Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(PHILADELPHIA) — At least two suspects in a mass shooting Saturday night in Philadelphia are expected to be charged as early as Monday afternoon as police continue to work to identify other gunmen in the rampage that left three people dead and 11 injured, according to prosecutors.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said at a news conference Monday morning that he expects to approve charges soon against two suspects “in connection to what we anticipate are non-fatal shootings.”
Krasner, who did not name the suspects, said he expects to sign off on the charges stemming from the gun violence by the end of Monday.
He said that based on the caliber of shell casings found at the crime scene, at least four guns were involved in the shooting on Second Street, a popular nightlife area full of bars and restaurants.
Philadelphia police officials said officers recovered two guns from the scene, including one with an extended magazine, authorities said.
“Hour by hour we are finding out more information,” Kramer said.
Krasner described witnessing a “chilling” scene when he visited the site of the shooting just hours after it occurred.
“It is no less chilling that it happened in no less than 10 places around the country in a space of a few days,” said Krasner, referring to mass shootings that occurred over the weekend in nine different states that left a total of at least 17 people dead and 62 injured.
The Philadelphia shooting erupted just before midnight Saturday at the busy intersection of Third and South streets.
Inspector D.F. Pace of the Philadelphia Police Department said hundreds of people were milling about the area when the shooting caused a panic and sent people running in all directions, some diving behind cars for cover.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a press conference Sunday afternoon that a police officer responding to gunshots in the area witnessed a man firing a gun into a crowd and attempted to detain him. Outlaw said the officer fired at the armed man three times before losing the assailant in the crowd.
Outlaw said investigators believe the officer shot the gunman, who is still being sought.
Investigators are combing through security video to identify the suspects and determine a motive for the shooting.
Outlaw said the shooting possibly started during a physical confrontation between two people, including one of the people killed in the incident.
“These individuals eventually began firing at one another with both being struck, one fatally,” Outlaw said.
Outlaw said two of the slain victims were innocent bystanders as well as many of those who were wounded.
One of those killed was identified as Kris Minners, a resident adviser at Girard College in Philadelphia, the Girard College Federation of Teachers union said in a statement. Two more victims were identified by the Philadelphia Police Department Sunday afternoon as 34-year-old Gregory Jackson and 27-year-old Alexis Quinn.
“The loss of Kris reminds us that gun violence can and will touch everyone in our nation as long as our elected officials allow it to continue,” the teachers’ union statement read.
(DETROIT) — An 11-year-old girl was sleeping over at her grandmother’s home when gunfire erupted outside, shooting and killing her, authorities said.
The young girl “was murdered while attending a sleepover with her grandmother in our community,” Detroit Police Chief James White told reporters. “Making TikTok videos and laughing one minute and being shot in the back … the next.”
Two people are in custody — one adult and one minor — following Saturday’s shooting, which took place around 10:15 p.m., Detroit police said.
No one besides the 11-year-old was struck when the shots rang out, police said.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan told reporters, “When you can have an 11-year-old girl in a home with her grandmother and five other children as young as the age of 7, dancing joyously in the house, and have a bullet come through and kill her — it hits you very hard.”
The police chief blamed “irresponsible gun ownership” and “irresponsible use of a weapon.”
“It is of epidemic proportions right now in our country and in our city,” he told reporters.
The 11-year-old’s name has not been released.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the victim’s family and friends at this unimaginable time,” the Detroit Police Department tweeted.
The little girl’s death came amid another weekend of mass shootings in the U.S. Three people were killed and many others injured when multiple people opened fire on a Philadelphia street, and at least three people were killed with others injured in a mass shooting outside a Chattanooga, Tennessee, nightclub.
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The state trial for two former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd’s death was delayed until next year by a judge, who said a recent plea deal accepted by a third officer charged in the fatal arrest of the 46-year-old Black man could create the “reasonable likelihood of an unfair trial.”
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ordered that the trial for Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng will be delayed until Jan. 5, 2023.
Thao and Kueng were expected to go on trial together beginning on June 13.
Both men are charged with aiding and abetting in murder and aiding and abetting in manslaughter.
Cahill denied a motion from defense attorneys for a change of venue, but cited two recent events in his decision to postpone the trial.
The judge noted that pretrial publicity over the plea deal struck with a third defendant, former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane, and the convictions in February of Lane, Thao and Kueng on federal civil rights charges, could make it difficult at this time to select an impartial jury.
“These two recent events and the publicity surrounding them are significant in [that] it could make it more difficult for jurors to presume Thao and Kueng innocent of the state charges,” Cahill wrote in his ruling.
The judge added that postponing the trial should “diminish the impact of this publicity on the defendants’ right and ability to receive a fair trial from an impartial and unbiased jury.”
Lane pleaded guilty in May to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, state prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder.
Under the agreement, prosecutors and Lane’s attorneys will jointly recommend a sentence of 36 months in prison. Had he gone to trial and been convicted on all charges, he faced a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, according to the plea agreement.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Three people were killed and at least 11 others were injured when “several active shooters” opened fire at a crowded intersection in Philadelphia’s South Street entertainment district late Saturday night — one of a string of mass shootings that erupted across the country over the weekend, officials said.
The Philadelphia shooting was one of at least five across the nation involving four or more victims in a violent 27-hour span, including one that left three people dead and 11 injured in Chattanooga, Tennessee, another in which three people were killed at a graduation party in Socorro, Texas, and yet another that left a 14-year-old girl dead and eight people injured at a strip mall in Phoenix, Arizona, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a website that tracks shootings across the nation.
In total, nine people were killed and 37 injured in the five shootings.
The Philadelphia shooting erupted just before midnight at the busy intersection of Third and South streets.
Inspector D.F. Pace of the Philadelphia Police Department said hundreds of people were milling about the area when the shooting caused a panic and sent people running in all directions, some diving behind cars for cover.
“There were hundreds of individuals just enjoying South Street, as they do every single weekend, when the shooting broke out,” Pace told reporters.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a press conference Sunday afternoon that a police officer responding to gunshots in the area witnessed a man firing a gun into a crowd and attempted to detain him. Outlaw said the officer fired at the armed man three times before losing the assailant in the crowd.
Outlaw said investigators believe the officer shot the gunman, who is still being sought.
No arrests have been announced. Investigators are combing through security video in hopes of identifying the suspects and determining a motive for the shooting.
Outlaw said the shooting possibly started during a physical confrontation between two people, including one of the people killed in the incident.
“These individuals eventually began firing at one another with both being struck, one fatally,” Outlaw said.
The names of the three people killed in the episode — a 34-year-old man, a 27-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man — were not immediately released. Outlaw said two of the slain victims were innocent bystanders as well as many of those who were wounded.
One of those killed was identified as Kris Minners, a resident adviser at Girard College in Philadelphia, the Girard College Federation of Teachers union said in a statement. Two more victims were identified by the Philadelphia Police Department Sunday afternoon as 34-year-old Gregory Jackson and 27-year-old Alexis Quinn.
“The loss of Kris reminds us that gun violence can and will touch everyone in our nation as long as our elected officials allow it to continue,” the teachers’ union statement read.
Police recovered two guns from the scene, including one with an extended magazine, authorities said. Shell casings from at least five different caliber guns were collected at the scene, authorities said.
Seven of the wounded victims were taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, overwhelming the emergency room staff and prompting 911 dispatchers to direct first responders to take additional victims to two other area hospitals.
Outlaw said the injured victims are 17 to 69 years old and their conditions ranged from stable to critical.
“This is beyond unacceptable,” said Outlaw, who asked any witnesses of the shooting to contact police.
The mass shooting came on the heels of a deadly Memorial Day weekend in Philadelphia, in which more than 40 people were shot in separate incidents across the city, including a 9-year-old boy and his father returning to their home from a holiday cookout, police said.
As of midnight Saturday, Philadelphia had recorded 211 homicides this year, 14 fewer than this time in 2021, a year that saw a record 562 homicides, according to Philadelphia Police Department crime statistics.
Second mass shooting in Chattanooga in the last week
Chattanooga, Tennessee, police are investigating the city’s second mass shooting for the second weekend in a row after a barrage of shots from multiple gunmen early Sunday left three people dead and 11 injured, officials said.
The shooting occurred around 3 a.m. outside a bar downtown Chattanooga.
Chattanooga police Chief Celeste Murphy said multiple gunmen are suspected in the shooting. She said of the three people killed, two were shot to death and one was struck by a car fleeing the scene.
No arrests have been announced.
The incident follows a mass shooting that occurred in downtown Chattanooga on May 28 in which six teenagers were shot, including two who were critically injured.
14-year-old shot dead in Phoenix
The Phoenix shooting broke out around 1 a.m. local time Saturday at a strip mall in the northern part of the city where more than 100 people were attending a party, according to the Phoenix Police Department. A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot in the incident, two women suffered life-threatening injuries and another six victims, including a teenager, sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
“I heard over a hundred gunshots going off,” a woman who witnessed the shooting told ABC affiliate station KNXV-TV in Phoenix.
She said that prior to the shooting, she heard cars doing burnouts and donuts in the street. Once the gunfire erupted, the witness said she saw people screaming and running in all directions.
“I, myself, was like hiding behind cars as the shots kept getting closer and closer,” the witness said.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego took to Twitter to voice her frustration over the surge in gun violence in her city and across the country, writing, “Seems we can’t go a day without another mass shooting.”
“Time has run out,” Gallego tweeted. “Change must happen now.”
Four shot, two fatally, in Mesa, Arizona
Two men were killed and two people were wounded in a shooting that occurred early Sunday outside a bar in Mesa, Arizona.
Sgt. Chuck Trapani of the Mesa Police Department said the shooting occurred around 2:30 a.m. outside The Lounge Soho. He said police went to the scene to investigate a report of gunshots and found two men shot in the parking lot. The victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
Trapani said officers searched the area and found two more wounded people, who were taken to area hospitals.
Trapani told KNXV that officers arriving on the scene saw a silver car speeding away and chased it. Police stopped the car and detained three occupants.
He said that while no guns were found in the car, a weapon was found along the path the vehicle fled.
No arrests have been announced.
5 teens shot at graduation party
Five teenagers were shot and wounded Saturday night at a graduation party in Socorro, Texas, a suburb of El Paso, according to police.
Socorro Police Chief David Burton said at a news conference that two teenagers were in critical condition.
Burton said that about 100 teenagers and young adults were attending a graduation party at a home when an individual began firing into the crowd.
He said the wounded victims ranged in age from 16 to 18.
Burton said different caliber shell casings were found at the scene, but police have not confirmed whether more than one shooter was involved.
“The initial investigation indicates this was a targeted attack,” Burton said. “There is no immediate threat to the public.”
No arrests have been announced.
The mass shootings followed President Joe Biden’s prime-time speech Thursday addressing the surge in gun violence across the nation, including the rampage at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school on May 24 that left 19 students and two teachers dead, a racially-motivated massacre at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that left 10 dead and three wounded, and a shooting Wednesday at a medical office in Tulsa, Oklahoma that in which a doctor and three other people were fatally shot.
Biden called for a federal ban on assault weapons and implored Congress act, saying, “We can’t fail the American people again.”
(SAN DIEGO) — Lt. Richard Bullock, a U.S. Navy pilot, was killed in a plane crash in California on Friday, the Navy said on Monday.
“The Navy mourns this tragic loss alongside the family, friends and shipmates of Lt. Bullock,” Navy officials said in a statement.
Bullock was killed when his F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet crashed near Trona, California, at about 2:30 p.m. local time on Friday, the Navy said.
He had been flying a routine training mission when his plane went down in a “remote, unpopulated area,” the Navy said. No civilians were injured in the crash, officials said.
Recovery efforts are ongoing, with Navy officials and local authorities at the scene of the crash.
ABC News’ Marilyn Heck, Matt Seyler and Brian Reiferson contributed to this report.
(PHILADELPHIA) — Three people were killed and 12 others were injured when “several active shooters” opened fire at a crowded intersection in Philadelphia’s South Street entertainment district late Saturday night — one of a string of mass shootings that erupted across the country over the weekend, officials said.
The Philadelphia shooting was one of at least five across the nation involving four or more victims in a violent 27-hour span, including one that left three people dead and 11 injured in Chattanooga, Tennessee, another in which three people were killed at a graduation party in Socorro, Texas, and yet another that left a 14-year-old girl dead and eight people injured at a strip mall in Phoenix, Arizona, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a website that tracks shootings across the nation.
In total, nine people were killed and 38 injured in the five shootings.
The Philadelphia shooting erupted just before midnight at the busy intersection of Third and South streets.
Inspector D.F. Pace of the Philadelphia Police Department said hundreds of people were milling about the area when the shooting caused a panic and sent people running in all directions, some diving behind cars for cover.
“There were hundreds of individuals just enjoying South Street, as they do every single weekend, when the shooting broke out,” Pace told reporters.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a press conference Sunday afternoon that a police officer responding to gunshots in the area witnessed a man firing a gun into a crowd and attempted to detain him. Outlaw said the officer fired at the armed man three times before losing the assailant in the crowd.
Outlaw said investigators believe the officer shot the gunman, who is still being sought.
No arrests have been announced. Investigators are combing through security video in hopes of identifying the suspects and determining a motive for the shooting.
Outlaw the shooting apparently started during a physical confrontation between two people, including one of the people killed in the incident.
“These individuals eventually began firing at one another with both being struck, one fatally,” Outlaw said.
The names of the three people killed in the episode — a 34-year-old man, a 27-year-old woman and a 22-year-old man — were not immediately released. Outlaw said two of the slain victims were innocent bystanders as well as many of those who were wounded.
Police recovered two guns from the scene, including one with an extended magazine, Pace said.
Seven of the 12 wounded victims were taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, overwhelming the emergency room staff and prompting 911 dispatchers to direct first responders to take additional victims to two other area hospitals.
Outlaw said the injured victims are 17 to 69 years old and their conditions ranged from stable to critical.
“This is beyond unacceptable,” said Outlaw, who asked any witnesses of the shooting to contact police.
The mass shooting came on the heels of a deadly Memorial Day weekend in Philadelphia, in which more than 40 people were shot in separate incidents across the city, including a 9-year-old boy and his father returning to their home from a holiday cookout, police said.
As of midnight Saturday, Philadelphia had recorded 211 homicides this year, 14 fewer than this time in 2021, a year that saw a record 562 homicides, according to Philadelphia Police Department crime statistics.
2nd mass shooting in Chattanooga in the last week
Chattanooga, Tennessee, police are investigating the city’s second mass shooting for the second weekend in a row after a barrage of shots from multiple gunmen early Sunday left three people dead and 11 injured, officials said.
The shooting occurred around 3 a.m. outside a bar downtown Chattanooga.
Chattanooga police Chief Celeste Murphy said multiple gunmen are suspected in the shooting. She said of the three people killed, two were shot to death and one was struck by a car fleeing the scene.
No arrests have been announced.
The incident follows a mass shooting that occurred in downtown Chattanooga on May 28 in which six teenagers were shot, including two who were critically injured.
14-year-old shot dead in Phoenix
The Phoenix shooting broke out around 1 a.m. local time Saturday at a strip mall in the northern part of the city where more than 100 people were attending a party, according to the Phoenix Police Department. A 14-year-old girl was fatally shot in the incident, two women suffered life-threatening injuries and another six victims, including a teenager, sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
“I heard over a hundred gunshots going off,” a woman who witnessed the shooting told ABC affiliate station KNXV-TV in Phoenix.
She said that prior to the shooting, she heard cars doing burnouts and donuts in the street. Once the gunfire erupted, the witness said she saw people screaming and running in all directions.
“I, myself, was like hiding behind cars as the shots kept getting closer and closer,” the witness said.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego took to Twitter to voice her frustration over the surge in gun violence in her city and across the country, writing, “Seems we can’t go a day without another mass shooting.”
“Time has run out,” Gallego tweeted. “Change must happen now.”
4 shot, 2 fatally, in Mesa, Arizona
Two men were killed and two people were wounded in a shooting that occurred early Sunday outside a bar in Mesa, Arizona.
Sgt. Chuck Trapani of the Mesa Police Department said the shooting occurred around 2:30 a.m. outside The Lounge Soho. He said police went to the scene to investigate a report of gunshots and found two men shot in the parking lot. The victims were pronounced dead at the scene.
Trapani said officers searched the area and found two more wounded people, who were taken to area hospitals.
Trapani told KNXV that officers arriving on the scene saw a silver car speeding away and chased it. Police stopped the car and detained three occupants.
He said that while no guns were found in the car, a weapon was found along the path the vehicle fled.
No arrests have been announced.
5 teens shot at graduation party
Five teenagers were shot and wounded Saturday night at a graduation party in Socorro, Texas, a suburb of El Paso, according to police.
Socorro Police Chief David Burton said at a news conference that two teenagers were in critical condition.
Burton said that about 100 teenagers and young adults were attending a graduation party at a home when an individual began firing into the crowd.
He said the wounded victims ranged in age from 16 to 18.
Burton said different caliber shell casings were found at the scene, but police have not confirmed whether more than one shooter was involved.
“The initial investigation indicates this was a targeted attack,” Burton said. “There is no immediate threat to the public.”
No arrests have been announced.
The mass shootings followed President Joe Biden’s prime-time speech Thursday addressing the surge in gun violence across the nation, including the rampage at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school on May 24 that left 19 students and two teachers dead, a racially-motivated massacre at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that left 10 dead and three wounded, and a shooting Wednesday at a medical office in Tulsa, Oklahoma that in which a doctor and three other people were fatally shot.
Biden called for a federal ban on assault weapons and implored Congress act, saying, “We can’t fail the American people again.”
(STURGIS, Mich.) — Abbott Nutrition’s baby formula plant in Michigan has officially reopened its doors and restarted production after shuttering nearly four months ago.
Hundreds of workers returned to their posts Saturday morning for the first time since the Sturgis facility closed amid contamination concerns in February following the discovery of a deadly bacteria inside.
The closure and a voluntary recall were among several factors that contributed to a nationwide formula shortage crisis.
It will be roughly another six to eight weeks before the Sturgis plant is back to full capacity, according to Abbott, and product returns to shelves with a real impact on families.
“We understand the urgent need for formula and our top priority is getting high-quality, safe formula into the hands of families across America,” the company, one of the largest makers of formula in the U.S., said in a statement. “We will ramp production as quickly as we can while meeting all requirements. We’re committed to safety and quality and will do everything we can to re-earn the trust parents, caregivers and health care providers have placed in us for 130 years.”
The plant’s reopening comes nearly three weeks after it reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a plan to reopen safely.
Abbott said it will first prioritize the production of its specialty and metabolic formulas, like its hypoallergenic EleCare, since those formulas are especially critical for medically vulnerable babies who can’t switch to different brands as easily.
The company said it expects to start releasing some EleCare product “on or about June 20,” adding that it is “working hard to fulfill the steps necessary to restart production of Similac and other formulas and will do so as soon as we can.”
Last month, Abbott CEO Robert Ford expressed remorse at his company’s role in the nationwide shortage in an op-ed published in the Washington Post.
“The past few months have distressed us as they have you, and so I want to say: We’re sorry to every family we’ve let down since our voluntary recall exacerbated our nation’s baby formula shortage,” Ford wrote. “I have high expectations of this company, and we fell short of them.”
While families wait for formula to hit shelves, Ford announced in his op-ed that Abbott is establishing a $5 million fund “to help these families with medical and living expenses as they weather this storm.”
Amid the shortage, the White House also has been working to bring formula in from abroad as part of President Joe Biden’s “Operation Fly Formula.” A third round of baby formula shipments is set to make its way to U.S. shores by way of United Airlines beginning next Thursday, administration officials said.
Biden also invoked the Defense Production Act last month to help speed up formula production in the U.S.
(NEW LISBON, Wis.) — A suspect who allegedly shot and killed a retired Wisconsin judge Friday in a targeted act had a hit list that included U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told ABC News.
Law enforcement responded to a home in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, Friday morning after a 911 caller reported there was an armed person in the residence who had fired two shots, according to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.
The caller had exited the home and contacted law enforcement from a nearby home.
The Juneau County Special Tactics and Response Team responded and attempted to negotiate with the alleged shooter before entering the home. Inside, they found the homeowner, a 68-year-old man, dead, and a 56-year-old man in the basement suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Kaul said.
The suspect, who has not been identified, was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition, Kaul said. A firearm was recovered at the scene, he said.
“This does appear to be a targeted act,” Kaul told reporters Friday. “The individual who is the suspect appears to have had other targets as well. It appears to be related to the judicial system.”
Kaul did not provide further details on the man killed and the other targets, beyond that they appear to be targeted “based on some sort of court case or court cases.”
The law enforcement official confirmed to ABC News that the victim was retired Juneau County Judge John Roemer. When SWAT entered the home, they found Roemer zip-tied to a chair and fatally shot, according to the source.
A hit list with over a dozen names found inside the suspect’s car at the scene included Roemer’s, McConnell’s and Whitmer’s, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’, the source said.
The information is preliminary and could change as the investigation continues.
Kaul said authorities have contacted those believed to be targets and that they have determined there is no threat to the public at this time. Investigators are also working to determine any link between this incident and others, he said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation is leading this investigation.
The investigation is being handled as both a homicide and a possible case of domestic terrorism, the law enforcement official told ABC News.
Roemer was first elected to the Juneau County Circuit Court in 2004 and was reelected in 2010 and 2016 before retiring in 2017. He had previously served as an assistant district attorney for Juneau County and an assistant state public defender. He also was a lieutenant colonel for the U.S. Army Reserves.
Threats against judges have increased in recent years. By one measure, there were over 4,500 threats and “inappropriate communications” against protected people, which includes federal judges, last year, according to the U.S. Marshals.
“Typically security for judges is based on threats,” ABC News crime and terrorism analyst Brad Garrett told “Good Morning America.” “It’s all going to be driven by known threats because there isn’t enough manpower obviously to guard every judge at every level in this country.”
Garrett said more should be learned in the coming days about how much law enforcement knew about the alleged shooter.
U.S. District Judge Esther Salas is fighting to get a federal bill passed that would limit access of public officials’ private information after her son was murdered in a targeted attack at their New Jersey home in 2020. A similar bill was passed in New Jersey in 2020. Daniel’s Law, named after Salas’ son, shields the home addresses and telephone numbers of any active or retired judge, prosecutor and law enforcement officer from public disclosure.
ABC News’ Will McDuffie and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
(UVALDE, Texas) — The Connecticut lawyers who successfully sued the maker of the rifle used in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, shooting filed a letter Friday seeking documents and records from Daniel Defense, maker of the rifle used in the Uvalde, Texas, shooting May 24.
This petition was filed on behalf of the father of Amerie Jo Garza, one of the 19 children killed in the rampage by the alleged gunman, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.
Alfred Garza, Amerie Jo’s father, is being represented by attorneys Josh Koskoff, who obtained a $73 million settlement to nine families of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting victims, and Texas-based attorneys Mikal Watts and Charla Aldous, according to a press release.
“We have to honor her and make sure we do good. From this day forward, I want to live my life for my daughter,” Garza told David Muir in a recent “World News Tonight” interview.
“My purpose for being now is to honor Amerie Jo’s memory,” Garza also said in the statement. “She would want to me to do everything I can so this will never happen again to any other child. I have to fight her fight.”
“Daniel Defense has said that they are praying for the Uvalde families. They should back up those prayers with meaningful action,” said Josh Koskoff of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder. “If they really are sincere in their desire to support these families, they will provide the information that Mr. Garza has requested without delay or excuse. Either way, we will do a complete and thorough investigation, leaving no stone unturned.”
The petition letter is a precursor to a lawsuit that could seek to hold the gunmaker liable despite a federal shield for gunmakers that President Joe Biden asked the nation to repeal in his Thursday night speech.
A similar petition was filed Friday by Robb Elementary teacher Emilia Marin, whose lawyer spoke this week to ABC News.
In February, the families of five children and four adults killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School announced a landmark victory in their long-running case against Remington, the company that made and marketed the AR-15 weapon used in the Newton massacre.
(NEW YORK) — In the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott praised the “amazing courage” of law enforcement, saying the incident that left 19 students and two teachers dead “could have been worse” if the officers hadn’t run toward the gunfire and eliminated the shooter.
But as the investigation has unfolded since the May 24 massacre at Robb Elementary School, allegedly committed by an 18-year-old wielding an AR-15-style rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, law enforcement and government officials have come under scrutiny for the twisting narrative about crucial elements of the police response.
In his press conference the day after the rampage, Abbott and officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety framed the response from police as being swift. But as more evidence has been uncovered, the timeline has been stretched from a rapid response to one that took 77 minutes from the time the shooter entered the school to when he was killed by officers.
“It’s a mess,” said Robert Boyce, retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department and an ABC News contributor.
Boyce said that in a fluid investigation like the mass shooting in Uvalde, preliminary information is constantly changing.
“When I would do my press conferences, I would always say, ‘This is what we have right now’ and ‘it’s subject to change,'” Boyce said. “So, yes, it’s not unusual for that to happen at all. Things change all the time, or you go back and look at the video and say, ‘Alright, that didn’t match up,’ and people sometimes make assumptions that aren’t true.”
But Boyce said what has not changed is the basic tenet of the active shooter doctrine created after the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado and shared by police departments across the country.
“The bedrock issue is to immediately go in and neutralize the threat,” Boyce said. “People might say, ‘Well, the cops weren’t wearing the proper vests.’ My response to that is those kids had no vests on. So, I don’t want to hear that either.”
Here are three major issues of the Uvalde shooting in which the official narrative from law enforcement and elected leaders has dramatically changed in the 10 days since one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history occurred:
Did a school police officer engage the shooter?
In his press conference the day after the shooting, Gov. Abbott said the alleged gunman, Salvador Ramos, shot his grandmother in the face, leaving her critically injured, before fleeing in her truck and crashing into a ditch outside Robb Elementary School.
“Officers with the Consolidated Independent School District … approached the gunman and engaged with the gunman at that time,” Abbott said.
But one day later, Victor Escalon, the South Texas regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, contradicted Abbott’s statement.
Escalon said the school police officer wasn’t at the scene when the suspect crashed outside the school. He said the gunman fired at two witnesses from a funeral home across the street.
“He continues walking towards the school,” Escalon said of the suspect. “He climbs a fence. Now he’s in the parking lot shooting at the school multiple times.”
Citing security video outside and inside the school, Escalon said the suspect entered the school building unabated through a door on the west side of the campus.
He said numerous rounds were fired inside the school as officers were responding to the scene.
Escalon said the suspect walked 20 to 30 feet down a hallway, made a right and walked into a second hallway, made another right, walked roughly 20 more feet and turned left into a classroom that is adjoined to another classroom by a Jack-and-Jill restroom area. Police said that the children and teachers were killed in classrooms 111 and 112.
“Four minutes later, local police departments, Uvalde Police Department, the (Consolidated) Independent (School) Police Department are inside making entry,” Escalon said. “They hear gunfire. They take rounds. They move back, get cover.”
He said the officers tried to approach the locked classroom door where the shooter was, but the gunman fired at them through the door, hitting two officers. He said the officers called for additional resources, body armor, tactical teams and other equipment needed to take on the suspect.
Was the back door of the school left propped open?
On Friday, Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the door the gunman used to access the school building was left propped open by a teacher prior to the shooter entering the school.
“The teacher runs to the room, 132, to retrieve a phone, and that same teacher walks back to the exit door and the door remains propped open,” McCraw said during a press conference.
On Monday, Texas Department of Public Safety press secretary Ericka Miller confirmed to ABC News that investigators have now determined that the teacher closed the door, but that the door did not automatically lock as it was supposed to.
Don Flanary, a lawyer for the teacher, told the San Antonio Express-News that the teacher had propped the door open with a rock to carry food in from her car. He said that while the teacher was outside, she “saw the wreck” the suspect was involved in and “ran back inside to get her phone to report the crash.
As she went back out while on the phone with 911, the lawyer said, the men at the funeral home across the street from the school yelled, “He has a gun!” Flanary said.
“She saw him jump the fence and (that) he had a gun. So, she ran back inside,” the lawyer said. “She kicked the rock away when she went back in. She remembers pulling the door closed while telling 911 that he was shooting. She thought the door would lock because that door is always supposed to be locked.”
Law enforcement is looking into why the door did not lock, DPS confirmed to ABC News.
It took 77 minutes before the suspect was killed
The timeline on how quickly police responded to the shooting has changed several times, from a rapid response to about 40 minutes, to eventually 77 minutes before a SWAT team entered the classroom where the shooter was located and killed him, authorities said.
McCraw admitted on Friday that mistakes were made on the ground in response to the active shooter incident.
The missteps began before the shooting erupted at the school when a Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officer responding to a 911 call of a man with a gun on the school campus drove past the suspect, who was “hunkered down” behind a car in the school parking lot, McCraw said.
The gunman fired at the school multiple times before entering through the unlocked door. Police officials have given various times for when the shooter entered the school building, saying in one press conference that he gained access at 11:33 a.m., while in a different press conference they said 11:40 a.m.
McCraw said the shooter walked into a classroom and began firing more than 100 rounds.
McCraw said that by 12:03 p.m., there were as many as 19 officers in the school hallway. As the officers were outside the door, the incident commander — Chief Pete Arredondo of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police — wrongly believed the incident had transitioned from an active shooting to a situation where the suspect had stopped firing, barricaded himself in a classroom and no longer posed a risk to children, McCraw said.
“He thought there was time to retrieve the keys and wait for a tactical team with the equipment to go ahead and breach the door and take on the subject at that point,” McCraw said. “That was the decision, that was the thought process.”
McCraw added, “Of course it wasn’t the right decision. It was the wrong decision.”
Arredondo, who was sworn in this week as a Uvalde City Council member, has yet to offer a public statement on his response to the shooting.
But Escalon said last week that children trapped inside with the killer, who was freely walking back and forth between adjoining classrooms, made numerous 911 calls pleading for help.
Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies in the area converged on the school and began evacuating children from other classrooms and away from the two rooms where the gunman was holed up. Video and photos from the scene, showed children being pulled through broken windows and running out of harm’s way.
Escalon said in one of the 911 calls from the classrooms where the mass murder was occurring, a dispatcher heard three shots in the background.
McCraw and Escalon cited numerous 911 calls coming in from students and teachers from 12:03 p.m. to 12:47 p.m., reporting that multiple students were dead, but others were alive. Escalon said at 12:47 p.m., a child called 911, begging, “Please, send police now.”
It remains unclear whether information from the 911 calls was immediately passed on to Arredondo.
At 12:50 p.m., the SWAT team from Customs and Border Protection used a key they got from a janitor, entered the classroom and killed the gunman.
Meanwhile, video has surfaced showing frantic parents outside the school as the shooting was unfolding pleading with police to go into the school and being held back by officers, some who appeared to be armed with semi-automatic rifles and wearing bulletproof vests.
“I think the biggest issue that I see is that (classroom) door,” Boyce said of the investigation into law enforcement’s response to the shooting, which is being handled by the Department of Justice. “When did it get breached? When did they get that key?”
He said most patrol cars aren’t equipped with forcible entry tools like rams, or anything to go through a locked door. But he said the officers should have asked for a sledgehammer or tools within reach to get through the door, or break windows to get into the classrooms.
“You take an oath as a police officer, there are days when you’re going to have to put yourself on the line,” Boyce said. “You do what’s necessary to end the threat.”
Citing the ongoing investigation, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District has not issued a statement on its police department’s response.
Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez issued a statement on his department’s Facebook page last week, saying, “It is important for our community to know that our Officers responded within minutes alongside CISD officers. Responding UPD Officers sustained gunshot wounds from the suspect. Our entire department is thankful that the Officers did not sustain any life-threatening injuries.”
Rodriguez added, “I understand questions are surfacing regarding the details of what occurred. I know answers will not come fast enough during this trying time. But rest assured, that with the completion of the full investigation, I will be able to answer all the questions that we can.”
