Police capture ‘aggressive’ water buffalo that had been on the loose for days in Iowa
The water buffalo is seen in this still from a Ring camera video in Pleasant Hill, Iowa, on Aug. 26, 2024. (Courtesy Jessica Eshelman)
(NEW YORK) — Police in Iowa said they have captured a “dangerous,” injured water buffalo that had been on the loose since Saturday.
The Pleasant Hill Police Department said the animal was transported Wednesday morning to the Iowa State University Veterinary Hospital after being located in Des Moines the previous evening.
The capture followed a dayslong search that at one point saw an officer shoot the animal, nicknamed “Phill” by some in the community, and sightings of the water buffalo in yards and on a home Ring camera.
Officers said they initially responded to a call Saturday about an “animal in the road” in Pleasant Hill, located about six miles east of Des Moines.
The owner “shared that it was an aggressive animal they were preparing to butcher for its meat and asked the Pleasant Hill Police Department to ‘put it down,'” the Pleasant Hill Police Department said in a statement Wednesday.
The responding officer said the department does not “put animals down” unless they pose a threat to the public, according to the police department.
An officer did shoot the animal, injuring it, later Saturday morning after the water buffalo showed “aggressiveness” toward responding officers, the police department said. The water buffalo was near a busy intersection “creating a dangerous situation,” police said.
The injured animal was then able to escape.
Pleasant Hill police said they employed ATVs to search bicycle trails and a creek for the loose animal. They said they also partnered with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office to use their drone technology and with “local individuals who have expertise in containing this type of animal,” they said.
Amid the search, the water buffalo was seen on Ring footage on Monday near the front door of a home in Pleasant Hill. A Pleasant Hill resident also filmed the animal in his backyard on Monday.
The water buffalo was located around 7:30 p.m. CT Tuesday in water in a sand pit in Des Moines, though first responders decided to wait to corral the animal until daylight, police said.
The animal was coaxed out of the water and a tranquilizer dart was administered around 9:30 a.m. CT on Wednesday, police said. A second tranquilizer dart was administered about 30 minutes later, police said.
The immobilized water buffalo was then loaded into a trailer and treated with reversal drugs, antibiotics and vitamins, police said.
“The water buffalo was awake and prognosis is guarded,” police said.
The animal was transported to the veterinary hospital to be monitored and receive any necessary medical care, police said.
The Polk County Conservation, Blank Park Zoo, Animal Rescue League of Iowa and other law enforcement agencies were involved in the capture, police said.
“An investigation into the escape of the animal is being conducted,” the Pleasant Hill Police Department said. “Based on the results of the investigation charges may be filed.”
The owner has since surrendered the animal to the Des Moines Police Department, police said. The animal is now a resident of the Iowa Farm Sanctuary and won’t be sent to slaughter, the organization said while commending the humane capture of “Phill.”
“The local community absolutely rallied for Phill and didn’t rest until he was given a fair chance at safety and freedom,” the Iowa Farm Sanctuary said in a statement on Facebook. “The outpouring of love for Phill, a farmed animal, in the epicenter of animal agriculture, is so incredibly heartwarming.”
(NEW YORK) — The Florida state attorney has filed charges against former deputy Eddie Duran in the shooting death of United States Air Force Sr. Airman Roger Fortson who was killed in his own home.
Duran was charged with one count of manslaughter with a firearm, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years. The court will be issuing a warrant for Durant’s arrest on Friday.
The deputy, who shot Fortson in an encounter on May 3, was terminated from the department in May, according to a sheriff’s department statement obtained by ABC News.
Fortson, 23, was in his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, when Duran responded to the apartment for a call reporting a domestic disturbance, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. Fortson was alone in the apartment at the time.
In body camera footage released by the sheriff’s office, Fortson is seen holding a gun in his right hand with his arm extended downward and the muzzle pointing at the floor as he opens the door in response to the deputy, who can be heard announcing twice that he’s with the sheriff’s office. The footage, reviewed by ABC News, also shows Fortson had his left hand up, palm showing, gesturing towards the deputy when he opened the door.
Duran shot Fortson within seconds of the door opening, according to the footage. Fortson died of his injuries.
The deputy said he saw Fortson armed with a gun and that Fortson took a step toward the deputy and had a look of aggression in his eyes, according to an interview Duran conducted with the sheriff’s office during their subsequent investigation.
Fortson’s girlfriend, who asked not to be identified due to fears for her safety, spoke in May to Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV, telling the station her and Fortson were having a conversation on the phone about weekend plans when the shooting occurred.
“We continue to wish Mr. Fortson’s family comfort and peace, as the former deputy’s criminal case proceeds,” the Oklaloosa County Sheriff’s Office told ABC News in a statement. “We stand by our decision to terminate Mr. Duran as a result of the administrative internal affairs investigation that found his use of force was not objectively reasonable.”
A sweep of the home did not find another person in the apartment besides Fortson, police said. In the body camera video, a woman, presumed to be a building manager, explains to the officer that someone in the building notified her of the disturbance and that she called police.
Fortson’s family said in a statement to ABC News on Friday that the charges marked a “first step towards justice” in the case.
“Nothing can ever bring Roger back, and our fight is far from over, but we are hopeful that this arrest and these charges will result in real justice for the Fortson family,” the statement said. “Let this be a reminder to law enforcement officers everywhere that they swore a solemn oath to protect and defend, and their actions have consequences, especially when it results in the loss of life.”
The state attorney’s office said it’s very limited in what they can say because this is still an ongoing investigation. No press conferences are scheduled at this time.
(NEW YORK) — Four years after the coronavirus pandemic closed much of the nation’s education system, thousands of the more than 50 million U.S. public school students and teachers are returning to school this month.
In interviews with ABC News, education experts suggest the impact school closures had on the public education model could leave students with long-term developmental issues from lost learning time.
It has already exacerbated issues such as chronic absenteeism and teacher burnout, and now the persistent problems public educators face are causing leaders, experts and caregivers to sound the alarm.
One prominent educator told ABC that “public education is on life support.” Another said the greatest current education challenge is the need for it to “reset,” which the educator projected could take five to 10 years to achieve. And, polling suggests the American public also believes there could be grave consequences if nothing is done to fix public education.
Pew Research Center found about half of Americans think the public education system is going in the wrong direction. Eighty-two percent of people surveyed by Pew said it has been trending that way over the past five years — even before the pandemic hit.
“It’s needed restructuring for a while,” STEM Equity Alliance Executive Director Arthur Mitchell told ABC News. “Education as it exists is unsustainable.”
Mitchell shares the viewpoint of many educators ABC News spoke with — that the issues facing school districts predate COVID-19. However, the pandemic exposed the need for an education reboot.
“The message that the pandemic sent was that you’re not going to be successful teaching math and reading and science and social studies if kids haven’t eaten, they haven’t slept, they’re worried about their dad’s job or their grandmother’s recent death,” FutureEd Director Thomas Toch said.
‘These kids aren’t going to learn’
During his first year as Education Secretary in 2021, Miguel Cardona said the system is “missing the point” if school districts fail to restructure schools with better social and emotional support such as mental health resources.
Emphasizing the need for Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculums could serve as a start, according to Katie Kirby, a principal and experienced educator in Union City, New Jersey.
“These kids aren’t going to learn,” Kirby told ABC News, adding, “All they’re thinking about [is] the trauma that happened in their house. Or, even during COVID, just being isolated is a trauma.”
“I feel like more could be done to address the mental health issues and social emotional things around, you know, not just the students but the teachers also,” Kirby said about post-COVID schooling.
The New Jersey elementary school principal said more mental health practitioners and teachers will energize school communities.
Experts told ABC that innovative models, such as communities in schools, have worked with local agencies to provide positive SEL results over the years.
Toch said these communities in schools structure is a solution to the typical public education framework because it is a “difficult” time to grow up in America.
“We need to recognize that students need a range of supports in order to be successful academically,” he said.
Due to the complexity of American children, Toch said the community is responsible for helping raise students.
“These models, at best, they are partnerships where other agencies are contributing resources to the partnership so that schools don’t have to shoulder the entire burden, financial burden, of a more comprehensive model on behalf of the whole child,” he said.
Jonte Lee, a science teacher in the nation’s capital, also said a reboot is enhanced by community partnerships.
“We need parental support as well and we need other entities in the community to support [teachers],” he said. “It’s like we support you, you support us — we need to come together as a community and a culture.”
Lee said a public education overhaul isn’t necessary though. The system only needs minor “tweaks” such as hiring and paying more teachers, according to Lee.
“Hasn’t the model been recreated multiple times?” Lee told ABC News, adding, “When we say recreate the public school education model, it has already been recreated multiple times, which is why I believe in school choice, because ‘this model may not work for me.'”
Injecting “choice” into education refers to a largely conservative movement that supports charter schools. Public charter schools are taxpayer funded and state-run, but the schools have the ability to turn students away, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Their curriculums are agreed upon or chartered by local or state government, which gives the school more freedom than a traditional public school.
In contrast, tuition-free public education is schooling provided under the public’s supervision or direction, according to the Cornell Law School.
‘Education is always about the economy’
With several school districts back in full swing this summer, experts told ABC News that challenges stretch beyond academic and social emotional learning.
“Education is always about the economy,” Mitchell said. “We just don’t discuss those two things together.”
In the wake of an educator shortage, Mitchell described school vacancies as an economic issue since workforce trends have outpaced the public education sector. Therefore, leaders such as Cardona and Harvard Center for Education Policy Research Executive Director Dr. Christina Grant stress the need to make public high school a pathway to careers for students. Research supports these proposals. After graduation, adults are a “direct reflection” of the preparation given to them by the school system, according to Mitchell.
For the most part, experts said they believe some reconfiguring of the education system should occur. Christina Grant, who was Washington, D.C.’s state superintendent during the pandemic, said she fully supports large-scale adjustments such as adding high-impact tutoring for all, utilizing federal investments and resources, and rethinking the high school structure.
Meanwhile, many conservative policymakers are pushing to defund the U.S. Department of Education as a whole. They argue that the word “education” doesn’t appear in the Constitution, so the individual states have to work through issues on a case-by-case basis.
At CEPR, Grant is researching evidence-based solutions for students across the country. She said intentional revisions are required for improving public education.
“The data is telling us that we have work to do,” she told ABC News. “Do I think that that means we need a whole system overhaul? I don’t think that you can eat a whole elephant at one time. I think you have to be laser-like focused on which chunks you would attack in which ways.”
Toch warns changes, whether sweeping or incremental, could take up to a decade on a widespread scale.
He and Grant agree the roughly $190 billion in elementary and secondary school emergency relief from the federal government during COVID has been helpful in tackling these concerns — particularly student recovery — over the last three years. But the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) money expires on Sept. 30.
With that deadline looming, Grant hopes more investments will move the needle.
“I do think that the federal government still has to make seismic commitments in public education because we are far from out of this,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — More than 10,000 books were removed from school library shelves over the 2023-2024 school year, free expression advocacy group PEN America said in a new report released Monday at the start of national Banned Books Week. The tally marks a nearly triple-fold increase from the 3,362 bans in the previous school year.
The count includes books both temporarily and indefinitely removed from shelves.
About 8,000 of these book removals were recorded in just two states: Florida and Iowa. Both states have laws in place restricting content related to sex, gender and LGBTQ content.
The book bans have overwhelmingly featured stories that are by or about people of color and the LGBTQ community, according to PEN America.
The study also found that the book-banning efforts have increasingly restricted stories by and about women and girls, and include depictions of or topics concerning rape or sexual abuse.
The restrictions have impacted titles by well-known authors including James Baldwin, Agatha Christie, Alice Walker, Jodi Picoult, Toni Morrison and more.
PEN America predicts higher book removal totals are to come as more laws concerning content restriction are set to impact classrooms in the ongoing 2024-2025 year.
This includes laws like Utah’s H.B. 29, signed in March, which requires all schools to remove a book if school officials from at least three school districts or at least two school districts and five charter schools have determined that a book constitutes “objective sensitive material.”
Critics of these laws say they are akin to censorship, while supporters argue that these laws protect students from what they believe to be inappropriate content.
PEN America found that both legislation and political “parents rights” groups were two key factors in the spike in book removals.
“Our numbers are certainly an undercount, as stories of book bans often go unreported,” PEN America stated in the report. “These numbers also do not account for the many reports of soft censorship, including increased hesitancy in book selection, ideologically-driven restrictions of school book purchases, the removal of classroom collections, and the cancellations of author visits and book fairs.”
