(CHATHAM, IL) — Four minors are dead after a vehicle crashed into a building hosting an after-school camp in Chatham, Illinois, officials announced at a press conference on Monday afternoon. They ranged in age from 4 to 18 years old, according to a statement from the Illinois State Police.
Multiple others were injured in the incident, which took place shortly after 3 p.m. on Monday. The extent of their injuries is unknown, though several were hospitalized and one was airlifted from the scene of the accident.
The car struck three individuals outside of the YNOT (Youth Needing Other Things) Outdoors Summer Camp, and a fourth person was killed inside, according to Chatham Police Department.
Authorities described the situation as chaotic and urged families to use the reunification site to speed up the victim identification process.
“The driver and sole occupant of the vehicle was uninjured and transported to an area hospital for evaluation,” the ISP statement said.
Police said the driver is considered a suspect, though no charges or arrests have been announced. Their identity has not yet been released.
“Our community lost a group of bright and innocent young people with their whole lives ahead of them,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement posted on X on Monday night.
“Parents said goodbye to their children this morning not knowing it would be the last time,” the statement continued. “My heart is heavy for these families and the unimaginable grief they’re experiencing — something that no parent should ever have to endure.”
Pritzker added that his office was monitoring the situation and he thanked first responders for assisting.
The ISP is working with the CPD to investigate, they said in a statement on Monday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(HOUSTON) — NASA’s oldest active-duty astronaut has returned to Earth after spending more than seven months in space, telling reporters he still feels “like a little kid inside” despite turning 70 during his mission.
During a press conference Monday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, veteran astronaut Don Pettit reflected on his latest 220-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
“It’s good to be back on planet Earth. As much as I love exploring space, going into the frontier and making observations and doing the mission, you do reach a time where it’s time to come home and here I am,” Pettit said.
The accomplished astronaut has now accumulated 590 days in space over four missions, ranking third on NASA’s all-time list. As an Expedition 71/72 flight engineer, Pettit orbited Earth 3,520 times and traveled more than 93.3 million miles before returning aboard a Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft on his 70th birthday.
While in orbit, Pettit conducted hundreds of hours of scientific research. His investigations focused on enhancing metal 3D printing capabilities in space, advancing water sanitization technologies, exploring plant growth under different water conditions and studying fire behavior in microgravity.
“I want to do things in space that you can only do in space, and I’ll worry about catching up with TV programs and things like that after I come back. So, that’s that aspect of why I spent time in space working on a science of opportunity, getting to one of my favorite experiments,” Pettit said.
Pettit explained that astronauts spend most of their time on the ISS “taking things apart and fixing it.” He said the work “involves mechanical skills, it involves electrical skills, it involves fluid skills. These are the exact kinds of things that I love to do in my spare time.”
The seasoned astronaut described spending three hours fixing a $12 razor aboard the ISS. He said he wasn’t trying to save money; he just loves tinkering with things.
An avid photographer, Pettit took over 670,000 photos while on the ISS, often sharing his images on social media. He said he wanted to share the experience with others and used his camera to tell the story of his mission.
“I could look out the window and just enjoy the view, but when I’m looking out the window just enjoying the view, it’s like, ‘Oh, wow. A meteor. Oh, wow. Look at that. Man, there’s a flasher. What’s that? And, oh, look at that. A volcano going off.'” Pettit said. “And it’s like, okay, where’s my camera? I got to record that. And part of this drive for me is when your mission is over, it’s photographs and memories.”
Pettit credits his trainers and flight doctors for helping with his recovery and getting his body reacclimated to Earth’s gravity. While he is happy to be home, the 70-year-old says there are advantages to living in space.
For the septuagenarian astronaut, space offers unique benefits beyond scientific discovery. Petit loves that being in space makes him feel 30 years old again.
“You’re floating, and your body, all these little aches and pains, and everything heal up, and you feel like you’re 30 years old again and free of pain, free of everything, and ready to do your mission work. So, I love being in orbit. It’s a great place to be for me and my physiology,” he said, suggesting that even at 70, space exploration remains within reach.
(ALTOONA, PA) — Pennsylvania authorities denied on Monday they botched the handling of evidence during the arrest of alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione.
“The Commonwealth avers that police at all times acted within the authority bestowed by law,” prosecutors wrote in a new court filing responding to a defense assertion that Mangione’s arrest was illegal.
Mangione has claimed police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, gave him “a specious and unreasonable” explanation for why officers approached him and failed to read him his Miranda rights when he was taken into custody on Dec. 9, 2024.
He has pleaded not guilty to local charges of forgery, possession of an instrument of a crime and giving a false ID to an officer.
Prosecutors said police body-worn camera “captures his act of producing a forged driver’s license with false name to officers.”
Prosecutors also suggested there was nothing specious about the officers’ approach. According to the filing, a manager of the Altoona McDonald’s where Mangione was spotted described where he was seated, what he was wearing and customer accounts that he “looks like the CEO shooter from New York.”
The caller said she was asking for police assistance because she could not approach or confront Mangione herself.
“The officers had valid reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory detention to identify who Defendant-Mangione was and whether he was a homicide suspect,” the filing, signed by Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks, said. “Defendant-Mangione voluntary (sic) speaks to officers without police compulsion and willingly provides them with is forged identification. In fact, at no time does Defendant-Mangione ask to leave, attempt to leave or try to disengage from the detention.”
Mangione is charged separately in New York, where the shooting took place, with two counts of stalking, a firearms offense and murder through the use of a firearm in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4. Mangione allegedly shot Thompson outside the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan as he was heading to an investors’ conference. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the murder through the use of a firearm charge.
He pleaded not guilty to those charges in a court appearance on Friday. He is next due in court on Dec. 5 — just one day after the anniversary of Thompson’s killing. A trial will be scheduled for 2026.
The case in New York is expected to be tried before the state case in Pennsylvania.
(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — Opening arguments in the trial of Christopher Schurr, the former Grand Rapids police officer who is charged with second degree murder in the fatal shooting of Patrick Lyoya, began in a Michigan courtroom on Monday morning. The trial began three years after the Black motorist’s death.
Schurr was charged with second-degree murder in June 2022 and his appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors argued in Monday’s opening statements that Schurr committed a crime.
“He shot him in the back of the head … When you put a gun in somebody’s back of the head, there’s an intent to kill there,” Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker told the jury.
“So what this boils down to is it was unjustified and unreasonable. It was a crime,” he added. “We’re going to ask that you return a verdict of guilty.”
On the defense side, Schurr’s attorney Kayla Hamilton argued that that he was acting in self-defense.
“You’re not here to judge what officer should have or could have done,” Hamilton told the jury. “You’re here to judge what he did in that split second moment based on what he knew, based on what he felt, based on his training and his experiences. Now, a man died, and that’s a tragedy, but not every tragedy is a crime, and not every death means someone has to be penalized, and self-defense is not a crime.”
A jury was sworn in on Wednesday, with jurors and alternates consisting of four men and 10 women, with 10 white jurors, one Black and three Hispanic, according to ABC affiliate in Grand Rapids, WZZM.
Schurr fought the charge in court, arguing that he should not have to stand trial because he was acting within his rights as a police officer. His final appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024.
Video appears to show Lyoya, a 26-year-old immigrant who came to the U.S. to escape violence in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, being shot in the head by Schurr after the officer pulled him over for an unregistered license plate on April 4, 2022.
Body camera video, which was released nine days after the shooting, showed Schurr pulling Lyoya over for a license plate violation. When Lyoya began walking away from Schurr, the video shows the officer shouting at Lyoya to “get back in the car.” Then a struggle ensued between the two men during which the video appears to show Lyoya reaching for Schurr’s stun gun.
The body camera was deactivated during the struggle, according to police, and does not show the moment Shurr shot Lyoya. But the fatal shot is seen on cell phone video captured by the passenger of the vehicle.
The video appears to show Schurr telling Lyoya to let go of the stun gun several times, and while Lyoya is on the ground with his face down and Schurr on top of him, the officer appears to shoot Lyoya in the back of his head. The Kent County medical examiner confirmed Lyoya died from a gunshot to the back of his head.
Schurr was fired on June 15, 2022 amid an investigation into the incident.
The stun gun was at the center of opening arguments on Monday.
Becker, the prosecutor, told the jury they are expected to hear testimony from an expert from the Taser and body-camera maker Axon Enterprise during the trial. He said that person is going to testify that stun guns are designed not to cause death or serious bodily injury when deployed.
“It’s not a gun,” Becker said. “I think, in the Grand Rapids policies and procedures, it’s something that’s called the electronic control device. That’s how it’s defined … even in the Taser training manual, it says it’s an option that doesn’t replace lethal force.”
“It was unreasonable. Patrick never had an intent to do any harm to the defendant. He never intended to kill him,” Becker added.
Defense attorney Hamilton said that Schurr gave Lyoya 29 lawful commands during the incident and that the two men struggled over the stun gun for over a minute.
“The biggest risk to police officers is that once someone has your Taser, if they use it against you, you will be left defenseless,” she said.
Hamilton said a stun gun could leave an individual “incapacitated.”
“Throughout this trial, the evidence will show that the Taser is a dangerous weapon that can cause serious bodily injury or death period,” she said. “The law doesn’t ask an officer to wait until they’re injured, incapacitated or shot, to act.”
Lyoya’s family filed a $100 million civil lawsuit against Schurr and the city of Grand Rapids in December 2022. Schurr denied wrongdoing in a response to the complaint, and in August 2023 a federal judge dismissed Grand Rapids from the lawsuit.
ABC News reached out to Shurr’s attorneys and the family of Lyoya ahead of the trial for further comment.
Before the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Schurr’s legal team’s request to hear an appeal in the lawsuit filed by Lyoya’s family against the former officer.
Schurr’s defense team asked the court to decide whether the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong in determining it could not consider qualified immunity for Schurr at the time of the killing, WZZM reported.
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that protects government officials and police officers from being found individually liable in civil lawsuits.
(CLEARWATER, FL) — One person was killed and 12 people were injured when a boat struck the Clearwater Ferry in Clearwater, Florida, on Sunday evening.
All of the injured individuals were people on the ferry, according to the Clearwater Police Department. BayCare Health System said it received a total of nine patients on Sunday night at three of their hospitals, and said Monday all but one have been treated and released.
There were 45 people aboard the 40-foot ferry, including two crew members, when it was struck from behind by a 37-foot privately owned boat, police said.
The boat that struck the ferry fled the scene and traveled to Belleair Boat Ramp, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said on Monday. Authorities said it was later found by a responding agency.
The incident took place near the Memorial Causeway Bridge in Clearwater. Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg was notified at approximately 8:40 p.m., the Seventh Coast Guard District wrote on X. During a press conference on Monday, officials said there was “definitely a point where these boats were fully entangled.”
After the crash, the ferry came to rest on a sand bar just south of the bridge. First responders and emergency personnel were then able to remove “all patients and passengers” from the ferry, police said.
“We were just enjoying the ride, and then all of a sudden we hear the first mate yelling, ‘Hey, hey, hey,'” one passenger told Tampa ABC affiliate WFTS.
“And then we looked back behind us and this big yacht just came through the boat,” said the passenger, who was riding the ferry with his two kids and his wife, who is 31 weeks pregnant.
The Coast Guard said there were six people on board the recreational boat, which left the scene.
The captain of the recreational boat was cooperative with authorities and submitted to a Breathalyzer test, but no alcohol was found, officials said on Monday.
No one has been taken in custody and authorities are working with the states attorney’s office to determine if the incident should be categorized as a hit-and-run, officials said.
Officials said they will soon release the names of the victims, along with the name of the captain of the recreational boat.
“We’d like to offer our deepest condolences to the loves ones of the deceased,” Coast Guard Cmdr. Fredrick Pugh, chief of response, Sector St. Petersburg, said in a statement on Monday. “Coast Guard investigative officers and FWC are working to determine the cause of the collision and verify the details leading up to the incident.”
Clearwater Ferry said it is “heartbroken for the person who lost their life” and are cooperating with the investigation.
“We deeply appreciate the dedication of the first responders and others who rushed to help Sunday night,” Clearwater Ferry said in a statement on Monday.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will be taking the lead on the crash investigation, police said.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorneys for the Department of Justice argued at a hearing Monday that the deportation last month of four alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador did not violate a court order.
Justice Department lawyers argued that the removal of the four alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua did not violate a court order barring the removal of noncitizens to countries other than their place of origin without an opportunity to raise concerns about their safety, because the deportation was carried out by the Department of Defense and not the Department of Homeland Security.
“DHS was not on the flight,” DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn told U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy.
Murphy issued a court order on March 28 requiring that anyone with a final order of removal must have an opportunity to raise concerns about their safety before they are deported to a country that is not on their order of removal or is not their country of origin.
Three days after Judge Murphy’s order, four Venezuelan men were flown from the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to El Salvador, according to a sworn declaration from an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At Monday’s hearing, Trina Realmuto, an attorney for the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, pushed back on the DOJ’s argument, saying that in previous memos, DHS has said it has legal and physical custody of migrants placed in Guantanamo Bay, and that DHS officials have said DOD provides “logistical support” for migrant detainees on the military base.
Realmuto requested that Judge Murphy modify his preliminary injunction to clarify that the temporary restraining order applies to people sent to Guantanamo, and also asked the judge to order the return of the four men who were sent to El Salvador.
Judge Murphy said he was not prepared to rule from the bench, and said there is a need for “factual development” on what type of notice the four Venezuelan men received before being sent to El Salvador.
He also said that he needs more information on the relationship between DHS and DOD.
The judge said he would make a decision by Wednesday on whether to modify the preliminary injunction requiring the Trump administration to give noncitizens the chance to raise concerns about their safety before they are removed to third countries.
The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act — an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process — to deport alleged migrant gang members by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a “hybrid criminal state” that is invading the United States.
(GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.) — Opening arguments in the trial of Christopher Schurr, the former Grand Rapids police officer who is charged with second degree murder in the fatal shooting of Patrick Lyoya, began in a Michigan courtroom on Monday morning. The trial began three years after the Black motorist’s death.
A jury was sworn in on Wednesday, with jurors and alternates consisting of four men and 10 women, with 10 white jurors, one Black and three Hispanic, according to ABC affiliate in Grand Rapids, WZZM.
Schurr was charged with second-degree murder in June 2022 and his appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024. He has pleaded not guilty.
Schurr was charged with second-degree murder in June 2022 and pleaded not guilty. Schurr fought the charge in court, arguing that he should not have to stand trial because he was acting within his rights as a police officer. His final appeal was denied by the Michigan Supreme Court in December 2024.
Video appears to show Lyoya, a 26-year-old immigrant who came to the U.S. to escape violence in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, being shot in the head by Schurr after the officer pulled him over for an unregistered license plate on April 4, 2022.
Body camera video, which was released nine days after the shooting, showed Schurr pulling Lyoya over for a license plate violation. When Lyoya began walking away from Schurr, the video shows the officer shouting at Lyoya to “get back in the car.” Then a struggle ensued between the two men during which the video appears to show Lyoya reaching for Schurr’s stun gun.
The body camera was deactivated during the struggle, according to police, and does not show the moment Shurr shot Lyoya. But the fatal shot is seen on cell phone video captured by the passenger of the vehicle.
The video appears to show Schurr telling Lyoya to let go of the stun gun several times, and while Lyoya is on the ground with his face down and Schurr on top of him, the officer appears to shoot Lyoya in the back of his head. The Kent County medical examiner confirmed Lyoya died from a gunshot to the back of his head.
Schurr was fired on June 15, 2022 amid an investigation into the incident.
After the charges were filed, Schurr’s attorneys told WZZM on June 10, 2022 that Lyoya’s death was “not murder but an unfortunate tragedy, resulting from a highly volatile situation.”
“Mr. Lyoya continually refused to obey lawful commands and ultimately disarmed a police officer,” they wrote in a statement. “Mr. Lyoya gained full control of a police officer’s weapon while resisting arrest, placing Officer Schurr in fear of great bodily harm or death.”
Lyoya’s family filed a $100 million civil lawsuit against Schurr and the city of Grand Rapids in December 2022. Schurr denied wrongdoing in a response to the complaint, and in August 2023 a federal judge dismissed Grand Rapids from the lawsuit.
ABC News reached out to Shurr’s attorneys and the family of Lyoya ahead of the trial for further comment.
Before the trial, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Schurr’s legal team’s request to hear an appeal in the lawsuit filed by Lyoya’s family against the former officer.
Schurr’s defense team asked the court to decide whether the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong in determining it could not consider qualified immunity for Schurr at the time of the killing, WZZM reported.
Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that protects government officials and police officers from being found individually liable in civil lawsuits.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Karen Read’s petition for certiorari, and therefore will not review her case.
Read had asked the Supreme Court to intervene in her case, arguing double jeopardy after the jurors allegedly agreed on acquittal for two charges in her first trial.
Read is accused of killing her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, in January 2022. Prosecutors allege Read hit O’Keefe with her vehicle and left him to die as Boston was hit with a major blizzard. Read has denied the allegations and maintained her innocence.
Testimony in Read’s retrial — now in its second week — resumed Monday morning with testimony from Ian Whiffin, a digital forensics examiner from Cellebrite.
The judge declared a mistrial in Read’s first trial last year after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on all of the counts.
She was charged with first-degree murder, manslaughter while operating a motor vehicle under the influence and leaving the scene of a fatal accident. She pleaded not guilty.
Read’s attorneys asked multiple appeals courts to dismiss the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene of a fatal accident in the retrial. They argued in court filings that retrying her on the charges would violate double jeopardy protections because, based on subsequent statements from four jurors, the jury had reached a unanimous decision to acquit Read on the charges.
With the Supreme Court on Monday rejecting to hear her appeal, she’s run out of options.
Among the most dramatic testimony in the first week of the retrial was from O’Keefe’s mother, Margaret “Peggy” O’Keefe, who was not called to testify in Read’s first trial.
Peggy O’Keefe described her son as an “enthusiastic” fan of sports who was “wonderful” with his niece and nephew, for whom he provided primary guardianship following their parents’ untimely deaths.
“He was their No. 1,” she said, shakily, “They called him JJ.”
She sobbed when special prosecutor Hank Brennan showed a photo of her son smiling.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Nadine El-Bawab contributed to this report.
(CLEARWATER, FL) — One person was killed and multiple people were injured when a boat struck the Clearwater Ferry in Clearwater, Florida, on Sunday evening.
All of the injured individuals were people on the ferry, according to the Clearwater Police Department.
There were 45 people aboard the ferry, including two crew members, when it was hit by a passing boat, police said.
“It’s been declared a mass casualty incident by the fire department due to the number of injuries. All local hospitals have been notified,” Clearwater PD wrote in a post on X on Sunday night.
“Multiple trauma alerts have been called with helicopters transporting two of the more seriously injured,” the post continued.
The incident took place near the Memorial Causeway Bridge in Clearwater. Coast Guard Sector St. Petersburg was notified at approximately 8:40 p.m., the Seventh Coast Guard District wrote on X.
The boat that struck the ferry fled the scene, Clearwater PD said in a social media post on Sunday night.
After the crash, the ferry came to rest on a sand bar just south of the bridge. First responders and emergency personnel were then able to remove “all patients and passengers” from the ferry, police said.
“We were just enjoying the ride, and then all of a sudden we hear the first mate yelling, ‘Hey, hey, hey,'” one passenger told ABC affiliate WFTS in Tampa.
“And then we looked back behind us and this big yacht just came through the boat,” said the passenger, who was riding the ferry with his two kids and his wife, who is 31 weeks pregnant with the couple’s third child.
The Coast Guard says there were six people on board the recreational boat, which left the scene. Authorities said it was later found by a responding agency.
“The boat that fled the scene has been identified by another law enforcement agency,” Clearwater PD said. However, further details about the second vessel involved in the incident have not yet been made available.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will be taking the lead on the crash investigation, police said.
(ELIZABETH CITY, NC) — One person is dead and at least five others are injured after a shooting at Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
According to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the shooting took place at 12:30 a.m. Sunday on the ECSU campus.
The incident occurred during Viking Fest — a week of events on the ESCU campus geared toward students, alumni and prospective students.
A press release from ECSU said four individuals sustained gunshot wounds and two students were injured during the chaos.
“Six individuals were injured during the incident. Four sustained gunshot wounds, including three ECSU students. Additionally, two other ECSU students were injured during the subsequent commotion,” the statement said. “Fortunately, none of the injuries are considered life-threatening, and all the injured were transported to a local hospital for treatment.”
A 24-year-old man not affiliated with the university was killed.
The SBI and ESCU Police continue to investigate. There is no confirmed suspect at this time.
ABC affiliate WVEC spoke with ESCU junior Paola Gonzalez, who was at the scene of the shooting.
Gonzalez said she turned around while running from the scene to see her volleyball teammate go down after being shot in the leg.
“One moment, we were having a really good time,” Gonzalez said. Shortly after, she was watching police surround her friend and tape being brought out to cordon off the scene.
As a precaution, ECSU has increased patrols across campus, and access to the center of campus will remain restricted throughout Sunday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
