New Jersey woman fatally shot by police during ‘mental health crisis,’ attorney general says
(NEW YORK) — Police in Fort Lee, New Jersey, fatally shot a woman who was experiencing a mental health crisis on Sunday, the state attorney general’s office said.
The woman has not been publicly identified. The incident is now under investigation.
Fort Lee Police Department officers responded to a home at about 1:25 a.m. Sunday after a man called 911, saying his sister was having a mental health crisis and needed to go to the hospital, according to the attorney general’s office. The man said she was holding a knife, the attorney general’s office said.
In the hallway outside the apartment, the man who called 911 spoke to a responding police officer, at which point the officer opened the door to the unit and saw two women inside, according to the attorney general’s office.
The two women, one of whom was believed to be the 911 caller’s sister, “told the officer not to come in and shut the door,” the attorney general’s office said.
The officer knocked on the door, asking the women to open it, but they allegedly did not comply, the office said. More officers then arrived and breached the door.
The sister then “approached the officers in the hallway,” at which point one officer “fired a single shot, striking the female in the chest,” the attorney general’s office said.
It is unclear if the woman was holding a knife at the time she approached the officers, the attorney general’s office said.
Officers then began rendering medical aid to the woman, who was then transported to the hospital, officials said.
She was pronounced dead at the hospital at 1:58 a.m.
The attorney general’s office said a knife was recovered at the scene.
All deaths that take place during law enforcement encounters are required to be investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. wildfire season is continuing on a relentless pace across the West as a new blaze erupted in Southern California, destroying multiple homes and leaving residents little time to evacuate, authorities said.
The Edgehill Fire erupted Monday afternoon in the Little Mountain community and quickly tore up a hillside, destroying at least a half-dozen homes, according to fire officials.
“We were so grateful for this house and I can’t believe it’s gone,” Erika Hernandez, whose home was burned to the ground, told ABC Los Angeles station KABC-TV.
The Edgehill Fire is the latest in a California wildfire season that has already burned nearly 800,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,000 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
Wildfires have burned more than 4.6 million acres across the United States, including 200,000 acres in just the first five days of August, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
On Tuesday, nearly 30,000 firefighters were battling 89 large active wildfires across California, Oregon and other Western states.
Capt. Andrew Bonhus said the Edgehill Fire was an example of how fast fires in the West, fueled by an abundance of dried-out vegetation and extremely high temperatures, have spread this year.
“This fire specifically moved extremely rapidly compared to others … on this hilltop,” Bonhus told ABC News.
The Edgehill Fire, east of Los Angeles, was initially reported around 2:30 p.m. local time as a five-acre blaze. But within three hours, the fire ballooned to more than 50 acres, catching multiple homes on fire as it crested a hillside, leaving residents with just minutes to evacuate, officials said.
At least 200 firefighters from several agencies, including firefighting helicopter crews, raced to put out the flames, officials said.
“We didn’t even start at the base of the fire. We go straight for the houses and start evacuations and start getting lines out to help protect structures and, most importantly, life,” Bonhus said.
Around 5:45 p.m. local time, the San Bernardino County Fire Department announced that the fire’s forward progress was stopped and that 25% of the blaze was contained.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Fortunately, according to Bonhus, many residents in the area had taken steps to create “defensible space” around their homes by clearing dry bush, trees and other potential hazards that can fuel a wildfire.
“Because of the defensible space around the houses, some were savable, some were not,” Bonhus said. “It kind of pushes home how critical having defensible space around your homes is.”
The Park Fire
In Northern California, firefighters continued to battle to Park Fire, which was started by an alleged arsonist on July 24 and as of Tuesday had burned 414,042 acres of wildland in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties, according to Cal Fire. The fire has destroyed 640 structures, including homes and businesses.
The blaze, the largest in the United States this year and the fourth biggest in California history, was 34% contained on Tuesday.
The Nixon Fire
Another large Southern California blaze, dubbed the Nixon Fire, which started on July 29, was 96% contained on Tuesday after burning 5,222 acres near the Riverside County town of Aguanga, according to Cal Fire.
At least 23 structures, including homes and businesses, were destroyed by the Nixon Fire and another three structures were damaged, according to Cal Fire.
Investigators determined the Nixon Fire was sparked by a privately owned electrical panel that caught fire. The agency did not say who owns the electrical panel or specify whether negligence is suspected.
Durkee Fire in Eastern Oregon
More than 1 million acres of wildland have burned in Oregon this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Oregon has seen some of the biggest fires in the nation, including the Durkee Fire in the eastern part of the state that had burned 294,265 acres as of Tuesday, according to the fire center.
The blaze, which started July 17, was 86% contained on Tuesday and state fire officials said they expected to have it completely extinguished by the end of this week.
Alexander Mountain Fire
Colorado firefighters are also getting the upper hand on the Alexander Mountain Fire, which was first reported on July 29, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The fire burning west of the city of Loveland in a remote mountainous area near Roosevelt National Park has charred 9,668 acres, the U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday morning.
The fire was 74% contained, according to the Forest Service. More than 900 homes remained under mandatory evacuation on Tuesday. The fire has destroyed 45 structures, including 25 homes, officials said.
The fire remains under investigation, but fire officials said it appeared to be human-caused.
(FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.) — The body of a 33-year-old woman who was swept away in flash flooding at the Grand Canyon has been discovered, according to the National Park Service.
Chenoa Nickerson of Gilbert, Arizona, had been missing since Thursday afternoon when heavy rain triggered a flash flood that washed her into Havasu Creek in the Grand Canyon, about a half mile from where the creek meets the Colorado River, according to the NPS.
Nickerson’s body was discovered at approximately 11:30 a.m. Sunday by a commercial river trip near river mile 176 in the Colorado River, the park service said in a press release.
Park rangers responded and recovered the body, which was transported to the rim of the canyon by helicopter and transferred to the Coconino County medical examiner.
An investigation into the incident is being conducted by the medical examiner and the NPS, according to the release.
At the time she disappeared, Nickerson was not wearing a life jacket, officials said.
Earlier Sunday, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs activated the National Guard to help in the emergency rescue operations.
The search for Nickerson — described as 5 feet, 8 inches tall, 190 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes — was focused in the Beaver Falls area of the Grand Canyon, the National Park Service said, adding that rescue crews were searching by ground, air and boat. Nickerson was last seen wearing a black tank top, black shorts and blue hiking boots.
The National Park Service said Nickerson had been staying at a campground near the village of Supai on the Havasupai Reservations at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
“We love her very much and are not giving up on her,” Nickerson’s family previously said in a statement to ABC News.
Nickerson was hiking at the time torrential rains hit and washed her into Havasu Creek, officials said.
The National Weather Service said the area received between 1 to 2 inches of rain within 60 to 90 minutes.
Other tourists camping and hiking in the area became trapped by the floodwaters, emergency officials said. The flooding also prompted rescues of residents at the Havasupai Indian Reservation in the Havasu Canyon area of the Grand Canyon.
The Havasupai Tribal Council said in a statement Saturday that all trails leading into and out of the small village of Supai in the Grand Canyon were made unpassable by the storm. The area is a popular tourist destination for its blue-green waterfalls, including Havasu Falls, which features a 100-foot vertical drop.
The Tribal Council said a campground near Supai sustained extensive damage from the flooding and had to be evacuated and closed.
“The Tribal Council’s focus is the health and safety of the tribal members and those that provide services in Supai,” according to the council’s statement.
“My heart is with all of the people impacted by the flooding in Havasupai, including tribal members and visitors to the area,” Hobbs said in a statement. “I am closely monitoring the situation and we have deployed the Arizona National Guard to get people to safety. The safety and security of Arizonans and all those who visit our state is always my top concern, and I’ll continue working closely with leaders on the ground to protect the Havasupai community.”
National Guard officials said it used helicopters to evacuate 104 tourists and residents of the Havasupai Indian Reservation from flooded areas by Saturday afternoon.
Supai resident Rochelle Tilousi told ABC News that at one point she was cut off from her children by the rushing flood waters.
“We could see the children running trying to beat the flood, but they couldn’t,” Tilousi said, adding that the children survived the flooding and are now safe.
She said her family’s pets were washed away by the flood.
“There is part of our village that is still flooded,” Tilousi said Saturday.
Editor’s Note: Chenoa Nickerson was not wearing a life jacket when she was swept away by floodwaters. This story has been updated to reflect that information.
ABC News’ Vanessa Navarrete contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A prominent Latino voting organization is calling on the Justice Department to investigate a series of raids held across Texas last week as part an ongoing election fraud investigation led by the state’s controversial attorney general, Ken Paxton.
The raids targeted prominent Democrats and election volunteers — including some in their late 80s — according to a spokesperson for the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, at a press conference on Monday.
Investigators allegedly confiscated cellphones, computers, and other records, according to LULAC officials.
“I call upon the appropriate federal authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the factors that led Texas Attorney [General] Ken Paxton to order these armed raids,” Lupe Torres, a LULAC leader, said.
Among those targeted in the raids was Lydia Martinez, an 80-year-old retired teacher who lives in San Antonio, who “was removed from her home in her night gown and made to wait outside in full view of her neighbors and the general public, causing great humiliation and discomfort,” said LULAC president Roman Palomares at the Monday press conference.
“Lydia’s devices, personal calendar, and voter registration materials were confiscated, and she was coerced into providing her passwords under the threat of delayed return of her property,” LULAC said in its letter to the Justice Department.
Speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, LULAC CEO Juan Proaño called the raids “baseless.”
“There’s no merit to it at all. There’s no evidence that was actually provided, even to the judge when they received these warrants. They’re baseless,” Proaño said of the allegations. “We know for a fact, certainly as it relates to our members, that there is nothing at all to substantiate any voter harvesting, any voter fraud at all.”
Paxton said in a statement last week that his office had uncovered “sufficient evidence” of election fraud to justify the search warrants executed during the raids. A county prosecutor outside San Antonio referred the alleged “election fraud and vote harvesting” to the attorney general’s office in 2022, according to Paxton’s statement.
The raids also coincided with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s announcement this week that the state, since 2021, had purged more than a million people from the state’s voter rolls, including nearly half a million deceased people and over 6,500 noncitizens. State election officials frequently update voter rolls to remove deceased individuals or those who have moved out of the state.
Proãno told ABC News that the small fraction of noncitizens make up only half of a percentage point of the registrants removed, which he believes is proof that widespread voter fraud among noncitizens is not a systemic issue in the state of Texas.
“It’s almost half a percent. We’re not saying that it doesn’t exist. We’re not saying that there are folks that are not U.S. citizens who are registered. Sometimes they register by accident. Sometimes they get bad information and they do register. But there is not systemic voter harvesting going on there, not systemic voter fraud,” Proãno said on ABC News Live with Kyra Phillips.
Abbott said his office had referred “any potential illegal voting” activity to Paxton’s office for investigation.
A Justice Department spokesperson told ABC News it had received a letter from LULAC, but would not comment on whether they plan to take any investigative steps.
Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News.