Category Archives: US crime

Houston: suspect killed and two injured in shooting at Joel Osteen megachurch

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Police chief Troy Finner says unclear whether five-year-old boy wounded in incident was struck by officers who shot at attacker

A shooter with a rifle was killed by two off-duty police officers and a child was critically wounded at a Houston megachurch run by the prominent evangelical Christian pastor Joel Osteen, the city’s police chief said.

Troy Finner said it was not clear whether the boy, five, was struck by the officers who returned fire after the shooter, wearing a trenchcoat, entered Osteen’s Lakewood church with the boy shortly before 2pm and began shooting.

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US dentist may lose eye after allegedly getting stabbed in face by ex-patient

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Louisiana police papers say Sharon Stewart went into Dr Katie Tran’s office and attacked her and others with a three-inch blade

A young Louisiana dentist is facing the likely loss of one of her eyes after a former patient went into her office and stabbed her.

The attack which targeted Dr Katherine ‘Katie’ Tran and two of her colleagues – while leading to the arrest of Sharon Stewart – is the latest chilling reminder that US healthcare professionals are suffering more workplace violence injuries than those in any other industry, including law enforcement, as the Associated Press reported last year.

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‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station

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Small radio station forced to go silent after ‘unbelievable’ theft of giant tower, which would cost over $100,000 to replace

An Alabama radio station has been forced to temporarily shut down after thieves stole a 200ft radio tower.

WJLX, a station in Jasper, Alabama, was ordered to go off air by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after thieves took the station’s AM tower last week, the Guardian first learned.

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Texas man who drugged wife with abortion drug given 180 days in jail

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Houston attorney Mason Herring pleaded guilty to two charges for spiking then pregnant wife’s drinks to induce abortion

A Texas man who drugged his wife’s drinks in an attempt to induce an abortion was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years on probation.

Mason Herring, a 39-year-old Houston attorney, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person. He had initially been charged with felony assault to induce abortion.

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Florida bank robber fatally shot by sheriff’s sniper after taking hostages

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Police tried to defuse the situation at a Bank of America branch, but the suspect took two hostages and held a knife at one’s throat

A robber at a Florida bank took hostages after law enforcement arrived and was killed by a sheriff’s sniper as he held a woman in a headlock with a knife to her throat, authorities said.

Negotiators tried to defuse the situation on Tuesday at a Bank of America branch in Fort Myers, but the suspect instead took two hostages in the building, Carmine Marceno, the Lee county sheriff, said.

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LA police arrest two people in spate of graffiti across 30 floors of skyscraper

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Tagging stretches across a large portion of a $1bn unfinished project across from venue of Grammy awards on Sunday

Los Angeles police arrested two people this week in connection with a spate of graffiti on nearly 30 floors of an unoccupied and unfinished downtown skyscraper.

The tagging stretches across a large portion of a tower in the $1bn Oceanwide Plaza, a stalled mixed-use retail and residential project that has sat unfinished since 2019. The site is located just across from the Crypto.com Arena, where this year’s Grammy awards will be held on Sunday.

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‘I choose you!’: nearly 35,000 Pokémon cards stolen in California store heist

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Thieves broke into Tofu’s Trading card store in San Jose, but missed the special collection of cards to be released days later

The thieves entered a San Jose business under cover of the night to execute their heist. They broke in, with one crawling along the floor to avoid detection, and began searching in the dark.

Within minutes, they made off with the goods – more than 35,000 Pokémon cards.

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Five charged with murder over fatal shootings of six men in Mojave desert

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Bodies were found at remote crossroads on 23 January in California desert in what investigators say was dispute over marijuana

Prosecutors filed murder charges Tuesday against five suspects in the fatal shootings of six men at a remote dirt crossroads in the southern California desert after what investigators said was a dispute over marijuana.

The suspects each face six felony counts of murder with a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, the San Bernardino county district attorney’s office said in a statement. They were each also charged with six felony counts of robbery.

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California man who tried to blame twin brother for two rapes jailed for 140 years

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Kevin Konther, 58, convicted of rape of girl in 1995 and woman in 1998, confessed to crimes in secret recordings

A California man who attempted to blame his identical twin brother for rapes he committed in the 1990s has been sentenced to 140 years in prison.

Kevin Konther, 58, of Highland, California, was sentenced after being convicted of the rapes of a girl in 1995 and a woman in 1998, the Orange county district attorney’s office said in a statement.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Man who threw Molotov cocktails at Ohio church gets 18-year prison term

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Aimenn Penny, 20, had firebombed the church in Chesterland in protest of a planned drag brunch and children’s story hour

An Ohio man, who had allegedly been a member of a neo-Nazi ‘white lives matter’ group, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for firebombing a church that planned to host drag events, the US justice department announced on Tuesday.

After making and throwing two Molotov cocktails at the Community Church of Chesterland in Chesterland, Ohio, on 25 March 2023, Aimenn Penny was arrested on federal charges for using fire to commit a federal felony, malicious use of explosive materials, and possessing a destructive device.

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Police make five arrests after six bodies are found in southern California desert

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Officials say suspects were arrested in the fatal shootings and believe killings were from a dispute over an illegal marijuana trade

Authorities say arrests have been made in the investigation surrounding six bodies found last week at a remote dirt crossroads in the southern California desert.

Five suspects have been arrested in the fatal shootings, according to the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department. Officials say they think the killings stemmed from a dispute over an illicit marijuana trade.

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Jury selection begins in fatal shooting trial of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay

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Karl Jordan Jr, 40, and Ronald Washington, 59, are accused of murdering the musician over a drug deal in 2002

Jury selection began Monday in the trial of the two men charged in the 2002 fatal shooting of Jam Master Jay, a member of the legendary hip-hop group Run-DMC.

The defendants, Karl Jordan Jr, 40, and Ronald Washington, 59, are accused of murdering the musician over a drug deal. Opening statements were expected in a state courthouse in Brooklyn after the jury is selected.

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Teen murder suspect who escaped from US hospital caught with handcuff key in pocket

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Shane Pryor, 17, awaiting trial over October 2020 homicide, escaped from Children’s hospital of Philadelphia last week

A teenager awaiting trial in a homicide case who escaped outside a Philadelphia hospital last week was captured on Sunday – with a handcuff key in one of his pockets, police said.

The key that Shane Pryor had on him at the time of his arrest is used to get out of restraints. But there is no evidence he ever used it, said Robert Clark of the US Marshals Service, who caught Pryor, according to the local news outlet WTXF.

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Jury to decide fate of LA socialite for fatally striking two kids with her car

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Prosecutors allege Rebecca Grossman, 60, was speeding when she hit brothers Mark Iskander, 11, and Jakob Iskander, eight

More than three years ago, a Los Angeles socialite allegedly fatally struck two young boys as they were crossing the street. Now a jury will decide whether Rebecca Grossman is guilty of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run driving.

This week jurors heard opening statements in the long-awaited trial of Grossman for the deaths of brothers Mark Iskander, 11, and Jacob Iskander, eight.

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Death, guns and ‘corrupt cop’ claims: saga that gripped New Orleans reaches its end

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The verdict in the manslaughter trial over the 2016 death of Saints star Will Smith brings to a close a turbulent eight years of legal wrangling

Ever since the New Orleans tow-truck company owner Cardell Hayes shot the retired local pro-football champion Will Smith to death and wounded the former athlete’s wife on a city street late on the night of 9 April 2016, people on all sides of the case have made it as complicated as possible in their fight for what they consider to be justice.

It is a case that has gripped south-eastern Louisiana – where football players are huge celebrities – and also involved dark, if unsupported, allegations of another deep south staple: police corruption. Competing theories and narratives have vied for supremacy, with almost as many different ideas of what happened as people willing to voice them.

Ramon Antonio Vargas covered the New Orleans Saints in 2013 and 2014 at the New Orleans Advocate and also covered the case of Hayes and Smith before joining the Guardian in 2022.

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Convicted serial killer confesses to 1980 Florida spring break murder, police say

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Police in Jacksonville draw confession from Billy Mansfield, sentenced to life in prison for five other murders decades ago

After confessing to the murder of an Ohio high schooler on her spring break outside Jacksonville, Florida, in 1980, a jailed serial killer is continuing to talk to detectives investigating other homicides whose clue trails have gone cold, according to authorities.

Billy Mansfield’s confession of the killing of 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett of Zanesville, Ohio, means officials have now confirmed that he has committed at least six murders. He had previously been handed life sentences in five of the killings, four of which were in California and one of which was in Florida, though officials investigating Barrett’s death made clear in a statement on Thursday that those numbers could grow.

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‘The Lord told us to’: US pastor says he stole $1m from Christians to remodel home

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Couple are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as ‘INDXcoin’, to Christian community in Denver, Colorado

A Colorado pastor who is charged with stealing more than $1m from his Christian community in a cryptocurrency scheme has admitted to the fraud but argued that God instructed him to carry it out.

Eli Regalado and his wife, Kaitlyn, are charged with creating and selling their cryptocurrency, known as “INDXcoin”, to Christians based in their home town of Denver, Colorado, allegedly telling would-be investors that the Lord had told him people would become rich if they invested, the state’s division of securities announced in a press release on Thursday.

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‘You will not replace us’: a deadly attack on a Slovakian gay bar – and its link to a fast-spreading racist ideology

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Fifteen months after two men were shot in Bratislava, evidence suggests the killer may have been helped by an unidentified US-based extremist

The October evening was warm and sunny. At about 7pm, two young men stepped out of the Tepláreň bar on Zámocká Street in the centre of Bratislava, to sit on a concrete bench and drink lemonade. Matúš, 23, had just arrived in the Slovakian capital to study Chinese. His 26-year-old friend worked in a local clothes shop and enjoyed anime, K-pop and dance.

Standing in an alcove a few metres away was Juraj Krajčík. The 19-year-old had been loitering for about half an hour, witnesses later said. Shortly after the two patrons of the Tepláreň sat down, Krajčík stepped forward, raised a .45-calibre handgun and fired several shots at them. Then he turned and ran, gun in hand.

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Alleged Long Island serial killer indicted on new murder charge of fourth victim

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Rex Heuermann was indicted for killing Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose remains were found in marshland along Gilgo Beach

The accused Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann has been indicted on a new murder charge in the killing of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who investigators believe was the first of the “Gilgo Four” to be killed, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday.

The unsealing of the indictment came after authorities announced Heuermann would face “a major development” in the investigation of the Gilgo Beach killings, which all targeted sex workers and lay unsolved for more than a decade.

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Former LA sheriff’s deputy gets 30 days in jail for 2019 killing of Ryan Twyman

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Andrew Lyons and another sheriff’s deputy shot at Twyman 34 times while he was inside his car in south Los Angeles

A former Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot an unarmed 24-year-old man in his car in 2019 was sentenced to 30 days in jail on Friday.

Andrew Lyons, one of two deputies who fired a barrage of bullets at Ryan Twyman in a parking lot in south Los Angeles, pleaded no contest to assault with a firearm and assault under color of authority, said the district attorney, George Gascón.

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