One dead, two missing in ‘major marine incident’ off Connecticut coast
(NEW YORK) — One person is dead and two people have been reported missing with several others injured in what authorities are describing as a “major marine incident” that has caused “mass casualty” in Connecticut, officials said.
The North Madison Volunteer Fire Department says that the three people reported missing do not have life jackets and that multiple personnel and ambulances from the towns surrounding Old Saybrook, where the incident is currently ongoing, are assisting with the operation.
Authorities responded to the boating accident at approximately 9:15 p.m. Monday and discovered a single motorboat floating, half-submerged, near the Harbor One Marina in Old Saybrook. There was significant damage to the boat, which hit the east-facing jetty at the mouth of the Connecticut River.
A total of nine people were on the boat. An adult male was recovered deceased, and six people were taken to the hospital for treatment. As of 1 a.m., two people were still being searched for.
“A mass casualty incident describes an incident in which emergency medical services resources, such as personnel and equipment, are overwhelmed by the number and severity of casualties,” the North Madison Volunteer Fire Department said in a follow up statement online describing the operation.
No other details about the cause of the accident or the identities of the victims have been made available and the incident is ongoing.
(BOSTON) — A Delta Air Lines flight headed to Rome, Italy, from Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday, was struck by lightning while in the air, according to the airline and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The flight was diverted back to Boston Logan International Airport “out of an abundance of caution” after the crew reported a lighting strike after departure, according to a statements from Delta and the FAA.
The plane landed back in Boston at 7:20 p.m. ET “safely and without further incident,” the airline said.
The commercial passenger aircraft was an Airbus A330, according to the FAA.
Delta apologized to travelers for the delay and said they are “working to get our customers to their final destination as quickly as possible.”
The FAA said it would investigate and noted that regulations require that commercial aircraft be designed to withstand lightning strikes.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ohio) — A bomb threat prompted a major police response in Springfield, Ohio, on Thursday morning, according to the city commission office.
The threat was sent via email “to multiple agencies and media outlets,” the office said.
Explosive-detecting K-9s helped police clear multiple facilities listed in the threat, including two elementary schools, City Hall and a few driver’s license bureaus, Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott told reporters. The county court facilities were also cleared “out of an abundance of caution,” she said.
The FBI is working with local police to help identify the source of the threat, Elliott said.
Though it is not yet known if they are connected, the threat comes after baseless rumors spread online in the wake of viral social media posts claiming Haitian migrants were abducting people’s pets in Springfield order to eat them. The rumors were amplified by right-wing politicians, including former President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said at Tuesday night’s presidential debate. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
A spokesperson for the city of Springfield told ABC News these claims are false, and that there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals in the immigrant community.”
“Additionally, there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents’ homes,” the spokesperson said. “Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic.”
Springfield estimates there are around 12,000 to 15,000 immigrants living in the county; migrants have been drawn to the region because of low cost of living and work opportunities, according to the city. The rapid rise in population has strained housing, health care and school resources, according to the city. But city officials also said the migrants are in the country legally and that many are recipients of Temporary Protected Status.
The Haitian Bridge Alliance condemned the “baseless and inflammatory” claims about Haitian migrants, arguing they “not only perpetuate harmful stereotypes but also contribute to the dangerous stigmatization of immigrant communities, particularly Black immigrants from the Republic of Haiti.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who dispelled the rumors this week, said the state would send more resources to Springfield.
(NEW YORK) — Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the trial of Susan Lorincz, the Florida woman who is charged with fatally shooting her neighbor Ajike “AJ” Owens, a Black mother of four, in 2023 amid a dispute with Owens’ children.
“The remembrance of it is very painful,” Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother, said during a June 2 gathering at Immerse Church in Ocala to commemorate Owens’ life on the one-year anniversary of the fatal shooting.
“You feel this emptiness, this void that nothing can complete, and then you couple that with the fact that you have four babies who have lost their mother,” Dias added.
The charges
Susan Lorincz, who is white, was arrested on June 6, 2023, and charged with first-degree felony manslaughter, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison if she is convicted, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. She was also charged with culpable negligence, battery and two counts of assault, but those lesser charges have since been dropped, according to court records.
Lorincz pleaded not guilty on July 10, 2023. She was held on a $150,000 bond and has remained in custody since her arrest last year. Lorincz’s attorney, Amanda Sizemore, previously declined to comment on the charge her client is facing and did not immediately return a request for comment from ABC News ahead of the trial.
Over the past year, Owen’s family has repeatedly called on prosecutors to upgrade the charge against Lorincz to second-degree murder, but Florida State Attorney William “Bill” Gladson said in a June 26, 2023 statement that there was insufficient evidence to prove a murder charge in court.
“As deplorable as the defendant’s actions were in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove this specific and required element of second-degree murder,” Gladson said.
With jury selection set to begin, ABC News reached out to Owens’ family and their attorney, Anthony Thomas, for further comment.
What the video shows
According to a June 6, 2023 statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Lorincz allegedly shot Owens through a closed door in the presence of her now 10-year-old son after the mother of four went to speak with Lorincz about a dispute over Owens’ children playing near her home.
Ahead of Lorincz’s trial, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office released video on June 10, 2024, of Lorincz’s two-hour interrogation, which took place four days after the fatal shooting.
Lorincz claimed in her interview with detectives that she was acting in self-defense when she shot Owens.
“She was saying ‘I’m going to kill you,'” Lorincz claimed in the video.
“No one that we’ve interviewed so far has made any statements about her saying that she wanted to kill you,” one of the detectives told Lorincz.
Body camera footage released on July 3, 2023 by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office showed seven incidents between Feb. 25, 2022, and April 25, 2023 in which Lorincz called sheriff’s deputies to complain about neighborhood children, including Owens’ children, playing near her home.
The body camera videos also show a child alleging in comments to sheriff’s deputies that Lorincz called the children in the neighborhood “the N-word” and another who accused Lorincz of being “racist.”
During the interrogation, Lorincz repeatedly denied using racial slurs towards Owens and her children on the night of the shooting, but according to a police report, Lorincz admitted to calling children in the neighborhood the N-word and other derogatory terms in the past.
“I do not have a comment at this time,” Sizemore told ABC News on July 3, 2023, when asked to comment about the release of the body camera footage and the allegation that Lorincz called the children the “N-word.”
Owens’ family also called on Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the U.S. Department of Justice in July 2023 to review the case and consider whether the shooting was a hate crime.