California police sergeant ‘ambushed’ by gunman linked to homicide: Officials
(FRESNO, Calif.) — A Central California police sergeant was in a hospital recovering from bullet wounds Monday after he was “ambushed” over the weekend by a gunman who was killed in a subsequent shoot-out and later linked to a homicide victim found inside a residence, authorities said.
The shooting unfolded on Saturday in Fresno after the sergeant and two patrol officers were dispatched to investigate a ShotSpotter gunshot detection call at about 5:23 p.m., according to Fresno Interim Police Chief Mindy Castro.
Castro said the sergeant, a 21-year veteran of the Fresno Police Department, and the other officers had spent about an hour searching for evidence of a shooting in the neighborhood east of downtown Fresno when the ambush occurred. She said the suspect wielding an AR-style pistol drove by in a car and, without warning, opened fire on the sergeant who at the time was sitting in a parked patrol vehicle working on his computer.
“A Fresno police sergeant was ambushed here tonight,” Castro said as she began a news conference near the shooting scene.
Castro said two other officers were standing in the street searching for shell casings when gunfire erupted.
“The sergeant was in his car when the suspect returned completely unexpectedly and began firing shots at the sergeant,” said Castro, adding that the sergeant’s patrol car was riddled with bullets.
Castro said the sergeant, whose name was not released, suffered bullet wounds to his lower extremities.
The gunman, whose name was also not released, attempted to flee the scene, but crashed about a block away, Castro said.
Despite being wounded, the sergeant and the other officers chased the suspect and ended up in a shoot-out with him after the gunman got out of his wrecked car and opened fire on the officers, Castro said.
A Ring doorbell camera video from a residence obtained by ABC Fresno station KFSN captured what sounded like a dozen shots fired in the incident.
Castro said that after the suspect was shot and fell to the ground, the injured sergeant collapsed and radioed for an ambulance for them both.
The suspect was later pronounced dead at a hospital, Castro said.
A statement posted on the police department’s Facebook page Sunday evening said the sergeant remained in the hospital in stable condition.
Castro said she viewed the sergeant’s body camera video and described the sergeant’s and the other officers’ actions in engaging the suspect as a “picture of courageousness and calm.”
Before the gunfight, police obtained surveillance video that captured the suspect holding a gun as he exited a house near the shooting scene and got into a car matching the one involved in the ambush, Castro said.
Following the shooting, officers went to the house seen in the security video, forced their way in and discovered a homicide victim inside, Castro said.
Castro said it remains under investigation whether the ShotSpotter activation that initially drew the officers to the scene was caused by the shooting inside the residence.
“We’re still working to investigate that crime as well as the ambush shooting of one of our officers,” Castro said.
The identity of the homicide victim was pending an autopsy.
(HOUSTON) — Public hospitals in Texas will now be required to ask patients if they are in the U.S. legally and keep a record of the funds spent on illegal migrants after an executive order went into effect Friday.
Public hospitals are required to collect information regarding the “cost of medical care provided to illegal immigrants,” the number of inpatient discharges and the number of emergency visits, then submit that data to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on a quarterly basis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in an August statement announcing the measure.
While facilities must ask patients of their legal status, patients are not required to respond.
The new policy will also be enforced at hospitals enrolled in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and any other facilities identified by the commission.
The first submission is due on March 1, 2025, according to the governor’s office. The commission will then submit the total cost for medical care provided to illegal migrants to the governor, lieutenant governor and the speaker of the house on an annual basis beginning on Jan. 1, 2026.
Patients are to be told that the collection of this information will not affect patient care, according to the executive order. Federal law mandates patients be told their answers will not affect their medical care.
The executive order also states that the federal government “may and should be obligated to reimburse the state of Texas for the costs that its open border policies have imposed on Texans.”
“Due to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ open border policies, Texas has had to foot the bill for medical costs for individuals illegally in the state,” Abbott said in the statement, though migrant encounters at the border began rising while Donald Trump was president in the months after April 2020 through the November election. “Texans should not have to shoulder the burden of financially supporting medical care for illegal immigrants.”
Immigration advocacy groups condemned the action as it went into place Friday.
“Abbott’s latest executive order — which takes effect today and goes against federal law — is a calculated attempt to drive immigrants into the shadows and make our communities fearful of being targeted in the very places we should feel safe. Going after immigrants in hospitals is just the first step towards enacting Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” said Michelle Ming, political director of United We Dream Action, an advocacy group for immigrants.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia contributed to this report.
(WEST GLACIER, Mont.) — The body of a 32-year-old climber has been found after an apparent fall a week after he went missing.
Grant Marcuccio’s body was found at around 2 p.m. on Sunday, the National Park Service said this week.
The cause of death is still under investigation, but traumatic injuries and the location of his body indicate he likely fell, according to the NPS.
Marcuccio was found east of McPartland Peak, below the ridgeline between Heavens Peak and McPartland Peak.
His body was transported to the Apgar horse corrals.
Marcuccio was last seen by his hiking party on Aug. 18. He had separated from his party to summit McPartland Peak alone and was planning to meet them again at a designated location.
That evening the hiking party alerted rangers that he never showed up to the meet-up spot.
A search for Marcuccio by land and air began on Aug. 19.
(NEW YORK) — The contentious debate surrounding New York City’s struggle to address homelessness and mental illness has clouded the memory of who Jordan Neely was.
But to some who cared for him, Neely is remembered for breaking out into dance and singing along with the hits on the radio as a joyous child.
He’s remembered as a teen who struggled to cope with the loss of his best friend — his mother — who was violently murdered.
He’s remembered for entertaining commuters, tourists, and locals alike with moonwalks and side glides that rivaled Michael Jackson on the NYC subways.
Neely’s family had imagined a great future ahead for him: “I said, ‘Jordan, one day you might be famous,” Neely’s great aunt Mildred Mahazu told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Really, Aunt Mildred?'”
But by the age of 30, Neely was homeless and appeared to be experiencing a mental illness crisis when he was killed after a subway passenger named Daniel Penny held him in a six-minute-long chokehold, officials said.
Penny, a former Marine, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. He pleaded not guilty, arguing that Neely had been threatening to passengers on the train. Other witnesses reportedly told police that Neely had been yelling and harassing passengers. Penny’s trial begins on Oct. 21 with jury selection.
Neely’s death sparked citywide protests, demanding answers about city resources after reports showed dozens of interactions between Neely and both police and homeless services in the years leading up to his death.
Two of Neely’s loved ones reflected on the life and death in interviews with ABC News ahead of Penny’s trial.
Neely’s life
Neely’s childhood was rocky, according to Mahazu. He and his mother, Christie Neely, were housing insecure — sometimes living in homeless shelters — and his mother’s tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend filled some days with arguments. But amid the instability, Neely’s relationship with his mother blossomed.
The two were inseparable. Everywhere Christie went, Neely followed: “You see one, you see the other,” Mahazu said.
Before heading off to school each morning, Neely would knock at his mother’s door, wake her up and tell her goodbye.
On April 3, 2007, then-14-year-old Neely tried to go about his routine and say goodbye to his mother before school, but her boyfriend, Shawn Southerland, had blocked him from entering their bedroom, according to local news outlet NJ.com.
It was later discovered that Christie had been violently murdered at the hands of now-convicted-murderer Southerland and he dumped her body in a suitcase on a Bronx parkway, according to local reports.
Mahazu believes the tragedy changed the trajectory of Neely’s life. He was a teen, heartbroken and unable to grasp the loss.
Mahazu said she would catch Neely sitting with a far-off look in his eye, sometimes rocking side to side. She’d ask him what was wrong and recalled him once saying, “I miss my mama. I want my mama.”
“They loved each other dearly. They were crazy about each other,” Mahazu said. “From there on, he started going down, down, down, because he and his mother were extremely close, very close,” Mahazu said.
In the years after her death, Neely found solace in his love of dancing and made the NYC MTA subway system his stage, busking for money as a Michael Jackson impersonator.
New Yorker Moses Harper first remembers meeting Neely in August 2009, when she followed the sound of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits in the halls of the Times Square subway station.
Harper, a Michael Jackson tribute artist herself, remembers finding Neely mid-performance, surrounded by a crowd of tourists clapping to the rhythm and following Neely’s encouragement to dance alongside him.
Neely spotted and called on Harper, who was watching from the back of the crowd: “Show me something. Come on. Don’t be scared,” Harper recalls that he yelled out to her. Armed with a single glove in her back pocket on her way home from her dance studio, she surprised Neely with Jackson moves of her own.
“When it was all over, I gave him his hat back and he hugged me. He’s like, ‘You got to teach me, you got to show me.’ And I did,” said Harper.
It was the beginning of a friendship that would last years: “We wouldn’t just talk about Michael Jackson and dancing. We talked about other things, you know, and I missed that. I missed that. That was my little brother.”
She remembers when Neely first told her about his mother: “What was the one person in the world that really got him. And I had never seen him that sad.”
During those years, it was hard for Mahazu to keep track of him riding through the subway system. But he’d come and visit her often, and she’d fix up a big country dinner, and they’d sit and talk over their meal.
Homelessness and mental illness in New York One day, when Harper was riding the D train into the Bronx, she spotted Neely walking through the train cars. She recalled him looking noticeably homeless and asking for food or money.
She said his face lit up when he saw her, but he kept walking past, which Harper speculates was because of embarrassment. Harper said she stopped him, escorted him off the train, hugged him and asked him what was going on.
She bought him Chinese food, and something to drink, gave him cash and one of the shirts she had layered on.
“I said, ‘Listen to me: When you’re ready to get clean, this is where I am. Come and see me. I want you to come see me,'” she said. “It wasn’t what he needed at the time. And it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t enough. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
A community of Michael Jackson fans and tribute artists in NYC continued to search for Neely over the years after he stopped arriving at events and meetups. But local health officials and law enforcement said they knew him well.
According to police sources, Neely had a documented mental health history and had been previously arrested for several incidents, including assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion.
The New York Times reported that Neely was on a list of the top 50 sheltered or homeless “high need individuals” to be reached by NYC outreach workers at the time of his death. According to New York Magazine, he bounced around shelters that have been criticized for their poor conditions and had also been hospitalized several times.
The Department of Social Services, the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the NYPD declined to comment further on Neely’s case and why the efforts to contact or address Neely’s needs did not work.
Those who knew Neely have demanded answers.
“If you had had the background that Jordan nearly had, how would you fare in life? Where would you be? Where would your mental state be if you had the same kind of struggles that he had?” Harper said. “How would you be doing right now? Do you think that you would deserve the same? The same treatment that he received on the last day of his life? “
The Adams administration criticized “the system” Jordan went through: “That was a real textbook case of how if you ignore the problem over and over and over again, it could turn out to be a tragic outcome.”
Adams condemned Neely’s killing in the days following the death: “Jordan Neely did not deserve to die,” Adams said in prepared remarks amid growing calls for Penny’s arrest. He was not immediately arrested following Neely’s death.
“Jordan Neely’s life mattered. He was suffering from severe mental illness, but that was not the cause of his death. His death is a tragedy that never should have happened,” the mayor said, referring to Neely as “a Black man like me.”
In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression, according to city officials.
Neely’s death took place following an announcement from New York City Mayor Eric Adams that individuals who appear “to be mentally ill” and “a danger to themselves” may be taken into custody involuntarily for psychiatric evaluations if they may be of harm, even if they are not considered to be an imminent threat to the public. The city has yet to release data about the outcomes of these programs and their effectiveness.
However, in a recent Department of Homeless Services announcement, city officials say 7,800 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter and 640 of them have been connected to permanent affordable housing since the city began an intensified approach to homelessness.
“They failed Jordan, they fail so many of the vulnerable members of a vulnerable population,” said Harper, calling for systemic reforms to fix the criminal justice and health care systems.