Democratic members of Congress get bomb threats on Thanksgiving
Daniel SLIM / AFP via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The homes of multiple Democratic members of Congress in Connecticut were targeted by bomb threats on Thanksgiving Day.
Reps. Joe Courtney, Jahana Hayes, Jim Himes, and John Larson all said their homes were targeted on Thursday.
“This morning, I was notified of a bomb threat targeting my home where I was celebrating Thanksgiving with my family,” Himes said in a statement. “Thankfully, after a swift and thorough response from the United States Capitol Police, the Greenwich Police Department and the Stamford Police Department, no evidence of a bomb was found.”
Hayes said in a statement she was notified by local police that it received a threatening email stating a pipe bomb had been placed in her mailbox at home. Police did not find any evidence of a pipe bomb in his mailbox and said there’s no place for political violence in the country.
“State police, U.S. Capitol Police, and the Sergeant at Arms were immediately notified. The Wolcott Police Department and State Police responded and no bomb or explosive materials were discovered and the scene was cleared. At this time the investigation is ongoing. I thank law enforcement for their swift attention to this matter, their actions demonstrate there is no place in our country for political violence.”
Local outlets in Connecticut reported that Larson and Courtney have received similar threats. ABC News has reached out for comment.
Threats against multiple members of Connecticut congressional delegations come following several of Trump’s cabinet nominees receiving threats, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, and Pete Hegseth.
It’s unclear, though, if the threats against some of Trump’s cabinet picks are connected to the threats against many of Connecticut’s congressional delegation.
Teen believed to be armed stopped from entering Wisconsin elementary school. Via Kenosha Police Department
(KENOSHA, Wis.) — Authorities in Wisconsin say an armed 13-year-old carrying a backpack and duffel bag was stopped from entering an elementary school Thursday morning after being confronted by school staff and taken into custody several hours later.
“We narrowly missed a tragedy,” Kenosha Police Chief Patrick D. Patton told reporters Thursday.
The 13-year-old, who previously attended Roosevelt Elementary School, attempted to enter the building at about 9 a.m. local time, Patton said.
The suspect tried to enter through other doors to the school building, but was not able to get in, Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told reporters at a news conference. He then approached the front entrance and was buzzed into a vestibule area. Two school employees confronted the student, who got nervous and then fled, Weiss said.
“I can’t stress … really how heroic our office staff was,” Weiss said, adding “They helped avert a disaster.”
Police later identified the teen suspect, thanks to tips from the community.
“We can confirm that this was not just a suspicious individual, we believe that this was actually an armed suspect with a firearm and there was no legitimate reason to enter the school,” Patton said at a later news conference.
Police took the suspect into custody shortly after 2 p.m. local time. During the earlier news conference, police played a video they said depicted the suspect with a firearm and said the suspect looked up school shootings online and made comments to fellow students for weeks leading up to the incident.
Kenosha is located about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A jury on Friday found former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison guilty of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights during a fatal botched police raid, in a retrial of the federal case against him.
The guilty verdict came hours after the jury acquitted Hankison of a second count of violating the civil rights of three of Taylor’s neighbors, who lived in an adjacent apartment that was also struck by gunfire during the raid. After the partial verdict was delivered, jurors, who remained deadlocked on the count specifically related to Taylor, were instructed by the judge to continue deliberating.
The jury returned a guilty verdict on that count shortly before 9:30 p.m., according to Louisville ABC affiliate WHAS.
Family and friends of Taylor hugged each other and cheered after leaving court late Friday night.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, thanked prosecutors and jurors. “They stayed the course,” Palmer said of prosecutors, who retried the case after Hankison’s first federal trial ended in a mistrial last year when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating for several days.
As deliberations this time around stretched late into the evening Friday, Palmer said she began to feel defeated. “The later it got, the harder it got, and I’m just glad to be on the other side,” she said.
“Now, I just want people to continue to say Breonna Taylor’s name,” her mother said.
Taylor was fatally shot during the March 2020 raid. The three officers fired dozens of rounds after her boyfriend fired one round at them, striking one of the officers.
Hankison fired 10 rounds through Taylor’s sliding glass door and window, which were covered with blinds and curtains, prosecutors said. Several of the rounds traveled into Taylor’s neighbor’s apartment, where three people were at the time. None of the 10 rounds hit anyone.
Prosecutors argued Hankison’s use of force was unjustified, put people in danger and violated the civil rights of Taylor and her three neighbors. The indictment alleged Hankison deprived Taylor of the right to be free from unreasonable seizures and deprived her neighbors of the right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
Several witnesses, including Louisville’s current police chief, testified during the trial that the former officer violated Louisville police policy requiring officers to identify a target before firing, according to The Associated Press.
The defense argued during the trial that Hankison had joined a poorly planned raid and that he fired his weapon after believing someone was advancing toward the other officers, the AP reported.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs, when they broke down the door to her apartment. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot with a handgun, striking one of the officers in the leg. The three officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment.
The original indictment alleged Hankison had also violated Walker’s civil rights, though Walker was removed from the charge at the beginning of the retrial.
The retrial marked the third trial for Hankison, following the initial mistrial as well as a state trial in 2022, in which he was acquitted of multiple wanton endangerment charges.
Like in his previous trials, Hankison took the stand during the retrial, getting emotional at times over two days of testimony, according to WHAS, the ABC affiliate in Louisville covering the case in the courtroom.
Hankison told the jurors he was “trying to stay alive, [and] trying to keep my partners alive,” according to WHAS.
Hankison insisted “the only person my bullet could have struck was the shooter,” saying there was “zero risk” of hitting anyone outside the threat, according to WHAS.
He said that night was the first time he fired his gun in nearly 20 years of policing, according to the AP.
Hankison was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department for violating department procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired into the apartment.
The two other officers involved in the raid were not charged. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called Taylor’s death a “tragedy” but said the two officers were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Walker.
(MOUNTAINVIEW, Colo.) — A 17-year-old was shot in the face while he was looking for a location to take homecoming pictures in Colorado, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies responded to a report of two trespassers on a property at around 4 p.m. Tuesday. The homeowner also called her boyfriend to report the trespassers, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies arrived on the scene to find a teenager bleeding heavily from his face as his friend applied pressure to the wounds with a T-shirt. A man identified as Brent Metz, 38, was standing with the two boys, according to the sheriff’s office.
The injured boy told a responding deputy that Metz shot him in the face through the windshield of his car, the sheriff’s office said.
The teen told the deputy he and his friend had driven to the property to see if they could take their homecoming pictures there. The boys parked at the gate, jumped the fence and walked up to the driveway to speak to the homeowner, but it appeared no one was home, according to the sheriff’s office.
The boys then walked around the property trying to find the homeowner, but were unable to, authorities said. They then walked to their car and began writing a note to the homeowner asking for permission to use the property, according to the sheriff’s office.
As they wrote the note, a man they had never seen before pulled up next to them, exited the truck he was driving and fired a round through the windshield, striking the 17-year-old driver in the face, according to the sheriff’s office.
The boy was taken by ambulance to the hospital, according to the sheriff’s office. The teen’s current condition is not known.
Deputies found the weapon used in the shooting in Metz’s truck, according to the sheriff’s office.
Metz was arrested and transported to the sheriff’s office, where he was booked into jail for first degree assault, felony managing, illegal discharge of a firearm and reckless endangerment, according to the sheriff’s office.
