logo
Woman shot at anti-violence rally in Boynton Beach plans to sue city, attorney says

Woman shot at anti-violence rally in Boynton Beach plans to sue city, attorney says

Yahoo12 hours ago
BOYNTON BEACH — A woman who was shot and wounded during a July 5 anti-violence rally at a Boynton Beach park has filed a notice of intent to sue the city, her attorney said Friday.
Richard Ryles announced the pending lawsuit July 11 on behalf of Diamond Delk, one of three women shot and wounded when gunfire, reportedly between rival gangs, erupted at Sara Sims Park. Police investigators say the shootings occurred during an unsanctioned "Peace in the Hood" gathering of about 500 people.
The city denied an organizer's request for a permit. But Ryles said that denial did not absolve the city of responsibility.
"The city of Boynton has an ultimate responsibility for maintaining its property in a safe condition and they failed to do that," Ryles said during a news conference at the park, off Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard east of Interstate 95.
Ryles said Delk was shot in the hip and fractured her leg as she tried to escape the hail of bullets. He said Delk is recovering at home after receiving care at a hospital. She did not attend the news conference.
Boynton Beach has six months to investigate before formal litigation can begin. A city police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The department had not announced any arrests as of July 11.
Royal Palm fire: July 4 blaze costs family nearly everything: 'All I could do was just stand in disbelief'
Ryles questioned the city's handling of the event. He said city police should have disbanded it since it was being held without a permit.
"Other cities throughout Palm Beach County routinely take precautionary measures in response to unauthorized gatherings, including increased police patrols, public warnings, and proactive park closures," he said. "Boynton Beach did none of these things. Their inaction allowed an unlawful, high-risk event to unfold unchecked, placing hundreds of innocent lives in danger."
He noted that several young children were present during the event and referenced videos posted to social media showing some of them fleeing from the gunfire.
"Hopefully, this litigation will make Boynton Beach police do things differently in the future so that I don't have to see social media (videos of) toddlers running for their lives when they're out just having a day of fun with their families," he said.
Measles in Florida: Doctors urge vaccinations, saying South Florida's two cases could grow
City documents indicate a suburban Lake Worth Beach woman applied for the permit. She has not returned calls seeking comment. The city documents also show that a Boynton Beach police captain advised against approving the permit due to staffing concerns related to the Fourth of July holiday.
Dedrick Straghn, president of the south county chapter of the NAACP, said police officers were present for a period of time, but did not intervene. Straghn said everyone knew that the event was unsanctioned except for the attendees.
"I agree that not only did police not do their job, but the city did not do their job," Straghn said. "There was a police presence here. At that time, they should have known that event was not sanctioned and shut it down, but they didn't. They were here and then they left. They left these attendees here without protection."
Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Woman shot during Boynton Beach anti-violence rally to file lawsuit
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Video of Texas governor supporting deportation of Mexican flood volunteers is altered
Video of Texas governor supporting deportation of Mexican flood volunteers is altered

Yahoo

time6 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Video of Texas governor supporting deportation of Mexican flood volunteers is altered

"I support ICE deporting the Mexicans who helped during the floods. They didn't have authorization. I've confirmed it," Abbott appears to say at the start of a video shared July 12, 2025 to TikTok, where it amassed over 8 million views. Text stamped over the video reads: "Mexican rescuers arrested in flood." The clip -- which circulated across platforms including X, Facebook and Threads -- then flashes between stock imagery and visuals from Texas as a voiceover claims Mexican volunteers who crossed the border to help rescue flood victims were stopped by gun-wielding immigration agents and handcuffed. "They carried no weapons or drugs," the narrator says. "They came to help, but were treated liked criminals. Immigration agents aimed their guns at them, yelled that they had no authorization to be there, threw them to the ground and loaded them into a van as if they were criminals. It was all caught on video." The speaker later adds: "The most outrageous part was the reaction of the Texas governor. Instead of condemning what happened, he supported it. He said anyone who crosses the border without permission, even to save lives, must be detained." The video spread after more than 130 people, including at least 27 girls and counselors from a youth summer camp, were killed as catastrophic floods tore through Texas during the Fourth of July holiday. The rescue efforts have included firefighters and other first responders from Mexico who traveled to Texas after the flooding to help, according to the groups, the US ambassador in Mexico and media reports (archived here, here, here, here, here, here and here). Abbott, a staunch Republican ally of Donald Trump, has mobilized his state's resources toward supporting the US president's mass deportation policies -- and had stationed National Guard troops at a Texas border city even before Trump's election. But the clip, appearing to show the governor urging deportations for the Mexican teams aiding the flood victim search, is altered. The visual of Abbott was lifted from a July 8 press conference he held alongside other state officials, whose uniforms allowed AFP to match the footage (archived here and here). At no point during the 45-minute briefing did Abbott say he supported the deportation of Mexican rescuers. Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott's press secretary, confirmed in a July 14 email to AFP that the governor has never made such a comment. The voice-cloning detection tool within the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, assessed that the TikTok video's audio was "likely AI-generated." Fundación 911, one of the groups lending assistance, posted to Facebook July 13 to dispel online rumors that US agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol had arrested its personnel (archived here). "We want to clarify that Fundación 911 and the heroic fire department of the city of Acuña have not been arrested nor detained by ICE or CBP agents," the organization wrote. "The work we are doing is focused on supporting our community, and we regret that fake information is circulating." Some volunteers with another recovery team were unable to enter Texas as they awaited visas or humanitarian permits, according to reports (archived here). AFP has debunked other misinformation about the floods here, here and here.

'Son-shine': Mother remembers son killed in mysterious shooting
'Son-shine': Mother remembers son killed in mysterious shooting

Indianapolis Star

time8 hours ago

  • Indianapolis Star

'Son-shine': Mother remembers son killed in mysterious shooting

Tonya Lewis didn't always like the nickname her son gave her, "Momdukes." But as Dontae Lewis used it lovingly over the years, she said it became an honorific. She called him "Son-shine" because of his smile and sense of humor. Dontae Anthony Lewis would have turned 30 on July 15, 2025. His family canceled his birthday trip to Miami after learning their family-first father of two was shot and killed on July 5 near Ensign Graham Edward Martin Park. Instead, his close family is having a cookout to mark his birthday. His death put him among at least 30 people who were shot over the Fourth of July weekend. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police have not announced any arrests or suspects in the shooting, which was initially reported as possibly self-inflicted in a release sent to the media. The Marion County Coroner's Office on July 7 declared the manner of death as homicide. The shooting in a parking lot near playground equipment at the intersection of West 13th Street and Fall Creek Parkway East Drive has left the family with more questions than answers. Dontae Lewis didn't hang around dangerous crowds, his mom said. The community loved him, she said. Over 150 gathered in a park in his memory on Saturday. His world revolved around his family, spending time with his kids, and taking them to parks and indoor playgrounds. "He was a great parent," she said. "If you've seen him, you've seen his kids." Dontae Lewis had three sisters and would call his mom in the morning. She would call him at night, she said. Dontae Lewis had a few jobs, his mom said, but had found stable work as a forklift operator. He worked hard and earned the respect of his boss, his mom said. Outside of work, Dontae Lewis loved to travel – especially toward the water. He took any opportunity he could to go snorkeling, get on a boat or ride around on a jet ski, his mother said. The family has been struggling with the lack of information about how or why Dontae Lewis was killed, his mom said. She wants to reach out to police every minute for updates, but knows she has to be patient. She said the other night she saw her son in a dream, smiling down at her with his characteristic, lovable grin.

How the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon
How the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon

Yahoo

time9 hours ago

  • Yahoo

How the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon

The release of the 'Epstein client list' has long been the holy grail for the Maga movement. Supposedly, this list, once released, would incriminate a veritable who's who of liberal elites complicit in Jeffrey Epstein's child sex-trafficking operation and expose the moral rot at the heart of the Democratic establishment. The mystery surrounding the Epstein files also became a vehicle for QAnon conspiracy theorists to push their ideas about a 'deep state' cover-up of a network of global pedophiles into the broader tent of the Maga movement. During his campaign, Donald Trump promised on several occasions to declassify the Epstein files, which would include the 'list'. Before they joined the government, Trump's FBI chief, Kash Patel, and deputy FBI chief, Dan Bongino, spent years on podcasts and TV appearances winking at QAnon and Epstein conspiracy theorists and demanding the files' release, even suggesting that the Biden administration was withholding them to protect its own. Related: Republicans move to block Democratic effort to force release of Epstein files Then, on the heels of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the justice department quietly dropped a bombshell in the form of a memo. A 'systematic review' of the Epstein files by justice department officials 'revealed no incriminating 'client list',' the memo stated, nor did they find evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful figures. The memo also affirmed that Epstein died by suicide in his Brooklyn jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019. Since the memo's release, Maga has been in turmoil – and some of Trump's most loyal foot soldiers have been in open revolt against his administration, accusing it of now being part of a cover-up and calling for the resignation of the attorney general, Pam Bondi, over her handling of the Epstein files. On Truth Social, Trump offered a stern rebuke to his detractors, claiming that the Epstein files were actually a hoax, because they were written by 'Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration'. But not everyone's buying it. 'This is the worst response I've ever seen from President Trump,' said the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson. The disgraced former general Michael Flynn, considered a hero by the QAnon movement, wrote: '@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR IS NOT GOING AWAY.' The rightwing commentator Matt Walsh called Trump's statement 'extremely obtuse', adding: 'We don't accept obvious bullshit from our political leaders.' Maga's obsession with the Epstein files is an indication of how the core ideas associated with the fringe QAnon conspiracy – that a shadowy cabal of government elites is working to cover up a global child sex-trafficking operation – have taken root in the broader pro-Trump movement. QAnon took a long tradition of antisemitic, 'deep state' and 'satanic panic' conspiracy theories, put them on steroids with a pro-Trump flavor, and assigned the enigmatic Q, supposedly a government official with top secret clearance and a penchant for posting on 8chan, at the helm of the movement. 'The unique thing about QAnon is that you had an anonymous poster on an anonymous chatroom putting out clues for people to try to solve,' said Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami specializing in the study of conspiracy theories. When QAnon emerged in 2017, allegations against Epstein had been swirling for over a decade. Epstein's arrest in 2019 on federal charges was a boon for QAnon. The movement quickly sought to incorporate information about the case into their propaganda. The case also surfaced a trove of digital media that QAnon sleuths could pore over looking for 'clues' – such as photographs of Epstein with various public figures (including many with Trump), Epstein's flight logs and aerial images of his private island. 'Epstein engaged in crimes, but I think there's a whole fantasy lore surrounding it that goes far beyond any available evidence,' said Uscinski. Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University's program on extremism, told the Guardian that as 'QAnon and Maga have become increasingly intertwined in recent years, we have seen the embrace of increasingly fringe conspiracies and extremist narratives like 'Pizzagate' and 'Save the Children' by mainstream political figures.' These narratives turned out to be useful for Trump and his allies, who harnessed simmering suspicion of establishment figures and cast the former reality star as the only person brave enough to take on 'the deep state'. 'As Trump and other prominent Republican figures amplified QAnon content and used it as a political cudgel against Democratic politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they were providing legitimacy and approval to the very same conspiracy theorists who are now decrying Pam Bondi and the justice department,' said Lewis. Tensions over the Epstein files have been building since February, when Bondi went on Fox News and said Epstein's client list was sitting on her desk 'right now for review.' A week later, at a press event at the White House, Bondi handed out binders that she promised contained 'declassified' Epstein records to two dozen Maga influencers. The influencers quickly realized there was basically no new information in them. In response to the ensuing backlash, Bondi said that the FBI had failed to disclose a tranche of Epstein files, and that she had ordered Patel to compile them. Months later, in June, Elon Musk – amid the dramatic feud with his former friend Trump – claimed without evidence that the reason the Epstein files hadn't been released in full was because the president was implicated in them. (Musk has since deleted the post.) The scale of the current Maga meltdown 'certainly shows the significance of Epstein conspiracies within the broader QAnon pantheon', said Lewis, and 'should lay bare just how deeply the disease of the QAnon movement has seeped into a Republican party which has welcomed its most conspiratorial, antisemitic, reactionary fringe into Congress and the executive branch with open arms'. The backlash Trump is facing is a leopards-eating-faces moment for the administration. 'This was a conspiracy that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and these Maga extremists have been fanning the flames of for the last several years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost,' the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters Monday. Uscinski noted that's 'the interesting thing that happens when you use conspiracy theories to get into power'. 'Because conspiracy theories should be aimed at the people in power, right? They accuse powerful people of doing something wicked behind the scenes,' he added. In Trump's case, he 'spent the last 10 years building a coalition of largely conspiracy-minded people in the US', said Uscinski. 'So in order for him to keep these people engaged and donating and going to his speeches, and voting for him and voting for Republicans, he has to keep pressing the conspiracy theories.' But experts are skeptical that this current Maga meltdown will have any lasting impact. Trump's overall approval rating hasn't fluctuated dramatically over the past week. In fact, it's almost at exactly the same place it was at the same point in his first administration. Related: How the Jeffrey Epstein row plunged Maga world into turmoil – a timeline '[Trump's supporters] are disgruntled, they're upset and they're going to express that on social media. But they're not going to abandon him, because he's the only game in town for them,' said Uscinski. He compared the current moment to the backlash Trump faced back in 2021. After courting favor from anti-vaxxers, Trump was booed when he announced during a live Bill O'Reilly interview that he had received his Covid-19 booster shot and urged Americans to get theirs. Despite the importance of the Epstein files to the Maga and QAnon movements, Lewis thinks that 'it's unlikely this outrage will last'. 'The culture war will move on to its next target … and the rage machine will follow with conspiracies and vitriol,' said Lewis. 'It's much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you've been lied to for the last eight years.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store