Tag: crimes against persons

‘So much blood’: Medics tell what they saw and did after Uvalde massacre | CNN

CNN
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Chilling details of the chaotic and bloody aftermath of the Uvalde school massacre show how emergency medics desperately treated multiple victims wherever they could and with whatever equipment they had, according to never-before-heard interviews.

Some came from off-duty or far away to back up their colleagues sent to Robb Elementary School, where classrooms had become kill zones but there were still lives to be saved.

There was the state trooper with emergency medical certification who always carried five chest seals with him, never imagining he would ever need them all at once; the local EMT who crouched behind a wall as gunshots rang out and was soon treating three children at the same time; and her off-duty colleague who found herself caring for her son’s classmates, not knowing if her own boy was alive.

Amanda Shoemake was on the first Uvalde EMS ambulance to arrive at the school last May 24, she told an investigator from the Texas Department of Public Safety. But with law enforcement officers waiting for 77 minutes to challenge the shooter, she spent time trying to direct traffic to maintain a lane for ambulances to get through once victims started coming out, she said, according to investigation records obtained by CNN.

“We were just waiting for what felt like a while. And then somebody … came and they were like, ‘OK, we need EMS now,’” she said in the interview, part of the DPS investigation into the failed response to the school shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. At least one teacher and two children were alive when officers finally stormed the classrooms, but they died later.

As Shoemake and colleagues reached the school building, they were told the shooter had not yet been found and could be in the ceiling, she recounted, saying how they sheltered behind a brick wall as the shooter was confronted.

“We just squatted down there and waited there until the shooting stopped,” she said. “And then after some time they brought out the first kid that was an obvious DOA.”

DPS trooper Zach Springer was one of the hundreds of law enforcement officers from across southwest Texas who responded to Robb when alerts went out for reinforcements. He had become certified as an EMT a few months earlier, he told the Texas Ranger who interviewed him.

“I made a conscious decision not to bring my rifle,” he said he thought as he drove up. “I knew there were so many people up there, they’re not going to need rifles, they’re going to need med gear.”

Springer entered the school and started getting a triage area ready at the end of the hallway where armed officers from the school force, local police department, sheriff’s office, state police and federal agencies were lined up. While commanders like then school police chief Pete Arredondo, then acting city police chief Mariano Pargas and Sheriff Ruben Nolasco have given various statements about whether they knew children were hurt and needed rescue, medics from many agencies prepared for victims.

“I set up as best I could,” he said. “I put tourniquets, gauze, Israeli bandages, compression bandages, hemostatic gauze. I was like, ‘I got everything, I think.’ … I had five chest seals, which is ridiculous in my opinion, like I’ve made fun of myself – when am I ever going to need five chest seals?”

He heard the breach and then started seeing children brought out amid the smoke from the brief but intense firefight, he said.

He went to help a Border Patrol medic treating a girl shot through the chest. He said he started checking her legs for injuries when he heard colleagues ask for a chest seal. In the chaos of the response, all had been taken.

Springer said they covered the girl’s wounds with gauze, got her onto a backboard and he repeatedly told the others to secure her head as they moved her, though he later believed the young victim was too small for the carrier.

I can still hear her voice

EMT Kathlene Torres after treating Mayah Zamora

“I don’t think that they secured her head because she wasn’t tall enough for her head to be secured,” he said. And while the girl was thought to be alive when they pulled her from the classroom, she did not survive, he said.

When he ran back in, the hallway lined with posters celebrating the end of the school year had been transformed. “You could smell the iron – there was so much blood,” he said.

Back outside, Uvalde EMS Shoemake had put the first victim in her ambulance to hide him from the crowds of anxious parents frantic for information, when another child was brought out. She saw an unattended ambulance from a private company with its door open and no stretcher, she said.

“I had them put her on the floor of that ambulance and I started treating her there. Then while I was treating her, there was two more 10-year-old boys brought to me and so I put one on the bench and one in the captain’s seat.”

Shoemake’s colleagues including Kathlene Torres came to help and got the little girl onto a stretcher and into another ambulance, working to save her life as they first thought a helicopter would take her and then getting her to the hospital themselves, they said.

Torres told a DPS officer the girl was critically injured but still managed to share her name and date of birth. She was Mayah Zamora, who would spend 66 days in hospital before she could go back to her family. “I can still hear her voice,” Torres said.

At least two of the EMTs had been at Robb earlier in the day to see awards presented to their children. One of them, Virginia Vela, had watched her 4th-grader son at a 10 a.m. ceremony and then two hours later was corralled in the funeral home parking lot across the street from the school with her husband and other parents who were being held back by officers.

She told the DPS investigator that she was recognized as a local EMT and allowed into the funeral home to treat some children who had been hurt climbing through windows to get away from the school.

Photos show chaotic scene as Uvalde students escape

When she went closer to the school to help the other EMTs, she saw the first victim brought out, a boy who was dead, she said.

“I thought it was my son,” she said. “Once I saw his clothes, I knew it wasn’t my son, but the fear … ran through my body.”

More children came for emergency medical treatment.

What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus’

EMT Virginia Vela when she finally saw her son

“One of the kids that I had in the unit, he was shot in the shoulder. The student that I was helping up from the side of the unit, he had bullet fragments on his thigh,” she said. “And then we had another student with blown off fingers. And she was just in and out. We were trying to get her oxygen and trying to keep her alive. And I realized those were my son’s classmates and my son was not coming out.”

Vela opened the ambulance to see if more children were being brought to them. And finally, she saw her boy running from the school.

“I didn’t even run to him. I didn’t go get him. What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus,’” she said. “I grabbed my phone, and I called my husband and my husband’s like, ‘I see him, I see him, he’s getting onto the bus, he’s OK.’ And I said, ‘OK, but I’ve got to stay here with these students.’ And I hung up and I continued to do my job.”

Vela told DPS she remembered a little more of the day after she knew her son was safe, but it was still a blur as she worked with Shoemake and the others, writing a child’s vitals on their arms and getting them on their way – load and go, load and go.

And once the emergency work was done, she had an important question.

“I asked my partner, ‘Did I freeze? Did I even help you?’ She goes, ‘Yes, girl. You were like jumping from unit to unit, helping everybody that was coming out,’” Vela said. “And I was like, I need to know this. I need to know that I continued doing my job.”

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March 18, 2023
DOJ seeks fast-track Supreme Court review of ruling against gun ban for people under domestic violence restraining orders | CNN Politics

CNN
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The Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme Court to fast-track its consideration of a recent appeals court ruling that deemed unconstitutional a federal law barring gun possession by those under domestic violence restraining orders.

“The presence of a gun in a house with a domestic abuser increases the risk of homicide sixfold,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in her petition Friday, urging the high court to decide before its summer recess whether to take up the case.

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in February that the 1996 law was unconstitutional, and while the ruling applies only to Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, advocates worry it will have wide implications, including that it will discourage victims from coming forward.

The circuit court cited the major Second Amendment ruling handed down by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority last year that laid out a new test for lower courts to use to analyze a gun regulation’s constitutionality.

Prelogar told the Supreme Court on Friday that the 5th Circuit’s reasoning was wrong and the high court should take up the case so “that it can correct the Fifth Circuit’s misinterpretation of Bruen,” referring to last summer’s Supreme Court opinion.

The high court’s majority opinion in June said that part of the test was whether a gun restriction had a parallel to the regulations in place at the time of the Constitution’s framing.

The 5th Circuit said, with its opinion regarding the domestic violence gun restriction earlier this year, that the prohibition on alleged abusers lacked that kind of historical parallel and therefore was unconstitutional.

If the 5th Circuit’s “approach were applied across the board,” Prelogar wrote, “few modern statutes would survive judicial review; most modern gun regulations, after all, differ from their historical forbears in at least some ways.”

At the time of the circuit court ruling, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that Congress had determined the gun ban statute “nearly 30 years ago” and signaled the department’s plan to appeal the ruling.

“Whether analyzed through the lens of Supreme Court precedent, or of the text, history, and tradition of the Second Amendment, that statute is constitutional. Accordingly, the Department will seek further review of the Fifth Circuit’s contrary decision,” he said.

Guns are used to commit nearly two-thirds of intimate partner homicides, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. A 2021 study found that the majority of mass shootings are also linked to domestic violence.

Though some of the states covered by the appeals court have similar state law restrictions, the new ruling undermines a crucial tool that survivors have to protect themselves from their abusers. If the 5th Circuit’s logic were adopted nationwide by the US Supreme Court, the consequences would be devastating, advocates say.

“People are going to know that their abuser still has their gun. They’re going to continue to live in absolute, abject fear,” said Heather Bellino, the CEO of the Texas Advocacy Project, which works with victims of domestic violence. “They are going to be afraid to get a protective order, because now that gun’s not going away.”

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March 18, 2023
This community’s quarter century without a newborn shows the scale of Japan’s population crisis | CNN

Tokyo
CNN
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When Kentaro Yokobori was born almost seven years ago, he was the first newborn in the Sogio district of Kawakami village in 25 years. His birth was like a miracle for many villagers.

Well-wishers visited his parents Miho and Hirohito for more than a week – nearly all of them senior citizens, including some who could barely walk.

“The elderly people were very happy to see [Kentaro], and an elderly lady who had difficulty climbing the stairs, with her cane, came to me to hold my baby in her arms. All the elderly people took turns holding my baby,” Miho recalled.

During that quarter century without a newborn, the village population shrank by more than half to just 1,150 – down from 6,000 as recently as 40 years ago – as younger residents left and older residents died. Many homes were abandoned, some overrun by wildlife.

Kawakami is just one of the countless small rural towns and villages that have been forgotten and neglected as younger Japanese head for the cities. More than 90% of Japanese now live in urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto – all linked by Japan’s always-on-time Shinkansen bullet trains.

That has left rural areas and industries like agriculture, forestry, and farming facing a critical labor shortage that will likely get worse in the coming years as the workforce ages. By 2022, the number of people working in agriculture and forestry had declined to 1.9 million from 2.25 million 10 years earlier.

Yet the demise of Kawakami is emblematic of a problem that goes far beyond the Japanese countryside.

The problem for Japan is: people in the cities aren’t having babies either.

“Time is running out to procreate,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a recent press conference, a slogan that seems so far to have fallen short of inspiring the city dwelling majority of the Japanese public.

Amid a flood of disconcerting demographic data, he warned earlier this year the country was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”

The country saw 799,728 births in 2022, the lowest number on record and barely more than half the 1.5 million births it registered in 1982. Its fertility rate – the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years – has fallen to 1.3 – far below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. Deaths have outpaced births for more than a decade.

And in the absence of meaningful immigration – foreigners accounted for just 2.2% of the population in 2021, according to the Japanese government, compared to 13.6% in the United States – some fear the country is hurtling toward the point of no return, when the number of women of child-bearing age hits a critical low from which there is no way to reverse the trend of population decline.

All this has left the leaders of the world’s third-largest economy facing the unenviable task of trying to fund pensions and health care for a ballooning elderly population even as the workforce shrinks.

Up against them are the busy urban lifestyles and long working hours that leave little time for Japanese to start families and the rising costs of living that mean having a baby is simply too expensive for many young people. Then there are the cultural taboos that surround talking about fertility and patriarchal norms that work against mothers returning to work.

Doctor Yuka Okada, the director of Grace Sugiyama Clinic in Tokyo, said cultural barriers meant talking about a woman’s fertility was often off limits.

“(People see the topic as) a little bit embarrassing. Think about your body and think about (what happens) after fertility. It is very important. So, it’s not embarrassing.”

Okada is one of the rare working mothers in Japan who has a highly successful career after childbirth. Many of Japan’s highly educated women are relegated to part-time or retail roles – if they reenter the workforce at all. In 2021, 39% of women workers were in part-time employment, compared to 15% of men, according to the OECD.

Tokyo is hoping to address some of these problems, so that working women today will become working mothers tomorrow. The metropolitan government is starting to subsidize egg freezing, so that women have a better chance of a successful pregnancy if they decide to have a baby later in life.

New parents in Japan already get a “baby bonus” of thousands of dollars to cover medical costs. For singles? A state sponsored dating service powered by Artificial Intelligence.

Whether such measures can turn the tide, in urban or rural areas, remains to be seen. But back in the countryside, Kawakami village offers a precautionary tale of what can happen if demographic declines are not reversed.

Along with its falling population, many of its traditional crafts and ways of life are at risk of dying out.

Among the villagers who took turns holding the young Kentaro was Kaoru Harumashi, a lifelong resident of Kawakami village in his 70s. The master woodworker has formed a close bond with the boy, teaching him how to carve the local cedar from surrounding forests.

“He calls me grandpa, but if a real grandpa lived here, he wouldn’t call me grandpa,” he said. “My grandson lives in Kyoto and I don’t get to see him often. I probably feel a stronger affection for Kentaro, whom I see more often, even though we are not related by blood.”

Both of Harumashi’s sons moved away from the village years ago, like many other young rural residents do in Japan.

“If the children don’t choose to continue living in the village, they will go to the city,” he said.

When the Yokoboris moved to Kawakami village about a decade ago, they had no idea most residents were well past retirement age. Over the years, they’ve watched older friends pass away and longtime community traditions fall by the wayside.

“There are not enough people to maintain villages, communities, festivals, and other ward organizations, and it is becoming impossible to do so,” Miho said.

“The more I get to know people, I mean elderly people, the more I feel sadness that I have to say goodbye to them. Life is actually going on with or without the village,” she said. “At the same time, it is very sad to see the surrounding, local people dwindling away.”

If that sounds depressing, perhaps it’s because in recent years, Japan’s battle to boost the birthrate has given few reasons for optimism.

Still, a small ray of hope may just be discernible in the story of the Yokoboris. Kentaro’s birth was unusual not only because the village had waited so long, but because his parents had moved to the countryside from the city – bucking the decades old trend in which the young increasingly plump for the 24/7 convenience of Japanese city life.

Some recent surveys suggest more young people like them are considering the appeals of country life, lured by the low cost of living, clean air, and low stress lifestyles that many see as vital to having families. One study of residents in the Tokyo area found 34% of respondents expressed an interest in moving to a rural area, up from 25.1% in 2019. Among those in their 20s, as many as 44.9% expressed an interest.

The Yokoboris say starting a family would have been far more difficult – financially and personally – if they still lived in the city.

Their decision to move was triggered by a Japanese national tragedy twelve years ago. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake shook the ground violently for several minutes across much of the country, triggering tsunami waves taller than a 10-story building that devastated huge swaths of the east coast and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Miho was an office worker in Tokyo at the time. She remembers feeling helpless as daily life in Japan’s largest city fell apart.

“Everyone was panicking, so it was like a war, although I have never experienced a war. It was like having money but not being able to buy water. All the transportation was closed, so you couldn’t use it. I felt very weak,” she recalled.

The tragedy was a moment of awakening for Miho and Hirohito, who was working as a graphic designer at the time.

“The things I had been relying on suddenly felt unreliable, and I felt that I was actually living in a very unstable place. I felt that I had to secure such a place by myself,” he said.

The couple found that place in one of Japan’s most remote areas, Nara prefecture. It is a land of majestic mountains and tiny townships, tucked away along winding roads beneath towering cedar trees taller than most of the buildings.

They quit their jobs in the city and moved to a simple mountain house, where they run a small bed and breakfast. He learned the art of woodworking and specializes in producing cedar barrels for Japanese sake breweries. She is a full-time homemaker. They raise chickens, grow vegetables, chop wood, and care for Kentaro, who’s about to enter the first grade.

The big question, for both Kawakami village and the rest of Japan: Is Kentaro’s birth a sign of better times to come – or a miracle birth in a dying way of life.

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March 18, 2023
FBI offers $20,000 reward in case of missing American woman who was kidnapped from her home in Mexico | CNN

CNN
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More than a month after a 63-year-old US citizen was kidnapped from her home in Mexico, the FBI has announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.

Maria del Carmen Lopez was kidnapped February 9 in Pueblo Nuevo, a municipality in the southwestern Mexican state of Colima, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office said in a release Thursday.

Lopez is also a Mexican citizen, according to a statement from the Colima Attorney General’s office, which said it is working with the FBI on the investigation.

Though the FBI did not share details on the case, it described Lopez as having blonde hair, brown eyes and tattooed eyeliner.

Federal authorities don’t believe drug cartels were involved in the kidnapping, the FBI Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office Donald Alway told CNN. The agency has witness accounts confirming Lopez was kidnapped, Alway said, but didn’t share other details about the case.

“We are going to pursue this, and we’ll look at every avenue and we’ll follow every lead and we’ll open every door that we can find to ensure that our primary goal is to get her back safely,” he added.

The FBI’s announcement comes nearly two weeks after the violent kidnapping of four Americans in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, two of whom were killed, and three weeks after the disappearance of three women who crossed into Mexico to sell clothes at a flea market.

The investigation into Lopez’s disappearance was opened by the Colima Attorney General’s Office on the day of the suspected kidnapping and the Mexican Attorney General’s Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime has since requested to take the case, the statement from Colima authorities said.

The Colima prosecutor’s office said it has shared information with Mexican federal authorities and has also collaborated with US agencies “seeking to clarify the facts and safeguard the integrity of the victim.”

The FBI encouraged anyone with information about where Lopez may be located to contact their local FBI office, submit a tip online or reach out to the nearest American embassy or consulate.

CNN has reached out to the FBI for additional information.

In all, more than 100,00 Mexicans and migrants are missing across the country, leaving their families no explanation and little solace. The Mexican government’s quick response to recent disappearances of Americans has raised eyebrows among some who criticize officials for lacking such prompt reactions in a slew of domestic cases.

Lopez’s daughter is pleading for information on her mother’s whereabouts after being gone for more than a month.

Lopez moved to Mexico after she retired and was living “a quiet life back in their homeland,” her daughter, Zonia Lopez, told CNN. Her mother never expressed any concerns for her safety while living in Mexico, she added.

When asked if a ransom was demanded, Zonia said she could not share too much information because it is “still an open investigation.”

Zonia said she learned about her mother’s disappearance after getting a call from her sisters who said their father was told in a phone call that Lopez was kidnapped. Her family reached out to the embassy, who connected them with the FBI, Zonia said.

“It’s a horrible feeling not knowing if she is okay, not knowing where she’s at or who has her,” Zonia said. “We’re literally powered by the strength that we know she has and the love that she has for us, and we are literally holding on to a thread of hope.”

Zonia said she remains hopeful and her mother’s “vibrant attitude and her outlook on life” keeps her family going.

“We will not stop until we have answers, and we are making sure that this gets enough attention so that other families, along with ours, get some kind of information, some kind of closure to this,” Zonia said.

While the FBI and Mexican authorities work to find her mother, Lopez offered a message to the person or people responsible for her kidnapping: “Please give her back. We need our mom.”

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March 17, 2023
‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ prosecutor says of video showing death of a 28-year-old Black man at a mental health facility. Here’s what we know | CNN

CNN
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Three of the 10 people facing murder charges in the death last week of a 28-year-old Black man at a Virginia mental health facility were security guards at the hospital who watched and then participated in the fatal smothering, the prosecutor told CNN Friday.

The victim’s family wants answers as to how a promising musician having what they called a mental health crisis ended with him dying – and why no one stood up for him and kept him from being killed.

The county prosecutor said seven law enforcement deputies, joined by the hospital workers, “smothered him to death” while restraining him.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill said, referring to unreleased video that shows the man’s death.

Baskervill said the hospital security guards passively watched the alleged smothering but eventually joined in and piled on top of the victim along with the deputies.

The local law enforcement officers’ union says they “stand behind” the deputies while an attorney for one of the deputies charged said he looked forward to the full truth being shared in court.

Here’s what we know about the deadly incident.

Irvo (pronounced EYE-voh) Otieno was 28. He had a passion for music, family attorney Mark Krudys said Thursday, and was working to become a hip-hop artist. Originally from Kenya, he came to the United States when he was 4.

His mother, Caroline Ouko, said he had “found his thing” with music and could write a song in less than five minutes. “He put his energy in that and he was happy with it,” she said at a news conference Thursday.

Irvo had a big heart, she said, and was the one his classmates came to when they had problems. He was a leader who brought his own perspective to the table, she added.

“If there was discussion, he was not afraid to go the other way when everybody else was following,” she said.

Her son had a mental illness that necessitated medicine, Ouko said. He had long stretches where “(you) wouldn’t even know something was wrong” and then there were times when “he would go into some kind of distress and then you know he needs to see a doctor,” she said.

On March 3, Otieno was arrested by Henrico County police who were responding to a report of a possible burglary, according to a police news release. The officers, accompanied by members of the county’s crisis intervention team, placed him under an emergency custody order.

The officers transported him to a hospital where authorities say he assaulted three officers. Police took him to county jail and he was booked.

On March 6, Otieno was taken to a state mental health facility in Dinwiddie County and died during the intake process, according to Baskervill.

“They smothered him to death,” the prosecutor said.

A preliminary report from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Richmond identified asphyxiation as a cause of death, the commonwealth attorney’s office said in a statement.

Otieno was held on the ground in handcuffs and leg irons for 12 minutes by seven deputies, Baskervill said.

Baskervill said Friday that video of the apparent smothering shows there were hands over Otieno’s mouth, hands on his head and hands holding his braids back.

At the Henrico County jail, just before Otieno’s transfer to Central State Hospital on March 6, he was naked in his cell, with feces all over, according to Baskervill.

She told CNN the video from his cell, which she viewed, shows Otieno was clearly agitated and in distress. CNN has not seen the video.

Otieno was pepper sprayed before five or six Henrico jail deputies entered the cell and tackled him, Baskervill said.

“He’s on the ground underneath them for several minutes there,” she said. “And blows are sustained at the Henrico county jail.”

Asked if Otieno appeared combative, Baskervill said, “I would really characterize his behavior as being distressed, rather than assaultive, combative.”

Later, at Central State Hospital, Otieno was on the ground at one point with at least 10 people on top of him, Baskervill said.

“They’re putting their back into it, leaning down. And this is from head to toe, from his braids at the top of his head, unfortunately, to his toes,” she said.

Baskervill said Otieno was eventually put on his stomach, with the pressure on him continuing, and he died in that position.

Baskervill believes Otieno was dead before a 911 call was even made. Paramedics left and State Police were not called until 7:28 pm, according to Baskervill.

“The delay in contacting proper authorities is inexplicable. Truly inexplicable,” she said.

The seven sheriff’s deputies and three hospital workers have been charged with second-degree murder.

The seven deputies who were charged were identified in Baskervill’s release Tuesday as Randy Joseph Boyer, 57, of Henrico; Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37, of Sandston; Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45, of Henrico; Bradley Thomas Disse, 43, of Henrico; Tabitha Renee Levere, 50, of Henrico; Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48, of Henrico; and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30, of North Chesterfield.

The Henrico Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4, the local law enforcement officers’ union, issued a statement Tuesday saying they “stand behind” the deputies.

“Policing in America today is difficult, made even more so by the possibility of being criminally charged while performing their duty,” the group said. “The death of Mr. Otieno was tragic, and we express our condolences to his family. We also stand behind the seven accused deputies now charged with murder by the Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Baskervill.”

The hospital workers arrested Thursday were identified as Darian M. Blackwell, 23, of Petersburg; Wavie L. Jones, 34, of Chesterfield; and Sadarius D. Williams, 27, of North Dinwiddie.

There is video footage but it will not be released to the public. CNN requested the footage but was told the material is not subject to mandatory disclosure because the investigation is ongoing.

“To maintain the integrity of the criminal justice process at this point, I am not able to publicly release the video,” said Baskervill, noting surveillance video from the mental health facility recorded the intake process.

Otieno’s family has viewed the video provided by prosecutors Thursday and his mother says Otieno was tortured.

“My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog,” she screamed, angry that no one stopped what led to her son’s death. “We have to do better.”

His older brother, Leon Ochieng, said people should be confident in calling for help when their loved ones are in crisis. He did not believe the people he saw on the video cared about preserving a life.

“What I saw was a lifeless human being without any representation,” Ochieng said, adding that his family is now broken and is calling for more awareness on how to treat those with mental illnesses.

“Can someone explain to me why my brother is not here, right now?” Ochieng said.

CNN has sought comment from the deputies and received word from attorneys of three of the individuals charged.

Caleb Kershner, the attorney for Boyer, told CNN he has yet to see the video but said “nothing was outside the ordinary” in the process of transferring Otieno from jail to the mental health facility.

Kershner told CNN that Otieno refused to get out of the vehicle when arriving at the hospital and deputies had to use force to get him out.

Kershner also said hospital staff administered a sedative to Otieno when he was still alive and resisting. However, Baskervill on Wednesday said the shot was given after Otieno was already dead. CNN has reached out to the hospital for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

“My client was simply holding his leg throughout any ordeal in order to ensure that what we estimate to be a 350-pound man, who was having a severe mental health episode, as not let loose in a medical facility where he could severely injure other people,” Kershner said. “From my review of the case, nothing was outside the ordinary or outside the scope of their training for what they did.”

Peter B. Baruch, an attorney for Disse, issued a statement defending his client.

“Deputy Disse has had a 20-year career with the Sheriffs department, and has served honorably. He is looking forward to his opportunity to try this case and for the full truth to be shared in court and being vindicated,” he said.

Bramble’s attorney, Steven Hanna, said he was still gathering information and declined to comment further.

CNN has not heard from the other attorneys it has identified as representing the other defendants.

An attorney representing one of the deputies told CNN he and other defense attorneys have not yet been able to review the video of Otieno’s death.

The lawyer said he is “shocked” the video has not been released and believes “they are overcharging” the deputies in this case.

Family attorneys say Otieno posed no threat to the deputies.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is working on behalf of the family, said Otieno was not violent or aggressive with the deputies.

“You see in the video he is restrained with handcuffs, he has leg irons on, and you see in the majority of the video that he seems to be in between lifelessness and unconsciousness, but yet you see him being restrained so brutally with a knee on his neck,” Crump said Thursday.

Crump said the video is a “commentary on how inhumane law enforcement officials treat people who are having a mental health crisis as criminals rather than treating them as people who are in need of help.”

Much like the arrest and death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Otieno was face down and restrained, Crump said.

“Why would anybody not have enough common sense to say we’ve seen this movie before?” he said.

Family attorney Mark Krudys said the deputies had engaged in excessive force.

“His mother was basically crying out for help for her son in a mental health situation. Instead, he was thrust into the criminal justice system, and aggressively treated and treated poorly at the jail,” he said.

The video from the mental health facility shows the charges are appropriate, Krudys said.

“When you see that video … you’re just going to ask yourself, ‘Why?’” he said.

The 10 defendants will appear in court Tuesday before a grand jury, according to online court records. If the case goes to trial and any of them are convicted, the prison sentence for second-degree murder in Virginia is a minimum of five years with a maximum of 40 years.

Crump has called for the US Department of Justice to take part in the investigation.

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March 17, 2023
A New York man was arrested after allegedly threatening a shooting at Tops Friendly Markets in a social media post | CNN

CNN
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A 20-year-old man from Upstate New York has been charged with making a terroristic threat after threatening to carry out a shooting at the Tops Friendly Markets in Manlius, New York, in a Discord post, according to court documents and local police.

Police responded to a call Saturday from the manager of the Tops in Manlius – a village in Onondaga County – who said that the store got phone calls from two different people expressing their concern over statements made by a Discord user saying he was going to harm shoppers at their supermarket, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate WSTM.

The two witnesses who called the supermarket reported that the threatening remarks on Discord – which included a racist reference – came from a 20-year-old man named Zachary who lives in the Manlius area and whose father recently died, according to the documents.

Police investigated the posts and identified the user as Zachary Mullen of Jamesville, according to a statement from the Town of Manlius Police Department.

Law enforcement arrested Mullen on Saturday for making a terroristic threat and, when conducting a search of his home afterward, found guns and ammunition, according to the police statement.

A judge also issued an Extreme Risk Protection Order against Mullen on Sunday, which allowed authorities to seize at least two firearms from his home.

CNN was unable to identify an attorney for Mullen.

“There were some racist overtones to the posts made by Mr. Mullen and as of this moment we’re still trying to connect the dots as to why he picked the Tops in Manlius, but certainly the location of the store, the name of the store, the racist natures of the post, would cause anyone pause, that this may have been far more dastardly than it even looks on the surface,” Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick told WSTM.

Discord is the same social media site that a convicted mass shooter posted on before killing 10 people at a Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo.

Law enforcement officials verified that Mullen’s father, who they say was an avid hunter, had died a few days prior to Mullen’s posts on Discord and that he was grieving, according to the affidavit.

Mullen, who lives with his mother, is not currently in jail, according to the county district attorney.

“Unfortunately, he’s out on what’s known as pre-trial release because we live in New York and that’s the nature of Bail reform in New York. Incredibly enough he is out so if he has secret access to a gun, God forbid, that’s something we just don’t know but we’ll certainly be monitoring him as much as we can,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement to WSTM.

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March 14, 2023
Opinion: An often overlooked solution to prevent accidental gun deaths | CNN

Editor’s Note: Jamie Gold is a wellness design consultant and author of “Wellness by Design: A Room-by-Room Guide to Optimizing Your Home for Health, Fitness and Happiness.” The opinions expressed in this article are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN
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President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday seeking to increase the number of background checks for gun purchasers. The measure does something else that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: It would promote the secure storage of firearms.

I’m a city girl whose family didn’t own guns but as a teenager, I got to see what secure gun storage looks like. I lived with my cousin’s family in Brooklyn during my senior year of high school. My uncle, a retired New York City police detective, enjoyed deer hunting upstate and would take his sons with him on many of those outings.

I remember seeing trophy photos in their house, but never the rifles. Those were secured out of sight and reach from young hands. Kids were only allowed to safely handle them while he was supervising. It’s the way many responsible parents teach their children to respect the power of firearms and protect their families from harm.

Many, but unfortunately, not all.

There were news reports this week of what has become a spate of incidents in which young children get their hands on unsecured firearms, with tragic consequences.

A 3-year-old girl fatally shot her 4-year-old sister in Houston, Texas over the weekend in an incident authorities called “tragic” but “very preventable.” Law enforcement officials said the child got hold of a loaded semi automatic pistol in the home.

And in January, a six-year-old Virginia boy allegedly shot a teacher with his mother’s handgun. While the state prohibits anyone from leaving a loaded gun in a place or manner to endanger a child younger than 14, or providing a firearm to a child younger than 12, it does not require that guns be locked away.

This meant that a schoolboy was able to swipe his parent’s firearm and smuggle it to school in his backpack, a teen could use it to commit suicide, a person with dementia or other mental illness could harm a loved one, or someone could just take your gun from your home and use it to commit other crimes.

Broadly speaking, gun owners are doing a better job of securing their weapons. According to a 2021 survey by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Network), the percent of firearm owners with children who were more likely to safely store their weapons increased to 44.1% from 29% six years earlier.

But that still leaves more than half of gun-owning parents ignoring this vitally important safety measure. In 2020, (the most recent year in which data was available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), firearms were the number one cause of death for children ages 1-19 in the United States, claiming the lives of 4,357 children, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. This drives home the importance of safely securing one’s guns in the home, especially for parents and guardians of the estimated 30 million children who lived in households with these weapons as of April 2021, according to JAMA.

A growing number of states have secure storage laws to keep guns away from minors. And while Americans are deeply divided on guns, one policy with broad bipartisan support, (87%, according to Pew Research), is keeping them away from people with mental issues. Secure storage is one of the ways to do that in shared households with people of all ages and household members whose diagnoses suggest that they shouldn’t have access to firearms.

Secure storage is also one of the few measures that’s accepted by both sides of the gun debate – from the firearm industry’s trade organization to gun safety advocates to a broad swath of the healthcare community.

Research has shown that personal protection tops the list of reasons why gun owners say they keep a firearm. It’s certainly understandable that people want to protect themselves and their families. I know that feeling as a survivor of violent crime myself.

Women often feel more vulnerable – with some justification. (The first fact on Harvard’s School of Public Health page about firearms research blares, “Across states, more guns = more female violent deaths.”)

So having a firearm close at hand adds a measure of security and comfort when something goes bump in the night. If she shares her home with others, though, that weapon can become a safety risk to her or her housemates.

How do you balance safety and risk with firearms at home? And how does this fit into my professional focus as a wellness design consultant? The answer to both is that secure gun storage contributes to safer home environments.

Safety and security is a key facet of wellness design, the practice of creating spaces that support the well-being of their occupants.

Since I concentrate on spaces where people live, and four in 10 American adults say they live in a home where someone owns a gun, that becomes a wellness design concern. What can be done to make their living spaces safer, respecting both well-being and rights?

For the person who wants a firearm within reach while sleeping, there are gun safes designed to fit inside nightstands, and even nightstands with built-in gun safes. The latter is a better option, as it doesn’t allow someone to easily walk off with a small, portable lockbox.

You also want your safe to have either biometric access, so you’re not fumbling for a key in the dark and only your fingerprint can open it, or a keypad if you have no problem remembering obscure numbers, even when your adrenaline is pumping.

If you own a shotgun or rifle, or a collection of firearms, they’re not going to fit into a bedside safe. Then you have other secure storage options and considerations, including the best (and worst) locations in your home, access, weight (vis-à-vis floor joists), flooring type, fire and theft. Gun safes are not simple purchases, and some larger solutions benefit from professional insight and installation.

You’ll quickly realize that the elegant closet system you chose probably isn’t going to suffice to secure your firearms either. As one luxury designer shared in a message, “Secure? I can put a lock on anything, but it’s not a safe. We can build around and hide safes or secret hiding places where you need a code to get in. But with TFL, [thermally-fused laminate, formerly called melamine], if you put enough force, it can be broken.” That set-up might keep your kids or their friends out of your closet-housed gun storage, but not necessarily an angry ex or serious thief.

You need a firearms storage expert to help secure your weapons, especially if you own more than one. (Since there are about 120 guns for every 100 Americans, according to one survey, it’s not a small number of owners who are in need of larger safe storage.)

There are numerous online guides to choosing and buying gun safes. Many are published by the safe companies themselves, sources that aren’t owned or tied to a manufacturer or seller are going to be your best bet for unbiased advice.

The 79-year-old publication Gun Digest published a buying guide on its site. The Gun Safe Reviews Guy posted a four-minute Gun Safe FAQ on his site, along with extensive buying and installation guides. His self-described background as an engineer with residential construction experience comes through in his site’s advice.

The dealer who sold you your guns can possibly recommend a secure storage dealer. Or once you’ve chosen a make and model after reviewing the advice sites, the company’s website can likely refer a local professional to sell and install it – an improperly-installed safe may not work as it should.

Will secure gun storage prevent every gun injury or death? No, but it can help reduce the number of accidents, suicides and access to firearms by those who shouldn’t have them – including under your roof.

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March 14, 2023
Family of environmental activist killed while protesting ‘Cop City’ files lawsuit against Atlanta in search for answers | CNN

CNN
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The family of an environmental activist killed while protesting a planned law enforcement training facility in Atlanta earlier this year has filed a lawsuit against the city, seeking the release of records to aid in their search for answers about what led to the fatal shooting.

“We’re here because Manuel Paez Terán’s family wants answers,” Jeff Filipovits, an attorney for the family, told reporters in a news conference Monday. “And we are not getting any answers.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, has said officers shot Terán after the activist shot and seriously wounded a state trooper on January 18, 2023, as law enforcement worked to clear protesters from the forested site of the proposed facility, dubbed “Cop City” by opponents who fear it will further militarize police and harm the environment.

Activists have disputed the GBI’s claim, and the family’s attorneys say an autopsy commissioned by the family and released Monday indicates the activist was seated and had their hands raised when they sustained at least some of the wounds.

But that autopsy – which notes Terán was shot about a dozen times by ammunition used in handguns and shotguns and could neither prove nor disprove the allegation the activist was armed – “is not enough for us to work backward from it to figure out what happened,” Filipovits said Monday.

The lawsuit aims to have a Georgia court order the city of Atlanta to turn over police department records the family’s attorneys previously requested, including any images and video or audio recordings related to authorities’ operation on January 18. But those requests have been stymied by what the attorneys and their lawsuit allege is a “coordinated effort” by the state to “prevent public records from being released to Manuel’s family and the public at large.”

“My heart is destroyed,” Belkis Terán, the mother of the activist, said at Monday’s news conference, adding she is trying to continue her child’s legacy but still lacks the answers she needs. “I want answers for my child’s homicide. I’m asking for answers to my child’s homicide.”

A spokesperson for the city of Atlanta declined to comment Monday, citing the pending litigation. Reached for comment Monday, the GBI referred CNN to earlier statements. In a news release last week, the agency said its actions were aimed at preventing the “inappropriate release of evidence” to “ensure the facts of the incident are not tainted.” The GBI “continues to work diligently to protect the integrity of the investigation and will turn our findings over to an appointed prosecutor for review and action.” The investigation so far, it added, “still supports our initial assessment.”

The city initially responded to a January request for information from attorneys by saying the Atlanta Police Department had identified relevant records that would be released on a “rolling basis,” according to Wingo Smith, another attorney representing the family, and the lawsuit. On February 8, the family’s attorneys had received 14 videos from body-worn cameras that were also released to reporters, the lawsuit says.

On February 13, however, the director of the GBI’s Legal Division sent a letter to the Atlanta police chief asking the department to “withhold those records” related to the GBI’s investigation, the lawsuit says. According to the letter, provided as an exhibit in the family’s lawsuit, the GBI explained the records were evidence in an ongoing investigation, and thus exempt from public disclosure.

The next day, the state Department of Law sent a letter to the city, according to the lawsuit, and on February 15, Atlanta police sent a revised response to the attorneys, saying it would “not be releasing further footage at this time.”

The planned police facility – slated to include among other things, a shooting range, a burn building and a mock city – has received fierce pushback from several groups. Among them are residents who feel there was little public input, conservationists who worry it will carve out a chunk of much-needed forest land and activists who say it will militarize police forces and contribute to further instances of police brutality. Those backing the facility say it’s needed to help boost police morale and recruitment efforts.

Tensions between law enforcement and protesters have continued to rise since Terán’s death, reaching a fever pitch earlier this month when nearly two dozen demonstrators were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism in connection to violent clashes at the site. Authorities said officers and construction equipment were assailed with Molotov cocktails, commercial-grade fireworks, bricks and large rocks.

Eli Bennett, a defense attorney for some of those charged, claimed his clients had been wrongfully arrested “more than a mile” from those clashes and about “an hour or two” after footage showed demonstrators lobbing fireworks and Molotov cocktails at police.

“They all deny it,” he added, speaking about his clients. “Police moved in with an overwhelming display of force,” Bennett told CNN about the arrests.

The attorneys on Monday also publicly released the autopsy commissioned by the family and performed by a forensic pathologist, who detailed the numerous gunshot wounds Terán suffered to their feet, legs, abdomen, arms, hands and head.

Most of the wounds indicate they were caused by handguns, the autopsy notes, though others appear consistent with shotgun ammunition. There were no entrance wounds on Terán’s back, the pathologist wrote, indicating the activist “was facing the multiple individuals who were firing their weapons at him during the entire interval in which the shooting occurred.”

The wounds, the pathologist writes, “indicate that the decedent was most probably in a seated position, cross-legged, with the left leg partially over the right leg.”

“At some point during the course of being shot, the decedent was able to raise (their) hands and arms up in front of (their) body, with (their) palms facing towards (their) upper body,” it says.

“It is impossible to determine if the decedent had been holding a firearm, or not holding a firearm, either before (they were) shot or while (they were) being shot the multiple times.”

The official autopsy, performed by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office, has not been released.

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March 13, 2023
Mississippi man sentenced to more than 3 years in prison for burning a cross to intimidate Black family | CNN

CNN
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A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for burning a cross in his front yard to intimidate a Black family, according to a news release from the US Justice Department.

Axel Cox, 24, was sentenced to 42 months in connection to the cross burning, which happened in December 2020 and violated the Fair Housing Act, the release said, adding Cox “admitted that he lit the cross on fire because the victims were Black and that he intended to scare them into moving out of the neighborhood.”

Justice Department leaders condemned Cox’s actions, with Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division calling them “an abhorrent act that used a traditional symbol of hatred and violence to stoke fear and drive a Black family out of their home.”

According to the Justice Department, Cox “wedged two pieces of wood together to form a cross, placed it in clear view of the victims’ residence,” following a dispute with the victims and “doused it in oil and set it alight. During this incident, Cox yelled threats and racial slurs toward the occupants of the house.”

In September 2022, a federal grand jury indicted Cox for interfering with the victims’ housing rights and using fire to commit a federal felony. An attorney for Cox, who did not immediately response to a request for comment Sunday, filed a notice of intent to change his plea in November 2022, and court documents indicate Cox pleaded guilty to the first count.

Cox’s prison term is set to be followed by three years of supervised release, per the Justice Department. He was also ordered to pay $7,810 in restitution.

“While one might think cross-burnings and white supremacist threats and violence are things of the past, the unfortunate reality is that these incidents continue today,” Clarke said.

“This sentence demonstrates the importance of holding people accountable for threatening the safety and security of Black people in their homes because of the color of their skin or where they are from.”

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March 12, 2023
After a tragic shipwreck, no peace for the dead or living | CNN

CNN
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Two weeks after a boat packed with migrants sank off the coast of southern Italy, there is still no peace for the living or the dead, and the missing – mostly children – continue to wash up on the beaches.

The latest – a girl aged five or six – was discovered on Saturday morning, bringing the toll from when the ill-fated boat broke apart on the rocks on February 26 off the village of Cutro to 74. Nearly half were minors.

The local coroner’s office provided names for many of the dead including Torpekai Amarkhel, a 42-year-old female journalist from Afghanistan, who was killed along with her husband and two of their three children.

Her other child, a seven-year-old daughter, is among the approximately 30 people still missing, presumed dead, from the tragedy.

Amarkhel had fled Afghanistan with her family following the clampdown on women, her sister Mida, who had emigrated to Rotterdam, told Unama News radio, a United Nations project Amarkhel was involved in.

Shahida Raza, who played football and hockey for Pakistan’s national team, was also among the dead. A friend said she was traveling in the hope of securing a better future for her disabled son.

Initially, those found were given alphanumeric code numbers, rather than names. When first responders found the corpse of 28-year-old Abiden Jafari from Afghanistan, they identified her only as KR16D45 – KR for the nearby city of Crotone, 16 because she was the 16th victim found, D for donna or woman, and 45, her estimated age.

But after taking her to the morgue, they discovered she was a women’s rights activist who had been threatened by the Taliban, likely causing her to risk her life at sea.

The body of a six-year-old boy, first identified as KR70M6, was named by his uncle as Hakef Taimoori.

The uncle had a family photo showing the young boy wearing the same shoes as he had on when he washed up on the beach. His parents and two-year-old brother also died in the disaster. A third brother remains among the missing.

The dead have also been caught in a struggle between the Italian state and family members.

The Interior Ministry ordered that all bodies be transferred from Calabria where the caskets have been on display in an auditorium, to the Islamic cemetery of Bologna for burial, in keeping with Italy’s protocol for irregular migrants who die attempting to enter Italy.

Family members who either survived the wreck or came from other parts of Europe to claim their loved ones’ remains protested with makeshift signs and a sit-in in front of the auditorium on Wednesday.

After a tense negotiation, the Prefecture of Crotone confirmed to CNN that 25 families, mostly Afghan and Syrian, agreed to have their loved ones buried in Bologna,.

All those who have not been identified will also be buried in Bologna along with the remains of a Turkish national who has been identified as one of the human traffickers.

The fate of the rest remains a point of negotiation, but the mayor of Crotone Vincenzo Voce said the Italian state would pay for any repatriations either to countries of origin or to be buried with family members in other parts of Italy.

The Italian Interior Ministry told CNN it could not comment on what would happen to the victims’ remains, but confirmed that past protocol is not to pay for repatriating anyone who died attempting to enter Italy as an irregular migrant but to make the country of origin pay costs. In the last decade, no repatriations have taken place, the ministry said.

Of the 82 survivors, three Turkish citizens and one Pakistan citizen have been arrested for human trafficking, and eight people are still hospitalized.

Most of the survivors were moved this week to a Crotone hotel after human rights advocates led by Italian leftist politician Franco Mari protested the conditions in which they were being kept, which included one shared bathroom for men and another for women near sleeping quarters that included only benches and mattresses on the floor to sleep.

Mari, who visited the reception center, tweeted that none of the survivors had sheets, towels or pillows. Twelve others were moved to a reception center for unaccompanied minors.

Against the backdrop of the saga about what to do with both the survivors and the victims, there is a growing firestorm about the rescue itself.

A surveillance plane for European border control Frontex had identified the ill-fated vessel the day before it sank and had alerted the Italian Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said in a statement that the vessel was not identified as a migrant boat, and that, at any rate, it did not seem in distress.

Heat sensing surveillance images released by the Coast Guard show that only one person was visible on board the ship when they flew over it.

Survivors recounted to media and human rights groups that they were locked in the hull of the ship and allowed to come up for air at intervals during the four-day journey from Turkey.

The Crotone public prosecutor’s office confirmed to CNN that it had opened a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the failed rescue after more than 40 human rights associations and NGOs signed a petition to demand all records be made public to determine if anyone failed to provide assistance to the boat in accordance with maritime law.

On Thursday, the Council of Ministers led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met on the disaster in Cutro and said they would focus on targeting trafficking rings and increasing jail time for human traffickers to 30 years.

Many of the government cars were pummeled with stuffed animals by protesters in Cutro who held signs that said “not in my name” to protest against blocking migrants and refugees from entering Europe through Italy.

The ministers also discussed “speeding up the mechanism for applying for asylum” rather than increasing the quota, which stands at accepting 82,700 migrants who qualify for asylum in 2023. So far this year, more than 17,600 people have reached Italy by sea.

In 2022, 105,131 people entered the country by sea. The process to apply for asylum often takes between three and five years, depending on the country of origin. People who are not from asylum-producing countries, but are economic migrants, are repatriated back to their countries of origin.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella said the Afghanistan citizens who survived would be prioritized for asylum. It is yet unclear if those who do not qualify will be repatriated to their countries of origin.

Meloni’s right-leaning government has vowed to clamp down on human traffickers and NGO rescue vessels. But the boats keep coming – hundreds of migrants were rescued this weekend – and signs are that they arriving earlier than ever. This tragedy is unlikely to be the last.

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March 11, 2023
‘Y’all ain’t never been to Mexico.’ How a road trip over the border took a deadly turn | CNN

CNN
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Four South Carolinians in a white minivan pulled out the parking lot of a Motel 6 surrounded by palmettos and onto an expressway in Brownsville, Texas – zooming past strip malls lined with taquerias, auto repair shops and law offices with Spanish names – for the short drive to the Mexican border city of Matamoros.

At one of the busiest border crossings in the country, the American citizens that Friday morning joined other motorists and pedestrians on trips for work or to see family, cheaper medical procedures and medications, or margarita lunches at brightly painted restaurants where menu prices are listed in pesos and dollars.

About 9:20 a.m., LaTavia Washington McGee, a 33-year-old mother of six, and her three friends from South Carolina crossed the Brownsville and Matamoros Express International Bridge. They were already running late for Washington McGee’s appointment for a medical procedure.

Around that time, the minivan moves along a rundown section of Matamoros, according to a livestream video taken by one of the minivan’s occupants that was obtained and analyzed by CNN.

“Y’all ain’t never been to Mexico,” said one of the men inside the van. “Y’all don’t know what it’s like in Mexi.”

Moments later, the man said, “Hola,” and there was laughter during a road trip that would soon take a deadly turn in the lawless border town.

In broad daylight, at 11:45 a.m., the van was intercepted and fired upon. All occupants were shot except for Washington McGee. A Mexican woman was killed by a stray bullet about a block and a half away.

Video showed the attackers, armed with rifles and wearing protective vests, tossing Washington McGee – “like trash” in the words of her mother, Barbara McLeod Burgess – onto the bed of a pickup.

The gunmen, believed to be connected to the Gulf drug cartel, dragged the other victims onto the truck. Two appeared limp, leaving a trail of blood on the ground of the busy intersection. The abductors then drove away.

Within days Mexican security forces found two of the Americans – Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown – dead in a small wooden shack on a desolate road leading to Playa Bagdad, near the spot where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. Another man, Eric Williams, was wounded. And Washington McGee was found alive following a violent kidnapping that has become a flash point between neighboring countries and brought international attention to a Mexican border city where little-noticed killings and disappearances are part of everyday life.

“If they were Mexicans this would not have happened with such speed,” Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an expert on smuggling who is a professor at George Mason University and has lived and worked in near Brownsville border, said of the rescue. “It would not have happened at all. It doesn’t happen with Mexicans, particularly in that state.”

By Friday, a week after the kidnappings, Mexican authorities announced that five people had been arrested for the attack. A day earlier, the Gulf cartel purportedly issued a letter of apology and handed over five members to local authorities, according to online images and a version of the letter obtained by CNN from an official familiar with the ongoing investigation. A sixth man, who authorities said had been guarding the hostages, was arrested when the Americans were found on Tuesday.

The four Americans that Friday morning drove into a country where authorities have struggled for small victories in a long and deadly battle against drug cartels. The conflict has claimed the lives of thousands of Mexicans, from innocent bystanders to journalists to government officials and political candidates.

It’s unclear how much the friends in the rented minivan knew about the crime-ridden border city, where factions of the powerful Gulf cartel have been warring for turf, along with control of human trafficking, kidnapping and extortion rackets. Matamoros is in the northeast state of Tamaulipas, where an explosion of homicides, kidnappings and disappearances rarely make international news.

“I know her,” said Washington McGee’s best friend, Cheryl Orange, who traveled with the group from South Carolina to Texas on March 2 but stayed behind because she did not have proper identification to cross the border. “She’s not going to travel to danger.”

The trip was Washington McGee’s second to Mexico for a medical procedure, according to her mother. She had surgery across the border two or three years ago, Barbara Burgess said.

Matamoros, with a population of more than 500,000 people, sits just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville. The US State Department in October issued a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for US citizens visiting Tamaulipas, citing gun battles, kidnapping and forced disappearances.

Friend of Americans kidnapped in Mexico recounts the moments before they went missing

On the day of the kidnappings, Tamaulipas authorities issued a warning to parents to keep their children home from school in Matamoros because of shootings. The US embassy and consulates in Mexico warned staff to avoid downtown Matamoros.

The Americans are believed to have been targeted by mistake and were not the intended victims, according to a US official with knowledge of the investigation. Authorities believe cartel members likely mistook them for Haitian smugglers, the official said. US authorities have not identified any concerning criminal history on the part of the Americans.

On Friday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador alluded to the purported “criminal background in the United States” of the Americans but did not elaborate on how that related to the deadly kidnapping. López Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” anti-crime policy – focusing on social programs rather than confrontation with criminal gangs – has come under fire at home and abroad.

CNN is looking into López Obrador’s claims about the criminal history of the US citizens.

US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar on Friday declined comment on the motivation behind the kidnappings.

Asked what she wanted people to know about her friends, Orange said: “I want the world to leave us alone and stop being mean. I want them to have a heart because everyone has a past.”

The disappearance of the four Americans has become an international incident.

The FBI launched an investigation and announced a $50,000 reward for their return and the arrest of those involved. The White House and State Department condemned the abduction and killings. Some Republicans in Congress called for a US military invasion of Mexico to combat the cartels. Others called for the US to designate the cartels as “terrorist organizations.”

Orange said she and the other four Americans embarked on their journey from South Carolina on Thursday.

“It was a road trip,” she said. They tagged along with Washington McGee, who was scheduled to have a medical procedure across the border, Orange told Brownsville police when she reported her friends missing a day after the kidnapping.

Mexico is the second most popular destination for medical tourism globally, with an estimated 1.4 million to 3 million patients traveling into the country for inexpensive treatment in 2020, according to Patients Beyond Borders, an international healthcare consulting company.

Woodard, who was killed in the kidnapping, would have celebrated his 34th birthday on Thursday, according to his father, James Woodard.

Washington McGee and Shaeed Woodard were cousins – “like two peas in a pod” – and she invited him on the trip to Mexico for an early birthday celebration, James Woodard said.

“They loved each other,” he said of the cousins.

Orange said the men were expected to drop off Washington McGee at the doctor’s officer in Matamoros and return to the hotel about 15 minutes later. She fell asleep after taking a shower at the Motel 6. “I was exhausted, you know, from the long hours, from the long ride,” she said.

She woke up about 5 p.m. and they hadn’t returned. Orange told police she tried calling her friends but couldn’t get through.

Victim’s mom reveals what daughter told her about killings

The four friends never arrived at the doctor’s office for Washington McGee’s 7:30 a.m. appointment. One of them called the office that Friday morning to say they were running late.

At some point after 11 a.m. a gray Volkswagen Jetta is seen following their minivan, according to surveillance video obtained by Mexican prosecutors.

About 40 minutes later several vehicles appear to be trailing the minivan and, at 11:45 a.m., the Americans were intercepted by gunmen.

Burgess said her daughter later told her by phone that the minivan was struck by another vehicle before the shooting started.

In video that circulated online after the kidnapping, McGee Washington is seen sitting on the ground next to the white minivan. A bullet appeared to pierce the middle of driver’s side window. Three other people can be seen on the road as cars on the busy intersection start steering away from the danger.

McGee Washington is shoved onto the back of a pickup before her three friends were lifted and tossed beside her.

“She said the others tried to run and they got shot at the same time,” Burgess said her daughter told her after the Americans were found on Tuesday.

“She watched them die,” Burgess said of Woodard and Zindell Brown.

Burgess watched the video, she said, and “I thought she was done,” referring to her daughter.

In the wee hours after reporting her friends missing, Orange watched the widely circulated video of the abduction.

“My body clenched up. I dropped the phone. My stomach was in knots and I just began praying for the return of them,” she said.

James Woodard was also pained by the video he saw on television.

“That was so hard for me to see,” he said. “He was a baby and for him to be taken from me like that was very hurtful.”

Shocking video shows moment kidnapped Americans were loaded into pickup truck

In the days after the kidnapping, Mexican authorities combed through surveillance video from the downtown intersection. They contacted US authorities after discovering documents in the rented minivan with North Carolina plates, which were traced by officials across the border. Mexican investigators also managed to identify the truck used by the gunmen.

Investigators processed vehicles, and obtained ballistics and fingerprint data. They also collected biological samples for genetic profiles, Mexican officials said.

After identifying the truck used by the gunmen, several unsuccessful searches were conducted by heavily armed Mexican security forces from various agencies.

The Americans had been moved to several places “to create confusion and avoid rescue efforts,” Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said.

Burgess said her daughter told her the abductors moved the four Americans “from place to place” and finally hid them in “a little place and it stank.”

“All of them were hustled in and were staying together,” she said.

At 10:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the Americans were found in a small red wooden shack in a field outside the city. Mexican authorities arrested a man who they said was guarding the house. Images from the scene showed McGee barefoot and covered in dirt, with streaks of blood on her left leg.

Mexico dispatched hundreds of security forces to Matamoros in what the defense ministry said was a move to safeguard “the well-being of citizens.”

The swift response by authorities to the Americans’ kidnapping raised eyebrows in a country where desperate relatives of people who have gone missing over the years have banded together to conduct their own investigations. More than 100,000 Mexicans and migrants have disappeared in the country over the years, with no explanation of their fate.

After the frantic rescue, Orange said hearing Washington MaGee’s voice on the phone was “music to my ears.”

“This lady was facing death damn near and she said, ‘I was worried about you,’” Orange recalled.

The bodies of Woodard and Brown were turned over to US authorities on Thursday.

Washington McGee told CNN Saturday she is grateful to be back home with her family in South Carolina.

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March 11, 2023
‘Cop City’ protester’s hands were raised when fatally shot by officers, family says | CNN

CNN
—

A “Cop City” protester’s hands were raised when law enforcement officers who were attempting to clear the site of a planned police and fire training facility near Atlanta opened fire, an autopsy commissioned by the activist’s family found, attorneys say.

The hands of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, 26, who was killed in January, showed exit wounds in both palms, according to a news release from attorneys on Friday. “The autopsy further reveals that Manuel was most probably in a seated position, cross-legged when killed.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said the officers shot Terán after the activist seriously wounded a state trooper during the move to clear activists from the site.

Terán was near a planned $90 million, 85-acre law enforcement training facility where opponents had camped out for months in an attempt to halt construction, CNN previously reported.

Attorneys for the Terán family said they plan to release the private autopsy Monday at a news conference. They claim the GBI, which is investigating the shooting, has not been transparent.

The activist’s mother, Belkis Terán, flew to Atlanta from Panama to show solidarity with the movement opposing the facility, dubbed “Cop City” by opponents.

“Imagine the police killed your child. And now then imagine they won’t tell you anything. That is what we are going through,” she said in Friday’s release on the second autopsy.

The GBI counters such claims, saying it is being careful about not making “inappropriate” releases of information, so as to “preserve the integrity of the investigation and to ensure the facts of the incident are not tainted. The GBI investigation still supports our initial assessment.”

According to the GBI, Terán opened fire on law enforcement from inside a tent after failing to comply with verbal commands, wounding the trooper. A handgun recovered from the scene matched the projectile from the trooper’s wound, the agency said.

There is no bodycam footage of the shooting.

“The GBI cannot and will not attempt to sway public opinion in this case but will continue to be led by the facts and truth,” the agency said. “We understand the extreme emotion that this has caused Teran’s family and will continue to investigate as comprehensively as possible.”

In a statement late Friday, the GBI said attorneys for the protester’s family incorrectly said the agency conducted the first autopsy. Rather, the GBI said, the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office did the autopsy.

“The GBI continues to work diligently to protect the integrity of the investigation and will turn our findings over to an appointed prosecutor for review and action,” the statement says.

The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is set to be built on a controversial piece of land that used to be a prison farm. Though it’s just outside city limits, that plot of land is owned by the city, meaning residents who live around the site don’t have voting power for the leaders who approved it.

Those backing the facility say it’s needed to help boost police morale and recruitment efforts. Previous facilities are substandard while fire officials train in “borrowed facilities,” the Atlanta Police Foundation has said. The foundation says the center will focus on “community-oriented” policing.

But “Cop City” has received fierce pushback since its conception by residents who feel there was little public input, conservationists who worry it will carve out a chunk of much-needed forest land and activists who say it will militarize police forces and contribute to further instances of police brutality.

Activists associated with protesting the facility have called Terán a “forest defender” working to fight environmental racism. They said Terán identified as nonbinary and was a “sweet, warm, very smart and caring” person. Belkis Terán said if her child had a gun, it was to protect against animals in the woods.

Twenty-three people arrested last weekend after violent protests at the site were charged with domestic terrorism and all but one were denied bond. Atlanta police say they were “violent agitators” who infiltrated a peaceful protest at the site and conducted a “coordinated attack” on officers and construction equipment.

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March 11, 2023
The 3 White men who killed Ahmaud Arbery are appealing their federal hate crime convictions. 2 of them say race didn’t play a role in their actions | CNN

CNN
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The three White men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black jogger, are appealing their federal hate crime convictions, with two of the three arguing the government did not prove they chased the young man because of his race.

The men’s attorneys, who filed the appeals earlier this month, all asked for an opportunity to present their case in court.

Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were found guilty of murder in a Georgia court in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison.

In their federal trial that followed, all three were found guilty of interference of rights, a federal hate crime, and attempted kidnapping, while the McMichaels were also each convicted on a weapons charge. The father and son were sentenced to life in prison and Bryan was sentenced to 35 years, to be served at the same time as his state sentence.

In their appeals, the elder McMichael and Bryan both challenge whether prosecutors proved the men acted the way they did “because of” Arbery’s race and color. Travis McMichael’s appeal instead focused on more technical matters to do his convictions of attempted kidnapping and weapons use charges.

“The evidence against Bryan did not present a man who saw the world through a prism of racism. He was not obsessed with African Americans such as his codefendant Travis McMichael,” Defense attorney J. Pete Theodocion, who filed an appeal on behalf of Bryan, wrote in the filing.

“There is simply not sufficient evidence in the record to suggest Bryan would have acted any differently on the day in question had Arbery been white, Hispanic, Asian or other,” the attorney wrote. “Every crime committed against an African American is not a hate crime. Every crime committed against an African American by a man who has used racist language in the past is not a hate crime.”

See the moment judge holds moment of silence for Ahmaud Arbury

Arbery was shot dead on February 23, 2020, while he was out on a jog – something he was known to do, according to his loved ones – in the Satilla Shores neighborhood, outside the city of Brunswick in south Georgia.

Video of the fatal shooting sparked nationwide outrage after it was released in May 2020, weeks before the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis that set off a summer of widespread protests against racial injustice.

The federal trial of the three men featured testimony from witnesses who spoke about racist messages the men used.

The remarks witnesses shared in court, which had been made privately and publicly, revealed the men talked about Black people in derogatory terms and used racial slurs in conversations with others – key evidence prosecutors used to prove they acted out of racial animus.

Defense attorneys during the trial acknowledged their clients used racist language but denied that’s what motivated their actions.

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March 10, 2023
Police release Michigan State shooting timeline and a troubling note found in the gunman’s pocket | CNN
CNN
—

The gunman who killed three Michigan State University students and critically wounded five others last month in a mass shooting wrote in a note found in his pocket that he was “tired of being rejected” and was hurt, police said Friday.

The Michigan State University Police and Public Safety Department released a detailed timeline of events and shared images of a note gunman Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, wrote, police said in a news release.

Written on spiral notebook paper, the two-page document is dated a day before the February 12 shooting. Portions of it have been redacted by police.

One side of the note starts with the gunman identifying himself: “Hi My Name is Anthony McRae.” A second side starts with “They hurted me” at the top of the page before listing the locations of other targeted areas.

McRae writes that he is the leader of a group of 20 people and claims “another team” in his group will be targeting the other outlined locations – upon discovering the note, law enforcement officials “investigated and cleared all of the other locations McRae named in the note,” police said.

“While McRae states in the note that he was acting with others, investigators from MSU DPPS, Michigan State Police and the FBI have determined through comprehensive reviews and detailed follow-up that McRae acted alone and was not working with other people,” the statement from MSU DPPS said.

In the letter, McRae appears to write about his grievances repeatedly writing “they hate me” and detailing other general, non-specific, perceived slights against him like “I’m tired of being rejected,” “No one noticed me,” “Everywhere I go people treat me different.”

Police detail a timeline of events, sharing the gunman’s whereabouts and how police responded to his movements accordingly:
8:18 p.m. – Ingham County 911 started receiving calls of the first shots fired at Berkey Hall, MSU police said

Two minutes later, at 8:20 p.m. ET, officers entered Berkey Hall

8:24 p.m. – McRae entered the Union

8:26 p.m. – First report of shooting at the Union

8:27 p.m. – Officers arrived at the Union

8:30 p.m. – First emergency alert notification was sent

8:31 p.m. – Second emergency alert notification was sent

11:18 p.m. – Photo of suspect was shared on MSU DPPS social media

11:35 p.m. – Ingham County 911 received a call about a person matching the description of the suspect walking on Lake Lansing Road near High Street in the City of Lansing

11:49 p.m. – Officers approached McRae and he shot and killed himself
As part of the ongoing investigation, police said they are currently reviewing and finalizing details of the route McRae took as he left campus, according to the statement.

From February 13 to February 14 between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m., Ingham County 911 received 2,100 phone calls, which is the equivalent of 2.5 days’ worth of calls for the dispatch center – within a 5-hour period, police said.
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March 10, 2023
5 arrested in deadly kidnapping of Americans in Mexico after cartel issues apology letter and hands over members | CNN

CNN
—

Mexican authorities arrested five people in connection to the kidnappings of four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico, Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica said on Twitter Friday.

Earlier, a cartel apologized for carrying out what one victim’s father has called “a senseless crime” that left two Americans and one Mexican woman dead.

The case remained “very confusing” to investigators, who were still obtaining information on the kidnapping last Friday and considering all angles, a Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office official familiar with the investigation told CNN before news broke of the arrests.

An apology letter was issued Thursday by the Gulf Cartel, which is believed to be responsible for the kidnappings, and the group handed over five of its members to local authorities, according to images circulating online and a version of the letter obtained by CNN from an official familiar with the ongoing investigation.

CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of the photos and has asked Mexican and US authorities for comment.

“The [Gulf Cartel] apologizes to the society of Matamoros, the relatives of Ms. Areli, and the affected American people and families,” reads the handwritten letter, referring to a Mexican woman who was also killed by a stray bullet in the shootout.

Though investigators believe the letter to be authentic, Mexican and US law enforcement officials participating in the investigation strongly doubt the sincerity of the group’s apology, the official who shared the letter with CNN said.

One person already had been detained in connection with the Americans’ deaths who was undertaking “surveillance functions of the victims,” Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said Tuesday, identifying the individual as 24-year-old Jose “N.” Officials would not confirm whether the man has any affiliations with criminal organizations.

The bodies of two Americans killed – Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown – were delivered to US diplomatic authorities Thursday after undergoing forensic examination, Barrios Mojica said in a tweet.

“I’ve tried to make sense out of it and tried to be strong about it,” Woodard’s father, James Woodard, told reporters Thursday, which would have been his son’s 34th birthday. “It just was a senseless crime.”

The two survivors – Latavia Washington McGee and Eric Williams – returned to the US on Tuesday to be treated in a hospital. Williams, who had been shot three times in his legs, has since undergone two surgeries and had rods placed in his legs, his wife said on a GoFundMe page to raise money for Williams’s medical and living expenses.

A fifth American group member, Cheryl Orange, planned to travel with the group on the day of the kidnapping but had to stay behind because she did not have proper identification to cross the border. She told CNN that she has battled the guilt of narrowly missing the attack.

“I beat myself up in the beginning about that and I have everybody telling me that I need to be grateful. I really wish I was by Tay’s side,” Orange said, referring to her “best friend,” Washington McGee by her nickname “Tay.”

The tight-knit group had traveled from South Carolina to Matamoros so that Washington McGee could undergo a medical procedure. But the friends were violently intercepted by gunmen who fired into the Americans’ van, roughly loaded them into the back of a truck and took them away, according to Washington McGee’s mother and a video of the encounter.

The victims were shuttled to multiple locations before they were found in a house around Matamoros Tuesday, Villarreal said. Tamaulipas prosecutors have since found an ambulance that was used to transport the victims to first aid treatment at a clinic, which authorities have also located, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

As the group of friends crossed into Matamoros last Friday, Orange stayed behind at their hotel in Brownsville, Texas, becoming increasingly concerned as evening came and the friends hadn’t returned, she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday.

“I said something’s not right,” Orange said. She reached out to her boyfriend and Washington McGee’s brother to say she was getting worried.

When it came time for Orange to check out of their hotel the next morning, there was still no sign of Washington McGee and the others, Orange said. At that point, she became so concerned that she decided to call the police.

Orange reported the group missing on Saturday to Brownsville Police, according to a police report. The report states that police checked a local jail to make sure that no one in the party had been taken into custody, but no other action was taken.

Eventually, Orange saw the video of the kidnapping that was circulating online, showing Washington McGee being shoved into the back of a truck by armed gunmen and the other victims’ bodies being dragged in beside her.

“My body clenched up. I dropped the phone. My stomach was in knots and I just began praying for the return of them,” she said of seeing the video.

Upon finally hearing Washington McGee’s voice after she was discovered alive, Orange was able to feel some relief. “It put me at ease a little bit. It was music to my ears to hear her voice,” she said.

Meanwhile, the families of Woodard and Brown are left to grapple with the loss of their loved ones.

“That was hard for me to see those videos and see him dragged and thrown on the back of a vehicle. It’s like god was preparing me already to know that it was probably the worst,” Woodard’s father said of watching the video of the kidnapping.

Woodard had accompanied his cousin, Washington McGee to Mexico for her procedure, but also to celebrate his upcoming 34th birthday, his father said. He described his son as a “sweetheart” and a “loving person.”

“If you told me this day was coming I would have never believed it,” James Woodard said. He later added, “A parent never expects to lose a child.”

US and Mexican law enforcement officials suspect the Gulf Cartel’s apology letter was issued after the kidnapping exposed the cartel to considerable public attention and scrutiny of its actions, according to the US official who confirmed the letter’s authenticity.

In its letter, the cartel apologized to “the society of Matamoros, the relatives of Ms. Areli, and the affected American people and families,” referring to the Mexican woman who was killed by a stray bullet.

It is common for Mexican cartels, especially in the northeast of the country, to release messages to the authorities or rival groups in the aftermath of high-profile incidents, according to Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University who studies the cartels.

The apology came after the arrest of a local Gulf Cartel leader, who was wanted for past kidnappings, in the city of Reynosa, about 55 miles west of Matamoros, according to a US official briefed on the apprehension.

Any connection to last week’s kidnapping of the Americans is unclear. But, as CNN has reported, the official believes members of the Gulf Cartel attacked the Americans in Matamoros, after mistaking them for Haitian drug smugglers.

The local cartel leader, Ernesto Sanchez-Rivera, is also known as “Metro 22” and is known to also have ties to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the source added.

CNN has reached out to the local prosecutor for more information on the apprehension but has not yet received a response.

The kidnapping of Americans has brought increased scrutiny to efforts to reign in cartel violence in Mexico, including from Republican lawmakers in the US who have called for designating cartels as terrorist organizations and signaled their plans to file legislation allowing the US military to operate in Mexico.

The pressure from Republicans has been met with a swift rebuke from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who says the actions would infringe on Mexican sovereignty.

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March 10, 2023
Judge says jury in E. Jean Carroll case can see ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and testimony of two other accusers | CNN Politics

CNN
—

A federal judge on Friday said that E. Jean Carroll, in her defamation case against former President Donald Trump, can use as evidence the testimony of two other sexual assault accusers as well as the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he bragged about being able to grope women.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s request that the judge block the accusers from testifying at trial. Trump also asked the judge to block the Access Hollywood tape from being played at the trial.

Carroll, the former magazine columnist who sued Trump for defamation after he denied raping her in the mid-1990s, has indicated that she will call Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, two women who came forward with allegations against Trump in 2016, as well as use their videotaped depositions.

Stoynoff alleged Trump sexually assaulted her when she was reporting an article about Trump and his wife, Melania, for People magazine. Leeds alleged Trump groped her while they were on an airplane together. Trump has denied both allegations, as well as Carroll’s rape claims.

In Friday’s opinion, the judge pointed to court rules passed by Congress in 1994 that say that that in a civil case “based on a party’s sexual assault,” evidence that the defendant committed any other sexual assault may be admitted in trial.

The judge said that, even though Carroll’s case is a defamation case, she must prove Trump sexually assaulted her in order to prevail.

“In consequence, this indeed is a case ‘based on’ a sexual assault even under the categorical approach,” said Kaplan, who sits on the federal bench in the Southern District of New York.

The judge noted that Trump has publicly denied the accusations of the other women Carroll seeks to put on the stand and said that Trump is entitled to put those denials before the jury.

Carroll is also seeking to introduce as evidence statements Trump made during the 2016 campaign about his accusers. Kaplan is deferring on ruling whether those statements are admissible.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that the Access Hollywood tape was “irrelevant and highly prejudicial.” They argued that the testimony of the two other accusers “will offer no relevant or meaningful insight into the central question.”

“We maintain the utmost confidence that our client will be vindicated at the upcoming trial,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said Friday.

A spokesperson for Carroll’s lawyers declined to comment on the new ruling.

The case is set to go to trial in April while awaiting a DC appeals court decision that could determine whether the case proceeds against Trump. Carroll also sued Trump for battery and defamation in a separate lawsuit under a new New York law. The judge has not determined whether the trials will be combined.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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March 10, 2023
Former Ohio House speaker convicted in $60 million bribery scheme | CNN Politics

CNN
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A former Republican speaker of Ohio’s House of Representatives was convicted by a federal jury Thursday on racketeering conspiracy charges in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme.

Former Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Mathew Borges, who was also convicted Thursday, could face up to 20 years in prison for orchestrating the scheme to accept bribes in exchange for ensuring the passage of a billion-dollar bailout for a nuclear energy company.

“As presented by the trial team, Larry Householder illegally sold the statehouse, and thus he ultimately betrayed the great people of Ohio he was elected to serve,” said US Attorney Kenneth Parker.

Steven Bradley, an attorney for Householder, expressed disappointment with the verdict.

“We will take some time to discuss and evaluate our legal options moving forward and will most certainly pursue an appeal,” he said. “Larry is looking forward to going home and spending time with his family after what has been an exhausting seven week trial.”

CNN reached out to an attorney for Borges for comment.

The release did not explicitly identify the nuclear energy company involved in the scheme but noted that utility company FirstEnergy Corp. previously agreed to pay a $230 million penalty for “conspiring to bribe public officials and others” as part of a deferred prosecution settlement.

Jennifer Young, a manager for external communications at FirstEnergy Corp., told CNN that “while it would be inappropriate to comment on the verdict, FirstEnergy has taken decisive actions over the past several years to strengthen our leadership team and ensure a culture of strong ethics, integrity and accountability across the company.”

Jeffrey Longstreth, Householder’s longtime campaign and political strategist, and Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist, previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the racketeering conspiracy.

Beginning in March 2017, FirstEnergy began making quarterly $250,000 payments to Householder’s tax-exempt social welfare account named Generation Now, US attorneys in Ohio’s southern district laid out in their case.

Householder’s team then used that money to support the passage of House Bill 6, a $1 billion bailout that saved two nuclear power plants operated by FirstEnergy Corp., and stop a ballot effort to overturn the law.

Millions of those dollars went to Householder’s bid for speaker, to other state House candidates likely to support him and to his team’s own pockets.

Householder spent over $500,000 of those funds to “pay off his credit card balances, repair his Florida home and settle a business lawsuit,” according to prosecutors.

Borges used about $366,000 for his own benefit and used another $15,000 to bribe an Ohio Republican operative for information on the number of signatures collected on the ballot referendum opposing HB 6, the news release said.

Householder and his associates were arrested and charged with racketeering conspiracy in July 2020.

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March 10, 2023
US Chess Federation investigates grandmaster following accusations of sexual misconduct | CNN

CNN
—

A chess grandmaster is under investigation by the game’s governing body in the US following accusations of sexual misconduct, according to the US Chess Federation.

Two formal complaints were received last September by the federation regarding conduct by Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez and the investigation “is ongoing,” the organization stated Thursday, adding that Ramirez’s membership has been suspended.

The announcement comes after two-time US women’s chess champion Jennifer Shahade posted on social media on February 15, “Time’s up,” accompanied by a two-page statement saying she was assaulted by Ramirez two times “9 and 10 years ago.”

Shahade wrote that she was speaking out now after other women had approached her with their own accounts of abuse by Ramirez.

CNN has reached out to Ramirez for comment about the accusations through his lawyer Albert S. Watkins, who replied, “I have been directed to respect the confidentiality I was advised would purportedly attach to pending investigative undertakings.”

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the accusations, quoted Watkins as saying, “At some point we are all compelled to take pause and reflect on the reality that unsubstantiated, temporally aged, and concurrent use of social media to incite a ‘Me Too’ call-to-arms runs afoul of every constitutional safeguard we have always held so dear. Superimposing today’s mores on erroneous recitals of acts of yesteryear is a recipe for disaster for both the accused and the accuser.”

Shahade told CNN she had notified the US Chess Federation and the prominent Saint Louis Chess Club – where Ramirez served as a resident Grandmaster – of the alleged transgressions in 2020. She again reported concerns about Ramirez in 2021 after learning of a separate allegation from a fellow chess player, she said.

Since her tweet last month, Shahade told the Wall Street Journal and CNN that other women have told her about alleged experiences of abuse by Ramirez.

US Chess said it “strongly respects the right of alleged victims to control when and to whom they tell their story. However, because US Chess did not receive complaints from, or sufficient information regarding, the allegations of the other women referenced in the WSJ article, we have not had the opportunity to investigate and consider those additional allegations. That process is underway.”

The Wall Street Journal reports Ramirez has resigned from his post at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Ramirez had been a chess coach with Saint Louis University since the inception of the school’s chess program in 2016. A university spokesperson told CNN Thursday, “On February 16, at our request, the St. Louis Chess Club removed Ramirez as SLU’s coach. They have since assigned an interim coach to lead the team.”

Shahade told CNN Thursday, “I am relieved to hear Alejandro Ramirez resigned from the chess club and SLU. It is high time for a new chess era where we do all we can to make women, girls and all children feel fully safe and welcome.”

CNN has reached out to the Saint Louis Chess Club and the International Chess Federation (FIDE) for comment.

According to the Saint Louis Chess Club website, Ramirez was a chess prodigy and a FIDE Master when he was 9 years old. Ramirez earned his Grandmaster title by the age of 15.

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March 9, 2023
Tiger Woods’ ex-girlfriend has lawsuits against golfer and trust | CNN

CNN
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Erica Herman, who was a longtime girlfriend of golfer Tiger Woods, has filed two separate complaints after the six-year relationship between the pair came to an end. Both filings were made to the circuit court in Martin County, Florida.

The first suit, filed in October 2022, alleges a trust owned by Woods violated the Florida Residential Landlord Tenant Act by breaking the oral tenancy agreement. The filing states the actual damages “are likely to be measured in excess of $30,000,000.” Woods is not named as a defendant in the October lawsuit.

In December, the trust filed a motion for the court to dismiss with prejudice in response to Herman’s complaint, alleging that the dispute between the two began when Woods broke off his relationship with Herman in October and informed her “that she was no longer welcome in” Woods’ home.

It further states that the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between the two required “confidential arbitration in all disputes between” Herman and Woods, and that Herman’s suit violates that agreement. A copy of the NDA is attached to Woods’ trust’s motion, but the publicly available version of that document is redacted entirely.

A more recent complaint aimed at nullifying the NDA was served to Woods on Monday. Both cases are being brought by Fisher Potter Hodas, a Florida-based family law specialist. CNN reached out to Fisher Potter Hodas for further comment but did not immediately receive a response.

CNN also reached out to Woods’ representatives for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The October filing alleges that Woods’ Jupiter Island Irrevocable Homestead Trust unlawfully brought Herman’s tenancy at the couple’s property on the Hobe Sound, Florida, to an end.

The legal filing states, “the Defendant (Woods and his trust) elected to engage in ‘prohibited practices,’ i.e., self-help, causing… severe emotional damages to the Plaintiff. The prohibited practices were done intentionally, with premeditation, and with malice aforethought.”

Specifically, the lawsuit claims “agents of the Defendant” told Herman “to pack a suitcase for a short vacation” before revealing to her that she had been locked out of the house on arrival at the airport. It claims lawyers for the trust were on hand to “confront” Herman with “proposals to resolve the wrongdoing they were in the midst of committing.”

The filing also alleges that agents of Woods and the trust have since removed Herman’s belongings from the property and “misappropriated” over $40,000 of her cash.

The NDA was signed in August 2017 according to the court filing, but Herman believes it is “invalid and unenforceable.”

It notes that during litigation, a trust controlled by Woods commenced an arbitration against Herman based on the NDA, thus expressing its belief that the agreement remains valid.

The filing asks for the “purported arbitration clause” in the NDA be deemed unenforceable under the federal Ending Forced Arbitration Of Sexual Assault And Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 and the federal Speak Out Act.

The former bill, coming into public law in March 2022, “invalidates arbitration agreements that preclude a party from filing a lawsuit in court involving sexual assault or sexual harassment, at the election of the party alleging such conduct,” according to Congress’ website.

The Speak Out Act became public law in December 2022 and “prohibits the judicial enforceability of a nondisclosure clause or nondisparagement clause agreed to before a dispute arises involving sexual assault or sexual harassment.”

The filing does not accuse Woods of sexual assault or sexual harassment. In a civil cover sheet appended to the October suit, Herman’s attorney indicated “no” when asked whether the case “involves allegations of sexual abuse.”

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March 9, 2023
Bodies of 2 Mexico kidnapping victims expected to be returned to the US for further autopsies, source says | CNN

CNN
—

The bodies of two Americans killed in an armed kidnapping in Mexico are expected to be returned to the US on Thursday, a source from the Mexico Attorney General’s Office tells CNN, after two survivors of the attack returned to the US for treatment at a hospital.

The remains of Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown likely will be transported to a funeral home in Brownsville, Texas, a US official familiar with the investigation said. The repatriation would come two days after the bodies were discovered alongside their two surviving friends in a house around the Mexican city of Matamoros.

Autopsies were completed Wednesday morning in Mexico, an official from the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office told CNN, though Mexican authorities have not released causes of death. Second autopsies will be performed in the US, the US official said.

CNN has reached out to the US State Department about the repatriation of remains.

The deceased were part of a group of four friends from South Carolina who had driven Friday into Matamoros so one of them, Latavia Washington McGee, could undergo a medical procedure, two family members told CNN. But their trip was violently interrupted when unidentified gunmen fired on their van, then loaded the Americans into a vehicle and drove them away, the FBI said.

An innocent Mexican bystander was also killed by a stray bullet almost a block and a half from where the Americans were kidnapped, according to Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal.

Survivor Eric Williams was shot three times in the legs, his wife Michele Williams told CNN. When he and McGee were discovered alive Tuesday, Williams was taken to a hospital in Texas for surgery, she said.

Washington McGee was also taken to the hospital, her mother, Barbara Burgess, told CNN, though Mexican authorities said she was uninjured.

“She watched them die,” Burgess said, recounting what Washington McGee told her about the kidnapping. “They were driving through and a van came up and hit them, and that’s when they started shooting at the car, shooting inside the van. … She said the others tried to run and they got shot at the same time.”

Washington McGee and Brown are cousins who were raised together as closely as siblings, Burgess said.

“He was a good person, and I miss him,” Burgess said of Brown. “I loved him. (There’s) nothing I wouldn’t do for him.”

Investigators believe the group was targeted by a Mexican cartel who mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers, a US official familiar with the investigation told CNN on Monday, and the kidnapping has renewed attention to efforts by US and Mexican officials to combat organized crime in Mexico.

During a Wednesday news briefing held by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a government-sponsored fact-checking agency claimed reports of the Americans being mistaken for Haitian drug traffickers are false. The president said “adversaries” in Mexico and the US are attempting to make a “scandal” of the case.

CNN has reached out to investigators in the US and Mexico, as well as the fact-checking agency.

Mexican authorities are still investigating the kidnapping. One person, identified as 24-year-old Jose “N,” was detained when the Americans were found Tuesday, according to Villarreal, though officials would not confirm whether he is connected to a criminal organization.

The kidnapping of the four friends on Friday spurred a days-long investigation by local and federal Mexican officials, who say they were in almost-constant contact with US authorities until the two survivors and the victims’ bodies were finally discovered.

The four friends had booked a hotel in Brownsville, Texas, and were planning to drive to a doctor’s office in Matamoros on Friday for Washington McGee to undergo a medical procedure, a close friend who did not want to be identified told CNN.

Video shows Americans kidnapped in Mexico being loaded into pickup truck

At about 9:18 a.m. Friday, the group crossed into Matamoros, Villarreal said. But on their way to the clinic, the group became lost and were struggling to contact the doctor’s office for directions due to a poor phone signal, the close friend said.

Suddenly, another vehicle collided into the group’s van and gunmen began shooting at the group, sending some of the friends running, according to Burgess, who recounted her daughter’s experience. “They all got shot at the same time,” she said.

A video obtained by CNN shows Washington McGee being shoved onto the bed of a white pickup truck by a group of armed men, who then begin dragging at least two other limp bodies into the truck. Burgess, when asked about the video, said her daughter was treated “like trash.”

The Americans were then taken from the scene in the vehicle, according to an FBI account of the kidnapping.

Over the next few days, the groups was moved to several different locations to “create confusion and avoid rescue efforts,” Villarreal said.

Meanwhile, Mexican investigators were searching for the missing group, sifting through surveillance footage and processing the vehicles and ballistics found at the scene, officials said.

After noticing the Americans’ van had North Carolina license plates, Mexican authorities reached out to US officials, who were able to run the plates, according to Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica. They were also able to identify the gunmen’s truck, he said.

“Several searches” were then initiated across multiple agencies, and the group was ultimately found in a “wooden house” in or near Matamoros on Tuesday morning, Villarreal said.

Though US law enforcement were not involved in the search on the ground, federal and local agencies in Mexico were cooperating in the effort and a joint task force was created to communicate with US officials, Barrios Mojica said.

The fatal kidnapping – and the possibility it was carried out by a cartel – has brought increased attention to ongoing efforts by US and Mexican officials to curb cartel activity that is a primary driver of the fentanyl trade between the countries.

A US delegation traveled to Mexico this week to “discuss our governments’ ongoing cooperation in combating illicit fentanyl,” a national security council spokesman told CNN Wednesday.

The visit comes as fentanyl – a potent synthetic opioid – fuels a record number of overdose deaths in the US, with Mexico being the “dominant source” of the drug in the US, according to a government report released last year.

The delegation plans to address the kidnapping and discuss a “fundamental strategy to attack the cartels,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday.

President Joe Biden promised “strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking” in his State of the Union address last month. His administration has since sanctioned several cartel members and associated groups for their participation in the drug trade.

López Obrador said there was “good cooperation” underway between the two countries on anti-drug efforts, but resisted calls from some Republican lawmakers in the US to designate cartels as terrorist organizations, saying it would infringe on Mexican sovereignty.

“We do not get involved in seeing what the gangs in the United States that distribute fentanyl are doing or how the drug is distributed in the United States,” López Obrador said at his daily news conference in Mexico City.

Ongoing talks between the US and Mexico are “working in a coordinated manner with respect to sovereignty,” he said.

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March 9, 2023