Suspect in custody as investigators work to understand what propelled random attacks in Manhattan
A man has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbings of three people in random attacks across Manhattan, police said on Tuesday.
Ramon Rivera, 51, was taken into custody after he was found with blood on his clothes and the two kitchen knives, authorities said.
Continue reading...Suit accuses Club Q of lax security and says authorities’ ‘deliberate inaction’ enabled shooter to carry out attack
Two days shy of the second anniversary of a hate-fueled mass shooting at a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs, victims and mothers of those killed have filed lawsuits against the club for lax security and against the sheriff’s office for failing to trigger the state’s red flag law to disarm the shooter and ensure they could not purchase any more weapons.
“Club Q advertised itself as a ‘safe place’ for LGBTQIA+ individuals. But that was a facade,” read the two complaints, which contain allegations of negligence.
Continue reading...General Motors unit to pay $500,000 fine after failing to disclose key details of 2023 San Francisco crash to NHTSA
General Motors’ self-driving car unit, Cruise, admitted on Thursday to submitting a false report to influence a federal investigation and will pay a $500,000 criminal fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, the justice department said.
The department said Cruise failed to disclose key details of an October 2023 crash to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in which one of its robotaxis in San Francisco struck a pedestrian after she was hit by another vehicle and dragged her 20ft (6.1 meters).
Continue reading...Lawrence Hecker, 93, self-admitted serial child molester, grapples with Alzheimer’s dementia and had trial delayed
With less than a month to go before his latest scheduled trial date, a self-admitted serial child molester and retired Roman Catholic priest from New Orleans remains competent to proceed with his oft-delayed rape and kidnapping case – albeit marginally as the 93-year-old grapples with Alzheimer’s dementia, according to his most recent medical evaluation.
A pair of doctors who evaluated Lawrence Hecker on 6 November made it a point to note that his illness is “a chronic and progressive disease”, suggesting additional delays beyond several already seen in the case create a risk that the clergyman declines into a state of legal incompetence preventing him from ever standing trial given his advanced age.
Continue reading...Nicholas Wayne Hamlett arrested almost one month after police found body of Steven Lloyd of Tennessee
Authorities in South Carolina have captured a man who allegedly murdered a hiker in woodlands in Tennessee then attempted to disguise the killing as a bear attack.
Nicholas Wayne Hamlett was arrested in Columbia on Sunday night almost one month after police found the body of the hiker, Steven Lloyd of Knoxville, Tennessee, close to the Cherahola Skyway in Monroe county, 80 miles north-east of Chattanooga.
Continue reading...Mackenzie Michalski, 31, from Portland, Oregon, met 37-year-old man from Ireland at nightclub in Budapest
Family members of a 31-year-old American tourist who was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital mourned their loss while a 37-year-old suspect was in custody Saturday.
The victim, Mackenzie Michalski from Portland, Oregon, was reported missing on 5 November after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest. Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs, where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.
Continue reading...Trump campaign said US officials warned him in September about suspected Iranian assassination plot
The US justice department is bringing criminal charges over an Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump that was thwarted by the FBI, the government said.
The federal government has unsealed criminal charges in what the justice department said was a murder-for-hire plan to take out Trump before this week’s presidential election, which he won decisively over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.
Continue reading...Brooklyn detention center holding 1,200 has been under scrutiny since two fatal stabbings this summer
Federal authorities have confirmed that they seized drugs, homemade weapons and electronic devices during a sweep of the jail where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held on sex trafficking conspiracy charges ahead of a trial next year.
The Bureau of Prisons, which headed up the interagency sweep of the Metropolitan detention center (MDC) in Brooklyn that began on Monday, said the action was not related to Combs’s detention but was “preplanned and coordinated to ensure the safety and security” of staff and inmates.
Continue reading...Wooster Rancy, 21, accused in death of Sgt Sarah Roque, 23, whose body was found at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri
A US army soldier has been charged with murder in the death of a fellow service member at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, the military announced Thursday.
The army office of Special Trial Counsel charged the 21-year-old specialist Wooster Rancy on Wednesday with murder and obstructing justice in the death of 23-year-old Sgt Sarah Roque.
Continue reading...Sarah Boone was accused of leaving Jorge Torres to die at their home in Winter Park in 2020
A woman accused of leaving her boyfriend to die after he was zipped into a suitcase in their home was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury in central Florida.
Four years after Sarah Boone was arrested over the death of Jorge Torres, jurors handed down the verdict against her on Friday evening after deliberating for about 90 minutes. Boone had pleaded not guilty.
Continue reading...Stacey Williams says the ex-president, whose spokesperson denied the allegations, touched her in an unwanted sexual way in 1993, after Epstein introduced them
A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993, in what she believed was a “twisted game” between the two men.
Stacey Williams, who worked as a professional model in the 1990s, said she first met Trump in 1992 at a Christmas party after being introduced to him by Epstein, who she believed was a good friend of the then New York real estate developer. Williams said Epstein was interested in her and the two casually dated for a period of a few months.
Continue reading...Justice department says eight were charged ‘for their efforts to silence and kill a US citizen because of her criticism of the Iranian regime’
A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has been charged in New York in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a dissident Iranian American journalist.
The target of the alleged assassination plot was not named in unsealed court documents, but she has been widely identified as Masih Alinejad, who lives in New York.
Continue reading...Authorities have arrested a teenage suspect in what appears to be an instance of ‘family annihilation’
Authorities found five people shot to death inside a home south-east of Seattle on Monday morning and arrested a teenager in connection with the killings, police said.
The killings in Fall City, Washington, were the 25th mass murder in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonpartisan archive defines a mass murder as one in which four or more victims are killed.
Continue reading...Shooting, preceded by a fight among some of the men, near Lexington early Saturday also left eight people wounded
Three people were killed and eight others were wounded in central Mississippi early Saturday when at least two people fired guns at a group of several hundred people who were celebrating a high school football team’s homecoming win at an outdoor trail several hours after the game had ended, authorities said.
The mass shooting near the community of Lexington was preceded by a fight among some of the men at the celebration, but deputies had not yet learned what sparked the fight, said Holmes county sheriff Willie March.
Continue reading...Justice department says Vikash Yadav, who remains at large, planned to murder a Sikh separatist in New York
The United States has charged a former Indian intelligence officer who allegedly directed a foiled plot to murder a Sikh separatist in New York City last year.
An indictment of Vikash Yadav was ordered to be unsealed on Thursday, court records showed. Yadav was a former officer in India’s Research and Analysis Wing spy service, the records said. He remains at large.
Continue reading...Colt Gray, 14, and his father, Colin Gray, were indicted separately for the mass shooting at Apalachee high school
A grand jury indicted a father and son on murder charges on Thursday in a mass shooting at Apalachee high school in Winder, Georgia.
Georgia media outlets reported that the Barrow county grand jury meeting in Winder indicted 14-year-old Colt Gray on a total of 55 counts, including four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, plus aggravated assault and cruelty to children. Grand jurors formally charged his father, Colin Gray, with 29 counts, including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.
Continue reading...Podcast episode talks about conviction of Ashley Benefield, who says she was defending herself from domestic violence
Two of Ashley Benefield’s fellow ballerinas have opened up about seeing her husband Douglas’s “angry side” in a new podcast that the creators believe could support her claims of later having shot him to death to defend herself from domestic violence at his hands.
Ashley Benefield – who co-founded a ballet company in 2017 alongside her husband, Douglas Benefield – was convicted of manslaughter in July after shooting him to death in 2020 despite claiming that she was defending herself from domestic violence at his hands.
Continue reading...Gunfire erupted between two groups during homecoming events at Tennessee State University, police say
One person was killed and nine others wounded in a shootout amid a crowd near a university in Tennessee Saturday afternoon, police said.
A crowd that gathered earlier in the day for homecoming events at Tennessee State University was beginning to thin out when the gunfire erupted between two groups around 5pm, said Nashville police spokesperson Don Aaron. He said shell casings indicate that gunfire was exchanged across a street near campus between the groups.
Guardian staff contributed reporting
Continue reading...Hannah Gutierrez-Reed changed her plea in exchange for a reduced sentence for carrying a gun into a bar
The weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film Rust pleaded guilty Monday to a separate criminal charge of carrying a gun into a licensed liquor establishment.
Movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed agreed to change her plea to guilty on the charge in exchange for a reduced sentence of 18 months supervised probation.
Continue reading...David Paterson, 70, and Anthony Sliwa, 20, were on Upper East Side when a verbal altercation with five people escalated
David Paterson, the former New York governor, and his stepson were attacked and injured on New York City’s Upper East Side on Friday night, the city police department said.
Paterson, 70, and his stepson, Anthony Sliwa, 20, had been walking in the upscale neighborhood at about 8.30pm when they were attacked after a verbal altercation with five people, according to the police.
Continue reading...