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Tag: manslaughter
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Alec Baldwin to be charged in fatal 2021
Alec Baldwin to be charged in fatal 2021 “Rust” shooting – CBS News
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Alec Baldwin and armorer to be charged with involuntary manslaughter after fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set of ‘Rust’ | CNN
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CNN
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Alec Baldwin, the actor who fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal for the Western movie “Rust” in 2021, and the film’s armorer will be charged with involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors said Thursday.
Baldwin has maintained he was not aware the gun he fired on set contained a live round.
Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed will each be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors said.
The shooting has resulted in a whirlwind of finger-pointing and allegations of negligence from those involved.
Hutchins was struck and killed by a live round of ammunition fired from a prop gun being held by Baldwin, who maintains he did not pull the gun’s trigger. Director Joel Souza was also injured.
In the summary of the postmortem investigation into Hutchins’ death – which was formally signed by the New Mexico chief medical investigator – the cause of death is listed as “gunshot wound of chest,” and the manner of death is listed as an “accident.”
“Review of available law enforcement reports showed no compelling demonstration that the firearm was intentionally loaded with live ammunition on set. Based on all available information, including the absence of obvious intent to cause harm or death, the manner of death is best classified as accident,” the report concluded.
An FBI forensics report said the weapon could not be fired during FBI testing of its normal functioning without pulling the trigger while the gun was cocked. The report also noted the gun eventually malfunctioned during testing after internal parts fractured, which caused the gun to go off in the cocked position without pulling the trigger.
In an interview with CNN in August, Baldwin placed responsibility for the tragedy on Gutierrez-Reed, who served as the armorer and props assistant on the film, and assistant director Dave Halls, who handed him the gun.
Halls signed a plea agreement “for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon,” the district attorney’s office announced in its statement Thursday. Prosecutors said the terms of that deal include six months of probation.
Charges will not be filed against film director Joel Souza, the statement says.
CNN has reached out to Baldwin and Gutierrez Reed for comment and will reach out to Halls and Souza.
On Thursday, Halls’ attorney Lisa Tarraco released a statement in defense of her client, who does not face charges in connection with the tragedy.
“Absent no charges at all, this is the best outcome for Mr. Halls and the case,” Tarraco said. “He can now put this matter behind him and allow the focus of this tragedy to be on the shooting victims and changing the industry so this type of accident will never happen again. “
In November, Baldwin filed suit against Gutierrez Reed and Halls and other individuals associated with the film, according to a cross-complaint obtained by CNN.
Through their respective attorneys, both Gutierrez Reed and Halls maintained they were not at fault and accused Baldwin of deflecting blame onto others. Gutierrez Reed also sued the movie’s gun and ammunition supplier and its founder – who deny wrongdoing – and alleged a cache of dummy ammunition was sold with live rounds mixed in.
In October, Hutchins’ family reached an undisclosed settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Baldwin and others involved in producing the film.
Matthew Hutchins, widower of Halyna Hutchins, described her death as a “terrible accident” in a statement at the time of the settlement. Production on “Rust” was to resume this month with Matthew Hutchins joining as an executive producer on the film as part of the agreement.
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Italy arrests Mafia boss after 30 years on the run
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ROME (AP) — Italy’s No. 1 fugitive, convicted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, was arrested on Monday at a private clinic in Palermo, Sicily, after 30 years on the run, Italian paramilitary police said.
Messina Denaro was captured at the clinic where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical condition, said Carabinieri Gen. Pasquale Angelosanto, who heads the police force’s special operations squad.
Messina Denaro was taken to a secret location by police immediately after the arrest, Italian state television reported.
A young man when he went into hiding, he is now 60. Messina Denaro, who had a power base in the port city of Trapani, in western Sicily, was considered Sicily’s Cosa Nostra top boss even while a fugitive.
He was the last of three longtime fugitive top-level Mafia bosses who had for decades eluded capture.
Messina Denaro, who tried in absentia and convicted of dozens of murders, faces multiple life sentences.
He is set to be imprisoned for are two bombings in Sicily in 1992 that murdered top anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Among other grisly crimes he was convicted of is the murder of a Mafia turncoat’s young son, who was strangled and his body dissolved in a vat of acid.
The arrest Monday came 30 years and a day after the capture of convicted “boss of bosses” Salvatore “Toto” Riina, in a Palermo apartment after 23 years on the run.
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Aaron Dean sentenced to over a decade in prison after manslaughter conviction in 2019 death of Atatiana Jefferson
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Aaron Dean, the former Texas police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the 2019 killing of Atatiana Jefferson, has been sentenced to 11 years, 10 months and 12 days in prison.
The decision was announced on the afternoon of Tuesday, Dec. 20, less than a week after Dean was found guilty of manslaughter on Dec. 15.
“This verdict and sentence won’t bring Atatiana Jefferson back,” Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson said in a statement following the sentencing. “This trial was difficult for all involved, including our community. My sympathies remain with Atatiana’s family and friends and I pray they find peace. This trial wasn’t about politics and it wasn’t about race. If someone breaks the law, they have to be held accountable. The jury agreed. We thank the jury members for making sure justice was served.”
Dean was initially indicted on a murder charge, but before the jury began deliberations, the judge in the case told them they could consider a manslaughter verdict, which in Texas carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Sentencing deliberations began on Monday. The jury deliberated for more than seven hours before breaking for the day.
The sentencing ends a long-delayed trial that began three years after Jefferson was killed in her Forth Worth-area home. Dean arrived at her house on Oct. 12, 2019, responding to a call about an open front door after a neighbor made a report to a nonemergency police line. Dean said that he believed a burglary was in process, though Jefferson’s nephew, who was in the home at the time of the shooting, said that the door had been left open to vent smoke from hamburgers he burned.
While looking for signs of an intruder, Dean went into the backyard of the house. Prosecutor Dale Smith contended that Dean did not announce himself at any time. Jefferson’s nephew, who was 8 years old at the time of the shooting, said his aunt grabbed a handgun she owned because she heard noises outside.
The main question of the trial was whether Dean saw Jefferson’s weapon before opening fire himself. Dean testified that he had seen the barrel of the gun pointed at him, so he opened fire; his defense attorney Bob Gill said in closing statements that Dean had a right to self defense.
Smith argued that Dean did not give Jefferson time to comply with commands, such as raising her hands; body camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department shows Dean shooting Jefferson about a second after he first addressed her. Prosecutors alleged that Dean never saw the gun, and described him as a “gung-ho, hard-charger” who “just shot.”
Dean had completed his police academy training the year before the 2019 shooting, and quit the force two days after the shooting, hours before he was arrested and charged with murder.
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Aaron Dean found guilty of manslaughter in 2019 killing of Atatiana Jefferson
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Aaron Dean, the White former Texas police officer accused of shooting and killing Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman, in her own home, has been found guilty of manslaughter.
Dean had been initially indicted on a murder charge. On Wednesday, the judge told jurors they could consider a manslaughter verdict.
Dean will be sentenced at a later date. The maximum penalty for manslaughter in Texas is 20 years in prison.
Dean arrived at Jefferson’s home on Oct. 12, 2019, responding to a call about an open front door. It was revealed during the long-delayed trial that Jefferson’s nephew had been over and that the home’s door was left open to vent smoke from hamburgers he burned. A neighbor had reported the open door to a nonemergency police line, and Dean testified that he believed a burglary was in process.
While looking for signs of burglary, Dean went to the backyard of the house. Jefferson was at a window with a handgun she owned. Jefferson’s nephew, who was 8 years old at the time of the shooting, said that his aunt grabbed the weapon because she heard noises outside.
The main question of the trial was whether Dean saw the weapon before opening fire. Dean testified that he had seen the barrel of the gun pointed at him, so he opened fire; his defense attorney Bob Gill said in closing statements that Dean had a right to self defense.
While making his case, prosecutor Dale Smith contended that Dean did not announce himself and did not give Jefferson time to comply with commands such as raising her hands. Prosecutors have also alleged that Dean never saw the gun and described him as a “gung-ho, hard-charger” who “just shot.” Body camera footage released by the Fort Worth Police Department shows Dean shooting about a second after addressing Jefferson.
Dean had completed his police academy training the year before the 2019 shooting, and quit the force two days after the shooting, hours before he was arrested and charged with murder.
Jefferson’s death, about seven months before the death of George Floyd sparked worldwide protests, also garnered outrage. CBS News DFW reporter Caroline Vandergriff said that the scene after the verdict was read aloud was emotional, with audible outrage in the background and chants of “no justice, no peace” from those who had been watching the trial.
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Virginia Walmart shooter was store manager, police and witness say
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CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — A Walmart manager opened fire on fellow employees in the break room of a Virginia store, killing six people in the country’s second high-profile mass shooting in four days, police and a witness said Wednesday.
The gunman, who apparently shot himself, was dead when police found him, Chesapeake Police Chief Mark G. Solesky said. There was no clear motive for the shooting, which also put four people in the hospital.
The store was busy just before the attack Tuesday night as people stocked up ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, a shopper told a local TV station.
Employee Briana Tyler said workers had gathered in the break room as they typically did ahead of their shifts. “I looked up, and my manager just opened the door and he just opened fire,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” adding that “multiple people” dropped to the floor.
“He didn’t say a word,” she said. “He didn’t say anything at all.”
Solesky confirmed that the shooter, who used a pistol, was a Walmart employee but did not give his name because his family had not been notified. The police chief could not confirm whether the victims were all employees.
Employee Jessie Wilczewski told Norfolk television station WAVY that she hid under the table and the shooter looked at her with his gun pointed at her, told her to go home and she left.
“It didn’t even look real until you could feel the … ‘pow-pow-pow,’ you can feel it,” Wilczewski said. “I couldn’t hear it at first because I guess it was so loud, I could feel it.”
President Joe Biden in a statement said he and first lady Jill Biden “grieve for the family, for the Chesapeake community and for the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin tweeted that he was in contact with law-enforcement officials in Chesapeake, Virginia’s second largest city, which lies next to the seaside communities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
“Our hearts break with the community of Chesapeake this morning,” Youngkin wrote. “Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities.”
It was the second time in a little more than a week that Virginia has experienced a major shooting. Three University of Virginia football players were fatally shot on a charter bus as they returned to campus from a field trip on Nov. 13. Two other students were wounded.
“I am devastated by the senseless act of violence that took place late last night in our city,” Mayor Rick W. West said in a statement posted on the city’s Twitter account Wednesday. “Chesapeake is a tight-knit community, and we are all shaken by this news.”
A database run by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University that tracks every mass killing in America going back to 2006 shows this year has been especially violent.
The U.S. has now had 40 mass killings so far in 2022, compared with 45 for all of 2019. The database defines a mass killing as at least four people killed, not including the killer.
The attack at the Walmart came three days after a person opened fire at a gay nightclub in Colorado, killing five people and wounding 17. Last spring, the country was shaken by the deaths of 21 when a gunman stormed an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Tuesday night’s shooting also brought back memories of another at a Walmart in 2019, when a gunman who targeted Mexicans opened fire at a store in El Paso, Texas, and killed 22 people.
A 911 call about the shooting came in just after 10 p.m. Solesky did not know how many shoppers were inside, whether the gunman was working or whether a security guard was present.
Joetta Jeffery told CNN that she received text messages from her mother who was inside the store when the shots were fired. Her mother, Betsy Umphlett, was not injured.
“I’m crying, I’m shaking,” Jeffery said. “I had just talked to her about buying turkeys for Thanksgiving, then this text came in.”
One man was seen wailing at a hospital after learning that his brother was dead, and others shrieked as they left a conference center set up as a family reunification center, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
Camille Buggs, a former Walmart employee, told the newspaper she went to the conference center seeking information about her former co-workers. “You always say you don’t think it would happen in your town, in your neighborhood, in your store — in your favorite store, and that’s the thing that has me shocked,” Buggs said.
Walmart
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tweeted early Wednesday that it was “shocked at this tragic event.”
In the aftermath of the El Paso shooting, Walmart made a decision in September 2019 to discontinue sales of certain kinds of ammunition and asked that customers no longer openly carry firearms in its stores.It stopped selling handgun ammunition as well as short-barrel rifle ammunition, such as the .223 caliber and 5.56 caliber used in military style weapons. Walmart also discontinued handgun sales in Alaska.
The company had stopped selling handguns in the mid-1990s in every state but Alaska. The latest move marked its complete exit from that business and allowed it to focus on hunting rifles and related ammunition only.
Many of its stores are in rural areas where hunters depend on Walmart to get their equipment.
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University of Virginia shooting suspect in custody, university police announce
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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The three students killed in a shooting at the University of Virginia were all members of the school’s football team, the school’s president said.
President Jim Ryan told a Monday morning news conference the shooting happened Sunday night on a school bus of students returning from an off-campus trip.
The suspect has been identified as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., who is also student.
The incident occurred Sunday near a university parking garage. In addition to the three football players killed, two others were reported to have been wounded.
Police went on a manhunt Monday in search of the student suspected in the attack, officials said.
During a press conference in the 11 o’clock hour local time, the university police chief, Tim Longo, was given word that the suspect was in custody. He immediately returned to the microphone and reported that update to the assembled reporters.
Classes at the university were canceled Monday, following the violence Sunday night, and the Charlottesville campus was unusually quiet as authorities searched for the suspect, whom university President Ryan identified as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.
A shelter-in-place order to the university community had been lifted less than an hour earlier after a law-enforcement search of the campus.
In a letter to the university posted on social media, Ryan said the shooting happened around 10:30 p.m. Sunday.
The university’s emergency management issued an alert Sunday night notifying the campus community of an “active attacker firearm.” The message warned students to shelter in place following a report of shots fired on Culbreth Road on the northern outskirts of campus.
Access to the shooting scene was blocked by police vehicles Monday morning.
Officials urged students to shelter in place and helicopters could be heard overhead as a smattering of traffic and dog-walkers made their way around campus.
The university police department posted a notice online saying multiple police agencies including the state police were searching for a suspect who was considered “armed and dangerous.”
In his letter to campus, the university president said Jones was suspected to have committed the shooting and that he was a student.
“This is a message any leader hopes never to have to send, and I am devastated that this violence has visited the University of Virginia,” Ryan wrote. “This is a traumatic incident for everyone in our community.”
Eva Surovell, 21, the editor in chief of the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, said that after students received an alert about an active shooter late Sunday night, she ran to the parking garage, but saw that it was blocked off by police. When she went to a nearby intersection, she was told to go shelter in place.
“A police officer told me that the shooter was nearby and I needed to return home as soon as possible,” she said.
She waited with other reporters, hoping to get additional details, then returned to her room to start working on the story. The gravity of the situation sunk in.
“My generation is certainly one that’s grown up with generalized gun violence, but that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s your own community,” she said.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents were responding to the campus to assist in the investigation.
The Virginia shooting came as police were investigating the deaths of four University of Idaho students found Sunday in a home near the campus. Officers with the Moscow Police Department discovered the deaths when they responded to a report of an unconscious person just before noon, according to a news release from the city. Authorities have called the deaths suspected homicides but did not release additional details, including the cause of death.
On April 16, 2007, another Virginia university was the scene of what was then one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. Twenty-seven students and five faculty members at Virginia Tech were gunned down by Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old mentally ill student who later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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California doctor faces involuntary manslaughter charge in 2019 death of jail inmate | CNN
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CNN
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A doctor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of an inmate at a detention facility in Southern California in November 2019, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s office.
Elisa Serna, 24, was an inmate at the Las Colinas Detention Facility in Santee when on November 10, 2019, she said she was dizzy and nauseous and was moved to the medical observation unit, the district attorney’s office said in a news release at the time. The next day Serna fell while a nurse was in her cell to take her vital signs and later died, authorities said.
The nurse, Danalee Pascua, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in November 2021. She has pleaded not guilty.
Dr. Friederike Von Lintig, 57, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, according to an amended criminal complaint filed in San Diego County. She was the physician on duty the day Serna died, according to a news release Wednesday from the district attorney. She was arraigned Wednesday morning.
Von Lintig was a contracted staff member of Coastal Hospitalist Medical Associates and later employed by Correctional Healthcare Partners, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
CNN has requested further information from the district attorney and is seeking contact information for Von Lintig’s attorney. CNN has been unsuccessful in attempts to reach the doctor.
“Since the initial filing, The District Attorney’s Office has continued to review the matter and has received additional analysis from experts, including from the Medical Board of California, which lead to today’s charges,” Wednesday’s news release says. “The additional evidence developed in this case demonstrates that criminal negligence by this physician contributed to the inmate’s death.”
The release didn’t give specifics on the new evidence.
Von Lintig’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 29.
In November, the district attorney’s office said when Pascua went to check on the inmate, “Serna fell in the defendant’s presence. The defendant failed to get Serna’s vitals, did not move Serna into a recovery position and left Serna on the ground in the cell. About an hour later, Pascua and deputies returned to Ms. Serna’s cell and began futile life-saving measures.”
Pascua, 37, is due in court Thursday.
“We are continuing to deny the allegations brought against Ms. Pascua,” her attorney, Alicia C. Freeze, told CNN. “We have always wondered why this inmate’s sad passing has come down onto the shoulders of Ms. Pascua only – a young nurse with an impeccable record who had only clocked in for work an hour or so prior to the woman’s death. We will continue to advocate for Ms. Pascua’s innocence.”
Freeze said Pascua was not arrested and “appeared timely” when she was given a “Notify Letter” to appear in court.
The “only conditions are restricting her ability to practice nursing, which we have challenged as unconstitutional and will be litigated at the new preliminary hearing date,” Freeze said in an email.
The maximum sentence for someone convicted in California of involuntary manslaughter is four years, according to the district attorney.
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Infowars host Alex Jones ordered by Connecticut jury to pay $965 million over Sandy Hook ‘hoax’ claims
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WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in Connecticut decided Wednesday.
The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the lie that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns.
It came in a lawsuit filed by the relatives of five children and three educators killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first responders to the scene. A Texas jury in August awarded nearly $50 million to the parents of another slain child.
“ Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales. ”
The Connecticut trial featured tearful testimony from parents and siblings of the victims, who told about how they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’s show.
Strangers showed up at their homes to record them. People hurled abusive comments on social media. Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.
Mark Barden told of how conspiracy theorists had urinated on the grave of his 7-year-old son, Daniel, and threatened to dig up the coffin.
Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis discusses a question from the jury with attorneys on Tuesday.
H. John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media/AP
Testifying during the trial, Jones acknowledged he had been wrong about Sandy Hook. The shooting was real, he said. But both in the courtroom and on his show, he was defiant.
He called the proceedings a “kangaroo court,” mocked the judge, called the plaintiffs’ lawyer an ambulance chaser and labeled the case an affront to free speech rights. He claimed it was a conspiracy by Democrats and the media to silence him and put him out of business. “I’ve already said ‘I’m sorry’ hundreds of times, and I’m done saying I’m sorry,” he said during his testimony.
Twenty children and six adults died in the shooting on Dec. 14, 2012. The defamation trial was held at a courthouse in Waterbury, about 20 miles from Newtown, where the attack took place.
The lawsuit accused Jones and Infowars’ private parent company, Free Speech Systems, of using the mass killing to build his audience and make millions of dollars.
Experts testified that Jones’s audience swelled when he made Sandy Hook a topic on the show, as did his revenue from product sales.
Don’t miss: Alex Jones’s audience and Infowars’ revenue grew as Jones alleged Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax
In both the Texas lawsuit and the one in Connecticut, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings.
See: Texas jury orders Alex Jones to pay more than $49 million in damages in Sandy Hook case
Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free-speech rights and other topics during his testimony.
Jones now faces a third trial, in Texas around the end of the year, in a lawsuit filed by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.
It is unclear how much of the verdicts Jones can afford to pay.
During the trial in Texas, he testified he couldn’t afford any judgment over $2 million. Free Speech Systems has filed for bankruptcy protection. But an economist testified in the Texas proceeding that Jones and his company were worth as much as $270 million.
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