Teenage girl accused of stabbing 3 horses appears in juvenile court
A horse, named Detail, who was unable to compete due to a stabbing injury. (Obtained by ABC News)
(LAS VEGAS) — The teenage girl accused of stabbing three horses made her first appearance in juvenile court in Nevada on Thursday as prosecutors hope to move her case to adult court.
The judge said he believed the teen was a public safety risk and ordered her to remain in custody with no bail, ABC Las Vegas affiliate KTNV reported. She’s due to return to court on July 8 when attorneys will discuss the possibility of moving her case to adult court, according to the Clark County District Attorney’s office.
The girl — who was in Las Vegas for the National Barrel Horse Association’s Professional’s Choice Vegas Super Show — is accused of attacking three horses in a barn early Saturday, according to Las Vegas police and the NBHA.
She allegedly had access to the barn and authorities believe she may have used a knife to wound the horses, authorities said.
The horses’ injuries were non-life-threatening but the wounds did keep the animals from competing in the event, which took place over the weekend, according to police.The teenager was arrested for 12 counts of willful/malicious kill/maim/torture animal — horse and three counts of felony malicious destruction of private property over $5,000, authorities said.
The Clark County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday that it wants the teen charged in adult court.
“These allegations involve deliberate acts of extreme cruelty against defenseless animals and have had a significant impact on the victims, the owners, and the broader equestrian community,” DA Steve Wolfson said in a statement.
Elijah McClain in an undated photo. (Family photo)
(NEW YORK) — The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of two former Aurora paramedics, who were convicted in December 2023 of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man who was walking home from a convenience store.
In reversing the convictions, the judge ruled on Thursday that the case should be sent back to the district court for a possible retrial.
McClain’s case gained national attention, particularly in the wake of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, becoming one of the prominent cases that fueled Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
Sheneen McClain, Elijah McClain’s mother, reacted to the reversal of the convictions in a post on social media on Thursday, calling the move “corrupt and cowardly.”
“I am not surprised by the denial of true justice for American citizens in the hands of government branches who allow criminal behaviors in their police agencies,” she wrote. “They are corrupt and cowardly.”
ABC News has reached out to attorneys for the paramedics, Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper, for comment.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told ABC News in a statement that his office stands by its decision to charge the paramedics and “is committed to defending these convictions through the appeals. Justice demands it.”
ABC News reached out to Weiser’s office for further comment.
The charges
Cichuniec and Cooper were accused of administering an excessive amount of ketamine to sedate McClain after an encounter with police on Aug. 24, 2019.
Cichuniec and Cooper were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide on Dec. 23, 2023. Cichuniec was also convicted of assault in the second-degree via the unlawful administration of drugs. Cooper was acquitted of the assault charge in 2023, and they both pleaded not guilty at trial.
The appeals court ruling upheld Cichuniec’s assault conviction, but reversed the negligent homicide conviction.
Cooper was sentenced in 2024 to a four-year probationary sentence for negligent homicide. Meanwhile, Cichuniec was sentenced to five years in prison with a three-year period of parole for the assault charge and one year to be served concurrently on the negligent homicide charge.
Cichuniec and Cooper separately appealed their convictions.
In Thursday’s ruling, the appeals court agreed with Cooper’s defense team that the lower court “misled” jurors by failing to clarify the standard of care applicable to the charge of criminally negligent homicide after jurors asked the court for a definition.
“By telling the jurors to apply the ‘common and ordinary meanings’ of the words in the instruction, the court failed to shine any light on the issue and in fact misled the jurors as to the applicable standard of care: The proper standard wasn’t that of a generic reasonable person but of a person in Cooper’s profession under the existing circumstances,” the ruling reads.
The judge ruled that the reversal of Cooper’s conviction also applies to Cichuniec because they were both tried together in that case.
“The two were tried on identical theories of guilt and the evidence against them was, while not identical, sufficiently similar that we can’t conclude that the errors were harmless as to Cichuniec,” the ruling says.
What happened to Elijah McClain?
McClain was confronted by police while walking home from a convenience store after a 911 caller told authorities they had seen someone “sketchy” in the area.
McClain was unarmed and wearing a ski mask at the time. His family says he had anemia, a blood condition that can make people feel cold more easily.
When officers arrived on the scene, they told McClain they had a right to stop him because he was “being suspicious.”
In police body camera footage, McClain can be heard telling police he was going home, and that “I have a right to go where I am going.”
Officer Nathan Woodyard placed McClain in a carotid, or choke, hold and he and the other two officers on the scene moved McClain by force to the grass and restrained him.
When Cooper and Cichuniec arrived, McClain was given a shot of 500 milligrams of ketamine to sedate him and he was loaded into an ambulance where he had a heart attack, according to investigators.
McClain died on Aug. 30, 2019, three days after doctors pronounced him brain dead and he was removed from life support, officials said.
Former police officer Randy Roedema was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault in the third degree in McClain’s death. He was sentenced to more than one year in the county jail in January.
Two other officers, Jason Rosenblatt and Woodyard, were found not guilty on charges of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Rosenblatt was also acquitted on charges of assault in the second degree.
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Cadaver dogs are heading to help with the search for Lynette Hooker, an American woman who’s missing in the Bahamas, according to police.
The K-9 team from the U.S. Coast Guard will be on the ground in Hope Town on Wednesday morning, Advardo Dames, assistant commissioner of the Royal Bahamas Police, told ABC News.
Lynette Hooker has been missing since she went overboard on a dinghy on the evening of April 4.
When the 55-year-old Michigan woman and her husband, Brian Hooker, departed Hope Town on the Abaco Islands for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, bad weather caused her to fall off the dinghy, her husband told authorities.
Brian Hooker, 58, was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on Monday without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on Tuesday that he’s staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
He said he was planning “to go back to the boat, and then hire or beg people to help me go find some areas to search.”
Brian Hooker’s attorney did not allow him to answer questions about what happened the night his wife went overboard due to the pending investigation.
When asked if there was anything he wishes he’d done differently, Brian Hooker was emotional, saying, “I will always think there was something I could have done differently. My one job, my one job was to look out for her, and that has not happened. And I’m gonna keep looking out for her now, the best I can.”
ABC News’ Brian Andrews contributed to this report.
Nighttime shot of unfurled police tape next to flashing lights from a police car. (halbergman/Getty Images)
(SANDY, Ore) — Multiple people were killed and an officer was shot and wounded in a domestic violence situation in Oregon, officials said.
When officers responded to a shooting and domestic disturbance shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday, the officers came under gunfire and returned fire, Sandy Police Chief Patrick Huskey said at a news conference.
One officer was shot multiple times, Huskey said. The officer has been hospitalized in stable condition and expected to survive, he said.
Multiple victims are dead, the chief said, but he did not say how many victims or their identities.
While the suspect was barricaded in the home, police urged residents to lock their doors and stay inside.
The suspect surrendered around 8 p.m., police said, and the shelter in place order has been lifted.
The chief called the shooting a “traumatic event for our community.”
Sandy Mayor Kathleen Walker said in a statement, “Our Sandy community grieves the unimaginable loss of lives from a domestic violence incident. … Please keep our officer, the victims and their loved ones, and everyone in our community in your thoughts.”
