Hearted Youtube comments on The New York Times (@nytimes) channel.
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Hello, I reported this story and wanted to share some of the details for transparency.
What exactly happened before Mr. Arbery was tragically killed was subject to speculation and was fueling division. I was curious about what the leaked videos really showed, and if there was a way to retrace what happened. I'll explain the timestamp reporting because it revealed an important detail for the first time - that Mr. Arbery was pursued by three men in two vehicles for close to 4 minutes.
My colleague Richard Fausset, who is based in Georgia, obtained the 911 calls placed on Feb. 23. The calls had timestamps in the file names - an important detail. He also obtained the 911 text log for that day, and the times more or less lined up - a 10 second difference, which would be accounted for the dispatcher typing the notes.
The timecode stamped into on the security footage was wrong, but what we see lined up with what we hear in the 911 audio - when the first 911 call was placed and ended, when that caller said Mr. Arbery began to run. This allowed us to correct the time on the security camera. The second 911 call also had a correct timestamp in the file name and at the end of that call, you can hear a police siren. The time the siren is heard matches the time in the security footage we see a police cruiser speeding past 219 Satilla Drive to the crime scene. So this established a continuity between the two 911 calls and the security video.
But what about the video of the fatal shooting? In it, we hear three gunshot blasts. In between the first and second blast, Gregory McMichael is heard to faintly shout "Travis!" in the distance. This sounded very familiar to the "Travis!" that is screamed into the cellphone and recorded by the 911 call. I measured the audio waveforms, and lined up the audio for both, and the timing between the first shotgun blast and "Travis!" matched, as well as the siren we already lined up, and the duration of "Travis!". What's more, the police logs also showed that the second 911 call was placed from Travis McMichael's number, and was routed through a nearby cell tower. It lasted 4:46 and there was only one window in time that it could have been placed and matched those events.
So this was certainly Gregory McMichael, Travis's father speaking to 911 as Mr. Arbery was killed. The police officer who sped to the scene took Gregory McMichael's testimony, and that allowed us to sketch what happened during those fateful four minutes. William "Roddie" Bryan and his attorney have also issued statements to the media, and that allowed us to fill in more details. Finally, breaking down the gruesome video frame by frame, and comparing it to the autopsy report, allowed us to understand what was happening more closely. The first shot was fired into Ahmaud Arbery's chest very quickly. The coroner declared him dead around 30 minutes after this.
This is a tragic story and we hope our reporting provides some clarity on what happened. Our sympathies to the Arbery family.
Malachy.
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Hi, this is Muyi Xiao, one of the producers of this video. In the past week, my colleagues and I collected witness videos, CCTV footage, as well as police bodycam and dashcam footage that captured the killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on June 12. We analyzed them and closely examined official statements, police records and procedures as we hoped to figure out why a police encounter that went calmly and cordially for 41 minutes suddenly turned fatal in 45 seconds.
With visual evidence and documents, we found instances where police procedures –– including those related to DUI arrest and Taser deployment –– were breached. At one point, Rolfe used a chokehold while tussling with Brooks. According to APD procedures, neck restraints are not approved for use, except under exigent circumstances, due to the potential for serious injury or death. We also learned what might be the potential reason why Brooks would hope to avoid any kind of arrest.
We asked experts what officer Rolfe’s options were after Brooks failed the sobriety tests. Some policing experts told us that he could have written a citation and drove Brooks home; others said police are expected to show zero-tolerance with drunk driving.
The Fulton County DA charged Rolfe with felony murder and both officers with aggravated assault. Rolfe claims he “heard a sound like a gunshot” so he fired his gun. However, we found this inconsistent with what he said at the scene.
I'll be trying to answer any questions below, so feel free to ask.
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I'm one of the reporters on this investigation. We've been tracking hospital bombings in Syria since 2017, when in April and May, many health care facilities in this same area - Idlib province - were bombed (one every 29 hours according to UOSSM). International groups have told us that all red lines have been crossed in Syria, and healthcare has been deliberately targeted during the war. We spent months collecting evidence, talking to medical organizations who support these hospitals and to international organizations who also supported them. We also spoke to several experts in military systems and the Russian and Syrian Air Force, so that we could understand their capabilities and analyze the airstrikes and weapons used. We collected several data points corroborating the times of the attacks, including video metadata (file properties) that tell us the hour minute and second the video was recorded. We did shadow analysis, chronolocation and geolocation of videos. And critically, we obtained thousands of previously unheard audio recordings of Russian pilots talking to ground control during bombing missions. We translated and deciphered their codewords. The evidence was irrefutable: Russia bombed four facilities that were on a UN no-strike list. Under international law, even if there is suspicion that those locations are used by militants and should become a target (we found no evidence of this), Russia must provide warnings in order to evacuate the hospitals. It hasn't done so. Read more about the reporting steps we took in this Times Insider. And follow our Visual Investigations playlist for more forensic investigations like this (we've also reported on US airstrikes in Afghanistan and airstrikes in Yemen using US weapons). Thanks, Malachy https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/reader-center/russia-syria-hospitals-investigation.html
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Hi! I'm Haley, a producer on this piece. Right now, we're seeing that health care workers treating the coronavirus are in desperate need of more medical and personal protective equipment. Stocks are disappearing. The CDC has said scarves or bandanas can be used for protection as a last resort. My mother is a nurse practitioner, and she even told me about how her hospital is rationing PPE and monitoring who can wear it. Another doctor told us that every day, they worry about when they'll run out of ventilators needed to help patients breathe. Right now, governments and manufacturers aren't keeping up with the demand.
So I decided to speak with some of the folks working on solutions. They're a wide range of innovators, from scientists to high school students. A lot of them share their designs through online platforms like Slack and then field test them with medical professionals. One design was a laser-cut face shield to protect against droplets; another, a ventilator prototype made from a wide variety of materials, including car parts. There was also the 3-D printable alternative for the N95 respirator — the engineers told me that it would even go through the same NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) testing as certified N95 masks. Some of this equipment, like the face shields, is already in the hands of clinicians. For many of them, it's the only option.
If you have any questions about these efforts or anything else you see in the video, I'll be answering down below. Thanks for watching! Stay safe and healthy.
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I'm Yousur Al-Hlou, the lead producer on this short documentary from The New York Times. Along with my co-producer Masha Froliak and the cinematographer Benjamin Foley, we spent two weeks reporting in and around Zaporizhia, in southeast Ukraine, capturing the toll of relentless Russian shelling on civilians.
We traveled to three frontline communities surrounded by Ukrainian troops on one side, and Russian troops on the other. In Orikhiv, we witnessed just a sliver of what these communities are experiencing daily, when three shells, one after the other, landed about 100 yards away from where we were conducting an interview.
Our editor, Mark Boyer, and senior producer, Hanaan Sarhan, helped us craft an intimate and chilling story about what it's like to be caught in a war.
I'll be monitoring the comments to help answer any questions!
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Hi, I'm Haley, one of the producers on this video. Just wanted to give you all a bit of insight into how we reported this piece.
Early on, we asked ourselves the question of what coronavirus would look like in a conflict zone. We've all reported on Libya in the past and knew that the pandemic would only further stress the situation there. Then, we noticed that people in Tripoli, Libya's capital, were all tweeting different variations of the same thing: we're being told to stay home by the government, but our homes are being shelled almost every day. They either stay home and risk being hit by a missile, or flee and risk contracting the virus. We decided to speak with them about what they're experiencing. Most told us they felt like there was no longer anywhere safe in Libya.
We also put together a spreadsheet tracking fighting and other developments in Libya. We compiled information using social media analysis, conflict monitors (like ACLED and Airwars), and witness accounts. Together, this information helped us understand how the war was continuing — and even getting worse — despite the coronavirus pandemic. We found out that the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, was shelling a civilian area within minutes of its announcement that it would agree to a humanitarian pause to the fighting. We also reported on Al-Khadra Hospital, which was hit by the LNA three times in less than a week. That hospital was known to be treating and testing coronavirus patients — it was forced to temporarily shut down, a major blow to a country with an already fragile healthcare system in a pandemic. The war shows no sign of slowing down. For now, Libyans must wait and see how it, and the virus, continue to spread.
Thanks for watching our video. I'll be trying to answer any questions below, so feel free to ask away!
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I'm the Times reporter building the gun in this video. A couple of weeks ago, I bought a gun kit online with basically no screening. It only took me six hours using some basic tools to assemble a working firearm. They’re called “ghost guns.” There are dozens of sites that sell these kits and some even take Bitcoin. It would be easy to buy one with complete anonymity – so anyone could get a gun kit even if they couldn’t pass a background check.
A lot of people think ghost guns are just 3D printed guns. These kits are kind of the opposite. Instead of adding material with a printer, there’s extra material that needs to be removed. Also worth noting: the finished gun won’t have a serial number on it, so if it’s found at a crime scene there’s no way to trace it back to its owner.
I like building stuff, but I’ve been living in Manhattan for almost a decade, so I’m a bit rusty. Still, I built the gun in a half a day using some YouTube tutorials and basic hand tools. It was harder than I thought, but at the end of the day, I still had a working gun. And I think I could do it much faster next time.
For me, this is a question of access. Pretty much anyone who wants a gun kit can get one. A firearms expert told me the kits themselves won't increase crime, but law enforcement is worried about their growing popularity.
I'm starting to cover gun issues more for the Times. I did a story earlier this year about assault weapon laws: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/31/us/assault-weapons-ban.html and you can find more stories, gun-related and otherwise, that I've done here: https://www.nytimes.com/by/jeremy-white
Thanks,
Jeremy
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Hi, I'm Ainara and I produced this piece. I'm from Madrid and have been following the coronavirus outbreak in Spain closely. One of the facts that struck me: Of all the contagions in the country, health care workers account for 14 percent — that's higher than anywhere else in the world. In numbers that means that as of yesterday, over 12,000 health professionals in Spain tested positive for Covid-19. I set out to find some of these workers, hear their stories and find out why they're falling ill at such alarming rates.
One of the issues that came up over and over in these conversations was a shortage of protective equipment for all workers who might come in contact with infected patients. The doctors and nurses I spoke to who had tested positive for the virus said they followed the safety protocols at work and used the protective equipment at their disposal at the time. But many hospitals lack protective gear for their staff. Primary care facilities and nursing homes are even worse equipped. Some health workers have started fabricating their own personal protective equipment, like impermeable gowns made from trash bags or operating room sheets. Others are layering surgical masks because there are no more FFP2 and FFP3 masks. Rosa, the nurse from Granada who you see in the beginning, called her husband a “sort of a MacGyver” because he is making face shields for her and all her colleagues at the dialysis unit. The elastic bands came from Rosa's neighbor, who cut up some of her own clothing to donate them.
Irrespective of the lack of protective gear, Spain's health workers continue to treat patients day in and day out. Some of the infected professionals we interviewed — like Eugenia and Lubna — have since recovered and returned to work. Several said they hoped their stories could serve as a cautionary tale for other countries. Health care workers in the U.S. are increasingly facing similar shortages.
If you have any questions about these efforts or anything else you see in the video, I'll be answering down below. Thanks for watching! Stay safe and healthy. ¡Gracias y ánimo!
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Peter, I'm one of the reporters who led the investigation. Your comment has been shared with the team and we appreciate it greatly. Five reporters and two video editors were on this story for close to two months, and it was a difficult one. The subject matter, the awful tragedy and horrific videos, forceful denials, but also the evidence - which took considerable effort to obtain, corroborate and analyze to the standard we required to level such a claim. As just one example of the corroboration, in order to to draw the circle highlighting the location of the underground tunnel, we asked six different witnesses from Douma if tunnels led to the hospital and if they could mark them on a map and send it to us securely - they all indicated a tunnel was in that position so we analyzed archival satellite imagery that showed the tunnel being bored and the mounds of dirt being excavated and piled up near the entrance. There was much more evidence that we omitted, as you can appreciate: Interviews with more than 15 people, including medics, who were in Douma that day; another 10 or 12 chemical and scientific experts and other observers in Syria. We would love to have included more of their voices, but in the interest of time, we stayed with the visual evidence, which bolstered their account of what happened and exposed the government's deceit. To address the troll issue: We've been attacked on Twitter and in the comments here for biased reporting, and some people seize on one or two unexplained phenomena on that day and from other attacks across Douma that day. Our conclusion is where all of the the evidence, when taken in the round, led us. Anyway, thanks again for your comment and support. Spread the word about our visual investigation series - it follows the truth wherever it goes. Best, Malachy
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Hi, Felipe, I’m the reporter who appeared in the video. I appreciate your note and others here, and now that Bolsonaro has won, thought I’d chime in. As I wrote to another person above, there were obviously many complex issues at play in this election beyond what I’m exploring in this video: corruption scandals, economic recession, and social conservatism—just to name a few. As you suggest, this video is by no means a summary. What I set out to investigate—mostly for a foreign-language speaking audience unfamiliar with Brazilian politics—is how Brazil’s very serious problem of violent crime is testing people’s patience and bolstering support for the Bolsonaro camp’s draconian proposals. As an American who’s never lived in Brazil, I wouldn't pretend to know the challenges of daily life for all Brazilians, but I understand the importance of basic democratic principles like due process and freedom from state oppression. And taken at his word, Bolsonaro seems prepared to suspend some freedoms in order to bring an end to the gang violence and corruption. It's worth taking a hard look at what that means. Thanks again, for watching our story.
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