Robbers posing as cops hold up NYC deli, remain at large: Police
NYPD
(NEW YORK) — Four individuals are at large after posing as police officers and robbing a deli in New York City, officials said.
On Sunday at approximately 8:14 a.m., police responded to a 911 call of a commercial burglary at a deli in Brooklyn, the NYPD said in a statement provided to ABC News.
When officers arrived on the scene, they were informed “four unidentified individuals had entered a commercial establishment, displayed a firearm and forced a 48-year-old male, a 68-year-old male and a 40-year-old male to the ground,” police said.
The robbery, which was captured on surveillance footage, shows the suspects wearing NYPD jackets and zip-tying the victims.
The individuals fled the scene with a bag of “unknown property” in a dark-colored van in an unknown direction, police said.
Police said there have been no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing. The individuals were described as males with dark complexions, last seen wearing dark-colored clothing, officials said.
There were no reported injuries as a result of the incident, police said.
The United Bodegas of America previously urged the NYPD to conduct live monitoring from every bodega, with a panic button in place at each establishment. Fernando Mateo, spokesperson for the organization, said earlier this month that panic buttons would “give the bodega owner a sense of security.”
“These bodegas are community centers. They are places where people come not only to buy food, they come to socialize, to talk. We need the panic button to become law,” Mateo said on April 18.
The United Bodegas of America is expected to plead once again on Tuesday for officials to instate panic buttons at bodegas.
Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — The Orlando, Florida, community on Thursday evening is set to honor the 49 victims who were gunned down at the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016.
It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time, though it was surpassed by the Las Vegas attack the following year.
The ninth anniversary of the attack comes as groups of victims and survivors this week visit Pulse — once a popular gay nightclub — for the last time before the building is razed so that the city can build a permanent memorial in its place. All of the furniture and the dance floor inside the building have been moved and the walls were painted black.
City of Orlando Outreach and Engagement Coordinator Donna Wyche told ABC affiliate in Orlando, WFTV, that the families of victims and survivors expressed that they wanted to visit the building before it is demolished.
“They’ve said very clearly we want to see it for one last time before it’s gone. We want to be in that sacred place one more time where our loved ones take their last breath,” Wyche said. “It’s part of the journey of grief.”
Pulse nightclub shooting survivor Joshua Hernandez told WFTV on Wednesday that he needs to go inside the nightclub so he can heal.
“It’s going to feel horrible because I was in the restroom for three hours. So when I go to the restroom, it’s going to be very, very sad for me,” Hernandez, who was held hostage in the bathroom during the shooting, said.
“I’m not ready yet. It’s hard. It’s hurt me. I’m gonna be — come out stronger. I’m gonna be stronger to do this, it’s time to close the chapter of my life,” he added.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who has been in office since 2003, also did a walk through of the building on Wednesday and reflected on the 2016 massacre.
“It took me back nine years and reflecting on being in the command center on Orange Avenue as all the things are transpiring then,” Dyer told WFTV. “The realization of just how many people were impacted. I came out the second time and told everybody, it’s not 20, it’s 49 victims.”
Family and friends of the victims, as well as survivors and advocates for the LGBTQ+ community, are set to gather at First United Methodist Church in downtown Orlando at 5:30 p.m. local time for a remembrance ceremony. Rick Scott, who was Florida’s governor in 2016, declared June 12 Pulse Remembrance Day in Florida in 2018.
The City of Orlando purchased the Pulse nightclub site in October 2023 and committed to building a permanent memorial. Now, the city said plans are moving forward.
In March, the city of Orlando issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to solicit a design-build firm for the permanent PulseMemorial, following the advancement of a conceptual design in February.
Proposals were submitted by May 29 — the conceptual design includes a survivor’s tribute wall, a reflection pool, a hearing garden and a private gathering space for reflection, according to the city. The memorial is slated to be complete by 2027, it noted.
A memorial is seen on the desk of DFL State Rep. Melissa Hortman in the House chambers at the Minnesota State Capitol/Steven Garcia/Getty Images
(GREEN ISLE, Minn.) — Vance Boelter was preoccupied with societal problems and how he could fix them to serve the greater good, according to some of his previous writings and the man who worked with Boelter for more than a decade doing web design for a series of his projects.
Before allegedly carrying out a “political assassination” on Saturday, Boelter was “clearly very religious, very passionate,” and “devout, and sincere in his beliefs,” said Charlie Kalech, CEO of the web design firm J-Town, commissioned by Boelter. But at that time, Boelter appeared to show no signs of the violent extremism of which he’s now accused, Kalech said.
Boelter is charged with killing Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounding Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. Allegedly posing as a police officer over Father’s Day weekend, authorities said Boelter “shot them in cold blood” in an alleged early-morning rampage that launched a two-day manhunt.
However, in the preceding years, Boelter seemed like a hard worker striving to make his ideas real, and sometimes, struggling to make ends meet. His fervent personality frothed with big, civic-minded ideas on how to “make the world a better place,” Kalech said. In the professional relationship they had, Boelter was clearly “idealistic.”
“I think he sincerely believed in the projects that we worked on, that he was acting for the greater good,” Kalech told ABC News. “I certainly never got the impression he saw himself as a savior. He just thought of himself as a smart guy who figured out the solution to problems, and it’s not so difficult – so let’s just do it. Like a call to action kind of person.”
Most of those grand-scale projects never came to fruition, and the last time Kalech said he had contact with Boelter was May 2022. But in planning documents and PowerPoint presentations shared with ABC News, which Kalech said Boelter wrote for the web design, Boelter detailed lengthy proposals that expressed frustration with what he saw as unjust suffering that needed to be stopped. Some of those projects were also sweeping, to the point of quixotic — even for the deepest-pocketed entrepreneur.
Boelter first reached out to Kalech’s firm for a book he had written, “Revoformation,” which Kalech took to be a mashup between “revolution” and “reformation.” It’s also the name of the ministry Boelter had once tried to get off the ground, according to the organization’s tax forms.
“It seemed to me like maybe he volunteered more than what was good for him. In other words, he gave too much away instead of worrying about earning money, because he didn’t always have money,” Kalech said. “It was never clear to me if the ministry really existed. Are there congregants? Is there a constituency? I don’t know. Or was it like something in his head that he was trying to make? That was never clear to me.”
Kalech recalled that Boelter chose his firm for the work because they are Jerusalem-based, and he wanted to support Israel.
Boelter’s interest in religion’s impact on society is reflected in a “Revoformation” PowerPoint that Kalech said Boelter gave him, dated September 2017.
“I am very concerned that the leadership in the U.S. is slowly turning against Israel because we are losing our Judaic / Christian foundations that was [sic] once very strong,” the presentation said. “I believe that if the Christians are united and the people who are leading this Revoformation are a blessing to Israel that it will be good for both Israel and the U.S.”
Over the years, Boelter would reach out with what appeared to be exponentially ambitious endeavors, Kalech said: “What he wanted to take on, I think, might have been bigger.”
Boelter wanted to end American hunger, according to another project’s PowerPoint. And while the idea would require massive changes to current laws and food regulation, it appeared Boelter dismissed that as surmountable if only elected officials could get on board.
“American Hunger isn’t a food availability problem,” the presentation said. “American Hunger is a tool that has been used to manipulate and control a vast number of American’s [sic], with the highest percentage being people of color. This tool can and should be broken now, and failure to do so will be seen as intentional criminal negligence by future generations.”
“We should be embarrassed as a nation that we let this happen and have not correctly [sic] this injustice 100 years ago,” one slide said.
One slide described how his own lived experience informed his idea, referring to him in the third person: “several times in his life Vance Boelter was the first person on the scene of very bad head on car accidents,” and that he was able to help “without fear of doing something wrong” because he was “protected” by Good Samaritan law – which could and should be applied to food waste, the slide said.
To keep an eye on which lawmakers supported the necessary legislation, “there needs to be a tracking mechanism,” the presentation said, where citizens could “see listed every singe [sic] elected official and where they stand on the Law (Food Providers Good Samaritan Law).”
“Those few that come out and try to convince people that it is better to destroy food than to give it away free to people, will be quickly seen for who they are. Food Slavers that have profited off the hunger of people for years,” the 18-slide, nearly 2,000-word presentation said.
“At least in his mind and on paper, he was solving problems,” Kalech told ABC News. “He would think about things and then have a euphoric moment and write out a manifesto of, How am I going to solve this? And then bring those thoughts to paper and bring that paper to an action plan and try to implement it.”
The last project Kalech said Boelter wanted to engage him for was a multifaceted collection of corporations to help start-up and expanding businesses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, all under the umbrella “Red Lion Group.”
The 14-page, over 6,000-word planning document for the project outlined ideas for what Red Lion Group would offer: ranging widely from “security services” to agricultural and weapons manufacturing sectors, medical supplies, investment services, martial arts, oil and gas and waste management. Red Lion would also serve in media spaces: with “CONGOWOOD” Film Productions “to be what Hollywood is to American movies and what Bollywood is to Indian movies.”
Boelter was to have a 49% minority ownership of the group, with a business partner owning 51%.
“The Africa thing, the Red Lion thing, we didn’t really get into it, because it became pretty apparent pretty soon that he just didn’t have the funds to go ahead,” Kalech said – at least, as far as his web design services were concerned.
“He was interested in doing good,” Kalech said. “But moderation in all things, and when good becomes extreme, it actually becomes bad,” adding that hurting anyone crosses a “red line.”
“The question one keeps coming back to is – what makes the seesaw tip? Like, he’s good, he’s good, he’s good, he’s acting for the greater good, he has all these good ideas, he’s trying to engage community, serving on a government committee, he’s engaging churches and places of worship, and then something happens, and he goes ballistic,” Kalech said.
“Who would do that? Someone who’s absolutely desperate, just seeing that there’s no other choice. That’s the only thing I can imagine. But look, obviously someone like this is not operating on the same frequency as we are,” Kalech said. “They’re blinded by their faith, or their beliefs. And, you know, especially something like murder, it’s so ironic, because that’s one of the big 10.”
(BIG STONE GAP, Va.) — Three corrections officers at Wallens Ridge State Prison were stabbed by inmates in a “premeditated” attack Friday, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.
A total of five officers were injured at the prison in western Virginia during the attack, according to the department. The officers were transported for medical care outside the facility.
Three officers have been discharged, the Virginia DOC said. Two officers are in stable condition.
The DOC alleged that five of the six perpetrators are “confirmed MS-13 gang members from El Salvador, who were in this country illegally,” according to a press release provided to ABC News.
Each of the suspects have been convicted of violent crimes, including aggravated murder, first and second degree murder and rape, according to the DOC.
The other inmate involved in the attack is a confirmed member of the Sureño 13 gang and from the U.S., serving a sentence for second degree murder.
“Five of the individuals responsible for this senseless attack should never have been in this country in the first place,” said Virginia DOC Director Chad Dotson in a statement.
“Every single day, our officers put their lives on the line to ensure public safety for the more than 8.8 million people across the Commonwealth,” Dotson said. “This attack is an example of the dangers they face when they show up to work every day. Our officers are heroes, and I commend the team at Wallens Ridge for their swift response.”
Dotson also included an “unofficial” statement saying, “our dedicated staff deserves a Director who makes it crystal clear that the safety of our officers is our highest priority, over literally anything else we’re doing,” adding that “this will not stand.”
The attack is currently under investigation, and no further response will be provided until the investigation is complete, DOC officials said.
