Customer fatally shoots 18-year-old Waffle House employee, suspect at large: Police
(LAURINBURG, N.C.) — A Waffle House employee was fatally shot in North Carolina by a customer who became “agitated and verbally abusive” toward employees after placing his order, according to the Laurinburg Police Department.
Officers responded to a report of shots fired shortly after midnight Friday at a Waffle House in Laurinburg, where they found 18-year-old Burlie Dawson Locklear suffering from a gunshot wound, police said.
Locklear was transported to Scotland Memorial Hospital where he later died.
An investigation revealed the suspect came to the Waffle House and ordered food, but while it was being prepared he became “more agitated and verbally abusive toward the employees,” according to police.
He walked away from the restaurant after being given his food, but turned while walking to his car and fired two shots toward the Waffle House, striking Locklear, police said.
The suspect then fled the scene, police said.
Police described the suspect is a 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10 Black male with light skin, long dreads, facial hair including a beard and mustache. He was last seen wearing a dark blue hoodie, blue jeans and white shoes.
The suspect was operating a dark gray vehicle, possibly a 2014 Chevrolet, according to police.
The investigation into this incident is active and police are asking anyone with information to contact them.
(NEW YORK) — Something seemed off from the moment Beaver County SWAT sniper Gregory Nicol spotted a man skulking around the outskirts of the site where former President Donald Trump was about to take the stage on July 13.
From his second-floor post inside the AGR complex at the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, Nicol noticed the young man in a gray T-shirt, lurking.
“He was looking up and down the building … It just seemed out of place,” Nicol, assistant leader of the Beaver County SWAT team, told ABC News in an interview that airs Monday on Good Morning America, “It just didn’t seem right.”
Nicol noticed an unattended bike and backpack. And he saw the man looking up and around, then pulling a rangefinder from his pocket. There was no apparent reason to have a distance-gauging device at a political rally featuring the man who, in a few days, would accept his party’s presidential nomination. The sharpshooter snapped pictures of the suspicious-looking man and the bike, then flagged it to fellow snipers from his team assigned to the event and called it into the command group.
Nicol would be the first officer to issue a warning about 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Within an hour, Crooks would open fire from the roof of that very building, less than 200 yards from the rally’s stage, wounding Trump on live TV, killing one person in the crowd, and critically injuring two more.
The sniper and his fellow Beaver County SWAT officers were assigned to Trump’s Butler campaign rally, and tasked with supporting the Secret Service and other law enforcement in the mission to keep the event and Secret Service protectee, safe.
They have not spoken publicly until now.
‘Something that we’ll always carry with us’
In their first public comments since the assassination attempt, the Beaver County SWAT team and their supervisors spoke with ABC News Senior Investigative Correspondent Aaron Katersky, marking the first time any of the key law enforcement personnel who were on site July 13 have offered firsthand accounts of what occurred.
The violent episode has already led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. And, in the wake of the assassination attempt, a series of law enforcement, internal, and congressional probes have been announced — with communications and coordination a key focus of investigators’ attention.
“This one is something that we’ll always carry with us,” assistant Beaver County SWAT leader Mike Priolo told ABC News.
Long before Crooks would fire his AR-style rifle that Saturday evening, Crooks’ presence wasn’t the only thing that didn’t seem quite right to the local SWAT team.
Team members said that the day of the rally, they had no contact with the agents on Trump’s Secret Service detail.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, team leader for Beaver County’s Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section.
“So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened. We had no communication,” Woods said. “Not until after the shooting.”
By then, he said, “it was too late.”
The Secret Service, whose on-site team was supplemented as usual by local, county and state law-enforcement agencies, was ultimately responsible for security at the event, but none of the concerns apparently reached members of Trump’s detail.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to the comments Woods and his colleagues made to ABC News. He said the agency “is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”
To the men and woman of Beaver County SWAT, what happened is clear: There was a lack of planning and communication that caused a catastrophic failure in the protection of Donald Trump. They said they saw the problem coming, and they tried to alert the people in charge and sound the alarm.
With the presidential campaign in full gear and Trump now saying he wants to return for another rally outside Pittsburgh, it is critical to know what went wrong at the last one — so it doesn’t happen again.
“I have to imagine that they’re going to make some very serious adjustments — namely, probably, hold it inside where you have a lot more control over who’s coming in,” said Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible, who oversees the county SWAT unit. “If we’re asked for assistance, we will provide it.”
‘An away game’
By mid-morning on July 13, the Beaver County team of snipers and spotters was in position — hours before Trump was set to take the stage that evening at the sprawling grounds that’s studded by a complex of warehouses.
Once they were positioned at the security perimeter — outside the metal detectors — Woods said he immediately wondered whether they had been put in the most effective spot.
“I think the better location would have been inside looking out, and that’s actually where the Secret Service snipers end up getting placed,” Woods said. “For us to effectively do our job, I don’t know if that was the best location.”
But it was “an away game,” Woods said, meaning his team was not in charge. So they deferred to the Secret Service agents whose job it was to determine the security plan and keep Trump safe.
“I knew the Secret Service knew where we were supposed to be, and that’s where we were placed,” Woods said.
“Our instructions, marching orders were given to us from Butler County EMS unit, their command. With, historically speaking, approval from the Secret Service,” Priolo said.
This was not the team’s first time participating in a Secret Service operation.
“We as a team would assume that that would be a robust type thing, that they would have constant communication. And it very well might have been — we’re just not aware of it,” said Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, the commander of emergency services.
The event’s atmosphere, Young said, also meant a dynamic environment: Officers had to rapidly gauge whether rallygoers’ bulging back pockets held merely bottled water or booze — commonplace at a festive gathering under the blazing summer sun of Western Pennsylvania — or was a sign of something more sinister.
“Our first indication that there was going to be something different about this was the lack of patrol that we’d seen in the area,” Priolo said of the plans.
The effect of that, he said, was that the SWAT officers would have to personally handle any urgent patrol-level incident that should arise.
“The best analogy I’ve heard is — we’re a scalpel, when you’re asking us to be used as a hammer,” Priolo said. “That’s kind of what we figured out throughout the day.”
‘They must have found this guy’
When Nicol observed Crooks’ suspicious presence and called it in to local command via radio, he said he expected action to be taken — like a uniformed officer would “check it out,” according to text messages between snipers on the ground, which were obtained by ABC News.
“The first thing I did, I sent those pictures out, we had a text group between the local snipers that were on the scene. I sent those pictures out to that group and advised them of what I noticed and what I’d seen,” Nicol said. ‘There was a text back that said, ‘Call it into command.’ I then called into our to the command via radio. And they acknowledged.”
“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to — you know, to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what’s going on,” he added.
Nicol moved through the building trying to shadow Crooks, who was outside, and keep eyes on him. But Nicole lost sight of Crooks as Nicol made his way down to the building’s first level.
By that time, Trump had taken the stage, Nicol said.
Then, as the former president began speaking, Nicole noticed rallygoers looking away from the podium, up toward the roof of the AGR building. Some were shouting that there was someone up there.
Nicol said he was almost relieved, thinking to himself, “Oh, they must have found this guy we were looking for out there, and everybody’s watching the police deal with him.”
He would soon discover that wasn’t the case.
“That’s when I heard the gunshots,” Nicol said. Crooks had opened fire on the campaign rally.
SWAT medic Michel Vasiladiotis-Nicol responded with Beaver County SWAT Det. Rich Gianvito, along with other local personnel from Butler County and the surrounding areas.
They squeezed through the fence perimeter and headed toward the building where the shots had come from.
“We then ascended that ladder to then meet up with — what — we weren’t sure again if it was a mass casualty or what we were walking into,” said Vasiladiotis-Nicol, who is sniper Gregory Nicol’s wife.
“We’re prepared for anything at that point,” Gianvito said, including a possible firefight because the team had no idea if the rooftop shooter was dead or alive, or if there could be an accomplice still unaccounted for.
On the roof, they found Crooks motionless and face down — images captured on Gianvito’s helmet camera. Crooks’ wrists had been quickly bound with white plastic ties, in case he was still alive. A long trail of blood flowed down the sloped roof.
Vasiladiotis-Nicol put her gloved fingers to the shooter’s neck. “He had absolutely no pulse,” she recalled.
In the seconds after the shooting, Trump was rushed to a local hospital, where doctors treated a wound to his ear. Later that night he flew back to his golf club in New Jersey. The first photos of him after the shooting — blood down his face, fist raised over the heads of the Secret Service agents rushing him away — have already become iconic images.
What remains are looming questions and an impatient Congress. How could this happen? Could the shooting have been prevented? Was it a failure of planning, coordination, communications — or all of the above?
“I think with some better planning perhaps, it could have been stopped,” said Bible, the Beaver County DA. “You’re protecting one of probably the more high-profile political candidates in history. So, how was a 20-year-old able to fire off several shots at him?”
(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.
(NEW YORK) — A Connecticut woman who was found dead hours before she was scheduled to be sentenced for killing her husband died by suicide after ingesting antifreeze, officials said Monday.
Linda Kosuda-Bigazzi, 76, was found dead at her home on July 24. Troopers responded to the house that morning after an individual reported they were at her residence but were unable to make contact with her, state police said at the time.
Her cause of death is ethylene glycol toxicity, according to the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Kosuda-Bigazzi had pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in March in the 2017 death of her husband, 84-year-old Pierluigi Bigazzi, according to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. Police found the University of Connecticut Health doctor and professor dead in the basement of the couple’s Burlington home while responding to a welfare check call from his employer, who had not heard from him for several months, prosecutors said.
Kosuda-Bigazzi also pleaded guilty to first-degree larceny for continuing to receive her husband’s pay following his death, according to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice. Investigators found checks from her husband’s employer were deposited into the couple’s joint checking account from his death in July 2017 until the discovery of his body in February 2018, prosecutors said.
Her hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. the day she was found dead.
“We were honored to be her legal counsel and did our very best to defend her in a complex case for the past six years,” her attorney, Patrick Tomasiewicz, said in a statement last month following her death. “She was a very independent woman who was always in control of her own destiny.”
ABC News has reached out to the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice for comment on the case.
Kosuda-Bigazzi had been out of jail while awaiting sentencing after posting more than $1.5 million in bail.
Her husband’s death was ruled a homicide by blunt injuries to the head, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Police found handwritten documents at the home in which she claimed she had killed her husband in self-defense, according to court records.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.