11-year-old among 3 arrested in string of armed robberies: Seattle police
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(SEATTLE) — An 11-year-old is among three suspects who’ve been arrested in connection with a string of armed robberies at convenience stores and gas stations in the Seattle area, police said.
The 11-year-old, a 21-year-old and a 19-year-old are accused of four robberies committed within two hours early Friday morning and a fifth robbery Friday night, Seattle police said.
The suspects, who wore face masks and were armed with guns, demanded merchandise and cash before fleeing in stolen cars, police said.
No one was hurt, police said.
After the fifth robbery on Friday night, the suspects led several law enforcement agencies on a car chase that spanned multiple jurisdictions, police said.
The suspects eventually stopped the car and fled on foot, and were then taken into custody without incident, police said Saturday.
The adults were booked into King County Jail and the 11-year-old was taken to the Judge Patricia H. Clark Children & Family Justice Center, police said.
(HOUSTON) — Public hospitals in Texas will now be required to ask patients if they are in the U.S. legally and keep a record of the funds spent on illegal migrants after an executive order went into effect Friday.
Public hospitals are required to collect information regarding the “cost of medical care provided to illegal immigrants,” the number of inpatient discharges and the number of emergency visits, then submit that data to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on a quarterly basis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in an August statement announcing the measure.
While facilities must ask patients of their legal status, patients are not required to respond.
The new policy will also be enforced at hospitals enrolled in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and any other facilities identified by the commission.
The first submission is due on March 1, 2025, according to the governor’s office. The commission will then submit the total cost for medical care provided to illegal migrants to the governor, lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house on an annual basis beginning on Jan. 1, 2026.
Patients are to be told that the collection of this information will not affect patient care, according to the executive order. Federal law mandates patients be told their answers will not affect their medical care.
The executive order also states that the federal government “may and should be obligated to reimburse the state of Texas for the costs that its open border policies have imposed on Texans.”
“Due to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ open border policies, Texas has had to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state,” Abbott said in the statement, though migrant encounters at the border began rising while Donald Trump was president in the months after April 2020 through the November election. “Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants.”
Immigration advocacy groups condemned the action as it went into place Friday.
“Abbott’s latest executive order — which takes effect today and goes against federal law — is a calculated attempt to drive immigrants into the shadows and make our communities fearful of being targeted in the very places we should feel safe. Going after immigrants in hospitals is just the first step towards enacting Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” said Michelle Ming, political director of United We Dream Action, an advocacy group for immigrants.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia contributed to this report.
(GATESVILLE, Tx.) — The family of Melissa Lucio, a death row inmate whose execution was delayed in 2022, expressed hope that the Texas woman would be freed after a judge concluded last month that Lucio is “actually innocent” after she was convicted of capital murder in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter.
“This is the best news we could get going into the holidays,” said her son, John Lucio, and daughter-in-law Michelle Lucio in a statement released by the Innocence Project.
“We pray our mother will be home soon,” the Lucios added, joined by Lucio’s son, Bobby Alvarez.
In a 62-page ruling that was signed on Oct. 16, 2024, and reviewed by ABC News, Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson recommended that Lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned in the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah.
The judge found that prosecutors suppressed evidence and testimony – including statements from Lucio’s other children – that could support the argument that Lucio was not abusive and that her daughter’s death was accidental after a fall down the stairs.
“This Court finds (Lucio) has satisfied her burden and produced clear and convincing evidence that she is actually innocent of the offense of capital murder,” Nelson wrote in the ruling.
“(T)his Court concludes there is clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror could convict Applicant of capital murder or any lesser included offense,” Nelson added.
The judge’s recommendation was sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for review. ABC News reached out to the court for updates in the case.
“Melissa Lucio lived every parent’s nightmare when she lost her daughter after a tragic accident,” Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, and one of Lucio’s attorneys, said in a statement on Thursday.
“It became a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake up when she was sent to death row for a crime that never happened. After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end. Melissa should be home right now with her children and grandchildren.”
Lucio has maintained her innocence over the years.
ABC News reached out to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted this case, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
Lucio’s story gained national attention through filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel’s 2020 Netflix documentary, “Melissa vs. the State of Texas,” a documentary that follows Lucio’s journey on death row as she filed her last appeal.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers backed the calls to free the Texas woman and her case was further bolstered by celebrities who called for her freedom, like Kim Kardashian and Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who wrote the book “Dead Man Walking.”
Abraham Bonowitz, coordinator of the #FreeMelissaLucio Campaign and executive director of Death Penalty Action, told ABC News in a statement on Thursday that Lucio credits the film with bringing attention to her case.
“Melissa Lucio was once two days from execution. It took a film viewed by millions and a massive public relations campaign just to halt her execution and get the courts to order a fresh look at the evidence,” Bonowitz said.
“If it were not for the film that was created, there would never have been enough pressure to stop the execution, which should concern us all — that if you don’t have a film and you don’t have a big campaign, then you can’t be heard,” Bonowitz added in a phone interview on Monday with ABC News.
Amid growing calls for the court to review her case in 2022, Lucio was granted a stay of her scheduled April 27, 2022, execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on April 25, 2022 – after nearly 15 years on death row.
“I thank God for my life,” Lucio said in an April 2022 statement reacting to the stay. “I am grateful the Court has given me the chance to live and prove my innocence. Mariah is in my heart today and always. I am grateful to have more days to be a mother to my children and a grandmother to my grandchildren.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Lyle and Erik Menendez are currently serving life behind bars for the murders of their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills home. But after more than three decades in prison, a renewed interest in the headline-grabbing trial has the brothers pursuing two tracks to potential freedom.
The Menendez case dates back to August 1989, when Lyle Menendez, then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, shot and killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Prosecutors alleged Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their wealthy parents for financial gain, while the defense argued the brothers acted in self-defense after enduring years of sexual abuse by their father.
Their first trials — which captured the nation’s attention with cameras in the courtroom — ended in mistrials.
In 1996, at the end of a second trial — in which the judge barred much of the sex abuse evidence — Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole.
The sensational case gained new attention this fall with the release of the Netflix drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and the Netflix documentary “The Menendez Brothers.”
The brothers currently have two potential paths to their release before the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Resentencing
One track involves a review of their sentence based on factors including rehabilitation, which Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is evaluating.
Gascón said he plans to make his resentencing decision this month. If Gascón recommends resentencing, his recommendation will go to a judge to decide whether the brothers will be released, receive a lesser sentence or get a new trial.
Gascón told ABC News in October any recommendation for resentencing would take into account the decades the brothers already served and their behavior in prison.
Mark Geragos, the Menendez brothers’ lawyer, called Erik and Lyle model prisoners who worked tirelessly to reform themselves with no expectation they’d be released.
“Given the totality of the circumstances, I don’t think that they deserve to be in prison until they die,” Gascón told ABC News.
Gascón said since he’s been in office, they have resentenced over 300 people, of which four have reoffended.
The other track concerns the brothers’ petition filed last year for a review of new evidence not presented at the original trial. Through the habeas corpus petition, the court could reverse the conviction or reopen proceedings.
Gascón said his office is evaluating allegations from a member of the boy band Menudo who said he was molested by Jose Menendez, and a letter Erik Menendez wrote to a cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse.
Erik Menendez’s cousin testified about the alleged abuse at trial, but Erik Menendez’s letter — which would have corroborated the cousin’s testimony — wasn’t unearthed until several years ago, according to Geragos.
“The combination of those two we believe provide more than ample basis to set aside the result of the second trial,” Geragos said at a press briefing earlier this month.
Geragos said the district attorney could either oppose the habeas and decide to litigate it, or “they could concede the habeas and say, give them a new trial.”
“I’m hoping that sometime before Thanksgiving, which is when the next response is due, that the DA will either concede the habeas or join us in asking for resentencing,” Geragos said.
The next court date in the case is scheduled for Nov. 26, Gascón said.
Family calls for release
Nearly two dozen relatives have urged the district attorney to recommend the brothers be resentenced and released.
Lyle and Erik Menendez “were failed by the very people who should have protected them — by their parents, by the system, by society at large,” Kitty Menendez’s sister, Joan Andersen VanderMolen, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
“Their actions, while tragic, were the desperate response of two boys trying to survive the unspeakable cruelty of their father,” she said of the murders. “As their aunt, I had no idea of the extent of the abuse they suffered.”
Behind bars, the siblings “persevered,” Anamaria Baralt, niece of Jose Menendez, said. “They have sought to better themselves and serve as a support and inspiration for survivors all over the world. Their continued incarceration serves no rehabilitative purpose.”
