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Tag: law enforcement

  • Arrest log

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    The following arrests were made recently by local police departments. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Massachusetts’ privacy law prevents police from releasing information involving domestic and sexual violence arrests with the goal to protect the alleged victims.

    BEDFORD

    • Paul Gioiosa, 48, Bedford; warrants.

    BILLERICA

    • Jesse Rawson, 29, 12 Belva Road, Billerica; possession of Class B drug.

    • Flith Derival, 35, 158 Concord Road, Billerica; unlicensed operation of motor vehicle.

    • Abudala Luhembo, 36, 2 Hampshire Road, Reading; assault and battery, possession of Class B drug.

    • Megan Whittier, 53, 10 Roosevelt Road, Billerica; no inspection/sticker, operation of motor vehicle with suspended/revoked license.

    LOWELL

    • Priscilla Silva De Carvalho, 34, 11 Summit Ave., Third Floor, Lawrence; warrant (failure to appear for unlicensed operation of motor vehicle).

    • Melissa Rodriguez, 33, 48 Dublin St., Lowell; operating motor vehicle after license suspension.

    • Chivonne Williams, 44, 27 Jackson St., Apt. 312, Lowell; warrant (failure to appear for possession of Class C drug), possession of Class B drug.

    • Philip Haley, 66, 481 Bridge St., Lowell; possession of Class B drug.

    • Patricia Boisvert, 27, 18 Auburn St., Lowell; warrant (failure to appear for receiving stolen motor vehicle).

    • Dennis Foster, 46, homeless; warrant (shoplifting by asportation), possession of Class B drug.

    • Mounthy Vongxay, 35, homeless; warrants (failure to appear for assault and battery, breaking and entering building at nighttime, and larceny under $1,200).

    • Danny Santos, 36, 111 Fort Hill Ave., Lowell; warrants (failure to appear for two counts trespassing, and unlicensed operation of motor vehicle).

    • Rafael Deleon, 58, 58 Oak St., Lowell; warrant (malicious damage to motor vehicle).

    • Matthew Simard, 34, 701 Methuen St., Dracut; possession of Class B drug with intent to distribute, manufacturing/dispensing Class B drug.

    NASHUA, N.H.

    • Matthew Paul Story Jr., 20, 171 Hartt Ave., Manchester, N.H.; criminal trespass.

    • Christiana Braccio, 23, 16 Country Club Drive, Apt. 1, Manchester, N.H.; two counts of theft by unauthorized taking ($0-$1,000).

    • Thomas Abreu, 33, 69B Chandler St., Nashua; simple assault.

    • Calvin Degreenia, 39, 10 Courtland St., Nashua; warrant.

    • Gidean Andrade, 23, 871 Middlesex St., Apt. 7, Lowell; operation of motor vehicle without valid license.

    • Bernard Leard, 83, 12 Tumblebrook Lane, Nashua; failure to procure dog license.

    • Nicole Long, 35, 14 Cross St., Apt. 2, Nashua; operation of motor vehicle without valid license, driving motor vehicle without giving proof, driving motor vehicle after license revocation/suspension.

    • Marques Stanford, 37, no fixed address; operation of motor vehicle without valid license, driving motor vehicle after license revocation/suspension.

    • Sarah Felch, 43, no fixed address; warrant.

    • Eliezer Rosario-Medina, 26, no fixed address; criminal trespass.

    • David Perez, 37, no fixed address; nonappearance in court.

    • Daniel Frost, 30, 3 Dolan St., Apt. 2, Nashua; criminal mischief.

    • Jennifer Elaine Bowen, 52, 199 Manchester St., Manchester, N.H.; nonappearances in court.

    • Nicholas Deveau, 28, 11 Wildwood Road, Tewksbury; disorderly conduct.

    WESTFORD

    • Ismael Paulino Mendoza, 23, Groton Road, Chelmsford; operation of motor vehicle with suspended license, marked lanes violation.

    WILMINGTON

    • Morgan Lynch, 31, 4 Lockwood Road, Wilmington; unlicensed operation of motor vehicle.

    • Magno Moreira, 38, 345 Sutton St., North Andover; operation of motor vehicle with suspended license, speeding.

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  • Surveillance video shows Titans cornerback driving car minutes before alleged shooting

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    Surveillance video shows Tennessee Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed driving a Lamborghini Urus at a suburban Dallas dealership and nearby gas station minutes before two men allege that shots were fired at them from that vehicle last December.

    Sneed, 28, was indicted Tuesday by a Dallas County grand jury on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report felony aggravated assault to law enforcement. The indictment does not include details of the alleged incident on Dec. 6.

    In the video, Sneed can be seen getting out of the Lamborghini, then using crutches to walk past the men and up stairs into the dealership at 3:22 p.m. on that date. Sneed walks out about a minute later in the video, which was shared Thursday with The Associated Press by attorney Levi McCathern, who represents the two men in a civil lawsuit against Sneed over the shooting.

    The Titans cornerback, who was on injured reserve, also can be seen in separate surveillance video at a gas station at the same time as the two men. In the video, Sneed walks in from a gas pump, goes to a register and then walks back to the same car when Christian Nshimiyimana and Avi Ahmed were inside.

    Minutes later, Nshimiyimana and Ahmed say in their lawsuit that they were shot at while sitting in a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon at the dealership. The surveillance video shows a vehicle driving past with four loud pops heard and an arm out the passenger side window at 3:42 p.m. That vehicle then speeds off.

    A probable cause affidavit from the Carrollton Police Department dated Dec. 11 said Ahmed asked employees about two men he had seen earlier and that Sneed was identified as one of those men. The dealership also provided Sneed’s phone number.

    Detectives also confirmed Sneed’s identity from surveillance video from several locations.

    “It was apparent that Sneed was the only person they had seen getting out of and into the driver seat of the Lamborghini. He also was the last person seen getting into the driver seat at the RaceTrac (gas station) approximately eight minutes before the shooting,” according to the affidavit.

    The police affidavit also noted: “Combined with the rapid acceleration away from the scene proved that Sneed knew what he was doing when assisted the shooter in fleeing the scene.”

    Nshimiyimana and Ahmed allege that Sneed and another man, Tekonzae Williams, were inside the Lamborghini when the shots were fired. Williams was indicted Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Court records did not list an attorney for Williams.

    McCathern, of McCathern Law, said Thursday his clients were pleased that Sneed and his associate were indicted.

    “Hopefully, this will be the beginning of getting justice for my clients,” McCathern said. “As the video clearly shows, they are very lucky to be alive after Mr. Sneed’s actions.”

    Sneed’s attorney, Michael J. Todd, did not return a message left by the AP on Thursday. Sneed’s agent had no comment Wednesday.

    No people were hit by bullets, though the lawsuit says bullets did hit the Mercedes-Benz as well as a building at the car lot. The lawsuit against Sneed and Williams seeks at least $1 million in damages.

    The Titans said in a statement they were aware of the “legal matter” with Sneed and are in contact with NFL security per league protocol. The statement says the team had no further comment.

    Sneed was placed on injured reserve last month with a quadriceps injury, and he was in the Titans’ locker room Thursday. Players on injured reserve do not talk to reporters.

    This is the second straight season the Titans have put him on injured reserve. He played only five games in 2024 after Tennessee traded with Kansas City for him, giving Sneed a contract that made him the NFL’s fifth-highest-paid cornerback at the time.

    Sneed was drafted from Louisiana Tech in the fourth round in 2020 by Kansas City. He won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023.

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    Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

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    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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  • Texas state trooper who had run-in with South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor was sent home from game

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    COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — A Texas trooper who had an altercation with South Carolina’s Nyck Harbor after his touchdown on Saturday was sent home from the game, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

    Harbor scored on an 80-yard reception in the second quarter and ran into the tunnel limping following the score. As he and three other players were walking back to the field, the trooper walked in between Harbor and another player and bumped into them as they passed each other.

    The trooper and Harbor turned around and the trooper pointed at Harbor with both hands and said something to him. Harbor was quickly pushed away by his teammate and they continued to the field.

    The public safety department issued a statement saying the trooper was sent home.

    “Our Office of Inspector General (OIG) is also aware of the incident and will be further looking into the matter. No additional information will be released at this time,” the statement reads.

    The video was widely shared on social media with many commenting on it, including Lakers star LeBron James.

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  • 4 law enforcement officers shot in rural Kansas responding to domestic violence call

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    CARBONDALE, Kan. — Four law enforcement officers were shot Saturday morning while responding to a domestic violence call at a home in a rural area south of Topeka, and a 22-year-old male suspect died of gunshot wounds at the scene.

    The suspect’s 77-year-old grandfather also was wounded in the gunfire but he and the law enforcement officers are all expected to recover, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said.

    The shooting occurred around 10:30 a.m. Three Osage County sheriff’s deputies and one Kansas Highway Patrol trooper were shot, the KBI’s director and the patrol’s superintendent said.

    Two deputies underwent surgery at a Topeka hospital and were in good condition, the KBI said, and the third deputy was discharged. The trooper was transferred from the same hospital to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.

    “After being on scene less than 10 minutes, gunfire erupted,” patrol Superintendent Erik Smith said during a news conference at the Carbondale City Library.

    Carbondale is a town of about 1,300 people about 16 miles (26 kilometers) south of Topeka, the state capital, off Interstate 75.

    The shooting stunned neighbors John and Heather Roberts, who live about a mile north of where it occurred on the same two-lane road. They never sensed any problem in any of the family members, such as drugs, alcohol abuse or violence, and they said the suspect’s grandmother gave Christian books to area children she knew.

    They said it is not uncommon to see law enforcement vehicles on the road outside their home because they live at the line between Osage County, home to Carbondale, and Shawnee County, home to Topeka, and vehicles turn around there or the counties exchange prisoners.

    John Roberts said he was putting siding on his barn when two law enforcement vehicles flew down the road in the morning.

    “Both of them were running, I would say, well over 100 miles an hour as they went by,” he said. “Then the city of Topeka officers started going by. That’s when I started to really get concerned.”

    He said the suspect visited the shop he has at his home to return tools and was “a good kid.” Roberts added that many families in the area own guns because hunting is a common hobby, and that was the case with this family.

    “I love the family. They’re great people,” Heather Roberts said, adding that she and her husband were praying for the wounded officers too.

    She said every time the suspect visited their home, he would give her a hug and he was “very respectful.”

    “I don’t know what snapped in him today, but his grandparents loved him very much,” she said.

    ___

    Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

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  • FBI charges New Jersey man for alleged property damage in federal prosecutor office

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    NEWARK, N.J. — A man has been arrested after federal officials alleged that he destroyed property while trying to confront New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, Alina Habba.

    Keith Michael Lisa, 51, has been arrested, FBI spokesperson Emily Molinari confirmed Saturday.

    Molinari did not say when or where Lisa was arrested, what charges he might face, whether he was in jail, or when he might go before a judge. It’s unclear whether Lisa is represented by a lawyer. The federal public defender in Newark didn’t immediately respond to an electronic message Saturday asking whether it was representing Lisa.

    The FBI on Friday had offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information about Lisa, saying he was wanted on charges of destroying government property and possession of a dangerous weapon inside a U.S. court facility. That bulletin said Lisa tried to enter a federal office building in downtown Newark on Wednesday with a bat and was turned away. Lisa returned without the bat, the bulletin said, and was admitted. He then went to the U.S. Attorney’s office, where Habba works, and destroyed property, the bulletin said.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a post on X on Saturday that the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations had worked together to arrest Lisa.

    “No one will get away with threatening or intimidating our great U.S. attorneys or the destruction of their offices,” Bondi wrote.

    Habba was previously President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, representing him in various cases and acting as his spokesperson on legal matters. She served as a White House adviser briefly before Trump named her as interim U.S. attorney in March.

    “We got him,” Habba wrote on X on Saturday. “This Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi and our federal partners will not tolerate any acts of intimidation or violence toward law enforcement. So grateful to the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations for their tireless work to capture him. Now justice will handle him.”

    Bondi had vowed that federal officials would find and prosecute the person, writing earlier that “Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period.”

    Trump formally nominated Habba as New Jersey’s permanent U.S. attorney on July 1, but the state’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim opposed it, stalling the confirmation process.

    A few weeks later, as Habba’s 120-day interim appointment was expiring, New Jersey federal judges moved to replace her with her second-in-command. Bondi then fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

    Last month, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in a case challenging her appointment. It hasn’t ruled.

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  • Fugitive convicted in US sex crimes case arrested in France after years on the run

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    PHOENIX — An Arizona man who fled the United States years ago while on probation for sex crime convictions was arrested earlier this month in France, where he was charged with sexually assaulting a child, authorities said.

    Michael Robert Wiseman, 51, was living in Kilstett in northeastern France when he arrested Nov. 1. Investigators discovered Wiseman had traveled to Vietnam and Poland before settling in France.

    Scottsdale police Sgt. Dustin Patrick told Phoenix television station 12News that Wiseman was captured after he tried applying for a pilot’s license in Spain using his real name. Patrick said investigators discovered that Wiseman had adopted two children in Vietnam and had obtained a legitimate Polish passport under an alias.

    “His potential employer Googled his name and found that he was on Scottsdale’s most wanted list and called Spain authorities,” Patrick said.

    It was the second time Wiseman fled the U.S. while his 2008 Arizona case hung over his head.

    While his charges were still pending, Wiseman cut off his ankle monitoring device and left the country in late 2008. The fugitive was arrested in 2009 in Spain, brought back to Arizona and pleaded guilty in metro Phoenix to three counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child and one escape charge.

    The charges stemmed from child sexual abuse material found on his computer.

    In an interview with a probation employee, Wiseman said he left the country the first time after growing tired of the hardship from his wife leaving him after his 2008 arrest and his financial difficulties, according to court records.

    Wiseman, who spent over two years in jail after his return from Spain, was sentenced in 2012 to lifetime probation and a one-year deferred jail sentence. The additional incarceration was later deleted by a judge in at least one of his two Arizona cases.

    Then authorities say he skipped out of the United States for the second time after his 2012 sentencing.

    The lawyer who last represented Wisemen in his criminal case no longer works as a public defender, and efforts to located him through a bar directory and internet search weren’t successful.

    Scottsdale police say Wiseman will be extradited to the United States after his French case is completed. Arizona prosecutors say there is no timeline for when the extradition will occur.

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  • Staff member shot at Oakland college in the city’s second school shooting in 2 days

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    SAN FRANCISCO — A senior member of the athletics staff at a community college in Oakland was shot on campus Thursday, the second time in two days the city has had a shooting at a local school.

    The Oakland Police Department said it is investigating the shooting that occurred just before noon at Laney College, where officers arrived to find a man with gunshot wounds. The victim was taken to a hospital and his condition is unknown.

    Mark Johnson, spokesperson for the Peralta Community College District, said in an email that a senior member of Laney’s athletics staff was shot on campus in its field house.

    “The individual was immediately transported to a local hospital, and we are keeping them—and their loved ones—in our hearts during this incredibly difficult time,” Johnson said. “Out of respect for their privacy, we are not releasing their name at this moment.”

    Authorities didn’t immediately provide more details about the shooting.

    John Beam, the school’s athletics director and longtime football coach, and the Laney Eagles were featured in the 2020 season of the Netflix documentary series “Last Chance U.” The docuseries focused on athletes at junior colleges looking to turn their lives around.

    Thursday’s incident came a day after a student was shot at Oakland’s Skyline High School. The student is in stable condition. Police say they arrested two juveniles and recovered two firearms.

    Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said she was “heartbroken” by “the second shooting on an Oakland campus in one week.”

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  • Former customs officer sentenced to 15 years for helping drug traffickers

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    A former Customs and Border Protection officer has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to working with Mexican traffickers to bring drugs into the U.S. Diego Bonillo pleaded guilty in July to multiple charges, including conspir…

    LOS ANGELES — A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to working with Mexican traffickers to bring drugs into the U.S., officials said Thursday.

    Diego Bonillo, 30, pleaded guilty in July to multiple charges, including conspiracy to import controlled substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.

    As part of his plea deal, he admitted to using his position to allow drug-filled cars into the U.S. from Mexico without inspection. He allowed at least 75 kilograms of fentanyl, 11.7 kilograms of methamphetamine, and more than 1 kilogram of heroin into the country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego said in a news release Thursday.

    Prosecutors said in sentencing documents that Bonillo was using a secret phone to alert the drug trafficking group which lanes he would be overseeing at the Tecate and Otay Mesa border crossings so he could ensure their entry without inspection.

    Agents determined that Bonillo was part of the scheme no later than October 2023 and continued until April 2024, allowing at least 15 vehicles to enter uninspected, prosecutors said.

    Bonillo used his payments to travel internationally, purchase luxury gifts, attempt to purchase property in Mexico, and spend time at the Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club in Tijuana, Mexico, prosecutors said.

    He was sentenced Nov. 7 to 15 years in federal prison.

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  • NYPD officers kill man in a shootout after he threatened people and a hospital

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    NEW YORK — A man with a gun was killed Thursday in a shootout with police in New York City after he pointed his weapon at a man in an apartment building elevator and a deli worker and threatened to shoot up a hospital, police said.

    New York Police Department officers took the man to a hospital in a police vehicle and he was pronounced dead, Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera told reporters. Police officers were taken to a hospital for evaluation.

    The man was in an elevator in a residential building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side around 7 p.m. when spoke to another man and then pulled out a firearm and pointed it at him, police said.

    Police said the man then went to a nearby deli, pointed a gun at a worker behind the counter and told him to call 911, saying he was going to a hospital to shoot it up.

    Shortly after, the man briefly entered Mount Sinai Medical Center before leaving and placing a firearm on the ground, police said. He then went back inside, where he told a a police officer working a paid security job that he had a gun, police said.

    When the officer tried to escort him out, they struggled, the man retrieved his gun and the officer called for backup, police said.

    The man then walked down the street and encountered police officers in vehicles. Rivera said the man immediately fired his gun at the officers when they got out of their vehicles. The officers returned fire and hit him, he said.

    “Every day, our officers put on their uniforms and they encounter dangerous situations across this city. But it’s another kind of danger when someone goes into a deli and hospital with a gun and opens fire directly at the NYPD,” Rivera said.

    Rivera didn’t provide details about the man.

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  • As China cracks down on stories about men in love, female fans mourn the idealized romances

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    For Cindy Zhong, like many young Chinese women, a relaxing night used to mean curling up with a steamy story about two men in love. Then her favorite authors, and their tales, started disappearing.

    Fans of the popular Danmei same-sex romance genre, written and read mainly by straight women, say the Chinese government is carrying out the largest crackdown yet on it, effectively neutering the enjoyment.

    In the vast world of fantasy, Danmei is relatively straightforward: Two men stand in for idealized relationships, from chaste to erotic. Some scholars believe the stories appeal to Chinese women as a way to sidestep the country’s conservative gender values and imagine relationships on a more equal footing.

    “Women turn to Danmei for pure love, especially as they face pressure from families, peers and society to get married and have kids,” said Aiqing Wang, a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool who studies Chinese popular culture and internet literature.

    The once-niche Chinese literary subculture has seen a boom in recent years, with novels adapted into blockbuster television series and translated into Western languages.

    Danmei — also known as “Boys Love” in English — has also caught the eye of Chinese authorities. At least dozens of writers have been interrogated, arrested and charged with producing and selling obscene materials in China in the past year, according to media reports and witness accounts online.

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    Some writers have stopped publishing or taken work offline. Websites have shut down or removed many stories, leaving the tamest behind.

    “Chinese female readers can no longer find a safe, uncensored space to place our desires,” said Zhong, an educator in her 30s.

    Writers have said they enjoy directing lives that aren’t their own.

    “When I was writing, I felt so powerful that I could create a world,” said Zou Xuan, a teacher who used to write Danmei for fun and has been reading them for a decade.

    From erotica to flowery romance

    China’s government has been tightening its grip on the LGBTQ+ community, shutting down rights groups and social media accounts, despite removing homosexuality from its list of mental illness in 2001. Same-sex relationships are not criminalized.

    Even though China’s censorship apparatus has long disapproved of same-sex love stories, the most popular Danmei stories have become bestselling books and been adapted into cartoons, video games and TV series. Adaptations often get around censorship by changing the characters to a heterosexual couple or presenting the relationship between male leads as an intense “friendship.”

    The stories, usually published online by amateurs, are some of the most widely read fiction in China. Ranging from the flowery to the heavily erotic, they can include scenes of men fighting with a sword and a flute in ethereal ancient costumes or sex scenes in nature after rainfall.

    Danmei is “a utopian existence,” said Chen Xingyu, a 32-year-old freelance teacher living in the southwestern city of Kunming. “I would be less happy without it.”

    Some of the most popular stories, such as Heaven Official’s Blessing and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, have been translated into English, building a global fan base and cracking The New York Times paperback bestseller list.

    The stories’ language “is very flowery and poetic, which I really enjoy,” said Kayla McHenry, who works in a law firm in Pennsylvania and reads stories in translation.

    But the author of those, Yuan Yimei, better known under her pen name Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, was sentenced in 2020 to three years in prison for “illegal business operation” after selling her self-published Danmei books. She was released on parole in 2021.

    Silencing writers

    It is hard to know how many writers have been caught up in China’s crackdown.

    Danmei writers, mostly young females, claimed in social media posts that were later censored that they were detained and questioned by police in the northwestern city of Lanzhou, and expressed humiliation and fear that a criminal record could ruin their future.

    An official at the Lanzhou Public Security Bureau declined to comment, saying the cases are under investigation. Gansu provincial police didn’t respond to an AP request seeking comment.

    The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the reports.

    Even in Taiwan, beyond the reach of China’s censors, there are effects of the crackdown on the mainland.

    Haitang, a major platform for the stories and headquartered in Taiwan, closed temporarily in June, warning writers not to continue writing “if the content does not comply with the laws and regulations of where the writers are located.”

    The website recently returned with drastically fewer stories and writers. Readers noticed that stories saved in their accounts were taken down. It was unclear if the authors or the website had done it.

    Another popular Danmei site, Sosad.fun, based outside China with at least 400,000 registered readers, shut down in April.

    Neither website responded to emails seeking comment.

    Despite the crackdowns, Danmei stories are still available in China, but fans say they’re tamer and lack erotic appeal. And with most of the best writers gone, they say that what remains just isn’t that good.

    Some now publish overseas

    Some fans said they have given up reading Danmei stories, but others chase the racy details that brought them to the genre.

    “Stories I read in high school were much more explicit than those I read nowadays,” said Chen in Kunming. “I have to spend more time and try harder to find them. I need this content to fill my life.”

    Chen said some authors are publishing their work abroad, leaving it to readers to get them into China and pass around paper books or digital files informally.

    Other readers said they were turning to online comics translated from Japanese or Korean.

    Despite the narrowing space for the same-sex stories in China, experts said women and their desires have changed in ways that won’t disappear.

    “The awakening of female consciousness, the desire of reading and not being ashamed of what they want to read is irreversible,” said Xi Tian, an associate professor of East Asian Studies at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

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  • Trial continues for officer charged with shooting pregnant Black woman

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    COLUMBUS, Ohio — The murder trial of an Ohio police officer continues Thursday in the 2023 shooting death of a pregnant Black mother he and another officer confronted about an accusation of shoplifting.

    Connor Grubb is charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the death of Ta’Kiya Young, 21, and the unborn girl due three months later. It wasn’t clear whether Grubb would take the stand after the officer’s written statement was read into the record on Wednesday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.

    Grubb and the fellow officer from the Blendon Township force had approached Young’s car on Aug. 24, 2023, about a report she was suspected of stealing alcohol from a grocery store in suburban Columbus. She partially lowered her window and the other officer ordered her out. Instead, she rolled her car forward toward Grubb, who fired a single bullet through her windshield into her chest, video footage showed.

    A special prosecutor told the jury during opening statements last week that Grubb lacked justification for shooting Young, arguing she did not pose a threat to him or anyone at the time of the encounter. The defense countered that Young’s acceleration of her vehicle in Grubb’s direction was grounds for the 31-year-old officer’s actions.

    In Grubb’s written statement, read to the jury by a special agent for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the officer said he observed Young arguing with his fellow officer and positioned himself in front of her vehicle to provide backup and to protect other people in the parking lot.

    He said he drew his gun after he heard Young fail to comply with his partner’s commands. When she drove toward him, he said in the statement, he felt her car hit his legs and shins and begin to lift his body off the ground.

    Some members of Young’s family left the courtroom on Monday, the first day of testimony, as jurors were shown the bodycam footage of the shooting.

    The video showed an officer at the driver’s side window telling Young she was accused of shoplifting and ordering her out of the car. Young protested and both officers cursed at her and yelled at her to get out. Young could be heard asking them, “Are you going to shoot me?”

    Then she turned the steering wheel to the right, the car rolled slowly forward and Grubb fired his gun, footage showed. Moments later, after the car came to a stop against the building, they broke the driver’s side window. Police said they tried to save her life, but she was mortally wounded. Young and her unborn daughter were subsequently pronounced dead at a hospital.

    A full-time officer with the township since 2019, Grubb was placed paid administrative after the shooting

    Mark Collins, one of the officer’s attorneys, had told reporters after Young’s arraignment that the video shows the shooting was justified, saying the officer was facing a threat of serious physical injury or death from being hit by the car.

    Sean Walton, the family’s attorney, has said Grubb escalated the encounter by unnecessarily drawing his gun when he first confronted Young.

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  • Former officer pleads guilty to mistreating prisoner paralyzed in Connecticut police van

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    A former Connecticut police officer accused of mistreating prisoner Richard “Randy” Cox after he was paralyzed in the back of a police van pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Wednesday and received no jail time, while three other officers chose to take their cases to trial.

    Betsy Segui, a former New Haven sergeant who supervised the city police station lockup, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment in exchange for a 60-day suspended jail term. Another former officer, Ronald Pressley, took the same plea deal and received an identical sentence last week.

    Cox, 39, who did not attend the New Haven Superior Court hearing, was left paralyzed from the chest down on June 19, 2022, when the police van he was riding in without a seat belt braked hard, sending him head-first into a metal partition while his hands were cuffed behind his back. He had been arrested on charges of threatening a woman with a gun, which were later dismissed.

    “I can’t move. I’m going to die like this. Please, please, please help me,” Cox said in the van minutes after the crash, according to police video. He later was found to have broken his neck.

    Once at the police station, officers mocked Cox and accused him of being drunk and faking his injuries, according to surveillance and body-worn camera footage. Officers dragged Cox out of the van and around the police station before placing him in a holding cell before his eventual transfer to a hospital.

    When Cox told the officers that he thought he had cracked his neck, Segui responded, “You ain’t crack nothing. You just drank too much,” according to an internal affairs investigation report.

    Segui did not speak about Cox’s treatment during the court hearing. She only answered standard questions from the judge about her guilty plea.

    Her lawyer, Gregory Cerritelli, said Segui wanted to put the criminal case behind her.

    “She’s no longer working in law enforcement and has no desire to, so I think from her perspective this just gives her closure and lets her move on with her life and focus on her new career,” he said in an interview after the hearing. He declined to say what Segui’s new career is.

    Three other officers involved in Cox’s transport, Oscar Diaz, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera, rejected plea deals proposed by prosecutors and chose to take their cases to trial. All three are charged with cruelty to persons and reckless endangerment.

    Prosecutors said Cox was informed about Segui’s plea deal beforehand and gave his consent. In 2023, the city of New Haven agreed to settle a lawsuit by Cox for $45 million.

    Louis Rubano, a lawyer for Cox, said Cox and his family had hoped the criminal cases would end as quickly as possible with plea bargains by all five officers.

    “I think bringing a conclusion to this tragic situation is what the family wants, and the fact now that there’s going to be potentially a trial for the other remaining officers forces Randy and his family to have to kind of re-live the events of that tragic day,” Rubano said.

    Rubano said Cox has bought a home and is living there with his mother, who is caring for him with the help of medical professionals.

    The case drew outrage from civil rights advocates including the NAACP, along with comparisons to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore. Cox is Black, while all five officers who were arrested are Black or Hispanic. Gray, who also was Black, died in 2015 after he suffered a spinal injury while handcuffed and shackled in a Baltimore police van.

    The case also led to reforms at the New Haven police department as well as a statewide seat belt requirement for prisoners.

    New Haven police fired Segui, Diaz, Lavandier and Rivera for violating police conduct policies, while Pressley retired. Diaz appealed his firing and got his job back. Diaz, who was driving the van when Cox got injured, said he had to brake hard to avoid an accident with another vehicle.

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  • Chinese ‘cryptoqueen’ who scammed thousands jailed in UK over Bitcoin stash worth $6.6 billion

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    LONDON (AP) — A Chinese woman who was found with 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) in Bitcoin after defrauding more than 128,000 people in China in a Ponzi scheme was sentenced by a U.K. court on Tuesday to over 11 years in prison.

    Police said the investigation into Zhimin Qian, 47, led to officers recovering devices holding 61,000 Bitcoin in the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the U.K.

    Qian, dubbed “cryptoqueen” by British media, was arrested in April 2024 after spending years evading the authorities and living an “extravagant” lifestyle in Europe, staying in luxury hotels across the continent and buying fine jewelry and watches, prosecutors said.

    Police said she ran a pyramid scheme that lured more than 128,000 people to invest in her business between 2014 and 2017, including many who invested their life savings and pensions. Authorities said she stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets.

    When she attracted the attention of Chinese authorities, Qian fled to the U.K. under a fake identity. Once in London, police said she rented a “lavish” house for over 17,000 pounds ($23,000) per month, and tried but failed to buy multimillion pound properties in a bid to convert the Bitcoin.

    Investigators found notes Qian had written documenting her aspirations — including her “intention to become the monarch of Liberland, a self-proclaimed country consisting of a strip of land between Croatia and Serbia.”

    They said other notes showed Qian detailing her hopes of “meeting a duke and royalty.”

    Judge Sally-Ann Hales said Qian was the architect of the crimes from start to finish.

    “Your motive was one of pure greed. You left China without a thought for the people whose investments you had stolen and enjoyed for a period of time a lavish lifestyle. You lied and schemed, all the while seeking to benefit yourself,” Hales said.

    The businesswoman, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering offenses and transferring and possessing criminal property, was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court.

    She was sentenced alongside her accomplice Seng Hok Ling, 47, a Malaysian national who was accused of helping Qian transfer and launder the cryptocurrency. Ling was jailed at the same court for four years and 11 months after he pleaded guilty to one count of transferring criminal property.

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  • Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million over law enforcement raid on town newspaper

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    TOPEKA, Kan. — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

    Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the Marion County Record’s parent company, the paper’s publisher, newspaper employees, a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided, and the estate of the publisher’s 98-year-old mother, the paper’s co-owner, who died the day after the raid. An attorney for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page signed agreement Tuesday.

    Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future. Legal claims against the city and city officials have not been settled, and Meyer said he believes they will face a larger judgment though he doesn’t expect those claims to be resolved for some time.

    “The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”

    The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, lived with him and died of a heart attack that he blamed on the stress of the raid.

    Three days after the raid, the local prosecutor said there wasn’t enough evidence to justify it. Experts said Marion’s police chief at the time, Gideon Cody, was on legally shaky ground when he ordered the raid, and a former top federal prosecutor for Kansas suggested that it might have been a criminal violation of civil rights, saying: “I’d probably have the FBI starting to look.”

    Two special prosecutors who reviewed the raid and its aftermath said nearly a year later that the Record had committed no crimes before Cody led the raid, that the warrants signed by a judge contained inaccurate information from an “inadequate investigation” and the searches were not legally justified. Cody resigned as police chief in October 2023.

    Cody is scheduled to go to trial in February in Marion County on a felony charge of interfering with a judicial process, accused by the two special prosecutors of persuading a potential witness to withhold information from authorities when they later investigated his conduct. He had pleaded not guilty and did not respond to a text message Tuesday seeking comment about the county’s agreement.

    Attorneys for the city and the county and the county administrator did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

    Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the Meyers by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.

    “The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record,” the sheriff’s statement said.

    The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it in private for 15 minutes.

    A search warrant tied the raid — which was led by Marion’s police chief — to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record.

    Meyer has said he believed the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role and that his newsroom had been examining the police chief’s past work history.

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  • MLB pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz charged with taking bribes to rig pitches for bettors

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been indicted on charges they took bribes from sports bettors to throw certain types of pitches, including tossing balls in the dirt instead of strikes, to ensure successful bets.

    According to the indictment unsealed Sunday in federal court in Brooklyn, the highly paid hurlers took several thousand dollars in payoffs to help two unnamed gamblers from their native Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on in-game prop bets on the speed and outcome of certain pitches.

    Clase, the Guardians’ former closer, and Ortiz, a starter, have been on non-disciplinary paid leave since July, when MLB started investigating what it said was unusually high in-game betting activity when they pitched. Some of the games in question were in April, May and June.

    Ortiz, 26, was arrested Sunday by the FBI at Boston Logan International Airport. He is expected to appear in federal court in Boston on Monday. Clase, 27, was not in custody, officials said.

    Ortiz and Clase “betrayed America’s pastime,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said. “Integrity, honesty and fair play are part of the DNA of professional sports. When corruption infiltrates the sport, it brings disgrace not only to the participants but damages the public trust in an institution that is vital and dear to all of us.”

    Ortiz’s lawyer, Chris Georgalis, said in a statement that his client was innocent and “has never, and would never, improperly influence a game — not for anyone and not for anything.”

    Georgalis said Ortiz’s defense team had previously documented for prosecutors that the payments and money transfers between him and individuals in the Dominican Republic were for lawful activities.

    “There is no credible evidence Luis knowingly did anything other than try to win games, with every pitch and in every inning. Luis looks forward to fighting these charges in court,” Georgalis said.

    A lawyer for Clase, Michael J. Ferrara, said his client “has devoted his life to baseball and doing everything in his power to help his team win. Emmanuel is innocent of all charges and looks forward to clearing his name in court.”

    The Major League Baseball Players Association had no comment.

    Unusual betting activity prompted investigation

    MLB said it contacted federal law enforcement when it began investigating unusual betting activity and has fully cooperated with authorities. “We are aware of the indictment and today’s arrest, and our investigation is ongoing,” a league statement said.

    In a statement, the Guardians said: “We are aware of the recent law enforcement action. We will continue to fully cooperate with both law enforcement and Major League Baseball as their investigations continue.”

    Clase and Ortiz are both charged with wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery. The top charges carry a potential punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

    In one example cited in the indictment, Clase allegedly invited a bettor to a game against the Boston Red Sox in April and spoke with him by phone just before taking the mound. Four minutes later, the indictment said, the bettor and his associates won $11,000 on a wager that Clase would toss a certain pitch slower than 97.95 mph (157.63 kph).

    In May, the indictment said, Clase agreed to throw a ball at a certain point in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the batter swung, resulting in a strike, costing the bettors $4,000 in wagers. After the game, which the Guardians won, one of the bettors sent Clase a text message with an image of a man hanging himself with toilet paper, the indictment said. Clase responded with an image of a sad puppy dog face, according to the indictment.

    Clase, a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year, had a $4.5 million salary in 2025, the fourth season of a $20 million, five-year contract. The three-time AL save leader began providing the bettors with information about his pitches in 2023 but didn’t ask for payoffs until this year, prosecutors said.

    The indictment cited specific pitches Clase allegedly rigged — all of them first pitches when he entered to start an inning: a 98.5 mph (158.5 kph) cutter low and inside to the New York Mets’ Starling Marte on May 19, 2023; an 89.4 mph (143.8 kph) slider to Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers that bounced well short of home plate on June 3, 2023; an 89.4 mph (143.8 kph) slider to Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. that bounced on April 12; a 99.1 mph (159.5 kph) cutter in the dirt to Philadelphia’s Max Kepler on May 11; a bounced 89.1 mph (143.4) slider to Milwaukee’s Jake Bauers on May 13; and a bounced 87.5 mph (140.8 kph) slider to Cincinnati’s Santiago Espinal on May 17.

    Prosecutors said Ortiz, who had a $782,600 salary this year, got in on the scheme in June and is accused of rigging pitches in games against the Seattle Mariners and the St. Louis Cardinals.

    Ortiz was cited for bouncing a first-pitch 86.7 mph (139.5 kph) slider to Seattle’s Randy Arozarena starting the second inning on June 15 and bouncing a first-pitch 86.7 mph (139.5 kph) slider to St. Louis’ Pedro Pagés that went to the backstop opening the third inning on June 27.

    Dozens of pro athletes have been charged in gambling sweeps

    The charges are the latest bombshell developments in a federal crackdown on betting in professional sports.

    Last month, more than 30 people, including prominent basketball figures such as Portland Trail Blazers head coach and Basketball Hall of Famer Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, were arrested in a gambling sweep that rocked the NBA.

    Sports betting scandals have long been a concern, but a May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling led to a wave of gambling incidents involving athletes and officials. The ruling struck down a federal ban on sports betting in most states and opened the doors for online sportsbooks to take a prominent space in the sports ecosystem.

    Major League Baseball suspended five players in June 2024, including a lifetime ban for San Diego infielder Tucupita Marcano for allegedly placing 387 baseball bets with a legal sportsbook totaling more than $150,000.

    ___

    This story was first published on Nov. 9. It was updated on Nov. 11 to correct that, according to an indictment, a bettor sent Clase an image of a man hanging himself with toilet paper. Clase didn’t send that image to the bettor.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker in Washington and Ron Blum in New York contributed to this report.

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  • China’s ‘cryptoqueen’ jailed in UK over $6.6 billion Bitcoin scam

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    LONDON — A Chinese woman who was found with 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) in Bitcoin after defrauding more than 128,000 people in China in a Ponzi scheme was sentenced by a U.K. court on Tuesday to over 11 years in prison.

    Police said the investigation into Zhimin Qian, 47, led to officers recovering devices holding 61,000 Bitcoin in the largest cryptocurrency seizure in the U.K.

    Qian, dubbed “cryptoqueen” by British media, was arrested in April 2024 after spending years evading the authorities and living an “extravagant” lifestyle in Europe, staying in luxury hotels across the continent and buying fine jewelry and watches, prosecutors said.

    Police said she ran a pyramid scheme that lured more than 128,000 people to invest in her business between 2014 and 2017, including many who invested their life savings and pensions. Authorities said she stored the illegally obtained funds in Bitcoin assets.

    When she attracted the attention of Chinese authorities, Qian fled to the U.K. under a fake identity. Once in London, police said she rented a “lavish” house for over 17,000 pounds ($23,000) per month.

    Investigators found notes Qian had written documenting her aspirations — including her “intention to become the monarch of Liberland, a self-proclaimed country consisting of a strip of land between Croatia and Serbia.”

    The businesswoman, who had pleaded guilty to money laundering offenses and transferring and possessing criminal property, was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court.

    She was sentenced alongside her accomplice Seng Hok Ling, 47, a Malaysian national who was accused of helping Qian transfer and launder the cryptocurrency. Ling was jailed at the same court for four years and 11 months after he pleaded guilty to one count of transferring criminal property.

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  • Police/Fire

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    In news taken from the logs of Cape Ann’s police and fire departments:

    Rockport

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  • Man appears to have a seizure as ICE arrests his wife, but officials disagree

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    FITCHBURG, Mass. — A Massachusetts man seen on video having an apparent seizure during a struggle with immigration agents as he holds his wife and crying toddler says he lost consciousness after agents pushed and hit him and pressed on his neck.

    Department of Homeland Security officials accused him of faking the medical emergency to keep agents from arresting his wife, who was wanted for allegedly stabbing a co-worker with scissors.

    “I wasn’t letting go of my wife because they wanted to take her away,” Carlos Zapata, 24, told The Boston Globe in Spanish. He spoke to the newspaper on Friday, a day after his wife was detained in a chaotic traffic stop.

    Bystanders shouted and recorded the confrontation as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded the family’s car Thursday morning in Fitchburg, a city about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Boston. Agents were seeking Juliana Milena Ojeda-Montoya, who was inside the vehicle with her husband and 1 ½-year-old daughter, according to a Homeland Security news release.

    Widely circulated video shows Zapata behind the wheel, his body shaking and the whites of his eyes visible as masked agents reach into the car.

    “He’s having a seizure!” bystanders can be heard shouting.

    Zapata told the newspaper that agents were pushing him and his wife together with the child between them, and that he blacked out after agents pressed on his neck.

    “I had convulsions or something. I don’t know what they did to me,” he said. When he regained consciousness, he said, agents were handcuffing him.

    Zapata said he and his wife are from Ecuador and entered the country unlawfully several years ago. They have since applied for asylum in a case that is pending and are authorized to work, he said. He was driving his wife to her job at Burger King when they were stopped, he said.

    Homeland Security responded to the video Friday, saying: “Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice,” in a post on social media.

    “Medical personnel found there was no legitimate medical emergency,” Tricia McLaughlin, the department’s assistant secretary, said in a news release. “He was even caught on video on his feet and coherent moments later.”

    The department said officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest Ojeda-Montoya for the alleged scissor stabbing and for throwing a trash can at her coworker in August. She was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, the Globe reported.

    Ojeda-Montoya was in custody pending removal proceedings, according to Homeland Security.

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  • Opinion | The ‘Human Right’ to Smoke in Prison

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    If you want to see what a “living constitution” looks like, go to Europe. On Tuesday, in Vainik v. Estonia, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that four longtime prisoners in Estonia were due restitution from the state for “weight gain, sleeping problems, depression, and anxiety” caused by not being allowed to smoke in prison.

    The decision was grounded on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The text of Article 8 doesn’t mention any right to enjoy a cigarette whenever one pleases. Rather, it protects a broad “right to private life,” which the court accused Estonia of violating in the Vainik case. “The Court,” the judges wrote, “was sensitive to the context of the already limited personal autonomy of prisoners, and that the freedom for them to decide for themselves—such as whether to smoke—was all the more precious.” An odd ruling, but perhaps Europe loves its cigarettes that much?

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    John Masko

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  • FBI urges ICE agents to identify themselves after string of impersonators commit crimes

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    Ever since the Trump immigration raids began in Los Angeles in June, local leaders and community activists have criticized agents for sometimes making it difficult to identify them as federal law enforcement officials or refusing to identify themselves at all.

    Now, an unexpected new group has expressed its own concerns: the FBI.

    Citing a string of incidents in which masked criminals posing as immigration officers robbed and kidnapped victims, the FBI recently issued a memo suggesting agents clearly identify themselves while they’re in the field.

    The FBI explained its reasoning in a three-page document sent to police agencies across the country last month.

    In the memo, the FBI says that criminals impersonating law enforcement “damages trust” between them and the community and that law enforcement has an “opportunity” to better coordinate with their local, state and federal partners. It calls for informational campaigns to educate the public about impostors and for agents to show their identification when asked while out in the field.

    Undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens have been detained by masked people on city streets, in hospitals, courthouses, and outside schools and places of worship over the last several months. California has banned the use of masks among law enforcement agencies, but on Tuesday a cadre of masked agents gathered in an offsite Dodger Stadium parking lot while carrying out more raids.

    A man seeking asylum from Colombia is detained by federal agents as he attends his court hearing in immigration court in New York City.

    (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

    The FBI’s memo, obtained through a records request by the national security transparency nonprofit Property of the People, was prepared by the New York field office and first reported by Wired magazine. It details several instances where people impersonated immigration agents.

    In Florida, a man pretending to be an ICE agent kidnapped a woman who was in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. The suspect approached the woman on April 21, claimed he was there to pick her up and showed her his shirt that read ICE, the FBI said. The woman got in the suspect’s car and he drove her to an apartment complex, but she was able to escape.

    In August, three men in black clothing and wearing vests robbed a New York restaurant and stole from their ATM. The suspects also beat the employees and tied them up. One of the employees willingly surrendered to the suspects when they heard them identify themselves as immigration agents, the FBI said.

    The FBI also pointed to an April social media post where a man wearing a black jacket with an ICE patch stood outside a hardware store to intimidate day laborers. An image circulating on social media matching the description of the incident showed the man also wearing a red Trump hat.

    “I don’t know if there is federal law that requires a standard police uniform,” David Levine, a professor of law at UC San Francisco said. “It’s good practice to have a distinguishing uniform. Because when you have federal agents dressing as ruffians, with scarves over their faces and glasses in a paramilitary fashion, then it’s so much easier for people to impersonate them.”

    The FBI’s national press office did not respond to requests for comment, citing the government shutdown in an automated email response.

    U.S. Border Patrol march to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building

    U.S. Border Patrol march after a show of force outside the Japanese American National Museum where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a press conference on Aug. 14 in Los Angeles.

    (Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

    The FBI’s memo arrives several months after masked agents descended on Los Angeles and other cities across the country at the behest of the Trump White House. Multiple undocumented immigrants have died while trying to flee masked agents during immigration raids, while others have come under gunfire in their vehicles and many more have been beaten by masked agents who did not immediately identify themselves.

    Levine says it’s a person’s constitutional right under the 4th Amendment to ask a masked, federal agent to identify themselves.

    “It takes a cool head under a tense moment to ask someone, ‘What’s your name? I can’t see your badge? Can you identify yourself?’” Levine said. “It’s practically impossible to ask all of that when you’re being thrown to the ground. But you do have the right to ask.”

    There are plenty of examples of people impersonating law enforcement in California in recent years.

    In April 2018, Luis Flores-Mendoza of Santa Ana was sentenced to eight months in prison for posing as a federal immigration officer in an attempt to extort $5,000 from a woman, who reported him to the police. The following month, Matthew Ryan Johnston of Fontana was sentenced to two years in federal prison for impersonating an ICE agent. In 2023 and 2024, police in Southern California announced arrests in two separate cases where men were accused of impersonating police to conduct traffic stops.

    State officials have sounded the alarm as well because of the Trump administration’s approach.

    Earlier this year, after federal immigration raids in the Central Valley, two Fresno men were accused of posing as federal immigration agents and recording themselves harassing local businesses. The Fresno Police Department said the pair, who wore wigs and black tactical vests with letters deliberately covered up so they read “Police” and “ICE,” confronted people at nearly a dozen businesses. The department said the men appeared to have done it for social media purposes and declined to release their names.

    a man places a sign on part of a "No Ice" mural

    Raymond Cruz, 56, places a sign on part of a “No Ice” mural in Inglewood on July 1.

    (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

    In March, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a warning to Californians about the rise of ICE impersonators and scammers looking to take “advantage of the fear and uncertainty created by Trump’s mass deportation policies. “

    “Let me be clear: If you seek to scam or otherwise take advantage of California’s immigrant communities, you will be held accountable,” Bonta said.

    In June, two additional local cases popped up that weren’t included on the FBI memo.

    In one, Huntington Park police arrested a man who they suspected of posing as a Border Patrol agent. Police said the man possessed an unlicensed handgun and copies of U.S. Homeland Security removal notices and a list of radio codes for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

    Huntington Park Police Chief Cosme Lozano speaks as he joins officials in a press conference

    Huntington Park Police Chief Cosme Lozano speaks at a press conference after a 23-year-old man from Los Angeles was arrested by Huntington Park Police on suspicion of impersonating a law enforcement officer.

    (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

    In the other, police in Los Angeles County arrested a man driving a decommissioned police cruiser with control lights and a siren. Authorities allege he had cocaine, a forged Homeland Security investigator’s badge and a pellet gun in his car.

    In a statement, Property of the People Executive Director Ryan Shapiro said, “It’s rich the FBI thinks ICE has a PR problem in immigrant communities because of impersonators, while masked and militarized ICE agents are waging a daily campaign of terror against those very communities.”

    “Anyone caught impersonating a federal immigration agent will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” a senior Homeland Security official said.

    “Anyone who comes into immediate contact with an individual whom they believe is impersonating an immigration officer, or any law enforcement officer, should immediately contact their local law enforcement agency,” the official said.

    Kash Patel, President Trump and Pam Bondi stand next to each other

    Kash Patel, director of the FBI, left, President Trump, center, and Pam Bondi, U.S. attorney general, during a news conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15.

    (Jo Lo Scalzo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    In a statement to The Times, the office of Mayor Karen Bass said it’s unacceptable for law enforcement officers to operate without properly identifying themselves.

    “The Mayor has been supportive of state legislation that would require immigration officers to identify themselves as well as make it a crime for law enforcement officers to wear a face covering while performing their duties, except for specific circumstances such as protection from hazardous smoke.”

    Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes MacArthur Park, Cypress Park and Pico Union, said the FBI’s memo simply confirms what locals have known all along, even as they create “confusion, fear, chaos and real danger.”

    “Now even the FBI, under an administration that has aggressively expanded unconstitutional immigration enforcement, has confirmed that when agents don’t clearly identify themselves, it opens the door for violent impersonators to prey on vulnerable families,” Hernandez said in a statement. “That’s exactly why I co-authored the council motion requiring the LAPD to verify the identity of anyone claiming to be a law enforcement officer, and to strengthen penalties for impersonating an officer. When even Trump’s FBI is warning that unidentified agents put us at risk, it’s a clear sign that this problem can’t be ignored any longer.”

    Still, not everyone thinks agents will heed the FBI’s advice. Even if agents were to begin identifying themselves during sweeps, the distrust stemming from the raids in the summer will stay with community members for some time, advocates say.

    “I don’t expect them to all of a sudden start walking around with no mask or start walking around and identifying themselves,” said Leo Martinez of VC Defensa, a coalition of local groups dedicated to protecting the immigrant and refugee populations of Ventura County. “More than anything, I think it’s a way for the FBI to put a little bit of distance between themselves and the ICE agents in the public relations sphere, but not really on the ground.”

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    Nathan Solis, Ruben Vives

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