National

(POLK COUNTY, Fla.) — A former Marine sharpshooter dressed in full body armor and wielding an automatic weapon allegedly went on an early-morning shooting “rampage” in Polk County, Florida, on Sunday, killing four strangers, including a mother and her baby, and wounding an 11-year-old girl before giving up, authorities said.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said the suspect allegedly told investigators the victims “begged for their lives, and I killed him anyway.”

He was arrested on four counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted first degree murder, seven counts of attempted first degree murder on a law enforcement officer, shooting into an occupied dwelling, two counts of armed burglary with battery, arson and cruelty to an animal, according to the probable cause affidavit released by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. He is now at Polk County Jail.

The shooting unfolded before dawn at two adjacent homes on the same property near Lakeland, Florida, about 35 miles east of Tampa. A sheriff’s lieutenant two miles away heard the volley of automatic gunfire, responded to the scene and radioed for backup, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference.

Judd said that nine hours earlier, deputies received a 911 call from the same home and that a woman reported a strange man parked near her residence who allegedly told her he was there because “God sent me here to speak with one of your daughters,” Amber, to prevent her from committing suicide. Judd said the woman and another witness told the suspect there was no one by that name who lived at the residence and told him to leave or they were going to call the police.

The sheriff said deputies responded to the 911 call within six minutes, but the man was nowhere to be found.

The sheriff said the same man, who he identified as Bryan James Riley, 33, of Brandon, Florida, returned to the home around 4:30 a.m. Sunday and allegedly unleashed a barrage of fatal gunfire.

“We find zero connection between our shooter, our murderer and our victims,” Judd said.

The sheriff said that when deputies first approached the home where the shooting occurred, they saw a truck on fire and a path leading from the road to the house illuminated by glow sticks.

“At that moment in time, as we approached, we saw an individual totally outfitted in body armor and looked as if he was ready to engage us all in an active shooter situation,” said Judd, adding that deputies initially did not see the man holding a gun.

He said the suspect immediately retreated into the house and deputies heard another volley of automatic gunfire that was followed by a woman screaming and a baby crying.

Judd said a sheriff’s lieutenant initially tried to enter the front door, but it was barricaded. When the lieutenant went to the back of the house, a gunfight erupted.

“The suspect shot at our lieutenant. Our lieutenant returned fire and backed out of the house,” Judd said.

He said three deputies in front of the house were pinned down by gunfire directed at them and that other officers returned fire, giving the trapped deputies time to get out of harm’s way.

“I can tell you there were at least dozens if not hundreds of rounds fired this morning between our suspect and our deputies who were directing fire back at him,” Judd said.

No law enforcement officers were injured in the incident, Judd said.

He said that when the shooting subsided, Riley, who was shot once in the shootout, walked out of the home with his hands up and surrendered.

Judd said that after the suspect was arrested, deputies and Lakeland police officers heard sounds coming from inside the house and shouted out orders for people to come out. He said deputies briefly entered the home and found an 11-year-old girl shot at least seven times but still conscious.

“She looks our deputies in the eyes and said, ‘There’s three more dead people in the house,'” Judd said.

He said deputies removed the girl from the home and she was airlifted to Tampa General Hospital, where she was undergoing surgery Sunday morning and is expected to survive.

Fearing the residence was booby-trapped, a robot was sent into the house to search for explosives, he said. Deputies then entered the home and discovered three people fatally shot, a man and a mother cradling an infant in her arms.

Deputies found the fourth victim, a woman who was fatally shot in a nearby house on the same property.

Judd identified one of the victims as Justice Gleason, 40. He said the other victims were a 33-year-old white female, her 3-month-old baby and the infant’s 62-year-old grandmother.

The sheriff said the suspect also shot and killed the family dog, “Diogi,” who was named after a Polk County Sheriff’s Office K-9 that was fatally shot along with his handler, Deputy Sheriff Vernon Matthew Williams, in 2006.

Judd said a preliminary investigation, which he cautioned is subject to change, indicates the suspect drove to the Lakeland area from his home near Tampa and has no connection to the people he allegedly killed and hurt.

“At this early point in the investigation, we don’t know how he ended up there or why he ended up there,” Judd said. “But he showed up twice in nine hours.”

After being taken into custody, Riley allegedly told deputies that he is a “survivalist” and that he had been using methamphetamine.

“This guy admitted to us that he was taking those drugs before he went on this active shooter rampage,” Judd said.

He said that when Lakeland police officers took the suspect to a hospital to be treated, a scuffle broke out and the suspect allegedly tried to grab one officer’s gun.

“They had to fight with him again in the Lakeland emergency room,” Judd said. “Once we got him tied down, they gave him medication to render him unable to fight any longer and they could continue to treat him.”

When questioned by investigators, Riley allegedly confessed to everything.

“The suspect denied knowing the victims and when asked for a motive for shooting the infant, the suspect replied, ‘…because I’m a sick guy. I want to confess ti all of it and be sent to jail,'” the affidavit states. “The suspect also admitted to setting fire to a pick-up truck at the incident location for the purpose of creating an exit strategy.”

Judd said investigators digging into Riley’s background learned he was trained as a Marine sharpshooter and was honorably discharged after serving tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He said Riley was working as a bodyguard for an executive protection company.

Judd said Riley’s fiancé told investigators he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and that he allegedly claimed he had been getting instructions from God to do certain things. According to the probable cause affidavit, she also said Riley told her, prior to the shooting, that God was telling him to go save a woman named Amber’s life.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(VARNVILLE, S.C.) — More than two months after his wife and son were murdered, a prominent South Carolina attorney was shot on the side of the road Saturday, police and family representatives said.

Alex Murdaugh, 53, called 911 Saturday afternoon to report being shot near Varnville, South Carolina, in Hampton County, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED). Murdaugh said he was changing a tire when a car passed him, turned around and then someone in the car shot him, a family spokesperson told ABC News.

Murdaugh was airlifted to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, Georgia, for treatment of a superficial gunshot wound to the head, according to SLED. He was in stable condition at the hospital Sunday afternoon, the family spokesperson said.

On June 7, Murdaugh’s wife, Margaret “Maggie” Branstetter Murdaugh, 52, and his son, Paul Terry Murdaugh, 22, were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds near the family’s hunting lodge on their property in Colleton County, South Carolina. No arrests have been made in connection with their killings.

“The Murdaugh family has suffered through more than any one family could ever imagine. We expect Alex to recover and ask for your privacy while he recovers,” the Murdaugh family spokesperson said in a statement shared with ABC News.

The family has been a fixture in the South Carolina legal community for over 80 years. Three generations of Murdaughs have served as the elected solicitor in the 14th Judicial Circuit.

Murdaugh works at the Hampton-based law firm that was established by his grandfather 100 years ago and serves as a volunteer prosecutor.

SLED is leading the investigations into Saturday’s incident and the June murders. The agency said it has spent the entire weekend collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses and following up on leads into Murdaugh’s shooting.

His Mercedes SUV was impounded, according to SLED. As of Sunday evening, no arrests have been made.

Margaret and Paul Murdaugh’s murders have devastated the family hard and left them seeking answers.

“It’s just hard to imagine somebody can be so sick as to do this, intentionally kill people like that,” Randy Murdaugh, Alex’s brother, told ABC News in June.

Paul Murdaugh was a student at the University of South Carolina and awaiting trial on a charge of boating under the influence causing death in a 2019 crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach, whose body was found a week later. The Murdaugh family told ABC News that Paul received threats from strangers, but they were never believed to be “credible.”

SLED is asking anyone with information about Saturday’s shooting to contact Crimestoppers of the Lowcountry at 843-554-1111.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.

More than 643,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Just 61.7% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s how the news was developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 05, 6:51 pm
Nearly 350 children currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas

Nearly 350 children are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Texas, state data shows.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ online COVID-19 dashboard, which was last updated on Sunday afternoon, there are 345 pediatric patients in hospitals across the Lone Star State. That number was up from 282 on Thursday afternoon.

The data also shows there are 73 staffed pediatric intensive care unit beds available in all of Texas.

Since the new school year began in Texas last month, some 52,000 students have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the data.

Sep 05, 5:09 pm
Moderna booster shots delayed by at least one week: Fauci

Booster shots for the Moderna vaccine will have to wait at least one week after the president’s Sept. 20 target because of the delay in submitting data, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday.

Fauci told CNN that Pfizer was able to submit its data to the Food and Drug Administration about their mRNA vaccine booster shot earlier, and “it’s been examined and ready to go.” Moderna is behind in submitting its data causing the delay.

“What you might see is rather than the simultaneous rolling out of the booster program of both those products you may have be sequential by about a week or two,” he said. “I don’t think that is a major issue there, but we would have liked to have seen it happen all together simultaneously.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — The Aug. 22 clash between far-right groups and counter-protesters in Portland was the latest in a series of violent confrontations that have rocked the city over the last year.

While last month’s incident was not as destructive as the riots that took place last summer, it highlights how the city, with its reputation as a liberal bastion amid the state’s early history of white supremacy, has become a proxy in the culture wars, researchers said.

City officials said in an October 2020 statement that in recent months, alt-right groups amassed in Portland in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and measures intended to combat COVID-19.

“Portland’s leadership in racial justice reform and community demands for change have made the city a target for right-wing politicians and white supremacist groups, who use Portland as a rhetorical tool for division,” the statement said.

Portland Police instead say that instead of a rise in right-wing extremism, there has been an increase in violent disputes that take place in public.

Randy Blazak, the chair of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crimes, a non-profit that works with community groups and local, state, and federal governmental agencies to combat hate groups and their activities, told ABC News that the recent conflicts have been decades in the making as groups like the Proud Boys, which were at the Aug. 22 incident, are using their feuds with the far left to fuel their cause around the country.

“Portland being the largest metropolis in the Northwest, is where these ideologies collide,” he told ABC News.

Blazak and other experts who have researched far-right activity noted this problem has been decades in the making due to the growing presence of the far-right groups and changing demographics along the West Coast.

The experts noted that it will be difficult to combat that buildup, especially as people from outside the city join in on the rallies, but there have been proven solutions that can mitigate the damage to the city and residents.

Far right ties to city stretch back for decades

Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, who has been monitoring the far-right activity in Portland, told ABC News that Oregon has been attractive to white nationalists due to its origin as a state that excluded Blacks and minorities.

Although the state’s founders prohibited slavery in 1843, it enacted laws that prohibited Black settlers a year later. The 14th Amendment nullified the exclusion laws in 1868, however, they remained part of the state constitution until 1926.

Miller noted that the Ku Klux Klan had a strong presence in Oregon during the early 20th century using the state’s history as a rallying message.

“The region itself has long played a prominent role in the imagination of white power activists, who see it as the ideal place to create a white ethnostate,” she said.

In the ’80s, Oregon, and Portland, in particular, saw a jump in neo-Nazi and skinhead groups, Miller said. In 1988, three skinheads murdered Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant in Portland, which resulted in both an increase in far-right groups and more action by leaders and law enforcement to curb the violence, according to Miller.

Blazak said anti-skinhead groups also began forming during the ‘90s and physically engaging with their opponents. The city would be dubbed “skinhead city” because of these clashes, according to Blazak, who’s been living in Portland since 1995.

As law enforcement cracked down on both groups and the number of public fights decreased, Portland saw a jump in new residents, many of whom were minorities and younger groups, as well as a more progressive environment, according to Blazak.

“It’s this strange intersection of the history of Portland,” he said, “There is this bubble where newer residents think it’s been this liberal oasis and there is the long history of white supremacy that’s bumping up against it.”

Recent increase in activity and violent counter protests

A mix of new factors, including an active social media scene that helped to get either side’s message to a bigger audience has reignited the public feud in Portland, according to Blazak.

“We’re seeing a modern version of skinhead city with Proud Boys verses ANTIFA,” he said.

Miller said far-right groups, especially the Proud Boys, have been mobilizing since the beginning of the Trump administration, spurred on by the former president’s rhetoric as well as other far-right growth throughout the world.

West Coast cities like Berkeley, Seattle and Portland saw the biggest far-right rallies outside of Charlottesville and they only grew in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May 2020, according to Miller.

Miller said that the far right is now using social media to their advantage to bolster their presence with a calculated scheme.

The cycle begins with them holding a rally or crashing a public event hosted by the far left, instigating the other side’s members into a public fight and sharing it online with a message about how the far-left is hurting the city, according to Miller.

“Their main goal was to create a conflict with anti-fascists, get it on film and then put it on social media as propaganda,” she said.

“I think within the left there has been a snowballing effect,” Miller added. “These groups like the Proud Boys create violence and that goes for a need for retaliation.”

Blazak said Portland’s situation was exacerbated by the number of far-right groups that had been operating in the Portland suburbs. Since those rallies have begun, Blazak said there have been reports of Proud Boys members from outside the state joining in.

“There is this false narrative that Portland is burning down by ANTIFA and the city is being run by communists. That brings the far-right wingers to Portland and that’s for photo ops,” he said.

Since the protests and clashes begin last year, Proud Boys members and figureheads have claimed the anti-fascist groups in Portland needed to be protested and fought.

Blazak said that despite what some reports might say, the majority of people who took part during last year’s George Floyd protests were not part of any violent far-left group.

Indeed, representatives from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Portland said last August that there was no evidence that the protesters that were arrested during the demonstrations had links to ANTIFA or other violent anti-fascist groups.

City’s latest response questioned

Portland Mayor Tim Wheeler and the Portland Police have come under fire for their responses to the far-right’s growth and rallies, particularly the Aug. 22 incident.

The rally turned into a riot with people throwing items at each other, damaging vehicles and buildings and shooting paintball pellets, according to police. More officers were called in and had to use mace and smoke to disperse the crowds. No one was seriously hurt, according to the police.

Police said on Wednesday they have identified six people involved with the violence and are on the lookout for more suspects who were involved in the incident.

Press Release: Investigations Underway into Multiple Crimes Committed on August 22nd, Public Assistance Requested (Photo)
Link: https://t.co/h4XDuVZRXR pic.twitter.com/r6E3SWIctu

— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) September 1, 2021

Two days before the incident Wheeler held a Zoom news conference where he was joined by the civil rights groups and other community organizers and urged those who attended the event to, “Choose love.”

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell, who was also part of the news conference, said that officers would be in attendance but not keep the warring crowds separated.

“People can and should keep themselves apart and choose to avoid violent physical confrontations,” Lovell said during the news conference.

Representatives for Wheeler’s office didn’t immediately respond to messages left by ABC News asking for comment.

The mayor has repeatedly condemned both the far-right and the far-left groups and the public fights that have been going on for over a year.

“Hate and hate groups have no place in our city. Violence has no place in our city. Bigotry has no place in our city. We will not tolerate acts of violence, destruction, prejudice or intimidation,” he said during the Aug. 20 news conference.

Miller said that the Portland Police have traditionally taken a laissez-faire approach to the far-right rallies, but this old tactic is feeding right into the group’s goals.

“Not only does that place communities in danger, but it also acts as a signal to the far right that their actions are essentially sanctioned by law enforcement,” she argued.

In a statement to ABC News, Portland Police Sgt. Kevin Allen defended the department’s actions that day, saying officers have to “respond in an impartial manner, irrespective of political perspective, while respecting constitutional rights for all participants.”

“Unfortunately, over the past three years or so we’ve seen these events where two or more opposing sides arrive specifically to confront each other, and some engage in violence with one another,” he said in a statement. “That adds additional complexity, as we often get criticized for responding too much or too little, or responding in a way that is seen as favoring one side or another.”

Blazak said the police could have done a better job at separating the groups but acknowledged that the Portland Police Department’s resources are limited. In June, the department’s crowd control unit resigned after one of its officers was indicted for assaulting a protester, who had no ties to any radical group, last year.

Solutions

Even with the limited city resources, Blazak and other experts say there are strategies that law enforcement and organizers can implement to curb the violence between the far-right and the far-left.

The Department of Justice and other police forces in the country have implemented a system where far-right protesters and their opponents are separated by “a football field length” during the planned event, Blazak said.

“It’s to keep the groups separate, so there isn’t direct contact. Therefore, those media images aren’t created. Everyone gets free speech, but they don’t have the right to street violence,” he said.

Miller also said that keeping the groups as far apart as possible is the best solution and added that city officials and law enforcement need to be on the lookout for violent members who are known to attend rallies.

Miller also said that there needs to be a stronger effort to stop counter-protesters and anti-fascist groups from playing into the far-right group’s hands.

She noted that in several cities groups have protested the Proud Boys and other far-right groups with planned peaceful demonstrations, often with singing, where they ignore any instigation.

‘They usually have a bigger crowd,” Miller said. “Not only does it drown out the far right, but it also strengthens community ties.”

Ultimately, the experts said the community, police and other stakeholders will have to address the long-standing problem of Oregon’s far-right and white supremacist organizations and their recruitments to their cause.

“A lot of this work has to be done at a community level. Prevention work has to be done at the community level with people who are at most risk of being radicalized,” Miller said.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Three people were killed and three others were wounded in Washington, D.C., in what police suspect was a “targeted” shooting by gunmen who jumped out of a car and opened fire on a group standing near a street corner, authorities said.

The triple-homicide unfolded about 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday in the Brightwood Park neighborhood in the northern part of the nation’s capital, Chief Robert Contee of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said at a news conference.

Contee said police officers were in the area when they heard multiple gunshots and raced to the intersection of Seventh and Longfellow streets, where they found six people shot.

He said the wounded individuals were taken to hospitals, where three of them, two men and a woman, were pronounced dead. He said the others suffered non-life-threatening wounds.

On Sunday morning, police identified those killed as 31-year-old Donnetta Dyson, 24-year-old Keenan Braxton and 37-year-old Johnny Joyner, all of Washington, D.C.

Contee released a still image taken near the scene by a police surveillance camera of a dark-colored, four-door Honda Accord the suspected shooters fled the scene in.

“We believe the suspects in this vehicle exited, fired shots into a crowd of individuals that were in the 600 block of Longfellow Street,” Contee said.

He said a reward of $75,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the suspects and added, “I’m pleading for the community’s help” in solving the crime.

Contee said investigators suspect multiple shooters opened fire. He said a firearm was recovered at the scene of the shooting.

“The motive still being investigated,” Contee said. “It appears there were individuals who were hanging out on the block and these individuals for whatever reason were targeted.”

Like in other major cities across the county, shootings and homicides have been on the rise in the District of Columbia. Homicides are up 14% compared to the same period as 2020, and 597 people have been assaulted with guns this year, a 5% increase over last year.

“We know that this issue is not unique to Washington D.C.,” Contee said, “but I think it speaks to the overall sickness that we’re seeing in our community and that sickness is gun violence.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — President Joe Biden and Democrats are using the outcry over the new Texas abortion law to distract from other issues including Afghanistan, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Sunday.

“(The Supreme Court’s decision) had nothing to do with the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade, it was only on if the plaintiffs had standing, people are using it to gin up their base to distract from disastrous policies in Afghanistan, maybe for fundraising appeals,” Cassidy told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. “I wish we’d focus on issues as opposed to — as opposed to theater.”

The severe new abortion law in Texas bans nearly all abortions in the state. The law makes most abortions illegal after six weeks of pregnancy and encourages anyone to sue a person they believe is providing an abortion or assisting someone in getting an abortion after six weeks.

In a 5-4 decision released late Wednesday night, the Supreme Court rejected a request by Texas abortion providers to block the new law.

Cassidy, who called himself “pro-life,” said the Supreme Court will “swat it away” once the law reaches them “in an appropriate manner.”

“If it is as terrible as people say it is, it will be destroyed by the Supreme Court,” Cassidy added. “But to act like this is an assault upon Roe v. Wade is, again, something the president is doing I think to distract from his other issues.”

Pressed further by Stephanopoulos on whether he thinks the Supreme Court decision signals they plan to overturn Roe v. Wade, Cassidy deflected, instead bringing up Hurricane Ida, Afghanistan and the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

“We can always talk theoreticals,” Cassidy responded. “But I’m kind of a guy who’s in the middle of a state in which 700,000 people don’t have electricity, in which we’ve got a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the administration is pushing a $3.5 trillion bill which will be to inflation what the withdrawal was to Afghanistan.”

Debate continues over the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that many Democrats demand pass in conjunction with the bipartisan infrastructure deal that Cassidy helped negotiate. On Thursday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for a “strategic pause” on the budget resolution Democrats took the first step in passing last month.

Stephanopoulos asked Cassidy whether Manchin’s op-ed effectively kills the bill.

“You saw Senator Joe Manchin’s statement this week. As far as you’re concerned, does that kill the bill? And if it does, does it worry you that the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the smaller one that you support, will also die?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“Implicit in what Joe said is that he would accept a smaller (reconciliation) bill,” Cassidy responded. “I think a smaller bill is disastrous, but on the other hand, the two are delinked.”

“There’s going to be a vote on September the 27th on the bipartisan infrastructure bill,” Cassidy added. “The very fact that Joe is saying he has to negotiate means that the vote on the $3.5 trillion inflation-igniting bill that comes later will come later.”

Cassidy said he is concerned that if Manchin’s opposition stands, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not pass the smaller bipartisan bill.

“Of course, I’m concerned about that, which is why I want Republicans to vote for it, too,” Cassidy said. “It should not be a party line vote in the House, it wasn’t in the Senate.”

The infrastructure bill includes provisions for disaster mitigation, which Cassidy brought up, encouraging those planning to vote no to tell people with no power due to Hurricane Ida.

“I say go down to Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish, to people who will not have electricity back until September 29th and tell them you’re going to vote against a bill which hardens our grid, which gives coastal restoration dollars, which has flood mitigation, which will build levees and protect Louisiana and other states from natural disasters, go to those parishes and tell them whatever cockamamie reason you have to vote no,” Cassidy said.

Hurricane Ida made landfall on Aug. 26, 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina did in 2005. The hurricane has left at least 67 dead in eight states.

On Thursday, Cassidy penned a letter to Biden requesting emergency disaster relief for Louisiana and met with him in his state on Friday.

Asked whether he is satisfied with Biden’s initial response, Cassidy told Stephanopoulos the situation is getting better.

“The federal partners have been there,” Cassidy said. “And so, I compliment the federal partners and thank them for that, but we need gasoline and we need electricity and we need housing. And then we need to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill for the long term.”

On the other crisis his state is battling — COVID-19 — Cassidy, a physician, said the delta variant case count is falling but vaccine rates remain low. He also encouraged people to get vaccinated.

“Our immunization rates are still way too low and our ICUs still have too many patients related to what is essentially a vaccine-preventable disease,” Cassidy said. “Yes, it’s getting better, but we can imagine future waves.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston has turned into a “crisis center” in the days after the most restrictive abortion law in the nation went into effect in Texas, with women desperate and begging for care, a distraught staffer told ABC News.

“People don’t know where to go,” Doris Dixon, who oversees patient access at the clinic, said in an emotional interview Friday with Rachel Scott for “Good Morning America.”

As of Wednesday, physicians in Texas are banned from providing abortions once they detect a fetal heartbeat, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — before many women even know they’re pregnant.

The same day the law went into effect, one woman came in for a regular checkup at the Planned Parenthood clinic, Dixon said. During her checkup, she found out she was five-and-a-half weeks pregnant — still eligible for a legal abortion. But that same day, she also tested positive for COVID-19. By the time her mandated self-isolation will end, she’ll be too far along in her pregnancy to get an abortion under the new Texas law, Dixon said.

“To hear her beg for someone to help her was hard, she was begging,” Dixon said. “For me, I was trying very hard not to cry but the tears were coming down, they were there.”

Out-of-state clinics anticipate a surge in patients due to the law, which has increased the average miles a Texan must drive one-way to seek an abortion from 12 miles to 248, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.

Dixon said some women she’s spoken to don’t have the financial means or the access to child care to travel out of state for an abortion.

“I’m angry. I’m actually angry because this is an attack on people’s constitutional rights to seek these services. And it’s between them and their doctors,” Dixon said with tears in her eyes.

As of Friday, Dixon estimated 70% of the women who called in seeking abortion care this week were turned away.

“They’ve relied on Planned Parenthood for years and we don’t have the answers,” Dixon said, again fighting back tears. “We usually have the answers — we don’t have the answers.”

Dixon has been working at Planned Parenthood in Houston for 13 years. This is the “worst” she has “ever seen it.”

“I feel like I take it personally,” Dixon said, choking back tears. “I have failed in my goal to help people.”

She said she fears this law will lead to high-risk attempts to self-abort pregnancies. The clinic has already seen at least one woman this week who tried to terminate her pregnancy herself after the Texas law went into effect, she said.

Before Wednesday, no law banned abortions earlier than 20 weeks of pregnancy nationwide. Many states had tried to enact early gestational bans, but they had all been blocked by courts.

The Supreme Court refused to block Texas’ law, which allows anyone to sue a person they believe is providing an abortion or assisting someone in getting an abortion after six weeks. The law does not make exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.

On Friday, Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas won a court battle to protect their employees from some lawsuits. A judge granted them a temporary restraining order against Texas Right to Life, stopping the largest anti-abortion rights group in the state from suing Planned Parenthood abortion providers and health care workers under the law.

“This restraining order offers protection to the brave health care providers and staff at Planned Parenthood health centers throughout Texas, who have continued to offer care as best they can within the law while facing surveillance, harassment, and threats from vigilantes eager to stop them,” Helene Krasnoff, vice president for public policy litigation and law, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Texas Right to Life told ABC News the group is “undeterred” by the legal defeat and would not be “intimidated” by Planned Parenthood.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Navy has declared five sailors dead after they went missing following the crash of their helicopter off the coast of southern California on Tuesday.

“U.S. 3rd Fleet has shifted from search and rescue efforts to recovery operations, Sept. 4,” according to a statement.

The helicopter, based on the USS Abraham Lincoln, was conducting routine flight operations aboard the carrier when it crashed into the sea approximately 60 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego at 4:30 p.m. PDT on Tuesday.

A sailor aboard the helicopter was rescued shortly after the crash and three others who had been on the carrier’s deck were found injured. But five soldiers remained unaccounted for.

Over the next 72 hours, Navy and Coast Guard ships and helicopters carried out extensive flight and sea operations in search of the five missing sailors.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of five Sailors and those injured following the MH-60S helicopter tragedy off the coast of Southern California,” Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of Naval Operations, said in a statement. “We stand alongside their families, loved ones, and shipmates who grieve.”

The Navy said the crash is under investigation and that the names of the five sailors will be made public 24 hours after the last notification was made to families.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Nearly one week on, Louisiana is struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida’s devastating blow.

Ida, which is tied for the fifth-strongest hurricane to strike the U.S. mainland in history, killed at least 10 in Louisiana, dumped more than 13 inches of rain in some southern regions and left whole neighborhoods underwater.

Over 721,000 customers in the state remain without power statewide, according to data from PowerOutage.us, as the state swelters under a heat advisory.

All power is expected to be restored in Orleans Parish by Sept. 8., energy company Entergy said in a statement. Over 1 million were left powerless in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

Several communities continue to grapple with water outages and boil-water advisories.

Due to the continued power outages, New Orleans is offering daily transportation assistance to residents who want to temporarily relocate to state-run public shelters, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said in a news release Friday.

“RTA will pick up residents from 12 City facilities utilized during our recovery response. We have been coordinating direct outreach to our senior housing facilities and apartment complexes to ensure that we are meeting our folks where they are,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that 3,400 people are being sheltered by the state.

On Friday the Louisiana Department of Health announced a 10th fatality in the state: a 59-year-old man poisoned by carbon monoxide from a generator believed to be running in his home.

Among the dead, were four nursing home residents who were transferred to a warehouse for the hurricane and later died. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has opened an investigation into the deaths.

The coroner determined three of the deaths to be storm-related, though the residents’ definitive causes of death have not been confirmed.

On Aug. 27, two days before Ida made landfall, the LDH learned of the four deaths at the warehouse in Tangipahoa Parish.

The probe will look into who decided to move the patients to “this apparently unsafe and potentially inappropriate facility,” who later “turned away career staff members of the LDH when they attempted to look into this situation” and “why did the police chief and the sheriff state an investigation was not needed.”

President Joe Biden surveyed the damage of the storm on the ground in several neighborhoods, including LaPlace, Friday. La Place, straddled between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain suffered severe water damage and flooding.

“I promise we’re going to have your back,” Biden said in a briefing.

He pledged to help with financial assistance and said the government has already distributed $100 million directly to individuals in the state through $500 checks to get them on their feet.

Now, people in communities where streets turned into rivers and roofs were ripped off in Ida’s 150 mph winds are trying to piece their lives back together.

Officials in Jefferson Parish called Grand Isle, a popular vacation site, “uninhabitable”. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development posted a warning on its website Thursday urging people to stay away citing multiple washouts along roadways, no electricity, running water or essential supplies.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s individual assistance director Chris Smith said there’s been a record number of individual assistance applications coming in from Louisiana, particularly the New Orleans area. To date, 290,000 applications for individual assistance have come in, he said in a conference call with reporters Friday,

“This is a record number of applicants that we have received from the Louisiana Ida declaration. We received more applications in the first two days of this disaster than we received in any other disaster in recent history,” he said.

After hammering Louisiana, Ida went on to pummel the Northeast, triggering record rainfall and devastating flooding. Overall, there have been at least 63 deaths across eight U.S. states related to Ida.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — As Americans get ready to celebrate the end of summer, health officials are once again urging the public, particularly those who are still unvaccinated, to act responsibly during the Labor Day weekend, given the country’s ongoing struggle with the virus.

“First and foremost, if you are unvaccinated, we would recommend not traveling,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House COVID-19 briefing Tuesday.

Holidays, which often entail traveling and large gatherings, have proven to be a catalyst of rapid COVID-19 spread across the country.

Last year, in the weeks prior to Labor Day, the country was experiencing a steady decline in COVID-19 cases, with the national daily case average falling to approximately 38,000.

However, the late summer holiday weekend set the stage for the country’s most significant viral surge of the pandemic. Between mid-September and Thanksgiving, the nation’s daily case average rose by more than 400%, followed by a record-setting influx of hospitalizations and deaths.

The country’s current average is now more than 100,000 daily cases higher than it was a year ago, with the U.S. reporting more than 153,000 new cases each day, following weeks of increasing metrics. Since the Fourth of July, COVID-19-related infections, hospitalizations and deaths surged to levels not seen since last winter.

“As we head into Labor Day, we should all be concerned about history repeating itself. High or intense transmission around most of the country combined with population mobility with limited masking and social distancing has been a consistent predictor of major surges,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

Experts are warning that although vaccination rates may help partially blunt the impact of a potential Labor Day holiday surge this year, and protect those who are inoculated against severe disease, the country could still be at-risk for the unwanted impacts of unmitigated spread.

“While we now have widespread vaccine uptake, we still have large segments of the population that remain fertile ground for the virus to spread, including our children,” Brownstein said.

With more than 47% of Americans still not fully vaccinated, there is concern that an increase in infections could push already struggling health systems in states with low vaccination rates to the brink, Brownstein added.

Seven states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas — have intensive care units about 90% or more filled, and nationally, nearly 8 in 10 staffed adult ICU beds are occupied by COVID or non-COVID patients.

A recent report published by the CDC found unvaccinated people were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than vaccinated people — and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized for their infections, and ICU bed capacity remains tight in several states with low vaccination rates.

“We need more individuals to step up, as people across the country prepare for Labor Day weekend,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said during Tuesday’s briefing. “It’s critical that being vaccinated is part of their pre-holiday checklist.”

Walensky added that while fully vaccinated people can feel comfortable traveling, with the added protection of masks, it is important that they take into consideration the risks of COVID-19 infection, given the high transmissibility of the delta variant, prior to deciding whether to or not to travel.

It is also essential, said Walensky, that those who choose to celebrate the weekend holiday take precautions in order to keep themselves safe, such as gathering outside and with others who are vaccinated.

“Throughout the pandemic, we have seen that the vast majority of transmission takes place among unvaccinated people in closed, indoor settings,” she warned.

Further, Walensky said, while inside, wear masks to mitigate the spread of the disease.

The warnings come at yet another critical turning point in the pandemic, with infection rates still on the rise driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

Every state in the country is now experiencing high community transmission and nearly 103,000 Americans are currently hospitalized with the virus — one of the highest numbers of patients receiving care in seven months. An average of 1,000 Americans are also currently losing their lives each day from the virus.

Also, pediatric COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are reaching their highest point of the pandemic, as many unvaccinated children fall victim to the virus.

“With children returning to in-person school after Labor Day, health officials stress it is critical to act cautiously and responsibly in order to reduce transmission,” Brownstein said.

In the last week alone, nearly 204,000 children have tested positive for COVID-19, marking the second highest week on record, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Since the Fourth of July, the rate of child hospital admissions per capita has grown sevenfold, coinciding with the rapid spread of the highly infectious delta variant. Further, hospitalization rates among unvaccinated adolescents were 10 times the rate of those fully vaccinated, according to a newly released CDC study.

“It will be critical for eligible Americans who are still unvaccinated to get the shot, and protect those who are still vulnerable,” Brownstein said.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.