United flight diverted to Memphis due to ‘severe’ turbulence: Airline
(NEW YORK) — A United Airlines flight en route to Chicago was diverted to Tennessee after experiencing “severe turbulence” Wednesday, the airline said.
Seven people were injured, including one who was transported to a local hospital, authorities said.
Flight UA1196 encountered “a brief period of severe turbulence” Wednesday afternoon, United Airlines said in a statement. The seatbelt sign was on at the time, the airline said.
The crew reported the severe turbulence over Louisiana before landing safely at Memphis International Airport around 2:40 p.m. CT, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Paramedics met the aircraft at the gate and transported one passenger to the hospital, United said. The person suffered non-critical injuries, according to the Memphis Fire Department.
Six others declined treatment and transport and the extent of their injuries is unknown, the fire department said.
“We’re grateful to our crew for their efforts to ensure the safety of our employees and customers,” United said.
The Boeing 737-900 was traveling from Cancun International Airport to Chicago O’Hare International Airport at the time, the airline said. There were 172 passengers and seven crew members on board, according to United.
The plane was back in the air on its way to Chicago as of Wednesday evening.
(BUTLER, Pa.) — There may have been radio traffic from local police that the Secret Service didn’t have access to that could’ve proved crucial to stopping former President Donald Trump from going on stage the day of the assassination attempt, the acting director of the Secret Service said Friday.
“It was so apparent to me that in this incident, in the final 30 seconds, which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire, there was clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have,” acting Director Ronald Rowe said at a news conference. “And so, we have to do a better job of collocating, leveraging that counterpart system, and this is going to drive our operations going forward.”
Rowe said the shooting was a Secret Service failure alone.
“In no way should any state or local agency supporting us in Butler on July 13 be held responsible,” he said.
One spectator was killed and two were hurt in the assassination attempt at a July 13 election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump suffered a graze wound to his ear. The gunman was killed by snipers.
Rowe said July 13 was the first time the Secret Service’s counter snipers were deployed to a Trump rally this year. Going forward, he said the Secret Service will have counter snipers at all events with presidential candidates.
Rowe said there were two command posts: one post with the Secret Service and Pennsylvania State Police, and one post with local police. He said it was “unique” that there were two security command posts, and in the future, he will make sure everyone is in the same room.
Rowe also walked through the timeline.
On July 8, agents from the Pittsburgh field office conducted a walkthrough of the event, he said. On July 10, the Secret Service counter sniper and technical security personnel arrived in Pittsburgh and began advanced planning for their teams, he said.
On July 12, the build-out of the campaign rally site began, he said, and continued through the early morning hours of July 13.
The morning of July 13, a site briefing was conducted with Secret Service personnel and law enforcement partners supporting the event, Rowe said. Secret Service personnel took their posts and a technical security sweep of the protective site started before the site opened to event staff, vendors and the public, he said.
About 15,000 people came to the rally, Rowe said.
At 5:53 p.m., the Secret Service counter sniper team leader texted the Secret Service counter sniper teams that local police were looking for a suspicious individual who was outside of the perimeter, lurking around the AGR building, Rowe said.
“At this time, Secret Service personnel were operating with the knowledge that local law enforcement was working on an issue of a suspicious individual,” Rowe said.
“Neither the Secret Service counter sniper teams, nor members of the former president’s security detail, had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” he said.
At 6:11 p.m., the gunman’s first shots were fired, he said. Within three seconds, Trump’s detail rushed the stage and shielded him with their own bodies, Rowe said.
He said video from that day affirmed there should’ve been better coverage.
“We should have had better protection for the protectee. We should have had better coverage on that roofline,” Rowe said.
Going forward, Rowe said, he’s directed each special agent in charge — who oversee the Secret Service’s field offices across the U.S. — to be precise and clear with state and local partners.
“We’re not going to have this assumption that, ‘Oh, we think that they have it,’ and we’re going to we’re going to work together,” he said. “We’re going to have good, hard, fierce conversations about what we’re going to do, and then we’re going to go out there, and we’re going to make all of these venues secure moving forward.”
(WINDER, Ga.) — As students hid behind desks and doors during the latest deadly school shooting in the United States, they pulled out their cell phones.
It was just before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, that Becky Van Der Walt received a text message from her son that no parent wants to receive.
“I think there’s a school shooting,” Van Der Walt’s son, Henry, a junior at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, wrote, according to text messages shared with ABC News. “We heard gunshots and the police shouting … We’re all in hard lockdown.”
Around eight minutes later, Henry sent another text to his mom with three simple words, “I love you.”
Around the same time Wednesday, Erin Clark, also a parent of an Apalachee High School student, saw a concerning text message pop up on her phone from her son, Ethan.
“School shooting rn .. i’m scared,” Ethan, the high school student, wrote to his mom. “pls i’m not joking.”
When Clark responded that she was leaving work, Ethan, too, responded with just three words: ” I love you.”
Sonya Turner was home for less than an hour Wednesday after dropping off her 15-year-old daughter at Apalachee High School when she too got a worrisome text.
“There’s a real lockdown,” Turner’s daughter Abby, a sophomore, wrote to her mom from biology class. “idk how to explain it … i heard shots but i don’t anymore.”
While Abby and her fellow classmates were texting their parents Wednesday morning, not knowing what would happen, a 14-year-old student had allegedly opened fire at Apalachee High, killing four people and injuring nine.
The 14-year-old student accused of opening fire at the school has been charged with four counts of felony murder, with additional charges expected, Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials said Thursday. A motive is not known.
Two teachers and two students were killed in the shooting: math teacher and football coach Richard Aspinwall, 39; math teacher Cristina Irimie, 53; and students Mason Schermerhorn, 14, and Christian Angulo, 14, according to officials.
Eight students and one teacher were injured, officials said, but all are expected to survive.
Becky Van Der Walt told ABC News it was “terrifying” to receive a text message about a school shooting from her son, with whom she reunited later in the day.
Ethan Clark also survived the shooting, as did Turner’s two daughters, Abby and Isabella, a 14-year-old freshman at Apalachee High.
Turner told ABC News that as soon as texts from her daughters about gunshots came in just before 10:30 a.m., she called her husband to go to the school, telling him, “It’s real. Go. Go. Go.'”
For the next hour, Turner, also the mom of a 9-year-old son, said she stayed glued to her phone, keeping her daughters calm, making sure they had safe places to hide and praying with them.
“Where are you hiding,” Turner asks in one text message, with Abby responding, “I’m behind a long desk.”
“Is there an additional closet or anything you can get in,” Turner asks Abby in a later message.
“No I can’t move … I’m not aloud to mo[v]e,” Abby replies, leading Turner to tell her, “Ok. Pray …,” while also texting prayers.
In another message, Turner asks her daughters to simply keep communicating with her so she knows they’re alive, writing to them, “Keep talking to me.”
Isabella, just a few weeks into her first year of high school, texted her mom, “I love you. Mommy im scared.” Grief counselors from Columbine, Parkland, Sandy Hook describe what happens after a school shooting
Turner said over the course of the morning, she received text messages not only from her daughters inside the school, but from fellow parents who were also communicating with their kids and helping each other as they intermittently lost communication.
“[A friend] has two kids [at Apalachee High School], and she couldn’t get one of them on the phone, and he turned out to be in the classroom of the first teacher that was pronounced dead,” Turner said. “She’s texting and texting and couldn’t get him and couldn’t get him, and that’s because he was trying to save his teacher.”
In another instance, Turner said she temporarily lost communication with Isabella.
“That was a total freak-out moment but her phone had gotten taken, the whole class, they took their phones,” Turner said, adding. “But when they ushered them all out onto the football field, she got to a friend who was able to text me … so I knew she was safe.”
Turner, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, said she ended up walking over one mile from her home to the high school, where, after several hours, she was able to reunite with her daughters.
“Abby just keeps hearing the gunshots, and their question now is, how do we go back to school,” Turner said. “Izzy’s stuff is all in her classroom right where she left it, and she’s like, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go get it. I don’t want to go back into that room.’’
ABC News’ Caroline Guthrie contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A Minnesota man faces multiple charges for allegedly driving while intoxicated and crashing his vehicle into a restaurant patio, killing two people and injuring nine others, officials said Tuesday.
Steven Frane Bailey, 56, was charged Tuesday with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide for intoxication and negligence, as well as nine counts of criminal vehicular operation for the injured victims, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said.
The incident occurred Sunday evening when authorities say a man drove into the patio area of the Park Tavern in St. Louis Park around 8 p.m. local time.
“According to the criminal complaint, Bailey was observed on surveillance video pulling into the Park Tavern parking lot Sunday, driving past an open parking spot, hitting a parked car when he tried to back into that spot, pulling out and then accelerating toward the patio,” the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said in a press release. “He plowed through the metal fence into the patio seating area and hit several people.”
Several people seated or walking in the patio area were struck, according to the complaint, which alleged that Bailey continued to accelerate, reaching speeds of 30 to 45 mph, before finally coming to an “abrupt and violent halt” upon hitting several boulders at the base of a hill.
Officers who approached Bailey’s vehicle allegedly heard him on the phone saying, “I hit the gas instead of the brake and went right through a thing” and “I’m probably going to jail,” according to the complaint.
Bailey’s speech was slurred, and his eyes were bloodshot and watery, according to the complaint. He was unsteady on his feet upon exiting the vehicle, and when told by officers that they were going to perform field sobriety tests, he allegedly responded, “You don’t need to do fields. I know what I did,” the complaint stated.
He was transported to a hospital, where a preliminary breath sample showed a BAC of .325, according to the complaint. Results of a blood kit test were pending as of Tuesday, the complaint stated.
Bailey was booked into the Hennepin County Jail following a medical evaluation. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
“Bailey could have simply decided to stay home or take a Lyft rather than driving while intoxicated,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement. “This tragedy killed two people and injured several others, and it was entirely avoidable. We extend our deepest sympathy to the families of those killed, everyone injured, and the entire close-knit St. Louis Park community as they grieve this devastating incident.”
The attorney’s office identified the victims killed in the crash as Kristina Folkerts, a mother of three who worked at the restaurant, and Gabe Harvey, who was celebrating with several co-workers from Methodist Hospital at the time.
Folkerts was pinned under the vehicle and died at the scene despite life-saving efforts after officers lifted the vehicle off of her, prosecutors said. Harvey was transferred to a local hospital, where he died, prosecutors said.
One of the victims is currently unconscious and intubated at a hospital after sustaining broken legs, a broken pelvis, broken ribs and dislocated knees, according to the complaint.
Other victims suffered injuries, including head trauma, “serious” road rash and bruises, according to the complaint.
A memorial to the victims has been set up outside the Park Tavern, which is scheduled to reopen Wednesday in the wake of the crash.
The St. Louis Park Police Department believes more people were injured in the crash, and the number of charges against Bailey could increase if additional victims come forward, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said.
Bailey has two prior DWI convictions, including for gross misdemeanor third-degree DWI in 2015 and misdemeanor fourth-degree DWI in 2014, according to the attorney’s office.