Person linked to missing USF students in custody after barricading themselves: Police
In these photos released by the University of South Florida Police Department, Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy are shown. (University of South Florida Police Department)
(TAMPA, Fla.) — A person who investigators said was linked to the disappearance of two University of Southern Florida doctoral students was taken into custody Friday, police said.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said they responded to a “barricaded subject connected” to the probe into the whereabouts of Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy, who went missing on April 16.
“The situation has been resolved. One individual is in custody,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post Friday afternoon, without giving more details.
Limon and Britsy, both 27, were last seen at separate locations in the Tampa area on April 16, according to the USF Police Department.
Officials received new information to warrant upgrading their status from missing to endangered, which indicates they are at risk of physical injury or death, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The sheriff did not provide any more details about the investigation or search efforts.
Limon and Bristy are friends, and a mutual acquaintance reported them missing, campus police said.
Limon, who is pursuing a degree in geography, environmental science and policy, was last seen at his Tampa residence at approximately 9 a.m. on April 16, according to police.
Bristy, who is studying chemical engineering, was last seen at the USF Tampa campus at the Natural & Environmental Sciences Building at approximately 10 a.m. that day, police said.
Both students have been entered into state and national missing persons’ databases.
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is urged to call the University of South Florida Police Department at 813-974-2628.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) seal on the J. Edgar Hoover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) building in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The FBI has invited elections officials around the country for a call later this month on the agency’s “preparations” for the high-stakes midterm elections, according to a letter sent to election officials and reviewed by ABC News.
The letter, which went out earlier this week, states that the FBI call will also include election officials from the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, United States Postal Inspection Service and Election Assistance Commission.
“To prepare for the 2026 US midterm elections, your election partners at the FBI, DOJ, DHS, USPIS, and the EAC would like to invite you to a call where we can discuss our preparations for the cycle, as well as updates and resources we can provide to you and your staff… We look forward to speaking with you in support of the 2026 midterm elections,” FBI staffer Kellie Hardiman, who signed the letter with the title “FBI Election Executive,” wrote.
The letter went to most election officials in the United States, according to a source familiar with the letter.
The offices of Arizona’s secretary of state and Utah’s lieutenant governor — the office that oversees elections in that state — confirmed to ABC News that they are among the offices that received the invite for the briefing, set to be held on Feb. 25.
The letter was first reported by Crooked Media.
Although it’s not unusual for government officials to have an election-security dialogue, the invite comes amid President Donald Trump’s ongoing false claims of voter fraud and the recent FBI raid of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.
The stakes are high for the upcoming midterm elections with the House majority on the line — as Republicans have a slim majority in the chamber.
American Tourist Yoni Pizer speaks of getting caught in the violence that erupted in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, February 22, 2026, after the Mexican government killed the cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as El Mencho. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — In harrowing detail, an American tourist described the violence that he, his husband and two friends were caught in on Sunday in the vacation mecca of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, when armed criminals responded to the killing of a notorious cartel boss.
Yoni Pizer of Chicago told ABC News that he and his husband, who own a vacation condo in Puerto Vallarta, were driving their friends to a whale-watching expedition around 8:30 a.m. local time on Sunday when chaos suddenly erupted.
Pizer said they were just west of Puerto Vallarta, approaching an intersection, when they first noticed trouble and soon realized their lives were in jeopardy.
“We suddenly noticed a man running at us with a gun in his hand and one of my friends who was in the backseat shouted, ‘He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!'” Pizer said.
He said the man was part of the group of armed assailants who were stopping cars and pulling the occupants out.
Pizer said the man banged on his car window and pointed the gun at his head. He said at first he thought it was just a carjacking, but later noticed other armed assailants stopping cars and pulling the occupants out.
He said the armed man ordered him and the others with him to get out of the car.
“At that point, he got into the car and drove it just a few yards into the intersection, and then threw an incendiary device in it, which exploded, and the car was quickly engulfed in flames,” Pizer said.
Widespread cartel-organized violence erupted following a Mexican Special Forces operation on Sunday that killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who is also known as “El Mencho.”
Oseguera Cervantes was one of the most wanted criminals in both Mexico and the United States. He was one of the top traffickers of fentanyl into the U.S. Last year President Donald Trump designated the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
When Mexican forces moved in to arrest him on Sunday in another part of the state of Jalisco, “El Mencho’s security detail opened fire,” Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said Monday. More than 30 cartel members were killed in the firefight, which also left 25 members of the Mexican National Guard dead, Mexican officials said.
Oseguera Cervantes initially got away, but government forces tracked him down in the town of Tapalpa, about 180 miles southeast of Puerto Vallarta, where he and his two bodyguards were gravely wounded in a gun battle, Mexican authorities said.
El Mencho and his bodyguards died during an evacuation flight to a medical facility, Trevilla Trejo said.
In response, cartel members fanned out across the country, setting fire to vehicles and buildings, authorities said.
Among the other cartel members killed was a “principal confidant” of El Mencho in Jalisco who was “coordinating road blockades, vehicle burnings, and attacks on military and government facilities,” Trevilla said.
“Their goal was clearly to block all main roads in Puerto Vallarta. And, clearly, it wasn’t to kill people, because they easily could have killed all of us,” Pizer said.
He said that after his car was taken and set on fire, he and his party ran for their lives as they heard gunshots and saw numerous vehicles being torched.
“Then a city bus came up and they went onto the bus and started shooting their guns to make sure people understood that they meant business,” Pizer said, adding that the assailants blocked a road with the bus and set it on fire.
Pizer said at one point during their escape, he was separated from his husband and one of their friends, who both ended up sheltering in a church orphanage for more than eight hours.
Pizer said that a good Samaritan stopped and gave him and his other guest a ride back into Puerto Vallarta.
“We ran to the beach and turned around and saw black columns of smoke throughout the city,” Pizer said.
The U.S. State Department is advising American tourists to continue sheltering in place until tensions subside.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said there is a “greater calm” in Mexico as government forces worked to quell the violence.
Pizer said he fears the attack will wreck Puerto Vallarta’s top industry — tourism — at least for the short term.
“This all makes me very, very sad,” Pizer said. “Puerto Vallarta is such a wonderful, special place. Obviously, that’s why so many people come here.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has reached an agreement with President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn to pay him roughly $1.2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the former general claiming he was politically targeted for prosecution during Trump’s first administration, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
