Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
A former Tennessee state trooper has gone missing after he was sentenced for a misdemeanor assault conviction on a charge that he pulled the face mask off a protester during the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020.
In a Facebook post Monday, Columbia Police said 54-year-old Harvey Briggs was last seen in the city on Oct. 1, the day after receiving a six-month probation sentence, and he was driving a black 2015 Ford Fusion. He pleaded no contest to the assault charge on Sept. 15.
Before he left, Briggs made "several concerning statements" to his family and they haven't heard from him since, police said. Police are asking anyone with additional information to contact them. They did not provide details of Briggs' comments to his family.
Additionally, Briggs had "appeared upset about his probation and verbally expressed his displeasure to the (probation) officer," said Tennessee Department of Correction spokesperson Dorinda Carter.
The terms of Briggs' probation require him to receive permission from his probation officer to leave the county where he lives. Dana McLendon, Briggs' defense attorney, declined to comment Tuesday.
At an August 2021 hearing in Nashville, prosecutors relied on a fellow trooper's testimony that he watched Briggs pull the mask off the face of the protester, Andrew Golden, at the state Capitol complex.
Prosecutors played Golden's widely circulated recording of the encounter, which shows Golden's mask on the ground but didn't capture Briggs removing it, and when Golden said the trooper ripped off his mask, Briggs denied doing so on camera.
The encounter between Briggs and Golden happened as lawmakers reconvened inside the state Capitol for a session in which they passed legislation threatening felony charges for protesters who camp out on state property amid the sustained outcry for racial justice nationwide.The other trooper, Brian Carmouche, said he and another trooper were addressing a traffic stop before he saw Briggs take the mask off Golden.
Golden was recording the traffic stop when Briggs, who was nearby but not involved, scolded Golden for cursing and told him not to "impede" the scene.
The video shows Briggs, unmasked, getting up close to Golden's face. Golden then says on camera that Briggs ripped off his mask, and shows the mask on the ground nearby. "I did not," Briggs responds. "I'm tired of you people making stuff up."
Briggs was fired and criminally charged after his encounter with the protester. He has sued the state over his firing. That case remains active.
Briggs' notice of termination as a trooper also says security footage of the incident from the nearby Tennessee State Library & Archives supports the claim that Briggs took off Golden's mask.
In the lawsuit challenging Briggs' firing, his attorney repeats Briggs' claim that he didn't pull the mask off Golden, saying it "did not appear in the video nor on videos from cameras situated on various structures in the Capitol parking area."
Surveillance footage of the incident provided by the state Department of Safety and Homeland Security is grainy, but appears to show Briggs' arm reach toward Golden's face, prompting Golden to stumble backward.
Briggs' personnel file shows that over his 22-year career with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, he had been suspended for 17 days without pay for several infractions before the mask incident.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.