Walmart employee in Georgia kills 2 co-workers, injures another in after-hours shooting spree
Newton County Sheriff’s Office
(COVINGTON, Ga.) — A Walmart employee killed one co-worker and injured another in an after-hours shooting spree that started at the store and ended with the individual killing another co-worker at a nearby home, according to law enforcement officials.
The initial shooting took place in a Walmart branch in Covington, Georgia, about 35 miles east of Atlanta, at around 1:30 a.m. on Friday, according to the Newton County Sheriff’s Office.
An employee allegedly exited the building shortly before the shooting, retrieved a firearm and returned inside, according to a preliminary investigation.
The suspect then located a male acquaintance within the store, and fatally shot them, according to the sheriff’s office.
The suspect later encountered a second acquaintance outside Walmart and shot him as well. That person was transported to a local hospital in critical condition, according to the sheriff’s office.
The suspect then left the area and went into a neighborhood where they forced entry into a residence, found another female acquaintance and fatally shot her, the sheriff’s office said.
“This was not an active shooter situation. The suspect specifically targeted individuals they knew,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The suspect fled the area and had a brief standoff with Aiken County, South Carolina, sheriff’s deputies and South Carolina State Troopers. The suspect then apparently shot himself and was taken to a local hospital, according to the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office. Aiken County is on the Georgia-South Carolina border, about two hours from Covington.
No deputies were injured. The suspect remains in custody as he is being treated, officials said.
The investigation remains active and ongoing.
“We’re heartbroken by what’s happened. There’s no place for violence in our stores. We’re focused on taking care of our associates and supporting law enforcement with their investigation,” Walmart said in a statement Friday.
Gerhardt Konig’s not guilty plea is “a substantive response to the allegation that he tried to kill his wife,” his attorney, Thomas Otake, said in a statement, according to Honolulu ABC affiliate KITV.
“There are two sides to every story, and thus far only one side has been shared,” Otake said. “The other side to this story will be shared within the court process at the appropriate time.”
Arielle Konig alleged she was on the Pali Puka Trail on Oahu with her husband to celebrate her birthday on March 24 when Gerhardt Konig stood near the edge and asked her to take a selfie with him, according to court documents.
She said she didn’t feel comfortable being that close to the edge, so she said no and walked away, the documents said. Gerhardt Konig, 46, allegedly “yelled at her to come back, and when she refused, he pushed her into the bushes,” the documents said.
As Gerhardt Konig pushed her toward the cliff’s edge, he “was yelling something to the effect of, ‘Get back over there, I’m so f——- sick of you!’” according to another court document.
Arielle Konig said he hit her in the head with a rock about 10 times while grabbing the back of her head and smashing her face into the ground, the court documents said.
She said she then saw her husband take two syringes from his bag and “attempt to use them on her, but she was able to get them away from him,” the documents said.
Another hiker intervened, the documents said, and Arielle Konig told the hiker, “He is trying to kill me.”
Gerhardt Konig was arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder, officials said.
Arielle Konig said she suffered a broken thumb, bruising on her head and body and severe lacerations to her face and scalp. She was hospitalized and has since been released, according to her attorney.
The Konigs live on Maui with their two sons, ages 4 and 2.
Three days after the alleged attack, Arielle Konig filed a petition for a temporary restraining order, writing in the document, “I am fearful that if Gerhardt is released from custody, he will return to Maui and attempt to harm or kill me, as well as harm or kill our children or other family members.”
She said in December, Gerhardt Konig accused her of having an affair, “which led to extreme jealousy on his part” and led him to try to “control and monitor all of my communications,” the petition said. She said they went to individual and couples counseling.
Allison Robbert for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has scheduled a hearing at 5 p.m. ET Monday to address the question of whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.
Shortly before the hearing’s scheduled start time, the judge, James Boasberg, denied a request from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to call off the hearing.
Justice Department attorneys subsequently asked the circuit court to step in and stop the hearing and to assign the case to a different judge.
President Donald Trump’s administration made a calculated decision Saturday to ignore the judge’s directive to turn around two flights containing hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Saturday’s verbal instructions from Boasberg accompanied a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from deporting noncitizens currently in custody, which the judge issued less than two hours after Trump attempted to invoke the 18th century law to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Boasberg, in his temporary restraining order, explicitly told the government to turn around any aircraft that had already departed the country if they were still in the air. However, sources said top lawyers and officials in the administration made the determination that since the flights were over international waters, Boasberg’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.
DOJ attorneys argued in their Monday court filing that court should vacate the hearing because they do not believe they violated the court’s orders, and they are not prepared to provide any further operational security or national security details to the plaintiffs or to the public.
Bondi, Blanche and additional top DOJ leadership wrote that “an oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction” — claiming the government not violate any order because the oral directive in court, issued at 6:46 p.m. ET Saturday, was not in the written order that was filed to the docket at 7:25 p.m. ET.
In a court filing late Sunday night, lawyers with the ACLU and Democracy Forward Foundation argued that the Trump administration may have committed a “blatant violation” of the court’s directive by acting as if the order only applied to flights in U.S. airspace and individuals on American soil.
“This Court orally and unambiguously directed the government to turn around any planes carrying individuals being removed pursuant to the AEA Proclamation,” the filing said.
Lawyers with the Department of Justice insisted in a court filing Sunday that they removed “gang members” pursuant to Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation before the court issued its order.
However, lawyers representing some of the migrants argued that assertion not only conflicts with the timeline of events but also misconstrues when the United States loses jurisdiction of the noncitizens.
“Whether or not the planes had cleared U.S. territory, the U.S. retained custody at least until the planes landed and the individuals were turned over to foreign governments,” the plaintiffs’ filing said. “And the Court could not have been clearer that it was concerned with losing jurisdiction and authority to order the individuals returned if they were handed over to foreign governments, not with whether the planes had cleared U.S. territory or had even landed in another country.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys said that based on publicly available information, it appears that two flights carrying migrants under the Alien Enemies Act landed after the court’s verbal and written orders. They added that “public comments made by Defendants and the President of El Salvador” boasting about the court being “too late” to stop the deportations reinforces concerns that the Trump administration may have violated the order.
“Defendants could have turned the plane around without handing over individuals subject to the Proclamation and this Court’s [Temporary Restraining Order],” the lawyers argued.
Finding the deportations would cause irreparable harm, Boasberg’s temporary restraining order on Saturday barred the Trump administration from deporting “all non-citizens who are subject to the AEA proclamation” for at least 14 days.
“You shall inform your clients of this immediately any plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said during Saturday’s hearing. “However that’s accomplished, turning around the plane, or not embarking anyone on the plane. … This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked Judge Boasberg to order the Trump administration to submit sworn declarations to determine whether the government knowingly violated his court order.
(MILWAUKEE) — A federal grand jury has indicted a Wisconsin judge who was arrested and charged last month with allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan has been indicted on charges alleging she concealed a person from arrest and obstructed a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States — the same charges she was initially charged with by complaint.
She is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges on Thursday.
Following the indictment on Tuesday, her legal team said in a statement, “As she said after her unnecessary arrest, Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court.”
The judge was arrested on April 25. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement at the time that two FBI agents arrested Dugan “for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid arrest” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Dugan appeared in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin following her arrest and was released on her own recognizance. If convicted, she could face up to six years in prison.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan in the wake of her arrest, stating in an order that it found it was “in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties.”
Her case stems from the arrest of an undocumented immigrant — Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — on April 18, county court records show. Flores-Ruiz was set to appear in court that day before Dugan for a pretrial conference in an ongoing case where he has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery/domestic abuse.
Upon learning ICE officers were present in court to arrest Flores-Ruiz, Dugan allegedly became “visibly angry” and confronted one of the officers, according to the federal complaint that was unsealed following her arrest.
Multiple witnesses cited in the complaint later allegedly said Dugan returned to her courtroom after directing members of the arrest team to the office of the court’s chief judge, according to the complaint.
A DEA agent saw Flores-Ruiz and his attorney in the public hallway of the courthouse and he appeared to be making efforts to evade arrest, the complaint stated. After he was encountered by FBI and DEA agents outside the building, Flores-Ruiz “turned around and sprinted down the street” before he was ultimately apprehended, according to the complaint.
In a post on social media, FBI Director Kash Patel claimed Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse.”
