Security camera captures man attacking priest during church service
ABC News
(SPOKANE, Wash.) –A 40-year-old man attacked a priest during a church service in Spokane, Washington, on Tuesday night, according to officials.
Around 350 to 400 people had gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in downtown Spokane on Tuesday for the second night of novena, a tradition of gathering for prayer for nine days or nine weeks, when the man, identified as Joshua James Sommers, allegedly attacked the priest.
Security camera footage shows Sommers leaving his pew, rushing up to the altar near the end of the service and attempting to strike Rev. David Gaines in the face. Gaines was able to pin down Sommers, with other staff and churchgoers running up to help.
In the footage, Sommers lets out screams, and Gaines continues to say, “It’s OK, just calm down.”
Security guards quickly came to assist, and the Spokane Police Department was also notified immediately of the incident, according to the church. Gaines was not harmed in the attack.
Father Darrin Connall, who was kneeling at the altar when the attack occurred, told ABC News the church has not seen “anything quite this serious.”
“All of us were pretty shaken,” Connall said. “You don’t expect to see something like that when you’re gathering together to pray and worship.”
Once Sommers was escorted out by police, Connall said the entire group stopped the service and prayed for him.
“Whatever demons he was struggling with needed to be healed,” Connall said.
Sommers was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges, and also has a previous record of harming others. In 2023, Sommers was charged with third-degree assault after attacking an employee at a mental health facility. Sommers, who was a patient at this facility, allegedly punched the employee multiple times and stole their keys to try and escape, according to the affidavit on those charges.
Sommers appeared in court Wednesday on assault charges, along with the outstanding warrant from his previous assault. He will return to court later this month and remains behind bars.
ABC News’ Irving Last and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
(NEW ORLEANS) — More cops than confetti are expected to be prevalent on parade routes when Mardi Gras goes into full swing in New Orleans this weekend.
City officials said security has been ramped up to historic levels in the wake of a New Year’s Day terror attack on Bourbon Street that killed 14 people and injured dozens of others.
The annual Big Easy carnival has been designated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a Special Event Assessment Rating 1, signifying the festivities require extensive federal interagency support, according to New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell.
“This is one of the first moments in our history where Mardi Gras is a SEAR 1-rated event,” Cantrell said.
Mardi Gras is the third big test for New Orleans since the horrific Jan. 1 truck-ramming and shooting rampage on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter was allegedly carried out by a 42-year-old U.S. Army veteran investigators say was inspired by the ISIS terrorist group.
A day after the attack, the city hosted the Sugar Bowl college football playoff game and on Feb. 11 it hosted the Super Bowl, both held at the Caesars Superdome under tight security that included hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement officers.
“First of all, we know that we’re battle-tested and we’re just looking forward to a healthy and safe, and fun Mardi Gras season,” Cantrell said at a news conference on Thursday. “We’ve come off the heels of a successful Sugar Bowl, a successful Super Bowl and we’re now ready and prepared for the greatest freak show on Earth.”
Mardi Gras officially kicked off in the city on Jan. 6 and runs through Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras Day, on March 4. Between now and Fat Tuesday, about 40 parades are planned.
Banned from parade routes
Collin Arnold, New Orleans’ director of Homeland Security, said this year’s Mardi Gras will be noticeably different from previous years, as a number of items revelers usually bring to the multiple parades have been banned.
The New Orleans City Council recently approved a list of banned items, including confetti of any kind as well as confetti launchers; charcoal and gas barbecue grills; mylar balloons; portable generators; upholstered furniture; ladders over six feet high; and private drones.
The traditional throwing of beads will not be affected by the new security measures, officials said.
Revelers have also been warned not to leave coolers or ice chests unattended on the parade routes — a measure directly related to the terrorist attack. Investigators said the suspect allegedly packed improvised explosive devices in coolers he planted along Bourbon Street in advance of the rampage.
“Bring them if you have them. Keep them near you, but if you do see an unattended cooler and you’re getting that sense that there’s nobody there, please report that immediately to the NOPD’s non-emergency line,” Arnold said.
No coolers will be allowed in the French Quarter, officials said.
Mayor Cantrell said a makeshift memorial to the victims of the terrorist attack has been relocated for Mardi Gras from a Bourbon Street sidewalk to the Presbytere State Museum near the French Quarter’s Jackson Square.
“But I need you to know it is in coordination and with real reverence with the families and victims of Jan. 1,” Cantrell said.
‘100% all hands on deck’
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said another security measure being taken as a result of the attack is erecting hundreds of barricades on a nearly 3-mile stretch of St. Charles Avenue in the French Quarter, a major parade route.
The suspect in the New Year’s Day attack is alleged to have driven a rented pickup truck up on a sidewalk to get around a police car blocking Bourbon Street, according to investigators. The perpetrator proceeded to drive at high speed down the French Quarter thoroughfare, mowing down victims before he was killed in a gunfight with police officers, according to investigators.
Kirkpatrick said the barricades set up on the non-parade side of St. Charles Avenue will force vehicle traffic to take what she described as a “serpentine course” to get through the area.
“That will slow anybody down who thinks they’re going to use a vehicle as a weapon,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick said that 600 of the police department’s 900 officers working 12-hour shifts have been assigned to patrol the Mardi Gras parades. She said the remaining 300 officers will be on duty during Mardi Gras to service the rest of the city.
“We’re 100% all hands on deck,” Kirkpatrick said.
Kirkpatrick said that besides uniformed officers, 100 plainclothes officers will be embedded in the crowds.
She said K-9 units and bomb-sniffing dogs will also be deployed along parade routes. State National Guard troops are also being sent to New Orleans to help boost security.
“You’re going to see SWAT teams, you’re going to see Bearcats,” she said referring to armored vehicles.
The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said it is sending 200 deputies to help patrol Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and the Louisiana State Police said it will deploy another 150 troopers to New Orleans to enhance security in the Central Business District, on local highways and in the French Quarter.
Col. Robert Hodges, the state police superintendent, said the French Quarter has been designated as an “Enhanced Security Zone” requiring the most security. He said ice chests or coolers will not be allowed in the French Quarter and that any container larger than 4.5 inches by 6.5 inches will be subject to searches.
‘Strong hotel occupancy’
The popularity of Mardi Gras does not seem to have been diminished by the terrorist attack, according to New Orleans hospitality officials.
“We’re expecting very strong hotel occupancy,” said Kelly Shultz, senior vice president of New Orleans & Company, formerly known as the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Shultz said Saturday night hotel occupancy for the second weekend of Mardi Gras was 95% compared to 83% during the same night last year.
Shultz said a Tulane University survey found that Mardi Gras alone generates about $900 million in economic revenue annually.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court on Thursday struck down a longstanding federal ban that prevented the sale of handguns to Americans between the ages of 18 and 20 — a landmark gun control regulation in place since 1968.
The conservative Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the federal law banning handgun sales to teens is inconsistent with the nation’s historical tradition and violates the Second Amendment.
The decision cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 opinion by Clarence Thomas in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which significantly expanded gun rights and threatens to rollback other gun safety laws nationwide.
“Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old individuals among ‘the people’ whose right to keep and bear arms is protected,” the court wrote in its opinion statement.
The statement went on, “The federal government has presented scant evidence that eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds’ firearm rights during the founding-era were restricted in a similar manner to the contemporary federal handgun purchase ban, and its 19th century evidence ‘cannot provide much insight into the meaning of the Second Amendment when it contradicts earlier evidence.'”
The immediate nationwide impact of the ruling is unclear. The case is almost certainly bound for the Supreme Court.
Handguns have been the most commonly used weapons in murders and mass shootings for decades in the United States, according to government data analyzed by The Violence Project.
Last term, the Supreme Court upheld a longstanding federal law prohibiting the possession of firearms by people under domestic violence restraining orders.
In the next few weeks, it will consider whether gun manufacturers can be held liable for violent crimes perpetrated by criminals who easily get the weapons.
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The Minneapolis City Council has approved a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice to implement major reforms within the Minneapolis Police Department under the watch of an appointed, independent court monitor.
The decree still needs to go through other levels of approval, including the mayor’s office, before it is filed in federal court, according to Council President Elliott Payne.
“On behalf of the council and the entire city, I’d like to thank our community for standing together united in this and for having patience with us as we have traveled a very, very long and challenging journey,” said Payne. “We are just beginning and we know we have a long way to go.”
The police reform negotiations follow a two-year investigation from the Department of Justice into the Minneapolis Police Department’s patterns and practices.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice released a report following a two-year investigation that found MPD was engaged in a pattern of discriminatory law enforcement practices, used unjustified deadly force in encounters with suspects, engaged in unreasonable use of force in encounters with young suspects and at times failed to give proper medical aid to people they had taken into custody.
The investigation was prompted in part by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, which sparked racial justice and anti-police brutality protests nationwide. The report found that “the systemic problems in MPD made what happened to [Floyd] possible,” and such problems had continued despite reform efforts.
“We also found that MPD officers routinely disregard the safety of people in their custody. Our review found numerous incidents in which MPD officers responded to a person saying that they could not breathe with a version of, ‘You can breathe, you’re talking right now,'” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
In one 2017 case, Garland said an MPD officer shot and killed an unarmed woman who he said had “spooked him” when she approached his squad car.
“The woman had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in a nearby alley,” he said.
MPD officers were also found to stop, search and use force against people who are Black and Native American at disproportionate rates, according to the report.
MPD is already under a consent decree from the state to “make transformational changes to address race-based policing,” following a 2023 agreement between the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the City of Minneapolis.
The human rights agency described the consent decree as “a court-enforceable agreement that identifies specific changes to be made and timelines for those changes to occur.”
In 2022, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights similarly found that the Minneapolis Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. This led to a state consent decree agreement that is ongoing.
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
