Islamabad, Pakistan — A religious gathering to celebrate the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad turned deadly Friday in Pakistan when a suicide bomber exploded a powerful device, killing at least 52 people were and leaving some 70 more injured in an attack targeting the worshippers and police.
Local officials said the blast in the Mastung district of Pakistan’s southwest Baluchistan province, which has faced a decades-long nationalist rebellion as well as multiple attacks by the ISIS faction in the region, had targeted the procession as worshipers left the mosque.
Security officials examine the site of a suicide bomb attack targeting a procession marking the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed in Mastung district, Baluchistan, Pakistan, Sept. 29, 2023.
AFP via Getty
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Friday’s explosion but the Pakistani Taliban, a collection of religious extremist sub-groups that’s separate from the Afghan Taliban but closely allied with the group that retook power in Afghanistan in August 2021, denied responsibility.
ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, a branch of the terror group that operates in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is also active in the province has claimed previous deadly attacks in Baluchistan and elsewhere.
The Baluch nationalists who have fought for years for independence in the oil-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran typically target security officials rather than civilians.
Video aired by Pakistani TV stations and posted on social media showed bloodied victims of the explosion and body parts strewn across the site of the blast.
In this photo provided by the District Police Office, a boy injured in a bomb explosion receives treatment at a hospital in Mastung, near Quetta, Pakistan, Sept. 29, 2023.
District Police Office/AP
Dr Saeed Mirwani, chief executive of the local Nawab Ghous Bakhsh Raisani Memorial Hospital, told reporters that dozens of casualties were being treated at the facility, while more than 20 more seriously injured victims were sent to the provincial capital of Quetta for more advanced treatment.
“The process of moving bodies and injured persons is under way,” the hospital CEO said.
Hours after the suicide blast in Baluchistan province, another explosion ripped through a mosque in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which also borders Afghanistan, officials said, killing at least two people.
The mosque’s roof collapsed in the blast, local broadcaster Geo News reported, adding that about 30 to 40 people were buried under the rubble.
Pakistan’s president Arif Alvi condemned both attacks and asked authorities to provide all possible assistance to the wounded and the victims’ families.
In a statement, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti denounced the bombing, calling it a “heinous act” to target people in the religious procession.
A relative mourns a victim of a suicide attack, at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Sept. 29, 2023, after a bomber targeted a procession marking the birthday of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed in Balochistan province’s Mastung district.
BANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty
The government had declared Friday a national holiday to mark Prophet Mohammad’s birthday.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was “unacceptable that the residents of Baluchistan are compelled to live in constant fear amid deteriorating law and order.”
“Those responsible for this heinous attack must be brought to justice. HRCP believes, however, that hyper-securitization will not resolve the security problem in the province,” it added in a statement shared on social media.
Soon after news of the explosions in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, police in Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, and in its biggest city Karachi, said they were stepping up security around mosques amid Friday prayers.
Friday’s bombing was among the worst attacks in Pakistan in a decade. In 2014, 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in the northwest city of Peshawar.
In late January, more than 100 people were killed, mostly police, at a mosque inside a high-security compound housing the Peshawar police headquarters. In July, at least 54 people were killed when a suicide bomber dispatched by ISIS-K targeted an election rally for a pro-Taliban party in the northwest of the country.
The Brazilian model has been admirably transparent about her new life and publicized divorce with NFL veteran Tom Brady. In an upcoming “CBS News Sunday Morning” interview, however, Bündchen is reflecting on her past modeling days.
“I was in tunnels,” she told host Lee Cowan. “I couldn’t breathe. And then I started being in studios, and I felt, like, suffocated. I lived on the ninth floor, and I had to go up the stairs because I was afraid I would be stuck on the elevator and I’d be hyperventilating.”
“You know when you can’t breathe even when the windows are open, you feel like, I don’t want to live like this, you know what I mean?” Bündchen continued before being asked if she ever did “really think about” actually jumping out of a window: “Yeah. For, like, a second.”
“Kate suffered from depression and anxiety for many years,” her husband, Andy Spade, told The New York Times in 2018. “She was actively seeking help and working closely with her doctors to treat her disease, one that takes far too many lives.”
Bündchen told People in 2018 that she “actually had the feeling of, ‘If I just jump off my roof, this is going to end, and I never have to worry about this feeling of my world closing in.’”
Bündchen, who experienced suicidal ideations as a young model, divorced Brady in 2022.
Andre Penner/File/Associated Press
“When I think back on that moment, and that 23-year-old girl, I want to cry,” she wrote in her memoir per Page Six. “I want to tell her that everything will be all right, that she hasn’t even begun to live her life. But in that moment, the only answer seemed to be to jump.”
The mother of two, whose concerns about Brady returning to the NFL and later the couple’s divorce being very publicized, has changed her perspective since then — and been nothing but grateful despite being naturally saddened about the familial break.
“I look into my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she told Cowan in a separate preview of Sunday’s interview. “I wouldn’t have any other life, I wouldn’t have done it if they say, ‘Can you change something in your life?’ I wouldn’t change absolutely anything.”
Bündchen reportedly first met Brady on a blind date in 2006. She then married him, and they welcomed their first child in 2009. They had one more child in 2012. They finalized their divorce in October 2022. Bündchen opened up about their split in March.
“Listen, I have always cheered for him, and I would continue forever,” she told Vanity Fair at the time. “If there’s one person I want to be the happiest in the world, it’s him, believe me. I want him to achieve and conquer. I want all his dreams to come true.”
She continued, “That’s what I want, really from the bottom of my heart.”
Jason Lance thought Jan. 21, 2010, was a day like any other until the call came.
He had dropped off his 9-year-old son, Montana, at Stewart’s Creek Elementary School in The Colony, Texas, that morning.
“There were no problems at home. He was smart. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he talked and talked and talked,” said Lance. It was “the same old, same old normal day. There were kisses and goodbyes and he said, ‘I love you, Daddy.’”
A few hours later, school officials called to say Montana had died by suicide while locked in the nurse’s bathroom.
“I knew he had some issues going on in school, but I never seen it coming,” said Lance. His shock and grief were complicated by the realization that there may have been more signs his son was struggling.
Jason Lance dropped off son Montana at Stewart’s Creek Elementary School in The Colony, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2010. The school called a few hours later saying Montana had died by suicide while locked in the nurse’s bathroom. “I knew he had some issues going on in school, but I never seen it coming,” Lance says.
Jason Lance
As children across the country step back into school routines this fall, it is important to pay attention to their mental health as well as their academics. Suicide ranks as either the seventh- or eighth-leading cause of death among children ages 5 to 11, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and recent studies. And numbers show the rates among younger kids appear to have increased in the past decade, especially among Black boys.
A growing body of research shows that “historically we thought that suicide is a problem of teens and adults, but younger children are expressing similar thoughts that may have been ignored before,” said Paul Lipkin, a pediatrician at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore and a specialist in developmental disabilities such as autism.
This has many experts calling for lowering the screening age for suicide ideation in children and moving to develop more effective early suicide risk detection and targeted prevention strategies. The broad approach includes pediatricians, teachers, and parents working with children at a young age to build their resilience and identify and manage their stress.
Studies have found that young children gain an understanding about death and killing oneself from TV or other media, discussions with other children, or exposure to death from a family or community loss.
“Pediatric suicide wasn’t on our radar decades ago and maybe was underreported,” said Holly Wilcox, president of the International Academy of Suicide Research and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “The truth is that now we can do stuff about it.”
It is quite likely the 136 reported suicides from 2001 to 2021 among 5- to 9-year-olds were an undercount.
“Counts are often incomplete, and causes of death may be pending investigation resulting in an underestimate relative to final counts,” said Margaret Warner, a senior epidemiologist at the CDC.
The problems with those numbers are important because, Warner said, “if we are missing deaths, or don’t have all the information leading to them, we can’t properly develop programs to prevent future deaths.”
That’s why there’s also an ongoing national effort by coroners and medical examiners to improve the quality and consistency of pediatric death investigations.
Leaders in suicide prevention hope this wide spotlight on pediatric suicide will also help curtail the rising suicide rate among people ages 10 to 24 in the U.S. since suicide is the second-leading cause of death in that age group, according to the CDC.
Some of the increase in mental health issues among children has been attributed to the isolation and lack of school structure during the pandemic. Beginning in April 2020, pediatric emergency room visits for children 5 to 11 increased approximately 24%, according to a CDC report from November 2020.
Other factors, such as being neurodivergent or having a psychiatric disorder, can make a child more vulnerable to suicide.
A study published in February in Frontiers in Public Health also found that being the victim or perpetrator of bullying is a risk factor for suicide, even when researchers controlled for other risk factors.
Montana Lance was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, as well as dyslexia, and often was the target of bullying at school.
Officials at the Lewisville Independent School District declined to comment on Montana’s death. His parents filed a lawsuit against the school district, but it was dismissed, and the district was found not liable for his death.
Suicide is complex, but recent studies have found that there are things parents, teachers, pediatricians, and caregivers can do to help protect children from it.
Lisa Horowitz, a pediatric psychologist and staff scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health, said, “It’s never too early to start a conversation with kids about recognizing mental health distress and doing what we can do to help them have better coping strategies and foster resilience.”
Building resilience in children can help buffer them in times of stress, according to a study published in 2022 in Frontiers of Psychiatry.
“I don’t want people to panic but just want them to be vigilant about their children,” said Horowitz.
Sometimes that vigilance can be “tricky” because depression may look different in younger kids. They may act out, be more irritable, and not manifest their symptoms in the same way as teens and adults, Wilcox said.
“We don’t have enough studies on how best to identify preteens and children at risk for suicide. Oftentimes you just have to trust your gut about these things,” she said.
If a child is upset, parents should ask them questions about what they’re experiencing, said Tami D. Benton, psychiatrist-in-chief, executive director, and chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“Parents shouldn’t talk kids out of their feelings or give them examples of when it happened to them, or minimize their feelings. It puts them down,” she said.
Parents and children should come up with a plan together, but also teach their children that they can master these situations, said Benton.
When parents get stuck about what to do in difficult situations, they should consult with their child’s pediatrician.
In March, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended universal screening for suicide risk in all children 12 and older and when clinically indicated for kids 8 to 11. There aren’t any screening tools validated for use in children under 8. But Horowitz said younger children can still be assessed and evaluated for suicide risk.
Schools can also play an important role in suicide prevention.
Meghan Feby, a school counselor in the Colonial School District in New Castle, Delaware, said, “I am the sole school counselor in my building. It is a daunting task. That’s why there are supports in place that have eyes where I can’t have eyes … on school computers. Employing software strategies like GoGuardian Beacon can really help fill in gaps and supports.”
The software captures keywords and phrases that might indicate a child is thinking about suicide and has already been used to intervene when children using district computers displayed concerning behavior. It is monitoring activities on school computers used by more than 6.7 million public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Some schools said they are having problems implementing software like this because some parents find it intrusive.
Many schools use the Good Behavior Game, a decades-old behavior management intervention for kids in first and second grades, and it has been used in higher grades. The team-oriented classroom curriculum uses peer pressure to stimulate students to be attentive and engaged and work together. Researchers such as Wilcox have studied the extensive participation of thousands of students and found it reduced suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Children who have played the game were half as likely as young adults to report suicidal thoughts and about a third less likely to report a suicide attempt.
Lance said that the day Montana died by suicide changed his life forever.
“You’re not supposed to bury your children. They’re supposed to bury you,” he said. “All this attention on the mental health status of children these days is not going to bring my child back, but it can stop another family from suffering.”
KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
When Caleb Morse got a call from his Army buddy he served with in Iraq announcing he was in Louisiana, he had a feeling something was wrong.
He couldn’t understand why his buddy, who lived in Colorado Springs, had suddenly shown up in the South. Morse says he told him, “Man, like, I love having you here. And my wife and kids love seeing you and everything else. And you’re great to be around, but you would never move to Louisiana.”
Caleb Morse joined the 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion in 2003. He served two tours in Iraq.
courtesy Caleb Morse
A few days later his friend showed up at Rustic Renegade, a gun shop and shooting range that Morse, 39, had opened in Lafayette, Louisiana, about a year earlier in 2018 after leaving the military where he served in the combat unit 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion. His friend arrived with his car and his dog. He opened the trunk and started to unload his car, Morse recalled. He started to bring all these guns inside the shop, Morse said,” And I’m like, brother, what are you doing?”
Morse knew from his time in the military that often when people start giving away their things they can be considering suicide.
He knew his friend was in a bad spot so Morse asked him to sit, but “I grabbed two cups of coffee and when I came back he was gone.”
He didn’t answer Morse’s calls — “he had left cold, he didn’t answer his phone” — but Morse still had his firearms. He decided to hold them at Rustic Renegade in case his friend ever came back.
Six months passed. Finally, his friend called and explained he had been in a bad spot and wondered where his guns were. Morse said he told him, “They’re your guns, man. They’re yours, you may want them back. And whenever you’re ready, they’re here for you.”
More than half of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, the CDC reported that 26,993 people died by firearm suicide. Deaths by gun suicide are at an all-time high and have steadily increased, nearly uninterrupted, since 2006 according to researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health.
In the veteran population the problem is acute; in its 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate in 2020 was 57.3 % greater for veterans.
Guns are more commonly involved among veteran suicides, at 71%, than the rest of the population, at 50.3%, according to the CDC.
Somehow, another veteran a short time later came into Morse’s shop and told Morse he, too, was in a bad spot. The veteran asked Morse to hold his guns at Rustic Renegade. Morse decided to set up a system that logged the guns into the store’s books and gave the veteran a receipt and told him to pick up his firearms when he felt better. Morse said he thought nothing of it. Other veterans dropped off guns “about a dozen times,” in just over a year he said, when he got a call from Gala True.
True, an associate professor at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who researches community-engaged efforts to prevent veteran suicides, met Morse in 2021. She was coordinating with firearms retailers interested in providing options for those in crisis who wanted to store firearms outside their homes.
The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana in 2021 with three retailers interested in providing storage. There are now 11 retailers that offer storage according to the map built by the network.
courtesy The Armory Project
“We try to create time and distance between a person having a mental health crisis and a loaded firearm,” True said. The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana in 2021 with three retailers interested in providing storage. Through a Veterans Administration grant, True and her team provided infrastructure and resources to the firearms retailers to build networks and partnerships.
Louisiana joined nine other states including Colorado, New Jersey, Mississippi, Maryland and Washington in the growing number of communities that have developed temporary storage off-site for firearms. In 2018, Colorado built its first statewide map showing storage or places considering storage. Other states have followed by building detailed online maps that show retailers that can temporarily hold firearms. The Biden Administration has supported off-site storage for suicide prevention.
Suicide prevention experts know people in crisis who don’t have easy access to a gun will not likely find another way to kill themselves. Suicide prevention expert Mike Anestis, Executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and a professor at Rutgers University, said no other methods are as “close to as lethal as firearms for a suicide death.” Around 90 to 95% of suicide attempts with a firearm will result in death while less than 5% of all other attempts will result in death, he said.
In a country that already has an estimated 400 million guns in circulation the solution just can’t be about banning firearms or stopping people from buying them, said Anestis.
Anestis said outside storage is a public health approach similar to approaches with issues like drunk driving is to “take the keys” – and limit access.
“We’ve learned the best way to prevent the outcome that you’re trying to avoid, is to limit the individual’s access to the method that can cause that outcome,” said Anestis.
Gun owners have to be able to make decisions that allow them to retain control over their autonomy, as well as fits their values, said Anestis. Outside storage can be a legal — and truly effective — way to prevent injury and death, he said. Temporary storage also serves as a solution for firearm owners who might not want a gun in their home for various reasons, such as a grandchild visiting or if a teen or other family member inside the home is struggling.
True and Morse both say for these programs to succeed, gun shops need to be able to participate – so gun owners can feel they have a safe place to store their firearms. Gun owners generally can’t just hand over their firearms to anybody they want. Federal law doesn’t prohibit people from storing guns for each other on a personal basis, but each state has various regulations saying who can hold onto a gun and who is liable.
Some states, such as Washington and Vermont, allow immediate or extended family members to hold onto guns if a family member is in crisis. But other states, such as New York or Massachusetts, prohibit the transfer of any firearms. And since states have such a patchwork of laws, researchers – and firearms shops – feel those shops can be the best repository for outside storage. But the businesses need to be protected, said True. She said one of the main questions firearm shop owners asked when the Armory Project launched was “If a person goes on to harm themselves, can the firearm retailer be sued and lose their business?”
Morse said when he first decided to start his program, he contacted a lawyer, who said, “No, no, you’re opening yourself to a ton of liability. What if you give them their firearm back and they kill themselves?”
Caleb Morse, 39, opened Rustic Reneagade, a gun shop in Lafayette, Louisiana after leaving the military. A veteran asked him to store his firearms at his shop in 2019 and Morse said he’s stored about 100 guns since then. He went to the state capitol with his wife to testify about safe storage.
courtesy Caleb Morse
Morse said he was going to store the guns anyway. He answered the lawyer: “I just want to give them a pause —that moment in time where they say, ‘Look, someone cares, maybe life isn’t so bad.’”
In Louisiana, the coalition worked to pass legislation that said gun shop owners wouldn’t be liable. The legislation passed “easily” with “very little concern,” said True. Coalitions in Texas and Oregon are trying to pass similar laws, she said.
In July 2023 the ATF issued an open letter to FFL and gun shops clarifying how to legally and safely store firearms for individuals.
One option is providing gun storage lockers at the gun shop that an individual can open and put their firearms inside. “In this situation, an FFL does not”receive “or “acquire ” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume control of the individual’s firearm,” the letter said, which can reduce liability for gun shops that want to provide outside storage for others.
Morse said after two combat tours in Iraq, serving in the National Guard, and then working as a military contractor in Iraq for four years, essentially “running from my problems,” he fell into a depression returning home to Louisiana. Like many other soldiers, he struggled upon entering a society that often doesn’t understand military that served in combat. He said he survived due to the support of his wife, who is his high-school sweetheart, and his two children.
He said, “I know what it’s like to have that dark place. I know what it’s like to have that weight on your shoulders where you feel like you know what, I suck. You know, I failed.”
Since that first time, Morse says he’s stored about 100 firearms, if not more, for veterans who are thinking of hurting themselves or others, and installed outside storage lockers in his shop.
“And it’s been a blessing,” he said. “It’s been a big blessing to help people.”
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the names of four people found dead Saturday after a house fire in Seattle over the weekend and ruled three of them homicides
ByThe Associated Press
September 6, 2023, 6:54 PM
SEATTLE — The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the names of four people found dead Saturday after a house fire in Seattle and ruled three of the deaths homicides.
The medical examiner said Wednesday that Lana A. Stewart, 40, died from multiple sharp-force injuries; Sebastino Ragusa, 7, died from asphyxia from the inhalation of toxic products of combustion; and 4-month-old Valentina Ragusa died from smoke inhalation.
Salvatore Ragusa, 48, died from smoke inhalation, and his death was ruled a suicide, the medical examiner said Tuesday. Police are investigating the deaths as an arson-homicide, The Seattle Times reported. A Seattle Police Department spokesperson said Wednesday that investigators are not looking for suspects. The city’s police Arson & Bomb squad is working with the Seattle Fire Department to determine how the fire started.
Though Seattle police have not disclosed the relationship between Ragusa and the victims, neighbors have referred to Stewart and Ragusa as a couple who lived in the house with their children.
On Saturday, a child escaped the house in the city’s Wallingford neighborhood through a window and contacted a neighbor, according to the Seattle Police Department. Someone called 911 and reported a person had died in the home that was burning. Seattle police said officers tried to enter the home, but the doors were barricaded.
Fire crews found the bodies of four people and a dog after extinguishing the flames. Initial reports indicated someone may have fired a gun around the time the fire started, but police haven’t said anything further about that.
Court records show Ragusa had finished a court-mandated county mental health program last year.
Ragusa opted into the program after pleading guilty to reckless burning and malicious mischief stemming from a 2019 arrest for starting a fire in Stewart’s apartment in the Queen Anne neighborhood. Stewart was identified in court records at the time as his ex-wife. He threatened suicide during the fire, the police report notes.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska is asking the courts to order an independent investigation into the Alaska Department of Corrections after a record number of deaths were reported last year
ByThe Associated Press
September 1, 2023, 1:33 PM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A civil rights group is asking the state court system to order an independent investigation into the Alaska Department of Corrections after a record number of deaths were reported last year.
The request from the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska came Thursday when it announced separate lawsuits against the state Department of Corrections on behalf of two men who died by suicide while in prison in the last year, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The lawsuits, filed jointly by the organization and private attorneys on behalf of family members of the two men, seeks financial settlements and the outside investigation.
“There must be greater accountability and transparency on behalf of the Department of Corrections to prevent these tragedies from occurring,” Ruth Botstein, the ACLU of Alaska’s legal director, said at a news conference.
Neither the the Alaska Department of Corrections nor the attorney general’s office had been served with the lawsuits by Friday and could not immediately comment, officials said in emails to The Associated Press.
According to statistics from the department, 18 inmates died under the department’s control in 2022, seven of those by suicide. The previous high was 16 deaths, two by suicide, in 2002.
One lawsuit was filed on behalf of family members of James Rider. It alleges he was placed in a cell alone at the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer, despite being a “known suicide risk.” He died by suicide last September, 11 days after being jailed.
The other lawsuit was filed on behalf of the family of Mark Cook Jr., who was held for weeks on a disorderly conduct charge at the Lemon Creek Correctional Center in Juneau because his family couldn’t afford bail.
The lawsuit alleges Cook had debilitating back pain from an injury, and it worsened to the point he could not get up from the floor of his cell. The lawsuit alleges he covered the camera in his cell and died by suicide in April.
Family members said both men were in solitary confinement when they died.
ALBANY, N.Y — New York City officials want to ease pressure on overcrowded homeless shelters by housing migrants in a federal jail that once held mobsters, terrorists and Wall Street swindlers before being shut down after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, came as New York struggles to handle the estimated 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern U.S. border.
The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it. With homeless shelters full, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has taken over hotels, put cots in recreational centers and school gyms and created temporary housing in huge tents.
The letter, written by a senior counsel for the city’s law department, identifies several other sites in which migrants could potentially be housed, including the defunct Metropolitan Correctional Center, which closed in 2021.
That shutdown came after the detention center, whose prisoners have included Mafia don John Gotti, associates of Osama bin Laden and the Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, came under new scrutiny because of squalid conditions and security lapses exposed following Epstein’s death.
Lawyers had long complained that the jail was filthy, infested with bugs and rodents, and plagued by water and sewage leaks so bad they had led to structural issues.
The letter didn’t make clear whether the city had actually approached the federal Bureau of Prisons about getting access to the jail as residential housing for migrants. As asylum seekers, the migrants are not prisoners and are mostly in the U.S. legally while their asylum applications are pending, leaving them generally free to travel.
In a statement, the federal Bureau of Prisons said “While we decline to comment concerning governmental correspondence, we can provide; MCC New York is closed, at least temporarily, and long-term plans for MCC New York have not been finalized.”
At least one advocacy group assailed the idea of housing migrants at the jail.
“Mayor Adams likes to say that all options are on the table when it comes to housing asylum seekers, but certain places should most definitely be off the table,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “The Metropolitan Correctional Center was a notoriously decrepit jail, and is not a suitable place to support people trying to build a new life in a new country.”
The influx of migrants to the city has created some tension between the Hochul and Adams administrations. Lawyers for the two Democrats have sparred in court filings over how best to confront an issue that carries financial, political and humanitarian implications.
In a letter this week, an attorney representing Hochul sought to reject allegations that the state had not responded to the migrant influx in a substantial way, detailing steps the governor has taken while accusing the city of failing to accept state offers of assistance.
“The City has not made timely requests for regulatory changes, has not always promptly shared necessary information with the State, has not implemented programs in a timely manner, and has not consulted the State before taking certain actions,” the letter said.
Hochul’s attorney also noted the state has set aside $1.5 billion for the city to assist migrants and has advanced the city $250 million for the effort but said the city has only submitted reimbursement documents for just $138 million.
Avi Small, a spokesman for Hochul, said in a statement Thursday that “Governor Hochul is grateful to Mayor Adams and his team for their work to address this ongoing humanitarian crisis. Governor Hochul has deployed unprecedented resources to support the City’s efforts and will continue working closely with them to provide aid and support.”
The city, in its own filing, has suggested Hochul use executive orders or litigation to secure housing for migrants in upstate New York or to consider trying to get neighboring states to accept migrants.
Lawyers for the city are also requesting to use state-owned properties such as the Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center or State University of New York dormitories to house new arrivals, in addition to requesting the federal government allow them to use federal sites such as the Metropolitan Correctional Center jail and Fort Dix.
Adams’ office did not immediately return an emailed request for comment Thursday.
Nearly 50,000 Americans died by suicide in 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
The number of suicide deaths was on a downward trend in 2019 and 2020, but it increased by 5% in 2021, and then further increased by 2.6% in 2022 to 49,449, the CDC found.
“Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time,” said Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in a statement. “Far too many people and their families are suffering and feeling alone.”
“These numbers are a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care, address the root causes of mental health struggles, and recognize the importance of checking on and supporting one another,” Murthy added.
Adults 65 and older saw the largest increase in suicide deaths of any age group from 2021 to 2022, with an 8.1% rise to 10,433 deaths.
Children and young adults 10 to 24 saw the largest decrease over that time span of any age group, with a decline of 8.4%, to 6,529 suicide deaths, the CDC said. However, a CDC study published in June found that the suicide rate among that age group has trended upwards over the last two decades, rising 62% from 2007 to 2021.
Meanwhile, adults 24 to 44 saw the largest number of suicide deaths of any age group with 16,843. However, it marked an increase of just 0.7% over last year.
Most racial and ethnic groups saw an increase in suicide deaths, with Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders seeing the largest jump at 15.9%.
The CDC found that those who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native saw the largest percentage decrease in suicide deaths of any racial or ethnic group, dropping 6.1% from last year.
Americans who identify as White saw the largest number of deaths by suicide with 37,459, an increase of 2.1% from 2021.
More men died by suicide than women, following a trend from 2021, but both men and women saw their suicide death numbers increase by 2.3% and 3.8% respectively.
“Nine in ten Americans believe America is facing a mental health crisis. The new suicide death data reported by CDC illustrates why,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “One life lost to suicide is one too many. Yet, too many people still believe asking for help is a sign of weakness.”
Since 2000, with the exception of 2019 and 2020, suicide deaths in the U.S. have been steadily rising, CDC data shows, leading officials to urge for better mental health resources.
“The troubling increase in suicides requires immediate action across our society to address the staggering loss of life from tragedies that are preventable,” said Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer. “Everyone can play a role in efforts to save lives and reverse the rise in suicide deaths.”
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
Former National Football League quarterback Johnny Manziel reveals in a new documentary his drug usage during his playing career and a suicide attempt following his release from the Cleveland Browns in 2016.
In Netflix’s upcoming documentary “Untold: Johnny Football,” Manziel – who became the first redshirt freshman to win the Heisman Trophy while playing at Texas A&M in 2012 – said that he began using OxyContin and cocaine every day following the 2015 season, which led to his weight dropping from 215 pounds that January to 175 pounds in September.
Poor play and legal troubles soon followed Manziel. A Texas grand jury indicted Manziel on a misdemeanor assault charge of his former girlfriend, Colleen Crowley. Manziel denied hitting Crowley at the time and the charges were later dropped after he met the court’s terms for a dismissal agreement.
The Browns would release Manziel in March 2016, which he said he was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Manziel said he refused to enter rehab twice and began “self-sabotaging,” going on a “$5 million bender” before attempting suicide.
“I had planned to do everything I wanted to do at that point in my life, spend as much money as I possibly could and then my plan was to take my life,” Manziel said in the documentary. “I wanted to get as bad as humanly possible to where it made sense, and it made it seem like an excuse and an out for me.”
Manziel said he had purchased a gun “months earlier” with the intention to use it for suicide but the gun “malfunctioned” when he pulled the trigger.
“Still to this day, don’t know what happened. But the gun just clicked on me,” he said.
Manziel’s relationship with his family at the time was “strained” due to his refusal to seek treatment, he said. Manziel later returned to his family’s home in Texas after leaving Los Angeles following the suicide attempt.
“It’s been a long, long road, and I don’t know if it’s been great or if it’s been bad – that’s kind of still up for debate,” Paul Manziel, his father, said in the documentary. “But we’re blessed. And he’s still with us. And we can mend all the fences still. I think Johnny’s got a lot better days coming than what he’s had.”
CNN has reached out to the Browns for comment.
Manziel was drafted in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft. Following his release from the Browns, Manziel played for multiple teams in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and in the now-defunct Alliance of American Football (AAF). Manziel last played in the Fan Controlled Football league.
The Netflix documentary is scheduled to be released on Tuesday.
The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline’s 988 hotline marked its one-year milestone this month. Mental health experts say the three-digit number made help more accessible than before.
The hotline was designed with the idea that people experiencing emotional distress are more comfortable reaching out for help from trained counselors than from police and other first responders through 911.
Since the federally mandated crisis hotline’s new number launched in July 2022, 988 has received 4 million calls, according to a KFF report — up 33% from the previous year. (The hotline previously used a 10-digit number, 800-273-8255, which remains active but is not promoted.)
At a July press event, policymakers and mental health experts celebrated the hotline’s first-year successes as well as its additional $1 billion in funding from the Biden administration. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra described 988 as a “godsend” during taped remarks. “It may not be the solution,” he said, “but it lets you touch someone who can send you on a path to where you will get the help you need.”
KFF/Created with Datawrapper
Those same advocates recognized the dark reality represented by 988’s high call volume: The nation faces a mental health crisis, and there is still much work to be done.
One year in, it’s also clear that the 988 hotline, a network of more than 200 state and local call centers, faces challenges ahead, including public mistrust and confusion. It’s also clear the hotline needs federal and state funding intervention to be sustainable.
Here’s a status check on where things stand:
What worked?
The original 1-800 national mental health crisis hotline has operated since 2005. The huge increase of calls to 988 compared with those to the 1-800 number in just a year is likely linked to the simplicity of the three-digit code, said Adrienne Breidenstine, vice president of policy and communications at Behavioral Health System in Baltimore. “People are remembering it easily,” she told KFF Health News.
According to a survey by NAMI and IPSOS conducted in June, 63% of Americans had heard of 988, and those ages 18 to 29 were most aware. Additionally, the survey found that LGBTQ+ people were twice as likely to be familiar with 988 than people who don’t identify as LGBTQ+.
The 988 hotline provides 24/7 support for people in suicidal crisis or other kinds of emotional distress, Breidenstine said. “They can be calling if they really just had a bad day,” she said. “We also get some calls from people experiencing postpartum depression.” Callers are directed to a menu of options to choose which kind of service would best help them, including a veterans’ line.
As it launched, mental health experts worried about the hotline’s ability to keep up with demand. But it appears to be growing into its position. “Despite a huge increase of demand on the system, it’s been holding up, and it’s been holding up exceptionally well,” Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses, told KFF Health News. It now takes an average of 35 seconds for someone reaching out to 988 — by calling or texting — to reach a counselor, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. A year ago, that average was one minute and 20 seconds.
Wesolowski said one of the biggest surprises with the launch was the frequency of text-message traffic. In November 2022, the Federal Communications Commission voted to require 988 to be texting-friendly.
In May, according to SAMHSA, 988 received about 71,000 texts nationwide with a 99% response rate, compared with 8,300 texts in May 2022 with an 82% response rate.
More than half of Americans have heard of 988, but only a small fraction understand how the hotline operates. According to NAMI’s survey, only 17% of people who responded said they were “very/somewhat familiar” with the hotline.
Most people think that by calling 988, like 911, emergency services will automatically head their way, the survey found. Currently, 988 does not use geolocation, meaning call centers don’t automatically receive information about callers’ locations. Vibrant Emotional Health, which operates the hotline, is working to incorporate geo-routing into the system, which would help identify callers’ regions — but not exact locations — making it possible to connect them to local counseling groups and other mental health services.
But incorporating geo-routing into the hotline isn’t without controversy. When it launched, people responded on social media with warnings that calling 988 brought a heightened risk for police involvement and involuntary treatment at psychiatric hospitals. “Based on the trauma that so many people in the mental health community have long experienced when they’ve been in crisis, those assumptions are very understandable,” Wesolowski said.
Fewer than 2% of calls end up involving law enforcement, she said, and most are de-escalated over the phone.
“The vast majority of people think that an in-person response is going to happen whenever you call — and that’s just simply not true,” Wesolowski said.
Another challenge mental health advocates face is informing older adults about 988, especially veterans, who are at higher risk of having suicidal ideations. Americans ages 50 to 64 had the lowest awareness rate of 988 — at 11% — among all age groups, according to NAMI’s survey.
This is a telling sign of how older generations are less willing to discuss and admit to mental health struggles, Wesolowski said. “Young people are just more willing to be open about that, so I think that breaking down that stigma across all age groups is absolutely vital, and we have a lot of work to do in that space.”
Is 988 sustainable?
Since the hotline launched, it has been dependent on federal grants and annual appropriations. A gush of funding flowed when 988 launched, “but those annual appropriations are something you have to keep going back for year after year, so the sustainability aspect is a little more fraught,” Wesolowski said.
This is where Congress and state legislatures come in.
Mental health leaders hope to push legislation that allows 988 to be funded the same way 911 is nationwide. The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 mandated 911 to be the country’s universal emergency number, and ever since, users have automatically been charged — an average of about a dollar a month — on their monthly phone bills to fund it. Six states have imposed a similar tax for 988, and two states — Delaware and Oregon — have bills for this tax on their governor’s desks.
It’s under the FCC’s power to levy a nationwide tax, but the federal agency hasn’t done so yet.
KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Authorities say a woman and her three children were found dead in an Oklahoma home in what may be a murder-suicide
VERDIGRIS, Okla. — A woman and her three children were found dead in an Oklahoma home Thursday evening in what may be a murder-suicide following an hourslong standoff, authorities said.
The names of the victims weren’t immediately released.
The standoff began in the small town of Verdigris, a suburb east of Tulsa, when a police officer driving along the street saw fireworks coming from inside the garage of a house, according to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Hunter McKee.
“It was at that time that officer knew that there was something wrong, went to investigate, called for backup,” McKee said.
The officer saw what Police Chief Jack Shackleford described as a Roman candle firework and found a woman and two children locked in a garage.
The woman said she had taken another child to the home for a supervised visit and was met by an armed woman who took the child and locked the woman and two other children who were with her in the garage, Shackleford said.
Several agencies surrounded the house, including a SWAT team from the Cherokee Nation.
Following a three-hour standoff with no response from inside the house, McKee said officers entered the home and found the adult woman and three children dead with gunshot wounds.
The three children are believed to range in age from several months to around 11 years old.
A handgun was found at the scene and the killings are being investigated as a murder-suicide, authorities said.
Shackleford said officers went to the home several times in the past on domestic and mental health calls, KOKI-TV reported. It was not immediately known how the two women knew each other.
___
This story corrects spelling of Verdigris in dateline.
A new report from the Department of Justice Inspector General found that negligence, misconduct and job failures allowed Jeffrey Epstein to hang himself while in federal custody. The report found no evidence of foul play in his death.
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Less than 48 hours before being found dead in prison, Jeffrey Epstein met with his lawyers to sign a new version of his last will and testament.
The disgraced financier had been under psychological observation from a previous episode in which he was found hanging in his prison cell, but the provocative step of signing a new will went unnoticed by prison officials until after Epstein’s death.
That lapse was one of many missteps and missed opportunities to stop Epstein from killing himself sometime in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, 2019, contained in an official report released Tuesday by the Department of Justice’s internal, investigative watchdog.
The report stands by the initial determination that Epstein’s death was the result of suicide as there were no signs of foul play or that anyone had been anywhere near his cell after he was last seen alive by prison guards the night before.
But the report also lays out in detail Epstein’s final days, including a number of curious steps he took in that time and a series of serious protocol breaches made by prison staff that would contribute to him being left unwatched long enough to kill himself.
Epstein was arrested on July 6 of that year on federal sex-trafficking charges. He was ordered held without bail and eventually placed in the special housing unit of the Manhattan Correctional Center in New York while he awaited trial. There, inmates were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day, although Epstein spent much of his time meeting with his attorneys, the report said.
From the beginning, Epstein had a cellmate. On the night of July 23, the cellmate began banging on the cell door and screaming for the guards. When officers arrived, they found Epstein hanging from the bunk bed ladder with an orange piece of cloth wrapped around his neck.
The officers pulled Epstein down and managed to resuscitate him. When he later came to, he initially said he thought his cellmate had tried to kill him, but later said he could not recall what had happened. An investigation could not definitively conclude what had happened, the DOJ report said.
Following the episode, Epstein was placed on suicide watch — in which he was continuously monitored by staff. When prison psychologists later determined that Epstein was no longer a risk to himself, they downgraded his status to “psychological observation,” meaning he could be returned to a cell and not be kept under continual watch.
Curiously, Epstein said he wanted his original cellmate back. When prison officials said they weren’t sure that was such a good idea, Epstein replied: “Yeah, but I don’t understand, you know, we were bunkies, everything was cool,” the report quoted him as saying.
On July 30, prison staff were informed that Epstein needed to be assigned an “appropriate cellmate,” and he was housed with another inmate in a cell just 15 feet away from the guard station. That inmate later reported that Epstein was allowed to sleep on a mattress on the floor and was given an extra blanket, in violation of prison rules.
On August 8, Epstein signed the new will. The following morning, Epstein’s cellmate was transferred out of the prison, leaving Epstein alone.
Later that day, more than 2,000 pages of documents were publicly released as part of court proceedings against Epstein’s long-time companion, Ghislaine Maxwell. The documents included extensive information that was damaging to Epstein.
Maxwell was found guilty in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
That evening, after meeting with his lawyers, Epstein was allowed to place an unmonitored phone call. The report said that while Epstein claimed he was calling his mother, he actually phoned “someone with whom he allegedly has a personal relationship,” the report stated.
Epstein was last seen alive in his cell at 10:40 p.m. and was discovered dead by prison staff at 6:30 a.m. the following morning. He was once again found hanging from the upper bunk with a cord tied around his neck.
According to the report, prison officials discovered extra sheets and bedding in the cell. An investigation revealed that the prison guards on duty that night, failed to conduct rounds of the cell block and check on Epstein every 30 minutes like they were supposed to, meaning Epstein was unwatched for nearly eight hours.
The guards were later charged with falsifying records to show that they had done the required rounds while they were actually sleeping and surfing the internet. The two guards later reached deferred prosecution agreements with the federal prosecutors, in which charges against them were dropped after they performed community service and kept out of trouble for six months.
Some of the prison cameras in the cell block also had been malfunctioning for weeks so that while they provided a live feed of the area, they failed to record. A nearby camera that was fully operational showed no one entering the area after the guards last locked Epstein in his cell at 10:40 p.m. the night before he was found dead, the report said.
An autopsy showed no signs of foul play or that Epstein had struggled with anyone prior to his death. Officials say they believe he had hanged himself.
Ted Kaczynski, the man known as the Unabomber, died in prison of an apparent suicide at age 81, authorities said. He had served 25 years after being sentenced to multiple life sentences for a string of bombings between 1978 and 1995 that killed three and injured more than 20 others.
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Ted Kaczynski, the man known as the Unabomber who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died by suicide
ByMICHAEL SISAK AND MIKE BALSAMO AND JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber,” who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died by suicide, four people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday. Emergency responders performed CPR and revived him before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later Saturday morning, the people told the AP.
The people were not authorized to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Kaczynski’s death comes as the federal Bureau of Prisons has faced increased scrutiny in the last several years following the death of wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein, who also died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.
Kaczynski had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.
A woman condemned as Australia’s worst female serial killerhas been pardoned after serving 20 years behind bars for killing her four children in what appears to be one of thecountry’s gravest miscarriages of justice.
New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley intervened to order Kathleen Folbigg be freed, based on the preliminary findings of an inquiry that had found “reasonable doubt” as to her guilt for all four deaths.
Daley told a news conference Monday that he had spoken to the governor and recommended an unconditional pardon, which had been granted, and she would be released from Clarence Correctional Center the same day.
“This has been a terrible ordeal for everyone concerned and I hope that our actions today can put some closure on this 20-year-old matter,” said Daley, who added that he had informed Craig Folbigg, the babies’ father, of his decision. “It will be a tough day for him,” he said.
Kathleen Folbigg was jailed in 2003 on three counts of murder and one of manslaughter following the deaths of her four babies over a decade from 1989. In each case, she was the person who found their bodies, though there was no physical evidence that she had caused their deaths.
Instead, the jury relied on the prosecution’s argument that the chances of four babies from one family dying from natural causes before the age of 2 were so infinitesimally low as to be compared to pigs flying.
They also noted the contents of her diary, which contained passages that in isolation at the time were interpreted as confessions of guilt.
As recently as 2019, an inquiry into her convictions found there was no reasonable doubt she had committed the crimes. But another inquiry began last year after new scientific evidence emerged that provided a genetic explanation for the children’s deaths.
In her closing submissions, Sophie Callan, the lead counsel assisting the inquiry, said that “on the whole of the body of evidence before this inquiry there is a reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”
She also told the inquiry that in its closing submissions, the NSW director of public prosecutions had indicated she was also “open to the Inquiry to conclude there is reasonable doubt as to Ms Folbigg’s guilt.”
Folbigg was just 20 years old when she married Craig Folbigg,who she’d met in her hometown of Newcastle on the northern New South Wales coast.
Within a year she fell pregnant with Caleb, who was born in February, 1989 and lived only 19 days. The next year, the Folbiggs had another son, Patrick, who died at eight months. Two years later, Sarah died at 10 months. Then in 1999, the couple’s fourth and longest lived child, Laura, died at 18 months.
The police investigation into the deaths of all four children began the day Laura died, but it was more than two years before Folbigg was arrested and charged. By then, the couple’s marriage had fallen apart, and Craig was cooperating with police to build a case against her.
He handed police her diaries, which prosecutors argued contained the deepest thoughts of a mother tortured by guilt for her role in her children’s deaths.
Examination of the babies’ remains failed to find any physical evidence they’d been suffocated, but without another plausible reason to explain their deaths, suspicion focused on Kathleen, their primary carer.
In 2003, as he sentenced Folbigg to 40 years in prison, Judge Graham Barr recalled her troubled past. Folbigg’s father had killed her mother when she was just 18 months old, and she had spent many of her formative years in foster care.
According to court documents, Barr said Folbigg’s prospects of rehabilitation were “negligible.”
“She will always be a danger if given the responsibility of caring for a child,” he said. “That must never happen.”
That initial conviction ruling now stands in stark contrast to the latest inquiry, which looks set to paint a far different picture of Folbigg as a loving mother who was devastated and confused by the successive deaths of her babies.
As he ordered her release Monday, Daley distributed a memorandum of the findings by retired judge Tom Bathurst, who said after reviewing the evidence he was “unable to accept … the proposition that Ms Folbigg was anything but a caring mother for her children.”
In the case of the two girls – Sarah and Laura – Bathurst found there was a “reasonable possibility” a genetic mutation known as CALM2-G114R “occasioned their deaths,” and that Sarah may have died from myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, identified during her autopsy.
In the case of Patrick, who had an unexplained ALTE, an apparent life-threatening event, when he was 4 months old and died at 8 months, Bathurst found that it’s possible his death was caused by an underlying neurogenic disorder.
During Folbigg’s 2003 trial, the prosecution used “coincidence and tendency” evidence to allege that Folbigg had also killed Caleb. In other words, that having been allegedly responsible for the deaths of three children, it was likely she killed him, too.
However, Bathurst found that the reasonable doubt over Folbigg’s role in his siblings’ deaths meant that the prosecution’s case against her for Caleb’s murder “falls away.”
In relation to her diaries, Bathurst said the “evidence suggests they were the writings of a grieving and possibly depressed mother, blaming herself for the death of each child, as distinct from admissions that she murdered or otherwise harmed them.”
Bathurst also expressed doubts about evidence from Craig Folbigg, who had claimed his wife had been “ill-tempered” with their children and had “growled at them from time to time.”
“The balance of evidence … (was) that she was a loving and caring mother,” wrote Bathurst, whose full report will be released at a later date.
The case polarized public opinion and Chamberlain was jailed before evidence emerged that she was telling the truth.
In 1986, Azaria’s matinee jacket was found half-buried in the dirt, prompting officials to free Chamberlain, later known as Chamberlain-Creighton. Two years later, a court overturned her conviction, and in 2012 a coroner ruled that a dingo was indeed to blame for Azaria’s death.
Like Chamberlain-Creighton, Folbigg’s release from prison could be the start of a long process to clear her name.
Daley told reporters Monday that Folbigg’s pardon only meant she did not have to serve the rest of her sentence, and that it would be up to the Court of Criminal Appeal to quash her convictions.
He said it was too early to talk about compensation, as that would require Folbigg to initiate civil proceedings against the New South Wales government, or to approach it seeking an ex-gratia payment.
Daley acknowledged that after 20 years of believing Folbigg’s guilt, some people may not accept her innocence.
“There will be some people who have strong views. There’s nothing I can do to disavow them of those views, (and) it’s not my role to do that,” he said.
But he suggested the events of the past two decades should elicit some compassion for a woman who has lost so much.
“We’ve got four little bubbas who are dead. We’ve got a husband and wife who lost each other. A woman who spent 20 years in jail, and a family that never had a chance. You’d not be human if you didn’t feel something,” he said.
The son and 8-year-old grandson of a former Boston Red Sox player were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in their Massachusetts home Friday as authorities searched for clues about the boy’s mother – who was reported missing more than four years ago, according to local officials.
Police found the bodies of George Scott III and his son, Dante Hazard, at their New Bedford home after a relative couldn’t reach Scott and asked authorities to do a welfare check Friday morning, according to a news release from the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.
Scott is the son of the former Boston Red Sox player George “Boomer” Scott, according to Gregg Miliote, a spokesperson for the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office.
Scott played first base for the Red Sox from 1966 to 1971 then again from 1977 to 1979, winning three of his eight career Gold Glove Awards with the team, according to the MLB. He died in 2013 at age 69.
The discovery of his son and grandson comes only weeks after a search warrant was executed at the same home in connection to Dante’s mother, who remains missing.
Scott “appears to have killed the boy with a sharp object before taking his own life,” according to the district attorneys office. Officials are waiting for more details from the medical examiner’s office on the deaths, the release said.
In March 2019, Hazard, who was 28 at the time, went missing after leaving Scott’s home. She was supposed to leave to go to a drug rehabilitation center, according to the district attorney’s office. She hasn’t been seen since.
Detectives investigating her disappearance executed a search warrant at Scott’s residence – the same home where he and his son were found dead – last month, the release states. Her missing persons case is ongoing and the search warrant has been sealed by the court, according to the release.
CNN has reached out to the New Bedford Police Department for more information.
A South Carolina man, who survived being shot nine times by York County sheriff’s deputies responding to a “wellness check” call about him being suicidal two years ago, claims in a recent lawsuit that he was talking with his mother in his pickup truck when officers approached them “like cowboys from a John Wayne movie.”
Trevor Mullinax and his mother, Tammy Beason, allege that deputies immediately drew their weapons and used deadly force without trying to deescalate the situation and are suing York County and the sheriff’s department for gross negligence, among other claims.
The lawsuit, filed Friday and obtained by CNN, claims, “Sheriff’s deputies were grossly negligent, willful, wanton, careless, and reckless in their use of deadly force towards Plaintiff Mullinax and Plaintiff Beason, the same causing irreparable and permanent physical, mental, and emotional injury to Plaintiffs.”
Mullinax was charged with pointing and presenting a weapon – by the State Law Enforcement Division in relation to their investigation of the shooting. That charge is still pending.
However, attorneys for Mullinax said that while he was “lawfully in possession of a hunting shotgun” inside the truck, “at no point prior to, during, or after Sheriff’s deputies began shooting did Plaintiff Mullinax raise, point, or otherwise move with a weapon in such a fashion as would authorized Sheriff’s deputies to use deadly force.”
In several dash and body camera videos viewed by CNN, there is no mention of seeing a gun before deputies begin firing their weapons at Mullinax’s truck. However, body camera footage shows deputies after the shooting discussing seeing a “shotgun or rifle.” A deputy can be heard saying he found a weapon in the truck.
CNN obtained bodycam footage showing deputies with their guns drawn, surrounding the pickup truck, and demanding to see Mullinax’s hands before firing. The video also shows Beason standing beside the truck, speaking with her son through the driver’s side window. Attorneys for the family say officers fired nearly 50 shots at close range as he suffered a mental health crisis, claiming their client was contemplating suicide. Beason can be heard screaming and crying as she’s put into handcuffs by deputies. Attorneys for the family also accuse deputies of failing to render immediate medical aid to Mullinax.
The lawsuit notes that a shocked Beason “dove backward” to avoid the bullets that hit the vehicle.
Two years after the May 7, 2021, incident, both mother and son are suing for undetermined damages.
Justin Bamberg, an attorney for Mullinax, said during a news conference on Tuesday that Mullinax had been hit several times by bullets, including directly in the back of his head.
“Almost 50 shots fired at somebody who was in need of help. A citizen who was in need of help,” said Bamberg.
Mullinax, who was present at the news conference, acknowledged that the shooting was triggered by a mental health crisis.
“I can tell you that it’s hard to believe in the police when they destroyed everything I believe in that day,” Tammy Beason said during the news conference. “It’s taken me a very long time to recover from that. I’m still recovering.”
According to a recording of the 911 call, a friend of Mullinax had called emergency services with another friend on a three-way call to report Mullinax was having a mental health crisis and was potentially suicidal.
“We’re just trying to get our buddy some help,” the friend said. They told the dispatcher that they suspected the crisis was, in part, sparked by Mullinax’s belief there was a burglary warrant out for his arrest due to an incident the previous night.
The 911 caller explained to the dispatcher that Mullinax’s mother was out with him, and that their friend “had locked himself in his truck with a knife – and I say that because I don’t want him to hop out and get shot, I don’t know if that’s his plan.” The friends provided cell phone numbers for Mullinax and his mother so law enforcement could contact them.
However, the complaint alleges that the 911 dispatcher did not provide the responding deputies with the cellphone numbers she was given for Mullinax or his mother.
The filing said that when deputies arrived on scene, they found Mullinax’s grandfather at the house. Body camera video obtained by CNN shows the grandfather directing deputies to where he thought Mullinax could have been parked.
The 911 dispatcher relayed information to deputies about Mullinax being suicidal and the warrant, but deputies who arrived at the home seemed focused on the outstanding warrant based on comments recorded on body camera videos.
“He’s got to go to jail,” a deputy said to Mullinax’s grandfather.
As they approach the truck in the distance, a deputy can be heard in one dash camera video observing out loud that there is “somebody standing right beside” the truck and that Mullinax can be seen inside.
Body camera video shows deputies arriving, shouting “hands up” and “hands, hands” before opening fire on the truck, with Beason still standing there, all in less than 10 seconds time.
Mullinax was life flighted to a hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, for his injuries. Dashcam video shows it appears at least 14 minutes went by before aid for Mullinax was provided by emergency services. He was handcuffed and removed from the pickup truck after the shooting.
Deputies handcuffed Beason immediately after the shooting. She can be seen on body camera video hysterically crying while begging to see her son.
“I was trying to get him to go in, and he was talking to me finally. He was talking to me. Why did y’all come? I could have done this peacefully. I could have done this peacefully,” sobbed Beason to a deputy, who captured the interaction on his body camera.
In a news conference on Wednesday, York County Sheriff Kevin Tolson said his agency had not been served with a lawsuit and that he felt “forced” to address the claims.
“I feel forced to address this suit out of what I consider to be the proper venue and that’s the court,” Tolson said. “I’ve never held a press conference about litigation, litigation that I haven’t even been served with yet.”
Tolson said that Mullinax had active arrest warrants through the York Police Department for a violent felony and malicious injury to personal property. Sheriff’s deputies’ claim that Mullinax pulled and pointed a weapon at them when they arrived following a request for a wellness check for Mullinax. He said all four deputies fired their weapons at Mullinax
“Four deputies approached an individual wanted for a violent felony who was armed with a knife and experiencing mental distress. As those deputies approached, this individual pulled a shotgun. Fearing for their safety, these deputies discharged their weapons at the individual,” said Tolson, who also claimed that Mullinax’s mother corroborated the deputies’ claims that her son grabbed a weapon when law enforcement arrived on scene.
In response to that claim from the sheriff, attorneys for Mullinax and Beason told CNN “on the day of the shooting, Tammy Beason did tell SLED investigators that Trevor grabbed the shotgun but did so when he saw deputies driving down Highway 324, not as officers pulled right up to the front of his truck.”
Tolson also said the SLED investigation shows upon arriving at the hospital after being by deputies, Mullinax told medical personnel that he wanted to kill himself but then “decided to have the police do it.”
Tolson denounced criticism against police officers for their handling of situations “that should not be the responsibility of law enforcement” and said more mental health resources are needed.
DENVER — Colorado’s governor signed four gun control bills Friday, following the lead of other states struggling to confront a nationwide surge in violent crime and mass shootings, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights.
Before the ink was even dry on Gov. Jared Polis’ signature, gun rights groups sued to reverse two of the measures: raising the buying age for any gun from 18 to 21, and establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun. The courts are already weighing lawsuits over such restrictions in other states.
The new laws, which Democrats pushed through despite late-night filibusters from Republicans, are aimed at quelling rising suicides and youth violence, preventing mass shootings, and opening avenues for gun violence victims to sue the long-protected firearm industry. They were enacted just five months after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.
“Coloradoans deserve to be safe in our communities, in our schools, in our grocery stores, in our nightclubs,” Polis said as he signed the measures in his office. The governor was flanked by activists wearing red shirts reading, “Moms Demand Action,” students from a Denver high school recently affected by a shooting, and parents of a woman killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012.
Supportive lawmakers and citizens alike had tears in their eyes and roared their applause as Polis signed each bill. Colorado has a history of notorious mass shootings, reaching back to the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.
Republicans decried the bills as onerous encroachments on Second Amendment rights that would impede Colorado residents’ ability to defend themselves amid a rising statewide crime rate. Gun rights advocates pledged to reverse the measures.
“It’s a sad day for Colorado; we are becoming one of the most anti-Second Amendment states in the nation,” said Rep. Mike Lynch, the Republican minority leader.
A third measure passed by the legislature will strengthen the state’s red flag law, and a fourth rolls back some legal protections for the firearm industry, exposing them to lawsuits from the victims of gun violence.
Lynch anticipates that the magnitude of the gun restrictions — along with other bills Democrats pushed this year — will incite a backlash in the next election, especially in swing districts that helped reinforce Democrats’ majority in the legislature.
The new red flag law, also called an extreme risk protection order, empowers those working closely with youth and adults — doctors, mental health professionals, and teachers — to petition a judge to temporarily remove someone’s firearm. Previously, petition power was limited mainly to law-enforcement and family members. The goal is to act preemptively before someone attempts suicide or attacks others.
At the signing ceremony, Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said Republicans and other gun control opponents often respond to mass shootings by saying it’s too soon to talk about restricting firearms.
“It isn’t too soon. It’s too late for so many of the lost souls,” Fenberg said. “We needed to have done more to prevent what happened.”
Republicans argued that the law would discourage people — especially military veterans — from candidly speaking with medical doctors and mental health professionals for fear of having their weapons temporarily seized.
Lynch argued that while the shooting in Colorado Springs was often held up as a reason to pass these types of gun restrictions, “evidence shows they would’ve done absolutely nothing to stop that.”
“It kind of breaks my heart that we’re taking these tragic events … and we’re using those events to promote an agenda that doesn’t fix the problem,” he said.
The law requiring a three-day delay between buying and receiving a firearm — an attempt to curtail impulsive violence and suicide attempts — puts Colorado in line with nine other states, including California, Florida and Hawaii.
Colorado has the sixth-highest suicide rate in the country, with nearly 1,400 in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A RAND Corporation analysis of four studies found that waiting periods are linked to lower suicide-by-gun deaths.
Opponents raised concerns that people who need to defend themselves — such as victims of domestic violence — may not be able to get a gun in time to do so.
In raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, Colorado joins California, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, New York and Rhode Island. Proponents point to now oft-cited data from the CDC showing that gun violence has overtaken vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in recent years.
At the ceremony, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser likened the new laws to the campaign for vehicle safety that spawned groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the forerunner of Moms Demand Action.
But Taylor Rhodes, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the group that filed the lawsuits, had a different perspective.
“This is simply bigoted politicians doing what bigoted politicians do: discriminating against an age,” said Rhodes, referring to the new minimum age for gun purchases.
In their speeches about rolling back legal protections for gun manufacturers, lawmakers looked often to Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was slain in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. The parents tried to sue the companies that had sold the shooter ammunition and tear gas but were unsuccessful. Ultimately, the couple ended up owing more than $200,000 in defense attorney fees and had to file for bankruptcy.
California, Delaware, New Jersey and New York have passed similar legislation over the past three years. Opponents of the bill argued that it would merely bog the firearms industry down in bogus lawsuits.
