3 dead, 2 police officers injured in grocery store shooting in Indiana
Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun Staff
(ELKHART, IN) — Two people were shot and killed inside a grocery store in Indiana on Monday, officials told ABC News.
The incident took place at about 5:30 p.m. at Martin’s Super Market in Elkhart, Indiana, according to the Elkhart Police Department.
“Upon arrival, officers and first responders were directed to two shooting victims inside the store,” according to a statement issued late Monday by the EPD. “Both of these individuals were pronounced deceased at the scene.”
Police then engaged the shooting suspect outside the store, authorities said. An exchange of gunfire ensued, and the suspect was killed.
Two officers were shot and are in stable condition, the EPD confirmed. Both officers were brought to the local hospital, where one was discharged shortly after and the other remained in stable condition as of Monday night.
Elkhart Police Chief Dan Milanese issued a statement saying, “In this horrific situation, words cannot express the pain felt in our community when a tragic incident like this happens. This pain is especially felt by the victim’s families, the responding officers, the families of the wounded officers, and all the witnesses to this tragic incident.”
Thanking law enforcement partners, he added, “I ask for the community to continue to keep all those effected by this horrific event in your thoughts and prayers.”
“As details emerge about the shooting in Elkhart, we are in communication with state and local law enforcement,” said Indiana Governor Mike Braun in a post on X.
“Maureen and I are praying for the victims and their families,” he added.
The local homicide unit has taken over and started its investigation, according to a statement provided just before midnight on Monday.
“The Elkhart County Homicide Unit was activated, per protocol, and is handling the investigation,” the statement said. “There is believed to be no further danger to the public.”
It also said that the names of the victims, suspect, and involved officers were being withheld, pending family notifications.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Officials in the Trump Justice Department have ordered a temporary freeze on any ongoing cases being litigated by the Civil Rights Division, according to a new directive reviewed by ABC News.
The memo to the current acting head of the Civil Rights Division, Kathleen Wolfe, says that current career officials in the division must not file any new civil complaints or other civil rights-related filings in outside ongoing litigation. The memo was first reported by The Washington Post.
Wolfe was separately directed to notify Trump-appointed department leaders of any consent decrees — court-enforceable agreements to reform police agencies — the Biden administration reached with cities in the final 90 days leading up to the inauguration.
The Biden administration finalized consent decrees with officials in Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis during the former president’s final weeks in office.
The consent decrees involve two high-profile police-involved killings. In Louisville, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in a botched police raid in 2020. In Minneapolis, George Floyd was killed while being taken into police custody on Memorial Day 2020.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump represents the Taylor and Floyd families in their civil lawsuits. He spoke with ABC News’ Linsey Davis on Tuesday to offer his thoughts on the move by the Trump administration regarding civil rights investigations and consent decrees.
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
ABC NEWS: Just days ago, Trump officials paused all Department of Justice civil rights investigations and froze court-ordered police reforms. For a look at what that means for ongoing and potential future cases, civil rights attorney Ben Crump joins us now.
Thank you so much, Mr. Crump, for joining us. Just want to start with your reaction to this pause on, on civil rights investigations.
BEN CRUMP: This is very disturbing. Talking with Breonna Taylor’s mother, who was still waiting the prosecution of the officers that were involved in the killing of her daughter, who was in her own apartment. They lied on the probable cause affidavit to get a no knock warrant to go into the apartment in the first place. She’s devastated, but we know that we’re not giving up.
We’re going to be strategic in talking with the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, who entered into the consent agreement, to say that “Hopefully you won’t condone what happened to Breonna,” just like we’re talking to the mayor of Minneapolis saying, “Do you condone what happened on that video when they kept a knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds?”
Because the families see this freezing of the DOJ’s prosecutions as condoning these criminal actions. And we call them criminal because officers have been convicted for those crimes.
ABC NEWS: You mentioned both those families. Have you heard from them, how they’re reacting to this?
CRUMP: Well, you know, as I said, Breonna’s mother is very heartbroken, Linsey. Very heartbroken. She’s fought so hard to get whatever measure of justice and accountability she could. Her daughter had her body mutilated with eight bullet holes. And she doesn’t believe that the Department of Justice would stop the consent decree that was agreed to by the city in the aftermath of her daughter’s death.
She is just shocked that they would do this, just like George Floyd’s family is shocked. When you look at that video, how could you say that you want to halt the prosecution of all the agreements that were made by those cities and their police departments to try to prevent this from ever happening again?
ABC NEWS: As you know, the Justice Department recently reached an agreement with the city of Louisville to reform the city’s police department. It’s one of several such consent decrees reached in the final days of the Biden administration. What happens to those agreements now?
CRUMP: Well, the cities have a say so in it. Obviously, we have been told that the Department of Justice isn’t going to do anything to go forward with those consent decrees. And it’s very troubling because we think this and many of the things that this administration have done in just its first week is going to test the elasticity of the constitutional protections that many Americans enjoy.
And that is what’s so heartbreaking about all of these matters. We fight so hard for people, all America, to be able to get the constitutional protections that were promised to them as an American citizen. And so the question, Linsey [is]: What will happen to the Constitution during these perilous times when, as it relates to all of us, especially the least of us?
ABC NEWS: All right, Ben Crump. So appreciate you, civil rights attorney, for your time and insight. Thank you.
Photography by Keith Getter (all rights reserved)/Getty Images
Meteorology may have come a long way since its inception, but it is not possible for anyone — whether it be the government, scientists or billionaires — to control the weather, according to experts.
The desert region of Dubai received a record-breaking amount of rain — two year’s worth in 24 hours — in April. Ever since, every time a flash flooding event occurs, ABC New Chief Meteorologist and Managing Editor of the ABC News Climate Unit Ginger Zee has been receiving messages on social media from people who claim the sharp increase in precipitation is not the result of nature.
“They are making it rain” is the overall theme of the conspiracy theories Zee keeps hearing about.
The commenters are often referring to cloud seeding, a weather modification technique currently used in the United Arab Emirates and several places in the U.S., mostly in the Western U.S., a region notorious for its pervasive droughts. The geoengineering technology involves injecting microscopic particles — sometimes silver iodide — into the atmosphere to encourage rain and snowfall.
The particles then act like magnets for water droplets and bind together until they are heavy enough to fall as rain or snow, amplifying the amount of precipitation. But the water droplets can’t be made out of nothing — it has to be already raining or snowing for cloud seeding to take effect.
For the last several decades, there have been investments in small-scale cloud seeding operations in pockets in the West, both ground-based and in the air, Brad Udall, senior water and climate research scientist at Colorado State University, told ABC News.
Despite feats in geoengineering, humans have no capability whatsoever to control the weather, Andrew Dessler, director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies, told ABC News.
“Until recently, we weren’t even sure it worked,” Udall said. “But there’s some new science that suggests, yes, you can slightly increase the precipitation out of storms due to these, usually ground-based, but sometimes air-based efforts.”
A 10-year cloud seeding experiment in the Snowy Range and Sierra Madre Range in Wyoming resulted in 5% to 15% increases in snow pack from winter storms, according to a 2015 report from the Wyoming Water Development Office. In the region around Reno, Nevada, cloud seeding is estimated to add enough water to supply about 400,000 households annually, according to the DRI.
While humans can enhance existing weather, it is not possible to control it, Dessler said.
“We humans are not powerless,” Udall said. “But, unfortunately, in the weather realm, our ability to affect things is pretty minor.”
Cloud seeding can’t make it rain. It can’t even make a cloud, according to Zee. And it certainly is not being used to create storms with enough precipitation to cause flash flooding.
If humans could control the weather, then the megadrought in the West would probably never had persisted at the level that it did for decades, Udall said.
In late September and early October, Google searches for cloud seeding ramped up again as Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused severe destruction far beyond the storm’s direct impact, including flash flooding in the mountain region near Asheville, North Carolina, previously considered a climate haven.
While there is some evidence that cloud seeding can enhance precipitation, it’s impossible for humans to create or steer a hurricane, Dessler said.
“It’s amazing we’re even having this discussion because, of course, humans can’t control the weather in ways to create a hurricane,” Udall said.
However, there has been a larger-scale climate modification that has been ongoing for the past two centuries, Zee said.
“We’re doing that right now with green with enormous greenhouse gas emissions on a scale that humanity has never, ever done before,” Udall said.
Since the Industrial Revolution began in the late 1800s, the greenhouse gases emitted from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels have been causing global temperatures to rise at unprecedented rates, according to climate scientists.
The amplification of Earth’s natural warming has actually increased hourly rainfall rates — a key factor in flash flooding — across much of the U.S. by 10% to 40%, according to Climate Central.
“We have all contributed to making it rain more and heavier as we warm the planet,” Zee said.
Dessler likened global warming to “steroids” for extreme weather events.
“Steroids don’t hit a home run, but if you give steroids to a baseball player, he’s gonna hit more home runs,” Dessler said. “And that’s essentially, you know, the way to think about humans and the weather.”
The experts urged people to not believe rumors on the possibility that the weather can be controlled, chalking up the conspiracy theories as machinations of intrigue but nothing more.
“It’s yet one more example, right, of unbridled social media doing irreparable social harm,” Udall said.
ABC News’ Daniel Manzo contributed to this report.
(MADISON, Wis.) Officials are trying to figure out why a 15-year-old girl allegedly opened fire at the Christian school she attended, killing a fellow student and teacher in a heinous crime that shocked the community of Madison, Wisconsin.
The suspect, Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before officers reached Abundant Life Christian School on Monday morning, police said. Officers did not fire their weapons.
Two students were hospitalized in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, police said, while another three students and a teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Police have not yet suggested any motive for the attack nor said whether they believe the victims were specifically targeted.
The suspect’s parents are cooperating with the investigation, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told ABC News on Tuesday.
“They were cooperative. Despite this tragedy, they still lost a child. They still lost a member of their family,” Barnes said. “It is certain that they have probably more questions than anyone because they knew her. They lived with her and so we wanted to get an account from them of what kind of child she was.”
Her father is being questioned by investigators, Barnes said. He said he didn’t know whether the mother had been questioned, noting that she’s been out of town.
Students in Kindergarten through 12th Grade attend the Christian school. Police said the shooting was contained to “a classroom in a study hall full of students from multiple grade levels.”
“I was in the hallway, and I was changing from my shoes to my boots to go to lunch because I have recess after, but then I heard the shooting and screams,” a girl in second-grade told ABC Chicago station WLS.
A second-grader also made the 911 call, Barnes said.
“Let that soak in for a minute,” Barnes added. “A second-grade student called 911 at 10:57 a.m. to report a shooting at school.”
President Joe Biden called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable” and called on Congress to act immediately.
Biden urged Congress to pass “commonsense” gun safety laws, including universal background checks, a national red flag law, and a ban on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said in a statement, adding, “We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”
Biden also mentioned his administration’s efforts to combat the gun violence epidemic in the U.S., including the implementation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, while stating that more needed to be done.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement, “There are no words to describe the devastation and heartbreak we feel,” calling the shooting a “gut-wrenching tragedy.”
Evers said he and his wife are “praying for the families and loved ones of those whose lives were so senselessly taken and for the educators, staff, and the entire Abundant Life school community.”
“It is unthinkable that a kid or an educator might wake up and go to school one morning and never come home,” he said. “This should never happen, and I will never accept this as a foregone reality or stop working to change it.”
ABC News’ Briana Stewart contributed to this report.
