Fire chief shot and killed after stopping to help driver who hit deer with their car
Facebook / Coweta County Fire Rescue
(CHAMBERS COUNTY, AL) — A fire chief in Alabama has been shot and killed after he stopped to help a driver who had hit a deer with their vehicle, police said.
The incident occurred at approximately 5 p.m. on Sunday when Chambers County deputies in Alabama were dispatched to County Road 267 near U.S. 431 in the Stroud — located about 100 miles northeast of Montgomery — and found three individuals suffering from gunshot wounds upon their arrival, according to a statement from Chambers County Alabama Sheriff’s Office released on Monday.
One of the shooting victims — identified as 54-year-old James Bartholomew Cauthen from Moreland, Georgia — was deceased when authorities arrived. The other two were taken by helicopter to LaGrange and Columbus trauma centers, police said.
“Early investigation indicates that Chief Cauthen was attempting to assist individuals that had struck a deer while traveling on County Road 267,” police said. “Another individual (William Randall Franklin) that resided in the area opened fire on Chief Cauthen and the individual that struck the deer. All individuals were injured during the shootout. Chief Cauthen succumbed to his injuries prior to deputies arriving on the scene.”
Police did not immediately say why Franklin may have opened fire on Cauthen and the unnamed person who struck the deer with their car, but they did say that Cauthen was a battalion fire chief with Coweta County Fire.
“At this time, investigators are working to piece together the events that led to this horrific scene,” Chambers County Alabama Sheriff’s Office said. “Our hearts and prayers go out to Coweta County for his loss.”
An arrest warrant for murder was issued for Franklin and police said he will be arrested upon release from treatment at Piedmont Medical Center.
“Coweta County Fire Rescue continues to be devastated by the tragic passing of Battalion Chief Bart Cauthen,” Coweta Fire and Rescue said in a statement following Cauthen’s death. “Cauthen has been with our department for more than 24 years. He was an amazing, hard-working man with a gentle soul. Just like many of you, we have many questions as we navigate through this horrible tragedy. Our hearts and prayers go out to Cauthen’s family, friends and our brothers and sisters in the Fire Rescue family who worked closely with him.”
Anyone with information pertaining to this case is asked to contact the Criminal Investigations Division at Chambers County Alabama Sheriff’s Office.
The investigation into the shooting currently remains open.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump and his allies unleashed a legal blitz this week to prevent the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his classified documents and election interference investigations, successfully convincing the federal judge who dismissed Trump’s documents case to issue an emergency injunction temporarily blocking the report’s release.
While Smith has released many of his findings already — through four indictments and a lengthy filing outlining the evidence against Trump — recent disclosures made by attorneys for Trump and his co-defendants suggest that the special counsel’s final report could contain previously undisclosed details that are potentially damaging to the president elect.
Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who reviewed a draft version of the report over the weekend, argued in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland Monday that the report’s release would be a “partisan weapon” and “lawless political stunt, designed to politically harm” President-elect Trump and his allies.
According to Trump’s lawyers, a draft of the report included multiple “baseless attacks” on members of Trump’s incoming presidential administration that could “interfere with upcoming confirmation hearings.”
The letter did not provide any additional information about which, if any, of Trump’s nominees or appointees were mentioned in the report.
According to a court filing from Trump’s defense lawyers Monday, a draft version of the report asserts that Trump “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort,” violated multiple federal laws, and served as the “head” of multiple criminal conspiracies.
Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to charges of unlawfully retaining classified materials after leaving the White House, and, in a separate case, pleaded not guilty to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case this past July after deeming Smith’s appointment unconstitutional, leading Smith to appeal that decision.
Smith, who is now winding down both his cases against the president-elect due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president, has not provided any details about the contents of his report. Smith’s team has accused Trump’s attorneys of violating a confidentiality agreement by making portions of their findings public in their filings.
Special counsels are mandated by internal Justice Department regulations to prepare confidential reports at the conclusion of their investigations to summarize their findings, and the attorney general can determine whether to release the report publicly. Smith’s report includes two volumes, covering his investigation into Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the report’s release would disrupt the ongoing presidential transition process and “exacerbate stigma and public opprobrium surrounding the Chief Executive,” suggesting that the report — which is being prepared by a prosecutor independent from the president — contradicts the Biden administration’s vow to “facilitate an orderly and collegial transition process.”
“It’ll be a fake report, just like it was a fake investigation,” Trump said at a news conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump’s lawyers also suggested that the report included a “pathetically transparent tirade” about social media platform X’s effort to “protect civil liberties.”
ABC News previously reported that X — then known as Twitter — was held in contempt and fined $350,000 for failing to comply with a search warrant for records and data from former President Trump’s social media account. X’s owner, Elon Musk, is now one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and advisers, and spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump.
Blanche and Bove — both of whom Trump has picked for top Justice Department posts in the incoming administration — have argued that the report’s release would only offer a single-sided view of the case and give “rise to a media storm of false and unfair criticism” that Trump would need to address during the transition period.
While Trump is no longer being prosecuted by Smith, his two former co-defendants in the classified documents case have argued they would be unable to have a fair trial if the findings are released publicly. Lawyers for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira have claimed that the report would reveal sensitive grand jury material — such as communications obtained via a subpoena — and support the finding that “everyone Smith charged is guilty of the crimes charged.”
Describing Smith as a “rogue actor with a personal and political vendetta,” lawyers for Trump’s co-defendants argued in a filing that the report would irreparably bias the public by amplifying the government’s “narrative” without providing Trump and his co-defendants the ability to respond.
“Smith’s planned Final Report — now that he is unshackled from due process requirements that restrained him as a government actor — would engender the very prejudice, passion, and excitement and be an exercise of the tyrannical power that our court system is designed to insulate against,” the filing said.
In a brief filing Tuesday, a lawyer on Smith’s staff confirmed that the special counsel’s office is “working to finalize” its report, and said that Garland will have the final say over what material will be made public.
Luiz C. Ribeiro/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Crime in New York City’s transit system dropped in 2024 for the second year in a row, the head of the New York City Police Department said Monday, while acknowledging that people still do not feel safe after several shocking subway incidents that included the death of a woman who was set on fire.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said she has ordered more officers to patrol the subway trains and platforms following the “terrifying acts of random violence.”
Overall, major crime — including incidents of murder, felony assault, robbery and burglary — decreased 5.4% last year in the transit system compared to 2023 and is 12.7% below pre-pandemic crime levels, according to NYPD data.
Compared to the previous year, 2024 saw drops in robberies (down 16.3%) and burglaries (down 23.5%) in the transit system, according to NYPD data. However, murders on the subway doubled, with 10 in 2024 compared to five in 2023, and shootings and petit larceny also increased year-over-year, according to the data.
Tisch called the overall transit crime drop “significant” but more needs to be done to address the perception of safety in the subway system after the “terrifying acts of random violence we have seen recently.”
“I want to be very clear, the subways will always be a bellwether for the perception of public safety in New York City. Declining crime numbers are significant, but we still must do more, because people don’t feel safe in our subways,” Tisch said during a press briefing on Monday.
The sentiment was echoed by New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“It is clear, perception always overrides reality, and when you look at some of the horrific incidents that the commissioner talked about in these last few days, the average New Yorker would believe that they’re living in a city that is out of control. That is not the reality,” Adams said. “We know that we are doing a good job in fighting crime, as the numbers will show, but we must deal with the perception that many New Yorkers feel.”
One such horrifying incident included the killing of a 57-year-old woman who was set on fire last month on a subway train in Brooklyn. The victim, Debrina Kawam, was sleeping when she was set ablaze, police said. An undocumented Guatemalan citizen has been charged with first-degree murder.
In another, a man was critically injured last week after an assailant pushed him onto the subway tracks in front of train in Manhattan in a random attack, police said. The suspect in that case was charged with attempted murder.
“Nothing is more horrific than watching a person burned to death on our subway system. We know how individuals feel when they’re shoved to the tracks for no reason at all. We know how it impacts us,” Adams said Monday.
The latest crime data was announced a day after New York City’s congestion pricing plan went into effect. Under the new toll system, the first such program of its kind in the country, drivers will pay $9 to access the center of Manhattan during peak hours as part of an effort to ease congestion and raise funds for the city’s transit system.
Among measures to address subway safety, Tisch said she has directed to move more than 200 officers onto the trains to do “specialty train patrols,” effective this week.
“I have further directed that we deploy more officers onto subway platforms in the 50 highest crime stations in the city,” she added. “It’s all part of the strategy to refocus our subway efforts to places where the crime is occurring.”
She said more initiatives are in the works.
“This month, we will roll out substantial additional improvements to our transit deployments to be even more responsive to the terrifying acts of random violence we have seen recently,” she said. “I will have more to say about that soon.”
Adams also said addressing “severe mental health” issues will be a focus of the governor’s budget to address public transit safety.
“We know we have to tackle that perception, and it starts with dealing with the real issue — mental health,” he said.
Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she plans to launch a $1 billion plan to address mental health care and supportive housing.
“The recent surge in violent crimes in our public transit system cannot continue — and we need to tackle this crisis head-on,” Hochul said in a statement. “Many of these horrific incidents have involved people with serious untreated mental illness, the result of a failure to get treatment to people who are living on the streets and are disconnected from our mental health care system. We have a duty to protect the public from random acts of violence, and the only fair and compassionate thing to do is to get our fellow New Yorkers the help they need.”
The drop in transit crime coincides with an overall 2.9% drop in crime in 2024, including murders and shootings, Tisch said.
The police commissioner attributed increases in felony assaults to repeat offenders. She called it “disheartening” for police officers to be arresting the same people over and over again due to an increase in the number of decline-to-prosecute cases and a decrease in the number of defendants for whom bail is set.
(WASHINGTON) — A USAID directive to destroy classified documents had been “seriously misapprehended,” Trump administration attorneys wrote in a court filing Wednesday in which they insisted that all records were appropriately handled and “did not violate” federal laws dictating the preservation of government documents.
The American Federation of Government Employees, a union that is suing the Trump administration over its cuts to the federal workforce, asked a federal judge late Tuesday to intervene and prevent the agency from “destroying documents with potential pertinence to this litigation” after a senior USAID official issued guidance to USAID staff ordering the destruction of classified records at its Washington, D.C., headquarters as USAID clears out of its office space.
The guidance urged officials to “shred as many documents first” and to “reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” according to a copy of the message obtained by ABC News.
Justice Department attorneys wrote Wednesday that “trained USAID staff sorted and removed classified documents in order to clear the space formerly occupied by USAID for its new tenant.”
“They were copies of documents from other agencies or derivatively classified documents, where the originally classified document is retained by another government agency and for which there is no need for USAID to retain a copy,” DOJ attorneys wrote.
Trump administration attorneys asserted that “the removed classified documents had nothing to do with” the American Federation of Government Employees’ litigation.
The Trump administration attorneys explained that office space formerly belonging to USAID “is in the process of being decommissioned and prepared for the new tenant,” as ABC News reported Tuesday, and the records needed to be removed from their safes to make room for its new tenants, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Erica Carr, the USAID official who sent the memo ordering the destruction of the documents, wrote in a sworn declaration that “34 employees of USAID, all holding Secret-level or higher clearance, removed outdated and no longer needed derivatively classified documents in classified safes and sensitive compartmentalized information facilities.”
Carr added that most of the records earmarked for destruction remain in burn bags at the agency’s headquarters “where they remain untouched.” She said the documents would not be destroyed until the judge weighs in.
