Category Archives: Virginia

Two killed and five injured in Virginia shooting after high school graduation

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Police say a graduate, 18, was one of the dead while a 19-year-old was arrested for second-degree murder

Seven people were shot, two fatally, when gunfire rang out outside a downtown theater in Virginia where a high school graduation ceremony had just ended, causing hundreds of attendees to flee in panic, weep and clutch their children, authorities and witnesses said.

A 19-year-old suspect tried to escape on foot but was arrested and would be charged with two counts of second-degree murder, interim Richmond police chief Rick Edwards, said during a news conference on Tuesday night at which he confirmed the two fatalities.

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At a glance: what you need to know about Canada wildfires and smoky US skies

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Hazy skies hung over north-eastern US a day after the midwest received a similar alert from the Environmental Protection Agency

Canada is dealing with a series of intense wildfires that have spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of forest fires burning. Wind has carried smoke from the fires southward, triggering air-quality alerts throughout the United States.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued a poor air-quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota received a similar advisory. Last week, US officials as far south as Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported being affected by the wildfires.

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Alleged attacker of congressman’s staff had history of mental illness, police say

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Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, had also assaulted a women earlier on same day he struck at Democrat’s Virginia office, authorities say

A man who allegedly attacked two congressional workers with a metal baseball bat had a history of mental illness and had assaulted someone else earlier in the day, authorities said.

The man, identified as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, Virginia, attacked the Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly’s office on Monday, shattering windows and striking two women, including an intern on her first day on the job, authorities said.

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Suspect named in baseball bat attack at Democratic congressman’s office

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Virginia congressman Gerry Connolly condemns ‘devastating and unconscionable’ assault on two staffers

Police in Virginia on Monday named the suspect in an attack in which two staffers at the district office of a Democratic congressman were assaulted with a metal baseball bat and required hospital treatment.

Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, was arrested after the attack at Gerry Connolly’s office in Fairfax. Held without bond, Pham faced charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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Virginia Beach declares state of emergency after tornado

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Officials estimate between 50 and 100 homes damaged by tornado that also downed trees and caused gas leaks

A popular coastal US tourist destination has declared a state of emergency after a tornado moved through the area Sunday and damaged dozens of homes, downed trees and caused gas leaks.

Officials in the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said it’s unclear how many homes had been damaged but they estimated between 50 and 100, after the tornado touched down just after 6pm, WTKR-TV reported.

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YouTuber prankster shot and wounded by target of practical joke

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Tanner Cook, 21, was reportedly playing joke on man at Virginia mall when victim of prank shot him in abdomen

A popular US YouTube creator who prides himself on making videos in which he displays odd behavior to put people off intends to keep at it, even after one of his targets allegedly shot him nearly to death.

Tanner Cook – who regularly makes videos of himself pranking strangers for nearly 40,000 subscribers of the channel Classified Goons – was reportedly playing a practical joke on a man at a mall in the Washington suburb of Dulles, Virginia, at about midday on Sunday. A friend was recording him when things took an almost deadly turn, according to authorities as well as an interview Cook gave to the local TV station WUSA.

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Virginia prisoners who used toothbrush to escape caught at pancake restaurant

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Two inmates dug their way out of cell using toothbrush but were apprehended within hours at Ihop branch

Two prisoners in Virginia managed to escape their cell by digging a hole through a wall with the aid of a toothbrush but were apprehended within a few hours after being tempted to visit a pancake restaurant.

In a statement, the Newport News sheriff’s office said two inmates were found to be missing during a routine head count around 7pm on Monday at the Newport News Jail Annex.

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Hospital video footage shows Irvo Otieno was held down before his death

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Seven deputies and three hospital workers charged with second-degree murder in death of Black man at Virginia mental facility

A large group of sheriff’s deputies and employees of a Virginia mental hospital pinned patient Irvo Otieno to the floor until he was motionless and limp, then began unsuccessful resuscitation efforts, newly obtained surveillance video of the incident earlier this month shows.

The footage obtained on Tuesday, which has no audio, shows various members of the group struggling with a handcuffed and shackled Otieno over the course of about 20 minutes after he was led into a room at Central State hospital in Petersburg, Virginia, where he was going to be admitted on 6 March. For most of the duration of the video, Otieno is on the floor being restrained by a fluctuating group that at one point appeared to number 10 people pressing down on various parts of his body.

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Black Virginia man pinned to ground by deputies before his death, family says

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Video from state mental hospital of brutal treatment of Irvo Otieno recalls death of George Floyd, lawyer says

Video from a state mental hospital shows a Black Virginia man who was handcuffed and shackled being pinned to the ground by deputies who are now facing second-degree murder charges in his death, according to relatives of the man and their attorneys who viewed the footage on Thursday.

Speaking at a news conference shortly after watching the video with a local prosecutor, the family and attorneys condemned the brutal treatment they said Irvo Otieno, 28, was subjected to, first at a local jail and then at the state hospital where authorities say he died on 6 March during the admission process.

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Virginia boy who shot his teacher won’t face criminal charges, says prosecutor

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Six-year-old shot Abigail Zwerner on 6 January while she was teaching class, leaving her seriously injured

A six-year-old boy who shot his teacher in January will not face criminal charges, a prosecutor in Newport News, Virginia, said on Wednesday night.

On 6 January, the first-grader shot Abigail Zwerner while she was teaching class at Richneck elementary school, leaving her seriously injured.

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Virginia governor clears path for ‘extreme’ bill allowing police to seek menstrual histories

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Glenn Youngkin blocks bill passed in Democratic-led state senate to ban search warrants for menstrual data on tracking apps

The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.

A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber’s Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.

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Virginia basketball coach fired for impersonating 13-year-old in game

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  • 22-year-old assistant coach stepped in when player absent
  • Two other coaches have been fired from school’s program

A 22-year-old Virginia basketball coach has been fired after being accused of attempting to pass herself off as one of her 13-year-old players during a game.

According to Norfolk’s WAVY TV 10, when one of the members of the Churchland junior varsity girls basketball team in Portsmouth was out of town earlier this month, Arlisha Boykins stepped in and impersonated the absent player in their game against Nansemond River.

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Virginia school ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to stop boy with gun, teacher’s lawyer says

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Abigail Zwerner, seriously wounded in attack by six-year-old, plans to sue school district as superintendent sacked

Concerned teachers and employees warned administrators at a Virginia elementary school three times that a six-year-old boy had a gun and was threatening other students in the hours before he shot and wounded a teacher, “but the administration could not be bothered” and didn’t call police, remove the boy from class or lock down the school, a lawyer for the teacher said.

Diane Toscano, an attorney for Abigail Zwerner, told reporters on Wednesday she had notified the Newport News school board that the 25-year-old Richneck elementary school teacher plans to sue the school district over the 6 January shooting, which left Zwerner with serious injuries.

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Finding who can be held to account after a six-year-old shoots a teacher

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Where does the responsibility lie in the recent shooting in Newport News, Virginia, for a country so inured to gun violence?

The shooting of a Virginia teacher by her six-year-old student last week left the town of Newport News and the rest of the US shaken and shocked.

Even in a country long used to the sort of school shootings that are rare in much of the rest of the world, the astonishingly young age of the shooter prompted a bout of public agonizing in the US about its gun violence problem.

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No fight or warning before six-year-old boy shot teacher, say Virginia police

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Police chief gives first detailed description of last week’s classroom shooting that has shocked US

The shooting of a Virginia teacher by a six-year-old boy in her classroom last week happened without warning, and with no fight or physical struggle, authorities have said.

“What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round,” said the Newport News police chief, Steve Drew.

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Shooting of teacher by six-year-old a red flag for US, says mayor

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Boy taken into custody after wounding of teacher, whose condition is said to be showing signs of improvement

The shooting of a teacher in the city of Newport News in Virginia by a six-year-old student should be a red flag for the US, the city’s mayor has said, as the teacher’s condition showed signs of improvement.

The mayor, Phillip Jones, said the condition of the teacher, identified by local media as Abby Zwerner, was “trending in a positive direction” in hospital.

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Virginia: school chief ‘in shock’ after teacher shot by student, six

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Newport News superintendent George Parker urges gun control after attack that left school teacher with life-threatening injuries

The superintendent of the public school district in Newport News, Virginia, has called for increased gun control while condemning a shooting at a campus there Friday in which a first-grade student deliberately shot his teacher.

In a news conference on Friday, the superintendent George Parker said that he was “disheartened” and “in shock” after the attack left a Richneck elementary school teacher with “life-threatening injuries”.

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Six-year-old intentionally shot teacher in Virginia school, police say

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Authorities said they had arrested the boy for shooting a female teacher at Richneck elementary school in Newport News

A six-year-old child deliberately shot a teacher at an elementary school in Virginia on Friday afternoon, according to police.

Police said in a statement that they have arrested the boy accused of shooting a female teacher at Richneck elementary school in Newport News, Virginia, a city in the south-eastern part of the state.

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Richmond removes last city-owned Confederate statue after two-year purge

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The effort to remove Gen AP Hill’s monument was complicated as his remains were interred beneath it

The city of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy for most of the civil war, removed its last city-owned Confederate statue on Monday, more than two years after it began to purge itself of what many saw as painful symbols of racial oppression.

It took just minutes to free the statue of Confederate Gen AP Hill from its base, before a crane using yellow straps looped under the statue’s arms lifted it onto a bed of tires on a flatbed truck. After the statue was removed, the crew got to work removing the base.

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Triple homicide suspect was sheriff’s deputy who drove across US to meet girl, police say

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Suspect met teen online and ‘catfished’ her before killing three members of her family, according to officers

The suspect in a triple homicide in southern California who died in a shootout with police was a Virginia law enforcement officer who police believe drove across the country to meet a teenage girl before killing three members of her family.

Austin Lee Edwards, 28, also probably set fire to the family’s home in Riverside, California, on the day of the shooting on Friday before leaving with the girl, the Riverside police department said in a news release.

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