15-year-old charged with killing Lyft driver: Police
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(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — A 15-year-old has been arrested and charged for fatally shooting a Lyft driver in North Carolina, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
The teen was arrested on Friday in connection to the death of Carlos Leiva, 25, a Lyft driver who was fatally shot last year in Charlotte, police said in a statement on Monday.
On Oct. 23, officers responding to the scene found a man — later identified as Leiva — with an “apparent gunshot wound,” police said.
The Charlotte Fire Department and emergency medical services responded to the area, but Leiva was pronounced dead on the scene.
The teen was charged with murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and conveyance, police said. The circumstances surrounding the shooting have not been released.
After their arrest, the teen was interviewed by detectives and then transferred to the custody of the Stonewall Jackson Juvenile Development Center, police said.
The name of the teenager was not released by police due to their age.
Leiva’s brother, Daniel Davila, told Charlotte ABC affiliate WSOC the suspect’s arrest gives the family “a little bit more peace now.”
Officials said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
(LOS ANGELES) — A brush fire burning near homes in Los Angeles County prompted evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon, according to authorities.
The Burbank Fire Department said Tuesday evening it managed to stop the forward progress of the Bethany Fire, which was burning near a residential area in Burbank, California.
Fire crews remained in the area for several hours cleaning up, advising people to stay clear of the area, police said.
“If you are on or near the hiking trails or in these recreation areas in the Burbank hills, please leave the area immediately,” the Burbank Police Department said.
All hiking trails remain close through the evening, police said.
(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts jury found Karen Read not guilty of murdering her Boston police officer boyfriend in 2022, nearly a year after her first prosecution ended in a mistrial.
The jury began deliberating the afternoon of June 13 in Norfolk County before reaching a verdict Wednesday afternoon.
Prosecutors allege Read hit her boyfriend, John O’Keefe, with her car outside the Canton home of fellow police officer Brian Albert in January 2022 and then left him to die there during a major blizzard.
The defense has argued that Read’s vehicle did not hit O’Keefe and instead said O’Keefe was attacked by a dog and beaten by other people who were in the house before he was thrown out in the snow to die.
Read pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, leaving a scene of personal injury and death, and manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and has maintained her innocence.
During deliberations, the jury asked four questions, including, “If we find not guilty on two charges but can’t agree on one charge, is it a hung jury on all three charges or just one charge?” the judge told attorneys in court.
The judge told the jury she is not able to respond to their question, telling attorneys it was a “theoretical question.”
The jury also asked about the time frame for when Read is accused of driving under the influence, whether video clips from Read’s interviews about the case are to be considered as evidence and if she is convicted on a sub-charge, if that would mean she is guilty on the overall charge.
In an unusual moment, Judge Beverly Cannone told the courtroom earlier Wednesday that the jury had indicated during the lunch break that they had reached a verdict, then updated that they did not have a verdict. Cannone sealed that verdict slip and informed the court that there was not yet a verdict “because, as we all know, there is no verdict until it is announced and recorded in open court.”
Read’s first trial ended in a mistrial in July 2024 after the jury could not reach a verdict.
At least four jurors who served on her first trial last year have confirmed that she was found not guilty of second-degree murder and leaving a scene of personal injury and death, according to Read’s attorneys. However, the jury could not agree on the third charge of manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence, the attorneys said.
Her lawyers filed multiple appeals, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming Read should not be retried on the counts the jury apparently agreed on, saying it would amount to double jeopardy. Each appeal was denied.
Read’s attorneys made motions for a mistrial twice during her second criminal trial, both of which were denied by the judge.
Like her first trial, Read did not take the stand in her own defense.
“I am not testifying,” Read said to reporters outside the courthouse on June 10. “[The jury has] heard my interview clips. They’ve heard my voice. They’ve heard a lot of me.”
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia are requesting a conference Tuesday to address what they say is the Trump administration’s “failure to comply” with a court order granting expedited discovery in the case.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis last week slammed Justice Department attorneys over their inaction over Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention and ordered government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery.
In a letter to the judge Monday night from both the government and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, lawyers for Abrego Garcia said that the Trump administration has responded to their discovery requests by producing “nothing of substance” and providing interrogatory responses that are “non-responsive.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said the administration has claimed state secrets privilege and governmental privilege “without any foundation for doing so.”
The attorneys also said they invited government officials to meet and confer several times, but the officials declined to meet until Monday evening, “on the eve of depositions.”
Department of Homeland Security Acting General Counsel Joseph Mazzara was scheduled to be deposed Tuesday morning, according to the letter.
The government, in the same letter, said they have “put forward a good-faith effort to provide appropriate responses to both Plaintiffs’ Interrogatories and Request for Production.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who has been living with his wife and children in Maryland, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States. His wife and attorney have denied that he is an MS-13 member.
Judge Xinis early this month ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that ruling, “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
The government, in Monday’s letter to the judge, said that any requirement for a more detailed response on the legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s confinement “would be wholly inappropriate and an invasion of diplomatic discussions.”
“Upon Abrego’s repatriation to El Salvador, his detention was no longer a matter of the United States’ confinement, but a matter belonging to the government of El Salvador — which has been explained to the Plaintiffs repeatedly,” the government said. “Their insistence on obtaining any information on ‘diplomatic discussions’ is a facially unwarranted and inappropriate intrusion into the diplomatic process — a matter which the Supreme Court specifically reserved to the Government’s province.”
In a separate filing, attorneys for Abrego Garcia included as an exhibit the government’s objections to the plaintiff’s first set of expedited interrogatories, in which the government says that “disclosing the details of any diplomatic discussions regarding Mr. Abrego Garcia at this time could negatively impact any outcome.”
In the exhibit, the government acknowledges the $6 million that has been made available to the government of El Salvador to be used for its “law enforcement needs,” including for the detention of the Venezuelan migrants that were sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison.
“The United States has not provided any specific assistance with respect to the detention of Abrego Garcia or any other Salvadoran national,” the government said.
