with them to determine what they knew or what they saw,” the attorney said in a statement.

The shooting was reminiscent of a spate of killings of black men in recent years that involved white police officers or former officers. Outrage over the killings and the response to them by the U.S. criminal justice system led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement and national protests.

“Ahmaud – I am so sorry. I should have stopped them. I am so sorry,” the note reads in full. It was posted on the internet by multiple media outlets.

The two suspects, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were arrested and charged on May 7, after the local district attorney asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate the case.

Their arrests came just days after the release of the video, which set off the national furor led by civil rights activists and celebrities.

The U.S. Department of Justice has also launched an inquiry on why charges were not brought sooner and whether to charge the suspects with federal hate crimes.

A caravan of protesters plans to drive more than 300 miles from Atlanta to Brunswick on Saturday to draw attention to the case.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Australia’s bushfire-stricken state pays tribute to 25 victims

By Lidia Kelly

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Families, firefighters and politicians gathered in a solemn public ceremony in Sydney on Sunday to honor the 25 people killed in recent bushfires that tore through the country’s most populous state.

The bushfires, which lasted from September until torrential rains hit earlier this month, killed 33 people and a billion native animals nationally and destroyed 2,500 homes and a wilderness area the size of South Korea.

The damage was most devastating in New South Wales state. Among the 25 people killed there were 19 civilians, three local volunteer firefighters and three U.S. firefighters.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who thanked those who fought the blazes and honored those who died, spoke of “children kissing the coffins of their fathers” and “mothers who should have never had to bury their children”.

He told the public, gathered around lit candles, of “a summer where the dark sky turned black and sunsets only signaled another night of terror, where the fire crashed on our beaches from the bush that surrounded them”.

Morrison has drawn public anger for his refusal to directly link the bushfires to climate change, insisting removing flammable vegetation is “just as important, if not more”.

His management of the fires also came under criticism over the unusually prolonged summer wildfire season, when he was forced into a rare public apology for taking a holiday to Hawaii.

Last week, he said Australia would conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into the causes of the fires.

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, who played a very public role during the crisis, said the season will be remembered as one of the most challenging, in which the loss of life was enormous.

“Each one of those is a story of grief, of profound loss, and great sadness, of lives cut short, and of families being changed forever,” Fitzsimmons said.

Six pairs of boots were placed to symbolize the lives of the three Australian volunteers and the three U.S. firefighters who died in NSW.

(Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Sam Holmes)

His cross to bear: carpenter creates memorial for yet another shooting

FILE PHOTO: People pray next to a row of crosses representing each of the victims at a growing memorial site two days after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare/File Photo

By Daniel Trotta

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – Volunteers on Monday planted crosses, each representing a fatality in Saturday’s mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, at a shrine to the victims that included “El Paso strong” signs, flowers, candles, bible verses and U.S. and Mexican flags.

Police have not released the names of the victims of the attack, which authorities have called an act of domestic terrorism that appeared to target Hispanics. Hours later, a separate mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people. The attacks injured dozens more.

Greg Zanis of Crosses for Losses, who has been making white, waist-high wooden crosses for victims of tragedies since 1986, provided them for the shrine to the victims near the Walmart store.

“Today is the worst day. I’m going to have to go to Dayton, Ohio, right now. I don’t know how I can handle this day,” Zanis told reporters at the shrine.

Zanis said he has made more than 26,000 crosses since the master carpenter began his one-man mission after finding the body of his father-in-law, who had been shot to death.

In 1999, he erected 13 crosses in Colorado in honor of the victims of the shooting rampage at Columbine High School. Last year he went to Pittsburgh to deliver 11 Stars of David in remembrance of the worshippers shot dead on Oct. 27 at the Tree of Life synagogue, and barely two weeks later to Thousand Oaks, Calif., for the 12 victims of a shooting there, and then to Paradise, Calif., the following month after a wildfire destroyed the town, killing at least 85.

He was even forced into action for a workplace shooting on Feb. 15 in his home town of Aurora, Illinois that killed six.

“These people all don’t think it will happen in their towns, and I was dumb enough to think it wouldn’t happen in mine,” Zanis said.

MEXICAN NATIONALS

At least eight of the victims in the border city of El Paso were Mexican nationals. One funeral home is offering free cremation services for the victims as the city mourned.

At the Walmart shrine, Tony Basco, 61, planted a cross for his partner of 22 years, Margie Reckard, 67, according to the name and age on the cross.

“I’ve been lost. I’m like a puppy run away from its momma. She took care of me,” Basco said. “But my wife, she’d say get up off your rear end and grow up. Because now I’ve got to take care of the bills, take care of the cat.”

Basco was unaware Zanis would be presenting her cross. He just happened to be visiting the site for the first time since the massacre.

“I just wanted to go where she died,” Basco said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; writing by Bill Tarrant; editing by Bill Berkrot)

U.S. Supreme Court rules for cross-shaped war memorial on public land in Maryland

A concrete cross commemorating servicemen killed in World War One, that is the subject of a religious rights case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, is seen in Bladensburg, Maryland, U.S., February 11, 2019. Picture taken on February 11, 2019. REUTERS/Lawrence Hurley

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 40-foot-tall (12 meters) cross-shaped war memorial standing on public land in Maryland does not represent an impermissible government endorsement of religion, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a major decision testing the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state.

The justices, in a 7-2 decision, overturned a lower court ruling that had declared the so-called Peace Cross in Bladensburg unconstitutional in a legal challenge mounted by the American Humanist Association, a group that advocates for secular governance. The concrete cross was erected in 1925 as a memorial to troops killed in World War One.

The challengers had argued that the cross violated the Constitution’s so-called Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing an official religion and bars governmental actions favoring one religion over another.

The American Humanist Association did not immediately comment on the ruling.

The fractured decision saw two of the court’s liberals, Justice Stephen Breyer and Justice Elena Kagan, joining the five conservatives in parts of the majority. The ruling made it clear that such a monument in the shape of a Christian cross on public land was permissible but the justices seemed divided over whether other types of religious displays and symbols on government property would be allowed.

Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, wrote for the majority that although the cross is a religious symbol, “its use in the Bladensburg memorial has special significance” because it functions as a war memorial.

“For nearly a century, the Bladensburg cross has expressed the community’s grief at the loss of the young men who perished, its thanks for their sacrifices, and its dedication to the ideals for which they fought,” he added.

To tear the cross down now could be seen as an act of hostility against religion, Alito said.

Where the justices differ is on what kinds of other displays, including ones built more recently, would violate the Constitution.

“A newer memorial, erected under different circumstances, would not necessarily be permissible under this approach,” Breyer wrote in a concurring opinion.

Liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

The Peace Cross was funded privately and built to honor 49 men from Maryland’s Prince George’s County killed in World War One. The property was in private hands when the cross was erected, but is now on land owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, a governmental agency.

The cross had the backing of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration. The American Legion holds memorial events at the site. Veterans and their relatives have said the monument has no religious meaning despite being in the shape of a cross, calling the lawsuit misguided and hurtful.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

Prayers, tributes in Lockerbie mark 30 years since Pan Am bombing

People gather for the service and wreath-laying at the Memorial Garden in Dryfesdale Cemetery, on the morning of the 30th anniversary of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which exploded over the Scottish town on December 21, 1988, killing 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents on the ground, in Lockerbie, Scotland, Britain, December 21, 2018. Jane Barlow/Pool via REUTERS

LOCKERBIE, Scotland (Reuters) – A simple wreath-laying and prayer service in Lockerbie on Friday marked 30 years since a jumbo jet was blown up over the small Scottish town, killing 270 people.

Pan Am flight 103 exploded on its way from London to New York a few days before Christmas in 1988, killing all 259 people on board and another 11 on the ground. It is the deadliest ever militant attack in Britain.

Lockerbie, near the English border, with a population of just 4,000 people, has been synonymous with the tragedy ever since.

“Let us find hope and peace for all those who lost loved ones and who still carry the scars of this atrocity,” Jeff Brown, who directed the religious service, told those assembled.

The memorial service at Dryfesdale Cemetery was attended by Lord Lieutenant Fiona Armstrong, who conveyed a personal message from Queen Elizabeth.

“I send my prayers and good wishes to all those who will be marking this solemn anniversary,” she said.

Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was found guilty of the bombing, along with others who were never identified, and was jailed for life in 2001.

Megrahi was later released because he was suffering from cancer. He died in 2012.

(Writing by Elisabeth O’Leary; editing by Stephen Addison)

One year later, Las Vegas remembers mass shooting that killed 58

White crosses set up for the victims of the Route 91 Harvest music festival mass shooting are pictured in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 6, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

(Reuters) – White doves flew overhead, each tagged with a name of the 58 people killed one year ago in the largest mass shooting in modern American history, as loved ones gathered in Las Vegas at a sunrise service on Monday to remember them.

“On October 1st, our city was jolted into darkness,” said Mynda Smith, whose sister Neysa Tonks, a 46-year-old mother of three, was among those gunned down in the massacre that wounded more than 800 at an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

“None of us will ever be the same after that night. However, none of us were alone,” she said, recalling the massive response of citizens donating blood, aiding the injured and feeding families stunned by the violence. “We found love that came from so many that were there to help us.”

Gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, fired more than 1,100 rounds from his 32nd-floor hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay on the evening of Oct. 1, 2017, and then killed himself before police stormed his room.

At the daybreak ceremony one year later, friends and family members bowed their heads for 58 seconds of silence before a choral group sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and the air was filled with the mournful strains of bagpipes.

MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay and drew criticism for countersuing victims to seek immunity from damage claims, expressed solidarity and sympathy on the first anniversary of the gun violence.

“One year ago, our community suffered an unforgettable act of terror,” MGM Resorts Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Murren said in a statement. “We share the sorrow of those who mourn and continue to search for meaning in events that lie beyond our understanding.”

Paddock used “bump stock” devices to accelerate the rate of fire from his semiautomatic rifles, effectively turning them into machine guns.

The use of bump stocks, which are legal under U.S. law, prompted calls from politicians and gun control activists to ban the devices.

Within days, National Rifle Association leaders urged the U.S. government to review whether bump stocks were legal. Drawing criticism from some NRA members who viewed that call as a betrayal of the powerful gun lobby’s principles, the NRA position also gave political cover to the Trump administration to consider regulating bump stocks.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said it had submitted a proposed ban on bump stocks last week to the Office of Management and Budget for review, part of the legal process required for the regulation to take effect.

President Donald Trump, asked about bump stocks at a news conference on Monday, said his administration was scrambling to ensure the devices would be illegal within a matter of weeks.

“We’re knocking out bump stocks,” Trump said. “Bump stocks are done – I told the NRA.”

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Dan Trotta and Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Thailand to mark boy soccer team’s dramatic cave rescue with museum

A "Restricted Area" sign is seen in front of the Tham Luang cave complex, after the rescue mission for the 12 boys of the "Wild Boars" soccer team and their coach, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand July 14, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai construction workers on Thursday began building a museum to commemorate the dramatic cave rescue of a boys’ soccer team in the northern province of Chiang Rai and the death of one of the divers.

The 12 boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach went missing on June 23 while exploring the cave complex and were rescued more than two weeks later during a perilous three-day mission by foreign and Thai divers that gripped audiences around the world.

People react as the 12 soccer players and their coach who were rescued from a flooded cave arrive for their news conference in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo

People react as the 12 soccer players and their coach who were rescued from a flooded cave arrive for their news conference in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo

Work on the museum began after a traditional Buddhist ceremony on Wednesday at the Tham Luang cave, in which authorities asked for the blessing of local spirits.

The museum, which is expected to take about five months and 10 million baht ($300,000) to build, is being funded by a Thai artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, a Chiang Rai native.

“This place will be very beneficial for our country, as it will commemorate the multinational cooperation and the hero who sacrificed his life. Tourists from around the world will visit this place,” Chalermchai said.

Thai diver Samarn Kunan died after he lost consciousness during a mission to place oxygen tanks deep inside the cave.

A four-meter statue of Samarn, currently being sculpted, will be placed in front of the museum.

The museum will also house a 13-metre-long painting, which features rescuers, including the British divers who first found the boys.

Eleven of the boys have been spending time as Buddhist novices to honor Samarn. On Saturday, they will leave the temple to return to normal life.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat and Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Nick Macfie)