(CONCORD, N.H.) — A person of interest is being sought in the slayings of a retired New Hampshire couple found shot to death last month on a hiking trail near their Concord home, authorities announced on Tuesday.
The New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Concord Chief of Police Bradley Osgood said in a joint statement that the man investigators want to speak with was seen in Concord on April 18 in the vicinity of where the bodies of Stephen Reid, 67, and his wife, Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, 66, were found three days later.
The person of interest is described as a white male in his late 20s or early 30s, authorities said. He’s about 5-foot-10, has a medium build, has short brown hair and is clean-shaven. He was seen wearing a dark blue jacket, possibly with a hood; khaki-colored pants and was carrying a black backpack.
Formella and Osgood released a sketch of the man.
They also announced that a reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the killer has grown to $33,500.
The FBI is assisting in the investigation.
The Reids were last seen alive on April 18 when they left their home in the Alton Woods apartment complex in Concord around 2:30 p.m. and went for a walk in the Broken Ground Trails area, authorities said.
The couple was reported missing on April 20 when Stephen Reid failed to show up at a planned event, according to the state attorney general’s office. Their bodies were discovered a day later off a hiking trail in the Broken Ground Trails system, officials said.
Autopsies determined they both died from multiple gunshot wounds.
Homicide investigators and the couple’s children have asked the public to report any information that could possibly help crack the case.
The couple’s family, including their children, Lindsay and Brian Reid, released a statement, describing Stephen and Wendy Reid as soulmates who traveled the world and shared a “mutual love of adventure and fitness.”
The Reids moved to Concord about three years ago when Stephen Reid, who grew up in Concord, retired from a more than 30-year career as an international development specialist working on humanitarian projects around the world through USAID, their family said.
The couple met while Wendy Reid, who was from West Africa, was studying in Washington, D.C., on an athletic scholarship, the family said.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Stephen Reid served in the Peace Corps in West Africa for four years, according to relatives.
(TOMS RIVER, N.J.) — One person is dead and another has been rescued after the siblings became trapped under sand while digging at a Jersey Shore beach Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
Police and emergency medical services responded to a barrier island beach in Toms River, New Jersey, shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday “for reports of juveniles trapped in the sand as it collapsed around them while digging,” the Toms River Police Department said on Facebook.
First responders were able to rescue a 17-year-old girl, who was treated at the scene, though her brother, 18, died at the scene, police said.
The victim was identified by police as Levy Caverley of Maine.
The teen was visiting the region from out of town with his family, police said.
Police urged people not to respond to the area while the rescue was in progress.
Live footage from the scene Tuesday evening showed more than a dozen first responders near the shoreline. Emergency crews from several neighboring towns aided in the rescue effort.
Rescue workers are currently working to recover the body from the collapse, police said.
(LAGUNA WOODS, Calif.) — The pastor being hailed a hero for helping to thwart a gunman from taking additional lives at a California church described how the congregation, consisting mostly of elderly attendees, overtook the shooter.
About 50 people had gathered at the Geneva Presbyterian Church, a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, on Sunday afternoon for a lunch banquet to welcome back Rev. Billy Chang from a trip to Taiwan, Chang told ABC News.
But a gunman angry over tensions between China and Taiwan, 68-year-old Las Vegas resident David Chou, was also in attendance and attempted to secure the doors inside with chains, Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Monday. Chou also attempted to disable the locks within the church with superglue, Barnes said.
Chang was on the podium taking photos when he witnessed the gunman randomly firing at congregants, he described in a statement on Monday.
Parishioners were able to escape through the one door Chou allegedly did not lock, and when he stopped to reload, Chang and Dr. John Cheng, a prominent sports physician, sprang into action.
Cheng, 52, charged the suspect and tried to disarm him allowing others to jump in, Barnes said. Chang grabbed a chair and slammed it into the shooter, pushing him to the floor, he said.
“I was in shock during these events,” Chang said in the statement.
Several of the surrounding congregants then swarmed the shooter, Chang said.
The group of churchgoers detained Chou, hogtying his legs with an extension cord and confiscating two handguns from him before more people could be shot, said Orange County Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Jeff Hallock. Others called 911 while the restraint took place, Chang said.
“That group of churchgoers displayed…exceptional heroism, heroism and bravery in interfering or intervening to stop the suspect,” Hallock said.
Most of the congregants were elderly, officials said, and the injured victims ranged in age from 66 to 92 years old.
Cheng was shot and killed during the chaos, and five others were wounded by gunfire, Barnes said. Investigators believe more people would have been shot had it not been for Cheng’s actions, Barnes said.
“The majority of the people in attendance were elderly, and they acted spontaneously, heroically,” Barnes said. “There would have been many, many more lives lost if not for the concerted effort of the members of that church.”
Chang, through tears, asked for prayers for Cheng’s family and for the congregation.
“Thank you for your concern and continued prayers,” Chang told ABC News. “While my return to the United States, worship at the church and luncheon was [a] joyous occasion, the events that followed have deeply impacted the community and me.”
Chou, who is Chinese but an American citizen, is being held on $1 million bail, jail records show. He is expected to be charged with one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder, authorities said.
Authorities believe Chou’s anger began when he lived in Taiwan, where he felt he was an outsider, and his anti-Taiwan views were not accepted, Barnes said.
Chou’s wife and son still live in Taiwan, but Chou has lived alone in the U.S. for many years, Barnes said, adding that Chou’s views have become more radical as tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated.
China has long held that Taiwan is part of its country, while Taiwan governs itself as an independent nation dating back to when Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland as the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949.
The FBI has opened a federal hate crimes investigation into the shooting.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Ten people, all of whom were Black, were killed in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, in an attack authorities are calling a “racially motivated hate crime.”
The victims included four grocery store employees as well as six customers, several of them regulars at the store, according to the Buffalo Police Department and those who knew them.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden mourned those who were lost in the attack with the Buffalo community on Tuesday, describing them as “the best of our community.”
“The people who were slaughtered by this evil were very good people,” Biden said, vowing to make the community safer by advocating for stricter gun laws and criminal justice reform.
Here is what’s known about the victims so far:
Ruth Whitfield, 86
Ruth Whitfield was returning home from visiting her husband in a nursing home when she stopped by Tops to pick up groceries — “a daily ritual,” her son, Garnell Whitfield, told ABC News Sunday morning.
Ruth Whitfield was in the store when the gunman opened fire and was among the 10 who died in the shooting, Garnell Whitfield, a former Buffalo fire chief, said.
Garnell Whitfield described his mother’s devotion to her family, especially her husband, whose health has been declining over the past eight years.
“She was there just about every day, taking care of him, making sure he was well cared for by the staff, washing, ironing his clothes, making sure he was dressed appropriately, making sure his nails were cut and clean and shaved,” he said. “All of that. Every day.”
Even as her own health began to weaken, Ruth Whitfield still tried to visit her husband each day, taking days off only when she felt too debilitated to make the trip, her son said.
After suffering “a very difficult childhood,” when she became a mother, Ruth Whitfield “was all about family,” Garnell Whitfield said.
“And she rose above it, and she raised us in spite of all of that, being very poor,” he said. “She raised us to be productive men and women.”
Whitfield also sang in a choir, Biden said in his address Tuesday.
Roberta Drury, 32
Roberta Drury, a regular at Tops, was a “vibrant and outgoing” woman who could “talk to anyone,” her sister, Amanda Drury, told ABC News on Sunday.
Roberta Drury was born in Cicero, New York, about 150 miles east of Buffalo, and moved to the city in 2010 after her oldest brother, Christopher Drury, received a bone marrow transplant there to treat his leukemia.
She helped him run his restaurant, The Dalmatia, and care for his family, Amanda Drury said.
“She was always willing to help and laugh,” Amanda said over text.
Aaron Salter, 55
Aaron Salter, a retired Buffalo Police officer, was killed after he confronted the gunman, who entered the store wearing military fatigues, body armor and a tactical helmet.
Salter was working as a security guard and shot the assailant, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told ABC News on Sunday. But the bullets had no effect due to the bulletproof vest the suspect wore, and the gunman returned fire, striking Salter.
Gramaglia described Salter as a “true hero” who undoubtedly saved more lives during the encounter.
“He went down fighting,” Gramaglia said. “He came in, he went towards the gunfire. He went towards the fight.”
One Tops employee, a mother of seven, told ABC News that if it hadn’t been for Salter, she and her 20-year-old daughter, who was working at the register, would not have known the gunman was headed in their direction.
When she saw Salter pull out his weapon, they knew they had to run, and they both made it out alive, she said.
Salter was a “beloved” employee of Tops, several years after he retired from the police department.
“He took on a responsibility to protect the customers and the employees in the store,” Gramaglia said. “And he did exactly what he signed up for.”
During a Medal of Valor ceremony on Monday, Biden commended Salter, saying the retired police officer and father “gave his life trying to save others.”
Heyward Patterson, 67
Deacon Heyward Patterson was shot while inside his truck in the parking lot of the supermarket, Pastor James Giles told ABC Buffalo affiliate WKBW.
Patterson’s family described him to the station as a loving person. He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
Pearl Young, 77
Pearl Young, an Alabama native, spent the final years of her life teaching children as a substitute teacher in the Buffalo School District and was heavily involved in her church community, her sister, Mary Craig, told ABC News.
“She loved her students, and they loved her back,” a statement from her family read.
Craig described Young as “such a beautiful, sweet woman.”
“We’re all in shock and disbelief,” she said of the family.
Young leaves behind two sons and a daughter, Craig said.
Young was described in the statement as a missionary who would be “truly missed.”
“Missionary Pearl Young was a worshipper and loved God. She loved her children, her family, and her Good-Samaritan COGIC church family,” the statement read. “She was a true pillar in the community.”
On Tuesday, Biden said, “She touched the apple of God’s eye.”
Geraldine Talley, 62
In her final moments, Geraldine Talley, who’d come to Tops Family Market Saturday afternoon for a few items, sent her fiancée down an aisle to retrieve something off a shelf.
Before they could reunite, an armed suspect entered the supermarket and opened fire. Her fiancée survived the massacre.
Talley’s last moments were described to ABC News by Kaye Chapman-Johnson, her younger sister, who was not at the store with the couple.
“I am so angry, just devastated. This is so hard for our family right now,” she said in an off-camera interview. “Our sister, we had so many plans together, so many plans, and everything has just been stripped away from us.
“Our lives will definitely never be the same again.”
Two years older, Talley, 62, was Chapman-Johnson’s “best friend,” her sister said. “We talked every day.”
Talley was one of nine siblings and was “an amazing sister, mother, aunt,” said Chapman-Johnson. “She just was truly an amazing woman. And I’m going to miss her dearly.”
Talley’s death has left her family “destroyed,” added her sister. “I’m hoping that we can all move on.”
Celestine Chaney, 65
Celestine Chaney, 65, of Buffalo, was a mother and grandmother of six, The Buffalo News reported.
She was shopping with her older sister, JoAnn Daniels, when she was shot, according to the newspaper.
“She was a breast cancer survivor and she survived aneurysms in her brain, and then she goes to Tops and gets shot,” her sister told The Buffalo News.
Chaney’s son, Wayne Jones, told the newspaper, “If people’s moms are still around, just don’t be too caught up in social media and the world to pick up the phone and talk to your mom or your dad.”
Katherine Massey, 72, of Buffalo
Katherine “Kat” Massey was a civil rights activist who worked tirelessly to improve Buffalo’s Black community, The Buffalo News reported.
The Buffalo News said Massey wrote for local publications the Buffalo Challenger and Buffalo Criterion, and that she often wrote letters to The Buffalo News.
“She was unapologetic about making sure our community was not ignored,” Massey’s friend, former Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant, told the The Buffalo News. “We lost a powerful, powerful voice.”
Margus Morrison, 52, of Buffalo
Margus Morrison was a “great father” and “wonderful person” who was always willing to help his family, his stepdaughter, Cassandra Demps, said in a text message to ABC News.
Morrison is “a soul that will always be missed,” Demps wrote.
Andre Mackneil, 53, of Auburn, New York
ABC News’ Matt Foster and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(SANTA FE, N.M.) — A massive wildfire currently burning east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is now the largest in the state’s history as thousands of firefighters continue to battle the blaze.
The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire — made up of two fires that merged into one giant blaze last month — has burned 299,565 acres, state fire officials said Tuesday.
It officially surpassed the Whitewater-Baldy Fire as the largest fire in New Mexico’s history on Monday. That fire, which was caused by lightning and also consisted of two separate fires that merged, had burned 297,845 acres primarily in the Gila National Forest before being contained in late July 2012.
The Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire, the largest active fire in the U.S., was only 26% contained as of Tuesday morning, with more than 2,090 fire personnel responding. The Hermits Peak fire was caused by spot fires from a prescribed burn, while the cause of the Calf Canyon fire is under investigation, according to state fire officials.
Residents of San Miguel, Mora, Taos and Colfax counties are advised to remain on “high alert” Tuesday for evacuation updates and road closures, officials said.
Firefighters faced unfavorable wind conditions, warming temperatures and severe dry conditions since the Hermits Peak and Calf Canyon fires ignited in early April.
“The challenge of predicting how wildfires move, the best experts in the world on this topic still are not going to get it right,” Dr. Jason Knievel, deputy director for the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Albuquerque ABC affiliate KOAT this week.
There is a mix of conifer trees, ponderosa pine, brush and grass where the fire is now — and “critically dry fuels” may increase fire activity, fire officials warned Tuesday. The fire is burning near an area with steep terrain, which can also help spread the fire, according to Knievel.
“Fire tends to move uphill,” he said.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in several counties last month as multiple wildfires burned, including the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire.
President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration earlier this month for New Mexico that brings financial resources to the areas battling the fires.
Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate and hundreds of structures have been destroyed due to the recent wildfire activity, the governor noted in a letter to Biden last week requesting additional aid.
(BALTIMORE) — A fire and explosion at a suburban Baltimore nail salon that injured seven people was deliberately set by an “emotionally distressed” man, authorities said Tuesday. Four police officers and two emergency medical workers were wounded in the incident.
The suspect, whose name was not immediately released, was critically injured in the blast at the Libra Nails & Spa salon in Windsor Mill about 23 miles northwest of Baltimore, according to the Baltimore County Police Department.
Baltimore County Fire Department officials said the suspect is a former employee of the nail salon, the Baltimore Sun reported.
Police officers responded to a workplace disturbance call at the nail salon, in the Security Station Shopping Center, just after 9 p.m. and encountered the suspect who was refusing to leave business, police said in a statement released to ABC News Tuesday morning.
A police spokesperson told reporters Monday night that officers called EMTs to the scene to examine the “emotionally distressed” man. While the officers and EMTs were inside the salon, the suspect suddenly ran to the back of the business, police said.
“The individual refused commands by officers and proceeded to run into the back of the store where he started a fire that produced an explosion,” according to the police statement.
The four police officers and two EMTs were taken to hospitals with minor to non-life-threatening injuries, according to the statement. One officer remained in the hospital Tuesday for further observation, while the other officers and emergency medical workers were treated and released.
The suspect was placed into custody and taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to the statement.
Charges against the suspect are pending further investigation, police said.
A motive also remains under investigation.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Baltimore County Fire Department are assisting the probe.
Fire officials said the blaze and explosion were fueled by flammable chemicals, including acetone and nail polish remover, stored inside the business. The fire quickly engulfed the business and prompted fire officials to declare a hazmat situation.
The fire was brought under control at about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
(DALLAS) — Dallas police arrested a suspect in connection with the May 11 shooting of three women in a hair salon in the city’s Koreatown. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime and could be linked to a series of recent shootings at Asian-run businesses in the city, police said.
The salon owner, an employee and a customer are all Korean, according to ABC affiliate station WFAA in Dallas. The women suffered nonfatal injuries and were transported to a local hospital, according to police.
Police said Tuesday morning that a suspect, who was not named, was in custody and that further information on the arrest will be provided by Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia later in the day.
The FBI is investigating the incident as a hate crime.
“The Dallas FBI Field Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District in Texas, and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice have opened a federal hate crime investigation into the incident at Hair World Salon in Dallas,” a spokesperson for the FBI field office in Dallas told ABC News in a statement on Monday. “We are in close communication with Dallas Police and are partnering together to thoroughly investigate this incident. As this is an ongoing investigation, we are not able to comment further at this time.”
Police met with members of the community at a town hall in Koreatown on Monday amid concerns for the public’s safety.
Two of the shooting victims — the owner and an employee — were present at the meeting, according to WFAA. The employee spoke with the help of an interpreter and her was face covered. The women did not reveal their names.
Garcia said at a press conference on Friday that law enforcement “concluded three recent shootings of Asian run businesses may be connected” and the suspect in each incident was driving a similar vehicle.
Police said they learned from a witness report that an unknown Black male parked what appeared to be “a dark color minivan-type vehicle” on Royal Lane and then walked across the parking lot and into the establishment, allegedly opening fire as soon as he entered the salon.
Police also released a security image of a maroon minivan they said the gunmen fled the scene in.
Garcia said the shooting at the salon may be linked to one that happened a day before and one that took place last month.
Police learned from witness reports that on April 2 a driver in a red minivan drove past a strip mall of Asian-run businesses and fired shots at three businesses. No one was injured.
On Tuesday a suspect in a burgundy van or car drove by and shot into Asian-run businesses near 4849 Sunnyvale Street, police said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we have reached out to our partners to make them aware of the possible connection and ask for their assistance,” Garcia said. “This includes the FBI and member agencies of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. We are also working with North Texas police partners to determine if this criminal action has or is taking place in their jurisdictions.”
Garcia said police will be increasing the presence of high visibility patrol officers in areas in the city where there are large Asian American populations.
“We are turning to every resident of the city of Dallas to keep an eye out and safeguard our city,” Garcia said. “Hate has no place here.”
These incidents in Dallas come amid a spate of attacks targeting Asian Americans across the nation, which spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Within the pages of the alleged Buffalo shooter’s plan to attack a Buffalo, New York supermarket, he described the radical ideals he said he cultivated on the internet.
It included racist and antisemitic rants reminiscent of the sentiments espoused by shooters who committed similar atrocities in El Paso, Texas, and Charleston, South Carolina, in recent years, according to an ABC News review of the document.
Federal security agencies have increasingly sounded the alarm on white supremacists and other far-right-wing extremists as a “significant domestic terrorism threat.”
However, experts on hate in the U.S. said this most recent mass shooting highlights how little the country has done in reckoning with the growing danger of white supremacy in this country.
“We’ve had too many wake-up calls at this point for me to feel confident that we’re going to suddenly change the current path that we are on,” Michael Edison Hayden, a senior investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told ABC News.
White supremacists don’t just look like white-hooded Ku Klux Klan members from the history books, experts said.
Radicalization can occur anywhere and without a particular group or organization to belong to thanks to the internet and the normalization of hateful rhetoric in media, experts said. It’s given right-wing extremism an environment to thrive and grow.
“We better understand this is a clear and present danger to American democracy,” Marc Morial, president of civil rights organization National Urban League, told ABC News.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a nonprofit policy research organization, found that alleged right-wing attacks and plots have accounted for the majority of all U.S. terrorist incidents since 1994.
“The last two years — 2021 and 2020 — were the highest recorded years of domestic terrorism, plots and attacks, so the trends are pretty concerning,” CSIS Senior Vice President Seth Jones said in an interview with ABC News.
However, Jones said the federal government needs to do a better job collecting and releasing data on domestic terrorist attacks and plots and informing Americans about the severity of right-wing extremism.
There is no public release of such information, he said, which has made it very difficult for Americans to understand the gravity of this problem.
Since 2014, CSIS found that these attacks have been on the rise. Simultaneously, hate crimes have also been on the rise, particularly anti-Black, anti-immigrant and antisemitic attacks, according to FBI data.
“It’s a movement of hatred and violence,” Morial said. “This is not someone just ranting on the internet.”
The normalization of white supremacy and the growing divisive rhetoric of the far-right, Hayden and Morial said, serves to exploit the concerns of vulnerable populations regarding social issues, score political points and win gains for people in power.
“As long as very wealthy people are willing to exploit these feelings of anger in the country, this is going to keep happening,” Hayden said.
“The reality is, they know what they’re doing when they bring up great replacement theory on the air,” Hayden continued. “They know what they’re doing when they dehumanize immigrants. They know what kind of effect it’s going to have on people who are already predisposed to being mistrustful and frightened.”
Experts said there are two routes to combatting white supremacist extremism in America — personally and through policy.
For example, experts say America’s gun violence problem has only made racist violence more deadly. White supremacy has been the motive behind several fatal mass shootings in recent years, past ABC News reporting shows. Experts recommend gun control efforts as a potential solution to deadly extremism.
“This is a deep-seated challenge in the United States, particularly in a culture where individuals have such easy access to guns,” Jones said. “That’s the difference, frankly, between the US and Europe right now, which also has a significant white supremacist challenge in Germany, the U.K., several Nordic countries. What they don’t have, though, is easy access to guns.”
Others stress the importance of getting government funding for improved security in community centers and gathering places, as well as prevention programs and resources that intervene in the radicalization process.
On a personal level, experts recommend calling out racism and white supremacy in your communities as another way to de-normalize and de-platform racist narratives.
Experts also recommend watching out for loved ones who may be encountering extremist ideals online, and avoid leaving them isolated. They say isolation and vulnerability can become a pathway to radicalization.
“Your silence is your acceptance,” Rashawn Ray, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, told ABC News.
“Unfortunately, this is a part of the DNA that created the United States of America and even though there has been progress, these sorts of incidents continue to show that we are not as far as we think we are,” Ray said.
(NEW YORK) — For people in jails and prisons across the country, where reproductive health care is already abysmal, the potential end of Roe v. Wade is a haunting prospect.
“[People are] going to be forced to carry a pregnancy and be forced to give birth — that literally will be part of their sentence, their punishment,” said Carolyn Sufrin, associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “It’s hard to predict the depths of trauma and adverse health effects that we might see with this, but I think we can imagine that it’s going to be profound.”
Women are the fastest growing incarcerated demographic, with more than 200,000 women incarcerated right now. Estimates show that at least 58,000 pregnant people enter the carceral system each year, according to The Sentencing Project and the Prison Policy Initiative.
“Overturning Roe is going to force thousands of incarcerated people to give birth and carry pregnancies in health care systems that have been proven to not be capable of providing adequate prenatal care,” said Corene Kendrick, the deputy director of the ACLU National Prison Project.
Thirteen states have so-called trigger laws that could go into effect if federal abortion protections are demolished, according to the Guttmacher Institute. These laws effectively ban all abortions, with some banning abortion after six or eight weeks of pregnancy.
At least seven of these states have some of the nation’s highest rates of female incarceration, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics data: Idaho, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kentucky, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Between trigger laws and other set or expected laws, at least 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion if the Supreme Court weakens or overturns Roe v. Wade, per Guttmacher. This means being forced to give birth behind bars could become a reality for tens of thousands of people each year.
Adequate reproductive care — and especially abortion access — is hard to come by in these facilities as it is. There are currently no federal standards for reproductive care and no required system of oversight when it comes to providing health care in these facilities.
Reports have shown that some people are shackled to bedposts while giving birth, and others have been forced to endure labor in solitary confinement. Some people have experienced miscarriages or other pregnancy complications from their jail cell, Sufrin and Kendrick said.
“Incarceration is an inherently traumatizing and right-violating experience,” Sufrin said. “In the most extreme cases, we see pregnant people who are in active labor and are clearly in pain and contracting or their water’s broken and they’re bleeding — they’re ignored or minimized and then they give birth in their jail cells.”
Alejandra Pablos, a formerly incarcerated woman and reproductive justice organizer, told ABC News she believes she had no bodily autonomy while incarcerated.
While she was detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, she said she remembers strict call times for doctors, poor nutrition and hurdles toward accessing basic care like birth control and OB-GYN visits.
“For me, as long as these things exist — prisons, cages, threats to our our self determination, the right to make decisions over my sexuality, my body — we will never have reproductive justice in the U.S.” Pablos told ABC News.
Pregnant incarcerated people are also at higher risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and low birth weight.
“There’s been numerous examples over the years across the country, of people in jails and prisons who did not receive appropriate prenatal care and suffered miscarriages, stillbirths or other negative outcomes,” Kendrick said.
As for abortions, a 2021 Guttmacher study found that many prisons and jails make incarcerated women pay for the treatment — of the 19 state prisons studied that allowed abortions, two-thirds of them required the incarcerated woman to pay for the treatment.
Of the jails that allowed abortions, 25% of those required the incarcerated woman to pay for the procedure. Of the pregnancies that ended during the study, 1.3% of instances in prisons and 15% in jails were abortions.
Several jails and prisons in states that are hostile toward abortion did not allow abortions at all.
“Prisons and jails are not the place where people who are pregnant should be ever, ” Kendrick said.
She instead recommended diversion programs or early release for pregnant people, considering a vast majority of incarcerated women are charged or convicted of nonviolent offenses.
At least a quarter of women in jails have not been convicted of a crime, the Prison Policy Initiative states.
“They’re there because they are too poor to afford to bail out to be back with their families,” Kendrick said.
If Roe is overturned, experts say these cracks in the foundations of abortion and reproductive care in jails, prisons and other detention centers will only make life more dangerous for women behind bars.
(WINDSOR MILL, Md.) — Police officers and EMS providers are among the seven people injured following an explosion at a nail salon in Windsor Mill, Maryland, Monday night, authorities said.
Four police officers, two EMS providers and one civilian were hospitalized after the “minor explosion” at a strip mall, the Baltimore County Fire Department said.
The explosion took place at the Libra Nails & Spa on the 1700 block of N. Rolling Road. The fire department responded to a call for a commercial building fire possibly involving hazardous materials, it said.
Investigators were called to the scene for possible criminal activity, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting the investigation, ABC News Baltimore affiliate WMAR-TV reported.
