Category: National

(LOS ANGELES) — Two kindergarteners were seriously wounded in a shooting at a small Christian grammar school in Northern California on Wednesday, authorities said.

After entering the school and opening fire on the students, the suspected gunman died from what is believed by officials to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Two boys, ages 5 and 6, were promptly taken to a hospital and were in “extremely critical condition” as of Wednesday evening, according to Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.

Authorities in Butte County responded to 911 calls for reports of an active shooter at the Feather River Adventist School just outside of Oroville, California, shortly after 1 p.m. local time, Honea told reporters. A trooper with the California Highway Patrol was the first to arrive on the scene and found the two wounded students and the suspect’s body with a handgun nearby.

The sheriff said the suspected shooter had met with a school administrator earlier in the day to discuss enrolling a student at the school, which teaches kindergarten to 8th grade and has a total of 35 students, according to Honea.

It’s unclear if the meeting was legitimate or a ruse for the suspected gunman to get inside, the sheriff said.

The meeting was described as “cordial” and did not set off any alarm bells with the school administrator, the sheriff said.

A few minutes after that meeting, the shots rang out, he explained.

The sheriff told reporters that authorities have identified the shooter and said that he may have targeted the school because of its affiliation with the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we sent an alert out to law enforcement agencies throughout the state of California, advising them of this shooting and advising them that the subject may have targeted this school because of its affiliation with that particular religious organization,” Honea said.

“Our request of those law enforcement agencies was to be vigilant and make sure that those schools are safe and the students are still safe,” he added.

The sheriff said authorities are not ready to publicly release the suspect’s identity.

The suspect was dropped off at the school by an Uber driver who had been located in the aftermath of the shooting and undergone interviews with police.

Otherwise, authorities are still looking to piece together a timeline of his whereabouts leading up to the shooting.

“We’re working to essentially reconstruct this individual’s activities over the course of today as well as into the past to determine why … he did the things that he did,” Honea said.

The sheriff’s office is leading the investigation into the shooting. The FBI is helping to process the crime scene and also to dig into the suspect’s background.

Butte County is located about 65 miles north of Sacramento.

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(UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa.) — The dangerous search for a missing grandmother who officials believe fell into a deep sinkhole in Pennsylvania is now considered a recovery effort, police said Wednesday.

A challenging excavation has been underway at an abandoned coal mine in Unity Township since Tuesday when police said Elizabeth Pollard was reported missing after she was not heard from after searching for her cat.

The sinkhole is believed to be tied to the mine and formed while Pollard was walking in the area, officials said.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani said authorities are “virtually positive” that she is in the mine, though do not believe she could still be alive at this stage based on the conditions underground, including the level of oxygen.

“I know we had a lot of hopes,” Limani said during a press briefing Wednesday evening, calling the development “difficult.”

“Unless it’s a miracle, most likely it’s recovery,” Limani said, later noting that it’s “definitely recovery” at this stage.

Rescue crews have been pumping oxygen into the mine, though it’s “lower than what you’d want for someone to try and sustain their life,” he said.

Cameras and sound devices have not found any signs of life that would warrant them to try to push ahead with urgency at the risk posed to search crews, he said.

He said authorities have had an “emotional” conversation with Pollard’s family to update them on the shift to a recovery effort.

“It feels like we failed,” an emotional Limani said. “But if somebody else gets hurt, I think it would be worse.”

Limani said crews will continue to work to recover Pollard and are preparing for inclement weather to resume the search on Thursday.

“We’re not quitting,” he said. “We are going to continue to work through this. It’s just taken longer than we thought. And the mine is just not in good condition.”

Pollard was last seen Monday evening, police said. Her vehicle was located shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday with her 5-year-old granddaughter safe inside, though Pollard was nowhere to be seen, police said.

While searching for Pollard in the area, troopers found an apparent sinkhole with an opening about the “size of a manhole” 15 to 20 feet away from the vehicle, according to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani.

Local firefighters, a technical rescue team and the state’s Bureau of Mine Safety worked alongside an excavation team to remove dirt to access the sinkhole, Limani said.

Search crews were able to make entry into the mine area, though the integrity of the mine has been compromised by the water they are using to break up the ground, Limani said. Parts of the mine have started to buckle and collapse, he said.

“We’re afraid we’re going to make it worse if try to continue to plow forward with the techniques that we were using,” he said.

The area where the sinkhole formed has a “very thin layer of earth” and appears to have been deteriorating “for a long time,” Limani said. Other areas near the sinkhole have been deemed unsafe and will be quarantined off with round-the-clock police surveillance, Limani said.

The mine last operated in 1952, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The depth to the coal seam in this area is approximately 20 feet, a department spokesperson said.

Once the scene is clear, the department will investigate the site “to determine if this issue is the result of historic mine subsidence,” the spokesperson said.

 

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(NEW YORK) — Three Fort Cavazos soldiers have been accused of a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants, according to the Department of Justice.

The Texas-based soldiers were caught on Nov. 27 allegedly driving three people — one Mexican national and two Guatemalan nationals — after a United States Border Patrol Agent initiated a vehicle stop in Presidio.

An agent approached the vehicle, which then fled and “struck a second USBP vehicle, injuring an agent inside,” the DOJ said.

Police eventually stopped the vehicle and apprehended the three undocumented immigrants, as well as one of the soldiers, identified as Emilio Mendoza Lopez.

The car’s driver, who was allegedly Angel Palma, “fled on foot and was located the following day at a hotel in Odessa,” prosecutors said.

The Department of Justice has accused Mendoza Lopez and Palma of traveling to the Army base to Presidio “for the purpose of picking up and transporting undocumented noncitizens.”

A third soldier, identified as Enrique Jauregui, has been accused of recruiting and facilitating the scheme.

Text messages between the three soldiers, which were obtained through a search of Palma’s phone, allegedly revealed communications “indicating collaboration in the smuggling operation.”

Mendoza Lopez is charged with one count “of bringing in and harboring aliens” and made his initial court appearance on Monday.

Palma and Jauregui are both charged with one count of “bringing in and harboring aliens” and one count of assaulting a federal agent. They were arrested Tuesday, and are expected to appear in court on Friday.

It was not immediately clear if any of the soldiers had obtained attorneys.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Army base said they “are aware of the arrest of three Fort Cavazos Soldiers” and said they would “continue to cooperate with all federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.”

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(NEW YORK) — The jury has requested to receive two readbacks and several pieces of footage as they continue to deliberate in the subway chokehold death trial of Daniel Penny.

Little more than an hour into deliberations on Tuesday, the jury asked for a readback of a portion of the judge’s instructions on the law. The jury is interested in the part about justified use of force.

They also asked for several pieces of video on Wednesday, including police body camera footage, Penny’s interrogation video, and a bystander’s video.

The jury also asked for a readback of the cross-examination of the city medical examiner who concluded that Penny’s chokehold killed Neely.

The medical examiner, the final witness for the prosecution, found that Neely died from compression to the neck and never wavered from her view under intense cross-examination.

The defense countered her conclusion, suggesting public sentiment about the case had influenced her findings and that Neely died of other factors.

The jury — comprised of seven women and five men — is considering whether to convict Penny of manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man, on a New York City subway train.

To convict, prosecutors have told the jury that Penny’s use of lethal force must be considered unjustifiable and that Penny acted recklessly and consciously disregarded the substantial risk of putting Neely in the chokehold for so long. Defense attorneys told the jury that Penny was only trying to protect subway passengers.

Defense attorneys also said that Penny never intended to kill Neely, while prosecutors said they do not have to prove Penny intended to kill Neely to have the jury hand down a guilty verdict.

Read the key takeaways presented to the jury during the weekslong trial here.

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(GEORGIA) — Donald Trump’s Georgia election interference case should be dismissed because a sitting president is immune from criminal prosecution, the president-elect’s lawyer told a Georgia appeals court on Wednesday.

“A sitting president is completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal,” Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow wrote in a five-page notice filed on Wednesday.

Sadow asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to direct the trial judge overseeing the case to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that local prosecutors are prohibited from interfering with a president’s official duties.

“This is particularly true where, as here, there is compelling evidence of local bias and political prejudice against the President by the local prosecutor, who not only answers to a tiny segment of the American electorate but is acting in clear opposition to the will of the citizens of Georgia as reflected by the recent election results,” Sadow argued.

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty last year to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia. Four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.

The case has been on pause after Trump and his co-defendants launched an effort to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis disqualified from the case over her relationship with a fellow prosecutor. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, but the case has been paused as Trump and his co-defendants appeal the decision.

An oral argument before the Georgia Court of Appeals was initially scheduled for Dec. 5, but was unexpectedly canceled last month without explanation.

Sadow asked the same appeals court to direct McAfee to dismiss the indictment against Trump on the grounds that the prosecution is unconstitutional.

In a similar filing, Trump on Tuesday asked that his criminal hush money case in New York be immediately dismissed because the prosecution disrupts the president-elect’s transition and “threatens the functioning of the federal government.”

A federal judge last week threw out Trump’s federal election interference case after special counsel Jack Smith moved to the dismiss the case due to the Justice Department’s standing policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

A federal appeals court also dropped Trump from the government’s ongoing appeal of Smith’s classified documents case based on the same policy.

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(NEW YORK) — The Minnesota Department of Transportation has issued a “no travel advisory” for highways in northwestern Minnesota as high winds cause dangerous blowing snow and low visibility.

Drivers in Minnesota and North Dakota should be prepared for intense bursts of heavy snow, wind gusts over 40 mph and visibility under one-quarter of a mile.

The cold front will move through the Minneapolis-St. Paul area during the afternoon and reach Chicago by the evening.

The cold front will head to the East Coast by early Thursday morning.

The heaviest snow from this quick-moving clipper system will be near the Great Lakes, where the shot of cold air will create heavy lake effect snow bands.

One to 2 feet of snow is possible from Michigan to upstate New York.

The clipper system will also bring 3 to 10 inches of snow from Massachusetts to Maine.

Up to 10 inches of snow is possible in the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland and West Virginia.

The Interstate 95 corridor — including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City — is not expecting any snow accumulation. But those major cities should be prepared for wind gusts reaching 50 mph.

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(RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Cailf.) — A 7-year-old boy fatally shot his 2-year-old brother after finding a gun in the glove box, according to authorities in California.

The shooting unfolded just before 4 p.m. Monday in the cab of a truck that was in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said.

The shooting appeared to be accidental, sheriff’s department spokesperson Gloria Huerta told ABC News.

The boys’ mom had just parked at a shopping center and was outside of the car, unloading items to bring inside, at the time of the shooting, Huerta told Los Angeles ABC station KABC.

The investigation is ongoing; once completed, a report will be sent to the district attorney’s office for review, the sheriff’s department said.

The type of gun and its registration information have not been released.

“Gun safety is a huge responsibility, but it is also a moral obligation that we have to our children,” Huerta told KABC.

Hundreds of children in the U.S. unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else every year, according to the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety.

Last year, there were 411 accidental shootings by children — the highest number Everytown for Gun Safety had seen since it began tracking the incidents in 2015.

So far this year, there have been at least 270 unintentional shootings by children, causing at least 99 deaths, according to the organization.

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(UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa.) — Rescuers are desperately searching for a grandmother they believe fell into a deep sinkhole — holding out hope of finding her despite the difficult rescue conditions.

Elizabeth Pollard, who was last seen Monday evening, has not yet been found amid the complicated search effort in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, police said Wednesday morning.

The sinkhole is believed to be tied to an abandoned coal mine and formed while Pollard was walking in the area, officials said. Search crews have been able to make entry into the mine area, though the integrity of the mine has been compromised by the water they are using to break up the ground, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Steve Limani said during a briefing Wednesday.

The search will continue as long as needed pending any safety concerns, though the digging process may be slower now, he said.

“Hopefully she’s in an air pocket,” Limani said during a briefing Tuesday evening, noting that there have been incidents in the region where people have survived similar situations in underground mines. “This is a rescue to me until something says that it’s not.”

Rescue teams from nearby areas have joined forces, swapping shifts to keep the effort going. Oxygen tankers are being delivered regularly to supply the mine shaft, and crews have made progress entering the underground area.

The conditions are tough, with clay-like soil making it difficult to dig, but rescuers remain determined.

“We’re doing everything we can, and no one is giving up,” said Limani.

He added, “It’s heartbreaking for her family and everyone here. But we’re not stopping. We’re all hoping for a miracle.”

Pollard was reported missing by a family member shortly before 1 a.m. Tuesday, Limani said at an earlier press conference Tuesday.

Pollard was last seen around 5 p.m. Monday, Limani said. The family member said Pollard had gone out to look for her cat Monday afternoon but has not been heard from since, he said.

Pollard’s vehicle was located shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday with her 5-year-old granddaughter inside, though Pollard was nowhere to be seen, police said.

“At that point in time we realized this could be a very bad situation,” Limani said.

While searching for Pollard in the area, troopers found an apparent sinkhole with an opening about the “size of a manhole” 15 to 20 feet away from the vehicle, Limani said.

Emergency responders were called to the scene in what is currently being considered a rescue mission, authorities said. Local firefighters, a technical rescue team and the state’s Bureau of Mine Safety are among those working alongside an excavation team to remove dirt to access the sinkhole, Limani said.

The current evidence points toward Pollard being in the sinkhole, Limani said.

“We don’t feel a reason that we should be looking elsewhere,” he said.

The sinkhole appears to have been created during the time that Pollard was walking around, Limani said, noting there is no evidence the hole was there before she started looking for her cat.

The area where the sinkhole formed has a “very thin layer of earth” and appears to have been deteriorating “for a long time,” Limani said.

“It appears to be mostly just grass interwoven where she had stepped,” he said. “There wasn’t much earth at all to hold up that space.”

A camera inserted into the opening of the sinkhole showed a “big void, and it was all different depths,” Marguerite Fire Chief Scot Graham told reporters during the earlier press briefing.

A camera did not pick up any sounds, though authorities did see a “modern-type” shoe in the sinkhole, according to Pleasant Unity Fire Chief John Bacha.

“The process is long and it is tedious,” Graham said of the search effort.

The mine last operated in 1952, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The depth to the coal seam in this area is approximately 20 feet, a department spokesperson said.

Once the scene is clear, the department will investigate the site “to determine if this issue is the result of historic mine subsidence,” the spokesperson said.

Pollard’s granddaughter is safe, despite the cold temperatures overnight, and is currently with her parents, Limani said.

The family is asking for privacy at this time and is hoping for “good news,” he said.

“We need to get a little bit lucky,” Limani said. “We’re going to do everything we can.”

ABC News’ Alexandra Faul and Jason Volack contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot and killed by a masked man near a Midtown Manhattan hotel early Wednesday, according to police sources.

The shooting appears to be targeted but police do not know why, sources said.

Thompson was not staying at the Hilton outside of which he was shot, sources said.

Thompson was in New York City for an investors conference and his schedule was widely known, police sources said.

The gunman, who was wearing a ski mask, fled down an alleyway near West 55th Street and remains at large, police said.

The suspect is described as a skinny man wearing all black who stands at about 6-foot-1, police said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(BOULDER, CO) — As the new Netflix docuseries “Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?” reinvigorates public interest in the 1996 case, JonBenet Ramsey’s father said he’s more encouraged now than he’s been in a long time that the person who killed his 6-year-old daughter will be found.

“I’ve been trying for years to break the roadblock in the [Boulder, Colorado] police department, which has been there almost from day one. And we’ve made some, I think, significant progress,” John Ramsey told “Nightline” on Tuesday.

“They’ve done some changes internally. New police chief, they got rid of some of their not-performing detectives. And we have an open, pretty open communication line with the chief of police.”

“The media attention and pressure, I think, has shaken them up,” he added.

On the morning of Dec. 26, 1996, John and Patsy Ramsey woke up to find their daughter, beauty queen JonBenet, missing from their Boulder home and a handwritten ransom note left on the stairs. Hours later, John Ramsey discovered her dead in their basement.

JonBenet’s autopsy determined she was sexually assaulted and strangled, and her skull was fractured. Unknown DNA was found under her fingernails and in her underwear.

John Ramsey, Patsy Ramsey and their son were cleared as suspects in 2008.

Ramsey hopes new DNA technology using genealogy research could help police solve the case — and he wants the Boulder Police Department to share with him what they’re doing.

“When I talked to the chief of police a couple of months ago — maybe it’s been a little longer — he said, ‘Well, we don’t think DNA technology is there yet to do additional testing, and we’re doing some things, but I can’t tell you about it,'” Ramsey said.

“I firmly disagree with the fact that technology is not there yet. It is there. I’ve met with the founders of one of the premier labs. … They told me what they can do. They’d like to participate, they’d like to help.”

Joe Berlinger, who directed the new Netflix docuseries, told “Nightline” that the Ramseys were “brutalized by an unfair process that [police] largely contributed to — the idea that [the family members] were actually the killers. And in response to that, just good karma dictates that [the police] need to treat this family with the care that they deserve, and they should accept all outside help.”

The Boulder Police Department released in a statement about the JonBenet Ramsey case last week.

“We are committed to following up on every lead and we are continuing to work with DNA experts and our law enforcement partners around the country until this tragic case is solved,” it said. “This investigation will always be a priority for the Boulder Police Department. The assertion that there is viable evidence and leads we are not pursuing — to include DNA testing — is completely false.”

The department suggested that anyone with any information to contact detectives at BouldersMostWanted@bouldercolorado.gov or by calling its tipline at 303-441-1974.

Sources told ABC News this week that progress is being made in the investigation.

In the last years, a multi-disciplinary team of experts has been assembled to go through the remaining evidence and apply the most modern scientific and cold case techniques to try to solve the crime, sources said. The team has consulted with top experts in their fields, according to the sources.

According to a law enforcement official briefed on the case, tips have come in as recently as the last month and are being followed up on. The renewed investigative efforts of the Boulder police and partner agencies also stand in contrast to years of limited detective work to get to the bottom of the case.

John Ramsey is following up on leads himself.

He noted that he received a letter this week from a woman who wrote, “I think my husband is a killer” and asked him to call her.

“I will call her,” Ramsey said. “That isn’t the first time we’ve gotten that kind of lead. We always follow up.”

“I’m always looking for that silver bullet — that somebody knows something that wasn’t in the media,” he said.

Since the Netflix docuseries premiered on Nov. 25, Berlinger said he’s been getting tips as well.

Ramsey was interviewed for the docuseries, but noted that he hasn’t watched it because of the emotion the case stirs up.

“I’d like to watch it someday. But for now, it’s just difficult to go back and relive the history,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the case was presented accurately.

“Years ago, I said, ‘Why doesn’t God reveal the killer?’ Somebody said, ‘Well, maybe you’re not ready for that yet. And I thought, well, that may be right. Because initially you put me in the room with this creature, we won’t need a trial. The rage was so intense and I would have had no remorse,” Ramsey told “Nightline.”

“But obviously, that’s not the right thing to do. But that’s how I felt. Now, I want this chapter closed for my family benefit. And I think we’re making good progress in terms of publicly questioning what’s going on. … With pressure, they’ll pay close attention to it, I’m hoping.”

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