Three dead, 15 injured in shooting at park in New Mexico
Las Cruces Police Department
(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) — Three people were killed and 15 were injured in a shooting at a park in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Friday night, according to police.
The deceased are two 19-year-old men and one 16-year-old boy. The injured range in age from 16 years to 36 years, according to a police statement to ABC News on Saturday.
Police were dispatched to the shooting shortly after 10 p.m. Friday at Young Park, the Las Cruces Police Department said.
“Officers arrived and learned of multiple gunshot victims. Most were transported to local hospitals. Some were taken to University Medical Center of El Paso,” police said.
The names of the dead and injured will not be released at this time, the police department said.
At a press conference Saturday morning, Las Cruces officials said an unsanctioned car show was being held at the park prior to the shooting. There was an altercation between two groups of people that led to an exchange of gunfire.
Police said they have not made any arrests, but are actively following leads.
“Las Cruces police is receiving assistance on this investigation from the FBI, ATF, New Mexico State Police and the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office,” authorities said.
Young Park and all roadways leading to the park are temporarily closed while investigators conduct their work.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Powerful winds and wildfire warnings persist in several states, with some areas still fighting existing flames, as a new cross-country storm emerges in the Pacific Northwest on Friday.
Red flag warnings are in place for areas in the Southwest, including New Mexico and north-central Texas, where wind gusts will reach up to 40 mph on Friday paired with a relative humidity down to 10%.
Firefighters have continued to battle the Gail Fire in New Mexico, which has burned 238 acres and is 10% contained, officials said on Thursday.
The southern half of Missouri and northern half of Arkansas also face red flag warnings on Friday, with wind gusts up to 45 mph and a relative humidity of 20% to 25%.
According to the Arkansas Forestry Division, 96 wildfires statewide have been contained, but four new wildfires are active.
“We are mobilizing all resources and working closely with local, state and federal partners,” the forestry division said in a statement on Friday.
Southeast Florida also remains under fire weather alerts, with red flag warnings in place from Orlando to Stuart and elevated fire dangers from West Palm Beach down to Miami. The humidity will be as low as 20% in these parts of the state, creating ideal conditions for existing fires to spread.
In Miami-Dade County, a fire has burned 25,000 acres and is 30% contained, officials said. It is burning in largely unoccupied parts of the Everglades.
Along with the threat of wildfires, other parts of the country will experience frigid temperatures, with central Mississippi, nearly all of Alabama and most of Georgia under frost and freeze warnings on Friday.
As the weekend progresses, a new cross-country storm will bring strong winds to the Midwest, heavy snow to the North and severe storms to the South.
The storm will begin with rain and mountain snow throughout the Pacific Northwest on Friday. Oregon is expected to be hit with 10 inches of snow in the mountains during the day and into the evening Friday. Idaho and western Montana should expect 8 to 16 inches of snow Friday night into Saturday morning.
By Sunday, strong to severe winds of up to 40 to 60 mph are expected across the Great Plains and upper Midwest, creating a threat for dust storms, ground blizzards and the destruction of power lines and trees.
Alaila Everett, a senior at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, speaks with ABC News in an interview that aired March 11, 2025, on “Good Morning America.” Via ABC.
(NEW YORK) — A high school track athlete faces a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery after a now-viral video showed her hitting a competitor’s head with her baton during a relay event.
Alaila Everett, a senior at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, was running the second leg of the 4×200-meter relay when her baton struck Kaelen Tucker, a junior from Brookville High School, in the head. It happened March 4 during the Virginia State High School League Championships at Liberty University in Lynchburg.
Bethany Harrison, the commonwealth’s attorney for the city of Lynchburg, confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery was issued against Everett in the matter.
Additional details on the case were not immediately available.
Video of the incident showed Tucker staggering and reaching for her head after being hit before going off the track. She dropped her baton and was attended to by medical personnel shortly after the incident. She would later be diagnosed with a concussion, she told ABC affiliate WVEC in Hampton, Virginia.
“I was so in disbelief,” Tucker told WVEC. “I didn’t know what happened.”
Everett contended that baton strike was an accident in an interview that aired Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”
“I would never do that on purpose,” Everett said. “That’s not in my character.”
The 18-year-old said that during the race, her arm became stuck, and her baton inadvertently struck Tucker as they neared the corner of the track.
“Her arm was literally hitting the baton — until she got a little ahead, and my arm got stuck like this,” she said while holding a baton to emphasize the movement.
The Everetts say they believe their video shows that Tucker’s proximity to their daughter led to an accidental collision. According to the family, Tucker was running too close to Everett when she tried to cut ahead, which caused Everett to lose her balance and the baton to make contact with Tucker.
Following the incident, the athletic director at I.C. Norcom High School and Everett’s father apologized to the Tucker family in a phone call, according to Tucker’s parents.
The Virginia High School League told ABC News on Monday that it is reviewing the incident.
“The VHSL membership has always made it a priority to provide student-athletes with a safe environment for competition,” the league said in a statement.
The Portsmouth NAACP said it is also reviewing the incident as well as “racial slurs and death threats” toward the Everett family.
“We are committed collectively to ensuring that the criminal justice system, which we feel is not warranted in this situation, is executed fairly and based on due process,” the organization said in a statement on Wednesday while calling for Everett to be “void of any criminal proceedings.”
“From all accounts, she is an exceptional young leader and scholar whose athletic talent has been well-documented and recognized across our state,” the Portsmouth NAACP said. “She has carried herself with integrity both on and off the field and any narrative that adjudicates her guilty of any criminal activity is a violation of her due process rights.”
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With the court injunction prohibiting U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into Donald Trump set to expire today, attorneys for Trump’s former co-defendants continue to implore the judge who oversaw their classified documents case to block the report.
In a filing overnight that appeared to be the legal equivalent of re-upping their last email, lawyers for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira again asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to extend her order blocking the release of Smith’s entire final report — covering his classified documents investigation and his election interference probe — and to hold a hearing about permanently prohibiting the report’s release.
“The Government, driven by political priorities that have no place in a criminal trial setting, seeks to strong-arm its way through this orderly process and has repeatedly failed to abide by established rules and procedure,” the lawyers wrote.
Judge Cannon last week issued the injunction temporarily blocking the release of the entire report — both the first volume on the Jan. 6 case and the second volume on the classified documents case — as the Justice Department appeared poised to publicly release the report. Garland has since vowed to release the classified documents volume to top members of Congress and to publicly release the classified documents volume — which the DOJ attested in a filing this weekend has no bearing on the evidence or charges related Nauta and De Oliveira — but Trump’s former co-defendants continue to push for neither volume to see the light of day.
Relying on the argument that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed, the defense lawyers in their overnight filing claimed that the report was “prepared unlawfully” and that both cases are “inextricably intertwined.” They also attempted to cast doubt on the representation made by the DOJ over the weekend and accused the government of “political gamesmanship.”
“The Government appears to be doing everything it can to skip steps in the required process, in the name of a feigned emergency,” the filing said.
The filing came a day after the Arizona attorney general asked the Justice Department for the case file related to Smith’s 2020 election probe in order to assist her prosecution of several so-called “fake electors.”
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, who in April indicted 11 individuals, including Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election results in her state, told Garland in a letter Sunday that gaining access to the case file will “help ensure that those who should be held accountable are.”
“Today, my office has one of the only remaining cases that includes charges against national actors,” the letter said. “I have held steadfast to prosecuting the grand jury’s indictment because those who tried to subvert democracy in 2020 must be held accountable.”
The letter also asked the DOJ for any “exculpatory material” unearthed in the probe.
It also referenced a recent order from a state judge that granted a request from Meadows for discovery in the case to help aid in his defense. The letter, though, acknowledges that the state judge “cannot compel disclosure from a federal agency.”
“For the reasons discussed above, the Maricopa County Superior Court’s order should be fulfilled. In the alternative, consider this a request under the Freedom of Information Act,” the letter states. “Disclosure will ensure justice is done consistent with the rule of law.”
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago estate. The former president, along with Nauta and De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump also pleaded not guilty in 2023 to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.
Both cases were dismissed following Trump’s reelection in November due to a longstanding Justice Department policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.
