Ohio corrections officer killed in Christmas Day prison attack: ‘Beyond comprehension’
Ross County Correctional Institution
(LUCASVILLE, OH) An inmate allegedly assaulted and killed a veteran corrections officer on Christmas Day at an Ohio prison, an attack authorities said was “beyond comprehension.”
Officer Andrew Lansing was attacked Wednesday at the Ross Correctional Institution (RCI) in Chillicothe, about 43 miles south of Columbus, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
The inmate suspected of killing Lansing was not immediately identified by prison officials, who said he had been transferred to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Lucasville, Ohio.
“The loss of a staff person is difficult, but to lose a family member on Christmas Day at the hands of someone in our custody is a tragedy beyond comprehension,” Annette Chambers-Smith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said in a statement. “Instead of going home after his shift to be with his family on this holiday, Officer Lansing made the ultimate sacrifice, and our agency will never be the same.”
Chamber-Smith released few details on the attacks, including where in the sprawling 1,707-acre prison Lansing was assaulted and whether the inmate was armed with a weapon.
Lansing was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The prison, which houses more than 2,000 inmates, has been put on lockdown as the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigates the homicide.
Chamber-Smith described Lansing as “a long-time, well-respected employee” at the Ross Correctional Institution and added, that his “untimely death — on Christmas Day — is heartbreaking for his family, the entire Ross Correctional Institution family, and our agency as a whole.”
“Officer Lansing was loved by his colleagues and known to be a great support for his fellow RCI staff,” Chamber-Smith said. “He was a friendly, outgoing officer who treated everyone with respect and was always a professional.”
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory is already beginning to elicit requests from his supporters charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol for delays in their cases due to the potential they could be pardoned after Trump’s inauguration.
Attorneys for Christopher Carnell, a 21-year-old defendant from North Carolina who was found guilty earlier this year of felony and misdemeanor charges over his participation in the Capitol assault, requested Wednesday morning that D.C. District Judge Beryl Howell delay a status hearing in his case scheduled for later this week, citing Trump’s past promises to pardon his supporters.
“Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump made multiple clemency promises to the January 6 defendants, particularly to those who were nonviolent participants,” their filing said. “Mr. Carnell, who was an 18 year old nonviolent entrant into the Capitol on January 6, is expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”
Judge Howell denied Carnell’s request to delay his status hearing in an order on Wednesday.
The filing had stated that Carnell’s attorneys reached out to Trump’s office to get further information “regarding the timing and expected scope of clemency actions relevant to his case.”
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,500 people across the country in the last four years over their roles in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, part of what the Justice Department has described as one of the largest criminal investigations in its history.
The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office has continued to arrest individuals on a near-daily basis, many of whom have been charged with carrying out violent assaults on police protecting the building.
In addition to Trump’s promises to pardon many of those who participated in the attack, it’s widely expected the ongoing criminal investigation will be shuttered once Trump takes office.
(NEW YORK) — Amid the Thanksgiving travel rush, a stowaway was discovered Tuesday night onboard a Delta Air Lines flight out of JFK Airport in New York City headed to Paris.
Authorities said the stowaway was discovered on board Delta Flight 264 from JFK to Paris and removed after the plane landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The person who boarded the flight bypassed the document check podium and a gate agent, but was fully screened at a security checkpoint at JFK, a TSA spokesperson told ABC News. That means they weren’t carrying any prohibited items and did not pose a security risk, TSA said.
It’s unclear how the person got around the document check podium.
The FBI is aware of the incident.
No other details about the person who boarded the flight have been made public.
A representative for Delta said the airline is “conducting an exhaustive investigation of what may have occurred and will work collaboratively with other aviation stakeholders and law enforcement to that end.”
A video taken by another passenger on board the flight shows the flight attendants walking down the aisle as the pilot’s voice on the intercom says, “We are just waiting for the police to come on board … They directed us to keep everyone on the plane until they sort out the extra passenger.”
Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, FILE
(NEW YORK) — Opening statements will begin Friday in the trial of subway rider Daniel Penny charged in the May 2023 choking death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man, in a New York City subway car.
The jury was seated Wednesday. The trial is expected to last between four and six weeks, according to Judge Max Wiley.
Penny, a former Marine, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death.
Wiley denied Penny’s bid to dismiss his involuntary manslaughter case in January.
Penny put Neely, 30, in a fatal chokehold “that lasted approximately 6 minutes and continued well past the point at which Mr. Neely had stopped purposeful movement,” prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have said.
Penny’s attorneys said they were “saddened at the loss of human life” but that Penny saw “a genuine threat and took action to protect the lives of others,” arguing that Neely was “insanely threatening” to passengers aboard the F train in Manhattan.
Witness accounts differ on Neely’s behavior on the train, prosecutors say.
They note that many witnesses relayed that Neely expressed that he was homeless, hungry and thirsty, and most of the witnesses recount that Neely indicated a willingness to go to jail or prison.
Some witnesses report that Neely threatened to hurt people on the train, while others did not report hearing those threats, according to police sources.
Some witnesses told police that Neely was yelling and harassing passengers on the train; however, others have said though Neely had exhibited erratic behavior, he had not been threatening anyone in particular and had not become violent, police sources also told ABC News following the incident.
Some passengers on the train that day said they didn’t feel threatened — one “wasn’t really worried about what was going on” and another called it “like another day typically in New York. That’s what I’m used to seeing. I wasn’t really looking at it if I was going to be threatened or anything to that nature, but it was a little different because, you know, you don’t really hear anybody saying anything like that,” according to court filings by the prosecution.
Other passengers described their fear in court filings. One passenger said they “have encountered many things, but nothing that put fear into me like that.” Another said Neely was making “half-lunge movements” and coming within a “half a foot of people.”
Neely, who was homeless at the time of his death, had a documented mental health history and a history of arrests, including alleged instances of disorderly conduct, fare evasion and assault, according to police sources.
Less than 30 seconds after Penny allegedly put Neely into a chokehold, the train arrived at the Broadway-Lafayette Station: “Passengers who had felt fearful on account of being trapped on the train were now free to exit the train. The defendant continued holding Mr. Neely around the neck,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass in a court filing against Penny’s dismissal request.
According to prosecutors, footage of the interaction, which began about 2 minutes after the incident started, captures Penny holding Neely for about 4 minutes and 57 seconds on a relatively empty train with a couple of passengers nearby.
Prosecutors said that about 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, Neely ceases all purposeful movement.
“After that moment, Mr. Neely’s movements are best described as ‘twitching and the kind of agonal movement that you see around death,'” the prosecutor said.
The defense argued Penny had no intent to kill, but Steinglass noted that the second-degree manslaughter charge only requires prosecutors to prove Penny acted recklessly, not intentionally.
“We are confident that a jury, aware of Danny’s actions in putting aside his own safety to protect the lives of his fellow riders, will deliver a just verdict,” Penny’s lawyers, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, said after Penny’s request to dismiss the charge was denied.
In a past statement to ABC News, an attorney representing Neely’s family said, “This case is simple. Someone got on a train and was screaming so someone else choked them to death. Those two things do not and will never balance. There is no justification.”
“Jordan had the right to take up his own space. He was allowed to be on that train and even to scream. He did not touch anyone. He was not a visitor on that train, in New York, or in this country,” attorney Donte Mills said.
