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Tag: mass murder

  • Victims’ families, united in grief, face 2 paths to justice as Pittsburgh synagogue shooting death penalty trial moves to next phase | CNN

    Victims’ families, united in grief, face 2 paths to justice as Pittsburgh synagogue shooting death penalty trial moves to next phase | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Federal jurors in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial will soon decide whether to sentence the convicted gunman to death or life in prison – two potential avenues for justice that in the years since the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history have found varying levels of support in an otherwise unified community.

    As expected, shooter Robert Bowers was found guilty this month of all 63 counts he faced stemming from the Sabbath morning massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 worshipers dead as three congregations gathered to pray. Eleven counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and 11 counts of use and discharge of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence were capital counts, making Bowers eligible for the death penalty.

    The 50-year-old shooter’s attorneys never contested he committed the 2018 attack, and the case’s main focus is the issue now at hand: whether he is sentenced to death – still an option amid a federal moratorium on carrying out executions – or life in prison without the possibility of parole. For a death sentence to be handed down, the jury must be unanimous.

    But even in a community united – not only its grief but in its hope justice will be done – unanimity around the death penalty is elusive: In the years since the massacre, the victims’ families and congregations have expressed differing views about whether the shooter should be put to death. Some are convinced so egregious an attack warrants capital punishment, while others fear a death sentence could retraumatize their community or a life sentence would better honor the victims, they’ve said.

    The divergence reflects a broader national split on capital punishment. Recent high-profile cases, too, have shown juries don’t always send mass killers to death row, with the gunman who killed 17 people at a Parkland, Florida, high school and the terrorist who killed eight on a New York City bike path sentenced to life in prison after their juries declined to unanimously opt for death.

    Most of the families of those killed at the Pittsburgh synagogue want the shooter sentenced to die, according to a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle published in November and signed by seven of the nine families whose relatives were murdered.

    “We are not a ruthless, uncompassionate people; we, as a persecuted people, understand when there is a time for compassion and when there is a time to stand up and say enough is enough – such violent hatred will not be tolerated on this earth,” reads the letter written to counter unspecified opinion pieces opposing the US Justice Department’s decision to seek a death sentence.

    “Please don’t tell us how we should feel, what is best for us, what will comfort us and what will bring closure for the victims’ families. You can not and will not speak for us,” it reads. “The massacre of our loved ones was a clear violation of American law – mass murder of Jews for simply being Jewish and practicing Judaism, driven by sheer antisemitism – which the law rightfully deems is a capital offense.”

    Others have offered a different view. The targeted Dor Hadash Congregation previously voiced its opposition to the death penalty in this case, as did the rabbi of New Light Congregation, who narrowly escaped the shooting in which his faith community lost three worshipers. CNN reached out to Rabbi Jonathan Perlman for comment on his prior position.

    “I would like the Pittsburgh killer to be incarcerated for the rest of his life without parole,” Perlman wrote in an August 2019 letter to then-Attorney General William Barr before the decision to seek a death sentence was made. “He should meditate on whether taking action on some white separatist fantasy against the Jewish people was really worth it. Let him live with it forever.”

    Perlman’s focus, he wrote, was “not letting this thug cause my community any further pain.”

    “We are still attending to our wounds, both physical and emotional, and I don’t want to see them reopened any more. Many of us are healing but many of us (have) been re-traumatized multiple times,” Perlman said. “A drawn out and difficult death penalty trial would be a disaster with witnesses and attorneys dredging up horrifying drama and giving this killer the media attention he does not deserve.”

    While the Torah “unambiguously” allows for capital punishment, rabbis in the first and second centuries were hesitant to support its implementation, said David Kraemer, professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

    They feared the flaws of a human court system out of concern innocents could be inadvertently punished, he told CNN. Those rabbis believed it best to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free in part because they believed the guilty would receive an appropriate punishment after death.

    “I think the reason they were comfortable with that is because they believed that there was a divine court,” Kraemer said, “that would correct the error that the human court may have made.”

    The Justice Department under Barr, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, initially chose to try the Pittsburgh shooting as a capital case, even as the US government at that time had not executed a federal death row inmate in almost 20 years. That changed in the Trump administration’s waning days, when 13 federal inmates were put to death over six months ending in January 2021.

    The Dor Hadash Congregation lamented the Barr-era decision, writing afterward in late August 2019 it was “saddened and disappointed” the agency chose to push forward with a capital case, despite a letter the congregation said it had sent that same month asking both sides to agree to a plea deal giving the gunman life in prison without parole.

    “A deal would have honored the memory of Dor Hadash congregant Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, who was firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty,” its statement read. “It would have prevented the attacker from getting the attention and publicity that will inevitably come with a trial, and eliminated any possibility of further trauma that could result from a trial and protracted appeals.”

    The congregation did not feel commenting on the death penalty was appropriate now that the trial has moved on from the guilt phase, its spokesperson told CNN. “We remain very grateful to the Department of Justice and the US Attorney’s office for their work in this matter over the course of the past 4 1/2 years,” Pamina Ewing of Dor Hadash said.

    Then in July 2021 – a day after he issued a moratorium on federal executions – Democratic President Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland was sent a letter from seven of the nine families of those slain in the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, urging him to continue to pursue a death sentence in the case, according to Diane and Michele Rosenthal, the sisters of victims David and Cecil Rosenthal.

    The letter said the “vast majority of the immediate victim-family members” had not wavered in their desire for the death penalty. “As such, we respectfully beseech you to uphold the prior DOJ decision on the death-penalty qualification of this Capital Murder case and permit it to proceed as originally decided.”

    The letter aimed to “reflect … our support in seeking the death penalty in this particular tragedy,” the sisters told reporters in April, weeks before the trial began. They spoke only for their own family, they said, adding the other signatories had agreed to let them share the letter.

    Ellen Surloff, left, vice president of Congregation Dor Hadash, and Jo Recht, president of the congregation, speak on June 16 after the gunman was found guilty.

    The Justice Department under Garland is prosecuting the case, making it the second federal death penalty trial in the era of Biden, who’d campaigned on a promise to abolish the punishment at the federal level but has taken few substantive steps toward doing so.

    Since his appointment two years ago, Garland has not authorized the department to seek the death penalty in any new cases, a Justice Department spokesman said, and he continues to assess new requests for authorization to seek or withdraw the death penalty on a case-by-case basis, consistent with federal law and the Justice Manual.

    Americans overall remain divided nearly down the middle on the death penalty, as they have been for years following precipitous drops in support for it over recent decades. About 55% of Americans say they are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, a split that’s been relatively unchanged for at least six consecutive years, polling from Gallup shows.

    And like in Pittsburgh – where community members have supported each other before the trial and during it – victims of violent crime and their families are no monolith. While some express opposition to capital punishment, others look to it for some semblance of closure or justice.

    The Pittsburgh synagogue “massacre was not just a mass murder of innocent citizens during the service in a house of worship. It was an antisemitic hate crime,” Diane Rosenthal said in April. “The death penalty must apply to vindicate justice and to offer some measure of deterrence from horrific hate crimes happening again and again.”

    “We don’t want to be here,” she said, “and we know the emotional toll this trial potentially brings. But we owe it to our brothers, Cecil and David.”

    Added Michele Rosenthal: “The suggestions published or reported that family members be relieved of the stress of a trial or that a cost-benefit analysis dictates a plea are offensive to our family,” she said. “Our family has suffered long and hard over the last four and a half years. … We don’t want to have to continue to defend ourselves and our position.

    “We want justice.”

    Beyond the families, many simply are bracing for the Pittsburgh synagogue trial’s penalty phase and how it may impact those touched by the wider ripples of the attack. After the gunman’s conviction, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh opted to “take no position on what justice is,” its president and CEO told reporters.

    “We trust the justice process,” Brian Schreiber said.

    Whatever comes of the penalty phase, it will be “gut wrenching,” and “reopen wounds,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh.

    “They keep getting reopened for us here in our Pittsburgh community,” he said, “not just the Jewish community but this greater Pittsburgh region.”

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  • Opening statements begin in the trial of Parkland school resource officer who stayed outside during shooting | CNN

    Opening statements begin in the trial of Parkland school resource officer who stayed outside during shooting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The trial of the former school resource officer who remained outside a Parkland, Florida, high school five years ago while 17 people were gunned down inside started in earnest Wednesday, as prosecutors began presenting their opening statement.

    The state has accused retired Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Scot Peterson of failing to follow his active shooter training by staying outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018, taking cover for at least 45 minutes while a former student carried out what remains the deadliest high school shooting in US history. Among the slain were 14 students and three staff members; 17 others were injured.

    The case highlights the expectations for officers responding to active shooters as the country faces a seemingly endless scourge of gun violence, with schools such as those in Parkland; Uvalde, Texas; and Newtown, Connecticut, etched in public memory as the scenes of some of the most devastating massacres.

    Peterson has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts – including seven of felony child neglect, three of culpable negligence and one of perjury – and maintains he did nothing wrong. The 60-year-old, who retired as criticism of his alleged failure mounted, has said he didn’t enter the unfolding scene of carnage in the school’s 1200 building because he couldn’t tell where the gunshots were coming from.

    Before the shooting, Peterson was a dedicated and decorated officer who had served for more than three decades, his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, told CNN.

    “After a 32-year career, this loving husband and father of four went from hero, and in 4 minutes and 15 seconds, he went to criminal,” the defense lawyer said.

    Jury selection began last Wednesday, yielding a panel of six jurors and four alternates tasked with weighing the state’s unusual case, which experts have described to CNN as the first of its kind and a legal stretch.

    The Broward State Attorney’s Office charged Peterson under a Florida statute that usually applies to caretakers, arguing the then-deputy, in his capacity as a school resource officer, was a caregiver responsible for the protection of the high school’s students and staff.

    Peterson was at the school administration building on February 14, 2018, when the shooter opened fire on the first floor of the 1200 building, according to a probable cause affidavit. Peterson got to the building’s east entrance about 2 minutes later, per a timeline in the affidavit.

    Peterson moved about 75 feet away and “positioned himself behind the wall of the stairwell on the northeast corner of the 700 Building” – a third campus structure – the affidavit says, calling it a “position of cover” he held for the duration of the shooting.

    In a blow to both the state and the defense, the judge last week ruled jurors will not make a trip to the scene of the shooting, as the jury in the shooter’s trial did, CNN affiliate WPLG reported. Eiglarsh wanted the jury to see the exterior of the 1200 building, which has been preserved pending the trials of the shooter and Peterson, while prosecutors had wanted jurors to see the building’s interior, too.

    Beyond the child neglect and culpable negligence charges, Peterson was charged with perjury for telling investigators he heard only two or three gunshots after arriving at the scene of the shooting, the affidavit says, while other witnesses said they’d heard more.

    Peterson’s attorney intends to argue, in part, that his client’s confusion about the location of the shooter was reasonable and shared by others at the scene, including members of law enforcement, teachers and students, Eiglarsh told CNN. The lawyer also contends Peterson’s actions at the scene illustrate he was not negligent but reacting as well as he could with the information he had, he said.

    Additionally, Eiglarsh disagrees with the decision to charge his client under the caretaker statute, he told CNN, calling the choice “preposterous.”

    “He’s not a legal caregiver,” Eiglarsh said, acknowledging he understands the argument. “But he’s not a teacher, he’s not a parent, he’s not a kidnapper who’s responsible for the well-being of a child. He’s not hired by the school system.”

    In the past, Peterson and his attorneys have argued the caretaker statute does not apply to him, emphasizing one person is responsible for the deaths and injuries that day: the gunman, then-19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder and was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a jury declined to unanimously recommend the death penalty.

    That outcome angered and disappointed many victims’ families, including some who see Peterson’s trial as another opportunity for justice.

    “We should not portray or allow the defense team or the deputy who failed to act properly to portray himself as a victim,” Tony Montalto, the father of 14-year-old victim Gina Montalto told CNN before jury selection. “He was charged with keeping the students and staff safe, and he failed to do so.”

    “Regardless of the outcome in the trial,” he said, “I hope he’s haunted every day by the fact that his actions cost lives.”

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  • A mass shooting after a high school commencement ceremony leaves 2 dead, including an 18-year-old graduate | CNN

    A mass shooting after a high school commencement ceremony leaves 2 dead, including an 18-year-old graduate | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A shooting after a high school commencement ceremony in Richmond, Virginia, killed two people Tuesday evening – an 18-year-old man on his graduation day and a man who’d attended the event – and wounded five others, spreading terror among hundreds who were celebrating, police say.

    The gunfire happened in Richmond’s Monroe Park, where graduates and guests were reveling and taking photographs after Huguenot High School held its commencement at a theater across the street, officials said.

    The shooting sent people running in all directions, and a 9-year-old girl was injured by a car that struck her during the chaos, the city’s interim police chief said in a news conference.

    A suspect – a 19-year-old man – was taken into custody after the shooting. Police intend to seek charges of second-degree murder against him, and other charges could follow, Edwards said. The names of the suspect and those killed and injured were not immediately released.

    “This should have been a safe space,” the interim chief, Rick Edwards, said Tuesday night. “It’s just incredibly tragic that someone decided to bring a gun to this incident and rain terror on our community.”

    It’s unclear what motivated the attack. The chief said it was unknown Tuesday whether the suspect is a student.

    “We think the suspect knew at least one of the victims,” the interim chief said, without elaborating.

    Huguenot High’s ceremony was the second Richmond high school commencement to happen Tuesday at Altria Theater, and a third graduation ceremony scheduled there that day was canceled after the shooting, school officials said.

    Though Edwards said the 18-year-old who died had graduated Tuesday, Edwards did not say from which school. The other man who died was a 36-year-old who’d just attended the ceremony, the interim chief said.

    The other gunshot victims were a 14-year-old boy and four men ranging in age from 31 to 58. The 31-year-old had life-threatening injuries as of Tuesday night and the rest did not, Edwards said

    The 9-year-old girl who was hit by a car was being treated at a hospital Tuesday night with non-life-threatening injuries, he added.

    The shooting marks one of at least 279 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.

    The violence added Richmond to a list of communities across the country to grapple with the terror of mass shootings in recent months, including shootings at a mall in Texas, a school in Tennessee, a bank in Kentucky and near a beach in South Florida.

    The shooting happened just before 5:15 p.m. ET, when three off-duty officers who were working security at the ceremony heard gunshots and reported them on their radios, and officers working traffic duty nearby responded, Edwards said.

    “The initial officers indicated there was a barrage of gunfire, but it was over quickly,” he added.

    The suspect fled on foot and was found and detained nearby by security officers with Virginia Commonwealth University, nearby, Edwards said. Monroe Park is part of VCU’s Monroe Park campus.

    Police initially announced detained two people but later said one of them was not involved in the shooting.

    Police seized several guns following the shooting, the interim chief said.

    Turmoil unfolded when the shooting happened, Edwards said.

    “I heard the call come over my radio, and you can hear the chaos and the screaming,” Edwards said.

    “People were having panic attacks, falling on the ground screaming,” Edwards added. “Some people fell. One child was hit by a car.”

    Naomi Wade was outside the Altria Theater selling flowers and teddy bears for the graduates, she told CNN affiliate WTVR. Images of smiling graduates in caps and gowns turned to scenes of panic as gunshots were heard, she said.

    “Everyone literally started running for their lives, trampling each other. Trampled me. Trampled our whole entire stand. It was scary,” Wade said.

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney decried the shooting Tuesday and promised whoever was involved would be brought to justice.

    “Is nothing sacred any longer?” Stoney said at a news conference.

    “This should not be happening anywhere,” Stoney said “A child should be able to go to their graduation and walk at their graduation and enjoy the accomplishment with their friends and families.”

    Richmond Public Schools is closing all its schools Wednesday out of an abundance of caution, the system announced on its website.

    The rest of this week’s high school graduations in the district also have been canceled.

    “We’ve been preparing for an event like this. We’ve prepared for it with our partners and hoping that this day would come,” Edwards said. “But it came to Richmond.”

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  • Overseas Hong Kongers carry Tiananmen’s torch as vigils to remember massacre victims are snuffed out back home | CNN

    Overseas Hong Kongers carry Tiananmen’s torch as vigils to remember massacre victims are snuffed out back home | CNN

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Hong Kongers living overseas are helping to keep the flame of remembrance alive for the victims of China’s Tiananmen massacre as authorities in a city that once hosted huge annual vigils continue to stamp out dissent.

    Until recently Hong Kong was the only place within China where large-scale gatherings each June 4 were tolerated to remember the moment in 1989 when the Communist Party sent tanks in to violently quell peaceful student-led democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

    But the annual candlelight vigils have been silenced the last three years in the wake of pandemic restrictions and Beijing’s ongoing political crackdown in Hong Kong, which was upended by its own huge democracy protests in 2019.

    This year is set to be no different. Victoria Park, the site that used to hold the vigils, is again open after three years of coronavirus pandemic closures.

    But it is hosting a fair put on by pro-Beijing associations whilst many of those who once organized the city’s Tiananmen commemorations languish in jail or have fled abroad.

    As a result, it is overseas where the most concerted commemorations were taking place for the 34th anniversary.

    Protests, vigils and exhibitions are planned in multiple cities around the world including in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Europe, the United States and Canada bolstered by a growing cohort of Hong Kongers who have chosen to move overseas.

    “I think it’s sad to say that what Beijing and Hong Kong are doing is trying to erase history and the memory,” said Kevin Yam, a former lawyer in Hong Kong, who will be attending a ceremony in Melbourne, Australia, where he now resides.

    “For those who can still remember, we have the obligation to let the world know that we have not forgotten,” he told CNN.

    01 tiananmen sq museum

    A new museum in New York is a vivid example of how Tiananmen commemorations are going global.

    On Friday, Zhou Fengsuo and Wang Dan, two former student leaders who took part in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and now live in the United States, unveiled a June 4th Memorial Exhibit on 6th Avenue.

    The display includes items collected from those who survived the massacre including newspapers chronicling the event, a blood-stained shirt from a former journalist and a decades-old printer used by protesters that was sneaked out of China.

    Zhou said the idea to create a New York exhibition began five years ago but the closure of Hong Kong’s own June 4 museum by authorities in 2021 “added to the urgency”.

    “Hong Kong has been carrying the torch for commemorating the Tiananmen massacre, keeping the legacy alive. When the museum was shut down, with the Hong Kong alliance’s leaders in prison, we knew it was a critical moment,” he said.

    “We have to continue here in the United States.”

    The 2,200-square-feet venue in New York can host up to 100 guests at a time, with schools and universities already reaching to request for a tour, Zhou said, adding they have raised enough funding to keep it running for “many years”.

    The June 4 museum newly opened in New York displays a printer used by student protesters in 1989 prior to the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

    Thirty four years ago, Beijing sent in People’s Liberation Army troops armed with rifles and accompanied by tanks to forcibly clear the square where students were protesting for greater democracy.

    No official death toll is available, but estimates range from several hundred to thousands, with many more injured.

    Authorities in mainland China have always done their best to erase all memory of the Tiananmen massacre: Censoring news reports, scrubbing all mentions from the internet, arresting and chasing into exile the organizers of the protests, and keeping the relatives of those who died under tight surveillance.

    The censorship has meant generations of mainland Chinese have grown up without knowledge of the events of June 4.

    But Hong Kong was different.

    Thousands gathered at a candlelit vigil in Hong Kong on June 4, 2017, to mark 28 years since China's bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.

    Somber and defiant vigils were an annual political cornerstone, first under colonial British rule and then after the city’s 1997 handover to China. Every June 4, come rain or shine, tens of thousands of people would descend on Victoria Park with speakers demanding accountability from the Chinese Communist Party for ordering the bloody military crackdown.

    But Hong Kong’s political culture has changed drastically in the aftermath in 2019’s huge and sometimes violent democracy protests.

    Beijing responded with a sweeping national security law that outlawed most dissent. Leading democracy activists, including key Tiananmen vigil figures, have been jailed, critical newspapers shuttered and the political system overhauled to ensure only “patriots” are allowed.

    Authorities banned the vigil in 2020 and 2021 citing coronavirus health restrictions – though many Hongkongers believe that was just an excuse to clamp down on shows of public dissent.

    Last year, the park remained in darkness again, barricaded off on all sides with police stopping and searching passersby to “prevent any unauthorized assemblies which affect public safety and public order, and to prevent the risk of virus transmission due to such gatherings,” according to a government statement.

    The Hong Kong Alliance, the group behind the past vigils, has disbanded with three leading figures in jail facing national security charges.

    In the run up to this Sunday’s anniversary, authorities made clear commemorating Tiananmen this year would not be tolerated.

    Security secretary Chris Tang – a former police chief – said he expected some might use “this very special day” to advocate Hong Kong independence and subvert state power, acts banned by the new national security law.

    “But I want to tell these people that if you carry out these acts, we will definitely take decisive action,” he warned, adding: “You will not be lucky.”

    Hong Kong police maintained a heavy police presence around the park on the anniversary’s eve, deploying multiple police coaches and even an armored vehicle at one point.

    Police officers take away a member of the public into a police van in the Causeway Bay area on the eve 34th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square massacre in Hong Kong.

    A handful of artists and activists defied warnings and turned up either at the park or surrounding streets on Saturday evening to make private commemorations with floral tributes and banners, only to be quickly intercepted and taken away by officers.

    A police spokesman said four people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly behavior in public or carrying out acts with seditious intent as of Saturday. Police said some individuals had protest props bearing allegedly “seditious” wording. Four others were brought in for further investigation, police added.

    Richard Tsoi, former secretary for the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance, said he planned to commemorate the event either at home or at a private location.

    “Definitely there will be not be large-scale commemoration activities. Whether one can mourn in public without breaking the law is also a question,” said the ex-organizer, who used attend every vigil in the past.

    Several hundred of 200,000 pro-democracy student protesters face to face with policemen outside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square 22 April 1989 in Beijing.

    Throughout Hong Kong physical reminders of the Tiananmen massacre, including a famous “Pillar of Shame” statue that used to stand in the city’s oldest university, have been dismantled in recent years.

    Yet last month a replica of the “Pillar of Shame” was erected in Berlin, with the help of its original Danish artist Jens Galschiot and a prominent Hong Kong activist now living in Germany. The artist also provided more than 40 giant banners printed with an image of the pillar to 18 cities for their commemoration events, including Los Angeles and Boston.

    Another pillar was unveiled in Norway last year.

    “It is true that the commemorations around June 4th have expanded and become more global since it has become impossible to do anything in Hong Kong,” he told CNN.

    People hold candles as they walk near the Victoria Park after police closed the venue where Hong Kong people traditionally gather annually to mourn the victims of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, in the Causeway Bay district on June 4, 2021 in Hong Kong.

    Hong Kongers, Zhou says, are playing a key role in keeping Tiananmen remembrance alive overseas,

    “Since last year, many places have seen record numbers in attendance largely because of Hong Kong immigrants,” he said.

    Many Hong Kongers have left for overseas with the city’s population dropping from 7.41 million to 7.29 million last year.

    In Britain – where more than 100,000 Hongkongers have since settled after London offered an easier pathway to citizenship two years ago – about a dozen marches and vigils are slated to take place throughout June 4 across the country, from Nottingham and Manchester, a popular destination for Hong Kong immigrants.

    In London, marchers will gather at Trafalgar Square before marching to the Chinese embassies, where a vigil will be held.

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  • Three dead, including two police officers, in a rare mass stabbing and shooting attack in central Japan | CNN

    Three dead, including two police officers, in a rare mass stabbing and shooting attack in central Japan | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Three people were killed, including two police officers, in a shooting and stabbing attack in central Japan on Thursday, NHK reported citing police.

    Police received a call in the late afternoon with reports that a “man stabbed a woman,” a Nakano City police official told CNN.

    When officers rushed to the scene, the man fired something resembling a hunting rifle, striking four people, before fleeing the scene and barricading himself in a building, he added.

    The woman was taken to hospital where she was subsequently pronounced dead.

    Public broadcaster NHK later reported that two police officers also died from their injuries and that one other person was injured.

    NHK reported the suspect was wearing a camouflage hat, top and bottoms with sunglasses and a mask.

    Nakano City urged citizens to stay indoors in a statement posted onto social media Thursday.

    Gun violence is extremely rare in Japan. The country has one of the lowest rates of gun crimes in the world due to its extremely strict gun control laws.

    In 2018, Japan, a country of 125 million people, only reported nine deaths from firearms – compared with 39,740 that year in the United States, according to data compiled by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

    However, Japan was rocked by a shooting last year that reverberated around the world.

    Shinzo Abe, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, was shot dead during a campaign speech in Nara in July.

    His murder sent shock waves through Japan and the international community, and also sparked questions about whether enough security was in place to protect him despite Japan’s track record for being a safe place.

    Getting hold of a firearm in Japan is extremely difficult and the suspect in Abe’s shooting used a homemade weapon.


    This is a breaking news story, more to follow

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  • White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

    White House expands its playbook for responding to mass shootings in the year after Uvalde | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    When news broke of a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, one year ago, President Joe Biden was on his way back from Tokyo following a major international summit.

    Biden watched the news unfold on Air Force One, feeling, like others, horrified and heartbroken for the families, and deciding in that moment to speak upon returning to the White House, a White House official told CNN.

    Moments after landing, a somber Biden – who had been in the Obama White House during the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School – walked into a briefing in the Oval Office and prepared an address he delivered that evening in the Roosevelt Room.

    “I had hoped, when I became president, I would not have to do this again,” Biden said as he started the speech. He later visited Uvalde.

    Over the last year, Biden has signed legislation called the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and implemented two dozen executive actions to try to reduce gun violence. And on Wednesday, Biden will again deliver remarks to mark the one-year remembrance of the Uvalde shooting.

    But in that same time span, hundreds more mass shootings have gripped communities nationwide.

    Mass shootings have become so common in the United States that the White House has framed their approach as akin to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s hurricane response. Behind the scenes, administration officials have been developing ways in which the federal government can respond in the short and long term after a mass shooting, recognizing the physical, mental and economic ramifications.

    “I think we’ve learned that the needs of these communities are really intense, and they also last long after the immediate hours and days after a mass shooting. If a hurricane devastates a community, you get that immediate White House response, but you also get FEMA deployed on the ground to provide direct services and support to survivors,” one source told CNN.

    This recognition of the long after-effects of mass shootings has prompted discussions within the White House about additional measures, including earlier this month, when Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice gathered the first meeting of Cabinet officials and senior staff to discuss steps forward in responding to mass shootings, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

    The reality officials were up against in that meeting came into sharp focus again less than 24 hours later, when another mass shooting unfolded – that time, in Allen, Texas.

    “I don’t think we could feel more urgency than we did on [that] Friday. I think people feel this very deeply. We now work with so many communities that have experienced shootings. It’s devastating, of course, when another gets added to the list,” the source told CNN.

    The Buffalo, New York, shooting last year at a local grocery story was an example of a tragedy that had unanticipated effects as it left a mostly Black community without a crucial grocery store for a period of time.

    “For too long, when we’ve thought about mass shootings and gun violence in general, we’ve only thought about the individuals hurt or killed. What this administration does is certainly attend to survivors and the families of those who have been hurt, but they have a realization that a mass shooting or gun violence in general ripples through the community,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told CNN.

    An operation kicks into gear within the walls of the White House the moment an alert pops up of a potential mass shooting.

    The White House Situation Room and the National Security Council work with the Justice Department and other law enforcement, as well as the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to track down information and gather the facts as they emerge. Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall will then brief Biden on what’s known about the situation and the weapon used, according to a White House official, acknowledging that it can be a fluid situation.

    The Domestic Policy Council, meanwhile, assesses patterns and whether there are new lessons to be gleaned and considered in policy making. And the intergovernmental affairs team also races to reach out to the mayor’s office or other local officials to provide a point of contact at the White House.

    Biden’s advisers keep him updated along the way. But the exasperation felt by White House officials after each mass shooting has been reflected in Biden’s statements, which have started with: “Once again.”

    In an op-ed this month, Biden touted the work done by this administration, but called on Congress to do more.

    “But my power is not absolute. Congress must act, including by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms, requiring background checks for all gun sales, and repealing gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability,” he wrote.

    White House officials have also been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary to advance bills through the Senate.

    After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville in March, Biden asserted that he’s done all he can to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act.

    Many Republicans in Congress, including those in positions of leadership and in the Tennessee delegation, had either been reluctant to use the deadly violence in Nashville as a potential springboard for reform or they outright rejected calls for additional action on further regulating guns, arguing that there isn’t an appetite for tougher restrictions. Some Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, slammed House Republicans for their disinterest.

    Advocacy groups have welcomed Biden’s executive actions and the administration’s response in the wake of a shooting, but stress there’s room for more.

    “It’s part of what moves the needle. Seeing the movement at the federal level is encouraging,” said Mark Barden, co-founder and CEO of the Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund. “It’s something. It’s not everything. It’s not enough. We certainly need more.”

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  • 98-year-old woman and her daughter among 3 victims killed by New Mexico student who fired randomly, hitting cars and homes | CNN

    98-year-old woman and her daughter among 3 victims killed by New Mexico student who fired randomly, hitting cars and homes | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 98-year-old woman and her 73-year-old daughter were among the three people killed by an 18-year-old high school student who roamed through his neighborhood Monday firing indiscriminately at homes and passersby in their vehicles, according to authorities in the northwestern New Mexico town of Farmington.

    In all, Beau Wilson shot nine people Monday morning before four Farmington police officers fatally shot him, police officials said at a Tuesday news conference.

    Gwendolyn Schofield, 98, and daughter Melody Ivie, 73, were killed in their vehicle and Shirley Volta, 79, who also was shot in a car, died at a hospital, according to authorities.

    Farmington Police Sgt. Rachel Discenza was wounded in the exchange of fire with the assailant and New Mexico State Police officer Andreas Stamatiadas was shot as he came to the scene.

    Four other wounded victims were hospitalized, but like the officers, have been released.

    “The amount of violence and brutality that these innocent people faced is something that is unconscionable to me. And I don’t care what age you are. I don’t care what else is going on in your life. To kill three innocent elderly women that were just absolutely in no position to defend themselves is always going to be a tragedy,” Farmington Deputy Chief Kyle Dowdy said Tuesday.

    Investigators are still working on a motive for the shooting, Dowdy said. Interviews with Wilson’s family indicated they had concerns about his mental health, but it was unknown whether Wilson had been diagnosed with any mental health issues, he added.

    The shooter only had “minor infractions” as a juvenile, so he was not on the radar of authorities, the deputy chief said.

    The gunman turned 18 in October 2022 and the next month purchased one of the three weapons used in the shooting, Dowdy said. The deputy chief said police believe the other weapons were legally owned by a family member and they are investigating how the shooter got them.

    One of the guns was an assault-style rifle – a weapon of choice among US mass shooters in recent, high-profile massacres, including the 2012 Sandy Hook school attack and a shooting in Uvalde, Texas, nearly a year ago that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

    The attack left Farmington “shaken to the core by an unthinkable incldent that robbed families of their loved ones,” Mayor Nate Duckett told reporters. It is the latest American city to experience the wider scourge of US gun violence that’s resulted in 225 mass shootings in the first 20 weeks of the year.

    The shooter walked through the neighborhood in this commercial hub near the Southwest’s Four Corners and “randomly fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at,” before police fatally shot him, Police Chief Steve Hebbe said in a video statement Monday night.

    “There were no schools, no churches, no individuals targeted,” he said.

    Dowdy said investigators have not seen a link between the assailant and the victims, but the shooter was staying at a residence in the neighborhood.

    Investigators are piecing together how the attack that left more than 150 shell casings over a “wide and complex scene” that spans more than a quarter of a mile unfolded, authorities said. The assailant fired at three vehicles and six houses, though none of the victims was in a residence.

    Dowdy said investigators were still at the scene and haven’t found all the shell casings it was unclear how many of those the gunman fired.

    Discenza, a patrol sergeant with 10 years at the department, was wearing body armor but was hit by a bullet in the pelvic region, police officials said.

    Stamatiadas was shot while driving to the scene, officials said, and drove himself to a medical facility, according to the chief. The mayor said both have been released from the hospital.

    The four civilians who were shot are no longer in the hospital, Farmington Deputy Chief Baric Crum said Tuesday,

    Five people were treated at the scene for injuries such as cuts from flying glass.

    The shooting was first recorded on a doorbell camera at 10:56 a.m. MT and then emergency dispatch received “hundreds” of calls for an active shooter, police said. Officers were dispatched one minute later, including three who on their way to lunch and responded without body armor.

    They arrived at 11:02 and four minutes later the officers killed the gunman, according to Dowdy. Farmington officers were the only law enforcement personnel who shot at the gunman, firing 16 rounds total, officials said.

    Wilson was a student at Farmington High School, which was set to have its graduation ceremony Tuesday evening.

    Authorities expect to hold another news conference Wednesday.

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  • 2 dead, 5 injured following shooting involving teens in Yuma, Arizona | CNN

    2 dead, 5 injured following shooting involving teens in Yuma, Arizona | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Police in southwestern Arizona are investigating a fatal weekend shooting that left two people dead and five others injured, including teenagers, authorities said Sunday.

    Victims ranged from 15 to 20 years old in the shooting that happened Saturday night at a gathering in a residential area of Yuma, according to the Yuma Police Department.

    Officers responded shortly before 11 p.m. local time and found several gunshot victims who were all male, police said in a statement.

    Two of the victims – 19-year-old and 20-year-old men – were taken to the Yuma Regional Medical Center, where they were both pronounced dead.

    The 19-year-old victim was transported to the hospital before police arrived at the scene, and the Yuma Fire Department took the 20-year-old victim to the hospital, the statement said.

    A 16-year-old boy was also taken to the same medical center and later flown to Phoenix with life-threatening injuries.

    The injuries of the remaining gunshot victims aged 15, 16, 18 and 19 were not life-threatening, authorities said.

    Several off-duty officers who happened to be in the area also responded to the shooting, police said.

    Investigators were interviewing several witnesses Sunday, said Yuma Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Lori Franklin, CNN affiliate KYMA reported.

    A suspect has not yet been taken into custody as authorities continue their investigation, according to the statement.

    The shooting marks the 33rd mass shooting of May 2023, and more than 215 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

    CNN and the GVA define a mass shooting as one in which four or more people were either injured or killed, excluding the shooter.

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  • GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters | CNN Politics

    GOP frontrunner for NC governor mocked school shooting survivors and once justified shooting protesters | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the current Republican favorite to be the party’s nominee for governor in 2024, has a long history of remarks viciously mocking and attacking teenage survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for their advocacy for gun control measures.

    In posts after the shooting, Robinson called the students “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little bastards,” and “media prosti-tots.”

    Robinson, whose political rise as a conservative Internet personality started when a clip of him speaking at a city council meeting in April 2018 went viral, as he was speaking against a proposal to cancel a local gun show after the Parkland shooting. He also began attacking the Parkland survivors after they launched the “March for Our Lives” movement that called for new gun control measures, comparing the students to communists.

    Robinson’s comments about the school shooting survivors were frequently personal, mocking their appearance and intelligence. In one post on Facebook, Robinson shared a photo of several students posing for photos, with the caption, “the look you get when you let the devil give you a ride on a river of blood to ’15 minutes of Fameville.’”

    In another comment on Twitter in April of 2018, Robinson shared several crying laughing emojis in response to a post that blasted conservatives who mocked the survivors, writing that when children “got sassy,” adults needed to make sure the “CHILDREN knew their place.”

    Robinson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    As Robinson became known for his fierce defense of gun rights, he was frequently featured in videos and promoted by the National Rifle Association. Robinson leveraged his often viral and unapologetic Facebook posts to win his party’s nomination for the state’s lieutenant governorship in 2020, winning the race to become the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.

    Though the position is largely considered a ceremonial role – and the state has a Democratic governor because the jobs are elected separately – Robinson has now set his sights on the top job. Roy Cooper, the current Democratic governor, is term-limited, and Robinson would likely face Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, a Democrat finishing out his second term.

    CNN’s KFile examined his mostly unreported remarks, as the candidate is coming under renewed scrutiny in his bid for the governor’s mansion. Robinson, who frequently posted in defense of law enforcement, often attacked left wing protesters, going so far as defending the shooting of students at Kent State protesting the Vietnam War in May 1970, commonly known as the “Kent State Massacre.”

    Robinson said such a response deserved to be emulated today.

    “The shooting that happened at Kent State now, I don’t know how much you know about that shooting at Kent State, but people have got to understand it,” Robinson said on one podcast in 2018. “We have the constitutional right to peacefully assemble. Now peacefully assemble does not mean you could throw bricks at National Guardsmen, bust out windows and block traffic. Once you cross that line into violence and the disruption of public transportation and public services and start blocking the entrances of a federal building, you are no longer a protester.”

    “You are are now a criminal and you need to be dealt with like a criminal,” he continued. “And we need some politicians in office in some of these cities that’s gonna let people know from the get-go, you go in the street and block traffic, if you block buildings, if you destroy property, you are going to be dealt with swiftly and harshly. We are not going to tolerate it. That is exactly the message that needs to go out to these people. You wanna apply for a permit to protest at the park, that’s fine, but it’s gonna be peaceful and you’re not going to bother anybody, and you’re not going to destroy anything. If you do, you will be dealt with harshly and swiftly.”

    Though there were violent clashes between local police and protesters in the days leading up to the shooting, the Nixon administration-established President’s Commission on Campus Unrest said that the shooting was unjustified, writing in a 1970 report, “Even if the guardsmen faced danger, it was not a danger that called for lethal force. The 61 shots by 28 guardsmen certainly cannot be justified.”

    Robinson was also frequently critical of the “March for Our Lives” rally itself, calling it, “a march of pawns in Washington today” and mocked attendees.

    One photo shared by Robinson mocked an attendee at the “March for Our Lives” rally in Washington, DC, saying the college-aged student needed to “put that sign down and go read a book dummy” and “They live. They breathe. They’ll procreate. #funnybutscary.”

    His harshest rhetoric was saved for then-18-year-old Parkland activist David Hogg, calling the student a “commie stooge,” in a post that also mocked 18-year-old Parkland student X Gonzáles as “that bald chick,” referring to the pair as “stupid kids.”

    In another post on Facebook, less than two weeks after the shooting in 2018, Robinson shared the laughing crying emoji with a photoshopped chyron on a picture of Hogg on MSNBC with the title “Media Hogg,” and a day later shared a crude photoshop of the student’s face on body of Boss Hogg from “The Dukes of Hazzard” calling the student “just as corrupt as the TV character.”

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  • At least eight dead as Serbia rocked by second mass shooting in two days | CNN

    At least eight dead as Serbia rocked by second mass shooting in two days | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    At least eight people have been killed and 13 wounded in a shooting in the Serbian village of Dubona, the country’s Interior Ministry spokesperson told CNN.

    The shooter remains at large, and a warrant has been issued for a 21-year-old male suspect, identified as Uros B. by Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic.

    The police have cordoned off the area where they suspected him to be hiding, according CNN affiliate channel N1.

    The incident happened on Thursday night at 11 p.m. local time, Serbia’s Interior Ministry spokesperson said. The attacker shot a group of people with an automatic weapon and fled the scene, according to the public broadcaster RTS, prompting police to launch a manhunt.

    The Interior Ministry confirmed to CNN that they are treating this incident as an act of domestic terrorism, but did not specify more details.

    All special police units are engaged, including an anti-terrorism unit, helicopter unit, and police forces from the cities of Belgrade and Smederevo.

    The Ministry also shared photos with CNN that shows the Serbian special forces actively searching for the suspect, and Interior Minister Gasic at the scene.

    Ambulances and relatives of the injured are arriving at the Emergency Center in Mladenovac, N1 reported.

    “The perpetrator is on the run, and all available patrols have been sent in the direction of Mladenovac and Mali Požarevac,” it added.

    This comes a day after the Balkan country was rocked by news of a 13-year-old boy opening fire on classmates at a school in the capital Belgrade. That shooting left at least eight children dead, along with a security guard.

    Until this week, mass shootings were rare in Serbia, despite the country’s high rate of gun ownership. Serbia has the highest level of civilian gun ownership in Europe, and the fifth-highest in the world – a legacy of years of conflict in the 1990s.

    This is a breaking story. More to come.

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  • Texas massacre suspect’s longtime partner is accused of helping him get food, clothes and transportation while he was on the run | CNN

    Texas massacre suspect’s longtime partner is accused of helping him get food, clothes and transportation while he was on the run | CNN

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    Coldspring, Texas
    CNN
     — 

    The longtime partner of the man accused of gunning down five people, including a 9-year-old, in a neighboring Texas home apparently helped the suspect while also cooperating with authorities – all while a massive manhunt was underway – a prosecutor said Wednesday.

    The suspected gunman, Mexican national Francisco Oropesa, was caught Tuesday and faces one count of first-degree felony murder – with four more counts expected – after the mass shooting Friday night, San Jacinto County criminal district attorney Todd Dillon said. The charge could be upgraded to capital murder – a death penalty offense in Texas – a source with his office told CNN.

    Oropesa’s longtime partner, Divimara Lamar Nava, faces a charge of hindering apprehension or prosecution of a known felon, a third-degree felony, online sheriff’s records show. She was booked Wednesday; It’s not clear if she has an attorney or when her court appearance will be.

    “Ms. Nava appeared to be cooperating up until the time that we arrested her,” Dillon said. However, “what we believe that Ms. Nava was doing is that she was providing him with material aid and encouragement, food, clothes, and had arranged transport to this house.”

    Nava was arrested at the same Montgomery County location where Oropesa was found Tuesday evening hidden in a closet under a pile of laundry, according to case records and San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers. Law enforcement had tracked her to the home, associated with a relative of Oropesa, a law enforcement source told CNN, about a 20-minute drive west of where the shooting unfolded in Cleveland, northwest of Houston.

    The district attorney, like other officials, has referred to Nava as the suspected killer’s “wife,” though public records suggest she is not married. “I don’t know if it’s common-law (marriage), or they’ve actually in fact been married,” Dillon said. “But they were living together as husband and wife.”

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    A man suspected of assisting Oropesa also is in custody in the San Jacinto County jail, the district attorney said. He’s being held on a possession of marijuana charge, and “we expect there to be more charges filed,” Dillon said.

    “Several arrests” have been made in connection with the slayings, and “others are hinging on what’s going on right now,” Chief Deputy Tim Kean of the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday morning. Fewer than five people have been arrested beyond Oropesa, he said.

    The massacre is among more than 180 US mass shootings this year.

    The manhunt had stretched from the US South into Mexico.

    Oropesa, 38, is accused of gunning down five people Friday night after he was asked to stop firing his rifle outside near his neighbor’s home.

    Wilson Garcia, whose wife and son were killed, and two others had asked Oropesa to shoot on the other side of his property because the gunfire was waking Garcia’s baby, he told CNN. The suspect refused and soon unleashed gunfire into the home where Garcia’s family and friends were gathered, he said.

    The victims – all Honduran nationals – have been identified as Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, and her son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 9; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.

    Authorities are waiting to learn whether the mass shooting weapon has been recovered. “As of now, we may have the weapon, but we have to wait for ballistics (testing),” Kean said at a news conference.

    Authorities now have 90 days to indict Oropesa, and the Mexican consulate will be formally notified Wednesday of his circumstances, a law enforcement source involved said.

    At least four times since 2009, Oropesa had entered the US unlawfully and been deported, according to an ICE source. An immigration judge first removed him in March 2009 before he was deported again in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016, the source said.

    It’s unclear how long Oropesa had been in the US before last week’s attack. He and Nava have been together for about 12 years and share a home and a child, a source who knows the family told CNN, though they are not legally married. The woman in the Montgomery County booking photo is Nava, the source confirmed.

    In the end, it was information submitted through the FBI’s tip line that pointed investigators to the home where Oropesa was discovered, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said Tuesday night.

    Federal, state and local authorities had devoted considerable resources to hunting for the fugitive, including a collective $80,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and more than 200 law enforcement officers on the case, officials have said.

    Officials’ efforts may have been stymied by a lack of trust in law enforcement. Some Latinos, particularly immigrants, fear contact with law enforcement could lead to questions about their immigration status and lead to deportation, they told CNN.

    After initial leads on Oropesa went cold over the weekend, authorities pleaded for tips – which eventually came in from Texas, Wyoming, Florida, Maryland and Oklahoma, the sheriff said.

    “We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” Paul said.

    It’s not clear if law enforcement had tracked Oropesa’s wife to the home before or after the tip was sent to the FBI.

    Once they had zeroed in on the house, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, US Marshals Service and US Customs and Border Patrol’s tactical unit, known as BORTAC, entered the home and brought the suspect into custody, an FBI Houston spokesperson said.

    Evelyn Echeverria, 16, had been lying in bed around 6 p.m. when she heard helicopters flying above her home, she told CNN.

    “I headed out and saw a lot of cops and maybe 20 minutes later they came out with him,” said Echeverria, who took video of the apprehension. “He came out handcuffed. He looked like he was cooperating with the officers.”

    Officers led Oropesa through the yard of a house, then gathered around him as he sat in a law enforcement vehicle, witness videos show.

    “We are so happy,” Jefrinson Rivera, the partner of Velázquez Alvarado, told CNN of the arrest.

    The sheriff’s office said the home where Oropesa was found is in the small city of Cut and Shoot, while the FBI Houston office tweeted it is in adjacent Conroe. The BORTAC unit has played a key role in several high-profile US operations, including the mass shooting last year at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where its members fatally shot that gunman, authorities said.

    More than a dozen family members and friends were gathered Friday in the Cleveland home, said Garcia, whose wife and son were killed. They were helping his wife get ready for a church event, he said.

    But their evening was disturbed by gunshots fired by Oropesa outside his home next door, the father said. The shots were waking up Garcia’s baby and making him cry.

    Sonia Argentina Guzman and her son, Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, were shot and killed by a neighbor Friday in Cleveland, Texas, officials said.

    About 10 to 20 minutes before the suspected gunman opened fire, Garcia and two others walked over to Oropesa to ask that he instead shoot on the other side of his property, he said.

    The suspect refused, and Garcia said he would call police.

    “We walked inside and my wife was talking to the police, and we called five times because he was being more threatening,” Garcia recalled.

    At some point, they watched as Oropesa walked off his property and cocked his gun, Garcia said. Concerned, he told his wife to come inside the house.

    “My wife said, ‘You go inside, I don’t think he will fire at me because I’m a woman, I’ll stay here at the door.’”

    Soon after, the gunman charged into Garcia’s home, first shooting his wife, Argentina Guzman, in the doorway before killing three other adults and Garcia’s son Daniel, the grieving father said.

    Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21, was one of the five people killed. Her partner, 23-year-old Jefrinson Rivera, said they had been together for six years.

    “One of the people who died saw when my wife fell to the ground,” Garcia told CNN. “She told me to throw myself out the window because my children were already without a mother. So one of us had to stay alive to take care of them. She was the person who helped me jump out the window.”

    The victims were shot “almost execution style” at close range above the neck, Capers told local media.

    Officers responded to the scene as fast as they could, the sheriff said. But his small force covers a large county, he said, and the home is about 15 minutes outside town.

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  • Neighbors asked a man to stop firing a rifle outside. He then opened fire on them, killing 5 people, a Texas sheriff says | CNN

    Neighbors asked a man to stop firing a rifle outside. He then opened fire on them, killing 5 people, a Texas sheriff says | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A gunman is still at large after allegedly fatally shooting five people, including an 8-year-old, in a Cleveland, Texas home after a Friday night rampage that started with a noise complaint about gunfire, according to the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office.

    The suspect, identified as 38-year old Francisco Oropeza, was apparently shooting a rifle in his yard when neighbors asked him to stop because a baby was trying to sleep, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said. The suspect then opened fire on the neighbors, Capers said.

    Authorities found the victims Friday night after receiving a harassment report about 11:30 p.m. local time, the sheriff said.

    “The victims, they came over to the fence said, ‘Hey, could you mind not shooting out in the yard. We have a young baby that is trying to go sleep,’” Capers said.

    The suspect, who had been drinking, responded, “I’ll do what I want to in my front yard.”

    A doorbell camera at the home of the victims at some point captured the suspect approaching with his rifle, Capers said.

    Multiple people were shot around the residence, Capers said. Two female victims in a bedroom used their bodies to shield two young children who survived, he added.

    “They were trying to take care of them babies and keep them babies alive,” Capers said of the victims.

    The victims were shot above the neck at close range – “almost execution style,” according to Capers.

    The deceased were identified as Sonia Argentina Gúzman, 25; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; José Jonathan Cásarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 8.

    Investigators tracked Oropeza with his cell phone, but the trail went cold Saturday evening, according to local law enforcement.

    “He could be anywhere now,” San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said during a press conference.

    Authorities tracked Oropeza’s cell phone, but found it abandoned, along with articles of clothing, according to the sheriff. “The tracking dogs from Texas Department of Corrections picked up the scent, and then they lost that scent,” Capers said.

    The FBI’s Houston field office said on Twitter that it is assisting in the manhunt.

    “We consider him armed and dangerous,” said FBI special agent in charge James Smith. “He’s out there, and he’s a threat to the community.”

    Authorities said they had received previous reports about the suspect firing a rifle in his yard.

    The suspect was known to shoot a .223 rifle, according to Capers. Shell casings were discovered outside the home. At least three weapons were found in the home of the suspect. Investigators said they have spoken with the suspect’s wife.

    Authorities said they believe Oropeza is no longer in the area.

    A local judge issued an arrest warrant for the suspect.

    There have been at least 174 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Both CNN and the archive define a “mass shooting” as a shooting that injured or killed four or more people, not including the shooter.

    “It’s not just at banks, schools, supermarkets, or churches where Americans fear becoming victims of a mass shooting,” Kris Brown, president of Brady, a gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement.

    “People in this country are being gunned down with assault weapons in their own home, and that is the horrifying reality we will continue to live under until our norms and policies change.”

    There were 10 people inside the home at the time of the shooting, according to the sheriff.

    The victims range in age from 8 to about 40, Capers told reporters earlier Saturday. The 8-year-old victim was pronounced dead at a hospital.

    Three people were taken to the hospital, and two were evaluated at the scene and released, according to authorities.

    Capers said the victims were from Honduras, and some had arrived at the home from Houston in recent days.

    CNN has reached out to authorities for more information.

    Cleveland is about an hour northeast of Houston.

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  • Alabama investigators say they’ll give update today on Sweet 16 birthday party shooting that killed 4 | CNN

    Alabama investigators say they’ll give update today on Sweet 16 birthday party shooting that killed 4 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Authorities investigating the weekend shooting that killed four people and left dozens of others injured at a teen’s birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama, are expected to hold a news conference Wednesday about the case that’s left the small community grappling with grief and confusion for days.

    Details about what will be covered in the news conference, scheduled for 10 a.m. CT, weren’t immediately available. It will come four days after Saturday night’s attack, in which authorities have yet to name any suspects or provide a possible motive.

    The party, held at a downtown venue in celebration of Alexis Dowdell’s 16th birthday, was in full swing when gunfire erupted there, witnesses said. Her 18-year-old brother, Philstavious Dowdell, was killed, as were Marsiah Emmanuel Collins, 19; Shaunkivia “Keke” Nicole Smith, 17; and Corbin Dahmontrey Holston, 23, the Tallapoosa County coroner said.

    Thirty-two other people were injured, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency has said, without specifying their ages or whether they all were shot.

    The FBI, US marshals, a prosecutor’s office and local police will be among those joining the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency at Wednesday’s news conference, the state agency said.

    Investigators have been following up on “strong leads” in the shooting, Dadeville Police Chief Jonathan Floyd told CNN earlier this week.

    As of Monday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency still was processing evidence and interviewing witnesses, it said.

    Several shell casings used in handguns were collected at the scene, the agency said. No high-powered rifle ammunition was recovered, it added.

    After days without significant answers from authorities, Alexis and Phil’s mother, LaTonya Allen – who was shot twice in the attack – has been anxiously awaiting news.

    “I just want justice for my baby and all the other kids that were involved,” Allen told CNN on Monday. She later added, “They took away a piece of my heart, and I know the other mothers and fathers feel the same way.”

    The attack was one of more than 160 mass shootings that have taken place so far this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Like CNN, the nonprofit defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter.

    Alexis had been planning her party for months, she told CNN, and began feeling “butterflies in my stomach” the day of the party.

    When she went to sit on her brother’s bed to tell him she was nervous, Alexis said, he assured her that he would make sure she had fun.

    Just hours later, Alexis and her friends were enjoying the music of the party’s DJ when gunfire erupted inside the venue, she said. Neither she or her mother recall hearing an altercation before the shooting.

    “All I remember is my brother grabbing me and pushing me down to the ground,” where she fell into a puddle of blood, she said.

    People embrace each other during a vigil in Dadeville on Sunday, the day after the shooting

    After Alexis and her mother ran from the building, they returned to see the bodies of the injured and dying scattered across the dimly lit dance floor, they said. As the room’s lights were flicked on, the family was horrified to see Phil’s body soaked in blood.

    The teen recalls running to Phil and pleading with him to stay alive. “He was trying to say something to her,” Allen said.

    “You’re going to make it. You’re strong,” Alexis told her 18-year-old brother as his consciousness wavered. She begged: “Don’t give up on me.”

    By the time first responders arrived on the scene, Phil was dead, Alexis said.

    “It’s a nightmare that I don’t wish on any parent – to go in and to see my baby laying there in a pile of blood,” Allen said. “That was the worst thing that I could experience in my life.”

    Earlier in the evening, Allen said she heard a rumor that someone in the party may have been armed. She said she made a stern announcement over the speaker: “If anyone in here has a gun, then you need to leave because we’re here to celebrate Alexis’ Sweet 16.”

    She and other chaperones scoured the crowd for anyone carrying a firearm, but didn’t see one, the mother said.

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  • Family of victim and survivors of Indianapolis FedEx mass shooting file lawsuit against gun magazine manufacturer and distributors | CNN

    Family of victim and survivors of Indianapolis FedEx mass shooting file lawsuit against gun magazine manufacturer and distributors | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The family of a victim and several survivors of a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis filed a lawsuit against companies involved in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of the high capacity magazine used by the gunman who killed 8 people and injured several others in 2021.

    The federal lawsuit, filed in US District Court in the Western District of New York, targets a gun distributor and magazine manufacturers, and alleges the companies recklessly marketed and sold their products to impulsive young men at risk of violence.

    The gunman in the April 15, 2021, attack, Brandon Hole, 19, was previously employed at the facility and opened fire on his former coworkers before killing himself. About a year before the attack, Hole browsed White supremacist websites, CNN previously reported. His mother contacted the police in March 2020 because she was worried about his behavior and threatening statements he’d made after he purchased a gun, according to police.

    The lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of the estate of Jaswinder Singh, who was killed during the shooting, Harpreet Singh, who was injured, and his wife Dilpreet Kaur, and Lakhwinder Kaur, who was also injured in the attack. They are each seeking at least $75,000 from the lawsuit and are asking for a jury trial, according to the complaint.

    The lawsuit targets American Tactical Inc., an American firearms importer, manufacturer and seller, along with the company’s president and the director of marketing and purchasing. Schmeisser GmbH, a German firearms manufacturer; and 365 Plus d.o.o., a Slovenian company that designs, produces and distributes firearms accessories and other tactical equipment are also listed as defendants.

    The three companies were involved in the manufacturing, marketing and sale of the 60-round high-capacity magazines that “have been used repeatedly to slaughter and terrorize Americans in horrific mass shootings since long before April 2021,” the lawsuit says.

    The lawsuit claims these companies made these magazines easily accessible to Hole and targeted their marketing campaign to “a consumer base filled with impulsive young men who feel they need to harm others in order to prove their strength and who have militaristic delusions of fighting in a war or a video game.”

    “This case is about what happens when companies recklessly design, market, sell, and distribute these accessories to the general public—indiscriminately—and without adherence to reasonable safeguards,” the lawsuit reads.

    American Tactical declined to comment to CNN about the lawsuit. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests.

    Schmeisser GmbH manufactured the magazine used in the mass shooting and distributed it in the US through American Tactical and 365 Plus, the lawsuit claims.

    “The high capacity of the magazine emboldened the shooter to commit the attack, knowing he had the ability to fire 60 rounds continuously without the need to pause to reload,” the lawsuit says.

    The complaint says American Tactical promoted marketing videos that show men dressed in tactical vests similar to what Hole wore during the 2021 attack as they fire “a constant stream of bullets at unseen targets in various offensive, tactical operations.”

    The lawsuit alleges the firearm companies placed an “unreasonably dangerous product on the market without sufficient safeguards to prevent its foreseeable unlawful use.”

    The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the gun control advocacy organization that employs two of several lawyers representing the plaintiffs, wrote in a statement to CNN the nonprofit is “trying to achieve justice for these survivors and their family, and hold American Tactical, Inc. accountable for their irresponsible marketing and sales practices.”

    “If you decide to sell such highly lethal products to the general public anyway, you need to be very careful about who you’re selling them to. As we allege in our complaint, defendants here have instead taken a hard turn and specifically marketed their highly lethal products to a dangerous class of individuals,” said Philip Bangle, the Brady Center’s senior litigation council.

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  • A mass shooting tied to a teen birthday party leaves 4 people dead and a ‘multitude of injuries’ in Alabama | CNN

    A mass shooting tied to a teen birthday party leaves 4 people dead and a ‘multitude of injuries’ in Alabama | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A mass shooting tied to a birthday party has left four people dead and a “multitude” of injuries in Dadeville, Alabama, state officials said.

    The shooting happened around 10:34 p.m. Saturday, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency said Sunday.

    “It was tied to a birthday party,” Sgt. Jeremy J. Burkett said. “There were four lives tragically lost in this incident, and there’s been a multitude of injuries.”

    Burkett declined to provide more details, citing the ongoing investigation.

    One of the victims killed was a member of the Dadeville High School football team, said Ben Hayes, senior pastor of Dadeville’s First Baptist Church.

    Hayes also serves as the chaplain for Dadeville police and the Dadeville High School football team. He said the police chief asked him to go to Lake Martin Community Hospital to help with crowd control and ministering students who had gathered.

    “It’s a very close, tight-knit community,” Hayes told CNN’s Isabel Rosales. “Everybody knows everybody. That’s why this is so difficult it’s because this, it’s affecting everybody in the community.”

    Hayes said students told him the shooting happened at a “Sweet 16” birthday party.

    “I knew these kids personally. Most people did,” the pastor said.

    Among those gathered at the hospital, “There was a lot of sadness, a lot of concern on faces,” Hayes said.

    “I think at this point it’s shock,” he said. “I think probably the anger will come. I think it’s a matter of time to see how people respond to this. But right now, things are quiet, and we’re just praying that it stays that way.”

    A prayer vigil will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday outside First Baptist Church, Hayes said.

    “What we’ve dealt with is something that no community should have to endure,” Dadeville Police Chief Jonathan L. Floyd said Sunday.

    “I also ask each of you please do not let this moment define what you think about the city of Dadeville and our fine people.”

    Dadeville, population 3,000, is about 45 miles northeast of Montgomery.

    Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey publicly sent her condolences to the community. “This morning, I grieve with the people of Dadeville and my fellow Alabamians,” Ivey said in a statement to CNN.

    “Violent crime has NO place in our state, and we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge.”

    The Alabama shooting happened the same day that shots were fired into a crowd at a park in Louisville, Kentucky. Two people were killed and four others were wounded.

    The US has suffered at least 162 mass shootings in the first 15 weeks of 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That’s an average of more than 1.5 mass shootings every day so far this year.

    The archive defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter.

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  • ‘Our city is heartbroken’: Louisville holding vigil today to mourn 5 killed in bank shooting | CNN

    ‘Our city is heartbroken’: Louisville holding vigil today to mourn 5 killed in bank shooting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Louisville is set to host a vigil Wednesday to let community members grieve the five people killed this week in a downtown bank shooting, as the public absorbs fresh details that investigators are releasing about how the massacre unfolded.

    The vigil comes a day after police released dramatic police body camera footage of Monday’s shooting at Old National Bank, in which authorities say a 25-year-old employee opened fire on his colleagues who were in a staff meeting and then engaged in a shootout with police before he was shot dead.

    The attacker killed five of his coworkers around 8:30 a.m. in Kentucky’s most populous city, about 30 minutes before the facility was to open, a gruesome assault that the shooter livestreamed online, authorities said. Several others were hospitalized, including a rookie police officer who was shot in the head and was in critical condition Tuesday.

    “Our city is heartbroken,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday evening. “These five victims should not be dead – just like everyone else who was killed by gun violence in our city, in our country, should not be dead.”

    Police say they’re still trying to determine the shooter’s motive. As an investigation continues, officials expect to release audio Wednesday of 911 calls about the shooting, the mayor said.

    And the city will hold a vigil at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, the mayor said.

    The vigil will “acknowledge the wounds, physical and emotional, that gun violence leaves behind,” Greenberg told reporters Tuesday. “It will be an interfaith opportunity for our entire community to come together – to grieve, to heal, to begin to move forward.”

    On Tuesday, Louisville police released bodycam video from the officers who responded to yet another mass shooting in the US.

    The public footage begins with a video from Officer Nickolas Wilt – a 26-year-old rookie who’d graduated from a police academy just 10 days prior – who drove up to the scene with his training officer, Cory “CJ” Galloway.

    As Wilt ran toward the gunshots that officers faced upon arrival, Wilt was shot in the head, police said. The released version of Wilt’s footage cuts off before he is shot.

    Body camera footage from Galloway shows him taking fire, and then retreating to a safe position behind a planter as officers talk about how they can’t see the gunman, and that the gunman is shooting through windows in the front of the bank. At some point, Galloway was also shot.

    Police eventually took down the shooter after he broke the bank’s lobby glass windows, giving officers a vision on his location, Deputy Chief Paul Humphrey said.

    The entire situation – from when the gunman began firing his assault weapon to when he was killed by police – lasted for about nine minutes, according to Louisville police Lt. Col. Aaron Cromwell.

    Those killed in the shooting were Joshua Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; Deana Eckert, 57; Tommy Elliott, 63; and James Tutt, 64, police said.

    Nine people – including Eckert, before she died Monday – were hospitalized after the shooting, officials said. Among the eight current survivors, five had been discharged as of Tuesday, a hospital spokesperson said.

    The three victims who remain hospitalized include Wilt, who underwent brain surgery and was in critical condition Tuesday, and two others who were in fair condition, the hospital spokesperson said.

    Monday’s massacre in Louisville was one of at least 147 mass shootings this year in the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot, not including the shooter.

    It took the assailant one minute to complete the bloodbath before he stopped and waited for police to arrive, according to footage of the massacre described by a city official to CNN.

    The shooter, identified by police as 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, had livestreamed the gruesome attack on Instagram – the video has since been taken down.

    The Instagram video begins by showing an AR-15-style weapon, followed by a worker in the bank saying good morning to the gunman, the official said.

    The gunman then tries to shoot her in the back but fails because the safety is on and the weapon still needs to be loaded, the official said. Once the shooter loads the weapon properly and takes the safety off, he shoots the worker in the back, the official said.

    The assailant then continues his rampage, firing at workers while they tried to outrun him, the official said. The shooter does not go to other populated floors of the bank, the official said.

    Once the shooter finishes firing, he sits in the lobby area that looks out onto the street, apparently waiting for police, the official said.

    Police arrive about a minute and half later, the official said, at which point a gunfire exchange ensues before police eventually shoot and kill the gunman.

    Sturgeon used an AR-15-style rifle in the shooting, police said. Six days before the killings, he legally purchased the rifle from a local gun dealership, the interim Louisville police chief said Tuesday.

    Sturgeon had interned at the bank for three summers and been employed there full-time for about two years, his LinkedIn profile showed. The assailant had been notified that he was going to be fired from the bank, a law enforcement source said Monday.

    The mayor, however, said doesn’t believe the shooter was given a notice of termination.

    “From what I have been told from an official at the bank, that is not accurate,” Greenberg told reporters Tuesday.

    A former high school classmate of Sturgeon’s who knew him and his family well said he never saw any “sort of red flag or signal that this could ever happen.”

    “This is a total shock. He was a really good kid who came from a really good family,” said the classmate, who asked not to be identified and has not spoken with Sturgeon in recent years. “I can’t even say how much this doesn’t make sense. I can’t believe it.”

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  • As Louisville police investigate what led up to bank shooting that left 5 dead, several victims remain hospitalized | CNN

    As Louisville police investigate what led up to bank shooting that left 5 dead, several victims remain hospitalized | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    As Louisville investigators piece together what led up to a mass shooting inside a downtown bank that left five people dead, several victims remain hospitalized, including a police officer in critical condition after a shootout with the 25-year-old gunman.

    The gunman, identified by police as employee Connor Sturgeon, was livestreaming online as he carried out the shooting at Old National Bank, officials said. He opened fire inside a conference room during a morning staff meeting, Rebecca Buchheit-Sims, a manager at the bank, told CNN.

    Buchheit-Sims, who was attending the meeting virtually, watched in horror as the shooting played out on her computer screen, saying the incident “happened very quickly.”

    “I witnessed people being murdered. I don’t know how else to say that,” she said.

    One of the hospitalized victims, 57-year-old Deana Eckert, died later Monday, police announced, though it is unclear if she was among the three people in critical condition earlier in the day.

    The four other victims, who died Monday morning, were identified by police as Joshua Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; Tommy Elliott, 63; and James Tutt, 64.

    Sturgeon, whose LinkedIn profile showed he had interned at the bank for three summers and been employed there full-time for close to two years, had been notified that he was going to be fired from his job at the bank, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

    The source said the gunman left behind a note for his parents and a friend indicating he planned to carrying out a shooting at his workplace, though it is unclear when the message was found.

    The gunman, who was still firing when police arrived, was killed in a shootout with officers, police officials said. At least two officers, including one who was shot in the head, were injured during the gunfire.

    Monday’s massacre is the 146th mass shooting so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, as such tragedies continue to strike at the hearts of American communities while they go about their daily lives. It also falls exactly two weeks after three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a Christian school in neighboring Tennessee, fueling a fierce fight between Democratic and Republican state lawmakers over gun control.

    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered flags across the state to fly at half-staff until Friday evening in honor of the victims, but some Democratic lawmakers are concerned that the expressions of grief will come and go without meaningful gun violence solutions.

    “My worry is that everybody will raise their fists in anger and mourn and then in six weeks, eight weeks we go back to doing the same – nothing,” state Sen. David Yates told CNN Monday. “I hope that they all don’t have to die in vain like so many of the other victims of these mass shootings. Maybe something positive can come from it.”

    President Joe Biden also echoed his repeated push for gun reform legislation and called on Republican lawmakers to take action.

    “Too many Americans are paying for the price of inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?,” the president said in a tweet.

    Members of the Old National Bank executive team, including CEO Jim Ryan, were in Louisville Monday on the heels of the shooting, the company said on Facebook.

    “As we await more details, we are deploying employee assistance support and keeping everyone affected by this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers,” Ryan said in a statement that morning.

    Two people embrace outside the building where a mass shooting happened in Louisville on Monday.

    The shooting began around 8:30 a.m., police said, about 30 minutes before the bank opens to the public. Bank staff were holding their morning meeting in a conference room when the shooter opened fire, Buchheit-Sims, the bank manager, said.

    One bank employee frantically called her husband as she sheltered inside a locked vault, the husband, Caleb Goodlett told CNN affiiliate WLKY. By the time he called 911, police were already aware of the shooting, he said.

    “Just a very traumatic phone call to get,” Goodlett told the affiliate, adding that he has since seen his wife and she is okay.

    The gunman died at the scene after being shot by police during an exchange of gunfire, officials said.

    Nickolas Wilt, a 26-year-old rookie officer, ran toward the gunfire and was shot in the head, interim Louisville Metro Police Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said. He had graduated from the police academy just 10 days before the shooting.

    Wilt underwent brain surgery and was in critical but stable condition as of Monday afternoon, the chief said.

    The gun used in the shooting was an AR-15-style rifle, a federal law enforcement source told CNN. The semi-automatic rifle is the most popular sporting rifle in the US, and 30% of gun owners reported having owned an AR-15 or similar-style rifle, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey. The AR-15 and its offshoots have been the weapon of choice in many of the most horrific mass shootings in recent memory, including the Covenant school shooting in Nashville just two weeks ago.

    The bank sits on the fringe of Louisville’s developing downtown business district, state Sen. Gerald Neal, who represents the district where the shooting happened, told CNN. “You wouldn’t really expect anything to happen at this location,” he said.

    Despite the shock of the shooting in Kentucky’s most populated city, Neal believes discussions about gun control in the state will still be an “uphill battle.”

    “This is not a state that’s friendly to those who would think about gun reform … or gun control in some way or even reasonable, as you might consider, gun steps that we could take in terms of restricting them. This is not that state. However, the effort continues.”

    Thomas Elliott

    One of the shooting victims, bank senior vice president Tommy Elliot, was remembered by several local and state leaders as a close mentor and beloved community leader.

    “Tommy was a great man. He cared about finding good people and putting them in positions to do great things. He embraced me when I was very young and interested in politics,” state senator Yates told CNN. “He was about lifting people up, building them up.”

    Elliot was also close friends with Gov. Beshear and Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who said he spent Monday morning at the hospital with Elliot’s wife.

    “It is painful, painful for all of the families I know,” Greenberg said while speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “It just hits home in a unique way when you know one of the victims so well.”

    Beshear remembered Elliot an “incredible friend” and also called the others who were killed “amazing people” who will be missed and mourned by their communities.

    The city is setting up a family assistance center in collaboration with the American Red Cross to provide support for those impacted, Greenberg said.

    “To the survivors and the families, our entire city is here to wrap our arms around you,” Greenberg added.

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  • The GOP’s silence on guns and abortion is a short-term response with a long-term problem | CNN Politics

    The GOP’s silence on guns and abortion is a short-term response with a long-term problem | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Yet another mass shooting and a new blow to nationwide abortion rights left Republicans facing pointed questions on two of the most emotive issues dominating American politics.

    But the GOP had almost nothing to say, reflecting the way that it is locked into positions that animate its most fervent grassroots voters but risk alienating it from much of the public.

    A controversial ruling from a conservative judge in Texas that could halt the use of a popular abortion drug nationwide, and another shooting spree – this time in Kentucky – sparked outrage among Democrats and calls for strengthening gun safety measures and protecting abortion rights.

    Most Republicans stayed silent on the two issues on which they have achieved their political and policy goals but that are threatening the party’s long-term viability.

    After the shooting in downtown Louisville on Monday, Kentucky’s Republican senators issued condolences but offered no solutions about how the tragedy, which killed five people and injured eight others, might have been avoided. The gunman used a rifle in the attack after being notified of his impending dismissal from a job at a bank, a law enforcement official said.

    “We send our prayers to the victims, their families, and the city of Louisville as we await more information,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell wrote in a tweet that also praised first responders. And Sen. Rand Paul tweeted that he and his wife were “praying for everyone involved in the deadly shooting,” adding that “our hearts break for the families of those lost.”

    Democrats offered condolences too, but also had a more practical response. President Joe Biden called for the kind of gun safety reform that is impossible with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and without Democrats holding more seats in the Senate. “Too many Americans are paying for the price of inaction with their lives. When will Republicans in Congress act to protect our communities?” Biden asked in a tweet.

    Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who represents Louisville in Congress, called for action to tackle gun violence. “Thoughts and prayers for those we lost, those who are injured and their loved ones and families are appreciated, but today serves as a stark reminder that we need to address gun violence at the national level,” the freshman congressman said.

    Over the last few decades, Republicans have expertly used gun rights and a push to overturn a constitutional right to end a pregnancy to energize their most loyal voters. And on each issue, in a purely political sense, it’s hard to argue that they have not racked up considerable wins.

    There are more guns than ever in the US. Republicans around the country are leading efforts to slash firearms regulation and broaden citizens’ capacity to carry guns. Despite a murderous run of massacres in schools, nightclubs, places of worship and, on Monday, in a bank, the party has effectively closed down all significant attempts in Congress to make it harder to buy weapons – including the assault-style rifles used in recent shootings. A bipartisan effort to persuade states to embrace red flag laws, which could help authorities confiscate weapons from people thought to pose a risk, did pass Congress last year. But its success was all the more notable because of the paucity of other federal legislation in previous decades.

    On abortion, meanwhile, the 50-year conservative campaign to overturn Roe v. Wade ranks as one of the most stunning victories for a long-term political movement in history. It reached its apex with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.

    Yet it’s possible that these famous wins could carry a significant risk for the party.

    South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace calls herself “pro-life,” but also warns that GOP-backed state laws that don’t provide exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother alienate large and vital sections of the US electorate. Mace was a rare Republican to publicly respond to Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s abortion drug ruling last week, which Democratic groups have seized on to renew claims Republicans want a national ban on abortion.

    “We are getting it wrong on this issue,” Mace said on “CNN This Morning” on Monday. “We’ve got to show compassion to women, especially to women who’ve been raped. We’ve got to show compassion on the abortion issue, because by and large, most of Americans aren’t with us on this issue.” She called for the US Food and Drug Administration to ignore the judge’s ruling, aligning her with progressive Democrats like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    One reason Republicans have been successful in tightening abortion restrictions and loosening those on guns has been that their voters have embraced these two issues. They are make-or-break for many activists, and candidates have shaped their platforms as a result. Democrats, however, have traditionally been less successful in energizing their core supporters on both. The disparate intensity level among the parties was one factor in the sequence of events that led to a new conservative Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe. For years, Democrats trod carefully around the guns issue, wary of alienating more moderate or soft conservative voters.

    But there are signs this could be changing. Abortion was a huge motivator for Democratic voters in last year’s midterms and the Supreme Court’s ruling clearly hamstrung Republican candidates in several key swing races. In Wisconsin, which reverted to a pre-Civil War law banning almost all abortions once Roe was overturned, the issue was critical to the victory of a liberal candidate in last week’s state Supreme Court race, which flipped the conservative majority.

    Liberal fury over the failure to enact new gun laws stoked a political storm in Tennessee last week. Republicans expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers from the state’s House of Representatives for leading a gun reform protest inside the chamber after a mass shooting at a Nashville school the week before that killed six people, including three nine-year-olds. This highlighted a growing frustration among Democrats at their impotence in the face of endless mass shootings. (One of the lawmakers, Justin Jones, was sworn back into the chamber on Monday on an interim basis after the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted to appoint him.)

    Despite this shifting political terrain, there are few signs that top Republican leaders are willing to change the party’s tack on guns or abortion. Or that they have the political room to do so. Even though it makes sense for Republicans to appeal to a more general audience to avoid alienating crucial suburban, moderate and female voters, the vehemence of their core supporters makes this an impossible straddle. It’s a similar dynamic to the one many GOP power brokers have long faced with Donald Trump. The former president remains so popular with base voters that his GOP critics risk their careers by publicly opposing him. And yet, he has long been a liability among general election voters – as proved by the GOP’s performance in 2020 and 2022.

    The party’s failure to align with most Americans on abortion and on some aspects of gun safety may not be sustainable. Polls show that many voters, including younger Americans, are being driven away from the party because of its positions.

    In a Harvard Youth Poll released last week, which was completed before the shooting in Nashville, 63% of 18-to-29-year-olds said that gun laws should be made more strict, with 22% saying they should be kept as they are, and 13% that they should be made less strict. Young Americans are generally on the same page as the public as a whole. In October 2022, 57% of all Americans said that laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict, with 32% saying laws should be kept as they were and 10% that laws should be made less strict, according to a Gallup survey from October 2022.

    On abortion, only 26% of Americans favor laws making it illegal to use or receive through the mail FDA-approved drugs for a medical abortion, while 72% oppose such laws, according to a PRRI report that analyzed polling on the issue over the last year. While 50% of White evangelical Protestants favor making it illegal to use or receive those drugs, less than half of any other racial, gender, educational or age group agree.

    In a Gallup poll in January, 46% of Americans said they were dissatisfied with US abortion policies and would prefer to see less strict abortion laws. That’s a record high in the firm’s 23-year trend, up from 30% in January 2022 and just 17% in 2021.

    Given these numbers, and recent election results, it’s not surprising that some Republicans not actively courting the base may choose not to speak at length on guns and abortion. And such data may also help to explain the GOP’s increasingly anti-democratic turn as it seeks to cling onto power – whether in efforts to expel Tennessee lawmakers for disturbing decorum with their anti-gun protests or through Trump’s insistence he won an election he actually lost.

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  • ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

    ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

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    LOUISVILLE, KY—In the hours following a violent rampage in Kentucky in which a lone attacker killed at least five individuals and injured six others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Monday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Ohio resident Pete Anderson, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

    How To Carve A Spooky Easter Egg

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  • 2 Wisconsin police officers and another person were killed in a gunfire exchange during a traffic stop, authorities say | CNN

    2 Wisconsin police officers and another person were killed in a gunfire exchange during a traffic stop, authorities say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two police officers and another person were killed in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop in northwestern Wisconsin on Saturday, authorities said.

    The gunfire erupted after an officer from the Chetek Police Department conducted a traffic stop in Cameron around 3:38 p.m. local time, according to a news release from the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

    A Chetek officer and an officer from the Village of Cameron Police Department were both pronounced dead at the scene, the state agency said.

    The “involved individual” was taken to a hospital and was later also pronounced dead, the news release said.

    Neither the officers nor the third person killed have been publicly identified. Authorities did not provide information on what prompted the traffic stop or how the shooting unfolded.

    The Wisconsin Department of Justice said it is investigating the “officer involved critical incident.”

    The department’s Division of Criminal Investigation “is continuing to review evidence and determine the facts of this incident and will turn over investigative reports to the Barron County District Attorney when the investigation concludes,” the news release said.

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