(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — A police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty on Thursday night in Rochester, New York, officials said.
Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz, a 29-year veteran of the Rochester Police Department, was with his partner, Officer Sino Seng, an eight-year veteran, when they “were attacked in a cowardly ambush” on Bauman Street, according to Rochester Police Chief David Smith.
At least one male approached the officers and opened fire on them as they were conducting a detail at around 9:15 p.m. local time, according to Lt. Greg Bello of the Rochester Police Department.
Mazurkiewicz was shot at least once in the upper body, while Seng was shot at least once in the lower body, according to Smith, who said the pair “fell victim to the very violence in our community that we are trying to combat.”
Mazurkiewicz was rushed to Strong Hospital, where he was listed in threatening condition late Thursday. During a press conference the next morning, the police chief announced that, “despite heroic efforts,” Mazurkiewicz had died. The officer was a husband and father.
Seng was taken to Rochester General Hospital, where he was treated and released. He is “now recuperating from his injuries at home with his wife and children,” according to Smith.
During the attack, a female bystander was also struck by gunfire. She was treated for non-life threatening injuries, Smith added.
The police chief said a number of law enforcement agencies — local, state and federal — have responded to assist and are “being utilized to bring whomever is responsible for this heinous act to justice.”
“This is an ongoing investigation and updates will be provided as they become available,” Smith, who was visibly emotional, said at the press conference on Friday morning. “As we speak, the brave men and women of the Rochester Police Department are continuing to protect our community, despite this horrific and shocking loss to our family.”
Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, who also spoke at the press conference, called it a “sad day for our community.”
“I am angry and upset because all too often we are seeing over and over again blatant disregard for life,” Evans said, “be it an old woman on her porch or a 10-year-old girl, braiding her mother’s hair, and now an officer in the line of duty, working to keep our city safe.”
The deadly shooting happened just hours after the mayor declared a local state of emergency due to “a surge” in gun violence.
“The city and our partners in government will dedicate all possible resources to bring an immediate end to this violence and prevent it from expanding further,” Evans said at a press conference earlier Thursday. “We know these shootings are directly tied to a deadly cycle of disputes and retaliations and we will do all we can to disrupt these disputes before they reach critical mass.”
On Friday, the mayor urged anyone with information on the triple shooting to come forward.
“Now is your time to speak up,” he said. “It was Tony Mazurkiewicz, but it can be any of us in this room tomorrow. This is a clarion call for this community to speak up.”
(NEW YORK) — Across the United States, millions are facing extreme heat as temperatures hold steady in the triple digits. For communities of color, underlying systemic inequities increase the chances of heat-related illnesses and death.
Heat is among the deadliest of all weather-related disasters, beating out floods, lightning and hurricanes, according to the National Weather Service. The World Health Organization estimates that heatwaves caused more than 166,000 deaths globally between 1998 and 2017.
The rates of emergency department visits for heat-related causes increased by 67% for African Americans, 63% for Hispanics, 53% for Asian Americans and 27% for white people from 2005 to 2015, according to a report in the Wilderness and Environmental Medicine journal.
Between 2004 and 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Indigenous groups had the highest rates of heat-related death, followed by Black populations.
The impact on people of color in the U.S. during the ongoing heat wave may be exacerbated through various iterations of discrimination and inequity.
Poor urban planning and housing discrimination raises risks
People of color were exposed to more extreme urban heat than white people in almost every major U.S. city, a 2021 study published in the research journal Nature found.
That’s because of “urban heat islands,” where poor urban planning removed much of an area’s natural green lands and replaced them with pavement, buildings and other materials that retain and absorb heat, according to the report.
This type of urban planning causes the air to heat up more than it does in leafier areas. Black and Hispanic residents have the highest average summer urban heat island exposure, according to the study in Nature.
“We find that the average person of color lives in a census tract with higher SUHI intensity than non-Hispanic whites in all but 6 of the 175 largest urbanized areas in the continental United States,” the report says.
This discrepancy is caused by redlining and housing discrimination that pushed Black and brown communities into neighborhoods with fewer trees and green spaces and heavier traffic, experts say.
The urban heat island effect is worsening, as more people are continuing to move into and grow cities, Dr. Angel Hsu, a climate scientist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, told ABC News.
“We found that 97% of major cities in the U.S. where more than a quarter of a million people live were seeing the same disproportionate exposure patterns for communities of color and people who are living below the poverty line,” Hsu said. “That seems to suggest that it’s not just a policy that we can blame from the 1960s.”
Around 83% of people in the U.S. live in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950, according to a study from the University of Michigan. About 89% of the U.S. population will live in an urban area by 2050.
Workforce imbalances leave some exposed
People of color are also disproportionately exposed to extreme heat through their occupations, according to health research organization KFF.
Researchers found that noncitizen and Latino migrant workers respectively make up 50% and 75% of agricultural workers in the U.S. It’s a group that’s about 20 times more likely to die from heat-related illnesses compared to other U.S.-based workers, the organization says.
“Some of the big concerns are that the exposure to extreme heat is just one thing that may lead to so many other issues, with regards to access to foods, with regards to people being able to go out to work and provide for their families and afford a lot of things,” said Nambi Ndugga, a policy analyst with KFF’s Racial Equity and Health Policy Program.
Low-income households, especially those in predominantly Black, Hispanic or Indigenous communities, may have a hard time accessing cooling centers or using air conditioners due to the high cost of energy bills, experts say.
“We need to be making sure that people have access to air conditioning in their homes and we know that communities of color have disproportionately lower access to air conditioning and the ability to run it,” Rachel Licker, the principal climate scientist at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News. “Obviously, that’s becoming more and more of an issue as energy bills are increasing right now.”
Health disparities can lead to increased risks
Health disparities often plague Black, Hispanic and indigenous communities, thanks to inequities in healthcare access, quality insurance, access to healthy foods and other factors, a report in Everyday Health found.
These groups experience cardiovascular and respiratory diseases — such as heart disease, hypertension and asthma — at higher rates, which could increase one’s risk of being hospitalized or dying from extreme heat as well, health experts say.
Extreme heat can worsen or aggravate existing health conditions, the CDC found.
“We know that those communities have disproportionately lower access to quality health care to deal with health-related issues as a result of extreme heat,” said Licker.
(ROCHESTER, N.Y.) — Two police officers have been shot in Rochester, New York, and one is in life-threatening condition Thursday night.
The two officers were conducting a detail around 9:15 p.m. when “at least one male approached them and opened fire on them,” Lt. Greg Bello said at the scene Thursday night, Rochester ABC affiliate WHAM-TV reported.
The condition of the other officer was not immediately known. Both were rushed to the hospital.
The incident took place on Bauman Street in northeast Rochester, WHAM reported.
(NEW YORK) — The southern entrance of Yosemite National Park is scheduled to reopen now that firefighters have made headway with containing the wildfire that was threatening the park’s iconic sequoia trees.
The Washburn Fire, a wildfire that has burned through nearly 5,000 acres along the southern border of Yosemite since July 7, had reached 58% containment as of Thursday, according to the Yosemite Fire and Aviation Management.
The containment of the fire, which at one point was inching dangerously close to the Mariposa Grove, will allow the southern entrance of Yosemite National Park to open on Saturday at 6 a.m., a spokesperson for the National Park Service told ABC News.
The Mariposa Grove is one of the most popular destinations at Yosemite and is home to more than 500 mature giant sequoia trees. This summer was the second time in less than a year that an approaching wildfire neared an iconic plot of sequoia trees, some of which have been there for thousands of years.
No reports of damage to any of the named trees in the grove have been released, and some tree trunks have been wrapped in fire-resistant foil as protection.
Sprinklers have also been set up around several trees, including the Grizzly Giant, the most famous giant sequoia at Yosemite, which stands at 209 feet tall. Fire officials hope the steady stream of water, combined with prescribed burns, will be enough to protect the trees from a fatal encounter with the wildfire.
Since 2020, three fires are estimated to have killed up to 19% of the large giant sequoias in the entire Sierra Nevada population, and 85% of sequoia groves have been affected by wildfire in the past six years, according to the National Park Service.
A portion of Highway 41, which leads into the southern entrance of Yosemite, was shut down earlier this month as a result of the Washburn Fire.
The wildfire also sparked air quality alerts hundreds of miles away in California’s Bay Area, specifically the North Bay and East Bay regions.
(SPARTA, Ga.) — A woman in Georgia has died after she was taken into custody but somehow managed to fall out of a police patrol car while authorities were taking her to the Sheriff’s Office, police say.
The incident occurred on July 15 when 28-year-old Brianna Marie Grier of Sparta, Georgia, was taken into custody by Hancock County Sheriff’s office deputies after they were called to her home on Hickory Grove Church Road, according to a statement released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“Grier was arrested at the home,” the statement from the GBI said. “While deputies were taking Grier to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, Grier fell out of a patrol car and sustained significant injuries.”
It is unclear if Grier was handcuffed while she was in the vehicle, how fast the car was going at the time or how exactly she was able to fall out of the car while en route to the Sheriff’s Office. The GBI statement did not say why Grier had been taken into custody in the first place.
Grier died on Thursday at Grady memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, at approximately 1:00 p.m. from injuries she sustained in the fall.
“Hancock County Sheriff Terrell Primus asked the GBI’s regional investigate office in Milledgeville to investigate on July 15 following the initial incident,” said the GBI.
Authorities said that Grier’s body will be taken to the GBI Crime Lab for an autopsy and that the GBI investigation remains active and ongoing.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — This past May, Aaron Salter Jr., a retired police officer, was killed in the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting while attempting to save others.
Nearly two months after the tragedy, his wife Kimberly and his son Aaron Salter III say they received a life-changing gift. Kimberly Salter is now mortgage-free, the son says, thanks to hip-hop and rap music producer Metro Boomin who paid off the mortgage on the home she shared with her late husband.
Salter III said his family received the gift in an Instagram post Wednesday.
After his father’s death, Salter III said he started a GoFundMe campaign to help his mother out with finances, wanting to ensure she would be “taken care of and be okay.” He said that Metro Boomin reached out to him after coming across the campaign, which has raised nearly $65,000.
“He’s got an album, ‘Not All Heroes Wear Capes,’ and he said that my story really resonated with him because he called my dad a hero and he said that he did everything he could to protect those people,” Salter III told ABC News. “He saw the story and he just wanted to help us out in any way that he could,” he added.
Salter III, who says he is a longtime fan of the producer, said his mother Kimberly was stunned when he told her about Metro Boomin’s gift.
“She was like, ‘he’s doing what?'” Salter III said. “She didn’t believe it until she logged into her account and saw that it was paid off. And when she saw it was paid off, she was very emotional. She was very happy.”
Metro Boomin, born Leland Tyler Wayne, is a popular American hip-hop music producer, DJ, and songwriter from St. Louis. He has amassed over a dozen top 20 hits, working with hip-hop and rap stars including Kanye West, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Migos, Future and Gucci Mane.
An Instagram account that appears to belong to the producer, responded to Salter III’s post, commenting, “Love always, bro, my line is always open, and I meant every single thing I said back when we spoke.”
A representative for Metro Boomin has not responded to a request for comment from ABC News.
Salter III’s father, Aaron Salter Jr., was among those killed last May after a white teenager allegedly killed 10 Black people in what authorities described as a racially motivated mass shooting.
At the time, Salter Jr. was working as a security guard for the grocery store, which is located in a predominantly Black neighborhood. When the shooter proceeded inside the store on May 14, Salter confronted him, shooting and striking the teen before he himself was fatally wounded.
While it’s unclear how many victims were saved due to Salter’s actions, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph A. Gramaglia told ABC News, “We’re sure he saved lives.”
“He went down fighting,” Gramaglia added. “He came in, he went towards the gunfire. He went towards the fight.”
Shortly after the shooting, Canisius College posthumously honored Salter Jr., who was just three credit hours (one course) away from graduating, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Salter III accepted the diploma on his father’s behalf during the school’s graduation ceremony.
Two months ago, Metro Boomin suffered his own loss, when his mother, Leslie Joanne Wayne, was reportedly murdered by her husband (not Metro Boomin’s biological father), who then committed suicide, TMZ reported in June.
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in a federal court on Thursday morning for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Lane, 39, is one of three former Minneapolis police officers who were convicted earlier this year of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior officer, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Floyd’s videotaped killing in Minneapolis sparked anti-racism protests and calls for police reform across the United States and around the world.
Lane’s former Minneapolis police colleagues, 28-year-old J. Alexander Kueng and 35-year-old Tou Thao, were also convicted of failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin, 46, from applying bodily injury to Floyd. Lane, who was heard on video twice asking his fellow officers whether they should turn Floyd onto his side, did not face that charge. Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck, while Kueng knelt on his back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders away.
During their trial in February, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”
The jury handed down convictions after deliberating for roughly 13 hours.
Magnuson has not yet set sentencing dates for Kueng and Thao.
Lane faces a separate sentencing in state court on Sept. 21, after changing his plea to guilty to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder, according to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Thao and Kueng, who have rejected plea deals offered by prosecutors, are scheduled to go on trial in state court on Oct. 24 over charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Earlier this month, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison on separate federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s killing and in an unrelated case involving a Black teenager. He had already been sentenced to 270 months, minus time served, which equals about 22 1/2 years in prison, after being convicted in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
(NEW YORK) — The unrelenting heat wave pounding the U.S. is still going strong, with 24 states and 103 million Americans on alert for dangerous temperatures Thursday.
Triple-digit heat is still hitting the West with Thursday temperatures forecast to reach 113 degrees in Palm Springs, California and 114 in Las Vegas. If “Sin City” reaches 114, it’ll break its record high of 113.
In the South, Dallas hit a record high of 109 degrees on Wednesday as Texas’ ongoing heat wave continues to fan spreading wildfires.
The heat is spreading from hard-hit Texas to Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas.
The heat is also slamming the Northeast. The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is expected to skyrocket Thursday to 107 degrees in Philadelphia, 103 in New York City and Washington, D.C., and 101 in Baltimore and Hartford, Connecticut.
The Northeast heat is expected to intensify over the weekend when actual temperatures could approach 100 degrees. Record highs are possible on Sunday from Philadelphia to New York City.
If New York City stays above 90 degrees for seven days in a row, the city will mark its longest heat wave in nine years.
Philadelphia has issued a heat health emergency that’ll begin at noon Thursday.
High temperatures are also still inundating Europe, where it’s forecast to hit 103 degrees in Madrid and 99 degrees in Milan.
(ST. PAUL, Minn.) — Former Minneapolis police officer Thomas Lane will be sentenced in federal court on Thursday morning for violating George Floyd’s civil rights.
Lane, 39, is one of three former Minneapolis police officers who were convicted earlier this year of depriving Floyd of his right to medical care as the handcuffed, unarmed 46-year-old Black man was pinned under the knee of their senior office, Derek Chauvin, for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Floyd’s videotaped killing in Minneapolis sparked anti-racism protests and calls for police reform across the United States and around the world.
Lane’s former Minneapolis police colleagues, 28-year-old J. Alexander Kueng and 35-year-old Tou Thao, were also convicted of failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin, 46, from applying bodily injury to Floyd. Lane, who was heard on video twice asking his fellow officers whether they should turn Floyd onto his side, did not face that charge. Chauvin knelt on the back of Floyd’s neck, while Kueng knelt on his back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders away.
During their trial in February, Lane, Kueng and Thao each took the witness stand and attempted to shift the blame to Chauvin, who was a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department. Lane told the jury that Chauvin “deflected” all his suggestions to help Floyd, while Kueng testified that Chauvin “was my senior officer and I trusted his advice” and Thao attested that he “would trust a 19-year veteran to figure it out.”
The jury handed down convictions after deliberating for roughly 13 hours.
Magnuson has not yet set sentencing dates for Kueng and Thao.
Lane faces a separate sentencing in state court on Sept. 21, after changing his plea to guilty to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting manslaughter. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the top charge against him of aiding and abetting second-degree unintentional murder, according to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Thao and Kueng, who have rejected plea deals offered by prosecutors, are scheduled to go on trial in state court on Oct. 24 over charges of aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Earlier this month, Chauvin was sentenced to 21 years in prison on separate federal civil rights charges in Floyd’s killing and in an unrelated case involving a Black teenager. He had already been sentenced to 270 months, minus time served, which equals about 22 1/2 years in prison, after being convcited in state court last year of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca, Bill Hutchinson, Janel Klein, Whitney Lloyd, Mark Osborne and Stephanie Wash contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — In the aftermath of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Park, Illinois, experts say there is a lot that communities can do to improve how they respond to warning signs indicating people could be a risk to themselves or others.
John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that law enforcement professionals he has met with around the country have raised concerns that there’s not much they can do when they receive reports of concerning behavior.
But even if the person exhibiting concerning behavior has not committed a crime, there is still room for preventative intervention and community support, Cohen said.
“Too many law enforcement agencies tend to look at these issues, simply from the perspective of: has the person violated the law or not. And what a lot of law enforcement agencies have learned is that there is a middle ground,” he said.
He recognized that a lack of access to inpatient and outpatient mental health care is a large concern.
Jarrod Burguan, a former chief of police in San Bernardino, California, and an ABC News contributor, said in an interview that his experience in law enforcement showed him that the mental healthcare system is a “revolving door” that does not do a good job of forcing people to get help or protecting the rest of society from people who pose a risk.
“We have this major issue of how we deal with mental illness. And we’re very, very ineffective at it,” he said. “We have this disconnect in how we treat mental illness in this country.”
Oftentimes, police take in someone for a mental health evaluation, but there is no leverage for them to get treatment and there is not much else authorities can do to address concerning behavior that has been brought to their attention if it isn’t illegal, Burguan said.
“As a police officer, you’ve got to work within the confines of what you can do legally,” Burguan said.
When police receive a report of concerning behavior, they make contact with the individual to see if they can collect enough information to justify a mental health hold or to determine if a crime has been committed. Police could then take the person into the mental healthcare system if justified, but there is not much else they could do, Burguan said.
Burguan said the threshold for family members to forcibly commit someone into a mental health facility is very high. The process is often difficult for families and can be very expensive, he said. He said that family members rarely think that their loved ones would be able to do something violent like a shooting.
“As a result, we have millions and millions and millions of people that fall through the cracks. We need something that puts more teeth and the ability of the mental health system to hold somebody and force them into treatment and stop allowing people to walk away, and then affect everybody else in society,” Burguan said.
Burguan also said the criminal justice system is not effectively correcting peoples’ paths. While he was chief, he says his department looked through data for two straight years and found that in cases where police had identified a suspect in a murder, an overwhelming majority of the suspects had extensive criminal histories.
“We’re not fixing people through the criminal justice system,” Burguan said.
Cohen said there is still an important role local communities can play to intervene when individuals are showing warning signs that they could be a risk to themselves or others.
He said as far back as 2014 when he was at DHS, the department was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies to study the behavioral characteristics of mass shooters and work to develop prevention strategies to be applied in local communities.
He said the strategies center on law enforcement working with mental health professionals and others in the community to assess the risks of people who exhibit these behaviors, making sure that people within the community are educated on what they should be looking for.
Local authorities should be conducting threat assessments to determine whether the individual poses a high risk of committing an act of violence, Cohen said. If the answer is yes, then the community should engage in threat management strategies, he said.
“You bring mental health professionals, the family community members, our community organizations, faith leaders, social service providers, whoever you need to at the local level, you bring them together and you can put in place a plan to address the underlying issues that are causing this person to travel down the path of violence,” Cohen said.
‘Red flag’ laws
Many states have incorporated the use of “red flag” laws, also called extreme protection orders, in their strategies to temporarily restrict an individual’s access to guns when they are found to be a risk to themselves or others, Cohen said.
He said these threat management and threat assessment strategies, implemented in various jurisdictions around the country, including Los Angeles, have been successful in preventing attacks.
“With all the mass shootings that we have experienced over the last 10 years, it is mind-boggling to me that we still have communities that have not established the capabilities to engage in threat assessment and threat management activities,” Cohen said.
He added, “They save lives. They’ve worked in communities across the country. And what we need is a consistent capability in every locality across the United States to do that type of work.”
Cohen said a strategy should have been created to address warning signs the Uvalde school shooter displayed in the leading up to the shooting. Cohen said the large amount of ammunition the shooter purchased in addition to the other warning signs should have been brought to the attention of law enforcement, who should have launched a threat assessment investigation.
Recognizing that this requires a certain level of sophistication, expertise and funding, Cohen said it falls to state and federal governments to intervene. DHS and the Justice Department provide grant funding to support local efforts and the FBI and U.S. Secret Service can provide training and technical assistance to local communities, Cohen said.
“Any police department or any local community that is not prepared to assess the risk posed by an individual who comes to their attention and to take steps to mitigate that risk, is placing themselves in jeopardy of experiencing this type of attack,” Cohen said.
