Laken Riley case: Bench trial set to begin for murder suspect
Laken Riley in an undated photo. Image via Augusta University
(ATHENS, Ga.) — A bench trial is set to begin Friday for the suspect accused of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus.
The suspect, Jose Ibarra, waived his right to a jury trial this week. Judge H. Patrick Haggard granted the defense’s motion for the bench trial on Tuesday, a day before jury selection had been scheduled to begin.
The case will now be presented in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Haggard, who will render a verdict.
Ibarra, 26, faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty to malice murder, felony murder and other offenses.
Police have said they believe Ibarra — a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022 — did not know Riley and that this was a “crime of opportunity.”
Riley’s brutal death became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump. Trump mentioned her by name as recently as Nov. 3 when he campaigned in Macon, Georgia, in a final pitch to voters in the battleground state.
Riley, a student at Augusta University, was found dead in a wooded area on the Athens campus on Feb. 22 after she didn’t return from a run. The indictment alleges Ibarra killed her by “inflicting blunt force trauma to her head and by asphyxiating her” and seriously disfigured her head by striking her “multiple times” with a rock.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment include aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — a jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
Ibarra was also charged with a peeping tom offense. The indictment alleges that on the same day as Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a different person who lived in an apartment on campus. The judge last month denied a motion seeking to sever that charge from the case.
Haggard also denied the defense’s motion for a change of venue in the high-profile case.
Ibarra has been held without bond at the Clarke County Jail since his arrest on Feb. 23.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends a news conference on November 14, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
In a speech addressed to New Yorkers on Wednesday, Adams vowed to fight what he called the “entirely false” indictment with “every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”
“I always knew that If I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said.
Adams is the city’s first sitting mayor to be indicted.
The exact charges remain sealed as of Wednesday night, but the initial investigation expanded from campaign finance to bid-rigging and more, sources said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Adams is not expected to appear in court until next week, sources told ABC News.
Adams, a former police captain who was elected as mayor of NYC less than three years ago, has spent nearly a year under the cloud of federal investigations.
Federal authorities have been investigating the possibility of corruption at City Hall, issuing subpoenas for Adams and members of his inner circle.
Two weeks ago, Adams accepted the resignation of Edward Caban, his handpicked police commissioner, after authorities issued a subpoena for his phones. The mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, also stepped down.
This week, New York City Public Schools Chancellor David Banks announced plans to retire at the end of the year. Banks had also turned his phone over to federal authorities.
Banks’ younger brothers, Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, also had their phones seized. David Banks’ fiancée, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, had her phone seized as well.
Since being elected as New York City’s 110th mayor, Adams has been vocal about always following the rules and said he has known of no “misdoings” within his administration.
“If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday night.
Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller who is running for mayor next year, released a statement on X following the news of the indictment.
“First and foremost, this is a sad day for New Yorkers. Trust in public institutions — especially City Hall — is essential for our local democracy to function and for our city to flourish. The hardworking people of New York City deserve a city government and leadership they can trust. Right now, they don’t have it,” Lander said.
Lander called for Adams to step down from his position as mayor.
“The most appropriate path forward is for him to step down so that New York City can get the full focus its leadership demands,” Lander said.
If Adams were to heed the calls to resign, the New York City Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor. Lander follows Williams in the line of succession.
Earlier Wednesday, Democratic House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called for Adams’ resignation, saying, “For the good of the city, he should resign.”
“I do not see how Mayor Adams can continue governing New York City,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. “The flood of resignations and vacancies are threatening gov function. Nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration.”
(PHOENIX, Ariz) — A deaf Black man with cerebral palsy who was violently arrested by two Phoenix police officers in August said he tried to alert the officers that he was deaf before they repeatedly punched and tasered him for an alleged crime he had been falsely accused of by another suspect.
Records show that the incident occurred when officers were dispatched to investigate a report of a man causing problems and wouldn’t leave a Circle K convenience store, according to ABC affiliate in Phoenix KNXV-TV.
According to police records, the original description of the suspect was for a white man who had been creating a disturbance in the store, but that man later claimed he was assaulted by a Black man and pointed to Tyron McAlpin – a claim that was disputed by store employees and surveillance video, KNXV-TV reported.
“The officers took me down … And I told them, I was trying to get to my ears to tell them I can’t hear, I can’t hear, pointing to my ears,” McAlpin said through an interpreter as he used sign language, according to KNXV-TV. “I was trying to gesture, and that’s when the cops grabbed me. (I was) trying to show, hey I can’t hear, pointing to my ears, and they grabbed me.”
McAlpin gave his account in the hospital to a medical worker after his arrest, according to KNXV-TV. Two police officers are seen present in the body camera video during the medical examination.
The Phoenix man is seen in the footage telling medical workers he’s having trouble seeing out of his left eye and complaining of neck and chest pain, according to KNXV-TV.
“White male, 20s, grey shirt, blue shorts,” Ben Harris, one of the officers involved in detaining McAlpin, could be heard saying repeatedly to himself on the way to the call, according to the footage.
The newly released video appears to show that Harris knew the suspect was a white male.
In body-worn camera footage recorded after the arrest, employees at the store told law enforcement that the white male had gotten into a physical altercation the night before, according to KNXV-TV. The staff in the footage explains that McAlpin comes to the store regularly, holds the door for people and was trying to help the employees get the man out of the store.
Harris originally told another officer at the scene that he believed he broke a bone in his hand after striking the Phoenix man in the head, according to body camera footage obtained by ABC News in October.
Harris told a different story in court during an October hearing.
“At one point, when I was trying to regain control of his arm, following his initial swings, punch swings, it appears that these fingers were jammed in his forearm, and bent over all the way to my palm,” Harris testified, according to KNXV-TV.
The two Phoenix police officers who were involved in the arrest were placed on paid administrative leave in October amid an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson for the Phoenix Police Department confirmed to ABC News.
ABC News reached out to the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a union representing the officers, but a request for comment was not immediately returned.
The union’s president, Darrell Kriplean, previously defended the officers’ actions in a statement to ABC News, saying that people should know what to do if uniformed officers approach and that the officers, who did now know McAlpin was deaf at the time, had to force him to comply.
McAlpin was initially charged with felony assault and resisting arrest following the Aug. 19 encounter with Phoenix police, but the charges were dropped on Oct. 17.
The decision to drop the charges against McAlpin was announced by Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, who said in a statement that she personally reviewed the case after a member of the local chapter of the NAACP expressed concern over the incident and poured through “a large volume of video recordings, police reports, and other materials that have been forwarded to my office.”
“I also convened a large gathering of senior attorneys and members of the community to hear their opinions as they pertain to this case,” Mitchell said. “I have now completed my review and have made the decision to dismiss all remaining charges against Mr. McAlpin.”
In the body camera video, police are seen pulling up to McAlpin and ordering him down to the ground. He doesn’t appear to immediately comply. The video then shows the officers punching him at least 10 times in the head and shocking him with a stun gun at least four times while yelling: “Get your hands behind your back.”
McAlpin’s attorney said that his client, who is deaf, didn’t know what was going on and could not hear the commands.
“It is our sincere hope that the County Attorney’s Office will respond to what is shown in the video and to the voices in the community who have raised alarms about what is shown in the video and will dismiss all charges against Tyron,” McAlpin’s attorney, Jesse Showalter, told ABC News in a statement on Oct. 14.
ABC News reached out to Showalter for additional comment after the newly released video became available.
Interim Phoenix Police Chief Michael Sullivan said in a statement on Oct. 16 that the Professional Standard Bureau (PSB) launched an internal investigation shortly after the incident took place.
“Their work is important to ensure all facts are known before drawing any conclusions. I ask for the public’s patience during that process,” Sullivan said.
“I recognize the video is disturbing and raises a lot of questions. I want to assure the community we will get answers to those questions,” he added.
According to Sullivan, the findings of the PSB will be reviewed by himself, as well as by the Office of Accountability and Transparency and the Civilian Review Board “to ensure it is thorough and complete.”
When ABC News asked the Phoenix Police Department if the white man who made the allegedly false allegations was charged, a spokesperson said in a statement that no additional arrests have been made at this point during the investigation.
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A man has sustained serious injuries after leaping to the rescue of his wife who was ambushed by a polar bear in an early morning attack, police said.
Members of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service working out of the Fort Severn First Nation detachment in Ontario, Canada, were dispatched to a residential address in the early morning hours of Tuesday to reports of gunfire, according to a statement from the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service.
When authorities arrived, they discovered during their investigation that an adult male and adult female “had exited their home before 5 a.m. to find their dogs. While in the driveway of their home, a polar bear lunged at the woman,” police said.
“The woman slipped to ground as her husband leapt onto the animal to prevent its attack. The bear then attacked the male, causing serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his arm and legs,” Nishnawbe Aski Police Service continued.
During the attack, a neighbor reportedly arrived with a firearm and was able to shoot the bear several times before it retreated to a nearby wooded area and subsequently died from its injuries.
When police arrived on scene, they located the deceased polar bear and learned “an adult male had been transported to the community nursing station to have his injuries assessed and treated,” police said.
Officials continued to patrol the area to ensure no other bears were roaming the community following the attack.
The unnamed man is now recovering from serious injuries to his arm and legs, but is expected to survive.
