A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police confirmed an investigation was opened in December 2016, with a man, in his 40s at the time, questioned by police under caution in July 2018.
Hundreds of people were fired for what they said about Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination earlier this year. Ex-Sucker Punch artist Drew Harrison was one of them. In her first interview since her joke about the murder prompted an online harassment campaign targeting the Ghost Of Yotei studio, she says Sony never asked her to remove the offending post or apologize for it before deciding to fire her.
Pawar had been accused in 2024 of sexually abusing the teen a year earlier, after she went shopping with her mom at Walmart, where he worked as a tire technician. The girl's mother reported that Pawar had exchanged numbers with her after calling her "cute." Police alleged around 1:30 a.m. the following morning, the family discovered the girl vanished from her home after Pawar picked her up and took her to a hotel.
Ocean Valentine was working at Urban Assembly Early College High School of Emergency Medicine when she kicked off a totally inappropriate fling with a teenage student back in May 2022. She was 22. He was 17. And they weren't exactly hiding what they were up to. According to an official report, it all started when Valentine told the student she was active on Instagram. He hit her up, they swapped numbers, and things escalated fast.
Newscasters. Columnists. Professors. Flight attendants. Comic writers. Late-night talk show hosts. Dozens of people have lost their jobs in the past week for criticizing Charlie Kirk in the wake of his death, some after conservatives mobilized online to find and report posts they deemed were not sufficiently mournful. Many of these people have been reprimanded not because they advocated violence, but simply because they posted Kirk's own words.
If an attorney chooses to publicly air controversial opinions, they can expect to get fired. Law firms are a business first, and if their public-facing professionals make statements that alienate clients or create the whiff of a hostile work environment, the firm can cut ties to protect its business. It's not a free speech thing, it's just business. That said, firing someone over their remarks is always a question of "coulda and shoulda."
Shakira Zahiruddin, 32, of the Bronx, had been employed at the all-women's institution on Manhattan's Upper West Side until Aug. 26, when she was abruptly terminated via email. The decision left her without income or health coverage for herself, her two children, ages 7 and 13, and her unborn baby, the single mother said, noting that her medical benefits expired six days after her firing.
Erez Reuveni highlights the pressure on career attorneys within the Justice Department: "Career attorneys can't...go to court and parrot these similar talking points that have no basis in law and have no support."
