‘Combative’ man restrained by fellow passengers on Frontier Airlines flight after breaking window plexiglass
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(HOUSTON) — A man aboard a Frontier Airlines flight en route to Houston had to be restrained by fellow passengers on Wednesday after he began kicking seats and hitting a window, eventually breaking the plexiglass, police said.
The flight, F9 4856, departed from Denver and was in the air for about 20 to 30 minutes, when a woman asked the man behind her to switch seats, according to passenger Victoria Clark. This man quickly became enraged, profusely kicking the woman’s seat and trying to break the window, Clark said.
“I started having a panic attack,” Clark told ABC News. “[I thought] it could be a terrorist attack.”
The man continued to hit the window and was eventually able to break the plexiglass, passengers said. Without an air marshal on board, flight attendants asked if there was any law enforcement to help, passengers recounted. That’s when Tanner Phillips, a former member of the military, said he stepped in.
“This guy was just going crazy,” Phillips told ABC News. “He was screaming in multiple languages, punching out the window and laying back and trying to kick it out. I wanted to help as much as I could.”
Phillips said he and several others grabbed hold of the man, using zip ties and boot laces to restrain him and put him back in his seat. Instead of making an emergency landing, the flight continued toward its destination of Houston — forcing the group of good Samaritans to ensure the man did not escape for about two hours.
The man’s blood was everywhere around the window and the ceiling of the aircraft, since the plexiglass cut up his hands, Phillips said.
“You never know what someone is capable of,” Phillips said. “I’m really grateful that we were able to handle the situation and no one got harmed.”
Once the plane landed safely in Houston at around 10:20 p.m. local time, Clark said everyone felt an immense sigh of relief.
“People were clapping,” Clark said. “Everyone was saying thank you to all the gentlemen that helped make sure that we got there safely.”
The Houston Police Department said they received a report that there had been a “combative passenger on board,” and were already on the scene by the time the plane had landed.
Frontier Airlines declined to press charges at the scene, and police are reaching out to airport officials to see what happened to the man. Since the man is not currently facing charges, his name was not released, according to police.
Several passengers, including Jessica Brown and her daughter Chloe Starks, hope this incident shows the need for increased security aboard aircrafts, so that something like this does not happen again.
“It’s just insanity. I don’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Brown told ABC News. “I wish in 2025 we would not have situations like this.”
-ABC News’ Lindsey Krill and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WEST POINT, N.Y.) — The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has disbanded a dozen clubs on campus related to gender and race, ABC News has confirmed.
The National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers Club, the Latin Cultural Club and the Native American Heritage Forum were among the clubs ordered to cease operations.
The changes were made “in accordance with recent Presidential Executive Orders, Department of Defense guidance, and the Department of the Army guidance,” according to a memo obtained by ABC News.
The memo, dated Tuesday, comes amid President Donald Trump’s sweeping eradication of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government.
The directive “cancels all sections, meetings, events, and other activities associated with these clubs,” according to the memo.
Websites for the various clubs are no longer available online.
The memo also suggests a full review of other clubs on campus is underway.
West Point did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(MADISON, WI) — Police are investigating the online footprint of 15-year-old Abundant Life Christian School shooting suspect Natalie Rupnow — who went by Samantha — as they piece together the course of events that left three people dead, Rupnow among them.
Meanwhile, numerous schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District “were targeted by false threats often known as swatting” Tuesday, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told reporters at a news conference.
Police are investigating, Barnes said, and he noted authorities do not believe there are any current threats. “Making false threats is a crime, and we are working with the district attorney,” he said.
Barnes said police are still working to establish a motive for Monday’s deadly shooting, suggesting there were multiple factors.
Police are talking to students to determine if bullying was one, he said. “Everyone was targeted in this incident and everyone was put in equal danger,” Barnes added.
Barnes said police are also investigating Rupnow’s online activity. The police chief urged anyone who knew her or had insights into her feelings to call Madison Area Crime Stoppers at 608-266-6014.
One teacher and one student were killed in the Monday morning shooting, which took place inside a classroom during a study hall “full of students from multiple grade levels.”
Two other students remain in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. Three students and a teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Rupnow died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before law enforcement arrived, police said. Officers did not fire their weapons.
Rupnow’s parents are cooperating with the investigation, Barnes told ABC News on Tuesday.
“They were cooperative. Despite this tragedy, they still lost a child. They still lost a member of their family,” Barnes said.
“It is certain that they have probably more questions than anyone because they knew her,” he said. “They lived with her and so we wanted to get an account from them of what kind of child she was.”
Her father is being questioned by investigators, Barnes said. He said he didn’t know whether the mother had been questioned, noting that she’s been out of town.
A candlelight vigil was held Tuesday night at the state capitol for the victims of the shooting.
“Yesterday, the Madison community experienced a terrible and traumatic event,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said at the vigil. “We will never be the same, but we will get through this. And we will get through this together by relying on each other and taking care of each other.”
The victims have not been publicly identified. Rhodes-Conway told reporters during the news conference that they are respecting the privacy of the victims’ families and will “share what we can when we can and not before that.”
“Let them grieve. Let them recover. Let them heal,” she said.
Students in kindergarten through 12th grade attend the Christian school.
“I was in the hallway, and I was changing from my shoes to my boots to go to lunch because I have recess after, but then I heard the shooting and screams,” a girl in second-grade told Chicago ABC station WLS.
James Smith told ABC News his 17-year-old daughter was in physics class at the time gunshots rang out two classrooms away. She wasn’t hurt.
Smith said Abundant Life Christian School welcomes students who may have been bullied or had a tough time at other schools.
“We, as a school, desire to help those who are having troubles, to be able to provide a safe space for them to grow, at the same time balance across a safe space for the rest of our student body,” he said.
Smith also said the school’s population grew dramatically post-pandemic as many parents sought an alternative to public schools.
In the wake of Monday’s shooting, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are urging elected officials to combat gun violence.
Biden in a statement called the shooting “shocking and unconscionable,” and he mentioned his administration’s efforts to combat the gun violence epidemic in the U.S., including the implementation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
Biden asked Congress to pass “commonsense” gun safety laws, including universal background checks, a national red flag law and a ban on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Biden said, adding, “We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”
“It’s another school shooting, another community being torn about and torn apart by gun violence,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in remarks Tuesday. “And of course, our nation mourns for those who were killed, and we pray for the recovery of those who are injured and for the entire community.”
Harris, who played a role in the Biden administration’s efforts to combat gun violence, stressed, “We as a nation must renew our commitment to end the horror of gun violence, both mass shootings and everyday gun violence that touches so many communities in our nation.”
“We must end it, and we must be committed to have the courage to know that solutions are in hand, but we need elected leaders to have the courage to step up and do the right thing,” she said.
ABC News’ Alex Perez, Briana Stewart and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
Moses Stewart and Diane Hawkins grieve over the slaying of their son Yusuf Hawkins; Nicole Bengiveno/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — When Yusuf Hawkins, a Black 16-year-old, was shot and killed in Brooklyn in 1989 as he went to purchase a car, the crime set off months of angry protests.
Now, the man convicted in Hawkins’ murder, who has been behind bars for nearly 35 years, will get a chance Thursday to prove his innocence with what his defense attorney says is new evidence.
Joseph Fama, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was part of a white mob that chased down Hawkins and three other unarmed Black youths in August 1989 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, according to court documents.
Fama, who is white, was convicted in May 1990 of second-degree murder, first-degree riot, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree unlawful imprisonment, menacing and discrimination. All counts were ordered to run concurrently, giving Fama 25 years to life in prison, according to court documents.
“Unfortunately, terribly, Yusuf Hawkins, innocent, innocent man, was killed — let’s just start with that — because he’s Black,” Justin Bonus, Fama’s attorney, told ABC News in a phone interview last week. “My client was not involved with this whole group of kids sitting there waiting for Black guys to come.”
The murder sparked protests against racial violence around New York City at a time when tensions were high. Months earlier, the Central Park Five, a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers, were wrongfully convicted of rape and assault of a white female jogger.
Five witnesses testified that they saw Fama shoot Hawkins, and four more witnesses placed Fama at the scene the night that the teenager was shot three times, according to court documents. Two jailhouse informants testified that Fama admitted to them that he shot Hawkins because he was Black, according to court documents.
“First of all, jailhouse informants, are we going to go by that?” Bonus said to ABC News.
The judge in Fama’s original trial did not allow the father of one of the informants to testify that he believed his son was lying about his claim that Fama confessed that he killed Hawkins. The courts made that decision because the defense failed to lay a foundation for the admission of the evidence during cross-examination of the informant, according to court documents.
According to a motion by Fama’s defense, two of the witnesses, who previously said that they saw Fama kill Hawkins, recanted their testimonies and claimed that they were coerced by investigators to pin the shooting on the defendant.
During the original trial, the court denied the defense’s request to call Frankie Tighe, one of the witnesses who recanted his testimony, to the stand because defense attorneys had already rested their case four days before their request, according to court documents.
Keith Mondello, one of the alleged leaders of the mob that chased Hawkins and who was convicted, provided new evidence that also claimed Fama was not the killer, according to court documents.
Five additional witnesses originally claimed that, after the shooting, Tighe ran around the corner to their location and they heard him say, “Joe Fama just shot a Black kid,” according to court documents.
The defense says they have new evidence that one of those witnesses later recanted their testimony and stated that detectives spoke to him many times and pressured him to accuse Fama, according to the defense’s motion.
On Aug. 23, 1989, at about 9:00 p.m. Hawkins and three of his peers took a subway train from their Brooklyn neighborhood in East New York to Bensonhurst to look at a used car for sale, according to court documents.
The four peers became lost in Bensonhurst and, as they searched for the address of where the used car would be, they came across a group of 20 to 40 white individuals who, coincidentally, were expecting Black and Hispanic men to attend a birthday party in the neighborhood that night, according to court documents.
The party was hosted by an 18-year-old white woman who the men in the neighborhood believed invited Black and Hispanic men to the birthday celebration, according to Bonus. The men gathered in the vicinity of her home, allegedly voiced racist threats and armed themselves with bats, golf clubs and handguns as they allegedly waited for the men of color to come to the party, according to court documents.
The group of men chased Hawkins and his peers when they saw them, according to court documents. The confrontation ended with Hawkins shot. He died a short time later. Fama was sentenced for 25 years to life in prison on June 11, 1990.
The defense claims to have twelve new affidavits from witnesses that allege that Fama did not shoot Hawkins. Some of those witnesses say police pressured them to accuse Fama.
The defense motion focuses on one investigator, former Detective Louis Scarcella, claiming he was “significantly involved with the investigation and procuring witnesses.”
A complaint against Scarcella alleges that nearly 20 homicide convictions associated with the former detective have been vacated and in at least nine of those convictions, Scarcella coerced false confessions or fabricated written confessions from innocent individuals, according to court records.
Joel Cohen, Scarcella’s attorney, told ABC News over the phone that some judges found that Scarcella was involved in improper tactics which led to the convictions of several individuals, but the court only found innocence in one of the overturned cases.
Scarcella didn’t file a response to any of the complaints, according to his attorney.
“Joseph Fama’s motion to vacate his conviction for the racially motivated murder of Yusef Hawkings 32 years ago is flatly contradicted by the overwhelming evidence of his guilt,” Cohen told ABC News in part through a statement. “His lawyer’s claims that the that the “…”murder investigation was led by Detective Louis Scarcella ,” and that Scarcella was “all over the investigation” are reckless and provably false and based in part by the lawyer’s “surmise.”
The DA’s office told ABC News that Scarcella only played a minor role in the investigation and was one of more than 65 investigators working on the case. The defense believes Scarcella was “significantly involved in” the investigation, according to court documents.
The NYPD did not reply to ABC News’ request for a statement.
The DA’s office claims witnesses testified that they saw Fama receive a gun from the individual who Bonus alleges was the actual shooter just before Hawkins’ death.
In Tighe’s recanted statement, he claimed that Fama used a silver handgun in the shooting, but Claude Stanford, one of Hawkins’ peers who was with him the night he was shot, said that the shooter used a black gun and was about 6 feet tall, according to the defense’s motion. Fama was about 5 feet, 8 inches tall at the time, according to court documents.
Fama has already tried twice to appeal his conviction and was denied by the court both times, according to legal documents. This is his third attempt to vacate his conviction.
Fama’s court conference hearing is set for Nov. 21, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
