3 people, including 3-year-old girl, critically hurt in fire and possible explosion at Detroit apartment building
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(DETROIT) — Three people, including a 3-year-old girl, were critically hurt in a fire and possible explosion at an apartment building in Detroit, officials said.
The fire was reported around 4 a.m. Monday, and when crews arrived, they found people “hanging off” windows, “ready to jump,” Detroit Executive Fire Commissioner Chuck Simms told reporters.
“Firefighters immediately went into action” and rescued all 12 people in the building: six adults and six children, Simms said.
Three people who were in the same apartment were hospitalized in critical condition: a 30-year-old man with severe burns to 90% of his body; a 27-year-old woman with severe burns to about 20% to 40% of her body; and a 3-year-old girl who suffered burns to 15% of her body, Simms said.
The other injured victims were hospitalized in stable condition, including a 26-year-old mom and her four children, Simms said. He described their injuries as “scrapes and bruises.”
A cause is not known, Simms said. The investigation is focused on the apartment where the three victims suffered serious burn injuries, he said.
(NEW ALBANY, Ohio) — A man suspected of killing one person and injuring five others in a shooting at an Ohio manufacturing facility has been apprehended following an overnight manhunt, police said Wednesday.
New Albany police said they responded to an active shooter report at a New Albany facility run by KDC/One, a beauty products manufacturer, around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
One victim was found dead inside the building and five others were hospitalized in unknown conditions, police said.
About 150 employees were safely evacuated, police said.
The suspect, Bruce Reginald Foster III, was taken into custody Wednesday morning at a home in Columbus, police said.
“This is a heartbreaking and tragic situation,” New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones said in a statement. “We train for situations like this, and while it is something no community ever wants to face, we were prepared to act quickly and effectively. We will continue working to bring this situation to a full resolution.”
(WASHINGTON) — A USAID directive to destroy classified documents had been “seriously misapprehended,” Trump administration attorneys wrote in a court filing Wednesday in which they insisted that all records were appropriately handled and “did not violate” federal laws dictating the preservation of government documents.
The American Federation of Government Employees, a union that is suing the Trump administration over its cuts to the federal workforce, asked a federal judge late Tuesday to intervene and prevent the agency from “destroying documents with potential pertinence to this litigation” after a senior USAID official issued guidance to USAID staff ordering the destruction of classified records at its Washington, D.C., headquarters as USAID clears out of its office space.
The guidance urged officials to “shred as many documents first” and to “reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” according to a copy of the message obtained by ABC News.
Justice Department attorneys wrote Wednesday that “trained USAID staff sorted and removed classified documents in order to clear the space formerly occupied by USAID for its new tenant.”
“They were copies of documents from other agencies or derivatively classified documents, where the originally classified document is retained by another government agency and for which there is no need for USAID to retain a copy,” DOJ attorneys wrote.
Trump administration attorneys asserted that “the removed classified documents had nothing to do with” the American Federation of Government Employees’ litigation.
The Trump administration attorneys explained that office space formerly belonging to USAID “is in the process of being decommissioned and prepared for the new tenant,” as ABC News reported Tuesday, and the records needed to be removed from their safes to make room for its new tenants, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Erica Carr, the USAID official who sent the memo ordering the destruction of the documents, wrote in a sworn declaration that “34 employees of USAID, all holding Secret-level or higher clearance, removed outdated and no longer needed derivatively classified documents in classified safes and sensitive compartmentalized information facilities.”
Carr added that most of the records earmarked for destruction remain in burn bags at the agency’s headquarters “where they remain untouched.” She said the documents would not be destroyed until the judge weighs in.
(WASHINGTON) — Last month, Jose Franco Caraballo Tiapa, a 26-year old Venezuelan migrant who was seeking asylum in the U.S., showed up to his routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Dallas, Texas, when authorities detained him, his wife told ABC News.
Ivannoa Sanchez, 22, told ABC News she believes her husband is one of the hundreds of Venezuelan men who this past weekend were sent by plane to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
According to Sanchez, the couple crossed the U.S. border in November 2023 and surrendered to authorities. After claiming asylum and being detained for a few days, ICE released them and ordered them to check in routinely with the federal agency.
Sanchez said the couple had gone to several of their scheduled check-ins without experiencing any issues. But on Feb. 3, Tiapa was not allowed to return home with his wife despite being scheduled to have his first court appearance in his asylum case in March.
Sanchez provided ABC News with documents that confirmed Tiapa’s scheduled appointment with an immigration judge on March 19.
“He went to his routine ICE appointment and he didn’t come out,” Sanchez told ABC News.
She said she was able to complete her check-in with ICE that day and has not yet received an appointment for another check-in.
Similarly, ABC News spoke with Sebastian Garcia Casique, who claims his brother was detained by ICE after his routine-check-in.
According to Casique, his brother Francisco Garcia Casique. who entered the United States in December 2023 and surrendered to authorities, was detained after going to an ICE office last month for his appointment.
“There, some police officers detained him because they saw his tattoos and said they were going to investigate him because of them,” Casique told ABC News.
Casique said that on Friday, his brother called his family from the detention center in Texas where he was being held to let them know that he believed he was being deported to Venezuela. But on Sunday, Casique said that he and his family recognized his brother in a photo posted on social media by the White House.
“It’s a nightmare,” Casique told ABC News.
Sanchez said that after being detained in Dallas, her husband was transferred to a detention center in Laredo, Texas, where she was able to speak with him regularly.
But on Saturday, she said her husband told her that he believed he was going to be transferred and possibly deported.
On Sunday morning, after Sanchez saw the video posted on X by the president of El Salvador showing Venezuelan migrants being sent there, she checked the ICE locator website that shares updated information about where migrants are being detained.
“I check the system, and he doesn’t show up,” Sanchez told ABC News. “I constantly think and know he’s there because he has tattoos, because he’s a barber, but he has no involvement with the group they’re associating him with.”
Sanchez said that her husband is being unfairly targeted by the Trump administration for being Venezuelan and having tattoos, after Trump on Saturday said he was invoking the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
She provided ABC News with documents that show Tiapa does not have any criminal records in Venezuela.
Casique also told ABC News his brother has not committed any crimes beyond crossing the U.S. border.
Casique claims that after his brother surrendered to authorities, he was detained and investigated for a few days, then appeared before an immigration judge who ordered him to be released with an ankle monitor to be tracked.
Casique said his brother turned 24 while being detained
“Never in his life had he spent a birthday in that situation,” he said. “The depression must be getting to him.”
Casique said his brother had the American Dream of working as a barber in the U.S.
“[He] was hoping for a better future to help us, help all the family members, and look at the situation now,” Casique said.
A review of federal court records found no criminal court cases associated with Garcia Casique or Tiapa.
ABC News previously reported that advocacy groups and relatives of some of the Venezuelan migrants who were recently sent to the prison in Guantanamo Bay claim the administration provided no evidence the migrants were “high-threat” criminals or that they belonged to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The Trump administration, over the weekend, announced that would begin deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law that allows for the arrest and removal of non-U.S. citizens when their nation or government is at war with the United States. The Trump administration designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, calling it a “hybrid criminal state that is perpetrating an invasion of and predatory incursion into the United States.”
After the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was challenged in court on Saturday, a federal judge verbally ordered two planes carrying alleged gang members to El Salvador to turn around and return to the U.S., but sources said administration officials made the determination that since the flights were already over international waters, the judge’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.
On Monday, the judge held a “fact-finding” hearing over the whether the administration knowingly violated his court order, but did not issue ruling on the matter.
Sanchez and Casique told ABC News they reached out to ICE and the Department of Homeland security several times. but that the agencies have not provided any information about their relatives.
ICE and DHS officials did not responded to ABC News’ request for information on Tiapa or Garcia Casique.
“He has never done anything, not even a fine, absolutely nothing,” Sanchez said of her husband. “We chose this country because it offers more security, more freedom, more peace of mind. But we didn’t know it would turn into chaos.”
