A8
NATION
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Biden defends past civil rights record
Former Vice
President Joe Biden
addressed Rev.
Jesse Jackson’s
Rainbow PUSH
Coalition
By SARA BURNETT AND
WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press
CHICAGO — Joe Biden
strongly defended his civil
rights record on Friday,
pledging to be a “president
who stands against racism”
and “the forces of intol-
erance” and defiantly dis-
missing any suggestions
otherwise.
Speaking to the Rev. Jesse
Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH
Coalition, the white former
vice president was working
to repair the damage from a
blistering attack from Cal-
ifornia Sen. Kamala Har-
ris, the lone black woman in
the 2020 presidential race.
During Thursday’s presiden-
tial debate, Harris criticized
Biden for recently highlight-
ing his decades-old work
with segregationist senators
and his opposition to pub-
lic school busing during the
1970s — creating a dramatic
and deeply personal breakout
moment.
“I heard, and I listened to,
and I respect Sen. Harris,”
Biden said. “But we all know
that 30 seconds to 60 sec-
onds on a campaign debate
exchange can’t do justice to a
lifetime commitment to civil
rights.”
Biden has surged to the
top of the Democratic pack
AP Photo/Kristin Murphy
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden addressed the Rainbow
PUSH Coalition Annual International Convention on Friday in Chicago.
arguing that he’s best posi-
tioned to defeat President
Donald Trump because he
can build a broad coalition of
support. Appearances such
as the one with Jackson —
his onetime rival in the 1988
Democratic presidential pri-
mary — will signal whether
Harris’ attack will chip into
his support among African
Americans. He acknowl-
edged the critical role of
black voters and labor unions
on Friday, saying, “Y’all are
the ones that brung me to the
dance.”
Biden pushed back against
some of Harris’ specific crit-
icisms, including her argu-
ment that he once opposed
busing. He said he was more
opposed to federal interven-
tion in busing than the prac-
tice itself.
“I never, never, never, ever
opposed voluntary busing,”
Biden said, adding that he
supported federal legislation
to “address root causes of
segregation in our schools”
and that he was always “in
favor of using federal author-
ity to overcome state-initi-
ated segregation” — even in
bygone days when it wasn’t
popular.
But even while defending
his own record, Biden still
tempted controversy. He said
he envisioned a society in
which everyone realizes the
“kid in the hoodie might be
the next poet laureate and not
a gang-banger.”
The
“gang-banger”
remark was a reminder of
his loose and undisciplined
approach to language and a
tendency to say things that he
doesn’t think will offend his
generation but that conjure
very different images among
others, especially young
Americans.
California attorney Tom
McInerney signed up to be
on Biden’s national finance
team but said he notified the
campaign this month that he
was withdrawing his support.
He pointed to what he called
repeated missteps, including
Biden’s comments on segre-
gationists and the former vice
president’s recent reversal
on the Hyde Amendment, a
long-standing congressional
ban on using federal health
care money to pay for abor-
tions. His reversal — he now
says he opposes the amend-
ment — came after rivals and
women’s rights group blasted
him for affirming through
campaign aides that he still
supported the decades-old
budget provision.
Thousands gather for Stonewall Day
By ALI SWENSON AND
JENNIFER PELTZ
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Thou-
sands of people converged
Friday on the Stonewall Inn
for the 50th anniversary of
the rebellion that catalyzed a
movement for LGBTQ liber-
ation, marking the milestone
with celebrity performances,
speeches
and
personal
reflections.
People from New York
and afar came to take photos
and share in the legacy of the
gay bar where patrons resisted
a police raid, sparking pro-
tests and longer-term organiz-
ing that made the cause con-
siderably more visible.
“Fifty years ago, peo-
ple stood up for their rights,
and look where we’re at now.
We’ve got flags all over the
city,” said Richard Walker, 58,
an airline worker from New
York. “I’m getting goose-
bumps just really thinking
about it.”
With the modern incar-
nation of the Stonewall Inn
as the focal point, the day’s
celebrations included music,
speeches and an evening
rally. Lady Gaga, Whoopi
Goldberg, Alicia Keys, drag
performers and other artists
at the advocacy organization
Greg Allen
Crowds participate in the second annual Stonewall Day hon-
oring the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, hosted by
Pride Live and iHeartMedia, in Greenwich Village on Friday
in New York.
Pride Live’s Stonewall Day
Concert addressed a crowd
that stretched for blocks on a
nearly 90-degree afternoon.
“This community has
fought and continued to fight
a war of acceptance, a war of
tolerance,” Lady Gaga said.
“You are the definition of
courage.”
Robert Beaird traveled
from Dallas to attend the
Stonewall anniversary events
a couple of years after coming
out in his 50s.
“I just kind of hid who I
was for my whole life, and
then within the last two years,
I’ve been going through this
kind of cathartic experience
of accepting myself,” said
Beaird, 53, who had been
married and fathered chil-
dren. “Just to be here with
all these people is pretty
amazing.”
Jocelyn Burrell isn’t gay,
but she made her way to the
Stonewall Inn because she
was struck by how welcom-
ing it was when she stopped in
there years ago, and she feels
a sense of common cause
with its place in history.
“Just like we fought —
black people fought — for
civil rights, I feel I should sup-
port other people who fight
for civil rights,” she said.
Friday’s events were kick-
ing off a big weekend of Pride
festivities in New York and
elsewhere. In New York, Sun-
day’s huge WorldPride parade
— and an alternative march
intended as a less corporate
commemoration of Stone-
wall — also will swing past
the bar.
Cities around the world
began celebrating Pride
on Friday. Participants in a
march in the Philippines went
by the presidential palace in
Manila, waving placards as
they marked the 25th year
since the first such gathering.
The Stonewall Inn is now
a landmark and part of the
Stonewall National Monu-
ment, but in 1969, it was part
of a gay scene that was known,
yet not open. At the time,
showing same-sex affection
or dressing in a way deemed
gender-inappropriate could
get people arrested, and bars
had lost liquor licenses for
serving LGBTQ customers.
The police raid on the bar
began early the morning of
June 28, 1969. The nightspot
was unlicensed, and the offi-
cers had been assigned to stop
any illegal alcohol sales.
Patrons and people who
converged on the bar on
Christopher Street resisted,
hurling objects and at points
scuffling with the officers.
Supreme Court to rule on Trump bid to end DACA
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Add-
ing a high-stakes immigra-
tion case to its election-year
agenda, the Supreme Court
said Friday it will decide
whether President Don-
ald Trump can terminate an
Obama-era program shield-
ing young migrants from
deportation.
The justices’ order sets up
legal arguments for late fall
or early winter, with a deci-
sion likely by June 2020 as
Trump campaigns for re-elec-
tion. The president ordered
an end to the program known
as DACA in 2017, sparking
protests and a congressional
effort to salvage it.
That effort failed, but fed-
eral courts in California, New
York, Virginia and Washing-
ton, D.C., have blocked him
from ending it immediately.
A federal judge in Texas has
declared the program is ille-
gal, but refused to order it
halted.
The program — Deferred
Action for Childhood Arriv-
als — protects about 700,000
people, known as dreamers,
who were brought to the U.S.
illegally as children or came
with families that overstayed
visas.
The DACA protections
seem certain to remain in
effect at least until the high
court issues its decision.
The administration had
asked the court to take up and
decide the appeals by the end
of this month. The justices
declined to do so and held on
to the appeals for nearly five
months with no action and
no explanation. The court did
nothing Friday to clear up the
reasons for the long delay,
although immigration experts
have speculated that the court
could have been waiting for
other appellate rulings, legis-
lation in Congress that would
have put the program on a
surer footing or additional
administration action.
Since entering the White
House, Trump has intermit-
tently expressed a willingness
to create a pathway to citizen-
ship for the hundreds of thou-
sands of immigrants who’ve
been protected by DACA. But
he’s coupled it with demands
to tighten legal immigration
and to build his long wall
along the Mexican border —
conditions that Democrats
have largely rejected.
With the 2020 presiden-
tial and congressional elec-
tion seasons underway or rap-
idly approaching, it seems
unlikely that either party
would be willing to com-
promise on immigration, a
touchstone for both parties’
base voters. Three decades of
Washington gridlock over the
issue underscore how fraught
it has been for lawmakers, and
there’s little reason to think a
deal is at hand.
On the campaign trail,
nearly all of the two dozen
Democratic presidential can-
didates have pledged to work
with Congress to provide a
pathway to citizenship for mil-
lions of people in the country
illegally — beginning with
the dreamers. On the other
hand, Trump sees his hard-
line immigration policies as a
winning campaign issue that
can energize his supporters.
“We are pleased the
Supreme Court agreed that
this issue needs resolution.
We look forward to present-
ing our case before the court,”
Justice Department spokes-
man Alexei Woltornist said.
California Attorney Gen-
eral Xavier Becerra said in a
conference call with report-
ers that the high court’s ruling
Thursday barring, for now, a
citizenship question on the
2020 census “demonstrates
that the court’s not going to be
fooled by the Trump adminis-
tration’s clearly disingenuous
efforts when it comes to try-
ing to undo and backslide on a
lot of the laws and regulations
that are there to protect our
health and our welfare.”
The Obama administra-
tion created the DACA pro-
gram in 2012 to provide work
permits and protection from
deportation to people who, in
many cases, have no memory
of any home other than the
United States.
Salt Lake City police take Ayoola A. Ajayi into custody
in connection with missing University of Utah student
MacKenzie Lueck in Salt Lake City on Friday.
Police arrest man
suspected of killing
Utah college student
By LINDSAY
WHITEHURST
Associated Press
SALT LAKE CITY
— A Utah college stu-
dent missing 11 days was
abducted and killed and
her remains burned in the
yard of a man now facing
aggravated murder and
other charges, authorities
said Friday.
Salt Lake City Police
Chief Mike Brown, who
became emotional at
times during a morn-
ing press conference,
said Ayoola A. Ajayi
was being charged with
aggravated murder, kid-
napping, obstruction of
justice and desecration
of a body in the death of
23-year-old Mackenzie
Lueck.
He was arrested with-
out incident Friday morn-
ing by a SWAT team.
Ajayi, 31, is an infor-
mation
technology
worker who attended col-
lege on and off but never
earned a degree and
was briefly in the Army
National Guard but didn’t
complete basic training.
He doesn’t have a crim-
inal record, according
to online court informa-
tion, but a northern Utah
police department said he
was accused of a rape in
2014. Police investigated
but the alleged victim, an
adult woman, declined
to pursue charges, North
Park police said in a news
release.
Brown said telling the
missing woman’s parents
in Southern California
was “one of the most dif-
ficult phone calls I’ve ever
made.” Her parents are
“devastated and heartbro-
ken by this news.”
Lueck disappeared on
June 17, after she returned
from a trip home for her
grandmother’s
funeral
and took a Lyft ride from
the airport to a park north
of Salt Lake City. She was
last seen apparently will-
ingly meeting someone
there at about 3 a.m.
Her text conversa-
tion with Ajayi was her
last
communication
and phone location data
shows them both at the
park within a minute of
each other, Brown said.
“This was the same
time as Mackenzie’s
phone stopped receiving
any further data or loca-
tion services,” he said.
He declined to say
whether or how exactly
they knew each other.
Ajayi
has
acknowl-
edged texting with Lueck
around 6 p.m. on June 16,
but denied talking to her
after or knowing what
she looked like — despite
having photos of her on
his phone, Brown said.
The police chief said
investigators were seek-
ing to determine if others
were involved. A second
person was questioned
at the time of his arrest
and later released, Brown
said.
Police have not dis-
cussed a motive for the
killing, or specified a
cause of death. A judge
ordered Ajayi held with-
out bail. It was not known
if he has an attorney to
speak on his behalf. He
had not returned previous
messages from The Asso-
ciated Press prior to his
arrest.
After discovering that
Ajayi was the last per-
son Lueck communicated
with, police searched his
home on Wednesday and
Thursday. Police Thurs-
day described him as a
“person of interest.”
In his backyard, they
said they found a “fresh
dig area,” and charred
items that belonged to
Lueck. They also found
burned human remains
that matched her DNA
profile, Brown said.
Ajayi has worked in
information technology
for several companies
including Dell and Gold-
man Sachs, according to
his LinkedIn page. Gold-
man Sachs confirmed
he worked as a contract
employee for less than a
year at the Salt Lake City
office ending in August
2018. Dell said Ajayi had
worked there but didn’t
provide his dates of
employment.
Ajayi also appeared
to have pursued employ-
ment in modeling with
a bio page on a website
called
modelmanage-
ment.com. Court records
show he is divorced.
Lueck was a part-time
senior at the University of
Utah studying kinesiol-
ogy and pre-nursing, and
was expected to graduate
in Spring 2020. She had
been a student since 2014
and had an off-campus
apartment. The univer-
sity offered counseling
services to any students
or staffers affected by her
death.
She is from El Segundo
in the Los Angeles area
and flew to California for
a funeral before returning
to Salt Lake City, police
said. Her family reported
her missing on June 20
and became more con-
cerned after she missed a
planned flight back to Los
Angeles last weekend.
Lueck’s uncle, who did
not provide his name at
the police press confer-
ence, held back tears as
he read a statement from
her family thanking the
investigators for their
work.
“They’re also grate-
ful to her community, her
friends and others around
the nation who have sup-
ported this investiga-
tion,” he said.
Friends who appealed
for helping in search-
ing for her when she was
missing did not respond
to requests for com-
ment after the arrest was
announced.
Lueck’s
sorority,
Alpha Chi Omega, said
in a statement the group
is grieving her loss and
hoping the members clos-
est to her can find com-
fort as they remember
her lasting impact on her
loved ones.