Saturday’s vote at the Senate impeachment trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump took place after four days of hearing from lawyers for the House of Representatives who prosecuted the case against him, and lawyers who defended him. VOA’s Steve Redisch examines how politics shaped the strategies behind both sides’ arguments.Produced by: Mary C 
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On the third anniversary of a school shooting that left 17 people dead, U.S. President Joe Biden called for tighter laws governing guns.Sunday marks the third anniversary of a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that killed 14 students and three staff members.  Another 17 people were injured. The tragedy turned some survivors into household names across America as they fought for safer schools and stronger gun control laws.“Our hearts are with everyone in the community today and every day,” March for Our Lives, the organization started by student survivors of the 2018 attack, wrote on Twitter.2.14.18Our hearts are with everyone in the community today and every day. pic.twitter.com/t8IehQesOr— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) February 14, 2021In a statement released Sunday, Biden lauded the efforts of survivors and activists from Parkland to call for better gun laws.“This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” the statement read.”Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”Despite a history of mental health problems and threatening behavior, Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old shooter in Parkland, was able to buy an AR-15-style, semi-automatic rifle, which he used to open fire on students and teachers at the school, police say. Now 22, Cruz awaits trial, which has been delayed in part because of the coronavirus pandemic. Prosecutors have stated they would seek the death penalty. Cruz confessed to the crimes and his lawyers have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Support for stricter gun laws typically breaks down along political party lines with Republicans advocating for gun rights and Democrats seeking more gun control measures. Public support for new regulation waxes and wanes. In a Gallup poll conducted in the fall of 2020, 57% of Americans said they supported stricter gun laws, down 7 percentage points from the prior year and down 10 percentage points from 2018, the year of the Parkland shooting. In 2019, legislation that had bipartisan support in the House to increase background checks for gun purchases stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate.Many Republicans and some Democrats have been reluctant to support measures that would make it more difficult to purchase firearms or outlaw some types of guns, citing the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which says in part that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”But on Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she hopes to try again.”We will enact these and other life-saving bills and deliver the progress that the Parkland community and the American people deserve and demand,” she said in a statement.National Rifle Association spokeswoman Amy Hunter told the Wall Street Journal that Biden “may become the most antigun president in American history.”Meanwhile in Parkland, parents of victims continue to work to pressure Congress to pass gun control reforms.Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed in the 2018 shooting, is organizing the sending of “shame cards” to members of Congress, which highlight how gun violence has continued to affect communities across the United States.After 3 years and 120k more victims https://t.co/1Ct7XF3a8Rpic.twitter.com/fHxEt19nRp— Manuel Oliver (@manueloliver00) February 13, 2021 
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President Joe Biden will hold his first event with leaders from the Group of Seven nations in a virtual meeting on Friday to discuss the coronavirus pandemic, the world economy and dealing with China as a group, the White House said on Sunday.”This virtual engagement with leaders of the world’s leading democratic market economies will provide an opportunity for President Biden to discuss plans to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, and rebuild the global economy,” the White House said in a statement.The White House said Biden would focus his remarks on a global response to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution as well as “continued efforts to mobilize and cooperate against the threat of emerging infectious diseases by building country capacity and establishing health security financing.”Biden, a Democrat who took over from Republican former President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, has sought to project a message of re-engagement with the world and with global institutions after four years of his predecessor’s “America First” mantra.Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord and largely scoffed at multilateral organizations and groups.Biden brought the United States back into the WHO and rejoined the Paris accord and has signaled a desire to work with allies in confronting China on a host of thorny issues.”President Biden will also discuss the need to make investments to strengthen our collective competitiveness and the importance of updating global rules to tackle economic challenges such as those posed by China,” the White House said.
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The political fortunes of former U.S. President Donald Trump are now an open question, even after the Senate acquitted him of allegations that he incited insurrection last month by urging hundreds of his supporters to confront lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol as they were certifying his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.  Moments after the Senate voted 57-43 on Saturday to convict Trump but falling short of the required 67 votes needed to do so, the former president said he was not done with political life. Trump gave no explicit hint that he might attempt another run for the presidency in 2024, as he suggested he might when he left office last month. The House of Representatives impeached Trump in January on the single charge of “incitement of insurrection.”  Trump called the impeachment case against him “another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country. No president has ever gone through anything like it.” In this image from video, senators vote during the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 13, 2021.He added, “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead, I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all our people.” One of his staunchest Republican supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told the “Fox News Sunday” show that he spoke with the former U.S. leader after the Senate impeachment trial ended. He said that Trump is “ready to move on to build the party” to try to retake control of both the Senate and House of Representatives from Democratic control in the 2022 elections halfway through Biden’s first four-year term in the White House. “If you want to win, you have to work with President Trump,” Graham said. “The Trump movement is alive and well. The most potent force in the Republican party is Donald Trump.” But Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican critic of Trump, told CNN that with Trump’s election loss and controversial end to his presidency, “We’re going to have a real battle for the soul of the Republican Party over the next couple of years,” questioning whether Republicans are “going to be a party that can’t win national elections.” “Or somehow,” Hogan asked rhetorically, “Are we going to get back to a real traditional Republican party with common-sense conservatives…to push for the things that we’ve always believed in and to try to compete with Democrats?” National polls show that many Republican voters remain supportive of Trump, but Hogan said, “I think that’s going to change over time. We’re only a month into the Biden administration. I think the final chapter of Donald Trump and where the Republican Party goes hasn’t been written yet.” FILE – Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley leaves after speaking during the Republican National Convention from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, Aug. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)One of Graham’s fellow Republicans in South Carolina, former Governor Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, turned on the former president last week, although Graham said he thinks her assessment is wrong. Haley, a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, said of Trump, “We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who voted to convict Trump, told Fox News she does not think Trump will remain a key player in the Republican Party. “The American people have seen what this man has done,” she said. “He is done.” Graham said Trump was “mad at some folks” who turned against him in the Senate trial as seven of the 50 Republicans in the chamber voted with all 50 Democrats to convict him. But Graham said Trump is “ready to hit the trail” in support of Republican candidates. “I don’t think he caused the riot,” Graham said of Trump’s admonition to hundreds of supporters to march to the Capitol January 6 and “fight like hell” to upend Biden’s victory as lawmakers were certifying that Trump had become the fifth president in U.S. history to lose his re-election bid after a single term in office. “It was politically protected speech in my view,” Graham said, referring to the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech.  Other Republican senators disputed Graham’s assessment. In this image from video, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky speaks after the Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Feb. 13, 2021.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, after voting to acquit Trump because he did not believe the Senate had the right to sit in judgment of Trump since his term had already ended, criticized his long-time political ally for his role in fomenting the attack that left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer. McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.” On Sunday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump, said in a statement, “If months of lies, organizing a rally of supporters in an effort to thwart the work of Congress, encouraging a crowd to march on the Capitol, and then taking no meaningful action to stop the violence once it began is not worthy of impeachment, conviction, and disqualification from holding office in the United States, I cannot imagine what is.” She added, “By inciting the insurrection and violent events that culminated on January 6, President Trump’s actions and words were not protected free speech. I honor our constitutional rights and consider the freedom of speech as one of the most paramount freedoms, but that right does not extend to the president of the United States inciting violence.” 
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The 9-year-old Black girl sat handcuffed in the backseat of a police car, distraught and crying for her father as the white officers grew increasingly impatient while they tried to wrangle her fully into the vehicle.“This is your last chance,” one officer warned. “Otherwise, pepper spray is going in your eyeballs.”Less than 90 seconds later, the girl had been sprayed and was screaming, “Please, wipe my eyes! Wipe my eyes, please!”What started with a report of “family trouble” in Rochester, New York, and ended with police treating a fourth grader like a crime suspect, has spurred outrage as the latest example of law enforcement mistreatment of Black people. As the U.S. undergoes a new reckoning on police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s death last May, the girl’s treatment illustrates how even young children are not exempt.Research shows Black children are often viewed as being older than they are and are more likely to be seen as threatening or dangerous. Advocates have long said that leads to police treating them in ways they wouldn’t dream of treating white children. In some cases, it has led to fatalities like the killing of Tamir Rice, a Black 12-year-old shot by a white police officer in Cleveland in 2014.“Black children have never been given their opportunity to be children,” said Kristin Henning, law professor and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law.A study published in the journal Pediatrics in late 2020 found Black children and teenagers were six times as likely to die from police gunfire as white children. It analyzed data from police use of force in situations involving young people between the ages of 12 and 17 from 2003 to 2018.“Black children have really been seen as older, more culpable, less amenable to rehabilitation and less worthy of the Western notions of innocence and the Western notions of childhood,” Henning said.The headlines from Rochester were deeply personal for Mando Avery, whose 7-year-old son was hit by pepper spray from a police officer aiming at someone else during a protest in Seattle last summer. The spray left his son’s face and chest painful and swollen from chemical burns for several days, and even required a visit to the emergency room.He has since had nightmares and now fears police. Small things can bring back bad memories, like using a spray bottle to do his hair.“Their innocence goes away much, much sooner,” Avery said. “What kind of temper tantrum leads to handcuffing a child?”In the Rochester case, the girl’s mother called police on Jan. 29 after an argument with her spouse and said she asked officers to call mental health services when her daughter grew increasingly upset.But police body camera video shows only officers at the scene, first handcuffing the girl’s hands behind her back and then growing increasingly impatient as they tried to get her into the police car, culminating in the pepper spray.There’s a point in the video when an officer says, “You’re acting like a child!” to which the girl replies, “I am a child!”The officers have been suspended pending an investigation. More video footage released Thursday showed the wait until an ambulance arrived for the girl.The case comes months after the high-profile death last spring of Daniel Prude, a Black man undergoing a mental health crisis when his family called the Rochester police. Officers handcuffed him, then put a hood over his head when he spit at them. As he struggled, they pinned him face down on the ground, one officer pushing his head to the pavement until he stopped breathing.The 9-year-old girl’s mother, Elba Pope, told The Associated Press she didn’t think the white officers saw her daughter the same way they would have seen a white child.“Had they looked at her as if she was one of their children, they wouldn’t have pepper sprayed her,” she said.Henning agreed. “This is where the question of race comes into play,” she said. “If that child had looked like one of their little girls, looked like the little child that they tucked into bed, it is far less likely that they would have done that.”The president of the Rochester police union has said the officers didn’t lack compassion but were dealing with a difficult situation with limited resources and were following department protocol.New York isn’t the only place where police treatment of Black children has been a flashpoint.In suburban Denver, four Black girls aged 6 to 17 were detained by police at gunpoint after they were wrongly suspected of being in a stolen car last year.One officer tried to handcuff the 6-year-old, who was wearing a tiara for what was supposed to be a girls day out with her relatives, but the cuffs were too big, according to a lawsuit filed by the family.In North Texas, a white police officer was recorded on video pushing a swimsuit-clad Black girl to the ground at a pool party in 2015. Later that year, a sheriff’s deputy at a school in South Carolina flipped a girl to the floor and dragged her across a classroom after she refused to surrender her cellphone in math class.In Tamir Rice’s case, the 12-year-old was playing with a pellet gun in November 2014 when Cleveland police responding to a call pulled up and within seconds, shot him. When his 14-year-old-sister ran to the scene, she was pushed to the ground and handcuffed. The officers were not indicted.It’s that history that makes Christian Gibbs, a Black father of three daughters, grateful the girl in Rochester wasn’t more grievously injured — and angered that’s even a worry.“Thank God she wasn’t killed. … And the fact that we have to say that is already an indictment of the type of treatment that we expect to be doled out, even to little children,” said Gibbs, 46, of Bowie, Maryland.Holly M. Frye, of South Ogden, Utah, said she has near-daily conversations with her three children about how to act around police officers, the same kind of conversations her parents had with her.“This sort of aggression toward the Black race has always been in existence, it’s just being recorded now,” she said. “It’s a topic that never leaves our kitchen table, we’re always constantly talking about it.”While data is scarce on very young children’s interactions with police, Black youths are nearly five times as likely to be incarcerated compared with white young people, according to an analysis by the nonprofit The Sentencing Project.The incarceration rate for white youth is 83 per 100,000; for Black youths that number jumps to 383, The Sentencing Project found. While that is partly due to differences in offending, studies have found teenagers of color are more likely to be arrested and more likely to face severe consequences compared with their white peers, the report said.And it’s not just policing and the criminal justice system. Black students face higher rates of suspension and expulsion from school, said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, which fights against structural racism.It’s “the way that our Black children are questioned by adults, with this underlying assumption that they are not to be believed, and they’re not to be trusted, and that they’re always up to something wrong,” she said.That leads to trauma and mistrust on the part of Black youth toward the authorities around them, she said.“There is no ‘Officer Friendly’ for Black kids,” she said. 
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