Cop dies when police car split in 2 by light pole while in pursuit of suspect during chase
San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office
(LOS ANGELES) — A sheriff’s deputy died in a police chase after his patrol car crashed into a bystander’s car and then slammed into a light pole, splitting the vehicle in half, police said.
The chase began on Monday morning shortly before 11 a.m. in San Bernardino, California, when law enforcement received a call about a possible stolen vehicle that was spotted by a deputy on duty from the Victorville City Station, according to ABC News’ Los Angeles station KABC.
“Deputies attempted a traffic stop but the suspect, Ryan Turner, failed to yield and a pursuit ensued,” according to a statement from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department. “During the pursuit, Deputy Hector Cuevas, Jr. was involved in a traffic collision with another vehicle.”
During the police pursuit, Cuevas crashed near the intersection of El Evado and Seneca roads, where his patrol car struck a bystander’s vehicle before slamming into a light pole, causing his car to be severed in half.
“Cuevas succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene,” police said. “The female driver of the other vehicle was transported to a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.”
The suspect, named as Ryan Dwayne Turner, Jr. — a 22-year-old resident of San Bernardino – continued to flee before stopping his car at El Evado Road and Zuni Lane and attempting to escape on foot, law enforcement said.
The pursuit didn’t last long, and Turner was subsequently caught and taken into custody, police said.
Cuevas was a six-year veteran of law enforcement who worked at the Victorville station for the last three years, according to KABC.
Turner was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and evading a peace officer and causing death or serious injury, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said during a news conference on Monday.
“I really have no words to describe this tragedy. Hector is the type of law enforcement officer that we all want to be,” Dicus said. “He was a grand and great protector and a great father, and we will be suffering his loss and supporting his family for quite some time.”
Vehicles from multiple law enforcement agencies escorted the deputy’s body in a solemn procession across local freeways to the San Bernardino County Coroner’s Office following the incident, KABC said.
“We currently do not know the exact circumstances surrounding the collision as of yet,” Dicus said, confirming that an investigation on the crash is underway.
“We are deeply saddened to hear about the passing of a San Bernardino County deputy,” the San Bernardino Police Officers Association said in a statement on social media. “Our thoughts and prayers are with their family, friends, and the entire agency during this difficult time. They made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community, and their bravery will never be forgotten.”
(WASHINGTON) — Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are urging outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland to “take all necessary steps” to release special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents — and they’re encouraging him to drop the remaining charges against the president-elect’s former co-defendants in order to do so.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who earlier this week allowed the Justice Department to release the first volume of Smith’s report, which covers his election interference case against Trump, has temporarily blocked the release of the second volume covering the classified documents case due to the DOJ’s ongoing prosecution of longtime Trump aide Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira, Trump’s former co-defendants in the case.
“As Attorney General, it is incumbent upon you to take all necessary steps to ensure the report is released before the end of your tenure, including, if necessary, by simply dismissing the remaining criminal charges against Mr. Trump’s co-conspirators, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira,” the 18 Democratic committee members wrote in a letter obtained by ABC News.
Cannon, who last year threw out Trump’s classified documents case, plans to hold a hearing Friday on whether to make the Volume Two of Smith’s report available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Because the Justice Department has said it will not publicly release the second volume of the report while charges are pending against Nauta and De Oliviera, the Democrats, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, called on Garland to dismiss the charges ahead of Trump’s inauguration next Monday.
“To the extent that such a decision to dismiss these cases might encourage these defendants to keep enabling the corruption of their superiors, those concerns are outweighed by the many indications that Mr. Trump will simply end the prosecutions against his coconspirators upon taking office anyway and then instruct his DOJ to permanently bury this report,” they wrote.
“While we understand your honorable and steadfast adherence to Mr. Nauta’s and Mr. De Oliveira’s due process rights as criminal defendants, the practical effect of this position is that Volume 2 will almost certainly remain concealed for at least four more years if you do not release it before President-elect Trump’s inauguration on January 20,” the Democrats wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his retention of classified materials after leaving the White House, and later that year pleaded not guilty to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Both cases were dropped following Trump’s reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
In their letter to Garland, Democrats argued that the release of the full classified documents report was in “the public interest.”
“To the extent the tangential charges against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira stand in the way of the overriding imperative of transparency and truth, the interests of justice demand that their cases be dismissed now so that the entirety of Special Counsel Smith’s report can be released to the American people,” they wrote.
(NEW YORK) — In a letter to the Trump administration this week, electric automaker Tesla raised concerns about President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariffs, warning that the company could be “exposed” to retaliatory tariffs and urging the administration to “consider the downstream impacts.”
The comments were made in an unsigned letter on Tesla letterhead to United States Trade Representative Jamison Greer. It came after the USTR office earlier this year said it would be conducting a “review of unfair trade practices.”
The letter, dated March 11, comes from the company of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been leading the effort to slash government spending and downsize the federal workforce. It’s unclear if Musk was personally involved in sending the letter, and he has not addressed it on his social media platform, X.
As ABC News has reported, some Tesla shareholders have publicly questioned Musk’s commitment to the company as Tesla shares have fallen dramatically since Musk joined the Trump administration.
“As a U.S. manufacturer and exporter, Tesla encourages USTR to consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices,” the letter said.
Tesla representatives did not respond to questions from ABC News, including questions regarding who wrote the letter. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the letter, Tesla noted that tariff actions by the Trump administration have resulted in “immediate reactions” by the targeted countries, including increased tariffs on electric vehicles.
“Past U.S. special tariff actions have thus (1) increased costs to Tesla for vehicles manufactured in the United States, and (2) increased costs for those same vehicles when exported from the United States, resulting in less competitive international marketplace for U.S. manufacturers,” the letter said. “USTR should investigate ways to avoid these pitfalls in future actions.”
The letter also urged the administration to take into consideration supply chain issues when it comes to “future trade policy actions,” pointing, as an example, to what they say are shortages of lithium-ion batteries despite the company’s own efforts to manufacture them domestically.
“Nonetheless, even with aggressive localization of the supply chain, certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the United States,” the letter states. “Tesla supports a process by USTR to further evaluate domestic supply chain limitations to ensure that U.S. manufacturers are not unduly burdened by trade actions that could result in the imposition of cost-prohibitive tariffs on necessary components, or other import restrictions on items essential to support U.S. manufacturing jobs.
“Trade actions should not (and need not) conflict with objectives to further increase and support domestic manufacturing,” the letter said.
ABC News’ Will Steakin and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In classrooms across the country, children of immigrants are facing heightened fears over news that immigration enforcement officers are now allowed to enter schools, according to educators.
While it’s unclear if immigration raids have actually taken place in schools, the lifting of the prohibition itself by the Trump administration and the highly publicized enforcement activities elsewhere have triggered anxieties in the classroom, educators say.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not responded to ABC News requests for comment on whether ICE raids have taken place at schools since the implementation of the new policy. However, the end of schoolhouse restrictions on ICE activity and a false alarm incident at a Chicago elementary school has put community members on edge.
The sounds of sirens or a routine lockdown drill can set children on edge, stoking fears about what lies ahead for their families or friends, according to Denise Sheehan, a bilingual teacher in New Mexico.
Sheehan, who works in a school district about 40 minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border, said some students stop coming to school altogether; for others, it’s a challenge for teachers to keep them focused or engaged in the day’s schoolwork when worries hover heavy over the students.
She said that students hear what’s going on in the news – and are racked with questions about raids or documentation, concepts some might not fully understand: “‘Am I going home to an empty house? What’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be here tomorrow? Is my family going to be here tomorrow?’” Sheehan recalled.
The Trump administration has publicized the arrests of thousands of immigrants by federal agents since the president took office, as well as revoking long-standing restrictions that thwarted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from conducting raids on schools and other sensitive areas, such as churches. ICE is now allowed to make arrests in these so-called sensitive areas, but many local officials have made it clear that ICE must have a warrant to enter certain spaces.
In a statement touting the move, the Department of Homeland Security said, “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
The statement continued, “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
President Donald Trump made immigration a key focus of his campaign, promising mass deportation efforts targeting the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
However, these fears are not new. In fiscal year 2023, under President Joe Biden, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) conducted 170,590 administrative arrests, representing a 19.5% increase over the previous year, and more than any year of the first Trump presidency.
In the United States, more than 16.7 million people live with at least one undocumented family member – about 6 million of whom are children under the age of 18, according to past estimates from the American Immigration Council. Hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. are undocumented, according to research from Pew Research Center.
The threat of immigration enforcement has the potential to cause emotional, developmental, or economic challenges for millions of children who live day to day with the anxiety of deportation, according to many sources on the mental health of children impacted by immigration.
“Schools are not places that are open to the public. They’re limited in terms of access and that’s because we want to keep children safe so that they can focus on learning, they can focus on growing and developing and just living their lives as children,” said Nicholas Espíritu, the legal director of the National Immigration Law Center, in an interview.
In an online statement urging educators to know the rights of their students as well as their own, the National Education Association warned that mass immigration enforcement panic “will predictably harm school environments, including by causing increased absences, decreased student achievement, and parental disengagement.”
One study from Children found that there are higher rates of depression, anxiety, social isolation, stress, and aggression in children who live with an undocumented person or have a parent who has been deported.
Deportations and detention efforts send further shockwaves through immigrant communities, and “serve only to complete the trauma” facing undocumented communities, another study states.
Schools – once unauthorized targets for ICE – now play a central role in how children will face the potential threat. Some local officials have said they will “welcome” ICE agents into their schools, while others have urged the community to learn their rights ahead of any ICE encounters in school.
“Silence is not OK,” said Sheehan, a representative on the National Education Association Board of Directors, who has been collaborating with her fellow educators on how to respond ahead of any ICE activity in her schools. “During these times, we need to continue to inform our educators. We need to make sure that everybody’s aware of the resources that our district offers, and make sure that there’s a plan.”
From schools, to churches, to supermarkets, there is an absence of familiar faces, as community members say that some residents are staying out of sight for fear of law and immigration enforcement efforts.
“These are churchgoers. These are hardworking individuals. These are the parents of your children’s best friend at school, right? These are individuals that are living in fear,” immigration attorney Ana Alicia Huerta, granddaughter of famed labor rights leader Dolores Huerta, told ABC News.
For the past month, California resident Adriana, who asked to be identified by only her first name for privacy reasons, has been delivering food to families too scared to leave their homes. Walking to her car with a box of donated food, she describes meeting families with little ones who are scared of what is to come.
“Their kids – some of them, they have babies,” said Adriana. “They can’t go out and buy diapers, baby formula. They’re scared to come out.”
For Adriana, the decision to help the families is not about legal status: “It’s about humanity. It’s about our community. Sometimes you see faces, you see you’re not thinking, ‘Oh, this person is legal.’ ‘Oh, this person is not.’”
