Author: admin

(UVALDE, Texas) — Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below is extremely graphic.

The families of some of the Robb Elementary School mass shooting victims passed around tissues before graphic photos were shown in court on Friday at the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.

Gonzales — who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to Robb — is charged with child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed, and investigations have faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.

Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team says he did all he could to help students.

Judge Sid Harle issued a warning to the gallery before the jury entered on Friday. 

“I want to forewarn you, these photographs are going to be shocking and gruesome, and if anybody wants to step out, you are welcome to step out, but we cannot have any displays in front of the jury,” Harle said. “I’m forewarning you — these are not going to be pleasant to look at, and I’m sorry you’re going to have to look at them just like I had to.” 

Former Texas Ranger Juan Torrez took the stand and described in detail the crime scene photos he took inside Room 111 at Robb, where all 11 students were killed on May 24, 2022. The teacher was the sole survivor.

“There was a lot of shell casings,” said Torrez, who spent three days photographing the room. “There’s a lot of blood, a lot of blood swipes, and the weapon was in the closet.”

Using a pointer to highlight parts of the photos, Torrez testified about the location of the classroom, damage to the door and areas of the room where students didn’t attempt to hide. Defense lawyers had objected to showing the more graphic images, but Harle allowed the bulk of them into evidence due to their relevance to the prosecution’s case. 

“Does the scene change?” prosector Bill Turner asked Torrez about some of the photos. 

“As far as the presence of blood, it changes dramatically,” Torrez said. “A lot of bullet holes, a lot of shell casings covered in blood, a lot of bullet defects, perforations, penetrations, and just a lot of blood.” 

Over the next hour, the courtroom fell almost entirely silent, other than the testimony and occasional ruffling of tissues and sniffling. Some of the jurors craned their necks to see the photos, while others covered their mouths or lifted tissues to wipe their eyes. The families of the victims sat quietly and no one left the courtroom during the testimony. 

The photos did not show the bodies of students, which were removed prior to the photos being taken. But jurors did see photos showing large pools of blood and the drag marks made when the bodies were removed. Photos also showed dried bloodstains on desks, textbooks and office supplies. 

Torrez testified that investigators placed rods in the cavities left by the bullets to demonstrate the direction of the gunshots. The pink and yellow rods showed that the shooter likely fired downward — through the desks — toward the sheltering students, Torrez said.

Torrez offered his testimony with little context other than his experience as a crime-scene photographer that day. Prosecutors did not explain how the images relate to Gonzales, other than suggesting that his alleged inaction contributed to the loss of life that day. 

Defense attorneys say Gonzales is being scapegoated for a broader failure by law enforcement. In its opening statement this week, the defense alleged that prosecutors were playing on jurors’ emotions and that convicting Gonzales would be an injustice piled on top of one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. 

ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione could stand trial by the end of the year, the judge in his federal case said Friday at a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom that was filled with Mangione’s supporters.

Mangione was back in federal court, where the defense presented arguments seeking to dismiss the death penalty counts against him if he is convicted of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in 2024.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett did not rule on the death penalty question at the conclusion of the hearing, but suggested that if the death penalty remains on the table, jury selection would begin in early September, and the trial would commence sometime in December or January.

If the death penalty is excluded, the judge suggested the trial could start in September.

She set a date for the next hearing on Jan. 30.

Judge Garnett also ruled Friday that Mangione’s backpack was lawfully seized by police when Mangione was apprehended in a Pennsylvania McDonalds’s five days after the shooting.

Two women who flew in from Sicily and came straight from the airport were among those in the courtroom gallery, which was filled with Mangione’s supporters, mostly young women. Many of them were wearing green, the color that has come to represent advocacy for Mangione.

“We have a full house here today,” Judge Garnett said at the outset of the hearing. “It is very important that decorum be maintained.”

The appearance of Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges, follows a three-week hearing in state court during which Mangione sought to convince the judge in his state case to exclude some of the critical evidence police said they found in his backpack, including writings and the alleged murder weapon.  The judge has yet to issue a ruling.

Judge Garnett, in issuing her ruling on the legality of the backpack’s seizure, said, “I don’t think it’s really disputed that if you’re arrested in a public place, the police are supposed to safeguard your personal property.”

Garnett said she does not need to schedule a hearing to determine whether to exclude evidence taken from the backpack, but that she reserves the right to reconsider that decision. She has yet to rule on what, if anything, should be suppressed.

“The Government searched the contents of the defendant’s notebook pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant that expressly covered, among other things, handwritten materials, including notebook entries, contained within the defendant’s backpack,” prosecutor Sean Buckley argued in an earlier court filing.

“To the extent that the defendant now seeks to challenge the validity of the Government’s warrant — an argument the defendant similarly did not make in either his moving or reply papers — that argument would also fail on the merits because the warrant, which disclosed the initial search of the defendant’s backpack by the Altoona Police Department, was supported by ample probable cause,” wrote Buckley.

Paresh Patel, a lawyer from Maryland who recently joined Mangione’s defense team, argued stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty.

Mangione entered the courtroom with his ankles shackled but his hands free.  Unlike his recent appearance in state court, when he wore slacks and blazer, Mangione was dressed in a beige smock and pants and a white long-sleeve T-shirt as he took a seat at the defense table between defense attorneys Karen and Mark Agnifilo.

Earlier this week, prosecutors disputed a defense claim that Mangione should not face the death penalty because of a purported conflict of interest by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The defense said Bondi is continuing to benefit from a 401k established while she worked at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which represents UnitedHealthcare.

Prosecutors said Ballard has made no contributions to her retirement plan since her Senate confirmation as attorney general, and argued that she stands to gain nothing from a “capital outcome” in the Mangione case.

“There is simply no factual basis for the assertion that outside corporate interests influenced the Attorney General’s charging decision in any fashion. The defendant’s insinuations otherwise rest on an inaccurate financial narrative,” Buckley wrote in a court filing.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mom fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an alleged vehicle-ramming incident, “sparkled” and “was made of sunshine,” her wife said in an emotional statement to Minnesota Public Radio.

Becca Good told MPR Friday that on Jan. 7., she and her wife “stopped to support our neighbors” before the incident, which was caught on video and has sparked outrage and protests, occurred.

“We had whistles. They had guns,” she said, according to the statement.

Videos of the incident where Good is seen in her maroon Honda SUV as ICE agents confronted her have gone viral and sparked outcry from people around the country who say that Good was unnecessarily killed.

According to Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, Good was allegedly “attempting to run over our law enforcement officers” with her car when an ICE officer fatally shot her.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have disputed the federal government’s claims surrounding what led up to the shooting, saying video of the incident shows the agent’s actions were not self-defense.

Messages of sympathy for Renee Good have been pouring out since the shooting.

“Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow,” Becca Good said in her statement.

“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” she added.

Renee Good was a 2020 graduate from Old Dominion University in Virginia, according to the school’s president, Brian Hemphill, who said it is “with great sadness that Old Dominion University mourns the loss of one of our own.”

She graduated from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English, according to Hemphill.

“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” he said in a statement. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”

Walz said that Good is survived by a 6-year-old child. During a news conference Thursday the governor offered his “deepest sympathies” to her family “on an unimaginable tragedy.”

Renee Good was also the mother of two other children, according to her wife. The 6-year-old’s father died, according to Becca Good.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way,” she told MPR.

Becca Good told MPR she and her wife moved to Minnesota “to make a better life for ourselves.”

“Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles,” she said.

Becca Good talked about the “vibrant and welcoming community,” the two met once they arrived.

“Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever,” she said.

“We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine,” Becca Good added.

DHS, along with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has called the agent’s actions “self-defense” and said he followed ICE training.

Noem said during a press conference on Wednesday that Good was using her car as a “deadly weapon” and said it was an “act of domestic terrorism.”

Minneapolis police said preliminary information indicates that she was in her car and blocking the road.

“At some point, a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot, and the vehicle began to drive off,” police said. “At least two shots were fired … the vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”

“There is nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity,” police added.

Becca Good told MPR that on Jan. 7. she and her wife “stopped to support our neighbors.”

“We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.

Renee Good suffered gunshot wounds to the head and was transported to an area hospital, where she died, according to city officials.

Following the shooting, a large crowd gathered in the area, which is less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed in May 2020.

Gov. Walz said he has issued a “warning order” to prepare the Minnesota National Guard, saying there are soldiers in training and prepared to be deployed “if necessary,” while urging “peaceful resistance.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The judge in Luigi Mangione’s federal case ruled Friday that the accused CEO killer’s backpack was lawfully seized by police when Mangione was apprehended in a Pennsylvania McDonalds’s five days after the shooting.

Mangione returned to Manhattan federal court Friday, where prosecutors have said they would seek the death penalty if he’s convicted of stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk in 2024. 

Two women who flew in from Sicily and came straight from the airport were among those in the courtroom gallery, which was filled with Mangione’s supporters, mostly young women. Many of them were wearing green, the color that has come to represent advocacy for Mangione.

“We have a full house here today,” U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said at the outset of the hearing. “It is very important that decorum be maintained.”

The appearance of Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges, follows a three-week hearing in state court during which Mangione sought to convince the judge in his state case to exclude some of the critical evidence police said they found in his backpack, including writings and the alleged murder weapon.  The judge has yet to issue a ruling.

Judge Garnett, in issuing her ruling on the legality of the backpack’s seizure, said, “I don’t think it’s really disputed that if you’re arrested in a public place, the police are supposed to safeguard your personal property.”

The judge she does not need to schedule a hearing to determine whether to exclude evidence taken from the backpack, but has yet to rule on what, if anything, should be suppressed.

“The Government searched the contents of the defendant’s notebook pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant that expressly covered, among other things, handwritten materials, including notebook entries, contained within the defendant’s backpack,” prosecutor Sean Buckley argued in an earlier court filing.

“To the extent that the defendant now seeks to challenge the validity of the Government’s warrant — an argument the defendant similarly did not make in either his moving or reply papers — that argument would also fail on the merits because the warrant, which disclosed the initial search of the defendant’s backpack by the Altoona Police Department, was supported by ample probable cause,” wrote Buckley.

The remainder of Friday’s hearing was expected to focus on oral arguments over a defense motion to dismiss the charges that make Mangione eligible for the death penalty. 

Paresh Patel, a lawyer from Maryland who recently joined Mangione’s defense team, argued stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty.

Mangione entered the courtroom with his ankles shackled but his hands free.  Unlike his recent appearance in state court, when he wore slacks and blazer, Mangione was dressed in a beige smock and pants and a white long-sleeve T-shirt as he took a seat at the defense table between defense attorneys Karen and Mark Agnifilo. 

Earlier this week, prosecutors disputed a defense claim that Mangione should not face the death penalty because of a purported conflict of interest by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The defense said Bondi is continuing to benefit from a 401k established while she worked at the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, which represents UnitedHealthcare.

Prosecutors said Ballard has made no contributions to her retirement plan since her Senate confirmation as attorney general, and argued that she stands to gain nothing from a “capital outcome” in the Mangione case.

“There is simply no factual basis for the assertion that outside corporate interests influenced the Attorney General’s charging decision in any fashion. The defendant’s insinuations otherwise rest on an inaccurate financial narrative,” Buckley wrote in a court filing.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.