Category: National

(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of murdering Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus was found guilty on all charges Wednesday, including malice murder and felony murder.

Prosecutors called the evidence against the suspect “overwhelming,” while the defense raised the theory that the defendant could be an accomplice but not the killer during closing arguments in his trial.

Jose Ibarra, 26, was accused of killing the 22-year-old nursing student while she was out for a run after prosecutors said she “refused to be his rape victim.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant, was charged with malice murder and felony murder in connection with her death, which became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump.

Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and the case was presented over four days in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who rendered the verdict on Wednesday.

Sobbing could be heard in the courtroom as he read the guilty verdicts on each charge.

Before announcing his verdict, Haggard told the courtroom that he wrote down two statements from the attorneys during closing arguments.

One was a statement by the prosecutor, who said the “evidence was overwhelming and powerful.”

The other was one by the defense attorney, who said that the judge is “required to set aside my emotions.”

“That’s the same thing we tell jurors,” he said. “That’s the way I have to approach this, and I did. Both of those statements are correct.”

Court is on recess until 12:30 p.m. ET, at which point Haggard said he is ready to move ahead with sentencing.

Jose Ibarra faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors called 28 witnesses while laying out what they said was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died by blunt force head trauma and asphyxia.

Special prosecutor Sheila Ross told the court Jose Ibarra encountered Riley while she was on her morning jog on Feb. 22 while he was out “hunting” for women on the Athens campus.

Ross said Riley “fought for her life” in a struggle that caused Jose Ibarra to leave forensic evidence behind. Digital and video evidence also pointed to him as the only killer, she said.

“The evidence in this case has been overwhelming, and the evidence in this case has spoken loud and clear — that he is Laken Riley’s killer, and that he killed her because she would not let him rape her,” Ross said during her closing argument on Wednesday.

A forensics expert testified that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s right fingernails, and that his two brothers, who lived with him in an apartment near the campus, were excluded as matches.

When Jose Ibarra was questioned by police a day after the murder, he had visible scratches on his arms, officers said. He also had scratches on his neck and back, which Ross said could have only been left by Riley.

“In order to not find him guilty, you would have to disbelieve your own eyes,” Ross said.

“She marked him. She marked him for everyone to see. She marked him for you to see,” Ross told the judge.

Prosecutors argued Jose Ibarra hindered Riley from making a 911 call, and said his thumbprint was left on her phone. Data from his Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley was wearing on her run showed the devices overlapped and were in close proximity in the forest where she was found dead, an FBI analyst testified.

Jose Ibarra was captured on Ring footage discarding a bloody jacket and disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley died, prosecutors said. The individual’s face can’t be seen in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate testified that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also identified him as the person in the video while being questioned by police a day after the murder.

Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves, the forensics expert said. Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were excluded as matches, the expert said.

“That is what we call consciousness of guilt in our business — he threw away those items because he knew he had killed her, and he threw them away because he didn’t want anyone to find him,” Ross said.

Her DNA was also found on an Adidas cap he was seen wearing in the video, the expert said. That cap was not discarded, Ross surmised, because Jose Ibarra could not see that there was actually blood on it.

Jose Ibarra was also seen in different clothes from the dumpster Ring footage discarding unidentifiable items in a bag that was never recovered by police hours after the killing. Ross surmised that the bag contained the clothes he was wearing earlier, which were also similar to ones he was wearing in a selfie posted on Snapchat earlier that morning.

“His digital evidence of posting selfies of himself wearing what is basically his rapist gear an hour before he leaves his house that condemns him, he has condemned himself,” Ross said.

The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra had threatened her the night of Riley’s murder.

The defense said they had planned to call two additional witnesses — including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possessing a fraudulent green card, however, his attorney did not wish for him to testify.

“While the evidence in this case is voluminous, it is circumstantial,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge.

Beck told the judge they advised Jose Ibarra to have a bench trial “trusting that your honor could and believing that your honor would set aside the emotions in this case and simply consider the evidence.”

She argued there is doubt about what was tested and said the judge should be “skeptical” of the DNA evidence.

She presented an “alternative theory” that Diego Ibarra was actually Riley’s murderer, and that Jose Ibarra was an accomplice in covering up the evidence.

“Maybe it was him throwing away the jacket, as Diego said, maybe he was covering up for his brother,” Beck said.

“Under that theory, of course, Jose would be guilty of tampering, but that theory does not prove that he was present or involved in the murder of Laken Riley,” she said.

She said since three gloves were discarded, which “suggests that there are multiple pairs of hands wearing those gloves.”

On rebuttal, Ross called the defense’s theory “desperate” and a “mischaracterization of the evidence.”

“There is no reasonable explanation for all of this evidence other than he is guilty of every single count in this indictment,” Ross said.

Diego Ibarra told officers during questioning that he was asleep at the time the killing occurred. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation testified earlier Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.

Jose Ibarra, a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022, waived his right to testify during the trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, including malice murder and felony murder.

Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — the jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.

Jose Ibarra was also charged with a peeping tom offense. Prosecutors said that in the hours before Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a UGA graduate student, and said the incident “shows his state of mind” that day.

The student testified that she called police after hearing someone trying to open her door.

Ross said the person at the student’s apartment was wearing clothes similar to the ones Jose Ibarra had on in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier that morning, including the Adidas cap.

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(AUSTIN, Texas) — Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham is offering the incoming Trump administration 1,402 acres it purchased along the Texas-Mexico border to be used in a mass deportation operation.

In a letter to President-elect Donald Trump, Buckingham said she’s offering the land “to be used to construct deportation facilities.”

The Texas General Land Office purchased the plot of land from a farmer in October to facilitate Texas’ efforts to build a wall.

“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.

The move shows that despite the Democratic governors of California and Arizona, two other southern border states, pledging not to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans, the incoming administration will have allies in Republican-led states. 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told ABC News Live on Monday that she would not use state police or the National Guard to help with mass deportation.

“We will not be participating in misguided efforts that harm our communities,” she said.

Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission, and pledged to get started on the mass deportations as soon as he enters office.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team said the president-elect will “marshal every lever of power” to launch his mass deportation plans.

“Local and state officials on the frontlines of the Harris-Biden border invasion have been suffering for four years and are eager for President Trump to return to the Oval Office. On day one, President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” Karoline Leavitt said.

In an interview with Fox News, which first reported the news of the Texas General Land Office’s offer, Buckingham reiterated she is “100% on board” with the incoming administration’s promise to deport criminals.

The plot of land is in Starr County, about 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.

“Now it’s essentially farmland, so it’s flat, it’s easy to build on. We can very easily put a detention center on there — a holding place as we get these criminals out of our country,” she told Fox News.

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(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) — Madyson Barber, a grad student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was researching young transiting systems in space when she made a remarkable discovery.

Barber used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to observe the brightness of stars over time. During the observations, Barber noticed some “little dips” in brightness, indicating that a “transiting” planet may be passing near Earth.

“This planet discovery popped out,” Barber told ABC News.

The planet, named IRAS 04125+2902 b, is estimated to be 3 million years old, which is considered “young” for stars, Barber said. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and took an estimated 10 million to 20 millions to form. The next youngest known planet is about 10 million years old, Barber said.

“It’s about the same as a 10-day-old baby in human timescale,” she added. “So, super, super young in comparison to our home.”

Nicknamed “TIDYE-1b” by researchers, the new planet has been shown to have an orbital period of 8.83 days, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature. It has a radius about 10.7 times larger than Earth and has approximately 30% of the mass of Jupiter.

TIDYE-1b orbits a star of about the same age named IRAS 04125+2902.

Astronomers noted some unusual characteristics of the star, which is located relatively close to Earth at 160 parsecs, or 522 lightyears, away, researchers said. The outer protoplanetary disk surrounding the star is misaligned and the star has a depleted inner disk.

The combination of these unique features allowed scientists to observe the transiting protoplanet.

“If part of the planetary discs were still present, it would be in the same plane of rotation as that spinning star and the orbiting planet,” Barber said. “So the disc would block our observations of the star.”

Astronomers are still learning about the planet. They were able to calculate the upper mass limit by looking at the radial velocity of the star, which is the movement of the star over time, and measuring “little wiggles in that movement,” Barber added.

“Other than that, there’s not a whole lot we can say about the planet at this point,” she said.

Right now, the researchers are only 95% confident in the measurements they’ve taken for the planet’s upper mass limit, and they hypothesize that the planet’s real mass is actually much smaller, Barber said.

“Because we don’t have a ton of these young transiting systems that we know of, it’s really important that we look for more so that we can have a better picture of what that formation and evolution looks like, so we can better understand how our own home formed and evolved,” Barber said.

The researchers believe the new planet could be a precursor of the super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets that are frequently found orbiting main-sequence stars.

The system could also be a useful target for studying the early stages of planet formation due to its young age, the rare disk misalignment and the relatively close location to Earth, Barber said.

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(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal hush money conviction in New York must be dismissed “to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power,” Trump’s defense attorneys argued Wednesday in a letter to the court.

Defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — both of whom Trump nominated last week to top DOJ posts in his new administration — sought the judge’s permission to file a motion to dismiss the case.

“Continuing with this case would be uniquely destabilizing,” the defense letter argued. “Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.”

The defense filing comes one day after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg opposed dismissing the case but consented to freeze of all remaining proceedings, including sentencing, until after Trump completes his term.

The defense sought a Dec. 20 deadline to file its motion to dismiss Trump’s 34-count felony conviction for falsifying business records.

Blanche and Bove said that would give Trump time to address “the positions taken by DOJ in the federal cases” Trump faces over the his election interference efforts and his handling of classified documents.

Both of the federal cases are currently paused while the Justice Department evaluates how to proceed.

Trump was convicted in May of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to silence allegations about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.

His conviction carries a maximum penalty of up to four years in prison, but first-time offenders would normally receive a lesser sentence.

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(NEW YORK) — Melissa Lucio, the death row inmate who was convicted of capital murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, is speaking out in an exclusive statement and audio recording to ABC News for the first time since a judge found last month that the Texas mother who has been behind bars for nearly 17 years is “actually innocent.”

“More than words. There are truly no amount of words, no matter how eloquently spoken, that can begin to convey the thanks I feel in this moment,” Lucio said in a statement and audio recording that was shared Tuesday exclusively with ABC News by Lucio’s close friend, filmmaker Sabrina Van Tassel. “I want to thank everyone that has fought so hard. Not just for me, but more importantly for Mariah’s memory.”

Van Tassel’s 2020 Hulu documentary, “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” propelled Lucio’s case to the national spotlight ahead of a scheduled April 2022 execution that was delayed amid public pressure for the court to review her case.

In a 62-page ruling that was signed on Oct. 16, 2024, and reviewed by ABC News, Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson recommended that Lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned in the 2007 death of her daughter Mariah.

The judge found that prosecutors suppressed evidence and testimony – including statements from Lucio’s other children – that could support the argument that Lucio was not abusive and that her daughter’s death was accidental after a fall down the stairs.

“This Court finds (Lucio) has satisfied her burden and produced clear and convincing evidence that she is actually innocent of the offense of capital murder,” Nelson wrote.

“(T)his Court concludes there is clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror could convict Applicant of capital murder or any lesser included offense,” Nelson added.

“It is safe to say I find myself still in shock and awe of everything that has transpired this past week,” Lucio said in the statement, reflecting on the judge’s recommendation.

“But this story began long before this moment and I want to thank each and every person who has played such a significant part, and not only bringing the truth to light, but fighting so very hard to do so,” she added, proceeding to thank her supporters for being instrumental in getting her execution delayed in 2022 as the court reviews her case.

Lucio thanked her attorneys at the Innocence Project, the coordinator of the “Free Melissa Lucio” campaign, Abraham Bonowitz, and namely, Van Tassel, who Lucio credits with bringing attention to her story through the documentary.

In her statement to ABC News, Lucio recounted the first time she met Van Tassel, who was working on a story about women on death row when Lucio agreed to an interview with her, and said that she “felt led” to speak to her.

“Without her tireless dedication to me and my cause, I do not believe I would be alive today. She brought worldwide attention to the system that has been sweeping issues like mine under the proverbial rug for decades and getting away with it,” she added, reflecting on the 2020 documentary.

Amid growing calls for the court to review her case in 2022, Lucio was granted a stay of her scheduled April 27, 2022, execution by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on April 25, 2022 – after nearly 15 years on death row.

In an exclusive statement to ABC News, Van Tassel said that in the wake of the judge’s ruling, “there is real hope that her death sentence could be overturned, paving the way for Melissa Lucio to finally walk free.”

“This possibility exceeds all my expectations, and I pray for the day we can finally hold each other in our arms,” she said.

The judge’s recommendation was sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for review.

ABC News reached out to the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted this case, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.

Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation at the Innocence Project, and one of Lucio’s attorneys, said in a statement last week that “After 16 years on death row, it’s time for the nightmare to end. Melissa should be home right now with her children and grandchildren.”

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One person was killed and two were injured by falling trees in Washington state as a powerful storm moved into the Pacific Northwest.

In Lynwood, a woman in her 50s was killed when a tree fell on a homeless encampment Tuesday night. In Puget Sound, two were transported to hospitals when a tree fell on a trailer, officials said.

The storm exploded into a bomb cyclone off the coast, near Vancouver Island, Canada, where winds gusted near 101 mph.

A bomb cyclone means the pressure in the center of the storm drops 24 millibars within 24 hours.

Wind gusts reached 50 to 84 mph from Northern California to Washington.

As the storm sits and spins over the ocean this week, it will help to push a plume of Pacific moisture called an atmospheric river into Oregon and Northern California.

Alerts are in effect through Friday for flooding, snow, avalanches and high winds.

Some places could see more than 1 foot of rain this week. A flood watch has been issued in Northern California.

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(NEW YORK) — Righteous Torrance “Chevy” Hill had great plans for his future, cut short by a fatal shooting in front of his own home in February.

Hill, a transgender man, left behind a budding legacy of activism as the founder of an LGBTQ-focused salon and barber shop called Evollusion. The salon was born out of his desire for a space where he and other clients weren’t faced with uncomfortable or disparaging comments.

“There’s a need for this,” said Terri Wilson, Hill’s partner of six years. Their relationship began at the salon when Wilson herself came to get her hair done.

The two stayed talking for hours, a common occurrence at Evollusion. Clients often made themselves comfortable in the salon well after the end of their appointments to discuss politics, society and life in the shop — the salon was abuzz with laughter or chatter.

“He wanted to make sure that the trans community had the resources that they need,” Wilson told ABC News.

Wilson told ABC News that Hill believed Atlanta, often touted for having a large and inclusive LGBTQ+ community, was the perfect place to create such a space. Wilson has vowed to continue his work following his passing.

“Grief just hits out of nowhere, like the day can be going wonderful, and then I can just think of something or read something or see something online that I want to share with him, and I know that I’m not able to share it with him,” Wilson said.

Hill is one of at least 36 transgender and gender non-conforming victims of fatal violence from last year’s Transgender Remembrance Day to this year’s, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the vast majority of whom were killed by a gun. Some anti-gun violence advocates told ABC News that growing anti-transgender sentiment in the U.S. is a major cause for concern for the trans community.

“No matter what gender they are, what socioeconomic class they’re from, what race or ethnicity they are — those lives mattered and a lot of the policies that we have in place and even the way that we investigate these homicides send a message about the disposability of these lives,” Sarah Burd-Sharps, Senior Director of Research of gun safety advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, told ABC News.

New research from Everytown published in honor of Transgender Remembrance Day on Wednesday aims to highlight the impact gun violence has had on the trans community. Everytown found that roughly 7 in 10 transgender victims are killed with a gun, which is similar to the national rate. Black transgender residents — particularly Black transgender women — face the brunt of this gun violence, according to Everytown.

More than half of all transgender gun homicides took place in the South, according to Everytown. Burd-Sharps also notes these deaths happen predominantly in Southern states with more lenient gun laws.

Hill was shot outside his home in the Atlanta suburb of East Point, Georgia on Feb. 28, 2024, and pronounced dead the following day. In Georgia, about 95% of the trans or gender-expansive victims since 2013 — when the Human Rights Campaign began tracking these deaths — were killed with a gun.

Some researchers argue that violence toward trans people cannot be considered without the context of anti-transgender legislation and rhetoric.

“What it does is it sows further division. It creates an environment where even more hatred exists, which in turn creates more violence against trans folks,” Tori Cooper, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of community engagement, told ABC News.

Federal, state and local agencies across the country have warned about increases in anti-LGBTQ+ violence in recent years as state legislatures break records, introducing more than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills nationwide.

“Words matter, policies matter,” Moms Demand Action Executive Director Angela Ferrell-Zabala told ABC News in an interview on the Everytown report. “When we go down this road of dehumanizing and taking away rights from folks … it’s hard for folks to access health care and other things and just kind of live full lives, then that’s contributing to the problem of violence in this country.”

Both the HRC and Everytown note in their research that there may be other cases of fatal violence against transgender or gender-expansive people that have gone unreported or misreported and, therefore, not recorded in the official count.

Researchers and advocates say deadnaming, misgendering and bias in policing or reporting may hinder efforts to track and solve these cases properly.

“Every life is important, and we need to make sure that we’re protecting everybody,” Ferrell-Zabala said. “Media and law enforcement have a duty to make sure they’re correctly reporting people’s names and genders. It’s not only out of respect for victims and their loved ones and communities, but also so that the research on the ongoing violence against transgender people is accurately understood and represented.”

According to Wilson, Hill was misgendered by law enforcement after his death, despite having the correct gender markers on his ID.

“It’s frustrating because a person who respectfully asks you to address them in a certain way, their request should be accepted. Their request should be recognized. It’s not hurting anyone else,” Wilson said. “It’s frustrating for me, so I can only understand how frustrating it was for him. It’s just from going from medical professionals, going through TSA, law enforcement.”

However, she said East Point’s LGBTQ liaison reached out to her following his death: “They have an LGBT Task Force, and they did have one of the representatives who was over this task force reach out to me, which I did appreciate,” Wilson said.

East Point didn’t respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Everytown researchers also found that clearances of trans homicides — “incidents where a perpetrator is arrested, charged, and given to the court for prosecution, or is otherwise identified” — are lower than among homicides overall nationally. Hill’s loved ones waited more than six months for the suspect — Hill’s cousin Jaylen Hill — turned himself police, and hope the arrest can finally bring some relief in the fight for justice.

Jaylen Hill is in pre-indictment hearings on potential charges of murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm. Jaylen Hill’s legal team has not yet responded to ABC News’ request for comment.

“I can’t be consumed with Jaylen and what his punishment is, because all of this revolves around [Hill]. [Hill] lost his life,” Wilson said. “So continuing what he was doing is definitely at the forefront of receiving justice for [Hill].”

Some researchers hope the new data can help law enforcement agencies and city officials nationwide to address growing concerns about anti-LGBTQ+ violence and the role gun violence plays in these deaths.

Officials in neighboring Atlanta — which has LGBTQ+ liaisons on the city and public safety levels — said it’s working to implement programs to improve the safety and concerns of the LGBTQ+ community in the region. Chief Equity Officer Candace M. Stanciel pointed to the city’s Human Relations Commission which investigates reports of discrimination or the revision of standard operating procedures for local public safety officials on how to engage with the transgender community.

“We look forward to even growing the partnership and the work that we continue to do with all of our public safety teams around supporting LGBTQ communities as a whole,” Stanciel told ABC News.

Wilson hopes Hill can be remembered for his “unconditional love.”

“He didn’t have any enemies,” said Wilson. “He had a forgiving heart. He was selfless, he was genuine. He always wanted everyone to succeed. He could see in you what you couldn’t see in yourself.”

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(NEW YORK) — A man accused of killing three people in an apparent unprovoked stabbing spree in Manhattan made his first appearance in court on Tuesday.

Ramon Rivera, 51, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder, according to the New York Police Department. He confessed to the killings during questioning, according to police sources.

The judge on Tuesday granted the prosecution’s request for remand. Rivera is set to return to court on Nov. 22.

The attacks unfolded within three hours on Monday morning.

The first victim, 36-year-old Angel Lata Landi, was fatally stabbed in the abdomen at 8:22 a.m. in an unprovoked attack by the construction site where he was working on West 19th Street, the NYPD said.

About two hours later, 67-year-old Chang Wang was fatally stabbed multiple times on East 30th Street, police said.

The third victim, 36-year-old Wilma Augustin, was attacked around 10:55 a.m. at 42nd Street and First Avenue. She had multiple stab wounds and was taken to a hospital where she later died, officials said.

The suspect — who was staying at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter on East 30th Street — was apprehended around East 46th Street and First Avenue, police said.

He appeared to pick the victims at random, police said.

“He just walked up to them and began to attack them,” Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said at a news conference.

Two bloody kitchen knives were recovered, police said.

Rivera has eight prior arrests in New York City, according to law enforcement, and is believed to have severe mental health challenges, Mayor Eric Adams said. Rivera’s case renewed frustration with the city’s inability to treat people in mental distress and hold people with a history of low-level criminal activity.

“There’s a real question as to why he was on the street,” Adams said.

Rivera’s prior arrests mainly involved shoplifting, officials said. None involved a weapon.

He was out without bail pending trial on his most recent arrests.

He had two documented interactions with the city while in mental distress.

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(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) — Police and relatives are pleading with the public to help find the driver who struck and killed a father of three in a hit-and-run in Los Angeles.

Oscar Guardado was riding his bike home in south Los Angeles when he was hit by a car just before 10 p.m. on Oct. 27, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

The driver fled and Guardado, 42, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Investigators are now asking the public to help identify the suspect’s car, described by a witness as a dark, four-door sedan, LAPD Sgt. Gabriel Nily said at a news conference Monday.

There’s no video of the collision, Nily said, but video does show many witnesses were in the area at the time.

Guardado leaves behind a 19-year-old daughter, a 17-year-old son and a 14-year-old son.

“He was the best dad for us three in every way. He never gave up on us,” Guardado’s daughter, Angeles Guardado, who started a GoFundMe for the family, told ABC News on Tuesday. “We were always his first priority. And I just want people to know that he was a hard-working dad.”

“It hurts losing a parent. And honestly, I just want to know more information” about the hit-and-run, she said. “It hurt us seeing our own father in a casket. It hurt us to see that we won’t even be getting messages from our father saying that he loves us and to be careful.”

“I really want to know who the person was, and what was the reason,” she said.

Police announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the driver’s arrest and prosecution.

“I’m just looking for justice,” Angeles Guardado said at the news conference.

“Please come clean,” she said.

 

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(PHOENIX, Ariz) — A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy who was violently arrested by two Phoenix police officers in August said he tried to alert the officers that he was deaf before they repeatedly punched and tasered him for an alleged crime he had been falsely accused of by another suspect.

Records show that the incident occurred when officers were dispatched to investigate a report of a man causing problems and wouldn’t leave a Circle K convenience store, according to ABC affiliate in Phoenix KNXV-TV.

According to police records, the original description of the suspect was for a white man who had been creating a disturbance in the store, but that man later claimed he was assaulted by a Black man and pointed to Tyron McAlpin – a claim that was disputed by store employees and surveillance video, KNXV-TV reported.

“The officers took me down … And I told them, I was trying to get to my ears to tell them I can’t hear, I can’t hear, pointing to my ears,” McAlpin said through an interpreter as he used sign language, according to KNXV-TV. “I was trying to gesture, and that’s when the cops grabbed me. (I was) trying to show, hey I can’t hear, pointing to my ears, and they grabbed me.”

McAlpin gave his account in the hospital to a medical worker after his arrest, according to KNXV-TV. Two police officers are seen present in the body camera video during the medical examination.

The Phoenix man is seen in the footage telling medical workers he’s having trouble seeing out of his left eye and complaining of neck and chest pain, according to KNXV-TV.

“White male, 20s, grey shirt, blue shorts,” Ben Harris, one of the officers involved in detaining McAlpin, could be heard saying repeatedly to himself on the way to the call, according to the footage.

The newly released video appears to show that Harris knew the suspect was a white male.

In body-worn camera footage recorded after the arrest, employees at the store told law enforcement that the white male had gotten into a physical altercation the night before, according to KNXV-TV. The staff in the footage explains that McAlpin comes to the store regularly, holds the door for people and was trying to help the employees get the man out of the store.

Harris originally told another officer at the scene that he believed he broke a bone in his hand after striking the Phoenix man in the head, according to body camera footage obtained by ABC News in October.

Harris told a different story in court during an October hearing.

“At one point, when I was trying to regain control of his arm, following his initial swings, punch swings, it appears that these fingers were jammed in his forearm, and bent over all the way to my palm,” Harris testified, according to KNXV-TV.

The two Phoenix police officers who were involved in the arrest were placed on paid administrative leave in October amid an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department confirmed to ABC News.

ABC News reached out to the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a union representing the officers, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.

The union’s president, Darrell Kriplean, previously defended the officers’ actions in a statement to ABC News, saying that people should know what to do if uniformed officers approach and that the officers, who did now know McAlpin was deaf at the time, had to force him to comply.

McAlpin was initially charged with felony assault and resisting arrest following the Aug. 19 encounter with Phoenix police, but the charges were dropped on Oct. 17.

The decision to drop the charges against McAlpin was announced by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, who said in a statement that she personally reviewed the case after a member of the local chapter of the NAACP expressed concern over the incident and poured through “a large volume of video recordings, police reports, and other materials that have been forwarded to my office.”

“I also convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions as they pertain to this case,” Mitchell said. “I have now completed my review and have made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges against Mr. McAlpin.”

In the body camera video, police are seen pulling up to McAlpin and ordering him down to the ground. He doesn’t appear to immediately comply. The video then shows the officers punching him at least 10 times in the head and shocking him with a stun gun at least four times while yelling: “Get your hands behind your back.”

McAlpin’s attorney said that his client, who is deaf, didn’t know what was going on and could not hear the commands.

“It is our sincere hope that the County Attorney’s Office will respond to what is shown in the video and to the voices in the community who have raised alarms about what is shown in the video and will dismiss all charges against Tyron,” McAlpin’s attorney, Jesse Showalter, told ABC News in a statement on Oct. 14.

ABC News reached out to Showalter for additional comment after the newly released video became available.

Interim Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in a statement on Oct. 16 that the Professional Standard Bureau (PSB) launched an internal investigation shortly after the incident took place.

“Their work is important to ensure all facts are known before drawing any conclusions. I ask for the public’s patience during that process,” Sullivan said.

“I recognize the video is disturbing and raises a lot of questions. I want to assure the community we will get answers to those questions,” he added.

According to Sullivan, the findings of the PSB will be reviewed by himself, as well as by the Office of Accountability and Transparency and the Civilian Review Board “to ensure it is thorough and complete.”

When ABC News asked the Phoenix Police Department if the white man who made the allegedly false allegations was charged, a spokesperson said in a statement that no additional arrests have been made at this point during the investigation.

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

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