LA protests lead to federal charges for 2 men accused of throwing Molotov cocktails
Two men are being charged by the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles for possession of an unregistered destructive device for their roles in the Los Angeles protest violence. U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles
(LOS ANGELES) — Two men are being charged by the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles for possession of an unregistered destructive device for their alleged roles in the LA protest violence, federal prosecutors will announce Wednesday.
Emiliano Galvez and Wrackkie Quiogue are both accused of trying to throw Molotov cocktails at police, according to federal prosecutors.
When the LAPD approached Quiogue — who officials said was armed with a Molotov cocktail at Sunday’s protest in downtown LA — he allegedly “threw the Molotov cocktail into the air and attempted to flee,” the complaint said. The confrontation was caught on officer body camera.
LAPD officers subdued Quiogue and arrested him, prosecutors said.
Galvez is accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail over a wall toward LA sheriff’s deputies who were “engaging in crowd control activities” during a protest in Paramount, a city in south LA County , on Saturday, federal prosecutors said. The incident was caught on officer body camera.
Galvez was arrested after a foot chase, officials said.
The protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue to grip LA; Mayor Karen Bass issued an overnight curfew for about 1 square mile of downtown.
The protests have also spread to other cities including New York City, Seattle, Chicago San Francisco, Boston, and Austin, Texas.
(LOS ANGELES) — Eight relatives of the Menendez brothers sat down with ABC News in an exclusive interview the night before the case returns to court to show they are unanimous in supporting Erik and Lyle Menendez’s release from prison.
This marks the first time the brothers’ aunt, Jose Menendez’s sister, Terry Baralt, has spoken out in decades.
“They are like the boys that I didn’t have,” she told ABC News.
“It’s time — 35 years is a long time,” she said. “It’s a whole branch of my family erased. The ones that are gone and the ones that are still paying for it, which were kids.”
Baralt, who is battling colon cancer, said she’s concerned she might not live to see her nephews be released from prison.
“I have tried to go see them as much as I can, but it’s hard because I live in New Jersey and I’m 85. I don’t have that much time,” she said.
“When kids are little and they come to you, you fix the problem. I can’t help them. … There is nothing I can do — just go visit them and cry when I leave,” she said, overcome with emotion. “This is why I don’t give interviews. It’s hard.”
Lyle and Erik Menendez — who are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 1989 murders of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez — are fighting to be released after 35 years behind bars.
A hearing will be held on Friday’s on Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman’s motion to withdraw the brothers’ resentencing petition. Depending on what the judge decides, another resentencing hearing may be set for April 17 and 18.
Last month, Hochman asked the court to withdraw the motion from the previous district attorney, which was in support of resentencing. Hochman argued the brothers hadn’t taken responsibility for their actions and called their claims of self-defense part of a litany of “lies.”
Because the “brothers persist in telling these lies for the last over 30 years about their self-defense defense and persist in insisting that they did not suborn any perjury or attempt to suborn perjury, then they do not meet the standards for resentencing,” Hochman said.
Hochman told ABC News last month that he would reconsider resentencing only if the brothers admitted to “the full range of their criminal activity and all the lies that they have told about it.”
In October, Hochman’s predecessor, George Gascón, announced he supported resentencing the brothers.
Gascón recommended their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be removed, and said they should instead be sentenced for murder, which would be a sentence of 50 years to life. Because both brothers were under 26 at the time of the crimes, they would be eligible for parole immediately with the new sentence.
Gascón’s office said its resentencing recommendations take into account many factors, including rehabilitation in prison and abuse or trauma that contributed to the crime. Gascón praised the work Lyle and Erik Menendez did behind bars to rehabilitate themselves and help other inmates.
Over 20 Menendez relatives are pushing for the brothers’ release, arguing they endured horrific abuse, have admitted guilt and apologized, and have used their decades behind bars to help others.
Ahead of Thursday night’s interview, Erik Menendez asked his cousin, Diane VanderMolen, to pass along a message to ABC News.
“They are truly, deeply sorry for what they did. And they are profoundly remorseful,” she said. “They are filled with remorse over what they did. And through that, they have become pretty remarkable people.”
Resentencing is one of three possible paths to freedom for the brothers.
Another path is the brothers’ request for clemency, which has been submitted to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom announced in February that he was ordering the parole board to conduct a 90-day “comprehensive risk assessment” investigation into whether Lyle and Erik Menendez pose “an unreasonable risk to the public” if they’re granted clemency and released.
After the risk assessment, the brothers will appear at independent parole board hearings on June 13, Newsom said.
The third path is the brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which they filed in 2023 for a review of two new pieces of evidence not presented at trial: a letter Erik Menendez wrote to his cousin eight months before the murders detailing his alleged abuse from his father, and allegations from a former boy band member who revealed in 2023 that he was raped by Jose Menendez.
In February, Hochman announced that he was asking the court to deny the habeas corpus petition, arguing the brothers’ new evidence wasn’t credible or admissible.
ABC News’ Matt Gutman and Ashley Riegle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In a court filing Friday, the Trump administration said it won’t release Columbia University pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz barred the Trump administration from seeking to deport or continue to detain Khalil based on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that his continued presence in the country would pose a risk to foreign policy.
The judge stayed his injunction until 9:30 a.m. ET Friday, giving the Trump administration about 40 hours to appeal the decision.
In its filing Friday, the Justice Department attorneys said that Judge Farbiarz’ preliminary injunction does not prohibit the government from detaining Kahlil on a second set of grounds — however rare his detention on those grounds may be.
“While the Court made a factual finding that it was unlikely that Khalil would be detained on another basis … the Court never held that it would be unlawful for Respondents to detain Khalil based on another charge of removability,” DOJ lawyers wrote.
Khalil, a green card holder who is married to an American citizen, has been held in a Louisiana detention facility since ICE agents arrested him in the lobby of his apartment building in New York City on March 8.
In April, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil is deportable based on Rubio’s assertion that his continued presence and actions in the country pose an “adverse foreign policy consequence.” The judge has yet to rule on a second set of charges which stem from the Department of Homeland Security’s allegations that Khalil withheld information on his green card application.
But Judge Farbiarz said in his ruling that lawful permanent residents, like Khalil, who are accused of making misrepresentations on their applications are “virtually never detained pending removal.”
Trump administration officials have said Khalil was detained for his purported support of Hamas — a claim his legal team has rejected.
In a memo filed in the case, Rubio wrote that Khalil should be deported because of his alleged role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
(NEW YORK) — Over half of Puerto Rico had their electricity restored by Thursday evening following an island-wide blackout that left 1.4 million customers in the dark and disrupted service at hospitals, its international airport and hotels, according to the Associated Press.
The outage, which began Wednesday afternoon, also left more than 400,000 residents without water. By Thursday evening, power had been restored to 57% of customers, while water service resumed for 83% of the affected population, the AP reported.
The cause of the blackout remains under investigation as of Thursday.
LUMA Energy, the private company responsible for power transmission on the island, said in a statement that the massive outage appears to have been caused by a combination of factors, including a “failure in the protection system as initial trigger” and vegetation on a transmission line along the island’s northern coast.
“This sequence of failures triggered a chain of events that resulted in an island-wide outage,” LUMA said in the statement.
In a Wednesday X post, LUMA Energy said it could take two to three days to restore service to 90% of customers. It noted that the priority was restoring power to critical facilities like Centro Médico hospital in the capital San Juan.
Earlier in the day, LUMA Energy said the Palo Seco plant, just outside San Juan, came back online around 3 p.m., “which represents a key step toward system recovery.”Rep. Ritchie Torres criticized the ongoing power crisis in an Instagram post.
“The three million American citizens of Puerto Rico have long been denied affordable and reliable electricity — despite paying some of the highest utility rates in the United States,” Torres said. “Access to dependable power — a basic right most Americans take for granted — remains out of reach for millions on the island. As we speak, more than 400,000 Puerto Ricans are without electricity in the wealthiest nation on Earth. That is a national disgrace.”
The blackout is the latest in a series of significant power disruptions that have plagued the island in recent years, following the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017, which destroyed much of the power grid. The island’s aging power infrastructure has been a persistent source of frustration for residents, who face frequent outages and some of the highest electricity rates in the U.S.
In December, Puerto Rico experienced an island-wide blackout on New Year’s Eve when an underground power line failure plunged the island into darkness for two days.
Power outages have become so common in Puerto Rico that many residents have installed solar panels and batteries in their homes and businesses. The ongoing instability of the power grid has also led to protests, with many criticizing LUMA, which took over power transmission and distribution in 2021.
