7-year-old shot while sleeping in her own home, suspect remains at large
Essence Chambers
(PAGELAND, SC) — A 7-year-old South Carolina girl remains in critical condition after she was shot while sleeping in her own home over the weekend, according to the Pageland Police Department.
At approximately 1:17 a.m. on Sunday, police responded to shots being fired into the Pageland home, hitting the girl — identified as Skylar Baker — in the head, officials said.
Skylar received first aid at the scene and was flown to an area hospital with “life-threatening injuries,” according to police.
Police said the incident, which they described as a “careless act of violence,” appears to have been a drive-by shooting and the suspect remains at large. The bullet went through the house and struck Skylar in the right side of her brain, her mother, Essence Chambers, told ABC News.
As of Tuesday, Skylar remains in critical condition and is on a ventilator, according to Chambers.
Skylar, described by her mother as a “ball of energy” and “happy child,” now has a plate inside her head and will soon undergo a craniotomy, Chambers said.
“Before all of this, she was completely healthy,” Chambers said. “I want everybody to keep praying for her.”
In a press release, local police expressed their hope that “someone will come forward with answers as to who was involved in this case.”
“We are heartbroken that this little girl is suffering due to the actions of someone who had no regard for the life of others. Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the family,” they said in Monday’s release.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Pageland Police Department Chief Dean Short called the shooting a “terrible thing, especially in a small community.”
“What matters is we come together, support one another and take a stand against this type of violence,” Short said.
Melissa Massey, a neighbor of Skylar, told ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC that drive-by shootings in Pageland are “unheard of.”
Officials said anyone with any information on the incident or the suspect to contact police at 843-672-6437.
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge overseeing the wrongful deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Wednesday denied a motion from the Trump administration to further delay discovery in the case.
The order came a week after the judge paused expedited discovery for seven days after the Trump administration asked her for the stay.
The judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, earlier this month slammed the administration over its inaction over Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention and ordered government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery.
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.
Following her order Wednesday, Judge Xinis set new deadlines for the government to respond to requests.
By May 5, the government must answer and respond to all outstanding discovery requests and supplement their invocations of privilege consistent with the court’s previous orders, Xinis ruled.
The depositions of four government witnesses who plaintiffs say have knowledge of the circumstances in the case must be completed by May 9, she ordered.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers may seek the court’s permission to conduct up to two additional depositions, Judge Ximis said.
The plaintiffs have a deadline of May 12 to renew their motions for relief, which previously asked the court to order the government to comply with the order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., and to order the government to show cause why it should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with the court’s prior orders.
The government will have until May 14 to respond to that motion, Xinis said.
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.
In 2019, an immigration judge determined that Abrego Garcia was removable from the U.S. based on allegations of his gang affiliation made by local police in Maryland. But Abrego Garcia was subsequently granted withholding of removal to his home country.
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.”
Tuesday, in an exclusive interview with ABC News to mark his 100th day in office, President Trump said he “could” secure the return of Abrego Garcia, and “if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that” — before adding, “I’m not the one making this decision.”
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A day after a highly anticipated Oval Office meeting in which the president of El Salvador said he would not return a wrongly deported Maryland man being held in his country, the federal judge who ordered his return will hear from Trump administration attorneys at a court hearing Tuesday afternoon.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is entering his second month in an El Salvador mega-prison after he was deported there on March 15 despite being issued a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country.
Trump administration officials say Abrego Garcia, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but to date they have provided little evidence of that assertion in court.
He is being held in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, along with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under an arrangement in which the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an Oval Office meeting Monday with President Trump and the visiting El Salvador president, said that Abrego Garcia’s return is “up to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … wanted to return him, we would facilitate it,” she said.
Asked by reporters about Abrego Garcia, President Bukele responded, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
In its daily update on the status of the case, ordered last week by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, Justice Department attorneys said Monday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security does not “have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
The administration’s stance comes after the Supreme Court last week unanimously ruled that Judge Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the high court added.
In an interview Monday evening with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, an attorney for Abrego Garcia said he hopes Tuesday’s hearing “lights a fire under the government to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.”
“What we’re asking [of Trump] is exactly what the Supreme Court told him,” attorney Benjamin Osorio said. “I personally have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases at circuit court levels or at the Supreme Court, and ICE facilitated their return.”
“So we’re not asking anybody to do anything illegal,” Osorio said. “We’re asking them to follow the law.”
“It feels a little bit like the Spider-Man meme where everybody’s pointing at everybody else,” Osorio said of Bukele’s claim that he doesn’t have the power to return Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean, we are renting space from the Salvadorans. We are paying them to house these individuals, so we could stop payment and allow them to be returned to us.”
Asked if he is confident that Abrego Garcia will be returned, Osorio said he was concerned but hopeful.
“I’m worried about the rule of law, I’m worried about our Constitution, I’m worrying about due process,” he said. “So at this point, I am optimistic to see what happens in the federal court hearing.”
(GEORGIA) — A man who has been detained for more than six weeks after being accused of attempting to kidnap a 2-year-old boy at a Walmart in Georgia was granted bond on Tuesday in a case that prosecutors called “unusual.”
Mahendra Patel, 57, of Kennesaw, was arrested and subsequently indicted by a grand jury on attempted kidnapping, battery and assault charges stemming from an incident reported at a Walmart in Acworth on March 18. The case has garnered local and national attention after his defense attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, released surveillance footage that she said proves his innocence.
During a bond hearing on Tuesday, Merchant said Patel was looking for Tylenol for his mother when he approached the mother of the toddler, Caroline Miller, for help. Miller was riding in a motorized cart with her two young children at the time, though Merchant noted she is not physically disabled.
While showing an edited compilation of the surveillance footage showing Patel and Miller in the store, Merchant argued that Patel was offering to hold the toddler while Miller pointed out where the medicine was.
“The video couldn’t be clearer,” Merchant told the judge. “Mr. Patel did not try to kidnap this child.”
She said that after leaning in to reach for the child, Patel “immediately backs up” and puts his hands in his pockets when Miller leans back. She said he went by her several more times before paying for the Tylenol and leaving the store. She said he interacted with other Walmart employees, including one who referred to him as a “friendly older gentleman.”
In asking for a $10,000 bond, she argued that Patel wasn’t a flight risk and had strong ties to the community. She also said that over 250 people, including family members and neighbors, had come to the courthouse that day in support of his release.
“He had a birthday two weeks ago in the Cobb County Jail,” she said. “We just ask that you release him on bond.”
Prosecutor Jesse Evans requested that Patel remain held on bond while citing the defendant’s alleged admissions and his prior criminal history.
Evans showed a clip from the surveillance footage that he said shows Patel grabbing the two-year-old boy’s leg while he’s in his mother’s lap and “tugging the child … away from the mom” and Miller trying to pull the child back to her lap.
“I know there’s a narrated, edited version that was presented by the defense,” Evans told the judge. “The state would say, if you don’t take a closer look, it might cause concerns. But when you do take a closer look, you can see him tugging on this child.”
Miller spoke out following the incident in March, telling Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB she and Patel were “tug-of-warring” over her child. Evans said Miller was on the Zoom call for the hearing and has been “deferential to the state” in the case.
“She is of the belief that the defendant needs treatment,” he told the judge. “I, too, am of the belief that this defendant has got some serious issues that we’ve got to talk about.”
Patel was initially arrested on a kidnapping charge. Evans said the state believes attempted kidnapping is the more appropriate charge, which is why they had “some urgency” to get it to a grand jury, which ultimately indicted him on attempted kidnapping.
“I think the general public thinks about kidnapping, has this visual image of white vans just snatching kids off the street,” Evans said. “And the court knows and state knows, the defense knows, legal experts know, that’s not the legal definition of kidnapping. It’s the slight asportation of a person against their will.”
Evans said the state is “not oblivious to the fact that this is a very bizarre set of circumstances,” but argued that the defendant “encroached on the space of this mother and her two children.”
He said there was a witness in the next aisle who was “unnerved by what he had seen.”
The prosecutor also argued that Patel made “a number of admissions” to police following his arrest on March 21 that were “telling where his mindset is.”
“He admitted that he grabbed the child, he admitted that he upset the mom,” Evans said. “To quote him, ‘She thought I was going to take her kid. I said, No, no, no.'”
Evans said that when Patel saw Miller on the phone before he left the store, he allegedly “pleaded with her” and said he was “not going to take your kid.”
“At the tail end of his interview, he said he wanted to apologize to her for what he had done,” Evans said.
Evans also noted that Patel is a convicted felon, saying the defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in a federal case in 2006 and served six months in federal prison. Merchant, who also addressed the defendant’s criminal history, said Patel was additionally previously convicted of reckless driving and has a pending DUI less safe case for which he was out on bond at the time of his arrest in March.
“This is his fourth arrest,” Evans said, saying the state does not consider Patel a good candidate for bond “based on the history we have here.”
He also alleged Patel may have been intoxicated at the time of the March 18 incident in Walmart, which Merchant countered there was “absolutely no evidence of.”
Judge Gregory Poole granted Patel $10,000 bond, saying that he’s “entitled to a bond,” citing his ties to the community and education.
“He’s got all he needs to show me he’s a member of our community,” Poole said.
The judge said he didn’t find anything in the defendant’s criminal history that made him believe Patel posed a risk to the community, and that based on the video, he saw no flight risk.
There was a large applause in the courtroom following the hearing.
Patel posted bond and could be seen leaving the Cobb County Jail later Tuesday, WSB reported.
