Dating app meetup leads to shooting, arrests in Oregon: Police
Benton County Sheriff’s Office via Meta
(CORVALLIS, Ore.) — Two women have been arrested in connection with a dating app scheme that led to the shooting of a man in Corvallis, Oregon, authorities said.
Julia Dell Yepez, 20, and Alexa Montano Corral, 20, were taken into custody following an investigation into the May 17 shooting of a man they allegedly met through the Chispa dating app, according to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigators believe the women used the app to lure the victim with the intention of robbery. The victim, who has not been identified, remains hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
Chispa is a dating app where Latino and Latina singles can connect with others in their area. The company did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
According to investigators, Yepez and Corral are also suspects in similar criminal activity in a nearby county.
The incident unfolded around 5:30 a.m. local time on May 17 when emergency dispatchers received a 911 call reporting a shooting near Highway 99W and Lakeside Drive in Corvallis. Witnesses described seeing two Hispanic women, one wearing a long-sleeve black shirt, fleeing the scene on foot.
Yepez was arrested Tuesday and faces multiple charges, including attempted murder, first-degree assault and kidnapping. She is being held at the Benton County Jail on $300,000 bail, court records show.
Corral, who was arrested Thursday, faces multiple conspiracy charges. Her bail was set at $250,000, according to court records.
The case has prompted authorities to issue renewed warnings about dating app safety.
“Always meet in public and never isolate yourself until you are certain of the other person’s intentions,” the sheriff’s office advised in a statement.
Anyone who may have had contact with either suspect through dating apps is urged to contact the Benton County Sheriff’s Office or submit anonymous tips at 541-573-8477.
The investigation remains ongoing with assistance from multiple law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia/Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native living Maryland, was deported in March to a mega-prison in his home country of El Salvador — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
His attorneys say that Abrego Garcia, whose wife is a U.S. citizen and who has 5-year-old child and two step-children, escaped political violence in El Salvador in 2011 and is not a MS-13 member.
The Trump administration, while acknowledging that Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error, has said that his alleged MS-13 affiliation makes him ineligible to return to the United States.
Here is how the case has unfolded.
March 15, 2025
The Trump administration, as part of its immigration crackdown, deports three planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador, where they are incarcerated in the notorious CECOT mega-prison under an agreement with the Salvadoran government. The alleged gang members include Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose protected legal status precludes him from being deported to that country.
March 18, 2025
Families of several of the deported men tell ABC News that their detained relatives have no criminal record in the United States — a fact that’s acknowledged by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, who nonetheless says that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
April 1, 2025
In a sworn declaration as part of a lawsuit brought by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official says Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador as a result of an “administrative error” — but that he is still under a “final order of removal” for deportation, after the government rescinded his protected legal status due to his purported gang ties as alleged by a confidential police informant.
Court documents say that on March 12, Abrego Garcia was detained by ICE officers who “informed him that his immigration status had changed” due to the MS-13 allegations, after which he was transferred to a detention center in Texas and then deported to El Salvador.
April 4, 2025
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, at a hearing in Maryland, grants a preliminary injunction and orders the government to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States by midnight on April 7.
Asked by Judge Xinis under what authority law enforcement officers seized Abrego Garcia, DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni says he does not have the answer, telling the judge, “Your honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating and I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions.”
April 5, 2025
A day after the hearing, the Justice Department places DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni on indefinite paid leave over a “failure to zealously advocate” for the government’s interests.
April 7, 2025
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issues a temporary administrative stay putting off Judge Xinis’ midnight deadline for the government to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, in order to give the court more time to consider the arguments presented by both sides.
April 8, 2025
After the Trump administration, in a court filing, argues that a judge can’t demand Abrego Garcia’s return because a federal court can’t order a president to engage in foreign diplomacy, an attorney for Abrego Garcia tells ABC News he believes the Supreme Court will rule in his client’s favor.
April 9, 2025
In an interview with ABC News, Abrego Garcia’s wife, a U.S. citizen, denies the Trump administration’s allegation that her husband is a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
April 10, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that Judge Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority,” the court writes. “The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
The Trump administration, interpreting the ruling as prohibiting the district court from ordering the executive branch to take any action that would violate the separation of powers, celebrates the order as a victory for the administration.
April 11, 2025
Saying “the Supreme Court has spoken quite clearly” that Abrego Garcia should be released from El Salvador, Judge Xinis slams the government’s handling of the case and orders the Justice Department to provide her with “daily updates” on Abrego Garcia’s status and their efforts to bring him back.
April 12, 2025
A State Department official, in response to Judge Xinis’ demand for daily updates, tells the judge that Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” in El Salvador’s CECOT prison, but provides no information about their efforts to return him to the United States.
April 14, 2025
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and the visiting El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, says that Abrego Garcia’s return is “up to El Salvador,” after which Bukele says, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
April 15, 2025
Judge Xinis, in a hearing, takes Justice Department attorneys to task over their inaction and orders government officials to testify under oath through expedited discovery in order to resolve Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention.
Prior to the hearing, a DHS official says the Trump administration is “prepared to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s presence in the United States … if he presents at a port of entry” — but that DHS does not have the authority to forcibly extract him “from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
April 16, 2025
The Department of Justice files notice that it will appeal Judge Xinis’ ruling ordering the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, and releases two documents that were previously used to allegedly tie Abrego Garcia to MS-13.
The developments come on the same day that DHS, in a social media post, shares court records showing that Abrego Garcia’s wife had a month-long order of protection against him in 2021, in which she cited being slapped, hit with an object, and being detained against her will.
April 17, 2025
Slamming the government for “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denies the Trump administration’s effort to appeal Judge Xinis’ order requiring it to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
(DALLAS) — A 17-year-old boy has been charged with aggravated assault mass shooting after he allegedly opened fire at his Dallas high school, shooting classmates “indiscriminately,” according to court documents.
Surveillance cameras showed a student letting the suspect, Tracy Haynes, into Wilmer-Hutchins High School through an unsecured door on Tuesday, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Haynes walked the hallway “until he spotted multiple male students” and then allegedly shot at them “indiscriminately,” hitting five people, the document said.
Haynes then allegedly “approached one student who was not able to run” and “appeared to take a point-blank shot,” the document said.
Five students were taken to hospitals, the document said.
The conditions of those injured was not clear.
A senior student told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA that he was in the foyer when, around lunch time, he heard a few gunshots. He said he then saw students running and heard screaming, and he took cover in the band room.
Video shows students evacuating the school as police cars and fire trucks gathered at the scene.
All high school students were reunited with their parents and guardians, according to Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde.
There will be no school the rest of the week and mental health professionals will be made available, she said.
“Today, as we all know, the unthinkable has happened,” Elizalde said at a briefing. “And quite frankly, this is just becoming way too familiar, and it should not be familiar.”
The gun used in the shooting “did not come through during regular intake time,” Dallas Independent School District Assistant Chief of Police Christina Smith said at the briefing.
“It was not a failure of our staff, of our protocols, of the machinery that we have,” Smith stressed.
ABC News’ Luke Barr, Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky and Alex Stone contributed to this report.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — More than 6 million people in multiple states across the Southwest and South Plains are under red flag warnings Thursday as strong winds and warm temperatures are forecast to increase wildfire threats.
Firefighters in New Mexico, West Texas, Colorado, eastern Arizona, central Kansas and parts of Oklahoma are among the states bracing for critical to extreme threats of wildfires erupting and rapidly spreading.
The entire state of New Mexico is under red flag warnings, including the cities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, which were both under critical threat of fire danger Thursday morning. Other cities in New Mexico that are under extreme risk of wildfires erupting include Silver City, Deming, Los Lunas and Socorro.
“Extremely critical fire weather conditions are expected across much of New Mexico today due to very strong winds combined with a dry airmass,” the National Weather Service office in Albuquerque said in a statement posted on social media.
The NWS said critical fire weather conditions across central and eastern New Mexico will stretch into Friday.
Extremely low relative humidity, ranging 5% to 15%, combined with winds forecast to gust between 45 and 65 mph or higher, could cause any new fires to spread rapidly, officials said.
Much of New Mexico continues to battle severe to extreme drought conditions, which will also exacerbate the fire threat.
The extreme warning means a “threat to life and property from existing or potential wildfires due to weather and fuel conditions,” according to the NWS.
Several wildfires have already erupted across New Mexico this year, including one that ignited in the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico last week. Firefighters responded to the blaze quickly and managed to keep it from spreading beyond three acres, officials said.
On March 19, several wildfires broke out across New Mexico, including the Gail Fire west of the town of Mayhill that burned 235 acres, officials said.
“We’ve been saying that this year’s fire season will potentially be early and significant, and here we are,” Forest Fire Management Officer Brent Davidson of the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico said in a statement earlier this month. “Wildfires do not stop at property boundaries and we hope this puts into focus how important it is for everyone to prepare. Whether you have 10 minutes or 10 hours, you can do something to get ready for wildfire.”
Raging wildfires also broke out in Oklahoma last month, leaving four people dead and more than 140 injured, according to the state’s medical examiner. The multiple Oklahoma fires erupted amid gusty winds, low humidity and dry vegetation. More than 400 homes and structures were destroyed and at least 170,000 acres burned across the state of Oklahoma.
ABC News’ Shawnie Caslin Martucci contributed to this report.
