Couple in Lamborghini kidnapped and beaten while house hunting, police say
(NEW YORK) — A couple in their 50’s were kidnapped and assaulted this weekend while house hunting in Connecticut, police have said.
The incident occurred on Sunday afternoon in the city of Danbury, when a group of six men intentionally rear-ended the couple’s Lamborghini sports car before forcing them into the back of a van.
The men — all of whom live in Florida — beat the couple with a baseball bat, duct taped their hands and feet and covered the male victim’s eyes. Some members of the group then drove off with the Lamborghini while the others sought to escape with the victims in the van.
“It seems like they were struck with a bat,” Sgt. Steven Castrovinci said of the kidnapped couple, as quoted by ABC News’ New York City station WABC-TV. “The male victim was pretty bruised, pretty swollen and they indicated they were struck with a bat several times.”
A witness alerted law enforcement and followed the van until it lost control and crashed. Police were then able to apprehend the four men in the van and free the kidnapped couple. The other two men were arrested later.
Police told WABC that the two victims were taken to the hospital and are recovering from their injuries, which are not life-threatening.
All six suspects now face charges including first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping and reckless endangerment. The motive remains unclear, and there is no clear connection between the suspect and the victims.
WABC named the arrested men as Angel Borrero, 23; Reynaldo Diaz, 22; Anthony Pena, 23; Josue Romero, 26; Ricardo Estrada, 21; and Michael Rivas, 18.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) — The former sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot Sonya Massey in her Illinois home while responding to her call for help has held six different police jobs since 2020, the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board confirmed to ABC News.
Body camera footage released Monday shows former deputy Sean Grayson yelling at Massey, an unarmed 36-year-old Black woman and mother of two, to put down a pot of boiling hot water.
The footage, reviewed by ABC News, shows that Massey told the deputy, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” and then she apologized after the officer threatened to shoot her. She poured the water into the sink and ducked down behind a counter, covering her face with what appears to be a red oven mitt. She briefly rose, and Grayson shot her three times in the face.
A review by Illinois State Police found that Grayson was not justified in his use of deadly force.
Grayson, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in Massey’s death.
The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILETSB) records show that Grayson, 30, worked three full-time and three part-time jobs in four police departments and two sheriff’s offices over the past four years, all within the state of Illinois.
Grayson was employed at three different police departments in 2021 alone, the records show. His shortest term of employment was with the Kincaid Police Department, where he was employed for just over three months. Records list his reason for leaving as “other.”
His longest term of employment was with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, where he worked for a year and two months. Grayson was fired from Sangamon County last week, following Massey’s death.
Grayson worked part time at the Pawnee Police Department from August 2020 to July 2021; his reason for leaving is listed as “other.” He also worked part time at the Kincaid Police Department from February to May of 2021.
The Kincaid Police Department told ABC News that Grayson was “let go by the Village of Kincaid board when he refused to live within the 10-mile radius of the village.” They also said they have no complaints against Grayson and no disciplinary actions were taken against him while he worked with the Kincaid police.
The Virden Police Department hired him part time from May to December 2021, and he also worked full time at the Auburn Police Department from July 2021 to May 2022. Both departments list his reason for leaving as “resigned.”
Grayson then worked at the Logan County Sheriff’s Office full time from May 2022 until he resigned in April 2023. He was hired at the Sangamon Sheriff’s Office in May 2023 where he remained until he was fired last week.
ABC News is seeking further details on Grayson’s employment history.
“It is clear that the deputy did not act as trained or in accordance with our standards. Therefore, Sean Grayson’s employment with the Sheriff’s Office has been terminated,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell wrote in a statement last week announcing Grayson’s termination.
Massey’s father, James Wilburn, questioned Grayson’s employment history.
“The biggest question is: How did this man ever get hired in law enforcement?” Wilburn told ABC News. “When a Black man has just a little blemish in his credit, he can’t get hired in the police department. But here’s a man who, in four years, he’s been in six different departments.”
Wilburn has also criticized Sheriff Campbell for his role in Grayson’s employment and called for Campbell to resign at a press conference on Tuesday.
“The sheriff here is an embarrassment,” Wilburn said. “[Grayson] should have never had a badge. And he should have never had a gun. He should have never been given the opportunity to kill my child.”
Campbell told ABC News he will not be resigning.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Massey’s family, says that Grayson must be held accountable for his actions.
“Sonya Massey needed a helping hand. She did not need a bullet to the face. We cannot continue to shoot first and ask questions later when it’s Black people,” Crump said to ABC News.
ABC News’ Davi Merchan and Emily Chang Contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Twenty-three years after Sept. 11, 2001, illnesses linked to the World Trade Center terrorist attack have now killed more members of the New York City Fire Department than were killed on 9/11 itself.
On the day the Twin Towers fell, 343 members of the FDNY were killed, according to officials.
In the 23 years since, more than 360 FDNY members have died of World Trade Center-related illnesses, the department said. Twenty-eight of those FDNY deaths were over the last year, according to the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association.
“Those insurmountable losses did not end at the World Trade Center site,” New York City Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker said. “Instead, we have seen our members become sick because of time they spent working in the rescue and recovery.”
Of the 2,753 people killed at the World Trade Center, about 40% — 1,103 people — remain formally unidentified. There has not been a new identification of remains since January.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s annual commemoration ceremony will take place on Wednesday, beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET.
(NEW YORK) — The two astronauts who went up to the International Space Station (ISS) on Boeing’s Starliner may have to come home on a different spacecraft, NASA officials said during a press conference Wednesday.
Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams, who performed the first crewed test flight of Starliner, have been in space for more than 60 days. When they launched on June 5, they were only supposed to be on the ISS for about a week.
Boeing and NASA officials have been resistant to exploring the option to bringing the crew home on another method but Kenneth Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said the team is considering it.
“We don’t just have to bring a crew back on Starliner for example. We can bring them back on another vehicle,” he said. “In the case that we have with the Starliner crew flight test, the option to either bring the crew home on Starliner or to bring the crew home on another vehicle, we could take either path.”
Bowersox said there is currently more “consensus” needed among the team, but they are also getting “more serious about evaluating our other options.”
Wilmore and Williams are “integrated” with the Expedition 71 crew aboard the ISS and Bowersox said that, although it’s helpful to have extra hands onboard the station, they are using up more supplies meant for the ISS crew.
Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said NASA is considering sending SpaceX’s Dragon Crew-9, set to launch to the ISS in September, with only two of the four astronauts assigned to it.
The spacecraft would carry extra spacesuits for Wilmore and Williams. However, the two would remain on the ISS until February 2025, when Crew-9 is set to return to Earth. Stich said the proposed plan has not formally been approved yet.
“Our prime option is to return Butch and Suni on Starliner. However, we have done the requisite planning to make sure we have other options open,” Stich said.
Stich added that Starliner does not currently have the ability to autonomously undock from the ISS. To do that, the Starliner software would need to be updated and the Boeing flight control team would need to undergo additional training.
In a statement to ABC News, Boeing said it was confident in Starliner’s ability to bring the astronauts home.
“[Crew Flight Test] is currently a crewed mission, and we still believe in Starliner’s capability and its flight rationale,” the statement read. “If NASA decides to change the mission, we will take the actions necessary to configure Starliner for an uncrewed return.”
Starliner is part of the largerCommercial Crew Programat NASA, which was testing if Boeing’s spacecrafts could be certified to perform routine missions to and from the ISS.
Wilmore and Williams were originally scheduled to return on June 14 but have since had their return delayed multiple times.
Starliner has been plagued by issues even before launch. The flight test was originallytentatively scheduled for May 6, but was scrubbed after a problem with an oxygen valve on a rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA), which manufactures and operates the rockets that launch spacecraft into orbit.
A new launch date had been set for May 25, but asmall helium leak was discovered in the service module, which contains support systems and instruments for operating a spacecraft.
Helium leaks and a thruster issue then threatened to delay Starliner’s docking. Five days after docking at the ISS, NASA and Boeing said the spacecraft was experiencingfive “small” helium leaksand, at the time, said enough helium was available for the return mission.
Last month, teams at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico performed ground tests of Starliner’s thruster, putting it through similar conditions the spacecraft experienced on its way to the ISS, to see how it would react upon undocking.