Man accused of fatally shooting neighbor through wall charged with manslaughter
In this booking photo released by the Danbury Police Department, David Grullon, Jr., is shown. (Danbury Police Department)
(DANBURY, Conn.) — A man wanted for the fatal shooting of his neighbor, who was shot through a wall in a Connecticut townhouse last week, has been charged with manslaughter following his surrender, police said Friday.
Victor Quispe, 37, was shot inside his home in Danbury the night of Jan. 7, according to police. He was struck by a single round that traveled through a wall in the townhouse, police said. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The suspected gunman was not at the scene when police arrived, police said. Two days after the shooting, the City of Danbury Police Department said they had issued an arrest warrant for Quispe’s neighbor, 42-year-old David Grullon Jr., in connection with the homicide.
Grullon surrendered to police Thursday evening and has been charged with multiple offenses, including second-degree manslaughter, police said. Additional charges include reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a minor and firearm offenses, police said.
His bond was set at $1 million during his arraignment on Friday. He has not posted bond and is next scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 2 for a plea hearing, according to a court official.
Police have not released any additional details on the shooting, including why Grullon allegedly discharged the firearm.
“This matter remains under investigation,” the City of Danbury Police Department said in a statement on Friday announcing the arrest and charges in the deadly shooting. “No additional information will be released at this time to protect the integrity of the case.”
Grullon’s attorney, Gene Zingaro, told ABC News he has no comment on the charges at this time. Zingaro said he had picked Grullon up out of state and brought him in for a “safe surrender.”
“This was his request,” Zingaro said.
The shooting victim, Quispe, was a local barber known as Legends Barber Co. His fiancée is pregnant with their first child, according to a GoFundMe for the family.
“His generosity was boundless — he always remembered family back home, often providing meals or support to those in need,” his obituary stated. “His giving spirit extended to all of us; he was known for offering gifts so extravagant that we would lovingly argue with him about it.”
Quispe had moved to the U.S. from his native Peru at the age of five, his family said. He was remembered for his “contagious” laugh, sense of style, love of Peruvian food, “endless affection” and strong work ethic to provide for his family and first child, according to his obituary.
Quispe worked at Legends Barber Co. in Danbury, where he “wasn’t just a barber, but a trusted friend to countless people,” Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves said in a statement on social media last week.
One of his customers, Randy Hamilton, told ABC New York station WABC that Quispe was an “excellent barber,” but also a “good friend, good person.”
“I can always get a haircut, that’s nothing, I can get that from anywhere but the person that he was is like, you don’t find too many people like that,” Hamilton told the station.
(SAUKVILLE, Wis.) — Tom Uttech has lived on his 52-acre property in Saukville, Wisconsin, for nearly 40 years.
From outside Uttech’s home art studio, the landscape is filled with rolling hills, topped with wildflowers that build to the highest point in the township, where rows of evergreens that Uttech says he planted by hand in 1988 have since grown into mature trees.
“That kind of scares me because I didn’t think I was that old,” Uttech said of the trees that he’s watched grow over the decades.
The 83-year-old renowned landscape painter, whose work has been displayed at museums across the country, has spent hundreds of hours and years of work over the last few decades maintaining and curating his land into a sweeping prairie that has come to serve as the inspiration for his work and his livelihood.
It’s a lifetime of work that Uttech now says has come under threat after receiving a letter in the mail from his utility company informing him that a massive power line would need to be built through his property, undoing years of work and stripping away the muse for his art.
“I couldn’t believe it, and I still don’t,” Uttech told ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Schulze when asked what his initial reaction was to the news. “They’d be putting power lines that are 300 or something feet tall, taller than apparently the Statue of Liberty.”
Uttech later learned that the transmission line would be used to help power a massive $15 billion data center campus that’s set to be built on over 500 football fields’ worth of farmland in nearby in Port Washington — a signature part of the Trump administration’s $500 billion Stargate partnership with OpenAI and Oracle, which President Donald Trump hopes will help supercharge the artificial intelligence revolution.
Uttech is facing what other residents in his town — and others around the country — are facing more and more: the risk of losing parts of his land to eminent domain, the government’s legal authority to seize private property for public use, in support of the growing expansion of AI data centers as the demand to power them continues to grow.
The threat, in some ways, is a physical manifestation of what many people like Uttech fear the artificial intelligence boom could mean for their work.
Across the United States there currently more than 3,000 data centers, and that number will soon grow by 1,200 more now under construction, according to Data Center Map, an industry service that tracks data center development.
”These facilities are so energy-intensive,” Ari Peskoe, who directs the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard University, told ABC News. “A single sort of warehouse can use as much electricity as a large U.S. city. The amount of new infrastructure that has to be built to power that facility is unlike anything we’ve seen in generations.”
The Trump administration has pushed to rapidly build and deploy AI with urgency, arguing it will be vital to stay ahead of rivals like China and protect national security.
“I’m going to help a lot through emergency declarations, because we have an emergency, we have to get this stuff built,” Trump said at a White House event announcing the Stargate initiative last January. “So they have to produce a lot of electricity. And we’ll make it possible for them to get this production done easily, at their own plants if they want.”
‘It’s going to transform our community’ In nearby Port Washington, Mayor Ted Neitzke wants to make sure that investment is made right in his town, which he says is desperate for it.
“It’s exciting because it’s going to transform our community, it’s going to create a tax base and jobs and secondary and tertiary workforce and opportunities that we have not even envisioned, and it’s going to lead us into a real renaissance,” said Neitzke, who told ABC News the project would bring thousands of new jobs and much needed tax revenue.
“In a few years when the financing and everything is all done and the deal solidifies, they will pay the overwhelming majority of property taxes for the citizens of the city of Port Washington,” he said.
A representative for the industry group Data Center Coalition, when asked about the Port Washington project, told ABC News that the industry is making “multi-billion-dollar investments across the nation, including Wisconsin, to advance the digital economy, and in the process, provide significant benefits to local communities.”
“These include creating hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs, providing billions of dollars in economic investment, and generating significant local, state, and federal tax revenue that helps fund schools, transportation, public safety, tax relief for residents and small businesses, and other community priorities,” the group said.
On top of outcries from the community over growing eminent domain concerns, the project has ignited backlash from some residents who are fearful that, as has been the case in some other communities around the country, the data center’s potential stress on the current electrical grid could lead to higher electric bills.
Nationwide, electricity prices jumped 6.9% in 2025 — more than double the inflation rate of 2.9% — according to new analysis by Goldman Sachs economists, who said they “expect data centers to boost electricity demand significantly, accounting for about 40% of total power demand growth over the next five years.”
In response, activists in Wisconsin, led by the community group Great Lakes Neighbors, have organized protests including a rally at the state capitol earlier this month. The tensions in the city were on full display last December when multiple anti-AI data center protesters were arrested, and one was dragged out of the city council meeting after chanting “Recall, recall, recall,” directed at Mayor Neitzke, after her allotted time had ended.
“I did go to the council meeting purely intending to speak. I had a speech prepared. Again, I had spoken earlier in other council meetings,” Christine LeJeune, the protester who was forcibly removed from the council meeting, told ABC News about the incident, adding that from her perspective, “the message was if you speak out, then this is what will happen to you.”
Pressed on the arrests at the recent council meeting, Neitzke, who faced a failed recall attempt over his support for the data center project, defended law enforcement when asked about the incident, while adding that incidents like that are “not the norm here.”
“I stand right next to our police department,” Neitzke said. “I thought they were very kind. They were very cordial, multiple warnings. Please, please, please.”
The mayor told ABC News that amid the backlash over the project, he’s been on the receiving end of threats to him and his family.
“I can play you the voicemails of the threats I receive from all over the country to my family’s safety,” he said. “What I did not see coming was that our officers following the law and enforcing the law would lead to people threatening our physical safety. That’s not OK.”
Paying their own way With the construction of the data center already underway, local activists around Port Washington are hoping to push for commitments from companies to cover increases to their bills and not pass any increases on to customers.
Both OpenAI and Oracle said in statements to ABC News that they were committed to paying their own way and said they would mitigate the impact of these data centers on customers and their electricity bills by pledging to build out renewable energy sources to create more power.
“In Wisconsin, and across all of our U.S. Stargate sites, we are committed to paying our own way on energy so that our operations do not increase local electricity prices,” OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice said in a statement. “Our Port Washington site will help support AI services used by millions of people and businesses across the country — the majority of whom use it for free — and it will bring jobs and long-term investment to the region.”
In a statement to ABC News, Oracle said, “In partnership with WE Energies, we’re paying our own way on energy so ratepayers’ bills and electric grid reliability are never impacted by our data center. Seventy percent of the energy used for the Port Washington campus will come from zero-emission sources, including wind, solar, and batteries. The project will add about 2,000 MW of new zero-emission power to Wisconsin’s grid, which means more reliable, affordable energy will be available to local families and businesses. Oracle — not ratepayers — will fund these electrical infrastructure upgrades.”
The fate of Uttech’s land rests with whether the American Transmission Company (ATC) moves forward with what the company has called either the “preferred route” for the new transmission lines — or the “preferred alternative route,” the latter of which follows existing transmission lines. The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, the state agency that regulates utilities, will review ATC’s project application for the data center, including the proposed route options, and will select the final route.
Vantage, the data center operator, told ABC News in a statement that it supports the alternative route and that they are “committed to being a good neighbor” and are “prioritizing investing in sustainable energy, minimizing local impact and partnering closely with the community to be an economic driver for the state while enhancing the daily lives of residents.”
“Residents and businesses in Port Washington will not see an increase in their electric bills due to this project,” the Vantage statement said.
A representative from ATC told ABC News that they consider “several factors such as cost to ratepayers, landowner impacts, environmental sensitivities, and engineering considerations when studying power line routes and locations for supporting infrastructure” and that “The route designated as ‘preferred’ offers a lower cost to ratepayers and maximizes the use of existing corridors.”
“We understand that others may favor the alternative route for different considerations,” the ATC representative said.
‘I’m not going to just roll over’ Uttech, who at 83 still regularly jumps on a four-wheeler to traverse his sprawling property in search of inspiration, is working with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm, to take on the data center that could cost him his land.
“The use of eminent domain power must be the absolute last resort … This is not such a case,” the firm wrote in a letter to ATC. “We will do all we can to protect the Uttech family’s private property rights.”
“Building the power lines on their land would cause irreparable damage to the natural beauty and wildlife the Uttech family has spent decades developing, and which Tom enjoys as inspiration for his work,” WILL deputy council Lucas Vebber said.
While Uttech says he understands that AI is a growing billion-dollar industry that is already in motion and can’t be stopped, he is vowing to continue his fight.
“They brought the fight to me and I’m not going to just roll over,” he told ABC News, saying he plans to fight “right to the end.”
Tippecanoe Superior Court 2 Judge Steve Meyer. (Tippecanoe County Government)
(LAFAYETTE, Ind.) — An Indiana judge and his wife were injured in a shooting at their home over the weekend, with a search underway for the suspected gunman, officials said.
Tippecanoe County Judge Steven Meyer and his wife, Kimberly Meyer, were shot in their home on Sunday, according to Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush.
Both are in stable condition, police said Monday.
Officers responded to the home in Lafayette around 2:17 p.m. Sunday and found both injured from the shooting, according to the Lafayette Police Department. Judge Meyer had an injury to one of his arms and his wife sustained an injury to her hip, police said.
Shell casings were recovered at the scene, according to police.
The investigation remains ongoing with multiple agencies, including the FBI, involved, police said. No arrests have been announced.
“I want to ensure the community that every available resource is being used to apprehend the individual(s) responsible for this senseless unacceptable act of violence,” Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said in a statement. “I have tremendous confidence in the Lafayette Police Department and I want to thank all of the local, state, and federal agencies who are assisting in this investigation.”
In a statement issued on her and her husband’s behalf, Kimberly Meyer said, “I have great confidence in the Lafayette Police Department’s investigation and want to thank all the agencies involved for their work.”
“We are also incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support from the community; everyone has been so kind and compassionate,” she said. “We would also like to thank the medical personnel who provided care and assistance to us following the incident.”
Meyer is a judge in the Tippecanoe County Superior Court. He was first elected to the position in 2014. He has previously served as a public defender for Tippecanoe County and on the Lafayette City Council.
Tippecanoe County Judges said in a statement on Monday that cases in Meyer’s court “will continue to be heard in a timely manner.”
“There has been an overwhelming outpouring of support from judges throughout the state offering to assist in any way,” the statement said.
Chief Justice Rush urged other judges in Indiana to “remain vigilant in your own security” and to contact their local sheriff, noting in a statement on Sunday that “the shooter is purportedly still at large.”
“I worry about the safety of all our judges,” she said in the statement. “As you work to peacefully resolve more than 1 million cases a year, you must not only feel safe, you must also be safe. Any violence against a judge or a judge’s family is completely unacceptable. As public servants, you are dedicated to the rule of law.”
U.S. President Donald Trump departs the White House on January 27, 2026, in Washington, DC. President Trump is en route to Clive, Iowa for a rally with supporters where he is expected to talk about energy and the economy in his speech. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — In the hours after FBI agents seized 2020 election ballots from an elections facility in Georgia on Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted a series of thoroughly discredited conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election — and the 2016 election too.
Fulton County officials said Wednesday that the FBI seized original 2020 voting records while serving a search warrant at the county’s Elections Hub and Operations Center. The FBI said they were conducting court-authorized activity at the facility, but said they would provide no further information.
Late Wednesday night, the president reposted to his social media platform a claim that Italian military satellites had been used to hack into U.S. voting machines to flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden.
“China reportedly coordinated the whole operation,” the post reads. “The CIA oversaw it, the FBI covered it up, all to install Biden as a puppet.”
That was just one of a flurry of posts and reposts by Trump making discredited claims about the 2020 election, directly tying the allegations to the FBI’s seizure of ballots on Wednesday.
“This is only the beginning,” Trump said, reposting other posts about the FBI’s action in Georgia. “Prosecutions are coming.”
The development comes after Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss. Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election, and numerous lawsuits challenging the election results in the state were rejected by the courts.
Among the statements posted and reposted by Trump following the FBI’s actions in Georgia is one on the 2016 election that falsely claims that “Barack Hussein Obama” falsified intelligence and “conspired with foreign powers, not one, not two, not three, but four times to overthrow the United States government in 2016.”
In addition to being baseless, the claim ignores the fact that Obama was president in 2016, so if he tried to overthrow the government, he would have been overthrowing himself.
The conspiracy theory about Italian military satellites is not new. In 2021, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows directed both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense to look into the matter.
As documented in my 2021 book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” the conspiracy theory was brought to the White House by a woman who went by several aliases including “The Heiress” and was known at the Pentagon for her claimed ties to Somali pirates. She passed her material off to a national security council official at a supermarket parking lot in Arlington.
The Italian spy satellite theory was just one of many unsubstantiated allegations made about the 2020 election by Trump and his supporters. At a Trump campaign press conference in November 2020, lawyer Sydney Powell infamously claimed that voting machines had been rigged using software that was “created at the direction of Hugo Chavez.” This was an especially extravagant claim because Chavez, the former leader of Venezuela, had died three years earlier.
In 2023, Powell pleaded guilty to state charges of conspiracy to commit “intentional interference with performance of election duties” in Georgia and agreed to serve six years of probation and to pay a $6,000 fine.
And now it appears that Sidney Powell is back. In a post on X Thursday morning, DOJ official Ed Martin posted a picture of himself with Powell, writing, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”
