Animal-rights campaigners are hoping this year’s festival season in Nepal will be a little less bloody. During the 15-day Dasain festival that began this week in the Himalayan country, families fly kites, host feasts and visit temples, where tens of thousands of goats, buffaloes, chickens and ducks are sacrificed to please the gods and goddesses as part of a practice that dates back centuries. Animal rights groups are hoping to stop —or at least reduce— the slaughter, using this year’s campaign as a practice run to combat a much larger animal sacrifice set for next year at the quinquennial Gadhimai festival.
The series of radio transmissions from the chase and arrest of a Miami Police officer at gunpoint by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper for speeding were released by the FHP Thursday.
FHP Trooper D.J. Watts took Officer Fausto Lopez into custody on the morning of Oct. 11 after he was stopped for driving over 120 mph south on the Florida Turnpike near Hollywood Boulevard in Broward County, according to the FHP.
"I don't know what agency it is...He's well over 120 and he's not stopping for me," Watts is heard telling another officer in one of the transmissions. "He's in and out of traffic."
"What department is it?" another voice is heard asking.
"Standby, we're trying to ascertain." replies another officer.
"It is a Miami Police," says Watts, as her sirens are heard wailing in the background.
After several minutes of following him, Lopez finally pulls over. In a FHP dashcam video of the incident, released earlier this week, Watts is seen approaching Lopez's squad car with her gun drawn.
Put your hands out that window right now! Put your hands out the window! I'm serious," Watts yells. "Get out, get out of the vehicle! Turn around, turn around, right now!"
Watts pushes Lopez up against his car and handcuffs him behind his back, and Lopez begins pleading with her to try to get out of trouble, saying he was on his way to off-duty work at a school in Coconut Grove.
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"I've got the subject in chains for now," Watts says in the radio calls. Another officer asks Watts if he's in uniform.
"She's not responding to radio traffic at this time," another officer says.
"There's been no evidence of reckless driving. There's been no evidence of 120 mph. And I think, really, this whole situation is something that's been blown completely out of proportion," attorney William Matthewman said Tuesday.
