15-year-old shot in Maryland high school bathroom, 16-year-old student in custody
Oliver Helbig/Getty Images
(JOPPA, Md.) — A 16-year-old student allegedly shot a 15-year-old boy during an “altercation” in the boys’ bathroom at Joppatowne High School in Joppa, Maryland, on Friday, authorities said.
The 15-year-old was attended to by school nurses and the principal, and then airlifted to a trauma center where he is in serious condition, Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler said at a news conference.
The 16-year-old suspect left the school and fled to nearby houses, the sheriff said. He was apprehended “within minutes” thanks to community members, Gahler said.
The shooting unfolded on the suspect’s first day at the school, though it’s now four days into the school year, Gahler said.
It appears one shot was fired in the incident, the sheriff said, noting that the gun has not been recovered.
Authorities don’t know what the apparent argument was about, the sheriff said.
The suspect is known to law enforcement and police have previously responded to calls for service involving the teen, authorities said.
More than 100 police officers responded to the scene in Joppa, about 35 miles northeast of Baltimore, Gahler said.
“We’re just devastated to be a part of this awful group of schools that have experienced things like this,” Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Sean Bulson said. “And we’re going to do everything we can, working with this community, to make sure this absolutely never happens again.”
The school does not have metal detectors, officials said.
(PHILADELPHIA) — The University of Pennsylvania will impose major sanctions against Carey Law School professor Amy Wax, after an investigation concluded that she “engaged in ‘flagrant unprofessional conduct,'” which included “a history of making sweeping and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.”
The university also found that Wax “on numerous occasions in and out of the classroom and in public, [made] discriminatory and disparaging statements targeting specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify.”
The Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility released a report Tuesday confirming sanctions against the tenured professor, which includes a one-year suspension with half-pay, the loss of her named chair and an inability to represent Penn in public appearances, among other measures.
“Last year, a five-member faculty Hearing Board determined that Professor Amy Wax violated the University’s behavioral standards by engaging in years of flagrantly unprofessional conduct within and outside of the classroom that breached her responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal learning opportunity to all students,” a university spokesperson told ABC News.
Wax has been under fire for years for her controversial language about minority groups, particularly Black and Asian populations.
Dean of Penn Carey Law School Ted Ruger had initiated governing sanctions against Wax in January 2022. A hearing board conducted an evaluation in May 2023 and confirmed misconduct from Wax, which she appealed.
The Senate Committee’s decision Tuesday strikes down Wax’s appeal, and Interim President J. Larry Jameson confirmed that he will be upholding this “final decision” and implementing the sanctions recommended.
Provost John L. Jackson, Jr. also issued a public reprimand Tuesday, telling Wax that it is “imperative” that she “conduct [herself] in a professional manner in [her] interactions with faculty colleagues, students, and staff,” which includes “refraining from flagrantly unprofessional and targeted disparagement of any individual or group in the University community.”
Wax and her lawyer, David Shapiro, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In a 2023 op-ed in the Daily Pennsylvanian, Shapiro defended her remarks by saying, “Professor Wax teaches a conservative thought seminar, and she is vocal on social media in expressing conservative ideas.”
“My client must defend herself against scurrilous charges of ‘racism’ and ‘white supremacy’ because, as a white Jewish conservative, she dared to question the liberal orthodoxy about the lives of many African Americans,” Shapiro added. He also went on to attack the university for what he considered to be hypocritical policies.
While Penn’s sanctions constitute major action against a tenured faculty member, students had previously expressed desire for Wax to be fired.
Law student Soojin Jeong told ABC News in 2022 that Wax’s comments were “egregious,” and added, “we really need to fire Amy Wax.”
Also speaking to ABC News in 2022, law student Apratim Vidyarthi pointed to the double standard. “If I had said something like that, or you said something like that, or an NFL coach said something like that, they’d be fired off the bat,” he said.
Students had advocated for Wax to be suspended while the investigation was ongoing. Vidyarthi told ABC News in 2022 that Wax “shouldn’t be allowed to come on campus, she shouldn’t be allowed to interact with students while this investigation is ongoing.”
Jeong and Vidyarthi helped write a petition calling for university action against Wax, in which they stated that “Wax’s racist comments have become a semi-annual ritual that receives temporary furor and temporary consequences.”
In one example cited by the students, Wax in an April 2022 Fox News interview disparaged Indian Americans and said “on some level, their country is a s–thole.”
In December 2021, Wax told Brown University professor Glenn Loury on his podcast “The Glenn Show” that “as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”
Wax also told Loury in 2017, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely in the top half,” calling this a “very inconvenient fact.”
In the letter from June 2022 initiating the disciplinary action against Wax, she was also accused of making homophobic and sexist remarks, including “commenting in class that gay couples are not fit to raise children” and telling students that “women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men.”
Wax has repeatedly defended her rhetoric as free speech.
“Make no mistake, the goal and effect of these charges is to demolish – to totally gut – the protections for extramural speech and free faculty expression, and to drive dissenters like me out of the academy,” she told free speech advocacy group FIRE Faculty Network last year.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
Eric Adams, mayor of New York, exits federal court after his arraignment in New York, US, on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. — Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The bribery charge against New York Mayor Eric Adams is “extraordinarily vague” and brought by “zealous prosecutors” who spent years “casting about” for something to support a criminal case against the mayor, a defense attorney said Monday in a new court filing.
Federal prosecutors accused Adams of accepting more than $100,000 in airline upgrades and luxury hotel stays from Turkey and, in 2021, when a Turkish official told Adams it was “his turn,” Adams allegedly pressured the New York City Fire Department to rush a safety inspection of the new Turkish consulate in Manhattan.
Adams was arraigned on the charges on Friday. He pleaded not guilty one day after the indictment was unsealed.
The mayor’s attorney, Alex Spiro, argued on Monday that the alleged scheme “does not meet the definition of bribery” because the indictment does not say Adams agreed to perform any official act in exchange for the travel perks.
“Rather, it alleges only that while serving as Brooklyn Borough President — not Mayor or even Mayor-elect — he agreed generally to assist with the ‘operation’ or ‘regulation’ of a Turkish Consulate building in Manhattan, where he had no authority whatsoever,” Spiro wrote in a motion to dismiss the bribery count.
The defense suggested what Adams is accused of doing is routine, not criminal.
“That extraordinarily vague allegation encompasses a wide array of normal and perfectly lawful acts that any City official would undertake for the consulate of important foreign nation,” the motion said. “The three innocuous messages Adams allegedly sent to the Fire Commissioner here fall far short of the kind official act necessary for bribery.”
Adams has pleaded not guilty to all five counts he faces. He is due back in court on Wednesday.
Spiro said the other four counts should also be dismissed.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd shows the booking photo for Collin Griffith during a press briefing, Sept. 11, 2024. — Polk County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook
(AUBURNDALE, Fla.) — A Florida teenager has been charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of his mother, less than two years after he was arrested for fatally shooting his father but never charged, authorities said.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a Wednesday press briefing that the teen had previously allegedly threatened to kill his mother before Sunday’s “cold-blooded murder.”
The stabbing occurred after the teen, 17-year-old Collin Griffith, and his mother, 39-year-old Catherine Griffith, were seen having an altercation outside a mobile home in Auburndale, according to Judd.
“There were witnesses outside the mobile home that actually saw Collin drag his mother into the house by the hair on her head,” the sheriff said.
Griffith called 911 Sunday evening to report that his mother “fell on a knife” and was bleeding from the neck, Judd said. The teen reportedly said his mother had lunged at him with the knife when she fell on it during a prolonged fight inside the home, according to Judd.
The home belongs to the teen’s grandmother, who was not there at the time of the incident, Judd said.
When deputies arrived, the teen met them outside and was “calm, cool, collected – not upset,” Judd said. Griffith reportedly told them, “I know my rights, I want an attorney,” according to Judd.
A bloody kitchen knife with an 8-inch blade was found inside the home, the sheriff said.
During an autopsy conducted on Monday, the medical examiner determined that Catherine Griffith died from a deep knife wound to the neck that was inconsistent with an accidental injury, according to Judd.
“The medical examiner said it is not reasonable or plausible that she died the way that [her son] said she did,” Judd said.
Collin Griffith is in custody and has been charged with first-degree murder, Judd said, adding that they have asked the state attorney’s office to prosecute the teen as an adult.
The State Attorney’s Office 10th Judicial Circuit, which includes Polk County, told ABC News on Thursday they have no comment on the case at this time.
It is unknown if Griffith has an attorney. ABC News’ attempts to reach his grandmother were unsuccessful.
Judd said as investigators started to “peel back the layer of this onion,” the teen’s family told investigators that he had previously been physically or verbally confrontational with his mother.
Sheriff’s office reports out of Charlotte County in Florida, where Collin Griffith and his mother lived, showed that he had allegedly threatened to kill her in statements purportedly made in September 2023 and, most recently, in February, according to the charging affidavit for his mother’s murder.
Collin Griffith was also arrested by the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office for domestic violence battery against his mother in November 2023, according to Judd.
“She was disciplining him and took his video game privileges away, so he beat up his mother,” Judd said. “He pushed her to the ground and he stomped on her.”
Days before the stabbing, Collin Griffith and his mother had an argument about chores and he went to his grandmother’s home, Judd said. Catherine Griffith went to the grandmother’s home on Sunday to bring him back to hers, and she and her son were seen arguing outside of the grandmother’s home around 4:30 p.m., fewer than two hours before the teen called 911 to report the stabbing incident, Judd said.
While investigating the stabbing, the sheriff’s office learned that authorities in Oklahoma also had arrested the teen last year in connection with the fatal shooting of his father, Charles Griffith, at their home in Lincoln County.
Collin Griffith told authorities that he shot his father in self-defense on Feb. 14, 2023, during an argument that turned physical, according to Adam Panter, the district attorney for Oklahoma’s 23rd District, which includes Lincoln County.
During a 911 call, the teen said he grabbed a rifle and shot his father twice after his father chased him into a bedroom while armed with a knife, according to the district attorney.
“At the start of his police interview, he requested an attorney and the interview was terminated, so the only version of events that we were able to obtain was what Collin said on the 911 call, which was consistent with the evidence we found at the scene,” Panter said in a statement to ABC News.
State police investigated forensic and digital evidence and no charges were ever filed against the teen in the case, Panter said.
“Ultimately, after evaluating all of the evidence and possible theories, it was determined that we could not rule out self-defense and as a result, declined to file any formal charges,” Panter said.
Both Panter and Judd said any relevant information obtained in the investigation into the mother’s death will be considered in connection with the shooting of the teen’s father.
“If any new evidence is obtained that is both relevant and credible to our investigation into the death of Collin Griffith’s father, we will certainly re-evaluate the case and make a new determination if necessary,” Panter told ABC News.
Following the Oklahoma shooting of his father, Collin Griffith came to Charlotte County in Florida in March 2023 to live with his mother, Judd said.
He was “being intensely watched” by the county’s sheriff’s office prior to the stabbing, Judd said. Griffith had been placed on active juvenile probation following his arrest in November 2023 for battery domestic violence in connection to his physical attack on his mother, according to an affidavit.
A spokesperson for the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office told ABC News that its juvenile unit had been working with the teen and his family “in various ways to include connecting them with available resources.”
“I cannot expand any further on that as I am not privy to those interactions, and because he is a minor,” the spokesperson said.
The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) had also been in contact with the family, including after the teen ran away from home in February following an argument with his mother, according to Judd.
A spokesperson for DCF, which investigates allegations of abuse, neglect or abandonment, said information regarding its investigations is confidential, per state law.
Judd said they are looking into Collin Griffith’s history and interactions with other agencies in Florida and Oklahoma as they investigate the case.
“My question is, was there anything else that could have been done?” he said
He noted that the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office did a “remarkable job keeping up” with Collin Griffith.
In addition to murder, Collin Griffith has been charged with kidnapping and violation of a no-contact order, the sheriff’s office said. The charges stem from his juvenile probation in Charlotte County for battery domestic violence, with conditions including that he have no contact with his mother, according to the affidavit.
