Texas police officer fatally shot during traffic stop 4 months after joining department
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(TERRELL, Tex.) — A police officer was fatally shot Sunday night while conducting a traffic stop in Terrell, Texas, police said.
The officer, 28-year-old Jacob Candanoza, called for a cover unit upon initiating the traffic stop around 11 p.m., the Terrell Police Department said. But before backup could arrive, police said they received two 911 calls about an officer being shot.
Responding officers found Candanoza at the scene with gunshot wounds, according to police.
He was transported to the hospital, where he died, police said.
The suspected shooter was arrested early Monday, police said, but did not immediately disclose his name. Candanoza was able to provide a license plate to dispatchers that aided in the suspect’s capture, Lt. Mary Hauger, spokesperson for the Terrell Police Department said.
Candanoza had joined the Terrell Police Department in July. He served in the Marines from 2014 to 2019 and previously worked for the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, according to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA.
“Our deepest condolences go out to his family as they navigate this tragic time,” the Terrell Police Department said in a statement.
Terrell is located about 30 miles east of Dallas.
“Please join Cecilia & me in praying for the family & friends of Officer Jacob Candanoza, who lost his life last night in the line of duty,” Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott wrote on X. “Our hearts go out to his loved ones & to the Terrell Police Department.”
Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images, Pool
(SANTA ANA, Calif.) — Samuel Woodward, a California man found guilty of murdering his former classmate in 2018 in a hate crime, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday.
Blaze Bernstein — a 19-year-old gay, Jewish student at the University of Pennsylvania — went missing while visiting his family in Newport Beach during winter break in January 2018. His body was found, following a dayslong search, buried in a park in Lake Forest he went to with Woodward the night he went missing, authorities said. He had been stabbed 28 times, prosecutors said.
Woodward, now 27, was charged with first-degree murder as a hate crime. Prosecutors had argued that Woodward murdered his high school classmate because Bernstein was gay.
In issuing the sentence during a lengthy hearing on Friday, Judge Kimberly Menninger said there was evidence that the defendant planned the murder, and that the jury found it true that the crime was committed because of Bernstein’s sexual orientation.
Menninger also denied Woodward probation.
On whether the defendant is remorseful, Menninger said, “Unfortunately for the court and for the defendant, I’ve never seen any evidence of this up to this point in time.”
Woodward was not present at his sentencing hearing due to an illness, according to Menninger.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A New York judge on Monday vacated the conviction and dismissed the case against Jon-Adrian Velazquez, who spent more than 20 years in prison for a murder prosecutors now say he did not commit.
“Who am I? I’m a very lucky man. I’m lucky that so many people believed in me,” Velazquez, 48, who was formally released in 2021, said outside of the court.
According to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg’s office, two individuals committed a robbery of a gambling parlor on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem on Jan. 27, 1998. During the robbery, retired police detective Albert Ward pulled a gun and a struggle ensued with one of the armed robbers, who identified himself as “Tee.”
“Tee” shot and killed Ward, according to Bragg’s office.
The then-22-year-old Velazquez was arrested, along with Derry Daniels, and convicted for Ward’s murder at trial in 1999. He served more than 23 years in prison until his sentence was commuted in 2021. On Sept. 30, 1999, over 18 months after he was arrested, Daniels pleaded guilty to a single count of robbery in the second degree and was sentenced to 12 years in prison as a repeat felon, according to his attorneys. Daniels was released in 2008.
In 2022, the city’s Post-Conviction Justice Unit compared Velazquez’s DNA to a betting slip that “Tee” handled before shooting Ward. Velazquez’s DNA was not found on the slip. This type of DNA comparison was not available at the time of Velazquez’s trial in 1999.
According to Bragg’s office, the reinvestigation into Ward’s murder found that the DNA testing results could have impacted the jury’s consideration of other trial evidence, including Velazquez’s alibi, the lack of evidence connecting him to the crime and inconsistent witness descriptions.
Velazquez was granted clemency in 2021 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and spoke with President Joe Biden as an activist for criminal justice reform.
His case is featured in the 2023 movie, “Sing Sing,” named for the prison, about a wrongfully imprisoned man who “finds purpose by acting in a theatre group with other incarcerated men,” according to A24.
“JJ Velazquez has lived in the shadow of his conviction for more than 25 years, and I hope that today brings with it a new chapter for him,” Bragg said in a statement. The reinvestigation was conducted by the Office’s Post-Conviction Justice Unit and defense counsel for Velazquez.
The creation of the Post-Conviction Justice Unit in 2022 has led to 10 vacated convictions, Bragg said.
“These convictions have deep consequences for individuals and their loved ones, compromise public safety and undermine trust in the criminal justice system, which is why this work is of the utmost importance to me,” Bragg said.
(WASHINGTON) — One day after moving to dismiss both his cases against President-elect Donald Trump, special counsel Jack Smith is continuing to defend the validity of his own appointment as he appeals the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump’s co-defendants.
In a filing Tuesday, Smith urged a federal appeals court to reverse U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to toss the classified documents case based on the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment as special counsel.
Smith moved to drop Trump from the case Monday due to a long-standing Justice Department policy that bars the prosecution of a sitting president, as he continues his appeal of the case’s dismissal with Trump’s two co-defendants, his longtime valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back.
Trump, along with Nauta and De Oliveira, also pleaded not guilty to allegedly attempting to delete related surveillance footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Judge Cannon dismissed the case against all three defendants this past July on the grounds that Smith’s appointment as special counsel overseeing the case was unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress.
Smith, in Tuesday’s filing, urged the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reverse Cannon’s “flawed” conclusion so he can continue the case against Nauta and De Oliveira.
“The Supreme Court held more than 50 years ago that Congress vested the Attorney General with the power to appoint special prosecutors like the Special Counsel, and the text, context, and history of the four statutes the Supreme Court identified, as well as the long history of special-counsel appointments, confirm that Nixon was correct,” the filing said.
In a statement Monday, John Irving, a lawyer for De Oliveira, said, ““The Special Counsel’s decision to proceed in this case even after dismissing it against President Trump is an unsurprising tribute to the poor judgment that led to the indictment against Mr. De Oliveira in the first place. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If they prefer a slow acquittal, that’s fine with us.”
This is likely to be Smith’s last filing against Trump as a defendant, though Trump’s inclusion in the brief is a technicality. While Smith moved on Monday to drop Trump from the case, the court hasn’t yet dismissed the appeal for the president-elect.
“The government has moved to dismiss this appeal as to Donald Trump. If granted, defendant Trump will not appear in the caption in future filings in this case,” Smith wrote in a footnote of Tuesday’s filing.
Smith’s other case against Trump, involving the former president’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, was dismissed Monday at Smith’s request, due to the Justice Department’s presidential immunity policy.
