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LeBron James: ‘Zero Comment’ on Challenge to Match Reward for LA Cop Shooter

Bloomberg Effort Raises $20 Million to Pay Fines for Florida Felons So They Can Vote

An effort bolstered by support from billionaire Michael Bloomberg has raised over $20 million to pay off fines for Florida felons, enabling them to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Bloomberg, NBA star LeBron James, and singer John Legend were among those helping raise funds for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition with an October 5 voter registration deadline looming. The effort drew contributions from more than 44,000 people and eclipsed the $20 million milestone, the coalition announced Tuesday. “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be denied that right,” Bloomberg, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement. “Working together with the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, we are determined to end disenfranchisement and the discrimination that has always driven it.” “The ability to vote…

LeBron James: ‘Zero Comment’ on Challenge to Match Reward for LA Cop Shooter

NBA star LeBron James said late Tuesday that he has “zero comment” on the challenge from Los Angeles County’s sheriff to match reward money for the arrest and conviction of the man who walked up to a sheriff’s vehicle and shot two deputies this month.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told a radio show on Sept. 14 that James should match the reward money being offered.

“I want you to match that and double that reward because I know you care about law enforcement,” he said. “You expressed a very interesting statement on race relations and officer-involved shootings and the impact that it has on the African American community and I appreciate that, but likewise, we need to appreciate that respect for life goes across professions, races, creeds, and I’d like to see LeBron James step up to the plate and double that.”

The two deputies shot in Compton on Sept. 12 have been released from the hospital. The suspect has still not been caught.

A spokesman for the office told The Epoch Times via email last week: “I can assure you our detectives are some of the best. They are definitely looking at thousands of hours of video from everywhere and have been looking tirelessly.”

James said Sunday about the shooting: “We don’t want anyone to be injured. We don’t want anyone to be hurt.”

LeBron James: ‘Zero Comment’ on Challenge to Match Reward for LA Cop Shooter A man walks up to sheriff’s deputies and opens fire without warning or provocation in Compton, Calif., on Sept. 12, 2020. (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department via AP)

“My condolences go out to the officers that were shot in Los Angeles. And we want justice for that, as well as we want justice for Breonna Taylor and so on and so on. We don’t want no violence,” he added.

James declined to comment directly on Villanueva’s challenge but told reporters after the Los Angeles Lakers game in Florida on Tuesday that he’s never condoned violence.

“But I also know what’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. And I grew up in the inner city in a black community, in what we call the hood or the ghetto, however you want to picture it. I’ve seen a lot of accounts firsthand of a lot of black people being, I guess, racially profiled because of our color. And I’ve seen it throughout my whole life.”

James said he knows that not all police officers are bad but said he’s seen videos showing that all over America there are acts of violence being committed against black people.

“I can’t do nothing but to speak about it and see the common denominator. But not one time have I ever said, ‘Let’s act violent towards cops,’” he told reporters.

“I just said that what’s going on in our community is not okay, and we fear for that, and we fear for our lives. It’s something that we go on every single day as a black man and a black woman and a black kid, a black girl. We fear. We fear that moment when we’re pulled over.”

Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber

Focus News: LeBron James: ‘Zero Comment’ on Challenge to Match Reward for LA Cop Shooter

US Execution Planned of Killer Who Said Witchcraft Drove Him

CHICAGO—A former U.S. soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to slay a Georgia nurse in a bid to lift a spell he believed she put on him is the first of two more inmates the federal government is preparing to put to death this week. William Emmett LeCroy, 50, on Tuesday would be the sixth federal inmate executed by lethal injection this year at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Another is scheduled for Thursday of Christopher Vialva, who would be the first African-American on federal death row to be executed this year. LeCroy is white, as were four of the five inmates executed earlier. The fifth was a Navajo. Critics say President Donald Trump’s resumption of federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus is…